Time flies.  It’s been already one month since I wrapped Up in the Attic.  I had such a good time doing that play, but I knew once it was complete I had re-writes to do on two screenplays of mine.   I began with my re-write of Home and have been working on it non-stop the last 3 weeks.   Here’s a short blurb of the script:

The death of their daughter brings a minister and his wife to the breaking point as they move to a new church where they experience unexpected redemption through an abused, alcoholic real estate agent and a guilt-ridden, self-absorbed actor, who have both been similarly torn apart by loss. 

Re-writing can be such a tedious process and it’s often easier just to start from scratch.  When you have a blank page, you can go anywhere with the story and develop your characters as you move along.  But when you re-write, you already have a story, plot and characters, yet something is not quite working which is why a re-write is necessary.   So you must strip the story down.  Home has already been through several drafts so I did not have to be as ruthless, but none-the-less, I ended up re-writing about half the script.   A script is like a house of cards…the minute you start tinkering with one element, it affects another and another until the cards fall and you must rebuild.  It takes time, it’s detailed work and requires a whole lot of patience to get it just right.  It is a gratifying process when you look back and realize how much you have improved the script.

After I finished the re-write, like a proud papa, I sent my baby off to the Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting – it’s one of the biggest contests for screenwriters.   The deadline was May 2.  I had a reading of my script Twig with another writer and actresses and after that reading, suggestions were made to improve the script.  So I set out to re-write Twig and my hope was to send that script into Nicholl as well.  I thought I could get away with doing a few tweaks.  Unfortunately I just ran out of time and energy.  I had spent so much mental energy on Home, that Twig didn’t get a fair shake.   And again, writing (like acting) is so much in the details and if you graze over the finer points, the big picture of your work will suffer.

So, I let myself off the hook and will concentrate on getting a proper re-write of Twig done without a glooming deadline.  Having said that, I still need to give myself a self-imposed deadline otherwise nothing gets done.

With all this writing I often ask myself where this is all leading.  It’s good to doubt, but it’s also good to know what you like.   And I would add as well, know yourself, because people will always have advice as to what you “should” be doing.  I leave you with this quote:

“Who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived, or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?” ~ Hunter S. Thompson