Learning from the revisions

Writing and rewriting the same screenplay for years is a bit crazy. You start to believe that you are crazy, or that you are going crazy, as you work and re-work sections of the of it. I seriously have felt this way, especially this summer, because Raspberry Magic has gone through so many revisions. I've been spending ten hour days seriously reworking things. However, I must say, that for the first time in awhile, I feel really good about this draft. I think what was really bogging me down was actually elements from the older drafts. Sometimes, when you revise something and you have worked with so many versions of it, you leave bits and pieces in that aren't working. For me, I had one scene that made the story feel a bit like a teen film. I always wanted to cut the scene, but for some reason, I couldn't get rid of it. Then, I suddenly went back and changed one of my key characters completely. This character was an airhead, and I realized that by having her as an airhead, I wasn't serving the story in any way. And honestly, I didn't like that character very much. So, I changed her totally, and suddenly, I was able to cut the scene that was bogging things down. It was a domino effect in a very positive way. Unbelievable! It is a good thing that I'm a bit of an obsessive person, I mean, I like tedious things, and I have no problem reworking and rewriting something, even if it takes years. Writing is definitely a marathon and not a sprint, but that's something I kind of enjoy about it... Looking forward to getting notes from mentors and from my producer. I'm sure there will be more changes!

Summer

I can't believe how quickly this summer is going by. Between having visitors roll through, making serious revisions to the Raspberry Magic script and meeting with potential investors for the movie, everything seems to be going by so quickly. I wish time would slow down, sometimes! We seem to be progressing with the movie fairly well, though. Our business plan is out to many potential investors, and we've gotten interest from a bunch of people. I am actually meeting with a couple of actors this week, too. The actors have done a lot of television, and really like the script, so it might be helpful to go ahead and attach them, as this could help us with the financing. But it's so early in the game, I also want to leave my options open, too! On the writing front, I made a series of very critical revisions last week. I realize that in my own writing, cutting things out is really what helps me take the writing to the next level. With this draft, I realized that I had a lot of crap just kind of bogging down the story--especially characters that really didn't go anywhere, but were taking away from the main story. This part of the re-writing is very tough, but it's that critical round where you bring the script up from being good to great. On another note, I saw that film, The Secret Garden again last night on HBO. It's a really beautiful movie, I love how the visuals carrying the story on both a plot level an on a much deeper metaphorical level. I've been watching lots of films that are similar to mine. I really enjoyed Angels and Insects, again they did a great job of using the insects to represent deeper symbolic themes. I also saw Ulee's Gold, which I can't believe I had never seen. Again, this movie is very visually rich, with not too much dialog bogging the story down. I realized that I had too much talking in my movie. I think in my writing, I have a tendency to over write and over explain things because I'm not trusting myself and my own process. So, that was another important part of this revision process--to cut out things where I was over explaining! I've learned so much from this whole process already, it's amazing!