Long Time, No See

Wow. It's March. My last post was in October. Bad Blogger!

So what has SponComGirl been up to? For starters, I completely reconceived and rewrote my pilot for OBNOXIOUS OLDER SISTER'S KNOW-IT-ALL GUIDE TO YOUR TEENS. It's getting better. And did another revision. I still have a bit of work to do before it'll be ready to send out, but I'm confident it'll get done. (I'm just going to keep saying it until I believe it!)

But will it actually get done?

I got back to Michigan at the end of October and wrote solid for the month of November and first few weeks of December, culminating in a draft I thought was pretty good. So I sent it out to a few trusted writer friends for notes, culminating in a draft I thought was complete shit.

Truth is, it was likely somewhere in the middle. There's a thing about asking a friend for notes you have to keep in mind, especially if they are a writer - everyone's got an opinion. Another writer would not write your story the same exact way. Ever. That's what makes you the unique factor in the equation. So some of another writer's comments (even a layperson's) will arise from that fact.

You also have to keep in mind that, although you may disagree about a criticism of your script, criticism comes from somewhere. If someone tells you they hate your 1st Act break but you know it's solid, perhaps they weren't connected enough with your main character to want to follow them into the 2nd Act. Don't go wild at deflecting comments to other parts of your story, either. My point here is simply that criticism must be taken gently.

I got tripped up when my friend commented about things that would've required completely overhauling the structure of my whole script. Seeing the validity in what he was saying, I tried for weeks to figure out how to implement what he'd suggested, and got wholly sick of the entire script.

So I put it down for the month of January. I took a freelance gig overseeing end of year inventory for my old day job. I was doing physical labor and dealing with numbers. You know, the stuff I'm innately good at. None of that writing business!

I got back to Michigan and my writing just over a week ago. I hadn't picked up my script for a while. The brilliant thing was I was able to see it with fresh eyes. In some regards, I was able to see the glaring ways in which my friend's notes were completely right. In others, where he could possibly have been smoking crack and just looking for something to say that made him sound smart.

And now it's back to getting on a writing schedule, which is going to be a challenge because of the time I spent away, because I'm still in search of the elusive day job, and my little sister'll be home from college on Spring Break next week. But I can do it! I just need to set the schedule and adhere to it, allowing for time to enjoy myself as well.

Until the next post... See ya!