Another Long Two Weeks...

After our three days off the other week, our producers returned with their notes. While they did have quite a few nice things to say, it's hard to desperately cling to those thirty seconds of kudos over the next ten+ hours of constructive criticism.

Yes, 10+ hours. Really.

Over the course of five days, we had a daily two hour meeting where we would slowly go through every single page of our script, and our producer's various notes therein. Some, well actually most, were very minor, such as "Bring this line up in the conversation sooner" or "Find a more descriptive way of saying 'Donovan's face drains.'"

We were also told that we're allowed to cheat now. The hard n' fast screenwriting rule that we have always followed has been "show, not tell." But at this point in the game, I guess we're allowed to give a little more direction to the actor about what characters are thinking, as long as we keep it brief of course.

While most critiques were minor, there was a good handful or two of larger revisions which involved switching scenes back the way we had 'em (argh...), thinking of new plot devices (ugh!), and "just" changing things to be more profound. (Ha! Soooo much easier said than done, people!)

Anyhow, we passed it back to our producers today, who have now passed it along to our other 'newer' producers, as well as our pro readers.

As soon as I'm done this blog post, I've promised myself not to think any more about it. Jim n' I are going to totally enjoy the next few guilt-free days off before our producers return with more notes. While we fully recognize that She Who Hates Everything will definitely find something new to hate, we're hopeful that this upcoming version will be the last frickin' draft - for realsies! Our critical path says we need to have an actor attached to play Donovan by May 27th, so we don't have much more time to be tweaking each line to please to unpleasable.

Not to mention, SWHE took a stab at writing a couple of scenes to show us an example of how she'd do 'em, and our producers felt she missed the mark. Donovan was really rude. Mean, even. And of course, there were a few obligatory f-bombs.

So while we value whatever insight she might provide in this next report, we're feeling a little more confident about where we're taking the story, as opposed to where she might like to take it. (I'll also add that the scenes she rewrote were total Gran Torino rip offs... Donovan is not Clint Eastwood, as cool as Clint might be.)

So yeah... that's what we've been up to lately. Workin'.

With every draft we write, I can't tell you how excited I am to ditch this screenwriting stuff to start working on the book. Gosh, just imagine the opportunity to write eloquent prose and meaningful metaphors, and not have to worry about how the hell I'm going to cut down an entire paragraph to fit on one line. It's gonna be awesome!