My Cat Snores To A Catchy Beat

Why does time fly by like a bird, and yet progress crawls like a snail?

I have been working on the same page and a half scene for just over two and a half hours. It's not even one of our "difficult" scenes.

Jeeze Louise! (Obviously that's the censored version of what I'm really thinking....) At least we're both satisfied with it, and I finally have it at exactly a page n' a half. 

Not two pages. 

Not one n' three quarters. 

But exactly the wee bit of space alloted to get a ton of important info across -- a page and a half.

Today we returned to writing, but over the last two days, Jim n' I did a pseudo polish on the first half of the script. We are almost 6 pages over our estimated page count. If this is any indication of things to come, it means we'll be 12 pages over by the time we're done writing.  And subsequently, that means that we'll have to find a way to cut off 12 limbs. (I say "limbs" because they'll be painful cuts - we're already doing the best we can to keep everything as tight as possible.)

It's funny because writing (or at least writing a script) seems to be as much about what you remove from the page as it is about what you put on it.... if that makes sense?  By far, that the biggest challenge is keeping everything absolutely succinct, eliminating any widows, and saying as much as possible in as few words as possible.

I don't know if I make it sound easy (because a few weeks ago, a friend of mine told me that when I talk about making a movie, I make it sound as casual as picking up groceries), but it's really not... At least it hasn't been today.

Okay, my ten minutes are up... back to work. Fortunately, Donovan and Maggie have said all the words they needed to exchange in the park scene, and so now Don n' I are off to get into some trouble at the grocery store.

And hey, look at that, this post doesn't sound nearly as bitchy as it started out! See... it's just like I was saying, it's as much about what you remove from the page as what you put on it. ;)

(Also, yes, I realize that my title has nothing to do with what I wrote, but Emmy is totally sawing logs behind me to some weird rhythm, and I found it distracting when I was trying to think of a title other than "Progressing Slowly".)