Writing a first draft, after weeks of breaking story and outlining and thinking, is such a blessed relief. It's such an easy step if you've done the hard graft in advance. It's funny, but actually sitting down and writing what will eventually become your script could be the least important step in the whole process.
I mean, if you've created a solid story, written a detailed outline, and are planning on thorough rewriting afterwards, doing the first draft is kind of like dancing in a dark bedroom. No one is ever going to see it, so you're free to try out whatever you want. And maybe later some of those moves you developed in the privacy of your own room will good enough to display at Miss Kitty's on a debauched Friday night. But most of them won't. And that's just fine.
So yeah, I'm pretty glad to be first drafting this week.
Went to the library on Saturday, and the husband found me a copy of Jeffrey Stepakoff's Billion-Dollar Kiss: The Kiss That Saved Dawson's Creek and Other Adventures in TV Writing. I spent most of the weekend obsessively reading it. It's a fascinating account of his career as a TV writer, with lots of scary but also enlightening revelations about the business. If you wanna be a TV writer, or if you are one, you should totally read it, right now.
Super excited about premiere week! Heroes, Ugly Betty, Bones, The Office, Grey's Anatomy, House, plus all those new shows... auugh. Can't wait, can't wait. It's been, well, literally forever since I've been this excited about a premiere week.
Oh, and I'm totally going to start that writer's group I blogged about last time. But it might take me a couple of weeks to start contacting everyone, so be patient people. If you live in LA, and you're interested, do get in touch!
Creating TV: A 6 Class Series
3 years ago
2 comments:
It's exclusive to people in LA? Damn. That's unfortunate. I'm in Estonia.
How about starting this group on the www.sff.net newsgroups? There are already hundreds (thousands?) of people there and while there's all sorts of writing-themed groups, I've yet to see anything by/for screenwriters.
The people there tend to be very supportive and professional. Haven't been there for very long, but I already like it more than any writers community I've tried before.
Elver, I've been meaning to reply to this for ages. The group I want to start is for networking/moral support, which sort of works on the internet, but in my mind there's lots of that available already.
Why don't you start a group on the sff.net? If you think it would be useful, then there are probably other people out there that would too!
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