First Draft Delivery: All You Every Wanted to Know about Anxiety Attacks

"People ask how long it takes to write a script. The answer is about two years. But a lot of that doesn't look like what a passer by would say was writing. It looks a lot like me lying on my couch watching ESPN. But what I'm doing is [...] I worship at the alter of intention and obstacle." - Aaron Sorkin

The first draft of the script was due on the 6th of July. Having spent six weeks bashing out the first draft and trying to figure out what my ending was, it was on one level a huge relief, and on another a terrifying leap of faith to send the script out to fifteen people. Frustrating as it is to send out a draft knowing there is so much wrong with it, when other people's opinions get involved it becomes more like a real thing that might one day be a real film. A script can't grow in a vacuum and much as I wanted to keep the pillow over its ugly face a little longer, sharing has helped immensely. This metaphor doesn't work. Whatever. I'm tired of writing. No, you shut up.

Now I'm a month down the line, facing five sets of notes in various forms. It turns out being on the giving end of script notes for so long had prepared me for being on the receiving end not one iota. I found myself kind of scared to touch the thing again, not really knowing where to begin. It felt like I was standing in the doorway of my bombed out house, surveying the carnage as rain poured through the ceiling and thinking, well, there's still a bit of roof jutting out over the bed, maybe I'll just have a nap before I start cleaning this mess up.

This weekend I have got down to it, running through the script and actually writing script notes physically onto the page, scrawling possible solutions next to them. I have made a to-do list which includes mapping out changes of perception for each character, checking sequences and finding new title. SOMEONE NEEDS TO COME UP WITH A NEW TITLE FOR ME DO I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING AROUND HERE?

The blog wasn't on the list. This is pure procrastination... as is watching YouTube videos and pretending they're work related...