Meltdown...

Finally hit my limit this weekend. On Friday I was 30 pages into The Dark Room, the spec script that I'm pretty much writing to get out of my system and to convince myself that I can still develop an original idea. I wanted to get to get it done as soon as possible so I figured if I spent Friday night then the whole weekend working on it I could just about get away with putting off everything else I was supposed to be working on until the following week - everything else being two rewrites (one due this weekend, one already a week late) and one feature due at the end of the month.

So I sit down on Friday night and get started. Then I get a call from a producer/director I haven't spoken to in a while suggesting we meet up. Never one to turn down an excuse for a drink I agree to go out for a couple of drinks, and spend most of the time talking about how much work I've got on. This is a mistake as he then mentions a project he may possibly want me to be involved with, only I've just put him off by going on and on about how busy I am. And it's a really interesting project. Anyway, I get home about 10.30 and am now a bit drunk so spend a good hour ranting to Andrea about various things, mainly about how great Dark Knight is again (I'm going to see it again on Tuesday so hopefully that will get it out of my system) and at around 11.30 I start working on the script. At 3.30 in the morning I'm on 36 pages and I'm pretty happy with it. Then I remember I'd signed up for overtime at work the following day - which is crazy considering everything else I've got going on, but I need the money for New York next month.

Four hours later I'm getting up to go to work, all the time still trying to sort through all the ideas I've got in my head for this script and trying to work out what's going to go into Acts 2 & 3. Unlike everything else I do I haven't outlined or written a treatment fro this one and I'm literally just piecing the ideas together as they come. Not advisable, but it's another reason I need to write this script just to experience doing it a bit differently for a change. And by this time I'm starting to worry about the other projects - can I really put them off until Monday? Even if I do, can I write 60 pages over what remains of my weekend? I've done it before - the results were not good. 

When I got home the lack of sleep and the thought of spending the next 36 hours at a desk finally got to me so I gave up. The spec script will have to wait unfortunately, but I am further along with than I have been so far and at least the 1st Act is out of the way so I'm at a good stopping point. I finished the first rewrite today, the one I mentioned in the last post, and I'm pretty happy with it. I am a bit scared by how much I've cut out - it's about 15 pages. In the end it wasn't just cutting either - I made a couple of fairly fundamental plot changes, but I think they were necessary. And it's one more thing I can tick off the list - sometimes it is better to get the smaller things out of the way first, my only worry is that more smaller things will come along before I can finish off the bigger thing!