2 years and 1 week

It took me 2 years to write a real first draft of my adoption reunion drama. The revised draft is taking me a week. Of course, this is a whole week of doing nothing but writing. A big apology to all my family, friends, and bills that are past due; I've been committed to this work and nothing else. They say movies take 4 or 5 years to make from idea to seeing it at a theater or on Bittorrent. Well, I'm about halfway there now(haha!).

I've spent the same amount of time on the computer this week, but more re-writing than I've ever done. I wake up around 7 or 8am and I'll work a few hours at a time, take a half hour break, then go back at it, only taking time off to eat or run errands. Maybe it's cause I'm so anticipatory towards this version. A lot of good friends tearing into the story, telling me what was bad and what was horrible helped. I can't say this was all me. They took time to read it, and got me to realize what made it mean and full of life; like a pitbull figuring out it has teeth. Possibly the funniest thing that happened was with one of my longest relationships, a man named JP. His feedback almost gave me a heart murmur. It shocked me so hard that he was right, that I suddenly felt embarrassed I had sent it out to so many people.

Drama is not easy, especially for an 80's/90's person like me, who grew up on Terminator and Rambo and Alien franchises as well as cheesy comic book heroes like Superman, Spider-Man, X-Men, and the Fantastic Four. Also, I'm incredibly positive in life, and that is apparent in my writing. I had to go deeper and darker for this draft. And I'll probably have to go darker for the next draft after this.

OK, back to positive thinking: Most spelling and obvious grammatical errors fixed. Challenges to protagonist corrected. Discovery process for protagonist envisioned. Not everything is handed to him. It's his story about being adopted and trying to figure out how to deal with sealed birth certificate laws and circumventing them because they're outdated and information should be freely available.

I also figured out a scene I want to film as proof of concept and tone.

It's Saturday at night, and I should be relaxing, but I need to finish this. I'll relax next week. :)