A Little Less Conversation, A Little More Action

Argh. Spent Tuesday editing and rewriting 65 pages of the Slide screenplay, for a total of 86 pages DONE (out of the latest count of 105).

BUT... Hit a big snag. Have one major bit left to amend, and we're just not sure how to do it so that it

• Doesn't add too much extraneous material; and
• We don't end up "telling" instead of "showing" the action.

The application MUST be postmarked no later than 5/3/09. And I haven't fully read the application materials yet. And it's already 4/9/09.

So why the hell am I wasting time blogging?

Milestone and Rule #1

Actually wrote several pages today, in between letting the cat down cellar at 6 AM, the dog out to potty at 7:40AM -- first time for him with snow on the ground, and he doesn't know what to think -- and fighting with the drain in the tub for 2 hours.

That's 2 whole hours trying every trick known to womankind, from easing plastic tubing down the narrow pipe to the vinegar & baking soda bubbling trick to pouring boiling hot water & dish soap down it trying to get the works to drain properly... only to discover that somehow someone had accidentally hit the plug dealie so that it was halfway closed. Since the stopper is inside the drain and therefore invisible to the naked eye, it didn't occur to me to check that first. Aargh! But at least I didn't have to call a plumber.

Since this is a training week, I'm not terribly concerned about the slow-going, but it occurs to me that some milestones and rules might be in order to keep things on a more progressive track. So:

Milestone #1: Starting in December (no point pre-Thanksgiving, trust me), send out 6 queries a month to agents to try to get representation for The Long Black Veil. Send on Wednesdays; they make good administrative task days.

Rule #1: If more than 30 minutes passes staring at a blank page, work on something else. For example, if nothing's moving along with The Pirate's Bride, I'll work on the screenplay for "The Long Black Veil", or perhaps the screenplay for "Slide". Momentum breeds momentum.

That's all for today's progress report. Time for bed.