Done the First Draft of the Pilot!

Done!

I feel like I’ve said nothing of importance for months on here ... oh, right – I haven’t.

But, after several weeks of settling into the new job, I’ve finally started to pick up the pieces of my creativity – and to get back to work on projects that matter! And I’m starting off with a bang.

In two weeks, I’ve:

• Finished the weird Toronto Story (first envisioned several years ago). Currently, the title is “The Everlasting”. It’s a disturbing little thing that gives me the willies just thinking about it.
  
• Finished the first draft of the pilot episode of my television show. It’s a serial drama with a fair bit of action set in modern day Toronto.

Needless to say, the second is the more important. After all, I wanted to write it over Labour Day weekend and then got sick. Then I got swallowed by work.

Now, I have a life again – which is a good thing. After all, it means this weekend I will be able to write again. Gad, three weekends in a row. What a crazy thought!

So, what’s on the plate for this weekend? Well, my brother is itching to read the pilot -- so I plan to print it out and make any immediate edits that come to mind.

Top of the list is a minor fix of sub way station names (Castle Frank -- not Donlands).

Second is consolidating a couple of minor characters to reduce the number of people in the episode. Originally, I kept adding new people – but in hind-sight, several could actually be the same.

Third is to fix any other bits and pieces – general editing of scenes, etc.

Finally, I’ll check the act breaks to make sure they work with my brother’s comments/suggestions.

Once that’s done, I’ll send my brother the first draft. This first pass is just to see if it’s not awful.

Assuming that to be the case, he’ll give it a good review and start making comments. At the same time, I’ll work on the rest of the package (i.e., series outline, character sketches, etc.).

We’ll trade off until everything is good – then he’ll get me feedback from a couple of industry folks. I’ll then do another pass at everything.

From there – well, who knows? I’ll worry about that once I know whether it’s not awful!

Jana

Writing Retreat Results

There is no better weather for a writing retreat than rain ... and it did.

Constantly.

Fortunately, we were in a nice warm cottage, complete with hot tea (in many flavours) and good food. We also had intermittent internet, which was nice as it let me start this blog.

Overall, the weekend was a success, mostly because my only goal was to relax.

I had no writing goals for this weekend. Following a crazy run up to taking my leave, I expected to need at least a week to recover and transition my brain to fiction from consulting. With Canadian Thanksgiving next weekend, I realised I would not really get into the thick of writing until I got back.

So this wasn't a 12,000 word weekend (which I have done before) -- but I still made some nice, if unexpected, progress.

• I wrote the opening chapter of Book 2. (3,000 words). This was not in the cards for the weekend, but maybe the fall weather had something to do with it. Fortunately, this chapter won't likely be affected by any edits to Book 1.
• I wrote three pages of the Summer of Flight screenplay - always good, since I want this drafted before the 20th.
• On the way home, I had a long conversation with my writing partner about our joint-project. We spent most of the time on character drivers, and continuing to plot out the first few scenes to a greater level of detail. The book concept is really starting to gel - although we have a number of key decisions yet to make. I consider this great progress, since we don't have a defined timeline for getting this done.

Now I am back home (for a few days at least). On Friday I head to Windsor for Thanksgiving.