a goldurned LJ post
Time for another one of those "I've been meaning to post for two weeks" posts.
Script Frenzy postmortem - As stated last time, I did win Script Frenzy by reaching page 100 of my screenplay, an adaptation of my novel Falling Apart. This did not take me nearly as close to the end of the movie as page 100 should ideally be. There are two main reasons for this. (Neither is that I'm long-winded. Shut up.)
Reason 1: My planning for the script was rushed, so I didn't work out very carefully how I was going to structure the story. I stuck pretty closely to the plot of the novel, which is only a first draft and so has plenty of its own story problems. I made a few good changes and left a few things out, but didn't do nearly enough of either.
Reason 2: I had no idea how much I'd need to leave out to turn a 70,000-word novel (see, not long-winded at all, that's a short novel!) into a two-hour movie. More than I anticipated, it turned out, or at least more than I did leave out, given the lack of thoughtful anticipation.
I stopped writing for a while around page 50 while my family was visiting, and at that point it was already clear that there were big problems due to these reasons, and I wasn't too excited about going further. But I was determined to win, so I wrote nearly half the month's pages in the last 3 days (I only worked on my script 13 days out of the month). At about page 90, I figured out some of the things I should have done earlier. I now have some decent ideas about how the story should go for better length, pacing, and plot. I'll need to go back and revise much of what I already wrote, then finish. I would like to do this, to have a satisfying finished screenplay, even if I never do anything more with it. But not right this minute.
I had gum surgery on Monday. It went fine. Details for those interested -- nothing too graphic, but skip ahead if you're easily grossed out.
Last year I had surgery to deal with some deep gum pockets, and that was successful. I knew at that time that I'd need another surgery for a different area where the gum is receding. What I had Monday was a gingival graft: tissue was removed from my palate and stitched onto the area of gum recession. Just call me Frankenmouth.
This was a less involved procedure, so no nitrous this time. Just plenty of local anesthetic, and a cloth placed over my eyes, which surprised me -- but it was probably more to shield me from the bright light than to keep me from seeing what was going on. After peeking for a few minutes (there was a gap at the bottom beside my nose), I realized that it was going to go a lot better if I kept my eyes closed and focused on the music in my headphones. It wasn't the most fun 30 minutes or so of my life, but it certainly wasn't the worst. (Now my mind wants to catalog the worst. This is what happens when I post at 2am.)
My mouth was a bit sore for the rest of Monday and much of Tuesday, but not that bad with ibuprofen. It feels fine now. The only thing that's highly irritating is the stitches on the roof of my mouth. More particularly, the ends of the thread. My tongue cannot stop finding and touching these. I can't wait to get the stitches out on Tuesday.
Hot enough for ya, Silicon Valley? It was at least 90 degrees today. AccuWeather (which powers my dashboard weather widget) says it's going to be 105 degrees tomorrow. Dude! But it will only feel like 102, so that's okay. On the other hand, Weather.com forecasts a high of merely 96. Even better.
An update on editing will have to wait until next time, whenever the heck that may be. That's plenty for now.
Reason 1: My planning for the script was rushed, so I didn't work out very carefully how I was going to structure the story. I stuck pretty closely to the plot of the novel, which is only a first draft and so has plenty of its own story problems. I made a few good changes and left a few things out, but didn't do nearly enough of either.
Reason 2: I had no idea how much I'd need to leave out to turn a 70,000-word novel (see, not long-winded at all, that's a short novel!) into a two-hour movie. More than I anticipated, it turned out, or at least more than I did leave out, given the lack of thoughtful anticipation.
I stopped writing for a while around page 50 while my family was visiting, and at that point it was already clear that there were big problems due to these reasons, and I wasn't too excited about going further. But I was determined to win, so I wrote nearly half the month's pages in the last 3 days (I only worked on my script 13 days out of the month). At about page 90, I figured out some of the things I should have done earlier. I now have some decent ideas about how the story should go for better length, pacing, and plot. I'll need to go back and revise much of what I already wrote, then finish. I would like to do this, to have a satisfying finished screenplay, even if I never do anything more with it. But not right this minute.
Last year I had surgery to deal with some deep gum pockets, and that was successful. I knew at that time that I'd need another surgery for a different area where the gum is receding. What I had Monday was a gingival graft: tissue was removed from my palate and stitched onto the area of gum recession. Just call me Frankenmouth.
This was a less involved procedure, so no nitrous this time. Just plenty of local anesthetic, and a cloth placed over my eyes, which surprised me -- but it was probably more to shield me from the bright light than to keep me from seeing what was going on. After peeking for a few minutes (there was a gap at the bottom beside my nose), I realized that it was going to go a lot better if I kept my eyes closed and focused on the music in my headphones. It wasn't the most fun 30 minutes or so of my life, but it certainly wasn't the worst. (Now my mind wants to catalog the worst. This is what happens when I post at 2am.)
My mouth was a bit sore for the rest of Monday and much of Tuesday, but not that bad with ibuprofen. It feels fine now. The only thing that's highly irritating is the stitches on the roof of my mouth. More particularly, the ends of the thread. My tongue cannot stop finding and touching these. I can't wait to get the stitches out on Tuesday.
An update on editing will have to wait until next time, whenever the heck that may be. That's plenty for now.