The Beginning of the End...

...of the semester, that is.

We only have two weeks left of class, and it's winding down quickly..

The other day I sat and thought about how much I've written this semester, and I realized it's been a lot.

My first draft of my feature was 140 pages, and I rewrote basically the entire thing. I cut it down to 122, though, and I know I can cut some more out of it, so I'm right on for page length. I simplified it a lot, and I'm very excited about it.

Then I did a rewrite of my script that was 120 pages, and I had to rewrite a lot of scenes in that, and I cut it down to 104 pages. I'll add a few more in this final rewrite before it's due on the 9th, but that's perfect length for me, too.

So maybe I've done more cutting than writing!

Well, not really, but it seems like it. It's a joint process I guess.

Anyway, I've done all that, plus D1 revisions (which are short, but still...) and I've written a novel on my own. I'm around 1300 words from my 50,000 word NANOWRIMO goal, and I'm very excited. I've never written this much in my life, and I love it. I'm really happy.

This semester's been great. I think I'm coming out of it with a lot of really good stuff.

I love my revision of Beyond the Bookshelf and I can't wait to send out query letters to producers and send the script to contests over Christmas break. I feel really strongly about it, and I feel like I should get the ball rolling soon. Because why not? So wish me luck that someone will at least want to read it.

Fingers crossed.

But yeah, we're really winding down. I'm trying to finish all of my drafts this week, because Mike is coming on Tuesday! So I'll have that whole week that he's here to just hang out.

And then after that, at the very end of the semester, is the D1 screening! I haven't watched any of the edited final products, so I'm really excited to see them. It's going to be super weird! But I'm really happy. It should be a lot of fun.

But anyway, my brain and eyes are fried a little from looking at the computer screen all day. But that's what I'm up to now.

In worse news, it's been nearly one year since I went to London. How did that happen?

Writing!

So, I haven't updated in a while, but I've been pretty busy. Mostly with writing, which totally makes sense, seeing as I'm a writer and all.

But we finished our second intensive week for our features. I've done a whole first draft of my feature, and now I'm working on editing it. I'm really simplifying and tightening up the story, making the characters stronger, and shortening it. I'm working in a science-fiction, dystopian world, so my first draft ended up really being about the world. Now I get to take a bunch of stuff out and have my second draft be what the movie is really about: the characters and the adventure they go on.

I'm really excited for the changes I'm going to make. So that's what I'm working on now.

I'm also working on revising my feature from last semester, Beyond the Bookshelf. I'm really, really stoked to be working with that story again, as I was from the beginning. I'm roughly half-way through the script, and I've edited it down so much and simplified so much and made the characters stronger, and I really, really love it. I'm super excited about finishing it.

My original goal for that script was for it to be around 110 pages, because it's a children/family movie, and it was originally 120 pages. Now, it's at around 108, which is perfect. I'm so excited. But see, that's how much I simplified it. And I'm not even done yet!

I'm also working on my novel for National Novel Writing Month. I'm at more than 18,000 words, and 34 single-spaced pages, which is really amazing to me. It's more prose than I've ever written in my entire life. I tried to write a novel in high school, but never got very far, so it's always been something I've wanted to do. And now I'm doing it.

It was really quite difficult to get into a certain writer's voice right away, because I've gotten so used to writing screenplays. It was also strange, because screenplays are so structured, and novels can really be any possible way, completely free-writing, with no particular structure.

But now I've really gotten the hang of it. I've gotten to an exciting part, and I feel like I'm just cruising along. All of the set-up is done, and now I just have the exciting stuff to deal with. And I've really reached a stride in my writing, and I feel like I've finally gotten my writer's voice back.

Hopefully, when I'm done with the novel, I can edit it and make it great and self-publish it on Amazon. That would be awesome.

But, yeah, a lot of writing. D1s are almost over, and that's been really cool. Teaching's still great. I only have two more lessons to teach. It's quite mad. This semester just blasted by. It's been really amazing and really helpful, though. I've learned loads.

I'm off to the set of my D1 that's filming this week at 1:30. It's a drama, and the house they're filming in is really pretty, and the director is super excited about making it, and I'm just really stoked to see how it turns out.