Update

Is this going to turn into a weekly thing? I would really like for this blog portion to work, but because I now recognize that, all of this will inevitably fail.

Last week I was concerned things would go terribly. The next night I had a big breakthrough in the story department where I got the plot, themes, and characters to align. From there on writing proceeded well and I’ve got ninety pages written thus far. I want to say I’m about two thirds of the way through the film, but who knows. Maybe five eighths? I’m just vomiting out this draft, no matter the end length, so I can get the bulk of what I want to say on the page and then I’ll spend time revising everything and polishing the script up. I still haven’t figured out the supporting character I was talking about last episode either. I’m keeping track of those details and I’ll address them all in the revision stage.

I’m working as hard as I can but I get so wrapped up in the mental space of “will the movie be good?” It’s really hard to break out of that mentality because it stifles all forward momentum. Living in that future place is what causes writer’s block. The fear of failure, disappointment, not meeting expectations for yourself is devastating on your productivity. When I finally do work, hitting a stride even, I eventually get entangled in overthinking every aspect. It might be something like how does the conversation flow from one topic to the issue at hand naturally? That gets me a lot, actually.

Another thing that happens is opposing interests.

Kenobi

The next screenplay I’ll be working on, as you can see in the slate section, will be my own adaptation of Obi-Wan Kenobi. I think I mentioned this in a previous episode? Yeah. I did. The images I have in my head for that film keep popping up at weird times and it’s beginning to affect my focus. I have to actively push it down and tell it to WAIT. ITS. DAMN. TURN.

As mentioned in the Slate section, the script’s outline is done. The next phase of Kenobi I’ll use post it notes to map out the exact beats of the outline and start delving harder into the character arcs once Awaken’s vomit draft is completed and I’m revising that.

I suspect the remainder of Awaken will be another week to finish and probably another week or two to revise. I’ll say Awaken will probably be ready to publish at the end of March. That is what I’m hoping anyway with work on Kenobi picking up immediately and almost seamlessly afterwards.

That’s all I’m willing to commit to right now. I have sincere hope it will go faster, but I’ll stick to my conservative estimate.

I’ll probably post another Awaken update next week to keep everyone my Mom no one appraised of my progress. Literally, no one gives a shit.