Okay. So I had the McKee seminar, re-read his book, and found myself full of great ideas, renewed spirit, and totally unable to write.
I was completely weighed down by all these various thoughts that my writing was coming out forced and awkward. I talked to my coach, Kevin Creedon, about it and we went back to the drawing board about writing.
First of all, I was going to try not writing from beginning to end. Instead, I was going to work more or less backwards, or at least write the passages that I "knew" in my gut first and then would flesh out from there. (I used to write like that all the time and somehow got in the habit of writing start ot finish when I took a comic book class).
Secondly, I was going to write scenes/character actions on index cards and arrange them in a way that helped communicate the story to me. (I had been doing this on the computer, but there's something about printing something out and re-arranging it that is much more clear than typing it into an outline on screen.) I went to Staples and got a package of Avery business cards (since there are more per page) and types up very brief character actions on the cards. I spread all the cards on the kitchen table and starting re-arranging things. I realized that I had left out some important elements. And it really helped to see how each character action had to lead into the next.
The third task, which I have yet to do, is break the witing into a series of "passes". There will be NO EDITING on the first round. Whatever is typed stays there. Then I will come up with a series of editing passes. For instance, perhaps the first pass, I will focus on more robust panel descriptions. Perhaps the second pass will focus on communicating subtext. I'll come up with a series of passes and then I will change the order of passes as I work through each page of the script. The point is to experiment to find the correct order of editing passes that works best for me.
I'm about 1/3 of the way through the first draft of the new script, and already I feel things going much better. The "bones" of the script feels like it's in place. I can see the flow of character and action in a way that wasn't there before, and I'm focusing on the essentials of the script and not getting side-tracked with clever, but unnecessary nuances.
The thing that was kind of bugging me was the fact that I didn't have any room to spread out my business cards of character actions. So I went back to Staples and got cork wall tiles. I've attached them to the back of my office door.
On the right side of the door, you can see the little business cards that map out the story for issue one. You will also see a color drawing on the left side of the door. That's a little technique Kevin taught me for keeping motivated on another script. Each time I work on it, I add another line to the "puzzle". My brain gets a little adrenaline rush at completing the puzzle and ensures that I keep working on the script to finish the puzzle.
This photo makes it look like the cork job wasn't very good. Damn this expensive camera! In reality, the tiles look very even.
On the adjacent wall, my white board which has my weekly schedule.
So, my home office is really taking shape. It's like a little creative coccoon.
