Almost half way

I am officially 43 pages in to my new script. Approximately 43-50 minutes of running time as a written page comes out to about a minute of action. Anywhoo, I got home Saturday night and promptly ignored everyone for the next three days as was the plan. Aside from the occasional break wherein I ran to see the new Indiana Jones, and a few Xena episodes and cooking… I sat in the chair in the front living room and toiled over plot and character arcs.

What I remembered/rediscovered still shocks me.

I am happiest when I am creating. I am happiest when I am carving characters into people and fabricating adventures… I am happiest in a chair by the window with my reference books and laptop and ideas that I want to achieve and the challenge of how to make them manifest on the page. Three days felt like a week and my sense of time completely unraveled and I forgot to shower till 6pm on Sunday and I forgot to pay bills or do laundry. 

I got to live in the zone and when I resurfaced – I felt relieved like a huge pressure valve had been set loose and I could breathe for the first time in months. I was happy there.

Then the guilt set it. I scrambled to clean the kitchen a little last night and felt burdened by this sense of “I’ve done nothing for three days!” I still cannot pin-point the real trigger there but the guilt of having done nothing “productive” that I spent 3 whole days to myself writing is probably directly related to being married.

Anyway, last night Indigo and Cornball did a reading of the first 40 pages so I could hear it aloud and decide if I’m still on the right track.  I went to bed with ideas and couldn’t sleep till 3 am as I tossed and turned and even laughed at the things I plan to do to my characters.

So, moral of the story is… once again, I am reminded how much I love to write. Once again I have that nagging voice of my “value” or productivity that needs to be silenced. Once again I realize I need to make more time in my life for something that means so much to me.

The script is almost half done – - so I will be planning a reading in the next couple weeks to adjust and tweak it and see what it needs before I ship it off. I’ll keep you posted.