Enjoying Rehab

ell, what can I say? Rehab is exactly what I needed. My screenwriting course through the Gotham Writers' Workshop has been great. I have an excellent instructor and have already received positive and even more importantly, constructive criticism on my screenplay's first act from my classmates. They have helped me address a nagging problem: Giving Josaya and Gibson their own voices and building up their characters. Now I have a better view of the way forward. And on that note, it's time to hit the books.

Grinding It Out

ince my last post, I've registered for an introductory screenwriting course through the Gotham Writer's Workshop, started writing my second screenplay (The Beer Flower Limited) and begun reading the course's textbook which has already given me some good pointers on screenplay structure. I've also landed a new job which will allow me to attend the night course and, hopefully, free up more time to write. I hope to read the textbook once all the way through before starting the course so it's not all brand new and then again in class. I've also requested from the NYPL the movies the textbook refers to so I can get a better feel for them before we discuss them in class.

All in all, I'm feeling good about this fall and the progress I can make. Yeah, I know, all ho-hum to-do list kinda stuff, but that's what it takes. There are a few folks out there who make it overnight, but for the rest of us, we grind it out day after day.

Rehab

t the pace I'm on, I'll finish adapting ACYW in about a month; just in time to begin the Gotham Writers' Workshop screenwriting course at the end of September.

I'd like to write more, but to be honest I'm at the point where I feel that taking this course is like checking myself into rehab. I've overdosed on this project and now need to dry out, to see the essentials of it, to boil it down, to finish it up and to move on to other projects which I look forward to thinking about, exploring, developing, getting high on, riding that buzz and then moving on to the next hit.

My lack of productivity has also translated into a change of identity. I'm no longer seen by those who know me as a writer, but as a cook, as a baseball fan, as a softball player, as an alumni coordinator, not as a man of letters and that I miss. I've lost a step, I can feel it. I look forward to getting back in literary shape.