I love the show NASHVILLE. It's a fun music-filled soapy family drama that's set in a cool town. But each week I'm amazed at how they portray the writing process. The singers sit down, knock out a song in a few minutes or maybe an alcohol-soaked night, and boom! Hit single! Gold record! The message to me is writing (even just "a song") is easy, relatively painless and quick.
That is not how I experience writing.
The photo above (yes, taken with the black and white setting, not photoshopped) shows the title page of my latest draft of my one-hour latest pilot: TORCHED. I have been working on this rewrite for about a month with a day off here or there while I await notes or clear the cobwebs in my cranium. It clocks in at 56 pages. Just this morning I read the entire thing aloud (to myself, and the birds outside) and finally sent it on it's way out into the world. Again.
See I started writing this script years ago. No, I'm serious. Below is a picture of the first time I typed the words "END OF SHOW" onto the script pages (notice it clocked in at 67 pages back then). The date?
November 18, 2011.
Yep. Two and a half years ago I finished my rough draft of the script. Today I finished my eighth draft of the script.
February 28, 2014.
Eight drafts. Notes from seven different writers, a room full of actors, and a handful of other people who's opinions I respect. Countless hours spent hunched over the keyboard, the note cards, the scraps of legal paper. Lost days Googling gang wars and burn patterns and handgun brands. Joyful jubilation at completing another draft. Entering it in a contest. Losing said contest. Tears and silent screams (okay, maybe not so silent) after realizing a complete overhaul was needed or characters needed to be written out. Deep sighs of relief when the finish line was close. When the notes were widdled down to mere lines instead of pages. And then this morning? A mixture of happiness and terror when I hit the send button to fly the script through the Internet to land on one of a dozen showrunners' desks.
What will come of all my work? All the hours? All the days?
I don't know. I never know. (God and I talk about this a lot.) But for today? Pride. A sense of accomplishment. A feeling that I did my best. I told my story the only way I knew how. And now? Opening up the file on another script and doing it all over again.
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