A little external validation

So I was flying high last night. I had my lecture class and we were getting our first homework assignment, our "cringe" stories back. And we had to turn in two scenes from our screenplay. So as I made my way down the steps in the lecture hall, I wondered if there'd be a good grade on the top of my story.

I was always that kid in college who didn't just want As but needed As. It wasn't that was in high school or middle school, which is probably why there were a lot of Cs and even some Ds there. I'm not sure what it was that changed in me, right around junior year of high school, that made me want to do really really well. I mean, I guess I'd always wanted to do well but now I felt a strong desire to actually achieve the grades. Also, I had a rough first couple years of high school and by junior year I had kinda figured out the game. And by the time I got to college, even more so. And let's not even talk about grad school. I can't tell you how many nights I worked into the wee hours, reading EVERY SINGLE PAGE even though I later found out "no one does that in grad school". Well, thank you very much, I did. All 879 pages or whatever that week's assignment was.

So last night I was anxious to get my story back. I've only taken a couple of creative writing courses over the years and they were all workshop environments where things weren't "graded" so I was curious to see what my work would yield here. As I picked up my paper and headed back to my seat and my new classmate friends I looked down and saw a green check plus. And yes, I was the only one in my group of seven who got a check plus, and I got comments! Not much, only "good opening sentence" and "well told" at the end but it was enough for me! Now mind you, this was just a short story - three double-spaced pages but I'd put a lot of time and effort into these three pages. I'd rewritten them every day for five days just like my teacher had instructed. And, you know what, to me, it showed.

I don't think I've ever done that with something before. Sure I edit and I proofread but I'm not a big rewriter. Newspaper articles get written then edited then submitted to meet a deadline. Novels get written and continue to get written, I haven't gotten to the rewriting of that yet. Screenplays get rewritten to an extent and I think that's one of the skills I am going to focus on here at UCLA, rewriting until it's not just good, until it's fantastic, until it jumps off the page and sticks to your shirt, whispering at you two hours or two days later.

Tonight I have to submit an extended beat sheet of the screenplay I'm developing this quarter. I volunteered to be in the first group and I'm really glad. It forced me to get writing and thinking and starting tomorrow I can move on to the next phase in the process! Honestly, I can't tell you how much I am enjoying this. Yeah, I know, I'm a nerd but I'm a darn proud nerd!