Phew! Just finished the second draft of Tec.
I'd printed it out and had another hack at it. Added a short scene-setting scene at the start to get a little silence/noise contrast. Developed some other scenes, trimmed some dialogue and expanded other bits.
The big change was the long denouement at the end which was a big talkie scene under a bridge beside a canal with very little movement. I knew I had to split this scene up - and change a lot of the dialogue 'cos it was a bit rubbish - as I did in the opening of Air but when I reached it I didn't really want to.
That's where the discipline thing comes in. I could have just given up there and waited until I was a bit less tired or whatever. But since I promised, publicly in the blog, that Tec would be ready for external reading by Friday I had sufficient impetus to continue.
Having decided to make the changes, I remembered a brilliant location along a section of canal in Manchester and imagined it was happening there. It made all the difference. It allowed me to set up more action and provided a brilliant backdrop for my imagination. The new dialogue flowed nicely and the new length is a perfect 57 pages.
I think the most important thing here is something I've always known but it can be difficult to convince yourself: Making the decision to create is what actually makes the creativity flow. It's not the external thing that many people would like to think. It comes from you and your decision.
Canals feature quite a lot in this script. But nobody gets drowned - that's in a future episode.
This is my last evening in Milton Keynes, tomorrow it's back home and the Sheffield job starts Monday. Ending contract jobs is always weird.
What's on the turntable? "Aerial" by Kate Bush from "Aerial"
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