fear of finishing

It's been a week and I somehow managed to cut 16 pages. 16 from 53 is a lot. So that leaves me at 37 pages. A first act is typically 30 pages, at least that's what you're supposed to aim for.

I can deal with having 7 pages over the standard limit; I'll live.

When I wrote my terrible and terribly long screenplay last year, I kept making excuses for not cutting. I'd tell myself it was OK to have a really long first act as long as I had a very short third act and trimmed a bit from the second. Dumb ass! No! It's about pacing. You don't ever want the first act to be much more than 30 pages because nobody wants to wait 50 pages to see where the story is going.

Even this time, I didn't take every step I could have. I didn't write a beat sheet, and even though it's not necessary, it might have helped me make the main character more active, or rather, the story would have been more propelled by her actions.

Or not. That's the challenge in writing based on true events. She didn't really make a shit-ton of decisions. Things happened and she reacted to them. But that happens in films as well.

Also, my inciting incident isn't quite where it typically "should" be. I wait til page 30-31 to introduce the inciting incident, and then around page 35, the main character makes THE DECISION, which is Plot Point #1, the action/decision that hooks us into the second act.

Whatever. Anyway. My point is, it's not going down in the book of All Things Standard, but I feel like it works. It's hard to tell at this point, having read it 9 billion times. I'm probably going to keep working through the night and the deadline for this first act is tomorrow, around 4:30pm.

It's funny, I'd never dream of writing something that someone else is going to submit to a class as their work. I'm not a screenplay-bitch. And while I could say, "I don't give two shits about your grade, I'm gonna finish when I finish," I see his deadlines as a way to kind of discipline myself. If it weren't for his deadlines, maybe I'd never make the time to finish. Now that I pretty much finished the first act in a space of 2 1/2 months, I've gone too far to feel like slowing down. I'm gonna take a break until I go to London next month, and once I'm there I'll get started again. I'll have a lot of work to do for my classes, (and I'll be in motherfuckin Europe) so I can't slave at it for weeks on end, like I've been doing, but I won't feel pressured.

I suggested to dude that we don't put the screenplay out until he graduates next winter anyway, to prevent him losing the grade... that he... worked so hard for...

What's keeping me from feeling like screenplay-bitch? The fact that I'm not yet rich and famous and the work that makes us those things is usually done for free. Cause it's all we're worth.

I apologize for this post. I think I'm stalling. I might be afraid of being done. That's real lame.