Remarkable day

Yesterday was highly unusual in two ways: it's the first day of the summer I felt as if I was on vacation, which is to say, the day was slow, mellow, without goals, relaxing. But despite all this, I somehow seem to have accomplished a lot, finishing and uploading the kitchen video, doing some minor editing on the country western one I'm shooting tonight and, most remarkably of all, outlining a new screenplay and emailing it to my agent for feedback and/or approval.

This arrangement I have with my new agent is superb. We're partnering on everything from the get go. I don't write a script and THEN see if he likes it. I develop an idea and present it. This is the way it should be in a practical sense, saving so much time, but in my experience most agents just want to see a finished script. I haven't done it this way in years. What I developed is a romantic comedy, and I have four more concepts ready to develop if he passes on this one.

I developed this with the new edition of Storycraft Pro software. I like it. Well, I've always liked that program. This new version has a nifty interface for developing an outline. It's basically a tool for structuring a story by responding to the questions and ideas presented by "a tutor." Good stuff, though it may be too advanced for beginning writers.

Once the outline is done with the tutor, it is saved as a text file for revising. So this software gets you to your first draft of a story outline, following the mythic journey paradigm. It works but you probably have to have some background to understand what the tutor is talking about.

Today will be a long, busy day. It also will be fun -- everything I'm doing is something worth doing. Been brooding about the shoot tonight, how to make it as efficient as possible for the six extras. I wonder if they'll all show up. I'll have to wing it if they don't since I am preparing for them all. I need to shoot in two stages, first with the extras, about six scenes in the bar and two outside, and then release the extras and shoot half a dozen scenes in the bar with the leads. Despite all this, I think I can finish the first part in an hour and the second in less than that. We'll see! Onward.