Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Progress on a couple of fronts

Heard that my hyperdrama online course will be offered nationally next year. Good news! They're setting me up so I can start practicing on their online software setup. Class is next spring.

Did some good character work on the screenplay, tweaking the protagonist, which now requires tweaking some scenes, and changing the antagonist so, hopefully, I crank up a surprise but logical ending. Endings, in the Hollywood context, are my weakness, as my agent likes to point out. I think like a playwright, not a Hollywood screenwriter. Been working on it.

A big pile of scripts to read today. Be a long day but I have a productive break ahead to look forward to.

I have a split personality in my writing life in this last act of my journey: the inside-out half writing intensely personal, non-commercial fiction and stage plays for my archive; the outside-in half writing blatantly commercial screenplays for my agent. In the best of worlds, the former would become my best work for some future reader to discover and the latter would fatten the bank account for my wife to take advantage of after I'm gone. In this regard, we are still waiting for the formal offer to purchase THE BRAZEN WING. In my last communication with the buyer/producer/director, he was as upbeat as ever, ready to rock and roll. But LaLaLand is a very strange world. One never really knows what is going on. I remain cautiously optimistic.

A noble exercise if nothing else.

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