I’m late. Soooo late. But I’m on vacation, so it’s understandable. And expected. I knew I’d fall behind this week. I also knew this week would be the one to bounce me from this ridiculous idea completely. And I was okay with all this. I could live with all this, no problem. So why did I spend my few minutes of downtime today working on my script for the first time in nearly a week?

Because I foolishly let the characters get in my head, that’s why. I didn’t know if that would happen, since it’s never happened before when I’ve tried to write a screenplay. But this idea’s been cooking for a year or so, and maybe that’s the difference. Maybe that’s what’s keeping my interest higher than usual.

Basically where I find myself now is wrapping Act 1 and preparing to swing into Act 2, and even though it’s taking me a few pages more than I’d planned, the characters are starting to feel real to me. And I’m really gonna need that to happen if I’m gonna pull off that scene near the end of Act 3 that gets the audience up on its feet cheering. Or, sunk into it’s seat weeping. I don’t wanna let slip what goes on in this story just yet.

But I’m writing toward a particular scene, and if the characters are real to me I’ve got a better chance of actually getting there. And I’ve also got a better chance of writing a scene as good as the scene I’ve been thinking about the last few months. Because the stuff I think about writing almost always kicks the entire ass of what I actually write. Which is why I think about writing a lot more than I write.

And I figure, I’m writing a script. The point of a script is that it’s going to be performed somewhere. So even if I don’t hit the ball out of the park on this one, a halfway decent director and a couple of actors, along with the song the scene revolves around, could all make it work anyway. Unlike when I write a story, all of the pressure’s not on me.

Unfortunately, this deadline’s all me. I’m the only one who can get there, and if I don’t, that director and those actors will have to work on Transformers 3 or something, and I’m not sure I want to be held responsible for that. For now, back to my vacation. But when I get home, I’ve got a lot of writing to do. No wonder they call this thing a script frenzy.