'Bout Birfin'

Beginning about 6 pm last night, I started sending the completed rough draft of "Everything In Between" out to my readers.

I don't know why I was hoping for immediate feedback. First, no one can read 110 pages in a few minutes, assimilate the contents, and write a well-thought-out response with cogent notes in, oh, half an hour. And B) it was Friday night.

To paraphrase Butterfly McQueen, "I don't know nuffin 'bout birfin' no screenplays."

Still, I feel like an expectant father. As I was writing it, I maintained a relatively casual air about it ("Oh, yeah. I'm writing a screenplay. It's no big deal."), even as I wrote 4 - 5 pages per day, forsaking most things, including basic hygiene on weekends, to get it finished. Having written "CUT TO BLACK" at 5:30, I was ready for bed by 9:30, at least physically, if not mentally. I tossed and turned a while, wonderinghopingpraying, semisuccessfully suppressing the nagging thought that I, myself, have never read it end-to-end, so whatthehellwasIthinking?

I know it's a monster of a good idea for a movie.

But is my execution of the idea even remotely on the mark? I don't have the faintest fucking clue.

I remember, at age four, dancing around the living room with my grandmother, singing, "She had a baby girl! She had a baby girl!" in the seconds after the phone call came with news of my sister's birth. I also remember being conscious at the time of the fact that I had no idea what that meant in real terms.

In a way, I've been dancing around for the last month, singing, "I'm writing a screenplay", with no idea what it really meant. And here I am at 3 am the morning after finishing the rough draft, wondering if I've done this magnificent idea any justice at all.

This much, I do know: There are nuggets of truth in it. In the second-to-last scene, one of my characters says something so poignant that before I could type it, I started bawling and had to take a ten minute break before I could continue. The critic in my brain says, "Sure, but will the audience feel that way?"

So, here I sit. At 2:15 this morning, restless from anxiety and heartburn, I could stand being in bed no longer, and I got up only to discover that I have nothing to drink that isn't acidic...including the water.

I believe I shall, after all, print a copy of my script and read it at last from start to finish. I will try to ignore the errors I see, and look to the story.

And later, I'll probably take a nap.