Early Days and Years.

Today I got out of work early -- I think that's one of the best feelings in the world, getting out of work early. Even if you're still fatigued from being sick all weekend and you have to dive head first into car mechanics that you clearly have no clue about, it's still one of the best feelings. After topping off my coolant (duh duh duh da! I am so accomplished!), I stopped by my old university department to see if the screenplay library was open. It was not, but it was so very calm and peaceful and oh so quiet that I decided to stick around for a while and "write" aka keep my laptop closed on my lap while I rested my eyes.

I always feel awkward when I go back to campus. I love my alma mater and could easily pass as a student, but I always have this uneasy feeling of not belonging. It's only been two years, but I feel ancient compared to students today (seriously, the freshmen look like tweeners. I betcha they don't even know what POGs are).

I'm already in this nostalgic mood, and as I'm leaving the department, I see my reflection and realize the t-shirt I'm wearing is from 2005. That was six years ago. And as I'm thinking, "Holy cow! This t-shirt is ANCIENT" I'm also realizing how radically different my life is now as opposed to six years ago. Things were way different than, my geographic location, my goals, my university, my friendships, my plans, my knowledge of car engines, everything. Things have changed a lot.

I hope life is always like that. I hope every once in a while I wax nostalgic and get to marvel at the way I travel from point A to B to C to Q. And it's inspiring to think that in five years my life could be just as radically different as it was five years ago.

Not That I'm Counting--

--but yesterday I had my 13,000 visitor. If you subtract the 3,000 times I've read my own blog since I've started counting four years ago, that's still an impressive 10,000. That's kinda cool. Also, I've just realized I've been blogging for seven years. That's kinda... I'll let you decide.

I've been floundering in the pre-writing for my second draft of The Exit Strategy over the past few weeks. It's tough, this stage. I would so much rather be churning out pages. I felt like I wasn't making much progress in actually restructuring my story. But then yesterday I decided to plot out the emotional journey of my protag, and suddenly I had a malleable structure to work with. Now I'm halfway through my beat sheet, and once that's done, I can start writing again.

I feel like the beat sheet is almost superfulous. I know the story and I'm itching to start writing it, but having every scene plotted out will make the rewrite so much smoother and cleaner. And I do feel that everytime I've gone through my script in prepping for this rewrite, every time I've reread it or note-carded it or plotted it out, I've come up with at least one new idea or gained one new insight into the story or the characters. I hope that all the good ideas make it in to the next draft.

Also, I love this song [though pardon the fan-made music video] --