Two down

I’m headed back to North Carolina for a few days, writing this on the plane. The countryside around Charlotte is rather nicely lit, as if it were featuring in a Wes Anderson movie. The glass of wine that was supposed to make me less aware of my sleep-deprived state has instead induced a sort of toddleresque fidgetiness, which is always so popular on planes.

Hence my decision to finally impart to you, dear reader, an update on the Awful Space Opera—I’m hoping a bit of frenetic productivity will stop my inner three-year-old from staring out the window and yelling ‘Down! Down!’

So, basically, I finished it. My draft I mean. Certainly not the final one. It needs an immense amount of work still. The last few chapters, in particular, are truly, utterly, definitively more Awful than all the rest of them combined. But that’s to be expected. You know, you go along, building your characters, juggling your plotlines, always tossing a few more balls in the air, and if you can finish without dropping every single one on the ground, you call it a win. 

Closing the show with a flourish and a bow is for the third draft.

I’m not entirely sure what to do now. Do I jump straight into yet another rewrite? Or do I take a break, work on something else for a while? I’ve an idea for a screenplay—not the one I was working on before, a new one—try to keep up—I’ve an idea for a screenplay about spies that I’d really like to get down on paper, before Vladimir Putin invades anything else and makes the whole concept hopelessly dated.

And changing gears again does have a certain appeal. Or I could take a shorter break, write something just for me, a TV episode or something. 

I just don’t know.