The First Finish Line

This is the moment we've all been waiting for! I am turning my spec into my agent for him to read. Hopefully, he'll get to it this weekend, or the next depending on how many projects came in.

If he likes it, then he'll either have notes (because he's one of the few agents who give really great notes) or he'll think it's ready to show people.

At that point, we'll come up with a plan to sell it. This plan will probably include packaging*. But, we'll blog about that bridge when we slowly slog over it. Specs usually don't go out to studios without "attachments" any more. But, as I said, the "plan" is a future blog subject.

If the agent doesn't like it. Well, (insert explicative here). Hopefully, I won't have to blog about that. But, you never know. Just because something is well written does not guarantee a sale. There could be a glut of material in the same genre competing for a small group of actors' attention. Or you could just run up against bad luck. There's no need to worry about that. That's your rep's job mainly. Your job is to write something that has a chance to sell and do your best on it. And I can honestly say I've done that. Let the chips fall where they may.

So, how many drafts has this "first draft" taken? Here's a review:

1) I came up with a short treatment. Got notes.
2) I expanded that to an outline. Got notes.
3) I wrote a very quick "vomit draft." Got notes. Mainly that one of the characters was so unlikeable it threw off the viability of the hero's actions. Fixed that.
4) I wrote a solid rough draft. Got notes. The notes discovered that the tone was too "rom-com" and I rewrote the next draft to reflect a more "dramatic/romantic/inspirational" tone.
5) The first draft was born. I got notes. These notes suggested areas where I could enhance character, add more flavor to my locations, hit certain beats a slightly different way. Did that.
6) I went through a final pass (and so did my managers) for trims - to get it as tight as possible. And now we are here. First Draft dated November 9, 2010.

This has actually been a very slow process for me, but nowadays specs really one have one shot at success. My agent will read it once and decide if it is something he can get behind. That's it. One read. So, I took my time. I wanted to take my best shot.

Between July 1 and November 9 (the time it took to get to this stage) I also wrote a bunch of other things as well, including the writing assignment I recently landed. As I said, if you are a writer, you are also a juggler. And I'm very happy to get this script "off my plate" for a while so I can focus on my writing assignment.

The contracts on THE ASSIGNMENT should be ready by the end of the week - which means the clock starts on when I have to have the draft in to the studio. That first draft will have to be ready in either eight or six weeks, depending on what my representation works out in the deal.

I will blog about that process concurrently while tracking how THE SPEC continues - updates on each will be identified as SPEC or ASSIGNMENT.

So, isn't it exciting? What do you think the agent will say? Am I on the verge of success or about to fall off a cliff? Who knows. All you can do is the best you can do. Then you've got to let it go.

Happy Writing!

*There are only a few actors in each age group who can "green-light" a movie. And nowadays you need one of them to commit to your project to get a sale.