31 October, 2026. That’s when I plan to have the first draft of the script in my hands. As I near the 50% mark, it feels doable. But doability isn’t why I chose that date. The reason’s much lamer than that.
To recap, I’m mainly writing the first draft while I’m out and about, filling in dead spots in my day whenever I encounter them. I’m usually armed with a bag holding my iPad and a foldable Bluetooth keyboard. I’ll sprinkle some shots of me around town, tapping away on this thing wherever there’s a place for me to sit.
The cafe-bar right by The Civic, in-between NZIFF screenings.
While I own a copy of Final Draft for Desktop, the FD Go app I’ve been using runs on a separate subscription model. Because I’m a cheapskate, I snagged a deal on Black Friday last year for an annual subscription. It renews at the start of November, and I don’t want to pay it. Hence, the deadline.
Told you it was lame.
But it’s also good. This tiny financial incentive provides just enough motivation for me to up the energy on my writing sessions. Not so much that I’ll blast through scenes and betray my “slow cook” method to the script and storyboard, but just enough to write a little longer and find a few more minutes in the day.
Late night ride on my beloved 866. Up the bus.
I don’t always feel comfortable writing in public, though. Mainly because I don’t want to admit to what I’m doing.
A teammate recently saw me tapping away and assumed I was just punching in some extra hours for my day job. I didn’t correct him. That assumption seemed less embarrassing than admitting I was writing a feature film. Because a feature film is BIG. And what I’m making is relatively small. A gentle story with a basic art style and a microbudget. I am, after all, a hobbyist and not a professional.
I don’t want to have to explain all that in a nutshell in person. That’s what this newsletter’s for. Segue to subscribe button.
Perhaps you’re wondering why I bother with FD Go. Why not fully tighten the ass of my budget and write the whole thing on Desktop? I’ve wondered about this, too.
Beyond the convenience of being able to write wherever I am, I also prefer not to write creatively at the same place I work – I work from home three days a week, and I don’t particularly like the idea of staying at the same desk and keyboard to do personal projects. Obviously, I’ll do it if I fail to make my own deadline. But I prefer being somewhere else that isn’t home, or an office, or even just familiar.
At St. Peter’s gym, an hour before my weekly game of Turbo Touch.
There’s something unexplainably soothing about this nomadic office. Maybe it’s just the feeling of being away from my day-to-day anchors that allow me to be in the somewhere else that is this story’s world. Perhaps I like the feeling of being a nobody in public, to be socially invisible, that makes it easier to slip into the identity onesie that is… independent feature film screenwriter. Seems less cringy that way.
More than likely, I just like to not be bothered by my needy cat*.
Whatever the reason, it always feels nice to write in this way. I want to be in that state all the time and I want the freedom to stop when I’m not in that state. I believe the film will be better for it.
And finally, there’s Whānau Mārama. The film festival fuels me, especially seeing the locals who got up and achieved the feature dream. Admittedly, I’ll never have the confidence of Paloma Schneideman, who backed up her goal of making a film to open the fest with one hell of a debut with Big Girls Don’t Cry, or the groundswell energy of Conor Bowden, who pulled off a charming renters battlecry with live cinema event The Ungrateful Tenant, or the sheer experience of THUNDERLIPS, who concentrated their years on the clock with stupendous splatter sci-fi Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant.
But their love of the craft and desire to tell these wholly original stories is infection. And I’ve just tested positive.
*but he is also a wonderful and beautiful boy and I love that rascal with all my heart xoxo