Writing has always been tough for me. I'm not the type of writer that sits around, thinking up stories all the time. For the most part, I have to really sit down and have a reason to write. That's one of the good things about the 12 Films Project that I've been working on is that, each month, I have to do some kind of writing, even if it's for a documentary (taking interviews and "re-writing" them to make it fit the theme of the doc) or a music video (writing some kind of narrative for the song). There have been a few times when an idea has struck me and I've sat down to outline or come up with some ideas, but for the most part, those scripts never got past the outline phase.
Right now, I'm in a good position. I have a base of people who are interested in investing money in a feature that I make, I've got an idea that can be made inexpensively and I've been meeting some amazing filmmakers here in Austin who can come on-board the project and help make it happen. Now, all I have to do it write it. I've got the basic story in my head and I'm currently outlining it. For me, this is the "fun" part of writing, when the story is fresh and new and you haven't really committed to anything. Ideas pop up and you try to fit them into the structure of what you're doing, you get to create the characters and the world they live in and everything is bright and shiny.
I'm almost 2/3 of the way through, that is to say, I've almost outlined the first two acts of the movie. I'm at that crucial mid-act beat that will set up the rest of the film, and I'm not quite sure which road to go down. I know how I want the movie to end, but there are lots of ways to get there, and picking the right one is always the hardest part for me.
My goal is to have the outline finished by mid-August. I tend to write very detailed outlines, which make the actual screenwriting part go very quickly. If I can get the outline done by mid-August, then I should be able to have a solid first draft of the screenplay done by the end of September/beginning of October. Once that's done, I'll send it out to some writer friends to get feedback and I'll start on the next draft.
