Saul Zaentz Incubator Here I Come

I am super psyched that my screenplay, When We Fall, has been selected as one of nine projects to be developed by the Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund at Johns Hopkins.

This was actually the second time I submitted the script.  The first time I sent it over, I knew that it was not quite ready to make the rounds.  It was clocking in at about 90 pages, but the scope of the story really required more development and, consequently, more pages.  Also there was a ton of melodrama, something that happens when I sense the emotional note that is supposed to be played, but I haven’t picked the right “instrument.”

So I got rejected.

I’d been rejected hundreds of times in my life and had no feelings about it. (This is the gift of failure: you stop caring about outcomes.  If you don’t quit, it’s probably because you love the work itself, not the fruit of the work). I put the text aside and set a date for revision #2, which began some time in the spring.  Like the first draft, the second draft went very well.  It wasn’t without tough spots, knots, and ill-fitting pieces.  But that’s how it goes.  That’s writing.  All you can do is figure it out.  If you like figuring it out then you ‘ll probably like writing.

Anyway, what I am most looking forward to now is driving that revision to another level through the collaboration of the fellows.  I know that I do not work best alone.  A workout partner can get you much further.  Even that second draft wouldn’t have been written without my writer’s group calling bullshit when I was faking it.You never know what a work can be until all the options have been explored.  This is best done with people who like the work.

I’ll let you know how it goes.