Friday, November 9, 2012

Full Circle & Moving Forward

From 15 years and about 2 months ago:

Well, I now live in Lawrence, Kansas with [EX #2 - name redacted] - the woman I met on the Internet in the Magic Dream Machine.  We have a real cool townhouse at the edge of the Meadowbrook complex right across from the KU campus. We are in love.

Have been carrying around the script for MONTHS now at this point... bringing to work with me - practically never letting out of my sight.  Just started to deal with the fact that no real work has gone into this thing (the script) for NINE months !!!  Have some new energy to make it happen.

I must:

Integrate both hard copies of the script - scene by scene - this will allow for an outline to develop too.

Put this into a format that I can use on the PC (maybe? or just leave it in here)

Continue to BELIEVE - let [EX #2] read the out put of Item # 1

Finish the missing 37 or 38 pages. The outline of this is done -  I know what happens - it’s just a question of 
when can I at least complete Item # 1 in this list?  By the end of September?  Too soon.

VR World is still a unique story and has not YET been stolen.... HURRY AND FINISH IT!!!

I will...

Sincerely,
J. Ward-Nichols, 9-21-97 around 10:30 a.m. in Lawrence, Kansas 

Fast-forward to NOW ~ here is where we are at:

I renamed the Revised Intro as Rev. 3.0, declared CORE Word Doc (66 pages) and CORE Screenwriter File (thru Scene 29) to be Rev. 2.9. I was speaking with Amy a few weeks back and the idea of her script doctor friend taking a look at the script came up. I will explore this with Amy and see if the idea has merit. This could be the final piece of MAGIC that helps gets this thing ready for sale! There is still so much work to do. Only a draft of the ending exists and it’s in this document (the Appendix-Wiki). There still is too much dialogue and scenes that run long need to be mixed in with other scenes that are happening concurrently.

I have back moved out to Lawrence, KS for the third time. Relaxing, recharging, and regrouping is the focus (post-"you know who"). NTD is always on the to-do list, though. So this latest idea to loop Amy’s friend in might be a case of “right time, right place” – it sure feels like that!

Jim Ward-Nichols
Lawrence, KS, USA

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

We've Come a Long Way, Baby...

...but it's nowhere near close to done. My partnership with the writer/director is over (for a number of reasons) but during our time together the script made lots of very real progress. For one thing, the whole thing is now in the latest version of the Movie Magic Screenwriter tool (an industry standard). All hard-copy notes that had built up over the past 10+ years are now part of the electronic draft. The opening sequences were reworked and other fixes (outlined in pencil and pen) were finally completed. We are left with a product that is, I would say, 77% complete. The ending is outlined in draft form but still needs to be written. There are continuity errors that need fixing. In some cases, the order in which scenes occur needs to be changed. Some scenes are far too long and too dialog-heavy. That needs to be fixed. So... there are lots of options for getting this done. A new one on the table is a possible collaboration with a friend from childhood and fellow sci-fi fan who is also a published author (she's written plays, books, short stories, and even teaches classes on the same). In the fall, we may explore that potential partnership. Then there's also my good friend Amy of 20+ years out in CA - without revealing too much: she grew up around Hollywood legends, she is the daughter of a well-known actor and comedian (may be RIP), and she still has people who could take a look at the script and get us in some doors. She made the offer to help out on that front years ago and the offer still stands. But first it has to be finished. Then it has to actually be as good as it can be (cuz right now, it's just not). Only then will it be ready for prime-time. Aside from getting in peak physical condition, this is one of my longest incomplete life goals. For a while a few months ago (when DAY JOB duties once again interfered with progress on NTD), I almost gave up on it. What changed? I re-read the punched-up first few scenes again and said "WOW, THIS IS AWESOME!" and I got all jazzed about it again. So, as they say, "more to follow"... this 20+ year saga is still not over - not by a longshot!