Diagram This

I am currently in the midst of doing prep work for the writing of my first feature script. I have been outlining the hell out of the story for two weeks now. I look awful: unshaven, unkempt three days' stubble, baggy eyes with dark circles beneath them and the perennial beer gut growing bigger by the second. Good news though, I am ready to start writing now. This diagramming stuff is a new thing for me, but I've found it to be very useful. I am hoping that once I open the Final Draft program and begin the screenwriting process in earnest it will be more like filling in the blanks or connecting the dots. I guess that's the wisdom behind the outline, it helps you get your story's structure straight rather than diving into the screen pages and trying to find it in the writing. That's a recipe for disaster, it might be o.k. for stream-of-consciousness type novelists, but if you're trying to convey a visual story you better know where you're going. As my proffessor last semester commented, everybody knows where their story starts, the important thing is to know where it ends.

On that note, I must say that I'm not sure about how I feel about my story's ending, but at least I have one, and it is very specific. Spring Break is this upcoming week and I plan on bulldozing through my first act... 30 pages more or less. I don't think it's an unrealistic goal. At any rate, I need all the good vibes I can get.