Moving Forward

Theoretically, everyone working on this term's workshop scripts has now reached the end of their first acts. At this point, you will be tempted to backtrack to the opening of your script to fix those little problem areas that were so helpfully pinpointed by your faculty mentors. However, like sailors of old, who heard the siren songs that lead them to their watery deaths, you must ignore the call to go back and revise.

The temptation is a natural one. It's always easier to tinker with stuff that's already written than to create something out of nothing. All of us understand that, but there are a couple of compelling reasons to keep writing forward and not get pulled into the revision trap. Basically, you're on a schedule. If you get off the schedule, you won't complete a script. If you go back and revise your opening, you will get off schedule. If you end two terms with a great opening, but no complete draft, you will fail.

Keep writing forward, because your next chunk of script, to the midpoint at least, is due by week 10. If you don't get within shouting distance, you will not move on to the second half of the class. It's easy to get caught in endlessly revising the opening of your script, but believe me when I tell you, the time for those revisions is when the first draft is done.