This page’s soul purpose is to archive my Dairy called In The works. If anyone wants to look at what I’ve been doing from day to day, they can come here and look at it. I won’t be publishing this, but I will have a link to here on in the works.
June 4th 2019:
I’ve had this page for a long time, but have not found time to develop it. As you read above, I plan on using this for a writing diary. This will give you the reader and me the writer an idea of what I am working on and how I am doing. Don’t always expect this to be filled with sunshine and puppy dogs. There will probably be some days where the writing is not going as well as I would like and that may mean I will throw out my frustrations here. It will give you some honesty from me, about how I work. I will also give you an opportunity to help me out with some comments. A comment button will be added to this page. Below is officially my first post on how the writing has been going for the last few weeks and how today went.
For about two years my writing has suddenly stopped. I was still putting material out on the blog, but nothing was going on with my writing. I had become blocked on my latest play, a radio comedy called “Play By Play.” I had no desire or passion to write. It seemed like a slog. In the last two months, I kicked myself in the ass and forced myself to rediscover that passion. My Dad and I were talking about my First Play “Crossing The Bridge” which he had directed here. It was the second time I had produced it. A few weeks before, an old college student of his came to see us and he was on the Board of the Peterborough Players. My Dad told him I was a playwright. He was interested and I promised to give him “Crossing The Bridge.” I sent him a copy. I started to think about Bridge and the fact I had not sent this off to Dramatists or some other big playwright publishing outfit. I decided the time had come to do that. I looked at the script and realized it wasn’t in the proper playwrighting format. I looked through my other plays and my screenplay. None of them were in the correct format. I began to start an exercise in putting it all in the right format. I thought this was going to take the year, but it took me two months. Not bad. In those two months, that little exercise helped me find my passion. I recommitted myself to the craft of writing. I vowed to become more disciplined. The last few days, I have started my day, by writing for two hours. I am currently reworking my screenplay as the exercise made me realize it was not as good as I thought. I created a plan for how I will rework it. I think it is important that the script be shorter and the holes in the story filled in or explained better. I have decided to break the script down scene by scene and like a Director, directing a scene, I will rework the scene over and over again, before moving on to the next scene. This will help me to cut and tighten. Today was a good day for that. I had already done a general edit of the whole script. Over the last two days I took my edits and started reworking it. I finished the first rewrite today and edited the work again. Now I am about to edit the scene for a second time. I am not sure how long I want this scene to be. In its current state it is 20 and half pages. That’s twenty minutes of movie. It should be far shorter than thought. Maybe ten minutes is too long, I am not sure. I did find some places to cut today and I may remove a Flashback scene I rewrote today, because it may not be needed or may not work. When I reread what I had finished today, one thing became apparently clear, the description of the action was clearer, crisper and much easier to follow. In general it reads better. Today’s big lesson was don’t fall in love with your stuff. Your best stuff may not work. Besides in my own head, I know that if one of my scripts is sold, they may have some other ideas and some of my best stuff may be tossed in the trash, not because they don’t like it, but because it may not fit their concept. On to tomorrow and the beginning of the second rewrite of the Opening of Derby Double, which I also call the attack on Belfast.
I found my two hours of writing today and found some success. Today’s task was to break down the opening scene of Derby Down. After two edits, I managed to cut 5 pages of it. I cut one scene I added and returned to having Seamus narrate how his friend Paddy Cleary had become so filled with hate. I also managed to cut some dialogue down from Seamus’ narrative and Hannah’s speech. At this point I am not sure whether there is anything more to cut. I have an idea that might be drastic. In the first few frames of the movie we see Seamus playing Football ten years before the time of the movie. It is the day of his injury and the day that Hannah is assassinated. I am toying with moving some of it, or dropping it. It would be painful for me to do that, because some of Seamus’ best speeches are within the Soccer moments. However, I would like this scene to be about ten pages, or ten minutes. I have studied it and came to the conclusion I would cut 1 page off. The only other alternative is to rewrite this part in such a way, that we forget the Football. I am not sure that works either. Anyway, I may very well try it and see what happens. Who knows, it might work.
July 12th 2019
Derby Double was not meant to be a trilogy, but Seamus O’Brien became such an intriguing character, that I felt the need to explore the man further. I wrote a sequel called Derby Double Redemption, which follows the season after the match fixing scandal. The FA not only decide M15 should be punished for allowing some fixes to go, but they decide to expunge the season as if it never happened. Now Sheffield United are forced o prove they are a legitimate contender to the First Division. The focus lands mostly on Mick as we explore his relationship with a former Sheffield Wednesday nemesis, David Muckwith as he joint United We also meet David’s rather quirky sister, English woman’s Snooker champion, Audrey. Audrey becomes Mick’s love interest. Mick will not only find love, but during the movie we watch Mick learn the harsh lessons of what it means to be Captain.
I had started a third movie to tie up some loose ends with Elizabeth’s backstory, in which she discovers who her real father is and that her brother is her former boss at MI5. All this is set around the backdrop of the Champions League. Unfortunately I scrapped the idea for the time. In this movie Sheffield United main rival is a team from the French League. I haven’t decided who yet. This club is run by a Corsican Mafia Boss, who lives in a big castle with his Falcons.
Through the last month I have found cutting scenes and dialogue to be a tedious task and each time I thought I was moving closer, I discovered I had only taken about 5 pages off the script. I found myself frustrated and decided some eyes were needed on this script to see where or how it could be cut.
Last night I spoke to one of those eyes on Facebook. She gave me some good areas to cut and within our conversation, I discovered I was trying to put two movies into one. Then an epiphany hit me. I’ll just make the Second Movie the Fix and the third movie Redemption. Then add the fourth movie if I wish to.
My idea for the first movie now deals with Seamus’ backstory in Northern Ireland. He starts as a kid with his two buddies Roary and Paddy and we move into his relationship with Hannah. I can also bring back some previous scenes that I was forced to cut.
This morning as I was running through what I needed to do, I suddenly realized that the name of the movie needs to change. I always thought Derby Double was kind of clunky to begin with so for the moment I am going with a working title of Seamus O’Brien. It’s short, simple and you can remember it.
I want to say thanks to Leigh, she really helped me see another side of where I need to go with this. Now I move forward and as I do, I will keep you appraised as to where the movie stands.
The Script is the thing 