Rewrite pt II... rhythm... rain... music

While most parts of England were being washed away... I had a busy week...  Been twirling my hair to knots working on the rewrite of my screenplay (think I'll come out of this rewrite with dreadlocks...)  i can't complain too much about the speed/slow process though, since I'm slow and not-so-bright, so I expect things to take longer for me to absorb and understand... 

For a short while, I was stuck somewhere in my rewrite (dunno Act I, II or III, as I don't go by these structures...)  But it wasn't so much about where I was stuck, it was more like I couldn't figure out the rhythm or the pace of the scrīpt...  something was off...

Rhythm plays a huge part in my writings, I listen to lots of music when I write (I assume it's the case for most writers, right Dax?)  I tend to listen to music/sound that would give me the similar rhythm as the scrīpt that I'd be working on at that moment, it inspires and frees my mind, (I remember I was writing a scrīpt during when I was listening to Brian Eno and Aphex Twins non-stop... and then there was a time when I was listening to Death Cab For Cutie on repeat for about 4 months...)  Most importantly, music helps me to find the right rhythm for the scrīpt.   For me, the pace of the story is vital - when the audience finds out what... how long it takes for something to reveal...  how long I linger on a gesture... on a character's emotion... on a scene...  since I'm a slow person, I tend to like things in a slower and quieter pace... but it could be a danger as it could easily lose the audience's attention... so I need to pay extra attention to that especially during the rewrite (it's one thing to create things in a slow pace, it's another to deliberately bore the audience...)  

I usually go for a stroll when I'm stuck, I'd leave my phone and internet behind, grab my ipod and just walk around my hood.  The one good thing about London is that there are lots of green around me, it gives me peace and quiet when I walk around (I doubt if it's possible to do that in HK, esp. near Central...) I'd find a piece of music that would inspire me for the particular scrīpt and I just stroll aimlessly...  About 4 days ago, I was walking down an alley and it just hit me about why the rhythm for this scrīpt was off... it wasn't so much about when things were revealed... it's one of the secondary characters... a) she needs to be deepened, currently she's too one-dimensional, and b) her absence and presence is off-balance (I tracked her journey from my 3x5 note cards)... suddenly a light bulb "ding" in my head... I'm sure most writers would have spotted that long time ago... but again, for a not-so-bright writer like myself... I'd consider that I doctored this problem relatively quickly...  whew~  I was psyched and thought about a few things immediately to add/subtract from the scrīpt...

But I couldn't delve into it just yet, as I had to go to Cornwall for a literary festival over the weekend because my uke band had to perform for 2 nights there.  I was psyched about Cornwall though because we got to camp out in the middle of the woods and be surrounded by books and music... I knew it'd be a mallow and peaceful weekend, and I expected to have some peaceful time to think about my scrīpt too... So on Friday, we hopped onto a big van and drove to Cornwall at the crack of dawn, and half way through, rain started pouring down on the highway... that's when the torrential rain hit England... but we drove through it for a couple of hours, and when we got to Cornwall, it was sunny and warm with mist here and there... we were really lucky to have avoided the horrendous rainstorm for the weekend.  Long story short... we set up our tents, ate, drank, and played in front of a large crowd... hung out on Sat... chilled in the woods, did some reading, thinking, drinking, playing more uke, and performed again at night in a large tent... life without cellphone reception and internet could be a wonderful thing... even though I brought my computer thinking I might do some writings... I ended up not opening it once... and instead just wrote in my moleskin notebook... 

Now that I'm back to civilization, and with my latest revelation about my scrīpt, I'm psyched to jump back into writing more this week... hopefully I'll make some nice progress... meanwhile here are some pictures from the weekend:

first night performing in one of the large tents

love the "boat bar"

this is my favorite - a gigantic beaver sculpture... all kids went crazy in front of it...