Sometimes, things just aren’t meant to be.
I had to stay an hour late at work on Thursday night, so I didn’t get back until twenty to eleven. After eating dinner, I check my e-mail and remind my reader to text me when he’s read the final draft of my short for the LSF competition.
Friday morning, I oversleep by half an hour, woken by a text from my reader questioning my plot. I think up a new ending and text back the idea, which he agrees. I then open up the submission page on the LSF site and enter my details and basic script info, so everything’s ready to upload.
I get ready for the day job and head to work. I leave work early because I’m heading to a birthday party for the weekend. I have time to make birthday cards or submit my script, so I make the cards, thinking that I’ll just submit the script on the train.
Cards made, I have ten minutes to spare. I do the washing up to avoid the wrath of my flatmates.
I hurriedly throw some things into a bag and head to the station. Once I’ve done the first twenty-minute train, I get on my second train and fire up the laptop. I put the finishing touches to the script and convert to pdf in Celtx.
The programme freezes – connection error. It takes a few more attempts to create the file.
Then, I try to open withoutabox again. More connection errors, more freezing.
By the time I get everything to work, I look at the clock – 6pm.
I’ve missed the deadline by an hour.
I confess, I cried on the train. I’d poured my heart into that short script and I think it came out pretty well. And now I’ll never know if the LSF would’ve liked it.
Okay – time to pick myself up and get on.
Ahh, that’s a real bitch. I did something similar with the LSF inspired by science treatment. Wrote it. Scrapped it. Rewrote it. Put it in a drawer. Came back to it. Rewrote it again. Got happier with it. Then last Friday I got bogged down in some other stuff thru the morning and decided I’d submit it in the afternoon.
At 3pm I checked the website – deadline was 12 noon. Arse.
But…the development of that treatment has spun into a stonker of an idea for a single drama which is currently romancing my creative mind. It’s an idea that I think could only have come from that unique science angle even though the story itself is about a voyage of self-discovery.
Look, at least you’ve got another script to put on the spec shelf. That hard work won’t go to waste; it’ll just pay you back some time in the future.
I swear the deadline times didn’t go up until much later. I was banking on midnight!
I’m glad you found an outlet for it. My worry with mine is that I squeezed it to fit their requirements and is it therefore any good as a piece free from constraint?
I’ve set it to one side for the moment. I’m going to work on my other specs.
Roz – I won. I only went and bloody won the LSF shorts compo. [stunned]
I KNOW! I’m so excited for you!
Can’t wait to see what the finished product looks like. Y’know, next Monday. 😉
I’m annoyed I can’t be there to see the premiere. What theme did you go with – unless you’ve signed an Official Secrets Act?
No OSA, but I did sign a contract. So it’s no longer my script to do with what I will.
The theme is death, rebirth, second chances, not kow-towing to expectation or tradition. There you go.
When is your agent lunch then?? This really is very exciting – I’m enjoying living vicariously through you here!
I like that theme. A lot to take on in ten minutes, so brave work!
Officially Yet To Be Confirmed. Soon as I know, I’ll tell you. I shall be disappointed if it’s five minutes over a box of Chicken McNuggets.