Matthew S. Rotundo's Pixeltown

Some 3600 words’ worth of rewrite on Apocalypse Pictures Presents.  Magic Meter say:

Still not very satisfactory progress, except that I finally solved the riddle of chapter six . . . in much the same way that Alexander the Great solved the Gordian Knot.

That’s right, kids.  I cut it, after all.  I got tired of trying to infuse it with life, and finally realized I didn’t need to.  I stuffed a bit of it into a later chapter, and that was that.

This is a good thing for a couple of reasons.  Most important, I’m able to move forward again.  But it also saves me some word count that I fear I’m going to need in Act Two, which is where this rewrite gets really difficult fun.

Your snippet:

With grim amusement, he realized that he had become a bit of a cliché himself—the demanding director, à la James Cameron, or maybe Stanley Kubrick.  Now, he was leading them into . . . well, he wasn’t even sure of that, exactly.  Everyone knew the rumors about the Hills and Hollywood, but no one knew how much of them were true.  From the sound of them, though, it seemed that things had gotten worse since he’d last been there.

His only ace in the hole was Catherine.  She wouldn’t let him down; he was certain of it.  If he could get his team to the secret backdoor, Catherine would take care of the rest.

Of course, he wasn’t certain yet exactly how he would get to the secret backdoor.  But with Susan’s help, they should be able to get past the Hollywood barricades.  Hell, the Mouseketeers allegedly managed it all the time.  Gil and a skeleton cast and crew, carrying only what they would absolutely need, should be small and stealthy enough to get inside.

It would work.  It had to work.  Shooting on the backlot was meant to be.

No updates for Write Club.

Onward, though the way gets steeper from here.

Mired in chapter 6 of the Apocalypse Pictures Presents rewrite, and boy, doesn’t Magic Meter know it:

This is a chapter that I had marked for possible deletion.  As originally written, it presented a false crisis, and set up a future conflict that never paid off.  The perils of a first draft, I guess, especially for a pantser like me.

So I was ready to just cut the chapter entirely, but then a thought or two for salvaging parts of it occurred to me.  I started fiddling, and . . .

And that’s about as far as I’ve gotten.  Not gonna lie, folks:  this lack of production is frustrating.  I knew this rewrite was going to be tough, and right now, it’s kicking my ass.  Or maybe I’m being lazy.  Bit of both, probably.

Anyway, here’s a bit of what I did manage to accomplish:

Gil made numerous revisions to the dialogue as they proceeded with the read-through, which she supposed was to be expected, given that he’d drafted it only a few days previous.  Not that it made the job any easier.  Complicating matters, Gil insisted they work on some rudimentary blocking, even as she and the rest of the cast struggled with their new lines.

“That’s crazy,” Jazmine had said, brushing away some strands of hair stuck to her face by sweat.  “We can’t block the scene without a set.”

“Use your imagination.”  Gil swept an arm.  “We’ll be on Brownstone Street on the backlot.  There’ll be a row of porches.  How hard can it be?”

“But—“

“Look, we’re going to have a few days, tops, to get this done.  If we’re lucky.  We have to maximize our time.  Every minute counts.”

No updates for Write Club.

Onward, if only at a glacial pace.