Just when I thought it was safe to move on

Marior, our director, sent Nearmiss more notes on "Time and Space". He's neither willing to drive the three hours to the roof we have access nor is he looking for a roof locally. He's somewhat desperate to have us reset the critical scenes in a park.

Nearmiss took first crack at a rewrite and did a good job. We have different strengths, she and I. I'll rewrite her dialogue, but she's a great foil off of which to bounce new ideas. She came up with a workable compromise. It's not as good as the original, but her ideas led to some of my own and we've groped toward a new finale that I can live with.

Looks like we lose the grotesques, however. In the original draft, they lined the rooftop. The old woman in our screenplay, Gretchen, had a nice moment with one, but it looks like we'll have to drop that. You don't find too many public parkland. Although - and I'm thinking out loud here - perhaps we can replace it with a spooky tree stump or something....

Working on shorts that will get made is gratifying, but progress on "By the Book" has ground to a halt since mid-January. Part of the problem is JOUR 428 - being a course I've never taught before, it takes a lot of time to put together. This was my last busy week for that, however, and it's a downhill coast from here. I'm doing some Web redesign for Alex, but besides that, I should have more time to work on my own material. I'll keep you posted.