Exile Fortnight - two week battle plan

For those of you who don't know, I'm at uni studying English. I'm entering my final year in September which means one thing for any student out there - dissertation time! [insert dramatic music here] However, I'm not doing a 10,000 word essay on Shakespeare, or Gothic tales, or the change in the representation of women in literature from 1700 to 1900. Instead, I'm attacking a creative writing portfolio.

I'm going to submit the first screenplay I ever wrote - EXILE. I wrote the first draft a year ago (give or take a month). And it is shite! Nevertheless, I love the concept and the story I got from it. I think it's my strongest idea to date and while it may not be original, the message I sent at the end of the script is a powerful one: one of hope, which diverts away from my norm. Make no mistake though, it's good and violent.

Exile is a story of oppression, survival and revenge...that just happens to be set in the future, with vampires.

Over the next two weeks, I'm intending to make some serious progress on the idea and have a decent draft to show my tutor, Linda. She's the one who got me into screenwriting in the first place (by handing out two pages of The Screenwriter's Bible - David Trottier). So it's rather fitting that I've got her as my tutor again. Actually, I requested her. She's primarily a novelist, but what Linda doesn't know about story development and character conflict isn't worth knowing! My idea is in safe hands.

At the moment, the idea is in one form - a terribly basic, forced, expo-filled, dull screenplay. From this, I've got to beat out a decent story and write a killer script. Hopefully this will get me a decent mark at uni (my last piece for uni is tipped to get a confident 1st) but as with every script, the idea is to sell it and write a story worth telling. This is my white-board of ideas I threw around at the weekend. It's filled with little things like: "More action when they visit the supermarket" and "Develop Asha more. Not just a love interest - she has a story to tell."

Below is my battle plan for the next two weeks as I work on my all-time fav idea. I've dubbed these two weeks 'EXILE FORTNIGHT'

• Mon 8th - Sat 13th -- Treatment (15+ pages)
  
• Sun 14th -- Relax and dwell on ideas
• Mon 15th -- Spend the day in London, hanging out with Michelle and attending the CBBC Q&A
  
• Tues 16th - Sat 20th -- Write second draft of script
• Sun 21st -- Collapse and/or die
  

So, not a lot to do there then. If I keep to that schedule, I'll be happy. Two weeks to get something good enough to show my tutor isn't bad. The whole project isn't due in until May next year so I have time to work on dozens of drafts and beat out a pretty decent story.

Of course, I'll no doubt be blogging left, right and centre. Moaning about how I want to give it all up one day, then shouting about how well everything is going the next. Thus is the way of the writer.

Happy writing fellow scribes!