Tonight was Nikolai’s birthday, or at least his birthday shindig. We were LATE (sorry bud) due to other obligations, but we closed that shit down. And we got the chance to take our traditional on-the-sidewalk birthday photo.
It’s always the first birthday of the year. I can mark the years with Nikolai’s birthdays. Been some good ones, man, let me tell you. Happy Birthday, dude. I’m glad you were born today! 🙂
I worked my ASS off today. Had to do a kind of “proof of concept” thing for the ‘Flix in that it was MY first time doing this type of new asset, and they wanted to make sure I was going to do it properly. Believe it or not, that kind of process totally works for me, genuinely – if I’m doing anything for the first time, I want all the feedback from the up-and-ups I can get, make sure that I’m headed in the right direction. There are many ways to skin an edit, you know what I mean? I’d always rather get started in the right direction than get half way through a project and realize I fucked something up the whole time.
Anywho, I was on the right track, and now I’ve gone through creating one of these things from beginning to end, so now I also know the process.
I also wrote. And rewrote. I know I’ve said “I’m so close!” so many times over the past couple months, but this time I really mean it. I finished a “plot” pass on this latest gigantic scene…well, almost finished. There is one last little section, one last action sequence that needs to be rebuilt…but that brings me up to page 296. 38 pages left. Which includes one more major rewrite.
I’m going to friggin collapse when I finally finish this fucking rewrite. Jesus H Christ. Finishing a novel, guys, is goddamn exhausting. Seriously. It’s so much WORK. I have a hard time wrapping my head around that. I keep thinking that the end is just around the corner. That’s why I’ve been saying “I’m so close” now for two and a half months.
The thing is though: this is my first time. It’s just like with what I did for Netflix work today – I have to work through the entire process once first, then I can start making adjustments to streamline the process, or identify areas that are vulnerable to break-down; watch out for those parts of the process, make sure I set myself the best in those parts so they don’t break me down.
Anyway…
It’s almost 2am. It’s time for the sleeps. Tomorrow…is going to be day off. Thank you baby jesus.
Good night!