What I submitted to my screenwriting teacher as a second draft, and her comments.

Working Title - "Going Home Again"
Genre - Family Drama like "Field of Dreams" and "Frequency".
Proposed Length - 110 pages.

While at home for a baseball series, a 38 year old baseball player comes to term with his unspectacular career and his impending retirement. During the night of his birthday celebration and a family reunion, the journeyman baseball player confronts his strained relationship with his dying father, his trouble relationship with his wife and estranged 10 year old son, and the old sibling rivalry with his younger brother.

The Story
Shots of San Francisco.
Voice over by main character setting up strain of returning home and family reunion.
Alternating scenes with family talking about main character, his career, the family renunion and the upcoming birthday party and;
scenes in visiting baseball team locker room with main character and team mates talking about his batting slump, his birthday, family reunions and the poor performance of the team.
Scene outside baseball park where main character runs into his little league coach. They discuss his career, his father, etc. Little
league coach asks about retirement, and tells main character how great retirement is.
Plot Point 1 - main character runs into manager after little league coach. They talk about his batting slump, and being benched for a younger player coming up from the minors. Manager hints that maybe it's time to retire. Main character is reluctant. They talking about careers, fathers and family reunions.
Scenes with family, trip to the brother's school, confrontation with father, mother, brother, and son. Main character finally confronts father and makes up with dad.
Plot Point 2 - Father has a heart attack right after conversation with dad.
Family at hospital. Scenes of resolving issues with wife and brother. Dad dies. Main character decides to play in tomorrow's game and decides not tell anyone.
Scene in visiting team locker room. Main character hits well in game and gets congratulated by team members. Meets with manager and tells him dad died, would like time off, agrees to be benched for younger player, and announces his retirement.
Final scene - funeral reception for father at parent's home. Scene with main character and son talking about grandfather, looking at the old clippings, tells him afterwards they'll play catch in the backyard just like how grandpa played with him.

Notes from Julie O:
to have the ending I have, main story is really about the main character's strained relationship with his 10 year old son - it's the A story, everything else, story with dying father, brother and wife, is a B story. Son represensts hope for the future, so that he doesn't end up like his father, and make the grandfather's death be in vain.

Julie O suggested I craft four plots or spines:
main character and son
main character and dying father
main character and brother
main character and wife.

Then weave all four plots together into one story.

I wrote the following as a note to my writing group, but I'll post it here as well.

1. I met with my screenwriting teacher tonight to talk about writing the second draft of my screenplay. She suggested that I enter my screenplay into the American Screenwriters Association/Writers Digest International Screenplay Competition October 31, 2002 (late). Julie O said it would be a good date deadline to work towards. And OH MY GOD, I think I'm going to do it! It's $55 to enter ($50 plus $5 later fee). What the hell, right? It'll be done and off my desk, and I can get on with my other writing projects, since I don't consider myself a "real screenwriter". Julie O said I'd be ready to enter with the second draft of my screenplay, which is radically different from the first.

2. I entered the National Novel Writing month contest again, where you write 50K words in the month of November. I entered under my pen name, S Brenda S. I'm calling my novel "Wallowing in the Dark".

Oh my living lord!!! I'm going to be busy writing these next two months.

Anyone care to do NANOWRIMO with me? Check the site, National Novel Writing Month. It's a blast, and really good training on how to just get through that tough first draft. Last year's competition helped me finish my screenplay.

Now with the screenwriting contest thing I'm doing, I think I'm going to go through a crash course in rewriting and polishing, and scary thought, "the real art of writing as a craft". I never thought I'd be at this point so soon. Maybe I'm not even there yet, and it's another one to two years away, but I guess I'll find out with the process of writing second draft of my screnplay, which I've renamed to "Going Home Again".

Wish me luck!

Experimenting with colours ... wanted the page to evoke fall leaves against the sky ... not sure it's working though.

I've been cleaning my apartment all day and defrosting my refrigerator. I have one of those ancient models. I plugged it in, but I think it's finally busted because my food is still warm. I ran to the store and bought a cooler and some ice. I've been hoping it would break down, so I can ask my apartment manager for a new one, but it's such a bother. I think I'll have to throw all the refrigerator food away because it will probably take awhile for me to get a new one. Guess I'll be eating out every night or at least not eating food with any cold food components.

I'm fine for breakfast and dinner since during the week I'm at work. It's dinner that's a problem.

It's all stressing me out, so much so that I'm skipping the potluck party I'm supposed to attend tonight. I was going to make a cake to bring, but if I buy eggs and milk, I won't have any place to store them.

I've never had anything break down in my apartment before, except for a problem with my sink that happened while I was away on vacation a few years ago. Nothing major anyway, except for drains being clogged up and having them change my toilet seat. I hate when things break down. I wonder if my apartment manager will replace it for free? I have no idea. There's a Sears near where I work, so if I have to buy a fridge myself, I'll buy one there. I've also seen them at Costco. I wonder how my fridges cost.

This is my second disaster in two months, counting the problem with my car windows.

On a brighter note, I'm having a meeting with my screenwriting teacher at her office tomorrow night. She's been in LA doing Hollywood type things, I guess. I'm excited to hear her feedback about my screenplay. I received email feedback, but not in person feedback. I'm supposed to pitch her the new version of my screenplay, which seems so far away right now. I'll have to work on my pitch tonight.

I want to finish my screenplay by the end of the month, and then do the National November writing month (NANOWRIMO) again. I'm going to be very busy writing for the next two months, which is very good for me.

A friend convinced me that I needed to see Baz Luhrman's "La Boheme" with her. He's the guy who directed and produced "Moulin Rouge" with Nicole Kidman and Ewan MacGregor. I totally hated that movie, but my friend adored it. She said that this production of La Boheme should be excellent, because the cast is coming straight from Broadway. Broadway type shows are so darn expensive. The good seats are $90. The cheap seats are really bad and cost $55, and you're in the last row of the third balcony.

I told her I couldn't afford $90. I've seen Broadway shows really close up, and from far away, and unless you're sitting in the first five rows in the orchestra, it's not worth paying top dollar. I'm afraid the show will be like the movie "Moulin Rouge", and I'll have paid $90 for a show which I thoroughly hated. I'd much rather see the opera, St Francis of Assisi, then a Baz Lurhman frenetic broadway musical production.

My friend thinks that if I had seen "Moulin Rouge" in the theatre, instead of at home on a rental, I would have loved the movie too. I don't think so. I just hated that the characters' dialogue was all just snippets of songs and tired and worn cliches. The only good things about Moulin Rouge were the english actor, who played the manager, and who was also in "Iris", and course, Ewan MacGregor. But even my attraction to Mr. MacGregor didn't prevent me from despising "Moulin Rouge". The movie only became interesting when Nicole Kidman started dying, and then only just.

I'm only agreeing to see "La Boheme" because it's rare for a show to come directly from Broadway to San Francisco. Usually, the Broadway shows go to other cities first like Chicago or LA. I had to do some serious budget rearranging to pay for the ticket, so I just hope it's worth the $70 or so dollars that I'm forking over.