Arousal, Draft #1: COMPLETE!

Well, the beast is finally slayed. So I guess it's no surprise that what comes to mind is this stanza from Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky:

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

Screenplays are a 100 meter dash compared to the marathon of writing a novel, but they can still leave you winded at the finish line. I wrote Arousal's first draft in about 10 days of actual writing (spread out over 35 days), but spent over two months plotting out Arousal's storyline... and came up with its concept over a year ago, come to think of it. If you count the endless hours of daydreaming I expended, I really spent more like 5 to 6 months "writing" this sucker.

But it's done. And during this morning's celebratory chat session at Infusion Cafe, mere seconds after I had typed the final "FADE TO BLACK", I had my first IM chat with the inimitable "Bookstar" Myspace addict, Will Entrekin. Will's most notorious character trait is how prolific he is. Come on, bro—save some words for the rest of us, will ya? You even put Kristen to shame. Anyway, good peeps. Sharp guy. His blog is somehow always interesting. Since I have a laptop now, I can finally participate in his annaul Academy Award commentary. Scha-weet!

Out of the frying pan, as they say... For all the time it takes to write a first draft, there is a definitive end to it. Rewriting? It's like that philosophy question they used to ask us in college: if you run half the distance to a finish line, then half the remaining distance, and then half THAT remaining distance, and so on, will you ever actually reach the finish line?

Great God, let's hope so. My vorpal blade gets thirsty for blood!