Busting my ass.

I am DYING, folks. I have 18 days to get Attila polished and done before the contest. It's without a doubt my best and strongest contender. For some reason my samurai flick didn't have a saved version of my most recent edit, which is fucking weird. I was DAMN SURE I did it (I remember specific changes I made), but I have nothing to show for it. It may be on my old laptop, but part of me is certain this is the better choice. Attila has better characters, a weaving plot, several twists, and more skullduggery than I've ever put in any single script.

This is my flagship. But I have 18 FUCKING DAYS. This thing was rough-draft-finished four days ago. I usually take a couple months to write these. I mean, I took a lot of time to craft the plot, but this is a rush job. Thank whoever needs to be thanked that it's the holidays, or I'd never find the time.

So I'm going hard. Every spare hour. I give myself one hour alotted each day for myself. All of the rest of it is work or writing. But I'm confident. Shogun was a collective 6, and had no guidelines. It was just me having fun. This is me having fun with characters and using guidelines. I've watched what prior winners have had made, and this is at least on par. I'm kind of excited, because I'm hyperfocusing and I suddenly have a ton of edits to make. Not tough ones either. I'm not stripping or resetting this thing. Just changing things.

The alternative to this is to wait a year, and suffer another year of this going-nowhere crap. If the bus is driving by, I'm going to grab on and slip inside like the liquid metal man. Because I've been doing this obsessively for nearly three years. Saturn is returning, children, I have learned my lesson, and I won't trip at the finish line again. Not this time.