A Longer Fork

So, back in April, I shared a little exciting, but very Pie-In-the-Sky, news: The Pull of Gravity had been optioned for film.

And in August, I even showed you a tiny snippet of the first page of the script that was being worked on.

Well, yesterday, the full-blown script -- The Pull of Gravity, the Movie -- arrived in my email box!!!**

Dude. It was actually really hard to open it.

My heart pounded with fear and excitement. What if I hated it? What if they hadn't captured my book at all?!?

But the minute I opened it, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was a small thing, but it told me a whole lot:

The screenwriter, Chris Youngless, had put the Yoda quote that grounds the story at top: as if to ground him, too, and keep him mindful of my story.

At least I took it this way. It comforted me. It helped me to breathe and start reading.

I haven't read a lot. It's a crazy busy week and I want to give it my undivided focus and attention. But already I can see (and I was warned and knew ahead of time) that there are going to be places where the script veers a bit from my exact words and presentation -- to some extent it must. Film is visual; scenes that are exposition in books, or easily summarized in a quick sentence or two, must be shown in film.

But there are also places where I can't help but smile, and feel the intense excitement well up, because my exact characters, my exact presentation, are there, coming alive on the page in this new format:

Over the next few days, I'll read the full script, try to be thoughtful and open minded (!!), and offer input only where it feels needed or necessary. **I have creative consultation on the project (and intend to use it), but I also want to honor the guys who have taken the project on with great intentions, great effort, and with their own creative vision as well.

Anyway, that's it for now. The pie is still way, way up in the sky, but my fork just got a tiny bit longer. ;)

- gae