Daniel: I appreciate your support and your thoughtfulness. On the
last point you raise...as well as writing for TV, I also write novels,
with two published so far, and the next one (a 1,000+ page whopper)
already outlined. Thing is, no matter *how* much you outline, and prepare,
and decide, "THIS is the story," once you actually get into writing the
novel, things come out of the woodwork and surprise you; characters come
to life and start pointing you in directions you hadn't considered because
you hadn't previously spent that much constant time with them. In a bit
over two decades of professional writing, I have *never* written an
outline that survived contact with the script, or the novel. It sorta
gets me into the story, and from there on I have to be open to adapting to
what the story presents.

When I started my second novel, I decided that it would be the story
of the female cop in the narrative. It was *her* story. About a quarter
of the way in, I realized that it *wasn't* her story, it was the story of
the two high school kids in the novel. The basic storyline DID NOT
CHANGE much, but the *emphasis* and the point of view altered as the focus
moved from one to the other.

In some ways, that's the closest parallel I can come to as far as
this situation is concerned.

jms