David: thanks! That'll help.

Samuel: (sly smile) Then you may have some idea of the direction I have
in mind. We're gonna have fun, fun, fun.

Well, tonight I typed FADE OUT on "The Gathering" screenplay, which after
being revised SIGNIFICANTLY to catch up on some changing technologies and some
improvements in my own writing since I originally wrote it is in many ways a
whole new script. The story is essentially the same, but the characters have
grown considerably, there's more humor in places, more action in other
places...it's way cool. (And I dropped the idea, in my original screenplay,
of a character who's an actual shape-changer because a) I found a better way
of handling a particular plot point, and b) when Warner Bros. did the focus
group study on B5, which at that point included the shape-changer, the UNIFORM
reaction from the group -- especially now, after the Michael Jackson shape-
changing, and that technology becoming SO commonplace -- was that it was a
dumbness, and why would ANYONE want to do that since it's been done so much
now, especially in TERMINATOR 2?

(I agree. They're right. Why would any show want to include a shape-
changer on a regular basis now that the technology has been SO over-exposed?
Heh, heh....)

Anyway: I'm very pleased with the script. It's a little wordy in places -
- I always over-write -- and at 113 pages it'll have to be cut back a little
for time, given the requirements of TV, but overall I'm happy with it. It
goes in to the studio on Monday. I'll probably keep revising right through
shooting, as new ideas come to me, though it'll all have to be character
stuff; once the script's in, the effects stuff will have to be locked down in
order to get it done in time.

Got it done just in time, too...the carpal tunnel syndrome is starting to
flare up again, I think I'm falling prey to the flu that's going around, and I
have to start the next batch of M,SW scripts this coming week, as well as
finish (AT LAST) the changes to the writing book, long overdue. And next
week, finally, I get my new computer system which should really help my output
climb out of the doldrums....

jms