And now that my CD/DVD drive on my old desktop has pretty much kicked the bucket, I can’t really do any screenwriting on this machine. The old version won’t allow me to edit or save without the CD, so the inevitable moment is here.

Still, I’ve tried to avoid shelling out $200-ish bucks for the new Final Draft out of the belief that someone must have made a good enough piece of cheap-or-freeware by now for screenplay formatting. Tentatively, it’s looking like I’m right. I’ve downloaded Celtx and, other than getting used to some slight interface and command changes, it’s working smoothly enough, and does .pdf conversions in a single click. I’m working on this corporate video script with it right now and having no trouble at all with it.

The real headache is my archive of other scripts. Celtx can’t import old Final Draft files – I have to convert them to .txt, and then Celtx does what it can with it, but it’s not totally accurate with how it differentiates character names from actions and so forth. Which means that turning each of my old scripts into Celtx files is going to take a couple of hours’ work. It’s worth it in the long-run, but it is annoying enough with the other work I’m trying to do right now.

Still, an opportunity arose out of the blue on Friday to put an old script of mine in the hands of someone with the money to make it and the desire to make something like it genre-wise imminently. They have requested a .pdf. So, where there’s a will there’s a way, and I’m doing some old-fashioned un-glamorous layout work that’s going to keep me up late tonight.

As I say in the subject line – it is without question an improvement on the normal state of affairs, which is no one giving a damn what file format my scripts are sitting un-filmed and un-purchased on my hard drive in.

I’m flexing my own muscles right now. If something happens – and it may happen – it’s going to happen unbelievably fast. Stay tuned.

It’s small…I’m talking minuscule. This is one of those budgets that wouldn’t cover a week’s food on a superhero movie. There is a legitimate question whether or not the script I’ve written can actually be made for the money that is on the table. IF everyone does three jobs and works for circus peanuts, and IF we catch a couple of breaks on our locations, and IF this camera we have access to can actually live up to its cost-saving billing, and IF we can trim the script and schedule this thing hard and deep with no lube, then…maybe, Jimmy, maybe.

I would be producer, writer, assistant director, and at least a few other tasks along the way. I would have to quit the office job; not immediately but once things started ramping up – which, given the weather requirements of the script might not be for several months. But I also found out today that my screenwriting class is definitely on for the spring, which means money. It didn’t take me long to start working the personal budget numbers. IF the class happened in the fall as well, and IF I finished the novel in a timely manner so I could bring in the rest of that money, and IF I could pick up a few one-off production gigs like I was awhile back, and IF I don’t eat at restaurants or drink in bars for the majority of 2010, then…maybe.

But I’m not walking yet. A good piece of advice I once read about the question of when to leave your dayjob is: “You’ll know when it’s no longer possible to keep it.”

More on this as it develops.