You have not been gone long, but you are very missed, my friend.

I will admit, I have very little news. Work as of late has been a lot of staring at old notes and blank sheets of legal pad.

Spoke to Kyle for a little while today. Explained to him the problem, and the current bump in the road for me, only fair I present it here too, even though I think I've posted something similar several different times.

I more or less know now what the extra pages in "Trendsetter" are going to contain. In part due to everyone who's gotten back to me, it's become clear that Brandon needs to undertake a task, make a bid to make himself happy, and, ultimately, fail -- partly through no fault of his own, and partly because there are hangups we have as people that we never really overcome. I even decided what Brandon is going to try to do. From this, I expect to get my extra Faye scenes.

I also need more scenes with Tess. It bothers me how negative some reaction towards her has been. Sympathizing with Brandon was never my only intent -- there also has to be some acknowledgment that yes, this girl is really as great as he think she is, and no, she is not being a bitch just by proxy of the relationship being over, and Brandon being the one who's sad about it. Even a year later, I imagine she's sad too, and I'm going to have to figure out some way to show that. I'm also hoping to add some motivation to why she does some of the things she does, particularly for the more forgiving women who think she's being too hard on Brandon.

I will say this. I have a far better understanding of how women can take complete douche bags back after they've been cheated on.

I also want to give Eddie something else to do, because I like Eddie, and I think even the people who find him a little skeazy do too. Besides, I think his subtext will mean more if I give him a little more screen time.

Now for me, this is the truly brilliant part, because upon reading that, it sounds like I know exactly what needs to be done. And in a way, I do. The problem is, I'm not as sure about how to do it, and coupling that with some hardcore indecisiveness on my part makes it difficult to proceed. There are any number of situations and conversations to get all [or most] of that in, but deciding what's best, what sticks closest with the themes in the movie, what's the most interesting... well, that's all a lot harder.

An example I could give is that the "dinner with Brandon's family" idea I had earlier [Re: the thing I was damn sure was going to be the added pages] would actually work to help achieve some of those goals, except for the fact that it would also introduce 3-5 more characters into the story. And when I'm sitting trying to figure out how to expand on existing characters, having more people show up and take screen time feels like a misstep.

I just have to decide if it is or not. Or think up a really great alternative that makes that decision unnecessary.

I feel like I might be on the verge of a breakthrough though. Don't know why. Might be imagining it.

Kyle has also been sending me some possible music for the movie [I'll try and link it here soon], and he's also sent me something to look at that I'll be posting here in the next several days. So, as usual, watch this space.

Cheers.