Evolving Process

I've spent a very frustrating year writing and rewriting and rewriting the same first draft of a screenplay.  And I've *also* spent time this year working on some projects that have come *much* more easily.  While I think there's a lot to be said for discovering a play as you write it, I think I'm starting to find that, for me, there are ways to invite that "discovery" in the prewriting process, and shortcut some of the teeth-gnashing, laptop-slamming dead-ends that have characterized this year for me.

A snapshot of my evolving process:
(1) Get obsessed by some small detail or "what if."
(2) Write it out in a paragraph form.
(3) Take it to index cards.  Follow, in some fashion, Blake Snyder's structure...but pretty loosely.
(4) Write a one-line-per-event beat sheet.  With a play, several events probably happen in one scene.
(5) EXPAND the beat sheet, fleshing out the lines, until I have a sense of the story.
(6) (if this were a movie, I'd be showing people my work at each stage listed above...)
(7) Write a paragraph or two bio on each character.  Find a picture of them.  Figure out who they remind me of.  Write a paragraph or so of that character speaking, to begin to hear each voice.
(8) Start writing.  Try to write the first draft FAST.
(9) Have a table read...but actually don't write the last scene or so, or at least don't bring it to the reading. Ask questions about what's happened, what feels like needs to happen before the play is over.  Pay close attention to when people are paying attention, and when they're dropping out.  Get the smartest people you can in the room for this.
(10) Rewrite the draft based on the table read, and actually finish the play.  That's the ZERO DRAFT.
(11) Sit on the play for a week.  Don't work on another project, just go running and go to yoga and spend time outside and maybe go see some other plays.
(12) Reread the draft with a list of questions in hand (see past entries for good questions).
(13) Rewrite.
(14) Give the play to one person who was at the table read, and one person who hasn't seen it.
(15) Reread the blog, thinking of whether you're actually applying what you've learned to this play.
(16) Collect notes from reader friends, get your own, take another pass.
(17) See where you're at.  Hopefully by now you've got a FIRST DRAFT.