23. Back At It

23 April 2025

Alison Rocket Ross 

Revamping AARON (35) LANDSCAPER.

Let’s try this again.

Oops. Looks like I deleted that whole opening scene.

GOOD RIDDANCE

We don’t need it.

I’m going to start with a real rough go of it.

A member of Aaron’s landscaping crew asks him for Brooke’s number — he didn’t realize they were dating. This makes Aaron think, then he goes out to buy a ring for her. Not out of love or wanting to get married, just to keep what he has.

Fresh new start. This is first draft, so we’ll clean up and clarify all this later on. Right now, I just want to get to the part where he buys the ring. If we’re lucky, we’ll get all the way to him proposing to Brooke.

 Ok! Now we’re having fun.

We’re going to stop there for right now so I can mull over the proposal scene. It’s all so new. Needs time to cook.

A few cute things that happened here:

Brooke and Aaron have a relationship quirk where they tell each other random facts because they love trivia.

We established that Aaron owns the landscaping business with his name on his truck (which will be confirmed for the audience later on).

We introduced a new character, TANK, who may or may not play a role later on. We’ll see, but I kind of like him.

We immediately see Aaron’s fear of change- when it was presented to him that Tank didn’t know he and Brooke were dating, it became clear that he could lose her. Now he’s taking action so he doesn’t lose her.

Already it’s a thicker story than what we had. More intrigue. More humor. More character. Even with the skeleton first draft, we have a better sense of flow and theme.

Deep breath.

I feel better about this. I told you from the jump, we may change it up as it goes. It’s so very important not to get too hung up on being perfect, or even RIGHT, throughout this process.

Things to think about as we go on:

The visuals and symbolism of the ring.

Is Aaron actually in love with Brooke or is he just comfortable with her?

Let’s just keep our feet on the ground and push forward.

-Rocket