I suppose the question is confusing. What do I mean by "in the moment"? It's an extension of the idea of a script being written in present tense, so the thrust of the question is are you experiencing the scene as you write it, are you in a sense participating in it as a witness as it unfolds? As writers, there are points in our process where we should do everything we can to be as close to the action as possible and the very real sense that anything can happen. Hopefully that sense of energy and potential can work its way into our words. So "in the moment" means being in the present tense mode of the scene as it plays out as opposed to writing it from a perspective of after the fact.

Yep, clear as mud... Still struggling to answer this one. Yes, I definitely write present tense / active -- in fact, reading good screenwriting has spoiled me against reading boring, dragging-on fiction, as I have little patience when reading a book if the author is rambling... I feel like I brainstorm my story/plot and I know my beats and where I'm going ahead of time, ahead of sitting down and writing scenes ... and I may or may not have some tidbit of dialogue and usually know what needs to be "planted" in a particular scene, but yeah, I think I do my best to then sidecar all that and try to write IN THE MOMENT. My best writing comes either while writing long-hand or typing in Word, anything other than in the screenwriting software. (If I write in the software, I'm more concerned with how things look than what it says. I'm trying to break myself of being an editor too early in the process, but it's tough!! I want pages amassing!!) But steering clear of the software allows me to free-write and feel most in the moment and roam at will to see what all surfaces. There's a rush that comes with this sort of free-writing -- that excitement of the happy surprises that may come out. It's most fun when I learn something new that maybe I hadn't planned on for a character or a particular story beat. Seems to happen most if I write long-hand -- but then, because I'm flying, I can't always read my handwriting later on. So with my new script, I'm trying to do more writing in Word on this ancient beast of a laptop. What's really fun is if I'm doing so like at Starbucks or somewhere and I have one of those happy discoveries --- I might bust out laughing or do a few mid-air fistpumps. But honestly? If the story's better for it, I don't mind looking like a dork!!