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The first commandment of the legal profession is "First Get The Case."
I think it's fair to say that the first commandment of screenwriting should be "First Get The Story." Not a notion of a story or a vague concept or a theme, but a solid premise that can be articulated in a sentence or two and an outline with clear act breaks. If you have a pretty good idea of where the third act is going and if you actually know how it's going to end...even better.
But consider yourself lucky if you know what the first two acts are.
Although I personally have trouble with third acts, I feel it's a moral victory to get to the end of act two, see what I have, then plunge ahead.
What I can't emphasize enough though is the importance of knowing what your story is and where it's going. There's a chapter in my book The Screenwriter Within inspired by a statement by Dr. Laurence Peter, author of The Peter Principle: "If you don't know where you're going, you'll wind up somewhere else."
Make sure you have your story down and you won't get lost.
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