I
emphasize that it’s a challenge and
not a contest. The only thing you can
receive upon successful completion of the writing goal is a certificate that
says you successfully completed it. When I tell people this, there is usually a
question about, “Well, how do they know? What if you just type 50,000 words of
gibberish or the same word 50,000 times?” I guess technically these questions
raise a good point, except for the fact that the entire concept is designed to
MOTIVATE writers who have wanted to write something but never sat down and
tried.
That’s
why it is NOT a contest.
Also,
the OTHER thing you have, beside the certificate, is the satisfaction of having
a first draft of a 50,000 word story you wrote — in 30 days!
If
anything, NANOWRIMO is a sort of self-help website with an infrastructure of
assistance.
Perhaps
you’ll finally write that story within you if thousands of others are doing the
same thing. In November, the website offers weekly e-mail pep-talks from
published authors to motivate you to stay on track with your goal. There are
additional helpful things on the website like plot generators and various
message boards, etc., as writers commiserate with other writers about their
individual writing problems or share their successes that they’re all
experiencing daily during the month-long task and creative journey.
I
personally have never participated in this event. I’m not so good with writing prose.
Well, I can, I think, but it comes with much effort.
However,
after a few successful years of NANOWRIMO, the website launched a new challenge
in April: SCRIPT FRENZY. This was designed as an on-line challenge to write a
script (play, screenplay, graphic novel) in 30 days. Unfortunately, after a few
years, the organizers decided not to continue SCRIPT FRENZY mostly due to a steadily
decreasing number of participants and a lack of fundraising to support SCRENZY
as a stand alone event. You can read the official announcement here.
Although
this development is genuinely disappointing, what was most important for me
about both NANOWRIMO and SCRIPT FRENZY was the idea of focusing for a month on
writing something, which is something I would like to do. I’ve tried it a few
times in the past; unfortunately (yet typically) I have yet to successfully
complete a first draft of a script, whether as part of SCRIPT FRENZY or just on
my own.
But
it’s April again and I have some ideas for short films, a comic book idea and a
feature film screenplay I’ve already begun last year that I’ve failed to
complete. So, as I’ve done (at least) a couple times before, I’m going to try
and write a first draft of a script this April.
April
7, 2013.
Yes,
that is the date.
Technically,
I’m starting this a week late. My late start is a result of both my being out
of town for the first couple days of April in Boston (a really cool city, by
the way). Then, for the rest of the week, I was… uh… just a lame-ass.
[NOTE: When I first wrote this post, it was at the beginning of April, so the whole horrible event of the Boston Marathon bombing two weeks later had not happened.]
But
one of the triggers that finally motivated me to commit to this SCRIPT FRENZY
venture is my recent meeting this past Thursday night (April 4) with another
filmmaker who’s working on his own screenplay. His name is Joey S., and he’s a
college freshman.
I
first met Joey on-line over a year ago through a Facebook group either for
local horror fans or for local filmmakers. He basically said that he had
written a script for a film, but it was his first time doing so, and he was
looking for anyone who might have advice regarding his screenplay and
screenwriting.
Well,
I figured: What the hell.
I’m
always blabbering on and ON about writing screenplays and thinking about ideas
and the writing process, and, I believe, just prior to Joey’s request for
feedback, I had personally encountered some positive periods of writing on my
own, surprisingly. The script I was working on then (and now, actually, but
we’ll get to that), is a genre story that I’m calling HORROR MOVIE (merely a
working title). So, basically, at the time, even though I had never written a
finished draft of a screenplay before (and I still haven’t!), I was feeling
pretty confident with my writing abilities based on the few scenes I had
written from scratch and one I had re-written (HORROR MOVIE is based on an
original short script/plot synopsis by Carter Soles, and Carter and I hope to
start pre-production on this movie soon, like, perhaps starting this year. But
first we need a finished script!).
So,
I responded to Joey’s FB message and he sent me a copy of his zombie action
screenplay and I read it. And I had some very specific feedback which I gave
Joey in a long e-mail. And he responded positively, especially to some
suggestions and observations I made about his first scene.
Well,
in a nutshell, that’s how we met and that’s how we know each other: through the
screenwriting process.
Over
a year later, he’s still working on the same idea. The difference is, he was a
high school senior last year and now he’s a freshman at a local college and
majoring in Film and Television Production. He tried to shoot his film last
year but had a hard time getting various locations. I even tried to help him
with a location where I work, and then that fell through, to my chagrin.
But
now I think he may have a little better luck with his location issues.In the meantime, he’s still working on his original screenplay, and he e-mailed me recently to see if I wanted to read his latest draft and share some thoughts.
So,
we met at Hotdog Heaven on Williams St. and Harlem Rd. in the Buffalo area and
we talked for a couple hours over dinner (Texas hots, baby!) about Joey’s
screenplay.
I
had fun. I always enjoy talking about filmmaking and this was especially
enjoyable because it was a discussion about an actual project going on, not
some armchair discussion about some Hollywood film. Joey seemed to enjoy
himself as well, although I think I gave him a (good-natured) hard time about
some of his writing choices, especially with regard to his main character. I’m
charmingly obnoxious.What was very gratifying for me was that he seemed receptive to some of my feedback, and whether or not he was going to employ any of my specific suggestions in the actual script, he at least recognized some of the issues I was bringing up. So, I felt it was a fruitful meeting of the minds.
Of
course, the upshot of all of this was: “(Script) Doctor, heal thyself!”
Yeah,
yeah, yeah! I know! I talk big about OTHER people’s projects, but what I have
done lately on my OWN???
Which
brings us to April 2013, and MY version of SCRIPT FRENZY, and my hope to “do a lot
of shitty writing” this month in order to complete a first draft of a
screenplay.
More
to come!
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