Have you ever heard of Script Frenzy? It’s a sister project to NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. If you’ve never heard of either, then let me give you the quick run-down.
NaNoWriMo is a chance to, as its name implies, write a novel within one month. It’s an aggressive goal and a demanding schedule. Set for every November, one has 30 days to complete 50,000 words! If you do the math, that’s about 1667 words a day.
Script Frenzy is another writing project in the spirit of NaNoWriMo, but instead — once again as its name implies — you write a script in a month. It seems like a less aggressive goal, less demanding schedule. For April, one has 30 days to complete 100 pages. 3 1/3 pages a day.
My friends and fellow About 12 Minutes contributers, Jon Tilton and Chris Scott, joined NaNoWriMo 2009 and each failed. Chris logged the most words, reaching almost 1/10th the goal. Jon forgot to log in his numbers so I don’t know how far he made it. And my miserable failure clocked in at 3,984.
This year, I don’t know any friends who will be participating, but I am fairly certain I will be participating. Philly has their kickoff party—2pm today at Capogiro—and I’ll need to get psyched up for this. Screenwriting is a difficult thing, just like novel-writing. It’s a completely different medium that has to always be in motion, unlike the novel which can stop and ponder whenever it wants, with little regard for pace.
I feel more comfortable writing screenplays. Of course, I did take a screenwriting course at uni, and I didn’t take a novel-writing course.
In Intro To Screenwriting, I got an A. in Advanced Screenwriting, I got a C+
In preparation, I’m finally sitting down with the notes I wrote for the novel, and the ~4000 words written. I’ll be adapting that story into a screenplay. I already have a great death scene planned. And I dug up my old copy of Movie Magic Screenwriter 2000, the serial number, installed it on my laptop, and I’m basically ready to go. Movie Magic Screenwriter has devolved about 1,994 version numbers and is back to version 6. I’m sure there are some great improvements, but unless Write Brothers, Inc are willing to give me a pro bono copy, I have to stick with the latest that they have.
For anyone who wasn’t lucky enough to find their old CDs, or don’t even have a handy screenwriting software, check out Celtx. It’s free software, with some great add-ons you can pay for. My favorite feature is the integrated storyboard feature. With the downloadable Art Packs, you don’t even need a real artist to storyboard your production!
In all fairness, though, Celtx is more than just screenwriting software. Straight from their site, “Celtx is the world’s first all-in-one media pre-production system. It replaces ‘paper & binder’ pre-production with a digital approach that’s more complete, simpler to work with, and easier to share.” Their screenwriting module is pretty clunky, though, and I tried using it for three minutes before deciding to take the hour digging up MM2k.
For those with Macs, Script Frenzy suggests trying out Storyist. Their special downloadable trial (at the bottom of the page) will get it to you for free until May 15th, with plenty of time after April 30 for revision and printing.
Well, here’s to oiling up some old rusty joints and getting those old writing gears spinning again.Are you, or is anyone you know participating in Script Frenzy?
No credit for MY NaNo2009 victory, eh? I see how it is!
And here I was just stopping by to ask if you thought I should show up and participate in the frenzy!
Of course not! You aren’t a fellow a12m contributor!
Also, you weren’t in my NaNoWriMo friends list. I’m sorry. I also forgot to mention failed NaNoWriMoer Melissa, who got 1,000-some words into it, too. :’(
And yes I think you should! MORE WRITING!!!!! Have you written a screenplay before? I think it’s more fun than novel-writing. All new rules, and completely different challenges!
I LOVE IT! ♥
I’ve never done a screenplay before, no! Closest I’ve come is doing panel layout for Ash’s Ninja Kitties. But one of my writer-group peeps here in Austin is local ML for this, so she’s been asking me if I’m in or not.
So yeah, I’ll go get my sign-up on now. Still have no plot, though! This could be bad… I guess there’s still 4 more days to come up with one!
I have to come up with a new plot. The story I had in mind seems too ambitious.
HOORAY FOR SCRIPT FRENZY!
Is too ambitious a bad thing? Better to have too much than to run out of steam halfway through, I say!
I just meant that it would take up more than 100 pages, and I want a story that would fit neatly into 100, not 200.
I am already behind. No time to work on this until the end of next week, Ugh…