100 Days/1,000 Pages Screenwriting Challenge
// May 27th, 2010 // No Comments » // 100 Days/1,000 Pages, screenwriting
I suck at writing. I suck at planning to write. I suck at finding the time to write. I suck at finding the motivation to write.
That’s not a great thing for someone who wants to make a living as a writer. So what is a dreamer to do? I’m aware of my bad writing habits and have decided it’s time to change them. What can I do to jolt the lazy writing habits out of my system.
With me it’s usually all or nothing. Usually the latter. So I had to think of an extreme way for me to completely purge this lazy habit out of my system. So this is what I came up with.
Write a shit load of pages in a short amount of time. And put the whole thing online where people will hold me accountable if I slack off.
So I will write 10 pages a day for 100 days. No exceptions. In addition to that I’m also holding myself responsible for writing a blog post every day talking about the previous days writing journey.
10 pages + 100 days = 1,000 pages (roughly 10 feature length screenplays)
That’s cramming what is probably 2 to 3 years worth of work into just over 3 months.
Now there are stipulations here. Each screenplay must be fully outlined before I can begin writing. So while I’m working on one script I’ll also be outlining the next one. I cannot jump to another script until I finish the one I’m currently working on. I will not have time for writers block. 10 pages a day is no short order. I decided I can always write more than ten a day if I feel so inclined, but I will be responsible for ten more the next day. There will be no doubling up on one day so I can slack off the next.
Each of these scripts will be a speed draft though. Meaning no polishing or rewriting in this stage of the challenge. This is simply meant to get words on the page. Since I will be working from a full outline hopefully the scripts will have some sort of sound structure and plot to them. If not, then I’ll just address that in the rewrites.
As far as making the pages available to everyone to read, I’m a little undecided right now. Instead of putting pages up every day, I’ll probably just finish a complete draft, register it, and then put it up here for people to read.
June 7th, will be day 1. That makes day 100 on September 13th.
Oh by the way I have nothing prepared for my first script. I know the basic story concept I want to do but I haven’t started doing any prep work yet. Well I guess until today that is. Don’t ask me why but I’ve decided to go with a romantic comedy for the first script in this challenge. I really have no interest right now in rom coms but I had an idea for one the other day and I figured what the hell.
I hope you’ll take your own journey along with me, and please leave comments and tell me all about it.
This is all about finding those internal flaws and taking action to eliminate them.
Stay tuned…
