Awesome Screenplay Now Available for Bidding War!

Uh, yeah. Sure. We'll get back to you on that.

Anyway... just completed an exhaustive rewrite of last April's Script Frenzy project "Nick of Time" and sent it off to the agent. I put a lot of work into getting it as close to "just right" as I could and in general, I'm very pleased with how it turned out. As I've mentioned before, I think it would make a fun flick -- either as effects-laden live action or as an animated flick in the style of "Howl's Moving Castle". It's kid-centric sci fi. Anybody know anyone at Studio Ghibli?

I should probably participate in next month's Frenzy, but the act of just having "finished" a screenplay and the desire to concentrate on completing the first draft of my 2009 NaNo manuscript are making me hesitate. You can also do TV scripts, comic books, and stage plays as part of the challenge so maybe I'll try one of those. We'll see.

In other news, Popcornopolis' Zebra Chocolate is the new crack.

Onward!

A Productive Week

Been a busy little robot this week.

Got my Script Frenzy screenplay over to the agent on Thursday. I'm very happy with how it turned out. Hope he likes it. I changed the name from "Timer" to "Nick of Time" for reasons stated earlier. Here's how I pitched it:

"Aimed at a youth audience this is a "flexible" script -- existing comfortably, imo, in a number of niches ranging from a big budget live action/cgi extravaganza through a Nick or D.C. original movie (personally, I'd love to see it as an anime style flick in the vein of Miyazaki's "Howl's Moving Castle", but we can talk about that)."

Agents always ask which niche you see the script falling into -- I'm guessing it helps them decide how they're going to position it. You'll note that I'm not going public with any of the script's content as I'm a little superstitious/paranoid about describing that kind of thing until the agent's had a chance to look at it and it's out on the market.

Got a significant chunk of my outline done for "Caden Brave", my 2009 NaNo effort. All of the main characters are laid out. They're archetypal, but that's how I roll.

Twenty more days until the National Novel Writing Month kicks off. If you're still thinking about joining in, now's the time to sign up and start working on your outline. If you decide to go for it, look me up under the author name of "sillyroger". We can be "buddies" and motivate/annoy each other into action during November.

And finally, got my second Scooby script approved. These are a hoot to write and I hope the kids enjoy watching the show as much as I do writing it.

30 Days and Counting

The craziness that is National Novel Writing Month starts at midnight on November 1st, 2009. If you've ever flapped your lips about "someday writing a novel", then I'm putting you on notice that someday is almost here. Sign up and write the damned thing! Seriously though, it's a lot of fun and a great kick in the pants for those who (like me) thrive on a deadline. I've enjoyed and benefited from it enough that this will be my third year of cranking out middle grade November prose. Check out their site and then ask yourself, "Other than the fact that I'm a lazy mook, why wouldn't I do this?"

In other news --

• Finished my second draft of "Magic Man" my 2008 NaNo project and have sent it off to trusty beta reader JZ. On balance, I'm quite pleased with it but I sure he'll find plenty of wtf things for me to fix.

• I should be finished with my 2009 Script Frenzy effort "Timer" by the end of this weekend. I've got to finesse the final scene (to make sure that all the main characters get their due) and will probably change the title as 1) there was a recent indie film by the same name and 2) the original reasons for giving my main character that nickname never really made it into the script. Then it's off to the agent.

That's it for now. Get busy on that novel outline!

Finally!

Well, it took longer than I'd expected but I finally finished my screenplay rewrite and sent it off to a trusted reader. He'll give notes which I'll incorporate before sending it off to my writing agents (who will no doubt have additional notes). All part of the process.

I'm very pleased with how this script is turning out. Full of sci fi action and with a healthy dose of comedy, it'd be a movie that I'd like to see if I were a kid. Hopefully that translates into appealing to the current batch of fresh humans.

Like I mentioned before, it'll either make a cool cgi-heavy live action flick or an awesome animated adventure in the style of Japanese anime (with characters not quite as bouncy as the figure to the left). I wouldn't complain either way.

Done! Done! Done! Well, Almost.

Finished up a rough first draft of my Script Frenzy screenplay this weekend. It ended up being 124 pages long. I'd say the last 24 pages took me longer to write than the first 100 for a variety of reasons including time travel, world building logic, and an intense action sequence at the very end. My tiny brain is throbbing but it felt great to type "The End" at the bottom of the page yesterday.

Now the fun part begins -- the editing. The goal is to crank on the rewrite this week and hopefully get it to my trusted beta readers by early next week.

Frenzied Finish

I am pleased to announce that I beat the Script Frenzy challenge late last week and have been using the remaining days to finish my script. I'm guesstimating that it will clock out at around 120 pages -- way too long as an average screenplay runs between 100-110. But not to worry. Editing will commence immediately following completion of the first draft.

I really like the script and think/hope kids will like it too. Lots of exciting action, a fun sci fi storyline, and some interesting kid characters that have a nice arc. What's not to like?

Half-Frenzied

Reached page 55 today so I'm over half way to my goal of 100 pages by the end of the month. A screenplay certainly utilizes a different set of writing muscles than a novel -- much more dialogue than description, no internal monologues, present tense rather than past -- that sort of thing. In general, I'm finding it "easier" as long as I remember to keep the writing uncomplicated and to the point. No room in a screenplay for the kind of richly descriptive writing that you need to do in a novel. Economy is the watchword when writing for the silver screen.

That being said, it still has to be an entertaining enough read that the script readers will want to send it up the food chain. After all, what screenwriter doesn't dream of seeing his script produced?

A Scripting Fool

Well, only two days into Script Frenzy and I find myself in the very pleasant position of being 16 pages into my script -- and liking it, too! It's called Timer and can best be described as a Family/Youth/Action/SciFi/Comedy. Yeah, that's what I'd call it. I think it might make a great middle grade novel so don't be surprised if that title shows up on my NaNo page in the fall. As I've mentioned before, I find that screenplays make great expanded outlines for novels as you've been able to work out a lot of the kinks already.

Script Frenzy

Brought to you by the same fine folks who run the NaNoWriMo event each November, Script Frenzy is the "Screenplays, stage plays, TV shows, short films, and graphic novels" version of that challenge. It starts at midnight on April 1st and ends at midnight on April 30th. To put it simply, your task is to produce "100 pages of original scripted material in 30 days." Quite a reasonable goal, in my opinion.

Their website is full of helpful info on formatting, outlining, and a lot of other things relating to scripts so go over and check it out.

As I've mentioned before about NaNoWriMo, deadlines are a great personal motivator so I decided to give it a shot this year. Care to join me?