Friday 19^th June 2020

At the start of the year I did something a little different where I listed out my goals for the year. They covered a range of subjects from swordfighting to writing. The idea was to organise myself so that over the course of the year I not only moved forward on those things I already had planned but I also learnt a few new skills.

One of those skills was screenwriting.

Personally, I always want my primary writing to be novels. There’s something about the autonomy of control when it comes to a novel that I like. I don’t see screenwriting becoming a major part of my life.

But A) especially as this year has gone on I think it important to diversify as a writer, and B) Who knows?

I’d cowritten a pilot of a sitcom some years back that had done well in a BBC competition but I’ve never written a movie.

Now the way I see it, to be good at something you have to be crap at it first. That doesn’t mean you don’t give it your best, but obviously it takes practise to fine tune your craft.

So I wanted to write a script or two this year. First. To learn through doing. I wanted to give it a go free from expectation and be able to then look at what I created and see where I needed to improve. Second. To give myself something different. Novels have become a serious business now. Don’t get me wrong, I still write primarily for me, but there’s an expectation I put on myself.

It would be a chance to learn Final Draft and do something a little different.

The schedule according to my plan from the start of the year was to learn the tools over the summer and then in the fall write a couple of scripts, one on my own, one with a friend.

Now, the one thing I really don’t understand about screenwriting is where you send it? With short stories there are markets you can find online. With novels there are agents in the Writers and Artists Yearbook. But screenplays? I have no idea where to submit those.

But an opportunity has arrived. It’s an open call for pitches. And as part of the pitch you need to send an unrelated completed screenplay.

The deadline is incredibly tight, probably too tight, but I have ideas ready to go.

I was telling a friend the other day that I really need a project, and whilst I’m still working on some outlines, it’s not a full blown project.

I’d probably need to write a script in about a week. I can do that, I tell myself. If anything, the timescales would stop me trying to worry about it being perfect and just focus on making it good.

It seems like a perfect opportunity for me and one I know I’ll regret if I don’t at least try.

So I’ll spend the weekend trying to plan out a script based on everything I’ve learnt from my recent forays into storycraft, with the view to start writing it next week.

There’s every chance I might fail. The timescales are ridiculously tight… but even if I write only a page of script, it’s something.

Suddenly I’ve gone from having no writing projects to having a bunch to do. I’m not sure I’m mentally geared up for it as I’m still in lockdown sloth mode, but it’ll be fun to give it a go.