Finished my first script, the Nickelodeon fellowship and MY LIFE

MY WEEKEND: Horse racing, salsa dancing and coffee shop loitering.  onto my screenwriting news:

1. I finished the first draft of my first full length feature.  I’ll call this project UNTITLED ROAD TRIP MOVIE.

I would celebrate, but it’s freakin Monday…

I probably have a week or two of rewrites before it’s ready to send out.  For those of you who are curious about my process, I have it at the bottom of my post.

2.  The Nickelodeon fellowship application is due tomorrow.  I need to submit a personal application (with amazingly open questions like, provide a half-page bio) and a show spec.

these could be my friends…

The hardest part is definitely the show spec.  I’m currently working on one for Parks and Rec and for those of you who read my other blog, you would know that I work in parks and rec.  SOUNDS PERFECT. SOUNDS AMAZING. SO EASY.

Anything but.  I’ve never written within the confines of someone else’s work.  I’ve also never written for T.V. before. I guess, I’m at that point where I’m debating whether to even apply this year, or whether I should wait til next year.  I KNOW I’M HILARIOUS and GRAWSOME, but I hate submitting less than perfect work.  Anyone else applying for it?  I’ll update you on whether I actually did tomorrow (YEP, I threw a cliffhanger at you all).

3. I’m starting a new project - not sure which idea I want to expand on first.  I will keep you posted.

As promised, The Road Trip Movie Process:

-About 4 months ago, I knew I wanted to write a road trip movie.  I also knew that I wanted a very stubborn, controlling female lead.  Starting with this, I realized I needed an antagonist and I also needed a reason for the road trip.  This led me to my logline (for those of you who do not know, a logline is a brief summary of a film, often providing both a synopsis and an emotional “hook” to stimulate interest)

-I did extensive character studies of the main characters.  This was seriously about twenty pages of handwritten notes.  I wanted to know the characters inside and out.  Later, I would ask myself how would Charlie (the protagonist) respond to this situation? Would she get angry?  Would she bottle it inside? And the character studies would give me the groundwork to answer those questions.

-I did a three act outline that turned into a twenty page document.  This was by far the longest part of the process. I rewrote and rewrote this.  Tweaked things, added things.  I have a screenwriting teacher, and he had two main corrections for me: my Act 2 and Act 3 were far too short.  I also had to make sure that the main characters were the driving force  of the film.  I refused to start my script until my outline was solid.

-Once I felt that I liked my outline enough, I started the script.  This was about a three week process (it would have been much faster, if I could have dedicated myself to it full time).  Creating the outline saved me sooo much time with this. WRITE OUTLINES.  And that’s where I am today.

Two jobs, a new dog and me time (or why I’m failing at being productive)

Two jobs!  Well this is quite the change.I’ve always been the FUNemployed one (being without a job, yet having lots of time to enjoy fun activities during otherwise normal working hours).  I truly love my leisure time.  I actually look forward to my retirement.  Bingo, square dance classes and wearing awkward floral outfits really sounds like my idea of a great time.  (As a side note, I went to a “dry” bar aka a blow dry bar where a bunch of house wives were drinking mimosas as they got their hair done… it was amazing).

How I imagine my weekdays…

Now I have two REAL jobs. Mortgage lending and legal assistant.  I’m 25 and when I announced recently  that I may start working a 9-5 shift, friends commented “look who’s all grown up” and “Wait… You’re becoming an adult? What?”  What can I say, I’m a late bloomer.

So in terms of writing this week, I’ve been really failing.  Getting home at 10pm after work is tough.  All I want to do is watch TV, zone out and let the tv signals eat my brains (not in a zombie sense, more like pretend I’m brain dead sort of way).  Perhaps I can write in the mornings before work? …

…HAHA, that’s a gas.  We writers are the night owls of the functioning world.  No.  Not in the morning.

So my new plan is:

1.  Use my free time at my first job to focus entirely on writing, since there is a good amount of down time, especially in the mornings.

2. Dedicate the hours of 10pm-midnight to writing.  I may either work from home or find a coffee shop nearby that is open that late.  I don’t usually go to bed until 1am so this is doable.

3.  Have an eight hour shift on either Saturday or Sunday dedicated to writing my scripts.  I will schedule this in advanced.

4.  Turn off the internet if it is not necessary.  THIS IS HUGE.

This plan guarantees me at least 16 hours of writing a week, which is a start. If I could just get paid minimum wage to write my scripts, I would quit my better paying job immediately.  I love to write, BUT I also need money.  I guess, we newbie writers are at the hardest point.  We need to get our foot in the door and need to dedicate time to do this, but we also need to live and survive and not be homeless (that was not a run-on sentence at all). So it goes, I guess.