And next...

I implied that I only intended this blog as a supplement to Script Frenzy, but now that I started I figure it might as well tick along as a general writing blog.

I didn't spend my childhood writing fantasy stories, and indeed, I didn't spend all that much of my adulthood reading fiction (I have read far more non-fiction) - so quite where the writing bug came from I don't know.

Maybe because (bottom line) it only needs pencil and paper, no elaborate set-up or tools, and as story-telling it only needs a voice. Not that I expect the end of civilization as we know it, or to run entirely out of resources, but somewhere in there the simplicity does seem part of it.

Simple, however, as I used to say when teaching juggling (you could describe the cascade pattern as 'simple') does not necessarily mean 'easy'. I see simple as the opposite of complicated, and easy as the opposite of difficult.

Not that many people in talent shows try becoming jugglers, or animal trainers, piano players or tap dancers, because they look difficult. Almost everyone appears to think they can sing or tell jokes, though (and since soap operas cast for type, act). It looks 'simple'.

I guess writing also looks like something a lot of us think we can do...

So anyway, I soon got tired of the finger-exercises in 'How To Write' books, and have had more fun plunging in. So far I have written 3 novellas (50,000 words) with NaNoWriMo, and a film script at Script Frenzy. Not necessarily honed, or rewritten, but done. As I still don't quite know what I want to achieve, it seems a good idea to just keep going.

People have suggested autobiography (I seem to have had a colourful life) but somehow I can't get a handle on that. Too many people still alive who I might upset, too much soul-searching, perhaps too much honesty. Who can tell?

A few years back I even tried to compile a 'script' for a comic book (sorry, graphic novel) called Magical Means - and although it never got completely manifested, still I turned it into a short story and got some illustrations to go with it, and published online.

• Graphic novel - think visually, with minimum dialogue


• Film script - think visually, but practice dialogue exchanges


• Novels - play around with POVs, and the balance of plot, description, character arc, etc.

I will be amused when I find out what all this adds up to...

I have a certificate to prove it!

Today Script Frenzy turned on their measuring devices, and proved that I had 'won' by completing a 100 page script!

Like The Scarecrow, I may not have any brains, but at least I now have a certificate!

And like him, I might consider myself a Doctor of Thinkology!

"The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side. Oh joy! Rapture!"

Sunny day reading

I read "The Whole Equation", a quite wonderful book about the 'whole ecology' of Hollywood films, by David Thomson - all 400 pp of it.

For light relief I read "Wishful Drinking" by Carrie Fisher (hilarious and a touch sad).

Having completed the first draft so quickly I went into a kind of limbo, and just dropped the whole thing. It seemed far too soon to re-edit.

However, I am still thinking about it all. The other book I read this weekend was Crafty Screenwriting by Alex Epstein (subhead: Writing Movies that Get Made). However, I don't kid myself.

All of this seems like doing finger-exercises to me, practising writing. I really don't set out thinking I am going from rags to riches. The whole idea makes me chuckle. I didn't expect to go from street performer to Star Wars puppeteer and although that happened (a) I didn't plan it (b) I didn't remain in the 'rich and famous' world, but was just one more disposable Private in the film army.

The only reason I say all that? When I say I am writing a script, friends seem to assume that I am trying to make money or get famous or something.

Otherwise, what's the point?

Well, I never have had very good reasons for doing things. They have to amuse me. Whether or not they ever amuse anyone else seems neither here nor there.

So writing a paranormal movie might have some small chance of getting made.

Writing a movie saying there are no paranormal levels to existence, and that people are just kidding themselves, and conning others, seems doomed from the word go (like an atheist running for President of the USA). Hey ho. It may change in the re-write, of course, at least in the direction of ambiguity.


I think I want to amplify my 'baddie' who is currently a medium who is in it for the money, originally more of the 'sweet little old lady' type, but I want to move her in the direction of Madame Blavatsky, sitting there like Jabba the Hutt, rolling her cigarettes with haschish in (although modern Theosophists might skim over that aspect of HPB), a blatant and unrepentant charlatan who also seems to have had immense charisma, and a worshipping circle of followers.

As it happens, I have a soft spot for Madame, without her influence on my dad I suspect I wouldn't have been a vegetarian all my life, with a leaning to Hindu/Buddhist approaches to life (I didn't get that from The Sixties).

Slightly procrastinating on the edit!

the luxury of having time to read...

...and maybe even watch a movie or two.

This first run only involved watching much less tv for ten days, so hardly a sacrifice, but even so, now I have this first run, I feel free to spend a little time browsing.

I will be adding random links for myself here...you're welcome to browse them, too...for me this post is just a set of bookmarks.

Wikipedia on Screenplay

ScriptWriters Network on format, etc

ScriptWriters Network on Hollywood Outreach (yeah, it costs money)

FinalDraft on Script Rules

First Draft is in the can!

I had almost got there, so did a bit of hacking away during my early lunch, and have now got 100 pages of film script!

Just as it is, sufficient to claim success at Screen Frenzy, but I have the rest of April to get it up on the board as index cards, and tweak it around. If, in the process, I hack too much away, I can always post this version come the Great Reckoning.

Almost the whole thing

I have gotten to the end but fallen slightly short.

I have 96 pages, but I already ended the story.

it might prove the 'natural' length, of course, but I feel sure I can find room to expand, either with the stage directions, or the descriptions of settings, etc.

Or add expanded scenes.

Essentially, I have a rough draft! Whoopee!