I’m visiting with one of my best friends now whose son, my godson, tragically died in October. This is a part of why I haven’t been writing since that time. I’ve also been trying to prioritize my own creative writing, but I’ve not had an easy time getting those pages in, either. It’s cold and […]
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Happy 2010!
I wanted to wish all my readers all over the globe a happy new year! Good luck with the writing. I know it can be an isolating process, but you can do it. Email me if you have any questions or need any help! Screenwritertoscreenwriter (at) gmail.com
AAA Screenplay Contest: Access, Acclaim, Achievement
FYI The 2010 AAA Screenplay Contest, sponsored by Creative Screenwriting Magazine, officially opens Nov. 30, 2009. But if you want to enter a script early and get quick consideration for our unique “Best Opening” prize, you can beat the official opening by browsing to: http://creativescreenwriting.com/aaa/index.html Why Should You Enter the AAA Screenplay Contest? To boost […]
CineStory: Screenwriting Mentorship at Its Best
CineStory is a non-profit that provides mentorship opportunities for screenwriters. This means they have a collection of working industry professionals (agents, producers, writers) and they offer non-professional screenwriters the opportunity to workshop their screenplays and ask questions in a personalized environment. Pam Pierce is the heart and soul behind CineStory. She started it, I believe, […]
Q&A: All Screenwriting Competitions Are Not Created Equal
Jamie asks: So, I’m just starting to get familiar with the world of screenwriting competitions, and I’m assuming they’re not all created equal. Are there any drawbacks to entering more than one (several even) with the same script? It seems like some contests might require that you don’t submit your script to any other contests? […]
Inside Out vs. Outside In
By Monica on November 14, 2009 in Character, Genre, Ideas, Logical World, Process, Story, Theme, Uncategorized
The great debate: character to story or concept to character. Face it: you’re either one or the other. If you think you’re both at the same time, I’d really love to hear from you and learn how you do it, because it seems to me there’s a huge canyon in between and I’m waiting for […]
Stay Informed: ScriptShadow Blog
ScriptShadow is a fantastic blog where you can read about new scripts out there and also download many of them. Many of the ones linked are Black List scripts. Head’s Up! And a big thank you to Mr. Carson Reeves!
The Black List
Just an FYI, The Black List now officially has its own Website. The Black List is basically a list of scripts that film studio executives and producers love from that calendar year. I imagine they’ll publish the results later on this year.
The Brown List
Here’s a link to the Brown List – a list of the most and least-liked entertainment executives. Enjoy!
Do You Mind Giving Me a Boost?
So I’ve been really busy lately and wasn’t feeling a spark about the blog, because it’s another thing to get done, and then someone posted a really fantastic comment that made me feel good about the work and what I’m trying to do here. It lit it up. That comment turned into an email exchange […]
Lame, I know. Lame.
An update so you all don’t think I’ve fallen off a cliff somewhere in my blind pursuit of a great story. The real story here is that I’ve been busy writing – which is a great thing. The bad part is that my blog has taken a back seat to the writing. Now I’m back […]
12th Annual Scriptapalooza International Screenplay Competition OPENS
12th Annual Scriptapalooza International Screenplay Competition OPENS early deadline is January 5th www.scriptapalooza.com Why should you submit your script to Scriptapalooza? -Grand Prize: $10,000 -All the reading is done by 90 production companies -Entertainment Weekly Magazine calls us ‘One of the Best’ -We promote the winners, runners-up, finalists and semifinalists for a full year -We […]
Deadlines: A Lesson in How Not To Psych Yourself Out
aka Working With Your Internal Critic So over the past couple of weeks I’ve been writing a draft for a deadline. It was a pretty tight deadline – but I was determined to finish and to do the best that I could. I decided that I would assign a page count per day and get […]
Different Stories Call for Different Techniques
My standard technique for approaching story has been pretty static since I studied in private workshop with Syd Field years ago, although was honed at AFI: start with the six beats, write a synopsis, card out my story, create the beat sheet, and then write the script based on my beat sheet. Now that I’ve […]
When in a Draft: Re-Read Your Own Pages
I’ve been working on a draft these past couple of weeks, so I have the writing process on my mind. I was chatting with a couple of writer friends the other day and they both said when they’re drafting, they start the writing day by re-reading the previous day’s pages and editing them. This helps […]