Unscripted

After two years of writing novels for NaNoWriMo, I decided to give the first ever Script Frenzy a try. If I’ve learned anything from NaNoWriMo it’s that my writing tends to be heavy on dialogue, light on description — which seems like it would translate well to screenplays.

When I first heard the challenge would be 20,000 words in 30 days I thought, “This will be a piece of cake.” After doing 50,000 words in a month — not once, but twice — this sounded like a vacation. As June grew closer, I started to worry I was underestimating the task. Writing a screenplay is very different from writing a novel, which could mean it’s also more difficult.

Two days in I’m back to being pretty confident. I’m ahead in my word count, which is highly unusual for me. It’s also not taking me very long to reach my goal each day. Part of that is because of Celtx, an absolutely incredible piece of open-source screenwriting software. It’s very easy to use, and it takes care of all the formatting so you can concentrate on writing.

I don’t have aspirations of being a screenwriter, but it’s a fun little creativity challenge, and an adventure — and adventure is good for the soul.

Plus, if I ever encounter someone famous I’ll have something to ask them to read and therefore make them feel awkward about the whole meeting.