I made it!!!!

What an experience…

30 days, 20.000 words, around 120 pages of movie script. I honestly thought it is going to be easy. Well, actually it is. All I have to do is write 667 words a day on the month of June. Simple. Everyone can do it.

Did I do it like that? Of course. HA! I lied. I can only manage to write on a daily basis for 4 days. After that, everything else was my top priority. My master thesis, work, grocery shopping, and of course on the free time I have, I procrastinate. So I ended up doing the last 14000 words in a week and the last 6000 words in the last 1.5 days. Typical ol’ me.

Here’s some of the lessons I learned during Script Frenzy month:

1. Should have tried writing a script before, just a little bit to test the water. I followed the advice of reading a script and watching the movie, but since I didn’t know how script writing really worked, I took notice at not so important things. For example, I note that the description in the script and how it is on the movie is the same but I didn’t notice how it is described.
2. Having a scriptwriting book on my side is good for confidence boost because at least I know I’m doing something right (at least the formatting).
3. Using a screen writing software like Celtx definitely helps a lot.
4. Should have plan a little bit more ahead. A day before the deadline, I still don’t know how the story would end, that’s really frustrating. Maybe it’s a mistake on my part for not being so talented in storytelling, which is exactly why I should do more planning.
5. The most important thing: DON’T GIVE UP. Even if you have tons of other deadline, even if your personal problems seemed to grow worse, even if your story is not as cool as you would think it is. Just stay there and keep writing. As long as it’s not yet 24:00 on June 30^th, there’s still time ;-). Believe me on this one. I’ve done it twice (on NaNoWriMo and Script Frenzy).

I hope that the Office of Letters and Light will do the Script Frenzy again next year. It has been a really great experience. I’m crossing my fingers that they will get enough money to cover the costs this year.