So, you’re thinking about writing a script in a month as part of the month long Script Frenzy (Screnzy) challenge? This sister event from the people behind NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) gives you the chance to challenge yourself to write a 100 page script in 30 days this April. I’m here to try to give you some tips to help you complete this huge goal.
The best advice about writing that I ever read was in a book so old that the author recommend that, if you were serious about writing, you really ought get a typewriter (no lie). The advice was that the stuff you write when you are totally inspired, when put side by side with the stuff you wrote when it was very slow going and you forced yourself, are the same quality. Sure, writing is easier when you are inspired, but, in the end, if you only wait to write when you are inspired, you will never get anything done.
If you don’t want to write or don’t feel like writing, do it anyway. Take that chance to plod through those scenes you aren’t excited about. As you write them, they will feel terrible. Don’t worry about it. When you go back and read later, they will be better than you remember and you will have moved the plot of your book along which is all that matters.
That’s why that 100 page goal is so helpful. Focus on the page count and don’t worry about quality. Because once you go back and look, most of the time you’ll hit quality without realizing it.
The muse is a fickle bitch. You don’t need her.
Hillary DePiano is a playwright, fiction and non-fiction writer who loves writing of all kinds except for writing bios like this.
