2022 Zero Draft Thirty March Challenge: Day 9

One month. FADE IN to FADE OUT. Creativity meets Productivity.

Write an entire draft of a script in March — FADE IN. FADE OUT. Or any sort of creative goal you have in front of you.

Feature length movie screenplay. Original TV pilot. Rewrite a current project. Break a story in prep. Generate a month’s worth of story concepts.

Whatever you feel will ratchet your creative ambitions into overdrive…

DO THAT!

As for me, I will spend the month co-writing a feature film spec script. It’s based on a story concept I came up with late last year and it may be the strongest comedy idea I’ve ever worked on. My writing partner and I have spent the first two months of the year on character development and breaking story. Now it’s time to jam out a first draft!

If you join the Challenge, I will be right there with you writing each and every day in March! Let’s do this together!

To download your very own Zero Draft Thirty calendar — designed and created by Steven Dudley — and track your daily progress.

On Twitter, use this hashtag: #ZD30SCRIPT.

Join the Zero Draft Thirty Facebook Group: Here. 4,500+ members strong.

Today’s Writing Quote

“The point is getting it all down, even if it’s crap or incomprehensible to anyone but you.”

— Warren Ellis

Today’s Inspirational Video

A video produced by the Writers Guild Foundation called Words:

It was released in 1987, the year I joined the Guild. I remember seeing it several times and it inspired me as I pushed myself to learn the craft.

Today’s Loos Award winner: Betty Sullivan.

Over at the Zero Draft Thirty Facebook group page, Betty posted this:

For the first time I’m way off my writing goals. COViD, death in family, quitting my job and fixing up my house to make it an Airbnb and moving to another house. I know you all have similar stories. I’ve decided to take major inspiration from the movie What About Bob? When he goes to therapy he’s told to take life in baby steps. I’m baby stepping through this month. Almost finished with the first act of my second pass of my outline. Hope to finish this week. There’s hope for all of us if we just take baby steps. This group is the heartland of screenwriting.

What About Bob? A tour de force by Bill Murray. Here’s a nifty set of clips from the movie which highlights Bob’s “baby steps.”

Betty is right. The zero draft approach to writing is baby steps. Baby steps today. Baby steps tomorrow. Baby steps the next day. And before you know it … you’ve got a draft. It may be a shitty first draft, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Why?

Because that puts you on the path to rewriting it into a not shitty draft. Then rewrite it again into a decent draft. Then rewrite it again into an okay draft.

You get the picture (writing is rewriting).

But it all starts with a zero draft. And you attain a zero draft by taking a series of baby steps.

For that inspiration, today’s recipient of the Ben Hecht Award is Betty Sullivan!

For your chance to win the Ben Hecht Award, one given away each day during the Challenge, post something inspiring, here on the blog, via Twitter, or the Facebook group.

For background on how the Zero Draft Challenge came into being and what it is, go here, here, and here.

Zero Draft Thirty: Day 1
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 2
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 3
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 4
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 5
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 6
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 7
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 8

Join the Zero Draft Thirty Facebook Group: Here. 4,500+ members strong.

Now Zeronauts, Scampers, Word Warriors, and Outlaws…

SPREAD THE WORD!

GO WRITE!

POUND OUT PAGES!

BABY STEPS!

TIME TO GET IT DONE!