2022 Zero Draft Thirty September Challenge: Day 17

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

Zero Draft Thirty: Day 17.

Write an entire draft of a script in September — 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!

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. 4,600+ members strong.

Today’s Writing Quote

“A movie is about an emotional struggle. The physical struggle is a manifestation of that.”

— John Gary

Today’s Inspirational Video

What if a movie reviewer took LSD before screening some movies? That’s the premise of this SNL skit.

Today’s Anita Loos Award winner: Felicia Casey Stewart.

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

Damn straight. Hard work. I’ve had several writing projects the last few years including pounding out 100k+ words for The Protagonist’s Journey: An Introduction to Character-Driven Screenwriting and Storytelling. There have been many days when I would wake up and absolutely dread having to sit down to write. This was especially so with TPJ because it was so unlike writing a screenplay. Every sentence, I was focused on balancing the academic content with telling a story and making the book readable.

That was hard. Really, really hard.

Even with the scripted projects including my latest spec script. Days where I wanted nothing more than to just toss aside the project.

But if the Zero Draft Thirty Challenge teaches us anything, it’s this.

Just write.

Even if what you write doesn’t even hit the level of a first draft. Rather, it’s just words on the page, a zero draft.

Just write.

Because you know what?

Those words? That page? That’s something.

And something is better than nothing.

You do that day after day … then revise your pages again and again … eventually, you have more than something.

And that more than something can become quite special.

The Protagonist’s Journey was Amazon’s #1 Best Seller in Film & Television for over three months after it was released.

It’s still regularly among the top twenty books in that category.

And the comedy spec script I just co-wrote? It’s going out to producers as we speak.

So yes, writing is hard. Perhaps the hardest part is simply sitting down to put fingers onto keyboard … and do the work.

But that’s what we do. And because of that reminder … the recognition of how hard it is… the recipient of today’s Anita Loos Award is Felicia Casey Stewart!

Congratulations, Felicia!

To learn more about Anita Loos and her illustrious career as a screenwriter, playwright, director, and journalist, go here.

For your chance to win the Anita Loos 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 to be 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
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 9
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 10
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 11
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 12
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 13
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 14
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 15
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 16

Now Zeronauts, Scampers, Word Warriors, and Outlaws…

WRITING IS HARD … SO WORK HARDER!

GO WRITE!