2022 Zero Draft Thirty September Challenge: Day 6

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

Zero Draft Thirty: Day 6.

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!

Today’s Writing Quote

“Almost any story becomes a visual enactment of the psychological dilemmas faced by the lead character.”

— Arash Amel

Today’s Inspirational Video

From The Lonely Island:

Hey, why not YOU! Finish that script! Sell it for high-six figures! It happened to me! It could happen to you!

Today’s Anita Loos Award winner: Alyssa Marshall.

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

Day 4 and I finally crank out some pages. This week was stupid stressful at work.

Day 1 was spent looking at my script for 2 hours, obsessing not about it, but how crappy the week went.

Day 2 was even worse.

Day 3 I get a pass. Had plans for the day anyway.

Then comes Day 4. Today. I have calmed down. Now the scene. I’m on page 50 of my script and I can’t get thru this scene. So I decide this: move on, get SOMETHING done! So I skipped that scene and carried on to the next.

I go to bed now, saving on page 60.

First off, I admire Alyssa’s courage in sharing her writing struggles. Writing is hard! But we’re trained since childhood not to show our weakness or moments of doubt (or perhaps it was just my childhood, raised a Southern Baptist with an Air Force Colonel for a father).

As writers, we should be able to acknowledge how damn challenging it is to write. And that’s one of the reasons why the Zero Draft Thirty group or any other writers group can be helpful: to have a place where we can go to seek support.

But the other thing about Alyssa’s post is how she worked her way through a bit of a writer’s block: One scene stymied her? Fine. Move on to the next scene. Just get writing. And I’ll bet that if that troublesome scene didn’t reveal the solution by now, it will and soon.

Here’s the thing: You do NOT need to write in sequential order! If you’re stuck … or feeling unmotivated by a scene … or just needing an uplift … go to a scene you can’t WAIT to write. Then write it! Pretty soon, it’s hours later and you’ve pounded out ten or more pages.

For that inspiration, the recipient of today’s Anita Loos Award is Alyssa Marshall!

Congratulations, Alyssa!

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

Now Zeronauts, Scampers, Word Warriors, and Outlaws…

SHARE YOUR FEELINGS!

WRITE THE NEXT SCENE!

SPREAD THE WORD!

GO WRITE!