2024 Zero Draft Thirty March Challenge: Day 10

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

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!

As for me, I will spend the month rewriting 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. Now to take it to the next level.

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

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. 5,100+ members strong.

Today’s Writing Quote

“Great writing gets you meetings, great concept gets you a sale, great characters get you jobs. All three get you a career.”

— F. Scott Frazier

Today’s Inspirational Video

Morgan Freeman reciting the poem “Invictus.”

Here is the poem written by William Ernest Henley:

Out of the night that covers me,
 Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be
 For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
 I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance
 My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
 Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years
 Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
 How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,
 I am the captain of my soul.

Today’s Motown Music Video

I have dedicated the 2024 Zero Draft Thirty March Challenge as Motown Music Month. Part of that decision is to honor one of the greatest record companies of all time (check out their history here). But mostly, it’s an excuse to feature awesome music to get you out of your chair, dance around the room for 5 minutes, churn up your creative juices, then sit right back down and write your ass off.

Today’s featured song: Marvin Gaye, “Ain’t That Peculiar” (1965).

Today’s Dalton Trumbo Award winner: Katie Haskins.

On Twitter, Katie tweeted this:

My response:

The Zero Draft Challenge is the perfect path forward for a writer who knows their story’s ending … but not much more. Keep that destination in mind with every scene you write. Eventually, you’ll get there.

And if you don’t have an ending figured …

Ask this question of your Protagonist: Why does THIS story HAVE to happen to YOU at THIS point?

I call it the Narrative Imperative.

The journey the Protagonist takes is the journey they need to take.

If you can zero in on that … there’s your ending.

Keep writing and the unknown … becomes known.

As inspiration for taking on the unknown, I’m happy to bestow today’s Dalton Trumbo Award to Katie Haskins!

Congratulations, Katie!

To learn more about Dalton Trumbo and his fascinating career as a screenwriter, go here.

For your chance to win the Dalton Trumbo 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
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 9

Now Zeronauts, Scamperers, Word Warriors, and Outlaws…

SPREAD THE WORD!

GO WRITE!

MAKE THE UNKNOWN … KNOWN!

SCAMPER ON!