2025 Zero Draft Thirty March Challenge: Day 26

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

Scott Myers

26 Mar 2025 • 4 min read

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

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

Zero Draft Thirty: Day 26.

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

“Screenplays don’t have to read like an instruction manual for a refrigerator. You can write them as a pleasurable read.”

— William Goldman

Today’s Inspirational Video

Check out the documentary above featuring one of the great thinkers about Story, Creativity, and Life.

Campbell said: “Follow your bliss. The bliss is the message of God to yourself. That’s where your life is.” As writers, we follow our bliss every time we sit down to engage our stories. In that enthusiasm, we come alive.

Today’s Daily Dialogue Inspiration

I have dedicated the 2025 Zero Draft Thirty March Challenge to memorable movie dialogue. Today: Repo Man.

Otto and Miller in vacant lot under bridge

Otto holds up book he’s about to throw in burning garbage can. Book says “Dioretix: The Science of Matter over Mind. By A. Rum Bi…”

Miller: A lot of people don’t realize what’s really going on. They view life as a bunch of unconnected incidences and things. They don’t realize that there’s this like lattice of coincidence that lays on top of everything. I’ll Give you an example, show you what I mean. Suppose you thinking about a plate of shrimp. Suddenly somebody will say like plate or shrimp or plate of shrimp out of the blue no explanation. No point in looking for one either. It’s all part of a cosmic unconsciousness.

Otto: You eat a lot of acid Miller, back in the hippie days?

Miller: I’ll give you another instance. You know the way everybody’s into weirdness right now. Books in all the supermarkets about Bermuda triangles, UFO’s, how the Mayans invented television. That kind of thing.

Otto: I don’t read them books.

Miller: Well the way I see it it’s exactly the same. There ain’t no difference between a flying saucer and a time machine. People get so hung up on specifics. They miss out on seeing the whole thing. Take South America for example. In South America thousands of people go missing every year. Nobody knows where they go. They just like disappear. But if you think about it for a minute, you realize something. There had to be a time when there was no people. Right?

Otto: Yeah. I guess.

Miller: Well, where did all these people come from? Hmmm? I’ll tell you where. The future. Where did all these people disappear to? Hmmm?

Otto: The past?

Miller: That’s right and how did they get there?

Otto: How the fuck (hell) do I know?

Miller: Flying saucers. Which are really? Yeah you got it. Time machines. I think a lot about this kind of stuff. I do my best thinking on the bus. That how come I don’t drive, see?

Otto: You don’t even know how to drive.

Miller: I don’t want to know how. I don’t want to learn. See? The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.

Miller’s wisdom. It’s a thing that runs through the movie. Don’t let yourself get swept up into his deep (???) insights in this scene and miss out on the inspiration for today’s writing session:

COSMIC UNCONSCIOUSNESS!

What does it mean? Only Miller knows. Perhaps he’s stumbling onto his inner Carl Jung and his theory of the collective unconscious. Whatever he means, as a writer here’s what I take from it.

The cosmic unconsciousness is that state of being where you’re writing … then you look at the clock … and it’s two hours later.

Where did the time go? You don’t care. You did a swap with the cosmos enabling you to get into such a state of creative flow … time vanished.

May you achieve that state of cosmic unconsciousness today!

If you haven’t seen Repo Man, check it out.

For your chance to win the Dalton Trumbo Award, post something inspiring, here on the blog or the Facebook group.

Now Zeronauts …

Seek out the collective unconsciousness.

Get into the Flow.

See what magic emerges from your fingertips today.

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