Posts Tagged ‘Script Frenzy’
Saving Up to Doubt Less
Posted on: April 8, 2010
The moment has come where bitching and complaining has turned into action. The reason I’ve been non-blogging (how many ‘g’s go into this made up word) is a result of big changes in my life. I said I wanted more money to get a new computer; so I took a temp job and now I have a new shiny MacBook. Every time I use it I still wrap it back in its original packaging to be put away in a special cubby. I said I wanted to break into films; I now have a job doing coverage for an executive producer. I said I want to be a writer; I will be completing my first screenplay by the end of the month with Script Frenzy and a director/producer is interested in my plays. I said I wanted to move in six months; I just got offered a second job that will help me pay off my debt and for the first time since 12th grade I will be building savings. Things ‘are a changing.’
With my art I have managed to be focused with a fuzzy lens. When convenient I say I’m an actor, then at times I’m a writer depending on the hoops I prefer to jump at the time. Switching between the two then became an excuse for not succeeding in the other. “I’m not really acting right now so I can focus on my writing.” When the writing gets hard I look to acting again. I run that treadmill. The same can be said about grabbing the occasional well paid job over what I really want to do.
We talk about money so much in this city, how expensive rent is, food, quenching a growing booze habit to cope with living in the crux of human hubbub. To me, and many, the word SAVINGS is like Narnia, it is something that only exists in fantasy. We work so hard to stay a float, swimming from one part time job to another. Snatching a few dollars between strokes in hopes of reaching financial paradise. The idea of making money doing what we love is the dream we keep on the boat for. Our growing fears about money and direction start to grow. Hesitation begins to burrow holes in the hull. When is it time to jump ship?
For the next six months I’ve decided to save and write, write and save. Swim without getting swallowed by the waves, the sharks, or my own doubt.
Re: Craigslist
Posted on: March 22, 2010
Last week was a great kickoff to turning twenty-nine. I started a new part-time gig that pays more, allows me some time to write, and the people I sit next to are thoroughly entertaining. Hopefully one of my co-workers doesn’t provide too much entertainment as she is bound to give birth any second now; seriously her due date is this Sunday. All and all it’s not too shabby of a desk job. Locked in a chair for eight hours makes having the internet a gift from God. Between searching for animals gone extinct and finding out that an Oscar isn’t so great for a relationship, I answer a phone call or two. As the saying goes, “idle hands make for the devil’s playground.” I’ve had to find other things to do with my time and avoid FB telling me to “catch up with” an ex or some random guy who I met for five seconds who decided we should be BFF’s (and uses that term).
I’ve tried to make this time productive. Writing my blog has been a great after lunch activity but what I find the most painful, the three-to-six slump. I try not to look at overstock.com or the trips to Cabo. Now I know who those pop-ups are for. I decided to find something to help bolster my career as a writer, so I turned to the wizard, Craig. Craig has a list of all the answers. You want a no-fee apartment you have to pay for, craigslist. You want to find a completer stranger to hook up with, craigslist. You want to find the answer to The Secret, craigslist. There is nothing you can’t find on craigslist. I was on the hunt for anything to do with film and television. I found it a little difficult promoting myself as a twenty-nine year old inter. There weren’t many takers.
One of my kind co-workers and I started chatting about writing. She was looking to get distracted from actually working, I needed a distraction from internet surfing. She told me about and organization called Script Frenzy. They challenge writers to stop talking about that amazing idea and just do it. Without judgment or prize money, the contest is thus: write a script in thirty days, the month of April, 100 pages. You simply log in your page count everyday. The goal is to write, write, write. The group sponsors “Write-Ins” where you gather with others passionately, angrily type or stare at there computer. Maybe communal frustration brings about progress, at least that’s the theory it seems these days in Washington. A nothing to lose situation, except of course, for time and sanity. I have no time and little sanity, nothing to lose, I signed up.
After I sat there pondering what the H-E double hokey sticks I was going to write, I checked my email as a distraction. There it was, a response. Someone actually sent a “Re” to my application. I submitted to a position as a reader, non-paid, for the film industry. I was finally being ‘re’garded. I had “the kind of background they were looking for.” They want to try me out so they sent a sample script that I was to read this hundred and nine page script, evaluate using their guidelines and send back within three days. I sent my coverage (that’s what the call it in the biz) back in less than 24 hours. Five pages ripping apart the screenplay. I disliked it on so many levels. When asked if I would recommend the script, I said pass. When I asked about the writer, I said consider. I thought the dialogue was strong and the idea was different but I felt disdain for the script. Maybe I felt guilty about “passing” on a fellow writer. I slammed the work of a fellow scribe. Here I was joining a couple thousand writers in the camaraderie of creative catharsis but thanks to craigslist I have become a critical cannibal .
buy the time ... 