One of the many reasons why I started blogging daily was to force me to actually sit down and write something every day. Sometimes just sitting down and knocking out a quick post is enough to get the fingers moving and the brain working.
Sometimes, though, for me at least, it’s not always enough. Sometimes I need a bigger push to put pen to paper and get some words down.
I decided this year on another personal challenge for myself. I made it a goal to enter writing competitions. As many as I can handle. Regardless of focus or genre. I was going to make myself work outside my comfort zone, with deadlines and rules and such.
And this was how I discovered NYC Midnight. They run a series of various writing challenges throughout the year. Just the kind of thing I was looking for.
That brings us to this week’s goal. I’ve signed up for NYC Midnight’s Screenwriting Challenge, which starts on Friday. The tricky part is I have never written a screenplay. I have never read a screenplay. I have a vague understanding of how they are structured, but not enough to try and actually write one myself. But come Friday, that’s exactly what I need to start doing.
So that means that, this week, I’ll be learning about the craft of screenwriting. And I’ll write about how that’s going here. Because this seems to be keeping me honest as I go. So if you’ve been curious as to how screenwriting works, stay tuned, because I am too! If all goes well, I’ll have learned enough over the next few days to write up an acceptable screenplay for the competition.