Cheet-ah

I gave in and changed my page goal to 30 pages… and now, having written 4 pages of my script, I am 13.33% finished.
I have a lot of writing to do between homework assignments this week!

There!

I did it!  I wrote 2 pages of my Screnzy script last night.  Whew.  It was quite the mental workout, I tell you!  I am now 4.44% of the way to my 45-page goal.  Which is great because now I have only 15 days to finish the other 96.66%…

I admit, I was scared that I would do something wrong, that I’d mess up the formatting and that it would turn into a complete mess.  Thanks to my handy-dandy Celtx program, the formatting was pretty easy.  The only thing that is a mess is my actual writing.  But that’s ok, because first drafts are normally a mess.

I’ve never written a script before, and I’ve heard comic book scripts are tricky but easier than other genres of script at the same time.   

Tricky, because most of the story is carried by the art, and there’s not much room for word balloons, so dialogue needs to be short and to the point.  (At least, this will be tricky for me because I tend to be long-winded and use fancy-shmancy words.)  

Easy, because… well, I’ll just quote Hope Larson, one of the pep-talkers for YWP Screnzy 2011: “It’s not like screenwriting, where one parenthetical too many or the wrong kind of brads will make or break you. A comic script need only make sense to you, your artist, and your editor.” 

I have to say, even though my brain is trying to rebel because I’m trying to force it to think differently (In comic panels and script format simultaneously) I think I will really enjoy this whole scripting business once I get the hang of it.

Now I am really beginning to feel the frenzy that invariably accompanies a writing event with a deadline.  But I guess that’s just motivation for me to set aside my latest manga (a Japanese comic) and get writing!

Guilty

Here we are, over 10 days into Screnzy, and I haven’t written a single page of my script!  I could kick myself.  I went and got caught up in writing out the plot of *another* story…. I think that brings my total number of stories into the 80s….
I am hoping to write at least a few pages of my comic book script this week!  I only have 20 days left to reach my Screnzy goal! >.<

But, I have good news– I’ve been working on my new story entirely in Celtx and I am extremely pleased with the program.  It allows me to organize my thoughts at a level I have never achieved before, and I’ve been able to capture ideas that otherwise might have been forgotten.

Script Frenzy!

In November I participated in the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) young writers event.  There, I heard about Script Frenzy (which happens in April) and thought, “Oh, that sounds fun!”. I then pushed it into the back of my mind – because April seemed like a long way off – and tried to focus on reaching my word-count goal for NaNoWriMo.  
I’m glad that NaNoWriMo sent me a reminder email last week about Script Frenzy, because it sounds like a lot of fun!

I am planning on writing a script for a one-volume comic book.  At first, I had no idea what I was going to write about!  Usually my head is swirling with story ideas, but whenever I thought about what to do for a comic book, my mind went totally blank!  Another Frenzy-er suggested that I forget about writing a comic and just focus on channeling my creativity to see what I came up with.  S/he also suggested that I could take a story idea that was collecting dust and resurrect it as my comic book script.  Both good ideas!

I’ve decided to go with the latter.  I picked a short story I started several months ago called “Set Me Free”. (I got the idea when I had a strange dream which mixed Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” with that animated movie “Treasure Planet”.) It’s basically about a boy named Jim, and the merchant ship he works on ends up acquiring an enslaved mermaid to guide them between some islands that actually move around.  He ends up having to decide between setting her loose or doing nothing… for reasons I won’t go into now – I don’t want to spoil anything for you in case I get my finished comic published!

I have a few weeks until April 1st, when the Frenzy begins and I am allowed to start my script.  During this time, I am going to plot out the story and do some meticulous planning, to ensure I don’t end up writing a 1,000 page script that I will never, ever find the willpower to draw. (Because not only am I writing the script for my comic, I’ve decided I’m also going to draw all the art!)  I’ve done a lot of sketching throughout my life, but never any comic-type stuff, so it should be interesting/fun/hysteria-inducing to try. 

A page on the SF site recommends finding a publishing-on-demand company and seeing if local privately-owned bookstores will carry my comic, because that’s how a lot of comic book writers get their work out.

I’ll make another post about all that sometime this week… Adios!