No excuses for time!

I always found it easy to find an excuse for not finishing a project.  But the best I could only come up with was... time.  No time to write.  It is hard to find time considering on an average week I work about 55 to 60 hours.  As I said it's hard to find time, it's not that there's no time.

It may be an extra step but this works for me who as I mentioned before works around 60 hours a week, plus has to find time for my wife, and oh yeah, sleep.  Write the first draft in a spiral notebook.  Take that to work or where ever you go and write it out long hand.  I like this because I can take it to work, since I have downtime I can put down a couple pages here and there plus on lunch and any other breaks that may come up.

Now the extra step can also be helpful.  How?  Well since you already have the first draft hand written in a notebook.  When you go to do the second draft and start the rewriting process.  You have to type in the whole script into your screenwriting program.  This is where it may seem like the extra step, but actually this helps you edit down information, it allows you to "resee" the story, and add more detail or fix dialoge, or whatever. 

I thinks it's an important step, not an extra step, and it's very helpful in the initial rewrite process.  It helps me elimanate my time excuse.  Plus it makes breaks, lunches, and downtime at work more valuable.

Later on I'll tell you how I go about outlining and how I use that along with the notebook process so I know where the screenplay needs to go while I'm at work.

Tell me what you think, does this help you at all?  What do you do when crunched for time?

-Eric

10:02 AM - Monday, September 11, 2006 - comments {1} - post comment

I'm haunted, and you?

Okay so you've probably already seen there's about a thousand "blogs" by screewriters out there and are wondering why is there yet another one?  Well, I'm glad you've asked!  You see when I sit down at my computer to work on my script I tend to levitate towards the games on my computer instead.  Yes, I've mastered Free Cell and Solitaire and become bored.  This gives me a reason to procrastinate but still make me feel better because "at least I'm still writing!"  I think that's the whole bases for screenwriters having a blog.

You won't find anything new here probably.  If you even read the articles maybe I can inspire you to finish your script.  Reply back and maybe we can all learn and inspire each other.

I like horror films.  Ghost stuff.  Supernatural things.  I'll talk about that stuff.  Maybe we can conjour up some good stories about ghosts and what we think makes a film scary.  Something we can learn to put in our scripts.

I have about ten great story ideas festering in my mind just waiting to get out.  I keep telling them to hold on and fall in line - "Just one at a time please!" but they're haunting me.  Doing whatever they can to try and get out.

I'm the HAUNTED one whos trying to exorcise these demons inside of me.  Maybe you are haunted too.  If so, here's a place we can work on it together.

Scare ya' later.

Eric

1:25 AM - Monday, September 11, 2006 - comments {1} - post comment