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My August Challenge: Finish writing a screenplay…!

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Sharp-eyed readers of this blog and website may have noticed some movement in my “2013 Word Count Goal” over there in the right-hand sidebar. Yep, I’m getting some writing done again — new words! It feels GREAT.

My current project is a new one for me. Instead of a novel or story, I’m writing a screenplay.

I think I’ve got the basics of the formatting down (I’ve been reading a lot of screenplays from the IMSDb and raiding the library of veteran screenwriter John August for assistance, as well as reviewing the latest version of Screenplay on my Kindle). Luckily I have some experience with the odd formatting of screenplays from my work on the script for our digital comic a few years.

But screenplays, yeah… They can be a bit weird to draft.

Image by orchid | morgueFile
Image by orchid | morgueFile

I figure I can go back and fix the formatting issues later. Right now I’m just chugging through the story. Getting the dialog down, letting the characters get into trouble, keeping up with the action, and so on. Figuring it out as I go.

And I’ve been having a blast. So much so that I want to keep at it. And that’s why I’m going to push myself.

As a writing challenge, I’m setting a firm deadline of the last day of August to finish this screenplay.

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How Readers Can Help Writers

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So you just finished reading a great book, and the second thing you want to do is tell people about it (the first thing you want to do, of course, is find more books by this writer).

As a reader, you have a surprising amount of power in the world of books. Writers would just be shouting into the wind without readers. A reader’s secret power is word-of-mouth–the ability to share with other readers your enthusiasm about a book and a writer.

Here’s a quick checklist that describes what you can do to help spread the word about your favorite author and better support writers you know and love. We’ll start with the easiest to do, and work our way down to the more labor-intensive.

Continue reading How Readers Can Help Writers →