Monday, May 30, 2005

It has begun

Weekend is going well, in case, like me, you are home slaving away on the next 'Great American Screenplay or Novel' and are home to read this. (Wow, nice run on sentence there Shawna. You call yourself a writer??)
As a matter of fact, I do. I have started the spec. I know, most of you are thinking BFD. Can't say I blame you, but it's always momentous when I start thinking about writing or talking about writing or (the worst) writing about writing and I actually start banging out my crap draft. The crap draft is what spews forth when I start typing. It comes before the really horrible draft which usually leads to the just lousy draft. The lousy draft is what I end up working with to form a first draft.
Went to an arena football game today and played pool. Sometimes it's good to live life and not be holed up away from it. I'm working on that aspect of my existence.

So, what burning questions can I answer for anybody? Doesn't need to be about writing either. Some of you have been hanging around long enough, you must be *dying* to hear me tell some tale or other of myself. I just don't know what you want to hear...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Starting the spec (hey thats great, you go girl!). Here is a Q: Do you consider the random jotting down of notes while you wait at the Dentists, or the working through a character's backstory in point form, part of the so-called Daily Writing Ritual? Or do you just consider the true writing when you fire up Final Draft, Moviemagic, Sophocles, Scriptware etc and nail down pages?

Shawna said...

Good question! I feel like I'm always writing. In fact, this bothers my sister terribly. I'll be sitting at my PC playing freecell and she'll ask me why I'm not writing. Then I tell her I *am* writing and that just annoys her. The truth is, I find that inspiration strikes at any time and I have to be prepared to go with it. I think it is the reason most people feel inspired in the shower. It's a time of day when you let your mind wander and allow yourself to think in creative directions. I tend to do that a lot throughout the rest of my day too. Last night I was playing Spider Solitaire (something I often do) and working out bits of dialogue. Once I knew how I wanted my scene to start I fired up Final Draft and started writing. I might only get a page or two out of it, but it beats staring at a blank page.

So, I guess to further answer your question. I consider my writing time to be anytime I'm thinking about my projects or potential projects. I keep a notebook with me (of course) to scribble notes and if I'm at work, I'll just compose a quick e-mail to myself with my thoughts.

If I didn't have a full time job, maybe I'd think of my writing time differently. As it is, I have to grab whatever time I can to make this work, so anytime is writing time.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, I too consider my time alone with my notepad and Pilot pen to be official writing time. With my job sometimes I can't fire up my software for a few days, but when I am using my notebook I try to write in format by hand. Usually it is my re-interpretation of what I had written down in hand (which brings up an interesting question in it's own right).
If I transcribe my hand written notes on a scene to Final Draft, and it is radically different or expanded, is it considered a re-write already?
Ha, food for thought

Anonymous said...

do you use people you know as characters in your writing? are there people you won't use as characters (peole with certain relationships)?

do you write them as you know them, or do you change them for what you're writing?