2020 Zero Draft Thirty September Challenge: Day 13
One month. FADE IN to FADE OUT. Creativity meets Productivity.
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 13.
Write an entire draft of a script in September — FADE IN. FADE OUT. Or any sort of creative goal you have in front of you.
Feature length movie screenplay. Original TV pilot. Rewrite a current project. Break a story in prep. Generate a month’s worth of story concepts.
Whatever you feel will ratchet your creative ambitions into overdrive…
DO THAT!
September 1: You type FADE IN / “Once upon a time…”
September 30: You type FADE OUT / “…They all lived happily ever after.”
It’s free! It’s fun! It’s Fade In to Fade Out!
For everything you need to know to join, click here.
To download your copy of the official Zero Draft Thirty calendar created by Stephen Dudley, click here.
On Twitter, use this hashtag: #ZD30SCRIPT.
Zero Draft Thirty Facebook Group: Here. 3,900+ members strong.
Today’s Writing Quote
“What does this character want and more importantly why do they want it? Those are what I look at as I’m writing dialogue.”
— Brad Ingelsby
Today’s Inspirational Video
This poem tells a wonderful story. Here it is in written form:
Pearl
By Ted Kooser
Elkader, Iowa, a morning in March,
the turkey river running brown and wrinkly
from a late spring snow in Minnesota,
a white two-story house on Mulberry Street,
windows flashing with sun, and I had come
a hundred miles to tell our cousin, Pearl,
that her childhood playmate Vera, my mother,
had died. I knocked and knocked at the door
with its lace-covered oval of glass, and at last
she came from the shadows and with one finger
hooked the curtain aside, peered into my face
through her spectacles and held that pose,
a grainy family photograph that could have been
that of her mother. I called out, “Pearl,
it’s Ted. It’s Vera’s boy,” and my voice broke
for it came to me, nearly sixty, I was still
my mother’s boy, that boy for the rest of my life.
Pearl, at ninety, was one year older than Mother
and a widow for twenty years. She wore
a pale blue cardigan buttoned over a house dress,
and she shook my hand in the tentative way
of old women who rarely have hands to shake.
When I told her that Mother was gone, that she’d
died the evening before, she said she was sorry,
that “Vera wrote me a letter a while ago
to say she wasn’t good.” We went to the kitchen
and I sat at the table while she heated a pan
of water and made us cups of instant coffee.
She told me of a time when the two of them
were girls and crawled out onto the porch roof
to spy on my Aunt Mabel and a suitor
who were swinging below. “We got so excited
we had to pee, and we couldn’t wait, and peed
right there on the roof and it trickled down
over the edge and dripped in the bushes,
but Mabel and that fellow never heard!”
We took our cups into her living room,
where stripes from the drawn blinds draped over
the World’s Fair satin pillows. She took the couch
and I took a chair across from her. “I’ve had
some trouble with health myself,” she said,
taking off her glasses and wiping them,
and I said she looked good, though, and she said,
“I’ve started seeing people who aren’t here.
I know they’re not real but I see them the same.
They come in the house and sit around
and never say a word. They keep their heads down
or cover their faces with cloths. I’m not afraid
but I don’t know what they want of me.
You won’t be able to see, but one’s right there
on the staircase where the light falls through
that window, a man in a light gray outfit.”
I turned to look at the landing, where a patch
of light fell over the carpeted steps.
“Sometimes I think that my Max is with them;
one seems to know his way around the house.
What bothers me, Ted, is that they started
to write out lists of everything I own.
They go from room to room, three or four
at a time, picking up things and putting them back.
I’ve talked to Wilson, the chiropractor,
and he just says that maybe it’s time for me
to go to the nursing home.” I asked her
what a regular doctor said and she said
she didn’t go there anymore, that “He’s
not much good.” “But surely there’s medicine.”
I said, and she said, “Maybe so.” And then
there was a pause that filled the room.
After a while we began to talk again,
of other things, and there were some stories
we laughed a little over, and I wept a little,
and then it was time for me to go, to drive
the long miles back and she slowly walked me
to the door and took my hand again —
our warm bony hands among the light hands
of the shadows that reached to touch us but
drew back — and I cleared my throat and said
I hope she’d take care of herself, and think
about seeing a real medical doctor,
and she said she’d give some thought to that,
and I took my hand from hers and waved goodbye
and the door closed, and behind the lace
the others stepped out of the stripes of light
and resumed their inventory, touching
the spoon I used and subtracting it from
the sum of the spoons in the kitchen drawer.
For more on poet Ted Kooser, go here.
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 1
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 2
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 3
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 4
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 5
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 6
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 7
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 8
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 9
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 10
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 11
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 12
Each day this month, I’ll post a Zero Draft Thirty Challenge post here at Go Into The Story. And as I’ve done with every past Challenge, I will hand out an award for a notable Tweet, Facebook post, or comment here on the blog. This cycle, the winner will receive the Frances Marion Award!
Today’s Frances Marion Award winner: Carl R. Jennings.
Carl has been tweeting daily visuals of his writing routine. Lovely images. With a focus on pen and paper, they remind us of the tactile nature of writing. For those photos, today’s recipient of the Frances Marion Award is Carl R. Jennings.
You, too, can be a recipient of an award. Just offer some insight, humor, or something which catches my eye, either here, the Facebook group, or on Twitter (#ZD30SCRIPT).
For more information on Frances Marion, one of the earliest and most influential screenwriters in Hollywood, go here.
For background on how the Zero Draft Challenge came into being and what it is, go here, here, and here.
Now Zeronauts, Scampers, Word Warriors, and Outlaws…
Pick up pen and paper… put fingers on keyboard…
And write.
