2021 Zero Draft Thirty March Challenge: Day 2
One month. FADE IN to FADE OUT. Creativity meets Productivity.
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 2.
Write an entire draft of a script in March — 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!
As for me, I am using the Challenge to do a final polish of my book Introduction to Character Driven Screenwriting and Storytelling: The Protagonist’s Journey. My goal is to send the 300+ page manuscript to the publisher Palgrave Macmillan by the end of the month.
If you join the Challenge, I will be right there with you writing each and every day in March! Let’s do this together!
Download your very own Zero Draft Thirty calendar — designed and created by Steven Dudley — and track your daily progress!
On Twitter, use this hashtag: #ZD30SCRIPT.
Join the Zero Draft Thirty Facebook Group: Here. 4,200+ members strong.
Today’s Writing Quote
“If I have anything to say to young writers, it’s stop thinking of writing as art. Think of it as work.”
— Paddy Chayefsky
Today’s Inspirational Video
Now that we have entered March, for us sports fans, that means March Madness! That time of year when college basketball cranks into high gear as the NCAA Tournament looms on the horizon. Since I am a proud University of Virginia graduate and the UVA men’s basketball team won the 2019 National Championship, time to get some inspiration for the accomplishment of this wonderful group of scholar-athletes.
To set the stage: In 2018, UVA became the first #1 seed in the history of the NCAA tournament to lose to a #16 seed. The players and coaches had to live with that humiliation for an entire year.
They made it to the Elite Eight and in the game with Purdue, played in an arena with 90% Boilermaker fans and with a chance to go to the Final Four, UVA found themselves down by two points with 5.9 seconds on the clock. Ty Jerome is at the free throw line. Then this happens:
The smallest player on the court Kihei Clark, all five feet eight inches of him, races into the backcourt, retrieves the ball, takes two dribbles, then throws a bullet pass to teammate Mamadi Diakite who ties the game with no time left.
Oh, yeah. Clark was a freshman.
My point for each of you participating in the Zero Draft Thirty Challenge: NEVER GIVE UP! Today is Day 2. There’s LOTS of time, right? No pressure. 30 more days. But I guarantee you…
The daily grind of pounding out a script will wear at you this month.
Voices Of Negativity will assault your confidence at each writing session.
Your story will prove elusive and confounding.
In other words, at some point this month, you will have EVERY reason to give up, to quit, to say “screw it”.
Don’t. No matter the odds against you, as long as you have 0.9 seconds on your creative clock this month…
YOU CAN DO THIS!
Or as we UVA grads say: Wahoowa, especially since that team not only went on to defeat Purdue, they won the National Championship!
Today’s Anita Loos Award recipient: Trish Curtin.
Trish has been one of the super-moderators of the Zero Draft Thirty Facebook group since Day One. We go WAY back having met online years ago. She would deserve an award just for being such an amazing and delightful person. But doing this is definitely award-worthy!
Trish organized this initiative on an ad hoc basic previously and it worked out really well. I used it several times. It’s like being in one of those upscale writers groups where you pay big bucks to sit around while everybody works on their projects. Only this one is free. Go here to check it out. As always, Zero Draft Thirty rules of decorum pertain as Trish describes above. It’s a great way to be accountable while also feeling the support of fellow writers. Plus, you have five minutes at the beginning of the hour and five minutes at the end of the hour to chat. In fact, I’m going to go there myself when I start my Night Writer session in a few hours.
For that initiative and just being an all around terrific human being, the recipient of today’s Anita Loos Award is Trish Curtin!
Want an Anita Loos Award? Upload an inspirational thought or photo here, on Twitter, or in the Facebook group. Aspire to inspire! That’s the spirit of the Award!
Nail your page count today! For more inspiration, join us at the Zero Draft Thirty Facebook group for our monthly 24 Hour Writing Scamper-A-Thon which begins this Friday/Saturday at 12AM Eastern (U.S.). 24 writers. 24 hourly writing scampers. Make progress on your project on the weekend.
Onward!
