Reflections on Zero Draft Thirty
My head is still spinning from events which transpired in November in relation to what came to be known as Zero Draft Thirty. While I don’t have any definite numbers, it appears over 1,000 writers publicly participated in the event, contacting me via Go Into The Story, Twitter, and email. Indeed there are currently over 400 members of the Zero Draft Thirty Facebook group. And that’s not counting what I would assume be a lot more who did the writing challenge in private.
And oh yeah. I wrote a Zero Draft myself! Which is exactly what I set out to do when I posted this on October 15.
I’ve been collecting testimonials from writers of their successful forays into and through the ZD30 Challenge and have over 20 pages of them in a Word doc. Here is a sampling:
Signing off from the ZDT quest with a hearty Fade Out at 150 pages! A big thank-you to Scott, for the whole initiative and for enabling me to prove, to myself, that I can do it. — Philip Brewster
SHUT THE FADE OUT! 100 pgs. Just before Starbucks kicks me out and my laptop dies. Thank you, Scott and the rest of you crazies, for encouraging me to make AND meet this deadline. — Jonathan Melikidse
I had “Zero” previous motivation to finish this script so that’s how this defined the “Zero” in this challenge for myself. And today I feel effing marvelous. I’m gonna eat real wheat pasta, drink Chianti, lay on the couch and cruise the Criterion Collection. Thank you to Scott and the rest of the #ZD30 crew. — Lori Lozinski
DONE WITH ZERO DRAFT! Page Count: 86 pages. So stoked! It is completely different than what I had thought it would be. Yay for not being attached to results and just allowing things to organically flow. — Chris Folkens
Well, I finished my first draft of my first script ever. This is just the beginning. Prepare yourself, Brother printer. — André Hollstein
WOW!!! Simply wow. Through illness, traveling, moving and my five year old’s birthday, I have just typed FADE OUT: I have no idea how it was so easy, yes easy, but I think it’s largely in part to this group. I honestly could not have done this without this group and Scott Myers guiding us. — R.M. Elliott
The best part of this ZD30 experience has been learning that I am not alone. That I now form part and have the support of this our band of Outlaws who were there whenever I needed a hand, a fancy quote or a kick in the pants. Most of all, I want to thank Scott. What you are doing is incredible, your enthusiasm contagious and your support invaluable. — Ricardo Bravo
So… I hit FADE OUT today! And I actually don’t hate what I wrote! Big thanks to everyone here — you are the nicest, most inspiring bunch of people one could hope to meet, Internet or otherwise. — Kara Wexler
A simple daily commitment to 4 pages provided an attainable goal, and each day the pages added up. It’s a huge pile of barf, but there are nuggets, textures, puddles of light and dark that I can sift through, as opposed to sitting back and thinking about it, it now stares back begging to be seen. — Damon Runyan
Seriously can’t believe I just finished a draft in less than 30 days with time taken out to attend to my family, work, teaching, etc. So glad I accepted the Call to Adventure sent out by Scott Myers — I had been mulling over this idea for so long and couldn’t quite crack the story beats, but forcing myself to get pages done every night got me through the entire script. — David Quiroz Jr.
Reporting the last leg of this journey. For the time being. Enormous ups to everyone!!!! Scott, I believe you’re encouraging a whole new generation of screenwriters to think about their craft and lives differently from anything out there. For the better to be sure. — Deborah Goodwin
I’ve got well over 100 of these testimonials, some amazing comments. I especially like this from Karl Gerhardt:
What did I discover? I do not need to be a perfectionist in the first draft. It took me over three weeks to finally grasp that concept and begin to just write. Flow. I allowed myself to tell a story. What a gift.
I’ve had people write to say they had never finished a story before… until now. One person sent me an email describing how they were in tears because they had been stuck on their story for 10 years and now for the first time, they have a working draft.
Clearly something needs to happen to build on this momentum, but what? And how to tie all of this into what I do at Go Into The Story and Screenwriting Master Class. I’ve made three initial determinations:
- I’m going to host 2 #ZD30SCRIPT challenges in 2016: One in March, the other in September. And yes, I will be writing my own Zero Drafts, a participant along with everyone else.
- In addition, we’ll have 2 followup #RW31SCRIPT challenges (January, May) and 1 #RW30SCRIPT (November) in which we rewrite our scripts.
- I will keep hosting the Zero Draft Thirty Facebook group. If you are interested in participating in any of the Zero Draft events next year, consider requesting membership which I will automatically accept. It’s a vibrant community to go along with what we have going on here at GITS.
I’d like to invite any of you who may have participated in the #ZD30SCRIPT Challenge to weigh in with your reflections. If you finished a draft or even if you didn’t what was your experience like?
No excuses. Each of us should be writing 2 new spec scripts per year. Between the #ZD30SCRIPT and #RW30SCRIPT challenges, we can do that as part of a motivated, supportive online community.
Onward!