Lessons from a month of 6-page scripts

I did it. I wrote a separate 6 page script every day of October. More to the point, I am glad I did it.

Once I committed to it, I knew that it would have to be done, and whatever it cost me didn't matter, I was still going to get it done, so that wasn't the question. II wasn't sure how much it would take out of me, or how it would feel, and there have been some interesting and unexpected things there.

I was pretty sure it would be good for discipline. Having a specific goal and desired output gives clarity. I knew what I wanted to do, and I knew when I had done it. That was valuable.

Another aspect of discipline came with having the strict 6 page ruling. Previously, except for writing the "Sisters of Justice" pilot, I have just used however many pages felt right for telling that story. There are good things about that, but sometimes you have a specific time allocation to fill and you need to make that work. Having to decide where something could be filled out, or more often where it could be cut, was good for me.

That gave me a better appreciation of television work in general. For example, with a cooking segment there are so many things that you need to plan in advance to make it fill the right amount of time, and yet they aren't obviously rehearsed. For talk shows in general, it would be similar. There has to be some serious coordination going on there, and that it doesn't tend to be blatant speaks well of the people who do it.

I believe it was also valuable to work on something that while being written as a script will probably only ever be read, so it had to fulfill the requirements of a script but still be interesting reading. Years ago I started out believing that the script should just be dialogue and necessary action, because you don't want to intrude on the director's decisions or the actors' decisions, except their decisions can be helped by setting the right mood. (I had already made a lot of progress with that.) Here, knowing that by the end of the day I would post it and invite people to read it, being entertaining was more at the forefront of my mind, and that was a good experience.

It was also valuable as a clearing house of sorts. There are all of these ideas that I have had but have not pursued. There are always so many things to work on, and you have to choose, and there are a lot of ideas that it doesn't make sense to prioritize, but they can still be pretty close to your heart. Taking some of these ideas, and giving them form feels like an acknowledgment to them, without any of them having been huge commitments. That was gratifying.

It is also gratifying to feel that I can do absolutely anything now. I wrote in so many different areas. There were non-fiction scripts, with a cooking show, documentary, and educational segments on earthquakes and Shakespeare. There was fiction that went from very light to very dark. It's not that it all felt the same. Writing Derelict felt very laborious, actually, I think because there weren't any sympathetic characters. I like animals in general, but adding the rats did not make that one any more fun.

But many of them felt great to write, and even when they were more difficult, I can still do it. I can do anything. I can write about anything. And I did it while also finishing an edit on another screenplay, editing a novel, blogging, and still holding down a full time job which became absolutely horrendous toward the end of the month. This is good, because I have a lot to do now.

I am relieved that it's done, because there are other things to do, and it's nice to get deeper. November is going to be tricky, because there is a (badly needed) vacation in the middle of it. I am still planning on completing my second novel (I am currently writing the third chapter) and writing the musical that I have been planning for over a year. I think I know where I am heading for December and 2015, but one phase at a time.

For now, it is reasonable to wonder about my 31 6-page scripts, and if anything else is going to happen with them. I would love for Earthquake! to happen, but I don't think it's likely. I do think that I can make The Tragedies of Shakespeare happen at some point in the future, and that I will.

I will definitely draw Theme Park and Bass Off in the future, and probably Derelict. Maybe Asylum.  I have already drawn Winterlake, just so badly that it needed to be written. The Taking possibly could be a comic, but I don't know. It's less immediate. Also, I feel a strong need to draw art for Disney Avengers - not a full comic, but what the movie posters would look like for it and for the Birds of Prey reference at the end.

I do at some point want to write a full pilot treatment for Future Shock. I can see Kate as a series of novels. Some of the things, like with Liz, I thought would be parts of movies, but for now I feel like I have written enough. There are still so many ideas that haven't been captured at all.

But there is one that I think will be a full-length screenplay, and that I will write it in December. I don't think I am done with the giant spiders. It's kind of a pity, because that would be one movie that my family would not want to watch at all. Well, we'll work it out.

You can find the 6 pagers at http://www.wattpad.com/user/GinaHarris827.