Next phase of screenwriting

Even though I was looking for ideas over the weekend, a few had already been nagging at me, and that's where I'm going next.

The main one is that I was feeling like I should have a month of reading screenplays. With my preference for tidiness, I wish I had figured out to do that in time to start on April 1st. I started yesterday. It seems most likely that I will go through May 7th, or I might try and have a few days where I read more than one screenplay, so that I just read 30 screenplays in April, I am not sure. I might find that I am reading in screenplays every day for a month, but not necessarily finishing one a day. It's okay for it to take shape while it's still in progress.

Yesterday I read the screenplay for Dear White People. I was sent a copy a few weeks ago, because I had helped with their initial crowd-funding.

It was nice, because I haven't had a chance to see the film yet, and part of my level was that there was supposed to be a character named after me, but the IMDB listings didn't show a Gina. She shows up pretty early in the screenplay, but IMDB lists the character as "Curls". Well, that could work as a nickname for me too.

Going forward I will be relying on various script web sites. I hope to get a mix of different genres and time periods, as well as a mix of movies that I have and have not seen. It has been a while since I have read a screenplay that I haven't written, and I am probably due for a refresh.

I don't know if I will not start writing my next screenplay until I have finished the reading. The two things could coexist, but might not. For feeling my way, this is a first step.

There are a couple of other things that should be going on during this time. When you publish a book to Kindle Direct Publishing, you get a confirmation that it is up, but it comes with ideas of things you can do to promote it. I realized that there are things I haven't done that might be beneficial, like posting previews on Goodreads. That is something I will look at.

When it is time to load a screenplay to Amazon again, I have also been thinking that I should add more materials. I don't think I could shoot a trailer, but you can upload a storyboard. Drawing a storyboard would be an awful lot like drawing a comic. My art skills aren't great, but for the scenes I have in mind, I believe I could manage it.

I had at one time thought that I would like to draw a few scenes from each of the screenplays. The drawing has been on hold, but I might be ready to bring it back. I am thinking of illustrating a scene from Family Ghosts, though the one I have in mind would be quite hard to draw. That doesn't mean I won't try it.

Anyway, that's the current status. Tonight's script is probably going to be Interstellar.