So far, I’ve shared my (completed on schedule) screenplay — the initial rough draft of it, at least — and I keep getting asked what my process was for writing it, and getting it in on schedule. This project was certainly something very different for me. First of all it’s the first full-length screenplay that I’ve written by myself — Trey and I have normally collaborated on our other projects, and even then they’ve been more along the lines of 45 minute short films. Secondly, I had not only a specific deadline, but a weekly quota to hit, and the threat of monetary penalties to keep me going. Since I didn’t want to lose, or at least, I didn’t want to have to pay the weekly pennance, I made a few choice decisions at the very beginning.

My first decision was really scheduling. I decided that I needed a consistent time, or at least duration to sit down and write. Because I’m often quite busy, I rarely have time daily to just for a while and write so I decided to have a set time weekly that I would write the entire 13 page quota. I decided on Thursdays or Fridays, because that was essentially the deadline and it gave me most of the following week to brainstorm what might happen next. Because I needed a consistent TIME to write, I decided to set aside two hours for the writing process. I used XNote Stopwatch to keep track of the time. With the software stopwatch preset to 2 hours, I’d have my screenplay open (in this case I used the free and open source CeltX because I didn’t have my install CD of Final Draft handy) and then click on Start. With the first few seconds ticking away, I clicked over to iTunes and hit play on a custom playlist, randomly generated of some of my favorite film scores) and then, finally switched back to my screenplay and began writing.

For my third decisionI wouldn’t think about what I was writing. Sure, I stayed within the guidelines of the assigned plot; but I forced myself to not sit there and stare at the screen for an hour and fifty minutes trying to figure out what color shirt the main character was going to be wearing on page 58. Instead, I just wrote, and I didn’t allow myself to go back and change anything. Yes, I did alter a sentence here or there, for clarity, but I didn’t go back and change plot details. My fourth decision was to save ALL revisions for after I’d completed the entire screenplay. I didn’t want to waste two or three weeks re-writing the same 26 pages.

Now, I’m not saying that everything worked out perfectly. There were some moments where I couldn’t decide on what should happen, so I stumbled about there. There was a point where I didn’t quite know what kind of backstory I wanted to provide, so I left a placeholder and moved on. At one point I wanted to research something, but due to a complex circumstance I didn’t have any Internet access and after much pain and anguish I forced myself to keep writing, making something up (I did, however, realize how many times I kept checking email looking for a distraction … even when I had no service, and therefore no mail).

Statistically speaking, I did most of my writing in the late morning, around 11am or 12pm. I did find myself speaking out the dialogue as I was writing it, to get a sense of the flow. In some cases I would get up from the desk and walk around, trying to verbalize the flow of the plot to no one in particular. Just trying to explain it out, so that I could focus on what the core of the story was.

Now, is it perfect? Absolutely not. It still needs a lot of work; but after each of these decisions and actions of writing, I was able to force myself to hammer out 90 pages of screenplay within 60 days. Toward the end, I found myself writing more than 13 pages each session; I also noticed that I tended to create cliffhangers every 13 pages or so, because I wanted to leave something I could latch onto and finish out the following week.

All in all, it was a fun project, and it was just the thing to get that creative spark re-ignited. Since finishing that rough draft I’ve been awash in new ideas for projects, both old and new. But first things first. I want to revise and rewrite my screenplay, getting it to a decent and readable point. I’ve been holding off on the revision because I don’t want to be saddled with the burden from the initial draft phase — instead I want time to let it fade from my memory a bit, then I can look at it with fresh eyes and maybe get some new ideas.