Script Frenzy!

Today was awesome.

I woke up a little later than I had anticipated, which was bad, so as soon as I ate, got dressed, and did my hair, I left. For what, you ask? For a day of NERDY ADVENTURE!

Nerdiness Part One was visiting some locations in my favorite book series, The Gemma Doyle Trilogy. While I do this on a smaller scale all the time (usually if I just happen to be in the correct area), today was much more planned out because a lot of the London parts of the books take place in the Hyde Park/Piccadilly area of London. I actually thought I had gotten there obscenely early- Nerdiness Part Two was due to start until 2 pm and I had a full two hours and fifteen minutes. Well, as it happens, I was late to Nerdines Part Two because it took me so long to walk to all of the locations (and I didn't even find one of them.) But I got to see Hyde Park and lots of other cool places, including a bunch that weren't in the books. And as I walked around the beautiful, sunny, nearly-sixty-degree streets, one thought kept rolling around in my head:

"I don't think I can ever, ever, ever leave London."

Seriously. I love it that much.

Anyway, if you want to see my pictures, I am posting them on Facebook. Perhaps I might post them here when I'm finished with the project, which I hope to be this month.

Nerdiness Part Two was a Script Frenzy write-in! For those of you who don't NaNo or Screnzy, a write-in is where a bunch of crazy writer-types get together, form a laptop/notepad huddle around some tables, and write. It might seem silly- I myself didn't know what to expect, as I've never been to one- but it's actually really awesome.

Our organiser had made a sort of schedule that allowed fifteen minute "chat times" bracketed by forty-five minute writing sprees. While we didn't stick to these very strictly, it kind of worked out like that anyway. When chat time started, we would have a conversation if we wanted to, and they were always interesting. One focused solely on Harry Potter. Another was about the movie ratings in different countries (I was the only American there, and I believe our organiser is French.) A third was about writing programs and the differences between NaNo and Screnzy. And the cool thing was, no one ever said, "Okay, time to write again." The conversation would just slowly fall into us writing again, in a very natural way. It was great.

The group today was very small- just five of us, with a strange sixth guy who sat down, scribbled one scene in a planner, asked one girl if she wanted to read it and when she said sure, handed it over and walked away, never to return. We were all very confused. I got a ton of work done on the script today. We were working in a cafe, which is my favorite atmosphere to work in- I always get so much done. The energy of being in that location with a few people who were doing the same thing as me was very motivating, and I'd say I got about ten pages of script done (you need 3.3 a day.)

I write scripts a little differently than I write novels. Novel writing for me happens almost all in one document, even though I don't write in a linear fashion. Stand-alone lines for scenes will be separated only by a large space from the next scene, and eventually I finish them all and link them together. With plays, though, I might have a document full of random lines, but I always keep each scene in its own document. I also developed a breakdown system this year when I was finishing my other play. Here's what the breakdown for my Screnzy play looks like:

Of course, that's not all the scenes in the play, but it is all of the ones I've at least begun. I never do this for my novels, generally just preferring to fly by the seat of my pants with a few points to hit along the way.

I have no set plan for tomorrow... I guess we'll just see what happens!