Every year, a non-profit organisation called the office of letters and light, hold two international writing challenges, Nanowrimo and Script Frenzy. Since 2005 I’ve been taking part in these crazy seeming challenges.
So what is the challenge here? Well very simple really. In 30 days produce a 50000 word novel (for nanowrimo) or a 100 page script (for script frenzy). Thats it!
Easy? No not at all, but then they wouldn’t challenges if it where!
The basic idea is that with a deadline like this, there is no time to worry or pontificate about the story. You just have to write, write, write. And this stops your inner editor from saying ‘this is no good, you have to stop and wait till you have a good plot’. In this way you get to write something, it maybe be rubbish (in fact it probably will be), but no great story was ever written, they where re-written, and in order to re-write something, you have to a written something in the first place.
And what is the prize for completing these 30 days of writing hell?
Nothing! Well nothing beyond knowing that you now created something, it might be awful, but it’s yours and you can now make it great! And for me that is one huge prize!
So this page links to the stories and scripts I’ve produced under these crazy deadlines
Script Frenzy 2010: Eatherbrite
My return to writing form (I hope), after last years failure. This years script also marks my return to The Route, which I introduced in my first Nanowrimo story, The Way Home, way back in 2006
2009 Nanowrimo: Midsummer Nightmare
Another year of madness! Once again I changed my mind about the story after 5 days of writing, so in effect I had only 25 days to get the story done. The hardest nanowrimo yet, but I did finish it and while the story is very rough, the basic idea is I think one of the best I had so far.
2009 Script Frenzy: The script that never was
(sigh).I had so many ideas for this script. And since I was out of work while thinking about them I had plenty of time to work on them, but then I went and got a job that started on the first day of the challenge!
In the first week I worked about 4 different ideas, none of them got past 3 pages.
Oh well my first failed challenge, it had to happen some time
2008 Nanowrimo: Kings Cross
One year later (and what a year it’s been for me!) and I’m still here and more importantly still doing nanowrimo! This year I changed my mind lots of times about what the story was going to be and in fact it was only with about 20 hours to go till the start, that I finally and definitely settled on one of the ideas.
Given what was going on in my life at the time (trying to find another job in the middle of a recession with just 5 weeks let on my current job!) the story came out just fine, but although I hit the target on the last day, I’ve still not (as of 22/10/2009) finished the story!
2008 Script Frenzy: Nexus
Another success for me!
This script holds a particular place in my heart half way through I found out I was being made redundant. This really changed the course of the script (and my life!) and as a result the script ended up in a completely different place (the same is true of my life!)
2007 Nanowrimo: The Object
My second year on this madness.
It was a very chaotic November this time around and that is reflected in the story which was changed 2 days and about 2500 words in. The second story also shows signs of the chaos of the month. It is far less polished than last years (which is saying something), but as they always say, it’s only a first draft. And it’s going to take more than a few drafts to get this one right. You can still however read it here.
2007 Script Frenzy: Mike King, detective
I took part in and completed this the first year of the ‘other’ writing challenge from the office of letters and light
This was I think harder than nanowrimo, not only was there the odd formatting to get used to (which I think I have now), but the writing it’s self much more dependent on dialogue, which is weak point of mine I think.
This year did give me a character which formed the seed of another idea which went on to be actually filmed!
2006 Nanowrimo: The Way Home
My first real attempt and this crazy challenge and I’m happy to say that I made the deadline with one day and 1591 words to spare!
I really surprised my self here. After last years aborted attempt, I didn’t expect to be able to complete this, but I did. And I think that just maybe it was doing this that kept my dream of becoming an author alive!
2005 Nanowrimo: The Phantom Year
I had planned to take part in this years nanowrimo, having discovered the site a few months before. I had the story idea ready, but then…
Well life got in the way and I never put a word to paper (or screen)
The story idea did live on however as I used the same idea for the next year which went rather better…
