6 Things I'm Doing to Write My Best Screenplay Ever This Year

"At the beginning of 2012, I made a New Year’s resolution. Mind you, I never make New Year’s resolutions, but last year I did because I was so annoyed at my lack of progress with my screenwriting. I decided I was going to wake up at 5:30 am every morning to write my best screenplay ever and that screenplay would get noticed. With the exception of some weekends and family trips, I managed to drag myself out of bed and focus on my screenwriting every day. The result? I rewrote a screenplay that made it to the semifinal round of the 2012 Nicholl Fellowships and got the interest of a few producers and managers, I finally hammered out a long-gestating comedy spec that I posted online when it suddenly became DOA during the rewrite process because the exact same movie came out this fall, and I outlined my next screenplay similar in tone and style to my Nicholl script. Am I happy with the results? Yes. Am I satisfied? Not even close. So, since I’m not keen on giving out my own advice on screenwriting since I’m not a professional screenwriter, I’ll share with you how I plan to write my best screenplay ever this year, and maybe you can too.

1. Schedule Writing Time Every Day

Writers write. I would argue that all filmmakers should write, too. If you want to make your own movies, you should write. Don’t think you’re a good writer? You should write. Do you know what my best subject was in school growing up? Math. You know what my second best subject was growing up? Science. You know what I liked more than anything else in the world growing up? Movies. Then I decided I wanted to make movies. You know what I realized I had to learn how to do to make movies? Write.

Writers write, but writers are also excellent procrastinators. So, last year, I decided to find time every day to write. With young children, I discovered the best time for me to write was early in the morning, before the kids are awake, before I check email, before I waste countless minutes on the Internet and social media (2013 resolution: more social, less media). It’s hard, it sucks when the alarm goes off, but do I want to be a screenwriter or not? If not, I can hit the snooze button, but I can tell you that did not happen in 2012, much to my own amazement. From 5:30 to 7 am every (weekday) morning, I worked on my screenplays. I tried to add weekend mornings to the mix, then only Saturday mornings, but I found myself burning out, so I stuck to weekdays only. If I had extra time to write during the day, great, but at least I knew that every (week)day I had accomplished some writing related to my screenplays. I’m rededicating myself to this routine in 2013."

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