Day 238: Submissions Away
My submisions for The Calling have been sent to both Chad Hayes and Daniela Garcia-Brcek. I have spent the last three days hunkered over the computer going over the script one last time about 39 times. I did take time to read the Hayes Brothers script for The Conjuring, both an early draft and the production version. I wanted to get a feel for how they wrote their scripts and to see how closely mine matched theirs. It was a difficult task as they are two different types of st
Day 236: Results from the Nashville Writers Conference
What a week it has been! The final days leading up to the Nashville Writers Conference were spent reviewing and trimming The Calling in anticipation of conference’s pitch session. I received my ‘dance card’ for the pitch session that included Danny Manus (pitch coach), Mark Bomback (action screenwriter), Signe Olynyk (Great American Pitch Festival Co-Founder and horror screenwriter) and Chad Hayes (horror screenwriter). It’s a good thing I was prepping The Calling as I only r
Day 229: Final Preparations for Nashville Writers Conference
The changes to Come Ups, based on coverage notes from Screenplay Readers, are complete. There have been significant changes to the structure, characters and pacing of the whole story. I have to say, I feel pretty good about these changes. It was a considerable amount of work, but if I thought it was a fast read before, the changes have really made the script soar. The last big effort was to strip out as much action description as I felt I could get by with and condense what w
Day 222: Finalizing Come Ups Rewrites
It’s been tough finding the time to complete these rewrites as I finished my last week of work. The good news is I will have lots of available time between now and the Nashville Writers Conference to wrap up Come Ups and tackle The Calling. The bad side is there is no income for at least the next couple of weeks. But back to the good news. I feel much better about the changes to Come Ups. The pacing has really picked up considerably and the story has refocused on the characte
Day 215: Come Ups Come Along
I am knee deep in the changes for Come Ups, and while I can’t say I feel as unsure about them as I did in the last blog, I’m still a little trepidatious about the changes. I’ve lost the big confrontation scene between Reydel and the Sheriff that kicked off the midpoint, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. It was a brutal scene and really brought home the violence and danger of the situation for Reydel (and the audience), but was the midpoint the right place for that? Shou
