Winning Ain't Easy

Day 182

It is hard to believe that it is May 1st already. I am glad though, May is usually one of my favorite months. Spring is definitely here, lots of cool movies come out, more family activities, Black and White Days (I'll cover that in another blog), Memorial Day and a ton of other fun stuff.

It has only been May for 12 hours and already May is starting out on a good step. Last month I participated in ScriptFrenzy. It was a writing challenge where I write a 100 page script (movie, TV, musical, comic) in a month.

And yesterday I crossed the finish line at 102 pages so that means I won!

It was a lot of fun, much more fun than I thought it would be. I have never written a script before, I tried one time and found the whole thing intimidating. It was a lot more work than I thought but this time I used an online script program than made the whole thing painless. The more I worked with the program the easier and then the more fun it became.

It was a total vanity project. I wrote a Marvel comic book based on the return of my favorite character Banshee and it dealt with the Canadian superhero team Alpha Flight set during the events of Dark Reign. Like I said, pure vanity.

I did learn a couple of things. I had plotted most of this comic months before and that really helped out a lot. And the times it became difficult was when I had no idea where the story was going to go. But once I figured out how to end it, it was just a fun matter of getting from Point A to Point B. Next time I do this I will make sure that I have all of it plotted out in advance. I also appreciate those writers that write with a large cast of characters. It was hard making sure that they all had some face time and there were a few times where I totally forgot them completely.

What I enjoyed the most was reading up on these characters and doing some research. All of the characters I used had some sort of history together and it was a hoot reconnecting some of them. And some of the characters I used were long forgotten people and it was a lot of fun bringing them back and making themselves useful.

I am glad that it is over. Doing this and my blog really zapped a lot of my time but I felt it was important for me to learn. I would love to be a writer and it is these exercises that help out a lot. You do learn quickly what you are capable of and what you do rather well along with what your weaknesses are.

I HIGHLY encourage anyone that has a story to say or wants to try their writing skills to do this challenge next year. You won't regret it and you will feel that you accomplished something. Also keep in mind that the next NaNoWrMo is coming up this November. Get thinking about a story and get it ready for a month of hard work, pulling your hair out and writing! Seriously folks, if you have always wanted to write, try these out. You will not regret it!