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Writing is hard. Especially for me, not only because my brain doesn’t always work as planned, but also because the writing process (when done properly) means very long periods of nothing happening, then having two great ideas in the course of two minutes.

This is what happened to me yesterday. I have been working, for the last couple of weeks on character, notes and script structure (ideas for the lay person) for “Shivering Kings”, a low budget horror movie with big ideas I wanna make (see previous post).

Anyway, I spent most of the day kicking myself in the head because nothing was getting done, staring at a mostly-blank screen, just writing and erasing the same nonsensical stuff over and over. I finally resorted to just scribbling in my notebook and managed to, without even thinking of it, come up with a pretty cool design for the location where the bulk of the action in the film takes place, and, somehow, from this, a crucial idea for one of the main characters in the story that made all the difference in the world. Ideas have been flowing freely since then.

One very productive day later, I have the full structure in place, beginning to end, and am dying to start actually writing the screenplay proper. But I think I need to resist for the moment, let things germinate for a few hours longer. It can only be better in the long run.

So why not resurrect “the one-week screenplay”? This was a hair-brained idea I had many months ago, after reading a blog post about someone writing a novel in two months. “A screenplay is simpler, so why not make it a week?” I thought. For whatever reason, I didn’t get around to it back then, so why not now? I mean, I’m gonna write the damn thing starting tomorrow anyway, why not make a challenge out of it?

Why anyone would be interested in reading about me writing, I don’t know, but the internet is a strange place, and judging by some of the frequently visited pages on this site, there’s no accounting for tastes.

So stay tuned, and feel free to comment on what you think my damn chances are, but no spam please, I’m getting really tired of deleting it daily.

Note: This post has been edited to include the related posts for the week that followed, for ease of reading.

Related posts:

1. Revenge of the One-Week Screenplay
   As you may recall (if you don’t, never fear) I attempted to write a feature film screenplay in one week...
2. Home of the One-Week Screenplay
   I have to admit, I’m a bit of an idiot. A little over a week ago, I got the idea...
3. 10 Ways to Avoid Writing
   1. Set the challenge to yourself that you will start doing X after you do Y; for example, you'll continue...