Eerie inspiration.

There is a scene in act one of my latest script that takes place in an abandoned amusement park.  I didn't conjure that park from my imagination.  I had inspiration and I thought I would share it.

This is Six Flags New Orleans.  Or was before Katrina.  Check out the link at the bottom for many more photos.  Most were taken last year.  6 years after the hurricane.

 

 

source

A year after the storm Six Flags determined that the park was a total loss and that they would not rebuild.

I hear that the powers that be decided last month to turn the space into an outlet mall so they're finally going to do something with it.

Fade to black.

It's over!  Script Frenzy is decidedly more challenging when not writing an adaptation, which is what I've done the previous years.  

I started out writing the scenes in order so that I could post them here, but towards the end of act one I began hopping around to whichever scenes I felt like writing in the moment.  This helped keep me from stalling.  But, because of that, there are quite a few holes in the script.  Act one is complete, but two and three are not.  I intend to share the remainder, but I need a break from script writing for at least a week before I begin filling in those holes.  As I said before, I don't want to post the script out of order. 

In the meantime, here are the final scenes from act one.

Act One C



And here is the entire first act.

Act One (complete)



Now it's time for a long nap.

Act One B

I keep meaning to post the second part of act one, but there's one scene near the end that I don't know what to do with so the scene sits unwritten and act one left unfinished.  I've been working on the second act instead.

I don't want to share scenes out of order so here are the ones up to the problem scene.  It picks up where the last batch of pages left off.


Act One B

Act One A.

I know I said I'd wait until I finished act one before sharing any of my script, but I decided that posting might help me stop nitpicking.  At least during this first draft.  Nitpicking—or editing at all, really—should be second draft behavior.

I'm sure there are typos, clunky descriptions, and heinous dialogue, but it's the first draft and I'm trying to let all of that go.  Besides, script writing is just for fun.  No point in getting worked up about it.

A few notes for script newbies:

INT signifies an interior (inside) scene.
EXT signifies an exterior (outside) scene.
O.S. means that a character is speaking off screen.  That doesn't necessarily imply that the character is not in the room/set.  Just that they're not in the (camera) shot.

I think everything else is probably self-explanatory.  If not, let me know.

Now, onto the script.

Act One A


I am almost finished with the full act and hopefully I'll post the rest of it tomorrow.

Serenity prayer.

Final script interruption—for the week.  Or is it?

So that I don't seem like a total script procrastinator, I actually created this one last month.  Posting it here was the only bit of procrastination involved.

Spring flowers.

Pardon another script interruption.

Yesterday I stood bent over a folding card table underneath a budding magnolia tree making a spring wreath for my mother.

photos by ma mère

I think I like it even better than my Christmas wreaths.  

Now back to act one, which will get finished this week.

100 years and a mea culpa.

First, let me get the mea culpa out of the way.  I said on Thursday that I planned to post the first act of my script by the end of the weekend.  Yeah, I jinxed myself.  Literally a few hours after posting that I came down with a 48 hour bug.  Typical, right?  I spent all day yesterday lying down because every time I sat up I felt nauseous.

The bottom line is that I've gotten zero writing done this weekend.  I debated just posting what I've done so far, but I suspect that formatting the thing on the blog is going to be no easy task.  I'd rather just post an act at a time.  ETA for act one is now Monday or Tuesday.  Or Wednesday or Thursday or...

Now, lets take a moment to remember Titanic.

Today's the 100 year anniversary of the sinking.  As I type this I'm watching Leo escort Kate into the first class dining room.  I've always had a fascination with the story and I remember being very excited to hear that James Cameron was making a film.  Should I be embarrassed to admit that I saw it 9 times in the theater?  No joke.  I just couldn't get enough.

What is it about that small blip in time that resonates with so many?  

Titanic numbers  via

$7,500,00 - the cost of building the RMS Titanic

2 - the number of workers killed during the build

2,223 - the number of people aboard the ship on its maiden voyage

13 - the number of honeymooning couples

64 - the number of lifeboats Titanic was equipped to carry

20 - the number of lifeboats she actually carried

28 - the number of people aboard the first lifeboat out of a capacity of 65

6 - the number of iceberg warnings received before the collision

160 - the number of minutes it took Titanic to sink after hitting the iceberg

-2 - the temperature of the sea water in centigrade

706 - the number of survivors

1517 - the number of people killed in the sinking

74 - the number of years it took to find Titanic

Swimwear.

I've been writing my keister off this month and every now and then a girl's gotta take a load off.  Or in my case, take a load up.

I realize that I haven't posted any of my script-o-frenzy yet, but I intend to put the entire first act up by the end of the weekend.  At least, that's the plan.  Don't hurt me if it doesn't happen.  It will though.  Seriously.

In the meantime, here's what I've been doing on my writing breaks.  I know it seems a bit early to think about swimwear yet, but really, if you wait until May or June aren't all the good ones picked over?  At least that's always been my experience.  Plus, we had a mild winter in these here parts and spring's already a bit toasty.  So I've got hot weather activities on the brain.

This year I decided that I'd land a decent suit by actually not waiting until a week before a trip to the beach in July to go shopping.  How novel.

After many hours of browsing, here are my favorite swimsuits of the year.  I bought 2 of them.  See if you can guess which.

Can you tell that I have a thing for vintage inspired swimwear?  J'adore.  And can you also tell that I'm anti bikinis?  Je don't adore.  

Finding a suit that fits well is not easy.  Prior to this year I think I'd bought 3 in 10 years and I'd looked many more years than that.  I didn't dare order one online because what were the odds that it'd fit?  But this year I had enough of the slim pickins at my local stores.  Tacky bikinis and granny tanks.  Bah.  No offense to the grandmothers out there.  Holla.  

I ended up ordering 2, hoping that at least one of them would fit reasonably well.  They came this week and strangely enough, they both fit!  Better than any that I've bought in many years.  I don't know if that says something about what they choose to sell at the brick and mortar stores or if I should thank vintage inspired swimwear for bringing back structure.  Probably yes to both.

Anyway, did you guess which ones I got?  #1 and #4.  The pattern in #4 is tiny anchors.  Aren't they cute?  Nope, I'm not returning either one.  Finding 2 swimsuits I like and that fit?  In the same year?  That may never happen again.

Now, back to scripting...

Hard things.

Here are a few pieces that I did for sister #2 (birth order not ranking ;-) ).

I'm getting better at this, don't you think?  I'm not getting worse at least.

And we're off!

30 days.  100 pages.

As usual, I added a page counter to the sidebar so feel free to hold me accountable this month!  The counter hasn't moved yet because I'm not working on the weekends.  When I've got several pages under my belt I'll post them here.  What the heck, right?  It's not like I plan on selling the (or any) script.