Once again into the Frenzy...

For those of you unaware of such things, (read: non-writers) April is an event known as Script Frenzy. Script Frenzy is the screenwriter's equivalent of NaNoWriMo, an online writer's challenge that throws down the gauntlet about that play, movie, or comic book script that has been yearning to bust out of you for years.

The challenge, simply put, is to write 100 pages of an original screenplay (or like script) in thirty days. I have participated in the screnzy for the past three years, but I have yet to complete one. Keep in mind that in the same three years, I won NaNo twice, and got three quarters through a third year before my kid developed a rare Italian disease I call "Dadanogettatowrita". The symptoms are prolonged absences from school, lots of mucus, and a constant need for attention...

But I digress...

The thing is that as a writer, it really frustrates me when I can't complete a writing challenge. I mean, it's kinda my thing, you know? And it's not like I've never completed a screenplay before... I've done at least three outside the screnzy that were completed with little trouble. I really don't know why it is that come April, my writing drive just tells the left side of my brain to take a flying leap.

So, this year, I'm trying something a little easier... I'm doing an adaptation of Dimensional Games. I've never tried adapting prose to a screenplay before, much less one of my own works, but I'm giving it the old college try anyway. Part of me is convinced I'm cheating, but the other part of me sees me at a solid twenty pages by day two, with at least four or five really good new jokes that weren't in the original.

So, I may be cheating on the definition of "original work" but at least there are parts of it that are indeed original. Wish me luck, and pray that fudging the Script Frenzy rules doesn't qualify me for a one way trip to writer hell. *

* WRITER HELL- Dante's seldom talked about fifteenth circle of hell where plagiarists go when they die, and are forced to write bad tween sitcoms for nickelodeon for all eternity (shudder)