I had a pretty sluggish start to the day on Sunday. I had stayed up pretty late the night before struggling to do some writing for the 5-page screenplay competition I am signed up for. It was a lot of work and a late night that produced pretty lackluster results.
As I got my coffee going and tried to get moving on Sunday morning, I went over it and realized it was basically a total loss. I still liked the essentials of the story, but the approach was all wrong, and there was way too much going on for something as short as a five-pager.
For those who haven’t read the past few posts, the competition basically gives you 48 hours to write a five page screenplay, and you are assigned a genre, location and element to include. My assignment last time was Horror, in the mountains with a birdbath. This time it was Romantic Comedy, in a garden, incorporating a clothesline.
The essential guts of my idea was probably a bit on the challenging side itself. I was thinking it would be funny to pair up a dejected and lost QAnon supporter with an eccentric homeless person and note how closely their ideas might align.
So much could go wrong with this idea, clearly, but it was the one I had. Shenanigans of the day before caused me to lose some time, so by late Sunday morning I was basically feeling if I could get ANYTHING written to submit by the 10pm deadline, I’d call that a win.
I did get a few pages written in the early afternoon, and was actually feeling it start to come together a little. We did have a family outing planned that afternoon, and while I debated staying back to write, I decided I really wanted to come along. And I was glad I did. We all went down to visit what will be the newest addition to the Schneider family, a little puppy named Islay.
In what will the first of many times I do this, I will say that name is pronounced “EYE-luh,” and this is the Gaelic spelling for a word that means “island.” Funny thing is that Henry has been calling her ‘Island,” so he’s not really wrong.
Anyway, Islay is legitimately Asta’s sister…same breeder, and she comes from the same mom and dad. We are going to be picking her up just before Thanksgiving, and saw her when she was super tiny, but it was nice to see her now that she has a little more personality.
Most will tell you that while I like animals, I am usually the least moved by all the cuteness, but I have stay that even my icy heart melted with this little girl. I got to hold her first, and she was all kisses and affection. She is super playful, sweet, and connected immediately with the kids.
We knew we made the right choice from the beginning, and this just reinforced that. And it also really boosted everyone’s mood. It’s hard to feel gloomy after spending some time with puppies.
Back home, we ordered some carryout and I got back to writing. By dinner time, I actually had a working draft of my screenplay and was feeling surprisingly good about it. I did a few more passes and trimming after we got the kids to bed, and had it ready in plenty of time to upload for the competition.
In the end, it is a quirky little tale and I felt proud about how it came out, particularly since I pulled it out in just a few hours and frankly wasn’t feeling very comedic this weekend. Anyone interested, can take a look by following this link.
No, I don’t expect to win or anything, nor do I care. This is kind of like running where sure, it can be neat to have a better time than other people, but there is also something to be said about hitting and beating your own personal goals. This falls into that category.
By the time I had that uploaded, it was around 9:30 and I pivoted one more time to write a little bit on a freelance article I’m working on before finally losing steam, getting sore fingers, and ending the night with the latest episode of The Mandalorian. It was a topsy turvy weekend, but at least I got a bunch of writing done and ended on a high note I could take some pride in.
