Intro:
It may have been nearly two years since I last wrote something on here, but that doesn’t mean I can’t start up again now.
I am not a freelance writer. Yet. But it is where I would like my career to get to. I have a special interest in scriptwriting and can also do proof-reading, fact-checking and general feedback.
Wanting to be a freelancer is all well and good, but it’s a difficult thing to actually get there. The idea of not making the exact same amount of money each month so as to adequately budget and not starve/get evicted etc. is a frankly terrifying one.
So what is the best way to go about it? Right now. I don’t know, but I am trying my best to walk towards it and a monthly update post on what steps I’ve made towards that goal seems like a good way of keeping track of those steps and keeping this blog updated at the same time.
Each month I will write an update of where I am at with each of the scripts I am working on, what I have submitted in places, things I have learnt that others may find useful and other (AKA things I can’t fit in the other three categories).
Scripts Update:
Currently I have six finished episodes of an audio drama, that I am working towards making as a fiction podcast this year – children’s medieval fantasy is the genre. I just need to work out how to book a podcast studio and pay some actors and I’ll be off on this one!
Not currently submitted anywhere ( but has been in competitions in the past) is my screenplay about actors in the 1665 plague lockdown.
My pilot scripts of a re-telling of Troy, and time travel are both submitted into a competition and waiting to hear any news.
The time travel one is submitted into another competition also.
I am currently working on my draft 0 of three different screenplays: One about a con-artist in the Californian gold rush. One about the Puritan witch trials and one about an alternate re-telling of the Napoleonic Wars where women were allowed in the army and navy in the 1700’s.
I am editing another screenplay about two actors both up for the same role and another pilot script about vampire highwaymen.
I have also written a short (3 pages) for an evening class I am taking in film-making. Where I should get to make the short as part of the course. This script is about a spider.
Competitions:
Haven’t heard back from any competitions I’ve submitted to in the first two months of this year, but I am taking part in the Scribe Lounge Elevate competition where the deadline for submissions is June.
Things Learnt:
Have learnt the importance of budgeting, but am not yet very good at actually doing it…
Plus as I mentioned before, am taking a short course in film-making, and though I do have some knowledge of editing, I didn’t have any knowledge of actually recording film. The course has been fascinating from this aspect thus far. I have learnt that technically, film isn’t really moving – it’s just a bunch of photographs taken really really close together and then put next to each other, which our brain interprets as movement because of how we see – this can be demonstrated by just waving your arm up and down in front of a mirror, you see your arm at the top and at the bottom, but not really in the middle; in the middle, it’s a blur and your brain fills in the gaps, creating movement where it can’t see it.
So my scripts currently submitted to competitions might be creating movement that I just can’t see yet.
ChristyESWriter 