LET IT SHINE, my screenplay about a troubled, but brilliant 10 year old girl named Melody Fisher, has made the quarters in ScreenCraft Family Screenwriting Competition.  Six hundred screenplays were entered and you can find the full list of quarter-finalists HERE.

I’ve been given the opportunity to update this latest draft for the next semifinal round and have spent the last couple weeks refining the script.  LET IT SHINE has received high marks from various coverage agencies I use to critique the script.  I’ll be sending it off to more festivals in the weeks to come as well as production companies.   I feel it is at a point where if I find the right home, the right producer, it can make a fine film.   Here’s hoping…

Speaking of hope, I have not forgotten about my play ANIMAL.  It will go through another rewrite.  I’m just taking a much needed breather from it as I contemplate where the next draft will take me.  I am eager to start writing a new script.  One of my goals this year is to write a new play and screenplay.  February is almost half done and I’ve yet to start either.  But ideas are peculating.

Noah Baumbach is an Oscar nominated writer for the film MARRIAGE STORY and he recently won an Independent Spirit Award for his screenplay of that film.  Upon accepting his award, he had this to say to the gathered crowd:

“I kind of hate writing.  I mean, I love other people’s writing, my fellow nominees wrote amazing movies, but writing is hard. It’s agony. And I’m in awe of all the screenwriters here and elsewhere who essentially devoted their lives to something that gives us no pleasure and makes us feel bad.”

For writers out there who work at this craft all the time, this quote is so true….and so painful…  So then you may ask:  “Why do you write if it gives you no pleasure?”   I think people have this romantic notion about writers…that we have “fun” all the time because we’re creating art.   HA HA HA – not true.  But like anything in life that matters to you – like a marriage, like raising a child, like getting in shape, like planting a garden – IT. TAKES. WORK.  And the joy of seeing something you work at finally come to fruition makes it worth the effort.   I’m still learning how to do this writing thing.   And I always look forward to writing something new which is why this new year of 2020 will be the year of new work.