April has been a jam-packed, incredible month, filled with many blessings and surprises… and it’s not even over yet!

April began with a speaking engagement at the RT Convention about the importance of script coverage, and what to expect from your story analyst. Merrel Davis was on the panel with me, and we spoke to a full-house crowd of published, aspiring, and undiscovered writers and readers who were willing and eager to learn.

We were met with such a warm welcome thanks to, popular and sensational author, Viviana, who hosted and moderated our panel. She paid keen attention to novelists and how they too can benefit from a writing assessment. What the writers left the panel with was a solid understanding of the steps required to start their careers in screen / novel writing and why being open to feedback goes a long way once you achieve your goal of selling your work. We also made sure to get out the word on branding. Just because you’re a writer and you’re sitting at home hunting and pecking out your opus, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have a proper web and professional presence. It’s easily achieved and is so integral to your success.

Next we were on to the LA Comedy Shorts Film Festival, where Merrel and I were sponsors. It was more branding talk and networking with some very, very funny people and exceptionally talented filmmakers. The event was a 4-day non-stop, hilarity-filled extravaganza, with fantastic nighttime parties at the Kyoto Grand, ESPN Zone, and J Restaurant and Lounge. The liquor was ever-flowing, the attendees loads of fun and with every short we screened, it reignited my passion for making film.

As fate would have it, my recently reignited cinematic passion would get instantly put to good use, because Merrel and I are off to shoot a documentary pilot in Nebraska. It is an awesome time and a most exciting adventure traveling to a town of 292 people about 4 hours south of South Dekota. It’s a town that time forgot. The residents harken back to a way a life that is all but extinguished. It is a place where men work the land and rear their cattle to support their families. We’re going in search of the last bastion of the original American way of life and some sexy cowboys!

The last two weeks have been pre-pro central; work-shopping cameras, production meetings and shot lists. With cameras and crew locked in, we’re off to start location scouting / casting on 4000 acres of rich ranch land and local prep for our shoot.

Even though I can barely sleep for excitement about what’s coming in just a matter of days, beyond our awesome Midwestern Safari shoot, there’s loads to look forward to this summer!! GAPF in June, Screenwriter Karaoke NYC edition in July and much more! Stay tuned!

Isn’t it the best when you wake up and find that your work is already done for you? It’s awesome, especially if you have a partner like mine. Since Merrel did such a great job of telling everyone what’s on the horizon for us, I figured I would just gank his post, and use it. Why do it twice, when it’s done perfectly the first time? So, here’s what’s going on in April:

APRIL 2011

RT Booklovers Convention

HOLLYWOOD: From Page to Screen : Script Consultants Give You the Goods
Date: Wednesday April 6, 2011 01:00 pm – 02:00 pm
Event Type: Writer Industry Workshop
Location: The Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites, 404 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90071
Phone: 213-624-1000

RT Booklovers convention is hosted by RTBookReview.com and is a focused community of romance writers across several sub-genres. Though I’m not working on the next “Twilight-killer” I do know what makes for good story, and I’m delighted to be joined by fellow panelists and writers Xandy Sussan (imdb), Melinda Snodgrass (imdb) and moderator Vivi Anna.  We’ll sort you out. Romance lovers, hope to see you there.

LA Comedy Shorts Film Festival

CoverMyScript.com will be out at the LA COMEDY SHORTS FILM FESTIVAL:

The L.A. Comedy Shorts Film Festival and Screenplay Competition is dedicated to introducing the newest and hottest comedic talent to the industry, and helping them make the connections they need to take their careers to the next level.

In fact, the winners of the LA COMEDY SHORTS screenplay competition will also win a gracious CoverMyScript.com BRANDING AND NEXT STEPS CONSULTATION PACKAGE with myself and CoverMyScript.com owner, Xandy Sussan. Check it out, it’s going to be awesome, I mean Gary Anthony Williams people!  He’s very pretty (source: bio.)

Script Frenzy

Script Frenzy is an international writing event in which participants take on the challenge of writing 100 pages of scripted material in the month of April.

Along with Merrel, I’ll be co-writing a stoner comedy script, based on an outline we hashed out (pardon the pun) last year. Script Frenzy is an excellent tool to keep yourself accountable. My goals with this draft are simple; get it on the page, beat it up, slap it around. Many other will be pushing themselves to hit the 100 page mark this April too. Follow me on twitter @covermyscript or Merrel at @uncompletedwork and the hash-tag #scriptfrenzy for my progress and others. You can also sign up and track your progress on ScriptFrenzy.org

SCREENWRITER KARAOKE

Screenwriter Karaoke is going through some exciting changes in the coming months to include a NEW VENUE and NEW SPONSORS! Stay tuned for upcoming news about the when and where  and what special conventions and conferences you’ll see Screenwriter Karaoke attend. If you’d like to suggest your favorite karaoke joint in Los Angeles, tweet at @SWKaraoke.

CoverMyScript.com is so proud to be the premiere sponsor of Screenwriter Karaoke

SCREENWRITER KARAOKE LA
Thursday November 18th @ 8:30 P.M.
Sardo’s Grill and Lounge
259 N. PASS AVE.
Burbank, CA 91505
(818) 846-8127

SCREENWRITER KARAOKE NYC
Monday November 29th @ 8 P.M.
Baby Grand
161 Lafayette Street at Grand
New York, NY 10013
212.219.811

What a year it’s been! First Creative Screenwriting Magazine votes CoverMyScript.com “5 out of 5″ and “Cream of the Crop” in their Story Analysts review and now we’re going to be live, on-site at The Screenwriting Expo 2010, with last-minute, pitch-prep help for all your script needs.

Are you coming to the Screenwriting Expo 2010 this October 7th to 10th? It’s not too late to register. If you’re in the neighborhood, just pop on by to our vendor booth, and let us see how we can make your script ready for sale. We’ll can help you re-conceive your one-sheet on-the-spot, give your pitch some polish or your presentation one more set of eyes before the big day.

Then, after The Screenwriting Expo 2010, hang out for the CoverMyScript.com sponsored event, Screenwriter Karaoke.  It’s a fun, low-pressure evening, filled with good friends, good drinks, and surprisingly, even some good songs! Look for us and some of our #Scriptchat friends. So come out, make some friends, drink some booze and don’t be surprised if I’m standing in the corner uploading photos of you crooning Sinatra to Facebook.

See you all there Expo’ites!

CoverMyScript.com will have a vendor table at The Great American PitchFest in the great hall on Saturday. We will be providing on-the-spot consultations, one-sheet help, pitch prep and many other services. Stop on by and say hello!

Here’s a list of what we’re offering:

Can’t wait to see you there!

June is a very exciting month! It marks two very important occasions: The Great American Pitchfest and Screenwriter Karaoke’s 1st Anniversary!

CoverMyScript.com is so proud and honored to be participating in the 7th Annual Great American Pitchfest. For those of you unfamiliar with The Great American Pitchfest, it is a yearly event at the Burbank Marriott where hundreds of writers pitch en masse to hundreds of production companies. It’s an exciting, frenzied, energy-packed event and we at CoverMyScript.com are so proud to be a part of it in two ways.

Saturday, June 26th, CoverMyScript.com will be on site with a team of talented, speedy story analysts from 9am until 5 pm to help you meet your Sunday pitch time crunch. We will be offering a variety of on-the-spot services from one-sheet construction, query writing, as well as last-minute pitch prep consults to help you hone your skills. With prices starting at $20, there’s a service to fit any budget.  We will be accepting credit cards through paypal as well as cash for easy transactions.

There are many seminars to check out from 9 am until 5 pm with something for every writer. Then stick around for Screenwriter Karaoke! A fun networking event for screenwriters that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Have a couple of drinks and sing your heart out. We promise we won’t judge. We can’t sing either. ;-p

Not sure what to sing? Here’s the Screenwriter Karaoke Song List for PitchFest.

Saturday, June 26th @ 6 PM
Marriott Burbank Hotel & Convention Center
Room “Academy Two”
2500 N. Hollywood Way, Burbank, CA 91505

AND LATER COME OUT TO OUR REGULAR SPOT SARDO’S AFTER 10 PM. Just a short ride in town.
Sardo’s Grill and Lounge
259 N. PASS AVE.
BURBANK, CA 91505

What are the rules?
* NO COVER CHARGE.
* CASH Bar only.
* Hotel parking has been made available at a discounted rate of $14 to attendees.
* 21 and over only. Please bring ID and be prepared to show it.
* Have fun, drink , sing and connect!

Come out, make some new friends and meet #scriptchat peeps Jeanne Veillette Bowerman and Zac Sanford who will both be in attendance. It’s a very exciting time and CoverMyScript.com couldn’t be more honored to be apart of this. Hope to see you there!

Hi everyone,

Just a head’s up, Thursday, March 25th, I am sponsoring Screenwriter Karaoke!!

Screenwriter Karaoke is a free monthly networking event hosted by my friend and colleague Merrel Davis at Sardo’s Bar and Grill. It’s a great chance to come out, have a few drinks, meet some fellow screenwriters and possibly win some prizes. I am donating FREE COVERAGE to one lucky participant; that’s a $175 value all for the price of a song. Other giveaway prizes include offerings from Twin J’s and Ravengloss Studios. If you’ve become a shut-in with your 80th draft, now might be the best time ever, to leave the house and croon the night away with people who get you.

Also, for all of you folks on Twitter, I will be a guest on Sunday, March 28th’s Scriptchat’.

They are having a professional reader’s panel, with several other impressive guests and have asked me to participate. If you have coverage / development / writing questions, that’s the best time to get some free answers from a panel that really knows their stuff! To join in, just log on to Twitter and do a search for #scriptchat. To learn more about Scriptchat go to Facebook, Ning, Google Wave, or Twibe. You can follow me on Twitter @covermyscript for the event, or at #scriptchat. Thanks to @jeannevb, @zacsanford, @yeah_write, and @kageynyc for having me. I’m very excited to participate in some #scriptchat #worlddomination!!

So, that’s what’s going on for the rest of the month. I look forward to meeting you all in person at Screenwriter Karaoke, and hope to see you all on the interwebs for Scriptchat! Until then, xox X

Screenwriting, well any writing really, is a loner sport. It’s for thinkers, for watchers, for journalists of the human condition. It’s just the way it is. Even most writers who sit in a writers’ room and are forced to work together, still pretty much don’t like people as much as they like writing about people. And where you write is almost as important as what you’re writing.

I recently set up my home office. I moved late last year and I just never got around to creating a proper workspace. So, when I finally was forced into really unpacking and setting up my desk, I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I wanted it to be very me, but it also needed to be functional and inspiring. I filled my desk area with eclectic thrift store findings, candles, a mug of my face that my mother made filled with a bouquet of craft scissors, loads of colorful clutter, each item with a meaning, each item providing inspiration.

But eventually my recluse ways are invariably encroached upon. Sometimes I have social or work engagements, but mostly I venture out when I’m blocked. There’s nothing like participating in the world to find the solution to your story. I’ve often said that 90% of writing is napping. Well, after you’ve done the napping and you’ve got your story, and the words just aren’t flowing, that’s when I say take your act on the road. Try writing on location.

In L.A., it’s the vogue thing, to go to Starbucks to pound out your Magnum Opus, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s a trite behavior. To really write is to think, to hear your inner voice, to channel a character’s pain and translate that into palpable text. How can you do all of that important work, while listening to a grinder gnash beans incessantly, loud teenaged girls snapping their gum and ordering embarrassingly complicated coffee drinks, and people yapping on their Bluetooth cyborg earbuds? You simply can’t. Real writers don’t write in Starbucks, people who want to be seen writing, write in Starbucks.

For my money, I like to write in bars. If I feel like I’ve been cooped up too long, and my facial tick has gone completely out of control, I pack up my laptop and head for my bar. “The Bucket of Blood” is perfect for writing. There are only a handful of ever-drunk and very quiet, afternoon regulars there during the day, which makes for a peaceful working environment. Their TV’s are on mute, and the service is excellent, mostly because the cute blonde bartender has the preternatural ability to know exactly when I want something and when I want to be left alone. It’s a great place to have a drink, look at your story and really take stock of what you have in a new environment. Usually somewhere between drinks two and three, an hour into rugby, and half an order of bangers and mash later, I get the perspective or inspiration I was missing.

I had been working in my bar the day of the last Screenwriter Karaoke, when I got stuck. I was stuck on a plot point, which is what drove me to the bar in the first place. Three martinis, two diet cokes, some potato skins and four hours later, and I was no closer to solving my problem. I figured, as I was already toasty, why not go drink away my troubles with my compatriots, with other screenwriters?

I went to Sardo’s and met a bunch of great people. I got to chatting with one of the writers there and I don’t know if it was the three martinis I already had or the fourth I was drinking that made my lips quite so loose, but I spilled the beans. I told this other writer my whole story. Every detail that I held close to my vest, every intricate moment that made my story special and unique. It was an odd burst of revelation from me, largely, because I don’t ever talk about what I’m writing, until I can hand you a finished script. It’s just the way I work. But I was stumped and I needed the help.

And she listened to every word I said, hung on to my every pause and really was engaged by me. I was worried I was boring her, but she wanted to know more. So I told her my problem. I needed a monument for a very integral plot point; its importance to the story was so great, that the monument needed to become its own character but none of the real monuments were quite right. The Eiffel Tower was predictable, the Arc Du Triumph was strangely incompatible. The Empire State also had problems. I had spent days researching buildings and architecture, but I just couldn’t find the right place for me and it was making me nuts.

She looked at me and said, “Just make it up.” Her theory was, I was being intentionally vague throughout most of the story, allowing the audience to project their impressions on the characters, allowing the audience to fill in their own details. She suggested, why not just make up a building and have it suit your needs and then be vague about it. People will imagine it’s whatever building they think it is and you’ll be golden. It was awesome! As a professional writer, where ideas and words are your trade, it’s hard to trust others with your conceptions. But for the first time, it felt great to be so exposed. I allowed myself to be critiqued and to learn from someone else. And I’m pretty sure, none of this would’ve happened had I stayed home and sat at my colorfully cluttered yet inspiring workspace and never ventured out into the world.

As writers there’s a tendency to withdraw into your imaginary world, to become so turtle-like that your whole world is contained inside a dark little shell. But I found that by going out into the world, connecting with people, meeting other writers who so deeply understand what it means to be blocked, seeing what else there is to see past the end of my desk, that either the answer comes to you or you meet someone who solves your problem.

Either way, I learned that while writing is a solitary sport, sometimes it’s absolutely mandatory that you take your show on the road. It’s amazing what a change of scenery can do for your spirit and your story.

Only one more shopping day until Screenwriter Karaoke LA! Come on out, belt a few tunes, and meet some filmmakers. You don’t have to be a writer to join the fun, just in the business. Bring your cards and a friend. Can’t wait to see you!

SCREENWRITER KARAOKE LA IS THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10TH, 8:30 PM AT SARDO’S BAR AND GRILL IN BURBANK, CA.

Thursday December 10th, 8:30 PM
Sardo’s Grill and Lounge
259 N. PASS AVE.
BURBANK, CA 91505

Driving directions: Here