Screenwriting Blog
Posted on by Courtney Meznarich

You DO Have Time to Write, Says Screenwriter Kaylord Hill as He Wraps Up His 30-Day Feature Film Script

When we ask the writing community about their biggest obstacles standing in between them and a finished screenplay, time is often the most popular answer. But, is it true? SoCreate’s Screenwriter Stimulus winner Kaylord Hill has a theory as his clock ticks down on his 30-day screenplay challenge.

With less than a week to go, Kaylord explains how he’ll spend the last few days of December in an effort to finish a feature-length script by the end of 2020 and how you, too, can make time to write a screenplay much faster than you think.

"Good afternoon, good afternoon! Now, I come to you folks as someone who has just submitted his last, well not his last batch, but his most recent batch of pages to SoCreate’s Screenwriter Stimulus. We are going into the last week.

Now, we all know I moved up, moved the goal post a little bit. So, I wanted to get my script done by this past weekend. Unfortunately, that did not happen. But, I also realized that this story isn’t a typical like, 120, 90 … that’s not going to be my story. My story is going to bank around the 85 to 87-page mark. Because I really think I’ve framed it in a specific indie, love, soon to be comedy, you know rom soon to be com, sort of tunnel and framework. And so it doesn’t need to be longer than what it is.

It’s one of those stories where you know they’re not going to end up together, but you really enjoy the journey, and you really enjoy the chemistry that these two sort of cultivate together. So, that’s why I figured, in those types of movies, it’s best to be brief, and be beautiful, and economic, and impactful, than risk being opulent, and long, and verbose and things like that.

So, I like the direction I’m headed in. I just submitted my pages not only to SoCreate, but I have put my pages in the hands of some of my most trusted peers – two screenwriters and two producers. They always give me great feedback, always give me honest feedback. And so what I’m looking to do over the next couple of days: so I am going to probably finish the script tomorrow. So it will be finished tomorrow. And then Wednesday through Sunday, we’re going to do one full rewrite, where we’re really going to try to get the bones of the story so readers can clearly see where the story starts, the middle, and obviously the end. And so that is the goal for me tomorrow: Finish the script, and then Wednesday through Sunday, I should have no distractions from work and other things like that.

I’m going to have a lot of fun. It’s definitely going to be work, but one thing I’ve sort of figured out – I always like to leave you guys with a couple of things I’ve learned along the way in terms of the week – I think I’ve come to understand that I have way more time on my hands than I previously thought. And, maybe I’ve said that before, but you really, really do. And so when you start thinking about how much time you really have to just write, not necessarily get things right and nuance and stuff like that and trying to make your script great and rewrites and stuff like that, but just to write, just to get a first draft done, we have way more time than sometimes I think we lead on.

Ultimately, I think where everyone can benefit is managing discipline, managing themselves, holding themselves accountable. But then sometimes, I will submit to you all, I am tired. Your boy tired! I’m not going to play with ya’ll at all. It has been a grind daily. If I don’t write, to then journal about what I want to write tomorrow, figure out is this going to work, is this not going to work, and then doing the work thing. And so, all of that, like, I submit to you. SoCreate didn’t say it was going to be easy. They didn’t say it was going to be easy. But they did say it was going to be fun and a great challenge, and it has been a great challenge. But let me not kemp and say I’m not tired. I’m tired! I’ve been putting in the work, and as you should be, and as you should do. Putting in the work is where you reap the most beautiful fruit.

So, for all my writers out there, keep going, keep writing, keep fighting! You know what I say, and I say it every time, and I mean it when I say it: pages going down. Keep it going. Keep writing. Keep fighting. Until next time. Next week’s the last week. So last vlog coming Monday. Until that time, I’ll see ya’ll."

SoCreate's Screenwriter Stimulus Winner Kaylord Hill

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