It has been a good Screnzy so far, and now that we are over halfway through the month, I'm two thirds the way towards finishing Script Frenzy. (Yay!) However, the past week has seen me going on holiday without Celtx (the scriptwriting software I'm using), so I've been forced to write by hand on sheets of low-quality lined paper. This has also forced me to estimate how many pages I've written on paper, which totals approximately 20. And now I need to transcribe those 20 pages from the paper onto the computer. Lovely.
Transcribing is simple, but incredibly irritating. I simply keep my sheets beside me and type what I read. Unfortunately, it's very time consuming and not all that satisfying. It feels counter-productive - stealing away precious time I could be using doing other things, namely writing more new pages on the computer.
However, just like anything else, it has its benefits. Reading it through and transcribing it is, in a way, multi-task proof-reading. I can locate and edit out typos and suchlike as I go, and modify speech to flow more smoothly. On top of this, it means I can mentally edit everything, working out which parts will make the second draft and what won't survive the extensive editing I have planned.
As well as the obvious editing taking place here, it seems that I may have underestimated just how many pages I've written. At present, I'm calculating that each handwritten page is equal to 1.25 Celtx pages - which is good, as it means that I'm not actually losing as much time as I might think. I'm actually increasing the page count (marginally) as I go. Yip-dee-doo-dah to me, I guess.
So, to recap: I hate transcribing, but it's reasonably productive and is helping with the editing process. (I should really leave editing until after Screnzy, but what the heck! I'm ahead. I deserve to be allowed to deviate slightly.)
And now I'm off to do some more transcribing, and maybe write a guitar solo after that...
Regards,
A Reasonably Happy Transcriber
Monday 16 April 2012
Saturday 14 April 2012
Halfway There...
Wahey! I'm a day off being halfway through Script Frenzy!
At this point in time, I have exactly 59 pages. Unfortunately, twenty of those pages are on lined paper and must be transcribed to Celtx so that I can be sure that I have what I think I have. The problem with writing by hand as well as typing it up is that there's no way you can actually tell how many digital pages you've written on paper. Currently, I'm estimating that one and a half lined paper pages equals a page of Celtx goodness. I hope to the Lord on high that I'm right, or better still, have overestimated and have written far more than simply 59 pages.
This aside, the story is going very well. Now almost 60% the way through my grand masterpiece, I've decided that around seven scenes need axing from the program. That means that approximately two thirds of what I've written is now moot; that is to say, obsolete. This is, no doubt, simply the best thing to realize when you're halfway into a long month of literary abandon. However, I've made the (intelligent) decision to carry on as if nothing's happened. The editing comes after the Frenzy. I tried deleting and rewriting a section a few days into Screnzy, and that didn't turn out so great.
So, I'm not actually following the Script Frenzy approved plan of writing 3.333 pages a day. Instead, I've been writing four, which lands me with a projected total of 56 pages by the end of today. Needless to say, 59 is more than 56 and that means I am almost a whole day ahead of my plan. If I can write five more pages today - which is what I want to do, BTW - I'll be two days ahead of the infernal beast of Screnzy. Great.
Hopefully by Tuesday I'll be past seventy pages. As it is, I can write at a rate of three to six pages per hour (3-6 pg./hr). It's unusual... I appear to write more quickly by hand than on the computer. Maybe that's because I get distracted by the Internet.
Speaking of which, I should really get back to writing now. So allow me to bid you farewell now - I have an episode to write!
Regards,
A Tired Scriptwriter
At this point in time, I have exactly 59 pages. Unfortunately, twenty of those pages are on lined paper and must be transcribed to Celtx so that I can be sure that I have what I think I have. The problem with writing by hand as well as typing it up is that there's no way you can actually tell how many digital pages you've written on paper. Currently, I'm estimating that one and a half lined paper pages equals a page of Celtx goodness. I hope to the Lord on high that I'm right, or better still, have overestimated and have written far more than simply 59 pages.
This aside, the story is going very well. Now almost 60% the way through my grand masterpiece, I've decided that around seven scenes need axing from the program. That means that approximately two thirds of what I've written is now moot; that is to say, obsolete. This is, no doubt, simply the best thing to realize when you're halfway into a long month of literary abandon. However, I've made the (intelligent) decision to carry on as if nothing's happened. The editing comes after the Frenzy. I tried deleting and rewriting a section a few days into Screnzy, and that didn't turn out so great.
So, I'm not actually following the Script Frenzy approved plan of writing 3.333 pages a day. Instead, I've been writing four, which lands me with a projected total of 56 pages by the end of today. Needless to say, 59 is more than 56 and that means I am almost a whole day ahead of my plan. If I can write five more pages today - which is what I want to do, BTW - I'll be two days ahead of the infernal beast of Screnzy. Great.
Hopefully by Tuesday I'll be past seventy pages. As it is, I can write at a rate of three to six pages per hour (3-6 pg./hr). It's unusual... I appear to write more quickly by hand than on the computer. Maybe that's because I get distracted by the Internet.
Speaking of which, I should really get back to writing now. So allow me to bid you farewell now - I have an episode to write!
Regards,
A Tired Scriptwriter
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