Thursday, July 15, 2010

Writing Is Easy

Right now you are probably saying something like, 'what the bleedin' 'ell are you on about?' Writing is easy. It sounds somewhat foolish to say that, but it's true. What you have to remember is the actual act of writing is only a small percentage of the work you do, that fun time getting the words of the first draft down on the page,letting your mind wander, exploring your created world, before you start the painful task of rewriting.

And what of the work you have to do before you can write? Outlining your idea, character biographies, series bibles, plot, structure and a million other things that go into making your first draft. That's right...your first draft. Then comes weeks, months and sometimes years of editing and rewriting, bringing everything together to arrive at the point where you have that final polished draft ready to send out.

This is where most beginners fail. They think all they have to do is write a screenplay, change a few bits and it's ready to be shown to the world. Wrong! If other writers are spending months on their script making it as perfect as they can, they are already way ahead of you. The script you spent a month writing is at the bottom of the pile and the more time you spend on it, working through every aspect of your screenplay over and over again, the better chance your screenplay has of getting noticed. The less time and effort you put into your work the more obvious it is you're not really committed to being a writer. For you, it's just a hobby.

Writing is easy....it's the preparation and the constant rewriting that is hard work.

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