Script Frenzy: Why A New Script, You Ask?

Word has it that my arch-nemesis, the hated and hateful blogless one, is having her own crisis of conscious about her current script. The fool is thinking of switching to something new.


Just.


Like.


Me.


Thus, my carefully laid plan to torpedo her word count comes to fruition!

No, not really.

She's nuts.

I'm nuts, too.

But, hey, the Script Frenzy is the crazy train and everyone gets a ticket to ride. But why, you might ask, would someone be foolish enough to ditch all their hard work and start their frenzy all over? And if you've never done the Frenzy dance or rode the NaNo swell, you don't understand just how precious those words in your count really are. They're like your children. They're precious. You feed them and tend them and hope they grow new ones. And, above anything else, the one cardinal sin of the NaNo code, the unwritten rule, you don't take them out of your meter. Ever. So why switch midway? Well, Soluna's obviously doing it because all the cool kids are and she wants to sit at our table. As for why I did it, well, it's a bit complicated.

Sure, I was plodding along at a better than average 1k a day. Sure, I was well ahead of the pace with a good 5000 words after only a week. Sure, I'd planned and prepared for a month, hell, since November, to be writing that script. But I was having a miserable time doing it. I was dragging myself to the keyboard and forcing myself to pry the words out of my brain. I felt, and still do, that changing tracks would give me that breath of fresh air I needed to keep going towards the finish line. I might have finished my old story but I wouldn't have been happy with it. But there was a chance, a slim chance to be sure, that something new might spark something in me.

Above anything else, the spirit of NaNo, and the ethos of the Script Frenzy which inherited it, is about the death of your inner editor. Deep in the back of everyone's head is that voice. You know the one. It's the one that tells you why you can't, why you shouldn't, why you won't succeed. It's the part of you that wields the cosmic red pen and makes sure to edit your actions before they even happen. It's what keeps you from writing that novel, that play, that movie. From talking to that cutie at the end of the bar. From blurting out your feelings towards your significant other on the subway. From taking that chance. It tells you to play it safe, play it caution, don't play it at all.

It's by ignoring that inner editor, by throwing out your backspace key, that you unleash the creative furor that drives you to attempt the implausible. You stop listening to that pesky little voice and start thinking about what you could do, if only you tried. You look at that 20k you have to write with only 10 days left and you go, okay, that's only 2k a day. That's not so bad. I can manage that. I can do this. Parse it down, parcel it up, and tease the possible out of that obstacle and you start to realize that, yeah, you really can do it.

But you have to start. You have to take that first step. That chance. On something that seems impossible. Crazy. No way. Can't do it. Shouldn't do it. But you will. Because, hey, it's only a script. And it's only a contest with yourself. Winning isn't a matter of having 20k on June 30th. It's a matter of challenging yourself to get there.

Wrapped up in the adrenaline rush of the frenzy, the fires of creation burning within me, I don't just want to take that chance. I have to.

The question isn't why would I take the chance on starting a new script when I could play it safe and stick with what was kind of working. Not for this June. The question is why wouldn't I?