While in Michigan I have a 5 page a day writing schedule. I work from 10-2, or whenever I finish my 5 pages. It’s a little easier this time than the first feature, I think the first time you do something it’s always more intimidating.

We started a feature writing group with some fellow students at UCLA.We met once a week to workshop each other’s writing. This was the progression we had for our meetings:

1. One Page Treatment for a Feature Film
2. First Act Step Outline
3. Second Act Step Outline
4. Third Act Step Outline

It was great to get such challenging, intelligent feedback on the basic story idea before we went into our three week break. For the break we each set individual goals for how many pages we would write on which days. We email them to each other when they’re completed. It’s a good motivation to keep writing, which is really the most important thing.

I also didn’t get in to the January Sundance Screenwriters Lab. I was a finalist and found out on December 12th through a very nice email from Michelle Satter, the director of the feature film program. It was an honor to get that far with my first screenplay, and I will most definitely be submitting this one as well.

In Steven Pressfield’s excellent The War of Art (Available under Getting the Work Done in the Store Section of this website), he writes

The Bhagavad Gita tells us we have a right only to our labor, not to the fruits of our labor.

The point is that whether Sundance, the Nicholls, or whatever holy grail of writing accepts you, is not what writing is about. It is about the work, which should be its own reward.

That being said, you still have to put your work out there, and these are some of the most important screenwriting labs and competitions around.

1. The Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab
2. The Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting
3. The Disney/ABC Writing Fellowship
4. The Film Independent Screenwriters Lab
5. The American Zoetrope Screenplay Contest
6. The Berlinale Talent Campus

I’m sure there are more that I am missing, and I would love to hear some more suggestions, but this is an excellent start for the budding screenwriter. Write, rewrite, and apply. People say it takes 3 tries to get into the Sundance Labs. That means I’m only two more tries away. We’ll see, and I’ll keep writing regardless.