A year and a half ago, a female screenwriter friend and I met for lunch. As we checked in on each others’ progress on creative projects, we found ourselves wishing for additional support. Both of us were well passed the “beginner” stage of learning the craft and industry ropes. We wanted to learn from other writers, and put DC talent more firmly on the entertainment radar. But how? We walked away from the meeting with the idea for a small…
Lost was my first serious tutor in writing for TV. Understand, I never watched the show when it was super popular in the early 2000s. I tend to avoid shows that everyone is talking about. I’ve never seen The Sopranos. I don’t watch House of Cards. Game of Thrones was six seasons in before I started following it. The Walking Dead was in its seventh season when I binged it on Netflix. Call it a contrarian tendency but it’s the…
Two weeks ago several of my screenwriting friends and I participated in the 48 hour film project. #48HFP! Here’s how it works: on designated weekends in cities all around the world, filmmakers gather together a team of writers, actors, gaffers, camera and sound operators to make a short film, between four and seven minutes in length. The project begins on a Friday evening when each team sends a representative to pull from a random drawing: A choice of two genres—or…
I started writing for the screen in 2015 while in the middle of writing my novel series, Ashes, Ashes. It’s a tale of a group of young people trying to survive the aftermath of a nuclear attack on Washington, DC. I was working on the third of the six books and struggling to build a fan base in spite of amazing reviews in the crowded field of dystopian novels. Then my friend Tom suggested, “Why don’t you rewrite them for…