Eventually.....

Someone will find this thing.

Meanwhile, I'm off to Cheltenham!

Liz

I guess this thing works after all...

Tap tap tap.... hmm, I guess this thing works after all.

I launched this page ages ago intending to blog my way through my MA in Screenwriting at the London College of Communication. But I never got it off the ground. Probably a good thing - it's been a bit of a rollercoaster! (I've learned a tremendous amount, had some great opportunities and made some really good friends - but there have been some difficult bits too. And no, I'm not going to talk about them here!)

So, here I am with less than two months to go before the course finishes and I finally feel the need to start blogging... and what will I be talking about? Writing, mostly - all kinds of writing, not just screenwriting. For those that don't know me, there's a list of what I've done at www.lizholliday.co.uk. The even quicker version is that for fun and occasional profit I write science fiction, fantasy, horror and crime short stories. I also write a lot of other stuff to make a living.

But now, back to screenwriting....

Here we are two days before Cheltenham Screenwriters' Festival and I'm nowhere near ready to go! I have a short story (for an invite-only anthology) and several very short video scripts (for a client) to finish before I go, I have three overdue readers's reports for college that I'd really like out of the way, and I need to go to the laundrette! My life is so much fun.

But I can do this. I've had worse deadline crunches and met them, so this really shouldn't be too tough.

And that brings me on to the writerly bit of this post...

Some people say you should write a bit every day. And they may have a point. But me, I'm an adrenaline junkie. I thrive on short deadlines. Intractable plot problems I've wrestled with for months, weeks, days disappear as time goes shorter. And the scary thing is, most people seem to think the stuff I write on that cresting wave of desperation is as good, stylistically, as the material I've sweated out one word at a time. So there really is no incentive for me to learn 'better' habits - except that I find it difficult to work at all without a real deadline (ones I've invented don't work - there has to be a real client with a real signed contract)....

Am I alone in this? What kind of writer are you? Marathon runner? Sprinter? Or adrenaline junkie like me?

Liz

The obligatory test post

Testing... testing testing