Monday 5 October 2015

Screenwriting #6-7: I can sleep when I’m dead

With the Hea-Van series coming to a finish I decided to work on another screenplay. I have two screenplays I wanted to work on, one that I started five years ago and one I had an idea for a few months ago. I will finish both but have put a concentrated effort into writing the latter first.

I have started writing what was to be a one off TV piece called Marathon Money and it’s about a woman in her early twenties called Jenna. In short she is going to be running the marathon and has got a charity place. But with charity places you have to raise a certain amount of money, and although she finds this easy in reality it’s not.

She’s exhausted all options of fundraising and then realises that an unconventional way might be the answer. Jenna had been going to pole classes for a few years and got quite good, so she takes an evening job at a pole club in order to raise the money. Obviously there are obstacles along the way and while the marathon is at the forefront of the screenplay, the real focus is whether she can raise the money.


This by far is the easiest screenplay I’ve written, for some reason the words have flowed out onto the page really quickly. The second evening of writing I wrote 23 pages and was questioning how long I could stay awake as I couldn’t stop writing.

I guess its true what they say, write about what you know. And while I don’t have any experience in doing pole at a club (well as a paid job) I did go to pole classes for around 3-4 years. And although I haven’t run a marathon, I’ve done several races and challenges which require sponsorship. For me the training part wasn’t the problem for the challenges, it was getting a person to sponsor me which was the tricky part.


The timing of me writing this couldn’t have come at a better time as all over Facebook I’m seeing friends who have applied for a ballot place in the marathon to be told the outcome over the past few days. Others have been toying with the idea of a charity place, but many are put off by the high amount that has to be raised.

Over the weekend I went to a fitness weekend and somehow between classes I managed to write an awful lot. I’m now on 71 pages! So with plenty more still to explore, instead of a one TV piece, I’m making it a film. I’m heading for 90 pages, but I reckon I could do 120.

I hope the rest of the writing will be just as fast. Question is how much sleep do I really need?

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