I admit it.  I got cocky.  And that may have been my downfall.

My entry in the one-page competition was not one of the three finalists.  I suppose I was biased since I made it in AND won the last time.

I checked out the three.  At first glance, I liked two of them, the third not so much.  Then I read them again, a bit slower.  The first one, which I originally liked the most, was a little confusing at the end.

The second was clever.  That’s all I really can say about it.

The third I initially didn’t like, but after re-reading it, I liked the twist ending more than the rest of it.

If I had to pick, it would be between 2 & 3.

Lesson learned:  when I think something is good, take a little break, then go back and make it better!  I’ll give that a try next time around.

-Didn’t get to do any of my own writing today, but still feeling somewhat confident about it.

-I registered with a kind of peer-review message board for various stages of screenwriting and submitted the Dreamship logline.  I’m curious to see if anybody’s responded and what they have to say.

Part of my motivation for this was my receiving an email from a contest where the 100 best loglines are forwarded to producers.  Sounds interesting.

-Speaking of which, I really should check up on that contest I found myself in from earlier this year.  Unfortunately, I can’t remember what it’s called, so tracking down an update will be quite the challenge.

With my luck, I’ll get an email sometime in the next week with my status.  But I’ll probably forget about it by this time tomorrow, so no big deal.

-The wife heads out of town this weekend, and the daughter’s camp is half a day all next week.  Those precious hours between dropping her off at 1 and picking her up at 5 will more than likely be filled with exercise and/or running.  The flaw in this plan is being too exhausted in the evening to focus or at least stay awake while trying to write while she watches TV.  Even if I only get 1-2 pages done a day, that’s still more than I’m doing now.

-Finally heard from the woman who runs the new writing group.  I suspect lots of us were off/away for the summer, so now it’s time to jump back in.  Looking forward to this.

-Inspired by last Friday’s logline/Twitter contest winner, I developed and have decided to enter the following: Moe, Larry & Curly: Undercover G-Men!

1944. The famed slapstick trio is recruited by the War Department to help break up a Nazi spy ring that has infiltrated Hollywood.

If that doesn’t work, it’s back to the drawing board.  Then again, it sounds like it would be an awesome movie.

Last week I said I would be vigilant about daily posting, and I’ve fallen down on the job twice this week.

Would it count if I said I was busy with a freelance editing project?  I was.  Not as many hours as originaly expected, but still a good start to a potential sideline.

Negative side – the company asked for my business license number, which you need in San Francisco.  I had one years ago, but hadn’t needed it since ’07.  So I go to City Hall, ask about renewing it, and am told that it never expired and I owe $$ in back taxes. WHAAA???

I know the city’s broke and hard up for cash, but this is preposterous.  Now I’ve got to find out if they accept installment payments.

-On the script front, I did enter a one-page contest I was fortunate enough to win earlier this year.  If I get lucky again, the prize is a $25 gift card to Amazon and a 15-minute consultation/discussion with the woman who runs the contest.  She’s also a professional script reader/consultant, so I think I could really benefit from that.

The requirements are: one page that include, in context, three words of her choosing.  I like the way my scene developed and liked it more than I expected to.  Hope she likes it.

The weird thing is doing the comedy for that one page wasn’t that hard.  I had fun while I wrote it.  I really need to keep that feeling going while working on Baby Likes Jazz.  Maybe it’s not as hard as it first seems.

-There’s also a weekly contest from a guy who is also a script consultant, and his picks the best logline.  The prize is usually something like he’ll analyze the first 5 pages of your script, or a 5-minute phone call.  I haven’t had any luck yet, but suspect my Xmas Noir one came close.

I do have a problem with last week’s winner.  ‘Susan B Anthony: Dragon Slayer.’  Clever, but not terribly original, especially considering the recent release of ‘Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’ (which was part of my wife’s birthday present). 

I wonder what kind of reaction something like ‘Moe, Larry and Curly: Undercover G-Men!’ would get.  I may not have a script to back it up, but it sure sounds fun.

-Still looking into possibly going to a pitchfest-type of thing in the fall.  More investigation needed.

Well, the emails have been sent out to all 6,304 of us Nicholl hopefuls regarding possible advancing to the next round.

Despite my positive thoughts and efforts, I was not among the fortunate.  I didn’t even get a p.s. saying how I was THIS CLOSE to making the cut.

It’s somewhat depressing, but I’ve been reading a lot of blogs and comments from people in my situation.  The responses have ranged from ‘They never like (genre) anyway,’ to ‘That’s it.  I’m done.  I will never enter this contest again.’

I’m probably more reluctant to try again next year.  But somebody posted an interview with a previous winner who said she had entered her winning script the previous two years, only to lose out in the first round.  But when she entered the third time, she was able to make it to the winner’s circle.  I’m more intrigued what changes, if any, she made to her script.  I bet I could do even more to improve Dreamship, but that’s something to think about later on.

In the meantime, I’ve already broken several self-imposed vows regarding Baby Likes Jazz.  I haven’t been able to write every day, which is my own fault.  While I should be about halfway done, I’m only up to page 20.  I went back and edited/rewrote those pages, which I told myself I wouldn’t do.  But I also like them more than I did before, so that might not be a bad thing.

While I’m trying to get this first draft done, I’ve also been very concerned about whether or not it’s funny.  It’s hard to self-analyze on that front.  I’m not the kind of writer who does Hangover-type stuff, but I wish there was a way to improve.  Maybe writing every day will help.

Part of me also wonders how serious I am about getting this done.  It’s a cute concept, but doesn’t exactly scream “Commercial!”  I think I decided to take it on because I wanted to see if I could do it.  Maybe in the end it would work better as a writing sample.  Unless I can make it better.  We’ll see.

I’ve also started thinking about two other ideas I began developing before I dove into Baby.  One a mystery-comedy, the other another fantasy-adventure.  There are still lots of details needed to flesh out both, but I’m already looking forward to taking them on.

-I’ve mentioned to the wife about upcoming pitch festivals in August and September.  I like the idea of going, but wonder if it’s really worth it.  Then again, it’s not like anybody’s breaking down my door lately.  I’d probably pick one and take it from there.  We’ll see.

I finally decided to bit the bullet, stop tinkering with the outline and start writing actual pages on Baby Likes Jazz.

It’s fun.

I’d forgotten the rush/thrill/satisfaction of doing  it.  Granted, I’m only up to page 8, but that’s after 3 non-consecutive days.  As much as I’d like to have at it every day, that just ain’t gonna happen, so I’ll take what I can get.

I’m also trying a new approach during this first draft – to resist going back and rewriting what I’ve already done.  Granted, I’ve already violated that self-imposed rule, but I’ll try to do better.

I figure if I keep at it on a semi-regular basis, I could possibly have a completed draft by the end of July.  And that would be great.

I’m finding that my writing ability is being put to the test during this time because some of my scenes in the outline have more in them than I can use in the script, so there’s always that ongoing  self-editing.  This is forcing me to slightly alter what I want to put in so that it still supports the story.  Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it ain’t.

Even though this is supposed to be a comedy, that aspect is once again proving to be the hardest to accomplish.  I’d rather write something that made the reader/audience laugh out loud, rather than a slight chuckle or even worse, not respond at all.

Writing comedy has to be more than having characters say something sarcastic.  I have to work on that.

On a positive note, I gave the first 3 pages to my fellow former writing group member to get her feedback.  She liked them.  Not too bad, but the challenge will be seeing what the folks in the new writing group think.  They’re meeting tonight, but K is out of town through Sunday, so I won’t really know until I attend next time, and I don’t know when that will be.

-I’m connected with the Nicholl people via Facebook, and they’ve been posting rave comments about unidentified scripts.  The scary part is some of the comments could refer to my entry, which is nice to think.

But the realist in me is thinking “It’s not me.”  I think they’re not announcing the first round of finalist until the end of July, so I’m trying to keep myself distracted by working on Baby Likes Jazz and doing my best to not think about the Nicholl.  That’s not easy either.

But for now, I write and I dream.  Then I write some more…