Writing is a lonely hobby.¬† Just me and my evil foe, the Blinking Cursor Of Despair, slugging it out day after day.¬† So I’ll take any encouragement I can get along the way.¬† I’m not picky, but I find the unexpected nuggets are the sweetest.
Last night in my Screenwriting class we were taking turns reading our latest scenes aloud for the class to critique.¬† It helps enormously to hear your dialog actually read, and I usually do a lot of wincing and note taking about where things don’t flow.¬† Anyway, we had already done three screenplays that night, and he wanted to squeeze one more in before we broke for the night.¬† This class is 7:00pm to 10:00pm, so people are pretty bushed towards the end. ¬† He pointed over at me to pass out my copies for reading and this guy sitting two desks away claps!¬† Another guy goes “Yes!¬† I love this script!”
I had NO idea.¬† There are eleven of us in the class and we’ve all been working our scripts for the past two months.¬† Nearly everyone in the class volunteered to read a part, and I got more kudos from people for the dialog and pacing.¬† I’ve been doing well on the assignments, but that sort of impromptu praise from the class, a group of people all fighting the same fight as me, was huge. I’m going to see if I can finish this baby off for a local film festival submission in December!
The moral of the story is to never underestimate the impact of a little praise or some encouraging words.
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