The Frenzy is over, at least for this year. I crossed the 20,000-word finish line on Friday. I used a screenplay software program known as Celtx, which made formatting easy. The program also had an online word count feature that proved to be on the conservative side. It told me I had written 20,098 words. When I uploaded the text to the Script Frenzy site for validation, they gave me credit for 20,998 words. I don't know who wrote those additional 900 words, but I bet they're the best 900 of the whole batch.

Given the fact that I wrote the screenplay by the seat of my pants, the story took several unexpected turns, including a 10,000-word scene in the middle that involved four characters at a ballpark, watching a baseball game, drinking beer, and talking. That happened because I suddenly got a clue about the story I was writing and my poor characters had to work through the background and details for me. One of the characters got so bored spouting exposition that he opted to drink himself into a stupor and pass out so he wouldn't have to say the rest of his lines.

I don't know if it's allowed, but I'm thinking of taking the basic outline of the screenplay and using it as the basis of my NaNoWriMo novel in November. From there, it might be fun to adapt whatever comes out of that effort into a screenplay next year.