Getting my ass kicked. And liking it.

Yup. Script Frenzy is kicking my ass, although not nearly as bad as I thought it would. The first couple of days were absolute hell. I have a bunch of different books on screenwriting, and they all seemed to have something different to say on the subject of formatting. The left margin starts at 1 inch from the left edge. The left margin starts at 1.5. Dialog starts at 2.6 inches from the left edge. Dialog starts at 3.1 inches. Character names go at 3.2 inches. Character names go at 4.1. And that's only the differences between 2 of the books. Oh yeah, and let's not forget the fact that certain lines can only be so many characters long, and some books say to put in some camera directions, while others say you shouldn't direct the director, and to keep sluglines down to the bare bones. Aaagh.

Then some kind soul came along and told me about a wonderful program called CeltX. It's a program designed specifically for writers of plays - screenplays, stage plays, radio plays, whatever kind your little writing heart desires - and it does all the formatting for you. It also exports to .pdf files, which is sweet. Oh yeah, and the best part is, it's totally free, unlike Final Draft, which requires you to part with over $200 of your hard-earned money. No, wait... actually that's not the best part. That's the second-best part. The best part is that I'm on page 19 so far, and although, yes, I am behind, I have a pretty good idea where I'm going with the plot, and now that I'm used to the software, I think I might actually have a shot at finishing within the allotted time. Woohoo.