Danika Dinsmore

Storyteller

contests

Blog Tours, Book Tours: The Accidental Novelist on the road…

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Today I kick off my Imaginary Worlds Book Tour with a virtual stop at Just Deb, where you will find an interview AND a book giveaway for the First Fan Edition (which we are almost out of and you can only order from the publisher). The “mainstream” edition is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and may be ordered from any bookstore in North America.

Deb Marshall is an assistant manager of a small town library, storyteller and writer. She also runs their library’s Backroom Kids Book Club. She is a grand supporter of Canadian literature and is running an Oh (MG/YA) Canada! Reading Challenge. Readers are challenged to devour one Canadian author’s childrens’ book per month for the year.

You can find her list of suggested reading HERE.

I don’t have dates for my other virtual book tour stops. I’ll just have to announce them when they appear. But the physical (!) book tour starts next week and public events are listed on Brigitta’s FACEBOOK page.

Show Us Your Faerie Wings

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(NOTE: contest at The White Forest goes until my birthday (Feb 17). I also have another Giveaway Contest over at GoodReads that goes through Feb 18. Although, over 600 people have entered, so your chances of winning are better on the White Forest site.)

Today I’m hanging out over at my White Forest website, hosting a contest in celebration of the new Indie Debut website.

If you pop over to the site, you could win a signed copy of the book. Oooohhh, aaaahhhh.

All this social media and virtual upkeep is a necessary challenge for debut authors (I’m guessing for seasoned authors as well). One of the things I tell people who want to get a book published, is that the hard work starts after the book is written. I think there’s a certain romanticism and nostalgia around the way it used to be in traditional publishing. But those days are gone, not coming back, and we need to figure out how to play (and stay sane) in the new paradigm.

One must be careful, though, to keep nurturing the creative side. If I had my way, I’d stay locked in my office five hours a day minimum working on writing the books series. I wish there were a monkey faerie who could do all my social media for me. (oooh! Monkey faeries! Like the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz.)

Image from "Kellie" at photoshopix (click image for site)

 

Training for the CyberSpace Open: A script per day!

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When I started my 10 day screenwriting challenge the other day, little did I realize how this might get me in shape for one of the most interesting screenwriting contests I’ve seen:  Screenwriting Expo’s CyberSpace Open.

The contest is set up in round-robin (elimination) style. Each round the participants must write a five page short script around a specific premise. You can write from anywhere. To win you need to survive 3 rounds, each with a tighter deadline than the last.

In the final round, the top 10 writers have only 90 minutes to write a 5-page script. Whew!

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I’ve been writing a short script per day for the past 7 days. I missed one day, so I only have 6 scripts. I was hoping to write 2 today, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

I may actually keep doing it for 2 weeks. We’ll see if I run out of steam.

I will post my favourite script of the 10 (or 14) right on this site. 🙂

Pick a Challenge, any Challenge

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August is a fine time to work your creative mojo. Everyone’s doing it! And they’re doing it in the form of challenges and experiments. Below are a few that I recommend.

Please let me know if there are any more out there in the coming month/s and I’ll add them to the list.

The 3:15 Experiment

Anyone who follows my blog with any regularity knows that I participate in the annual 3:15 Experiment every year. Basically, a shifting menagerie of poets (and prose writers, actually) wakes up at 3:15 AM EACH morning during the month of August and writes. Our goal is to write while riding a 1/2 dream state. Magic happens. We have a Facebook Group now. Join us.

August Postcard Poetry Fest

Started by Paul Nelson and Lana Ayers, the Postcard Poetry Fest challenges you to send 31 postcard poems, one for each day of August. They START it NOW if you’d like to participate… and I’m not sure you still can, but you can go to their website or FACEBOOK group and ask.

The rules say that on July 27th (tomorrow!), you write an original poem right on a postcard and mail it to the person on the list below your name. Starting on August 1st, ideally in response to a card YOU receive, keep writing a poem a day on a postcard and mailing it to successive folks on the list until you’ve sent out 31 postcards. I’ve never participated but some year I think I’ll write my 3:15 poems on postcards. That would be fun.

10 shorts in 10 days

This is a little invention of my friend Tod McCoy and myself. It happens irregularly (whenever we feel like lighting a fire under our butts). We write either 10 short films or 10 pieces of micro fiction in 10 days. This August we’re writing short scripts. Anyone out there is welcome to join us. There is no official website and no official place to post them, although if you’d like to post them on your blog and send us a link, that’d be swell.

We’re starting on AUGUST 10 and running until August 19. The rules are simple: Write a short script (or story) per day. Badda bing, badda boom. In the past our short scripts have run about 3-6 pages (in standard format). If you wonder what I mean by micro fiction, check out any one of my 56 Flavours stories, most of which were written during a 10 day challenge.

The 3-Day Novel Contest

This contest has been running for 30 years. It wins. I’ve only participated once, but had a blast doing it. Some day I’ll dig out the novel and rewrite it. It happens over Labour Day weekend (Sept 5-7 this year). They also have a Facebook page. If you want to officially participate, and for a chance at fame and fortune, you have to register, which involves $50. If you just want the challenge of trying something new and don’t care about official registration, I suggest forming a group and holing up somewhere in a 24 hour coffee shop together. Oh, yeah, the object is to write a novel in 3 days.

G.A. Pitchfest Part 2

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The Do’s, Don’ts, Myths, Facts (around the industry, pitchfests, and pitching)

This post is a collection of things heard straight from the pros mouths and from my own observations of what I consider “bad behavior” – meaning things that will  make you annoying and appear difficult or amateur.

The last thing you want to do is appear difficult to work with or ignorant of the industry. I don’t care how good your script is, if people decide off the bat that you are going to be a pain in the ass, you’ll never get your brilliant script read. You are asking them to invest precious time, energy, and money in your project, working with you for many months, even years… if you don’t sell yourself first, you certainly won’t sell your script.

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Do NOT…
… pester executives / decision makers at networking parties. The first thing out of your mouth when you meet someone at an industry event should not be a pitch. How do you know you even want to work with this person if you don’t get to know them?
… carry the DVD of a movie you made around with you trying to show it to everyone you meet.
… go to a pitchfest if you are not a serious screenwriter. Serious screenwriters have more than one script and many more in their heads. Serious screenwriters have spent time on their craft. They know how to edit and they know how to take criticism. They understand that filmmaking is a collaborative process. If you aren’t in it for the long haul (and it is a haul), you’ll be wasting everyone’s time.

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Myths

-NO ONE IS GOING TO STEAL YOUR IDEA. If you are afraid to pitch to an executive because you think they’re going to steal your idea you need to get over it. First off, they are professionals. If they got caught stealing ideas, their reputations would suffer. But even more practical than that… the portion of the budget that goes into the script/writing is minimal. It makes more financial sense for them to buy your idea from you than risk going to court.

(BTW – When I was teaching a screenwriting course, one of my students didn’t want to share her story with the rest of the class because she thought they might steal it. First of all, if you took that idea and gave it to 10 people, they’d end up with 10 different scripts. Second, after they wrote it, they’d have to spend months/years polishing it and pitching it and somehow get someone to produce it (where it would be changed again). Sounds like a lot of effort to me towards someone else’s idea. But also – you’ll never get the feedback you need if you don’t share your script.)

-Whoever has said your script won’t get read/made if over 100 pages is misinformed. Keeping it tight is a must (i.e. 130 page scripts tend to put people off), but if it’s a tight script at 115 pages, and it’s a great script of course, people won’t care. A great script is a great script.

-Big agencies are not always better. They could be too big for you. They might not have the time to really work with you. They are really looking for the NEXT BIG SCRIPT. You may be better off with a boutique agency.

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DO!

–Network!  Get to know people and get to know the people that you know. You don’t have to know a lot of executives to get assistance in the industry. Start with the people you know already. If you have a friend who is an assistant director, take them out to lunch and ask them for advice. People are suprisingly more helpful than you might think. You just need to ask.

-Take chances and be flexible!  Don’t be married to your ideas (could the protagonist be the magician rather than the orphan?) or with your vision of what your career looks like. If someone asks you to write a commercial for a petstore and you think this is beneath you, you could be missing the opportunity to make a good impression on people who might offer you more work.

-Love what you write. Whether high concept or art film, it’s going to be with you for a long while. Everyone can smell inauthenticity in a script written simply because you thought you were following some formula for a blockbuster.

-Enter reputable contests. Although not the “golden key” to production, they will get you noticed and management companies do care. BE CAREFUL of scammy contests with no professional merit or valuable offering for the winner. The Reel Breakthrough panelists all mentioned Cinestory, Fade In, and the Nicholl Fellowship. One panelist said she entered a contest and didn’t win, but one of the judges optioned her script.

G.A. Pitchfest Part 1

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There’s so much to tell about the Great American Pitchfest that I need to break my posts down into bite-size nuggets.

Right off the top I have to say the whole thing is worth the price of admission. If you are serious about screenwriting and ready to take yourself to the next level, it is definitely the place to be. If nothing else, it will give you a crash course in pitch practice, something that every screenwriter must learn to do (no matter how much we detest it).

(I have only been to the FTX Pitchfest in Vancouver and to this one, but there is also the Hollywood Pitch Festival in August, which is even larger)

Saturday consisted of FREE workshops and panels that anyone could attend, even if they weren’t signed up to pitch on Sunday. I’ve attended so many workshops and panels on screenwriting that much of the material was redundant. But for those who have been writing in a vacuum, there was a great deal of value.

There were workshops aimed towards writing such as “megahit movie climaxes,” “mastering the creative process,” “writing great endings,” and Dara Marks “Inside Story” workshop on personal themes. There were also workshops on how to pitch, how to network, legal tips, and working with agents.

There were panels of action movie screenwriters, comedy screenwriters, executives giving advice on what they’re looking for in a pitch, and my favourite panel: Reel Breakthroughs.

Reel Breakthroughs was a panel of screenwriters who were just a step or two ahead of us, the ones who had recently gotten feature scripts optioned/bought. I liked it because it was very authentic and encouraging. It was personal stories from people I could relate to. The message to me was simply keep doing what I’m doing. There is no one way to make it, you just have to persevere and ride the ups and downs. They had taken courses, entered the right contests, and networked. (hands down they all said the CINESTORY and FADE IN contests were the most useful)

And of course, they kept writing… and writing… and writing.

(UP NEXT: do’s, don’ts, myths, and facts)

One Page Screenplay Contest

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What’s that you say? Don’t have time to write a screenplay? Well, why not enter the ONE PAGE screenplay contest over at Wild Sound.

The top 20 finalists have their script read at WILDsound’s next screenplay event (in Toronto). The audience votes on their favourite and the winner’s script is produced. The film is then shown at their annual Film Festival. Past One Page winners’ films are available on the site.

The DEADLINE is FEB 28.

Come on!  It’s one page!

Blake Snyder’s Logline Contest

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And speaking of Blake Snyder and loglines… he’s having a contest on his blog. The deadline is Feb 18.

The idea is that you have to change one letter in the title of a famous movie, and write the logline for that film.

For Example:

GONE WITH THE WINE — Scarlett “Merlot” O’Hara is a southern belle and lightweight drinker, whose fierce ambition to save her ante-bellum home changes to a mumbled “fiddle-dee-dee” whenever she has more than one glass of “Tara-ble” table wine.

One of his readers named Gary has come up with some good ones:

Nightmare on Elf Street – A killer is targeting the happy helpers of the North Pole threatening to kill Christmas. Ho, ho horror.

and

The Fridges of Madison County – When called to fix an ice maker a Maytag repairman falls in love with a married woman.

Here are my entries:

AMERICAN PIG
Four young hogs make a pact to sew their wild oats before they become breakfast sausages.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD YEN
A hunter is pursued by Yakuza after he stumbles across a pile of heroin and Japanese cash.