I had submitted Lock the Doors to the 13Horror.com Screenplay Contest on June 26th last year. It was on the last day of my vacation, time off I had taken with the intent to stay home and focus on the types of projects I wanted to work on in life, if I had complete freedom and didn’t have to work a job.
Writing was a focus during that week, and most of what I did was outline a new story idea (one I hope to publish in the future, it just got much bigger than I expected). As the week went on, I thought about how I had a completed (ha!) script from earlier in the year and how I wasn’t doing anything with it ever since I’d finished (ha!) writing it.
It felt pretty good to cap off what I felt was a productive, and also refreshing, week to myself, although part of me also wished I’d thought to do this sooner. I felt I could’ve made more use out of developing my Lock the Doors screenplay.
So, after a week returning to the normal life of work, and wanting to chase the feeling I’d gotten from my week dedicated to living the life I wanted, I set out to rectify that. I started looking up more screenplay contests to enter, trying to find ones that focused on horror. I found one called HorrOrigins, which I entered on July 14th.
I also entered another contest on the 14th, and to be honest, I’m not sure what made me so bold to do so. I don’t think horror fares well against all the other genres, especially in a screenplay competition, and while I definitely know the reason I entered was because I thought the concept might carry the script for in the contest, it would still be two more days before I would get the initial feedback from 13Horror, so I still would’ve had no idea where I stood as a screenwriter.
That contest was the Toronto International Film Festival.
Despite Lock the Doors not really being a good fit on the surface, I was really pleased with myself. Not only was I still entering contests to judge the strength of my screenwriting, something I had little experience with, but I also wasn’t letting time slip away like I had done during my week off by finding more contests almost right away. In doing so, I was following through on the momentum of putting my work out there, a habit that I still need to form.
I was also entering it with the big boys.
More to come, next week.