I recently completed my first short film, Night Blooming, based on the short story of the same name by Kevin Fanning. Having spent the past five years banging out screenplays, I decided making a short film might help me improve my writing.

Kevin’s story resonated with me when I first read it in The Morning News. I decided, as an exercise in adaptation, to turn it into a script.
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I recently returned from the Screenwriting Expo in L.A. Four days of panels, workshops, parties, and pitches along with four thousand other aspiring screenwriters. Daunting yet encouraging. Tiring yet exhilarating.

I scheduled all my pitches on Friday and Saturday so that I could relax on Sunday. Oddly, I missed the frantic energy of the pitch sessions on Sunday. Almost all the writers who spoke talked about pitching like it’s a prostate cancer exam. While I felt similarly going in, afterward, I enjoyed the rush. And got some great feedback.

My favorite speaker was Karl Iglesias. I put some of his tips to use right away and am happy with the results. For rewrites, I use his book Writing for Emotional Impact, going through it chapter by chapter for each pass on a rewrite.

The Expo pushed me, and my writing, to a new level. I’m looking forward to next year.