Tina Haapala, Excuse Editor

Recently, I had the opportunity to “get away from it all” and participate in a casual writer’s retreat.  A month or so ago, a few members of my writers group decided it would be a great idea to pick a weekend to head out of town and into the mountains so we could write, write, write!  Most people thought that was a fantastic idea and were all in; after all, isn’t that what we dream of, just some time where we are free from the distractions that are keeping us from achieving our writing goals? However, by the time we were signed up and ready to go, only 3 of us made the trip. Those distractions? Those are called life.  I am just grateful that I was able to rearrange my life in order to go, and I hope the others in my group will be able to make it another time (because there WILL be another time), or they will be able to use the lessons I learned from the retreat in their everyday writing lives. So, whether you are heading to a cabin in the woods, or sneaking in a f...

Beating Screenwriter’s Block by Ginger Earle http://www.whythisisgood.com/ Screenwriters, like all writers, are often plagued with fear of the blank page, or writer’s block. Advice for beating writer’s block is often to just do it in spite of a lack of inspiration, or fear of writing the wrong thing. This is good advice, however there are some specific techniques that screenwriters can use to beat our own particular form of writer’s block. Writers of all genres can use these ideas to complete their stories and stop making excuses. Some writers detest the idea of structural rules and outlines because they find them limiting and stifling. They like to approach writing as a purely creative art form, where ideas and words flow freely and magically form a coherent story. But this desire for freedom is often what leads to the second-act morass that screenwriters are all too familiar with. You envision how the story begins, who the characters are, and maybe even have an ending in mind....