A few weeks ago, I decided to apply for screenwriter, Geoff LaTulippe’s Six Week Spec challenge. Here’s the challenge in Geoff’s own words:

“Starting 1 September 2014 – professional duties allowing, I’m going to begin writing the first draft of a brand new spec screenplay. I’m giving myself six weeks to complete it. I want you to come along with me on the journey. But not just in the passive way that you might be thinking. Here’s the deal:

I want you to start a your own brand new spec too. The one you’ve always wanted to dive into but never did. The one that’s kept you up nights tossing around scenes and dialogue but that you never had the drive to actually crack. The one that itches and burns and crackles, but life has kept you away from.”

Basically, Geoff is challenging writers to complete a spec – from start to finish – in a crazy short amount of time, and providing an online community, his blog, where writers can encourage and commiserate with another along the way. To add to this, he decided to pick ten writers to focus on, to document their journey on his blog, and to give them a little incentive for completing the spec challenge. The prize: a few months of free hosting and 4 script evaluations from the Blacklist (personally, it’s the only site I trust for professional level script feedback). To apply, we had to submit a one page essay on why we wanted to write this spec, with no mention of what the spec would be about. So, I gave it a go. I talked about the struggles of being my age, and how I wanted to tell a heartfelt, funny, authentic story about it. Then, a few weeks after I submitted, I found out that he picked me. And ten other writers. He calls us the Selected Ten (it’s actually eleven people, but two of them are a writing team). And now we have to write a feature screenplay in six weeks. Omg.

It’s daunting, and the pressure is on, but that’s kind of the fun of it. Geoff will be posting our weekly updates on this crazy process over on his blog. Follow along if you’d like. Or, even better, write along with us. We start September 1st. Are you in?