"The Queen of Oakland" script a Winner

I completed the adaptation of my novel, Sofie, the Queen of Oakland, to a screenplay today and received this nifty little sticker for my efforts.

The script, over 120 pages, is a condensed version of the novel which tells the plight of a young beauty queen from 1929 who finds solace in her communications with a modern day prisoner in Washington state when her life tumbles into darkness and despair, .

Script Frenzy

Over at www.scriptfrenzy.org just over seven thousand people have taken the challenge to write a script (screenplay) in the month of June. The finished product must be at 20,000 words in length to qualify as a "winner" at Script Frenzy, and there is no expectation of any of many of the first drafts completed at the end of June will be high quality: only editing does that and June is not the designated editing month - it is the "draft it first" month.

I've taken the challenge and have begun a script titled, "The Queen of Oakland." It is an adaptation of my novel regarding the young beauty queen from 1929 whose life is turned upside down by an abusive father and finds a way to share her misery with a present day prisoner. During the writing of the novel, some good suggestions were given by a fellow writer/friend who lives in Mississippi. Problem at the time was that I was too immersed in "my" story to be able to "hear" her suggestions. After completing the novel, I found her notes and read them: my heart sank. What great ideas she had for juicing the story, putting a lot more life into it. My plan is to incorporate some of those ideas into the script.

Watch it Spielberg, the Script Frenzies are coming after you.