How I Got Into the Christmas Spirit by Julie Cameron

Several years ago, while I was working with my manager in Los Angeles for my screenplays, she asked me if I had any that were holiday themed.

“They’re really looking for holiday movies right now,” she told me, which wasn’t great news for me at the time. I struggle mightily with the holidays.

But I didn’t want to lose momentum with my manager, so I said, “Uhhh… I can put one together.” Never say, “No” to your representation when you’re first starting out, right?

I ran away from home and holed-up in a condo in Winter Park, Colorado for a week to get it done. I brought in food, wine (lots of wine), and stayed in a place without internet access so that I could focus entirely on writing the screenplay. The pizza delivery guy and I were on a first name basis.

My first idea was to expose the commercialism around Christmas and make it an enlightening expose on how it’s all about the money.

Did I mention that I struggle with the holidays?

Or that I actually write romantic-comedies?

I wrote frantically at odd hours of the day and night, almost never leaving the condo for the entire week. When I finished the first draft, I was really excited about it. And so was my manager. And that was the birth of Christmas Spirit in screenplay format.

But, here’s the thing: It didn’t end up being about commercialism. I had interwoven all of my favorite family traditions and turned it into a love story, not only between the hero and heroine, but about Christmas itself. I realized that I love my family traditions, and that family is the very best part about the holiday season. My new screenplay was an homage to the holiday season.

The problem came, however, when I realized that, if I sold the screenplay, I would lose the rights to the story. I had become very attached to my story and the characters.

No problem, I thought. Simply “plop” it into novel format, put it in past-tense, add more detailed descriptions around all the dialogue, and voila! Instant book. Easy-peasy.

Not so much…

I did all of that, then sent it to my Content Editor for input. His response? “Yeah, you write like a screenwriter.” We worked, and then we worked some more. The book finally came together and was the beginning of a whole new series – and a whole new way of writing – for me.

Christmas Spirit is the first in the Landon Legacy series. The second book, Family Spirit came out in 2017, and also has a screenplay. The third book and screenplay, because, yes, I tend to write both at the same time now, is in-progress (I’ll probably need to run away from home again).

The screenplays for both Christmas Spirit and Family Spirit are currently with a production company in Los Angeles. (Nope, not Hallmark.)

Keep your fingers crossed for Christmas Spirit as a holiday movie in 2020. Putting it out there, gang. Wish me luck!

Julie Cameron is an award-winning author and screenwriter of contemporary romance and romantic comedy. She sits on the Boards of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers (RMFW), and Writer's Guild of Astoria.  She is a member of Romance Writers of America (RWA), the Rose City Romance Writers Chapter of RWA, Willamette Writers, and Oregon Writers Colony. 

As a content editor, writing coach and instructor through her company, Landon Literary, Julie is also a member of Independent Book Publishers Assn. (IBPA), Colorado Independent Publishers Assn. (CIPA), Editorial Freelancers Assn. (EFA), and Northwest Editor’s Guild.

When she isn’t writing or working with clients, Julie enjoys spending time with her family, friends, and fellow authors in the literary community.

To learn more about Julie check out these links:
Landon Legacy series
www.JulieCameron.net 
@JulieCameronAuthor 

@JulieCameron.writer

From Page To Screen

By Marie Lilly
 

I thought it would be an easy peasy assignment--to adapt Madelle Morgan’s romance novel 

Marie Lilly

"Diamond Lust” into a screenplay, that is.  After all, Madelle did what I considered to be the hardest part--creating an engaging story from nothing more than an idea. 

 DL has a strong and sympathetic hero in Petra Paris--a feisty geologist on a secret mission to gather evidence from an isolated diamond mine in the Northwest Territories of Canada.  Her undercover cop Love Interest, Seth Lunden, is a Han Solo at his finest, and his relationship with Petra sizzles with tension.  The sub-arctic summer vistas Madelle lovingly and intimately describes made me want to go there, and her dialogue made me smile.

My first marketable draft of Rough Diamonds (the screenplay version of DL) was a romance movie very faithful to the source material.  It was immediately requested for consideration by a movie star’s production company and the response was mercifully quick:  my screenplay wasn’t what they were looking for, try the Hallmark channel instead.  My translation:  "We are looking for great scripts for our leading man to star in.  The star of your script is a woman." 

Then a local director read RD and offered to direct and produce it.   But first, he wanted to see a South African character in it.  I added an Afrikaaner, raised the stakes and created international conflict.  Seth became the main character and Petra became his Love Interest.  RD was elevated from a small screen suspenseful romance to a big screen detective story.

As of today we are continuing to develop the director's vision.  Throughout the story variations we've played with, Madelle's winning concept and characterizations for Petra and Seth survive intact.  Hmmm, if RD becomes an international hit, maybe she'll write a sequel...

 

Jumping Into Screenplays

By Terri Darling



Along with romance, I write in a lot of other genres because, well, that’s how my brain works. If I stick with any one thing for too long and I get incredibly antsy. My writing suffers. My family suffers. So rather than make everyone suffer, I switch things up and keep everyone happy.

Terri Darling - sort of

(DISCLAIMER: writing in a lot of different genres, like working in a lot of different jobs, is not the quickest route to financial success…but it’s a lot of fun.)

But how did I get into screenplays specifically?

To start with, it should have been a no-brainer. My biggest interests growing up were all creative—writing, drawing, acting, singing. Over the years, with a few things like becoming a lawyer and full-time parent intervening, they got narrowed down to acting and writing. Why not combine them?

Reality set in when I spent about eighteen years writing and submitting novels and found it wasn’t so easy. And I sure wasn’t going to take on scriptwriting and Hollywood (where they eat their young) if I couldn’t make it past some fresh-faced, college-grad slush reader in New York.

Then the world changed. Suddenly we had digital publishing. I jumped in and…wow. Riches? Not yet. But consistent sales. Total freedom. Total control. A way to create a story and put it out there for people all over the world to buy. Talk about a golden age of opportunity.

Coincidentally, I finally stepped back into acting (which I’d put aside to raise kids), started reading and analyzing and acting the heck out of dozens and dozens of scripts, and realized three things: 1) I could write stuff better than some of this dreck, 2) I didn’t have to do Hollywood at all because movie makers now had YouTube and Vimeo, not to mention cheap video equipment and easy electronic submissions to film festivals, and 3) I needed to act in some well-written shorts to boost my star meter on IMDb.

So I bought a copy of Final Draft to handle all the formatting stuff (genius easy), and banged out a

script for a 12-minute short I’d been thinking about for quite some time. The actual writing from a fully-formed idea took about three days. I’ve got most of my crew ready to go. Still have to cast the other actors. Looking forward to the next stages with both overwhelm and excitement. Stay tuned.

Similarity to fiction writing: You read a bunch of a bunch of scripts (and probably books on screenwriting) to understand the form, just like you read lots of novels to understand novels, but at their hearts, screenplays are just story and character.

Biggest difference: While you can just write a story and either submit it or indie publish it, getting a screenplay to a place where people can view it (because only actors and directors read these things) almost always takes a team of people.

Author bio: Terri Darling is the romance pseudonym for a prolific Pacific Northwest author/actor who also writes literary, SF, fantasy, horror, erotica, mystery, and mainstream. You can find her romance novels, short stories, and collections every major e-book seller. Paperback versions coming soon.

www.terridarling.com

terri@terridarling.com