1. So Karyn, you won Script Frenzy last year! What was your favorite thing about the experience?

The thing I look most forward to about Script Frenzy is that it sets a deadline. As someone who's been writing screenplays regularly over the last decade, the actual task of writing is fairly standard for me. But what I absolutely love is knowing that there are a ton of other people doing the same thing at the same time, and that we're all trying to do it in the same time frame.

2. We'd love to hear a little bit about writing the screenplay for the feature you shot, Attack of the Yeti Hand! First off, awesome title. What was it like shooting that script? What did you learn about screenwriting during the process of going from script to screen?

Attack of the Yeti Hand is about a deliveryman who loses a package on his route and teams up with a bumbling female security guard to find it. The missing delivery contains an enchanted killer yeti hand that ends up on the loose and attacks people. There are shades of the buddy cop genre as well as the obvious B-movie influence.

I purposely wrote the script knowing I was going to shoot it, so I already had ideas of locations and whatnot, but it was still very time consuming when it came to breaking everything down. And that's definitely something I knew about but didn't fully consider while I was writing. But the most amazing thing about the process, I think, is watching actors transform the characters into people. When you see the process of actors taking [your] words and doing their own work to bring their experiences to the table... it's mind blowing.

Overall, the biggest lesson was about details—which ones are important and which ones just aren't. We can spend a lot of time over-thinking things that won't read on screen, or over-describing something that can be shown with a simple action or said with a single line of dialogue.

3. What advice do you have for 2010 Script Frenzy participants? And if you're participating this year, any screenplay ideas percolating?

My biggest bit of advice is not to stress out over the first draft. It's hard, I know, because we want to create something that's perfect. But first drafts aren't. Let it be imperfect. Stephen King says in his book On Writing, and I'm paraphrasing here, that the first draft is for you and the second draft is for the reader. And that's so very true. Once you get all the business out of your head and onto the page, the process of rewriting is incredibly rewarding. There are revelations you wouldn't expect, aspects of character and story you didn't even know were there. And this is coming from someone who has cursed the re-writing process up and down.

Tell whatever story you want. If someone else says they've seen something like it before, who cares? Your version will end up different than anything else similar, anyway. And, again, it's a first draft. You can always go back through and make necessary changes later. But for something like Script Frenzy, where the goal is to simply finish, you just need to find something you like and run with it.

Also, don't be afraid of the format. I notice a lot of people during Script Frenzy seem to think screenwriting is daunting because they have to figure out where things are supposed to go. Really, at this stage, all you need to know is slugline, action, character, and dialogue. Anything else doesn't belong in a first draft. Don't worry about camera angles or names of shots, just focus on telling the story the way you see it in your head.

I do plan to take on the Frenzy in 2010. I'm shooting Javatown, my second feature, in March, so I'm pretty sure I'll welcome the chance to spend the month with a new idea. As to what that idea is, I'm not sure yet. I always have a stack of stuff I've been thinking about, so we'll see.