It's Monday! What Are You Reading #30

Share what you (are, have been, are about to, hope to be) reading or reviewing this week. Sign Mr Linky at Book Journey and visit other Monday reading roundups.




I read Elizabeth Berg's The Last Time I Saw You for Dewey's Read-a-Thon this weekend. You can read my first reaction in my thon post.

It was a feat in itself to read all 320 large print pages in under 15 hours. Such a rare thing for me anymore with eyestrain becoming an issue sooner and requiring longer recovery time. I long for the days when polishing off 500+ pages of normal sized print in a singe day was par for the course--a school day no less. But then I see my Mom (also with RP) with her magnifying glass reading the comics in the newspaper or her large print Reader's Digest one word or syllable at a time, sounding the longer words out like a first grader with Dick and Jane and I'm reminded to be grateful for what I still have.

During the read-a-thon I found myself gravitating more and more back to the screen to check out the hub activity and other reader's blogs and realized it was because I can read the fonts on my netbook screen easier. Even fonts smaller than those I'm unable to read off the page for more than fifteen minutes. I'm not sure but I think it has something to do with them being backlit. But it is also nice to have the zoom function or the ability to enlarge the fonts alone. Note to web page developers: seriously folks 9 or 10 pt grey font on off white? That can't be good for anybody's eyes.

OK nuf kvetching.

For the week ahead I hope to expand my initial comments on Berg's novel into a review though I may wait to post that until the Shelia's Wordshaker's book club convenes on that book.

Beyond that my reading plans revolve around Script Frenzy from which I took off Friday through Sunday for the read-a-thon. I'd hoped to devote some of my thon reading to scripts and screenwriting how-to during the thon but did not so that is where my main focus will be for the next week.

Script Frenzy is a writing challenge put on by the same people who brought us NaNoWriMo (write a 50K word novel in 30 days) in November. This challenge held every April is to write a 100 page script in 30 days.

These four scriptwriting books are coming due Thursday and this first one will not renew for me. Wouldn't you know it is the one I'm finding the most helpful and also the one with the smallest font.

Essentials of screenwriting : the art, craft, and business of film and television writing by Richard Walter

This is my favorite of the four scriptwriting how-to books I checked out last week. I've actually read a dozen or more pages in a row while I've mostly browsed in and read glossary entries and checked the indexes for specific topics in the other three.

The screenwriter's bible : a complete guide to writing, formatting, and selling your script by David Trottier

I've found some useful advice in here but it's not exactly a page turner. It is also BIG. Like a coffee table book.

The complete book of scriptwriting by J. Michael Straczynski

Straczynski has appeared in the credits of several TV series. Babylon 5 for one. Which is one of my all time favorite. So I am going to give him a serious listen.

A forth book, Writing the Script: A Practical Guide for Films and Television by Wells Root, is three decades old which is probably why I had trouble find an image of the cover.

To complement the how-to books, I've also checked out several books with scripts:

The green mile : the screenplay / screenplay by Frank Darabont ; introduction by Stephen King.

William Goldman : four screenplays. Containing: Marathon man -- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid --Princess bride -- Misery

Slumdog millionaire / screenplay by Simon Beaufoy.

There are more scripts I've found online but that's enough for this list.

You can see what I'm working on for my script here.