Adventures of a Writer

  If I'm absolutely honest I'm often discouraged by just how difficult the screenwriting journey is. Staying positive over months and years, slogging away at scripts, pitching producers and agents and dealing with rejections can be exhausting. I have often been tempted to throw in the towel. What has stopped me from doing it?  Well, the sheer compulsion of writing a story that's visual and visceral. 7 Lives was one such script. It is based on the true story of a young girl whose parents want to overcome the pain of losing their most precious daughter by remembering her in a way that would give meaning to her life and theirs. They wanted to donate her organs but alas their wish was never to be fulfilled.  When Runjiv J Kapur, my filmmaker friend, approached me to write the script based on this story for a short film, I was excited but also a bit scared. Would I be able to do justice to the story? For me, 7 Lives will always be special. Not only because it was a subject that

Every story idea has its own distinct journey. Each is unique and can never be identical to the path that any of your previous ideas has travelled. Perhaps, that's the most exciting thing about writing. A few months ago a filmmaker friend asked me if I would be interested in writing a short film. He had come across a true incident which he wanted to make a film about. That was the beginning of the journey for "Seven Lives", a short film that I scripted for filmmaker Runjiv J. Kapur. When Runjiv discussed the idea with me, I knew it had the potential to be made into a thought-provoking, dramatic film. The subject was about society's role and how it can impact individual lives. As a writer I was excited about it and I began writing a draft. The first stage of the story's journey had kicked in. The story development process is the second stage of the writing process. The stage when the writer distills the idea and plays with it, trying to give it  shape, sub