Script Frenzy
20 months ago
I’ve got the ideas. Now, I have a deadline. April 30th. Let the fearless writing begin!
How to win script frenzy
It made me
proud of my work 
"A slog at times, fun at others, and I wound up with something I felt quite proud of."
How I did it: I did Script Frenzy in April 2008 (having done NaNoWriMo 2007) and completed it in a frenzy (yes) at about 11.15pm on the last day. I made the 100 page cut-off but was determined to finish the story - it felt like cheating otherwise - so I think it ended up at about 115 pages all told.
Unlike NaNo I did a fair bit of background work, sketching out ideas for characters and situations before I started. Not all of it went in - my script was for the first 2 issues of a comic book, so I was able to let things develop without having to tie them up. That probably made things easier. I treated each issue as a separate entity, and tried to give them punchy and funny dialogue, plenty of interest from page to page and exciting cliffhangers.
Lessons & tips: Do your level best to write 1/30th of the word/page count for each of the 30 days. It usually took me about 2 or 3 hours a day, I think, but your mileage may vary. If you miss a day, don't spend time worrying about it - just get back on the wagon. Otherwise, one missed day will turn into two and then three, and then you'll have dropped out.
Resources: I used Celtx, a free piece of software that helps you format screenplays (and also lets you add notes on characters and various other things). It's not a world-beating bit of software or anything, but it served my purposes well.
