Submit Stats + September Challenge: Reach the End
Reach the End of a Draft... of Anything.
Before I announce the September writing challenge, a quick reminder to —
Submit Your August Numbers
Each month, our screenwriting community tracks our writing accomplishments and celebrates the strides of our members. Here’s the July breakdown so you can get an idea of what it looks like.
For those who tracked their pages and hours in August, fill out this quick form to be included in our Breakdown.
This isn’t just for the writers who wrote the most! I love seeing how much our entire community has written over the course of the month with a total pages breakdown, so if you wrote a single page in August, add it to our count.
Some of the things we’ll take a look at:
How many total pages were written in August by all participants
Total community hours written
Average day totals
What kinds of projects people worked on (and finished)
Leaderboards for writers who pushed themselves this month
How to Start Tracking & Join In
You can get your copy of the writing tracker here (each month has a tab at the bottom), and you can check in daily in the Writing Challenges thread on the discord server. Think of this server as your virtual co-working space for screenwriters. We all work alone, but that doesn’t mean we can’t work together. The Residuals Discord is our office alongside wherever you write.
September’s Challenge: REACH THE END
We’ve been writing together for a few months, and for many that means building a writing habit and finding moments to write between all the chaos of life. It’s inconsistent, though. Of course it is. This was never about getting to a point where you write every single day for the rest of your life - it’s about building the muscle and showing yourself you can keep going even after getting sidetracked by work or travel or illness.
So keep going. Even if last month sucked and you got nothing done. Start up fresh this month and work your way back.
And for those who want to go the extra mile with our bonus challenge this month, we’re doing a challenge to REACH THE END.
That means reaching the final page of whatever draft you’re working on. Push through and write Fade Out on something this month, even if that’s a rough draft and you know you’ll be starting over again the next day to tear it all apart.
This could be the feature you’ve been toiling on for a year, or a short film you’ve been thinking about but haven’t had the time to get into. Take September to reach the end of your draft, and let’s see how many times our community finishes a draft this month.
I personally have a feature that I’ve just pushed into Act 2, so it’ll be a stretch. But I love the idea of buckling down and spending the month getting this rough draft done so I can get back in next month to start making it good. Or at least, passable.
Let me know in the comments on Substack if you’ll be joining in!
That’s it. Time to kick off September!
I’ll share the August breakdown and totals next week. In the meantime, I’ll see you in the discord to share daily progress.
Chris Amick is a Film and TV Writer/Producer in Los Angeles with credits including Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, Die Hart 2, Kung Fu Panda: the Dragon Knight, Final Space, and more. He’s currently developing a series with Adult Swim, and his latest project is as Executive Producer on the existential thriller IT ENDS, which premiered at SXSW 2025. In addition to writing and running this community, he builds screenwriting classes to break down the most daunting creative and business challenges into approachable steps. You can find those writing classes here.