Another state of madness

By: CINDY HUNG - Staff Writer | Friday, June 1, 2007 12:40 AM PDT ∞

From today until June 30, Diann Tongco will be one of more than 6,000 people in a state of temporary madness as she cranks out 20,000 words for the first stage play she's ever written in her life.

If this sounds at all familiar, it should. In November, Tongco served as the region's first municipal liaison for National Novel Writing Month, known as Nano, in which 155 of the Inland Empire's craziest aspiring novelists attempted to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days.

This month, participating in the first-ever Script Frenzy, Tongco will motivate and encourage a small but dedicated batch of would-be screenwriters throughout the Inland Empire and Riverside to write a 20,000-word script in 30 days. She kicked off the event with a party Saturday at her home in Temecula, and about eight participants came, "which is pretty good, considering," she mused, "because this is the first year.

"I had people from East San Diego County, and from Riverside, show up."

Though the principle and spirit of Script Frenzy mirrors that of Nano, one major deviation is that screenwriters are allowed to partner up with a co-conspirator. If writers collaborate, Tongco advises, "you probably want it to be somebody you know, so that you know you'll work well together."

Even if they're flying solo, however, Tongco is hosting her usual write-ins for anybody who'd like to drop by and craft in a more social setting. The region's first Script Frenzy write-in is scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday at the It's A Grind coffee house, 33215 Highway 79 South in Redhawk. Write-ins usually last for a couple of hours, Tongco said.

She's also trying to organize an unusual all-nighter write-in at her home later in the month, but it depends on people's schedules, she added.

Like Nano, at the end of the month, Script Frenzy doesn't distribute any awards for "best screenplay" or any such nonsense. Instead, it's all about the personal challenge.

One of the participants at Tongco's party was a 12-year-old boy from El Cajon. Children are allowed to set their own word count goals, she said, and this boy had a goal of 10,000 words.

"He had stuff that he'd written, and I started looking through it," Tongco said. "And I told him, 'I think you can do 20,000, so why don't you just shoot for that and see how it goes?'"

Why not indeed.

As for herself, Tongco is cautiously hopeful about her first stage play, despite having never taken a class on writing screen- or stage plays or being all that familiar with niggling, insignificant details such as formatting.

"If it's wonderful and tremendous ... the San Diego Old Globe has that artist-in-residence program," she said. "That'd be lovely."

She was quick, however, to add, "I think that's a pretty lofty goal for a first-time playwright."

It's OK, she's allowed. The definition of insanity is to continue doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

This month, she is merely mad.

For information on Script Frenzy, visit their Web site at www.scriptfrenzy.org.

Contact staff writer Cindy Hung at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2605, or chung@californian.com.