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Let’s make a Fountain block for WordPress

August 27, 2020 Geek Alert, Projects, Scrippets, Software

Way back in 2008, I [announced a plugin for WordPress](https://johnaugust.com/2008/scrippets-are-go) that made it easy to insert short bits of screenplay-like material into a blog post.

EXT. HOUSE -- DAY

Max is checking his mail when he spots neighbor FRANK crossing the street, heading his way.

Shaking his head...

MAX

I thought we talked about this, Frank.

FRANK

(drunk)

I was born naked and I’m not changing now.

I called these chunks “scrippets.” This plain-text format ultimately became [Fountain](http://fountain.io), which in turn became the basis of [Highland](http://highland2.com) and other screenwriting apps. ((One of the coders who put together the WordPress plugin was Nima Yousefi, who has now coded nearly everything we’ve made.))

The Scrippets plugin still works — you can [install it today](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-scrippets/) — but WordPress has moved on to the concept of “blocks.” These are discrete elements of a post that can do specific things. You can find blocks for [code syntax](https://wordpress.com/support/wordpress-editor/blocks/code-block/), [tables](https://wordpress.org/support/article/table-block/), and even [poetry verse](https://wpcompendium.org/create-posts/verse-block/).

There should be one for Fountain.

If you’re a WordPress coder who’d like to tackle this project, here are some thoughts to get you started.

1. Visit [Fountain.io/developer](https://fountain.io/developers) and the [GitHub](https://github.com/nyousefi/Fountain) for implementations of the parser.
2. While I’d love to support the whole Fountain spec, I’m not convinced title pages and headers/footers make sense for this use case.
3. Notes and synopses are super useful. We’ll want to style them so they’re visually distinct.
4. Forced elements are very important. Blog posts often center on weird edge cases, and international users may need to force character names like @黄.
5. Ultimately, it’ll be best if there’s one “official” Fountain block plugin, but if multiple people decide to tackle it, my team and I can help coordinate.
6. This would be presumably be GPL licensed. This is for the good of the internet, not any one company or person.

So if you feel like giving it a shot, go for it! You certainly don’t need our permission.

If you have something you’d like us to see, or a question we can answer, write ask@johnaugust.com

Getting Things Done in a Pandemic

April 15, 2020 Meta, Projects, Tools

As a screenwriter who works at home, I’m used to having large, shapeless blocks of time. Now that the coronavirus has many people unexpectedly working from home, I wanted to share a tool that’s helped me stay productive.

to do list

It’s a pre-printed sheet of 8.5×11-inch paper folded in quarters. I call it my Daily Plan. You can download the template as a PDF, or customize it in Pages, Word or Google Docs.

I print these up a dozen at a time and leave a stack by my phone charger. Each morning as I drink my coffee, I take one and fill it out.

Since the lockdown began, one of the things that’s honestly most helpful is writing the day of the week at the top of the sheet. Often the only way I can tell it’s Monday versus Saturday is by looking.

Below that is a list of blank lines and checkboxes, a classic to-do list. Here I put the tasks I want to get done, referring to the previous day’s sheet to carry over anything that’s still relevant.

What’s important is that this isn’t just for the must-dos, but also the want-to-dos. For example, playing Animal Crossing. It’s not a reward for getting other things accomplished; it’s its own thing worth putting on the list by itself.

There are a few items printed at the bottom of the list for tasks I do every day. For example, I have a 1,251-day streak going in Duolingo French, and no virus is going to break that. My 2020 goal was to learn how to draw, so that’s another daily task pre-printed on the sheet.

Do I actually draw it every day? No. But it’s on the list as a reminder that drawing practice is something I could and probably should do.

The pre-printed lines are also useful for recurring but non-daily tasks. My dog Lambert needs his teeth brushed every other day, so I scratch the line out if it happened yesterday.

back of sheet

The back of the Daily Plan is my schedule. Pre-pandemic, this was section full of meetings and school events. Yes, these were already in the calendar app on my phone, but marking them down on paper helped me recognize where I had free time to get work done.

My schedule now is basically just zoom calls and hangout sessions with friends. At least I don’t have to budget travel time to get from place to place.

inside of plan

The Daily Plan folds open like a book. Inside, I have an overflow list of tasks, along with a section for notes. For example, how many decks of Writer Emergency Pack we have at the warehouse, or the name of a book I want to order.

I use a proper notebook or the Notes app on my phone for stuff I need to refer back to, but the Notes section is a great place to jot down things that are only relevant today.

inside flap

The Daily Plan also has a peek page, a list of all the projects I’m working on — both official stuff and fun things. It’s printed on the back of the sheet, which ends up underneath the to-do list. As I sit down with my morning coffee, I’ll look through this list to consider whether there’s anything related to those projects that could be done today.

Where this all came from

The idea of a daily to-do list is probably as old as paper and writing.

At its heart, my Daily Plan shares a lot with David Allen’s classic Getting Things Done system, in that it describes work in terms of projects and “next actions.” I’ve used GTD at various times in various ways, both in handwritten notebooks and with apps like Things and OmniFocus.

While GTD works great for many people, I’ve found it inevitably devolves into lists of things I never get done, and eventually stop looking at.

What’s helpful about the Daily Plan is that it’s new each day. I have control over it because I only add the things I want to add. In this way, it more closely resembles David Seah’s Emergent Task Planner. ETP is a little narrowly focused for my taste, and I’ve never found micro-scheduling to work for me.

The most direct inspiration for the Daily Plan came from a habit I’ve gotten into whenever I take a long international flight and find myself with 10 to 14 hours to fill. This unstructured free time used to spike my anxiety. What should I do? Should I read the book I brought? Should I play that puzzle game on my iPad? Should I do Headspace? Which movies should I watch on the seat-back screen?

Beginning last year, I decided to make a Flight Plan before the wheels leave the runway. Once I’m in my seat, I pull out a sheet of paper and list the in-flight movies I want to watch, the things I want to read, and the games I want to play. It takes ten minutes and is honestly transformative. I used to dread long flights. Now I see them as a chance to watch and read and learn. I’ve taken this amorphous blob of time and given it purpose.

The Daily Plan is basically my Flight Plan for ordinary life.

I started using it in January, well before the pandemic. While it’s useful in normal times, it’s proved indispensable in this current age of nameless days when the boundaries between work and home life are blurred. It provides a sense of structure and control.

So if you want to give it a shot, you can download the template as a PDF, or customize it in Pages, Word or Google Docs.

Customize however you like, adding the items you want to do every day, and listing your projects on the peek page. (If your printer can’t handle two-sided printing, just print the first page. You can flip the paper and print it again, or just not worry about it.)

Hit me up on Twitter if you find the Daily Plan useful, or come across innovations you want to share.

Political Movies

Episode - 436

Go to Archive

February 4, 2020 Arlo Finch, Books, Follow Up, Scriptnotes, Stuart, Transcribed

John and Craig welcome back Liz Hannah to talk about her upcoming Netflix movie, All the Bright Places, and Hollywood’s often-frustrating reliance on IP. Particularly with non-fiction stories, has Hollywood warped journalistic ambitions?

All of which serves as setup for another round of How Would This Be a Movie? (00:41:54), where we look at the Jeff Bezos phone hack, Carlos Ghosn, and a romantic political showdown.

In our bonus segment for premium members (01:10:06), we discuss what is and is not okay to do with physical books, and situations where we’re willing to trade pixels for print.

Links:

* [Liz Hannah](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Hannah) on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/itslizhannah) and [IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2176283/), and Scriptnotes episodes [242](https://johnaugust.com/2019/austin-film-festival-2019) and [359](https://johnaugust.com/2018/where-movies-come-from)
* The [2020 WGA Award nominees and winners](https://awards.wga.org/awards/nominees-winners)
* [Arlo Finch in the Kingdom of Shadows](https://johnaugust.com/arlo-finch#kos-preorder) will be having a [Launch Event: February 9, 2pm at Chevalier’s on Larchmont](https://www.chevaliersbooks.com/john-august-020920)
* [Scriptnotes, Episode 434](https://johnaugust.com/2020/ambition-and-anxiety) in which we discuss Knives Out
* [MoviePass parent Helios and Matheson files for Chapter 7 and stock falls to zero](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/moviepass-parent-helios-and-matheson-files-for-chapter-7-and-stock-falls-to-zero-2020-01-29), on MarketWatch
* [All the Bright Places](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_Bright_Places_(film)) comes to Netflix on February 28
* [They Made a Movie Out of It](https://thebaffler.com/salvos/they-made-a-movie-out-of-it-pogue) by James Pogue
* John Gruber on [the Jeff Bezos phone hack](https://daringfireball.net/2020/01/hacked_to_bits)
* The New York Times on [Carlos Ghosn’s escape](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/06/business/carlos-ghosn-escape.html) and [the Hollywood connection](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/02/business/carlos-ghosn-movie.html)
* [‘Like a bad romcom’: couple run against each other in Irish election](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/27/couple-run-against-each-other-in-irish-election-holly-cairns-cork) from The Guardian
* [Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L2JGLZ9/ref=as_li_ss_tl?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1&linkCode=sl1&tag=johnaugustcom-20&linkId=b6ea2f4ef065e37692c379f26e11577a&language=en_US) by Jia Tolentino
* [Superieur Electrolytes](https://superieurelectrolytes.com/)
* [Star Battle puzzles](https://www.wired.com/2010/12/dr-sudoku-prescribes-star-battle/)
* [Wit’s End](https://www.amazon.com/Game-Development-Group-11104-Board/dp/B00004W60G) on Amazon
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
* [John on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/johnaugust/?hl=en)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Lachlan Marks ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))
* Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode [here](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/436standard.mp3).

**UPDATE 2-9-2020** The transcript for this episode can be found [here](https://johnaugust.com/2020/scriptnotes-ep-436-political-movies).

Casting a blind teenage actress

August 21, 2019 Directors, News, Projects

I’ve written a new movie that I’m planning to direct. It’s called The Shadows. It’s a thriller.

I wouldn’t normally announce something like this so far in advance, but casting is going to be a unique process that will require a major search.

The hero of the film is a 15-year-old girl named Abby. She’s stubborn, resourceful and anxious. She is also blind. I’m looking for a blind actress to play this role.

To learn more, you can read the [casting announcement](https://johnaugust.com/casting).

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