Pick-up lines, pitches, and Valentine’s Day

“Love is too weak a word for what I feel — I luuurve you, you know, I loave you, I luff you, two F’s, yes I have to invent, of course I do, don’t you think I do?”
—Alvy (Woody Allen) to Annie (Diane Keaton)

Dear Fellow Scribes,

As writers, we all know it can be difficult to describe a powerful emotion like love (sometimes it takes 50,000 words!). It can also be hard to give a Valentine’s Day gift that expresses the tenderness in our hearts if our writerly wallets aren’t lined with cash.

With those two things in mind, we at the Office of Letters and Light want to give you some Valentine’s Day goodies to enrich your writing life (because your stories are our true luff). We hope that you’ll also be our valentine.

Pitch or Pick-up Line?
If I could rearrange the alphabet, I’d put U and I together.

A writer needs a pitch that doesn’t sound like a pick-up line. Fortunately, the Book Doctors, Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry, are back for the second annual Pitchapalooza, February 1-29, for NaNoWriMo participants.

Last year NaNoWriMo veteran Gennifer Albin was one of 25 Pitchapalooza winners, and a top New York agent sold her dystopian novel in a sweetheart of a book deal (three-books, six-figures!). Read the blog post from Arielle and David for more.

You Had Me at Hello
With the Oscars and ScriptFrenzy coming up, we’re getting cozy with our favorite movies. Join us on Facebook on February 14 and discuss your favorite romantic movie scenes—whether they made you cry, cringe, or guffaw. Casablanca? Sleepless in Seattle? There’s Something About Mary? (I’ve heard Chris Baty adores Midnight in Paris).

This is just the beginning of our preparations for the throes of ScriptFrenzy 2012. Sign up starting March 1 and write a 100-page script this April. If you sign up before March 31, you’ll be entered in a special giveaway.

To prep for the event, hop onto Twitter to chat with Script Frenzy Program Director Sandra Salas on #Scriptchat on Sunday, March 18 at 8 p.m. EST—and peruse our wealth of scriptwriting resources in the meantime.

Will You Be Our Valentine? We’re Searching…
We’re not asking for chocolates or roses or champagne for Valentine’s Day. But we would like you to sign up for GoodSearch and designate the Office of Letters and Light as your charity. We have 5,700 supporters on GoodSearch, but as you know, we like to set audacious goals: We aim to reach 25,000 supporters by the end of 2012 so that we can improve our programs in a multitude of ways.

Download the GoodSeach toolbar and with each web search you’ll contribute money to OLL in a familiar way: by typing and clicking. And if you use GoodShop and GoodDining, up to 6% of each purchase will go to support OLL (we’re sorry, but unfortunately many of the participating merchants and restaurants are limited to the U.S.).

Now to get ready for Valentine’s Day…Life without you would be like a broken pencil…pointless.

I’ll keep working on my lines. In the meantime, I’m on my way to buy my mom some Godiva chocolates and reserve a table for two in a romantic restaurant for my wife and myself (with GoodSearch coupons, of course).

With love and sensible spending,

Grant