Open Screenplay: open, sesame!

I often wake up with the flake of a screenplay in the corner of my mind:

FADE IN
EXT. A CITY STREET - AFTERNOON
JOHN, 30's, worn down by the world, is leaning against the corner of a building in the downtown of Lowell, Massachusetts. He is watching a string of PEOPLE heading toward the annual FOLK FESTIVAL.

A MAN'S HAT, of the old-style detective sort, blows along the street and fetches up against his leg. He looks at it, then reaches down to pick it up.

MARGO (O.C.)
That's not your hat!

...

And there I am with the first seconds of a new script, and no idea what might happen in the next few seconds, or all away along to FADE OUT.

I don't have to discard the new idea any more. I can take the fragments of what I have and post them as a new project in Open Screenplay. The wizard steps me through naming the new script, choosing a genre and making a stab at a logline. I can go on from there, listing locations and maybe some characters. And at any point I can throw the project open to the whole Open Screenplay community. Someone out there will be able to tell me who Margo is, and what's in the hat, and what will happen if John picks it up.

I find the Open Screenplay interface useful and focused, and the community thoughtful and able to come at scripts from angles I have never considered. I love the idea that all contributors share in the success of a script, if it ever gets produced.

Writers condemn themselves to lives of isolation and carpal tunnel problems. Working on projects in Open Screenplay can be a medicine for melancholy and a remedy for loneliness.