Sunday, January 11, 2009

In Play

Quick update. A submission-worthy draft of "Leonard" was placed in Agent S' hands shortly before Christmas meaning that the game is afoot. I think the manuscript's pretty darned tight and a good read. Hopefully publishers will agree. Finger crossings, prayers, and happy vibe thoughts are all welcome and appreciated.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Note to People Who Read Books

Please buy some! Publishing is yet another industry that is really hurting and could use your help. People are being laid off, imprints are getting the ax, and book lists are sure to be pruned with even more vigor than usual. It's not a pretty picture.

As an aspiring novelist, I fully admit this post is self-serving. But here's the deal: When times are hard, publishers get cautious and cut way back on bringing along new talent, tending to go with their tried and true authors instead of those of us with question marks over our heads. That certainly makes sense from a business perspective, but totally sucks from the "trying to get a foot in the door" side of things. Speaking as my alter ego, Commander Obvious, the low sales trend needs to be reversed in order for them to feel comfortable again about taking on us new guys.

So this holiday season, if you're trying to choose between purchasing a Wisconsin Cheeseman Gift Tower and a good novel or a Kung Fu Panda plushy and a quality picture book, all I'm asking is that you help a novelista in need by dropping your dime on the books. Thanks!

Friday, November 28, 2008

I'm a Weiner!

Well, I did it. Went over the 50k mark at around 3:00 this afternoon. Go me.

Going to continue adding to the word count over the two remaining days in the challenge. Then I'll let it sit (probably until early next year) before I start what I know is going to be a rough and tumble edit.

In general, I'm pleased with what I've got, but there are some interesting logic flaws in the story's time line that should be quite a challenge to solve. I also I have a sneaking suspicion that I may have one or two more main characters than I need. Anyway, I'll deal with all after I've had a chance to rest my critical eye.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Process This

Well, I reached 40k tonight -- a little behind on my personal goal based on 2k a day from Nov. 1, but still within my comfort zone. I've got between now and next Sunday to crank out 10k. Barring any wordless dead zones, I should make it with a little room to spare.

This year's NaNo effort is different than last year in many ways. Foremost is the fact that I finished a complete first draft of this year's novel this past Friday! It came in at around 38k so while I had a rough yet complete manuscript, I did not yet have a winning NaNo word count.

I mentioned that this draft was feeling a little sparse, so what I did was go back to page one and start looking for parts to flesh out. I found close to an additional 2k within the first thirty-three pages so I'm optimistic I'll find 10k in the remaining one hundred and eighty nine. After the end of the month I'll be pushing on, trying to beef it up to around 70k.

Last year, I reached 52k by the end of the month but felt nowhere near the actual end of the story. The finished manuscript for last year's effort came in at around 77k.

I know, lots of boring stats but I have to admit that part of the fun of this challenge is the process.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Time to Get Moving!

Got me some catching up to do. Hoped to reach 40k by the end of the day on Thurs. 11/20 but as of the end of writing on Wednesday night, I'm at 34k. Employment and rehearsals for a theatrical play I'm doing are conspiring to keep my daily word count lower than I had hoped. Oh well, at least I have good/fun reasons for being behind. Who knows, maybe I'll rip out a quick 6k tomorrow and get all caught up.

(cough) fat chance (cough)

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Gasping for Breath

A little fried right now so this'll be a quickie. Had a very productive weekend. Finished a (hopefully) final polish draft on Leonard and sent it off to Agent S. This pass focused on the main character's motivation for continuing the quest through impossible obstacles. I'm happy with how it turned out.
Punched up my animation proposal and added sample story premises -- sent it off to the animation agency for notes.
Finally...reached 32k by Sunday night!

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Grinding It Out


So far so good with NaNo. A week into it and I've got a little over 17k words. That puts me well on the way to my goal of 20k by this Monday and 30k by next Saturday. I love the little burst of nervous "I've got to write if I'm going to reach..." energy that this challenge provides.


Liking what I've written so far although it's feeling kind of sparse in terms of description and humor -- but that's what I'll focus on fixing in December. Right now my task is to get those bytes down on virtual paper and not worry about the fancy stuff.


On a semi-related note, I'm finding the little NaNo calendar thing to be kind of irritating. I'm sure it's because of my lack of understanding of the subtle interaction between statistics and percentages, but I'm not liking that the days keep changing colors even though the word count is already known. It makes my tiny brain pucker and reveals why I steered away from the sciences. I think next time I'll just go for a straight bar graph word count widget (try saying that three times fast).
UPDATE: Decided to chuck the calendar altogether and go for a straight word progress chart. I'm more concerned about meeting word goals by date than by daily percentage. Fascinating, isn't it?!


In other news, I've come up with a bunch of fun story premises for the animation proposal. My animation agent offered some interesting insight when I told him of my plans to write a pilot script. He said pilot scripts are best written to help the creator figure out what his show is going to be about -- not necessarily to show to development execs, etc. He said that pilot scripts are more about setup and less about story so they really don't give a good feel about what the actual show is going to be like. His suggestion was that I make the script more "first episode" and less pilot. I think that makes a lot of sense so I'll probably write both -- the pilot for me and the first episode to show to others.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

And...Begin


The NaNo site's super slow tonight -- not surprising considering all the folks that are logging in to update their accounts. If my little word count calendar thing ever clears up, you'll see that I had a very nice first day of 3765. Not half bad and especially gratifying considering that I was a little on edge when I sat down at the desk this morning. But, as I'd hoped, all it took was typing the first word and the rest seemed to follow. Phew! I know it's only day one, but I'm totally grooving on getting back to novel writing.


Sent off the most recent polish draft of Leonard to Agent S. late on Thursday. She's going to take a look at it and get back to me next week. I'm very happy with this draft. Didn't have to be lobbied too hard by Agent S. to add even more boy-centric humor. I don't think it's at the expense of quality either. Which is, you know, kind of a bonus. (insert smiley emoticon of your choice here)

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Gettin' Close


Got the copy edit notes on Leonard back from Dustin (at last!). The notes are quite manageable so I'm incorporating them as I go through for a "final" polish/content edit. I'm about halfway through the manuscript and am quite happy with how everything's shaping up. The goal is to finish up by this Friday (10/31) then ship it off to Agent S for her perusal. She'll review the changes, then send our boy off to a number of publishing houses who've expressed interest. Keep your fingers crossed.

Nano's looming ever larger on the horizon. I'm simultaneously dreading and salivating over the prospect of starting on Saturday. I think I'm well prepared, but there's really no way to tell until my fingers hit the keys.

In political news, The Novel Project is officially tired of this endless campaign and is looking forward to it going away on Nov. 5th.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Coming Along Nicely

Finished the rough outline for Magic Man and will take the next few days to flesh it out. Ten days to NaNo! As of today, I've got twenty-five chapters. If it's anything like last time, I'm sure I'll discover things along the way and add a few more. The outline itself is a little over six pages.

In a surprising burst of creative energy, I also find myself with a nearly completed proposal for an animated show. The idea has been bouncing around in my head for a while and last week I decided to write a few things down. Amazingly, these "things" kept coming and soon I had enough good ones to organize into a pitch-worthy "mini bible" (5-6 pages). The idea itself is action based with a healthy dose of comedy. At my most delusional, I would hope to compare it to The Incredibles.

I like this idea so much that I've actually convinced myself that I can do both the NaNo challenge and write a spec pilot script for my animation proposal. How insane is that? Very. I still have to squeeze in the "final" polish edit for Leonard that Agent S expects by November. Good grief! That loud scream you'll hear at the end of November will be the sound of pressurized steam escaping out of my ears.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Busy Busy Busy

Well, this has been a very busy week. Commencing info dump in 3, 2, 1...
  • Crack agent's assistant, Dustin, has been doing a copy edit on Leonard. He's going over the manuscript with a fine tooth comb in an attempt to weed out my numerous typos and punctuation errors. That's a lot of work and I'm very grateful he agreed to do it. He hopes to get it to me next week. At that point I'll do one more content edit (character stuff and humor, mostly) before shipping it off to Agent S.
  • Finished a new picture book and sent it off to Editor Liz. I like it and think it will hit the sweet spot for early readers -- silly characters and age appropriate gross out humor.
  • Finished a polish draft on another picture book. Took out every word that absolutely didn't need to be there. I'm very excited about it and, equally as important, so is Agent S.
  • I'm about halfway through a very rough outline for my next NaNo novel. I'm doing brief, four or five sentence descriptions separated by chapter headings. After I'm finished, I'll keep going through it until the end of October -- fleshing it out and filling as many holes as I can find. I'm not a slave to the outline, but it helps calm my pre-Nano jitters to have some idea of where I'm going. I became an avid outliner through working in animation (where it's required) and through my own spec screenplays. I tried the "I'll just start writing and see where it goes" approach a few times only to discover that it usually goes to around p.30 and then stops cold. In my experience, some ideas have the juice to drive a full screenplay (or novel) others don't. Pushing an idea through the outline grinder helps me determine which kind I've got on my hands.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

NaNo 2: Electric Boogaloo


I'm going to give NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) another shot this year. It was such a positive experience for me last time that there's no way I could justify not doing it again. I plan on spending the rest of October writing an outline for my next middle grade novel, Magic Man. Once Nov. 1st rolls around, feel free to visit my NaNo page http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/226809 to see how I'm doing with my goal of reaching 50,000 words by the end of the month. I'll be providing updates here, too.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

End of the Road

Recently got the disappointing news that one of my picture books, Road Trip, will soon be going out of print. Sales, although steady, were not robust enough for my publisher to keep the book in stock. It will be "remaindered" which means that the remaining copies will be sold to volume discounters -- good for you folks who don't like to pay full mark up, bad for us authors who want to earn cash money. ;c)
Thanks to everyone who bought the book while it was still in stock. I really do appreciate your support.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Copy That



Agent S finished the manuscript and had some very nice things to say about it, including:

"The manuscript you sent is quite good. I enjoyed the tone and the character development, the fun and the action. It’s clever and a genuine page-turner."

Why, thank you very much! Agent S is a tell it like it is sort of person who lets you know right away when something isn't working for her -- in other words, her compliments mean something. She gave some relatively minor notes that included backing off on the self-referential humor. Breaking the fourth wall can be a dangerous gamble and apparently I was laying it on thick at some points. In other words, I was being too clever for my own good and needed to have that pointed out.

Another note was that Leonard needs a copy edit (grammar check, typos, punctuation errors, etc.) as she was distracted by writing bloopers throughout the manuscript. This was a vexing note only in that I'd been through the pages a number of times looking for just those kinds of errors. Oh well. Agent S lets me off the hook somewhat by writing:

"It’s impossible for a writer to do this for themselves in a thorough way, as you just know the manuscript much too well to ‘see’ it. "

She advises that I find a journalist, teacher, or editor to do a copy edit so I'm in the process of trying to find one of those who has some spare time. If you happen to know a trustworthy "red pen fanatic" who's up for a challenge, let me know.

All this leads up to Agent S beginning the submission process for Leonard as soon as I get her a cleaned up manuscript. Yahoo!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Info Dump


This isn't going to be pretty but I promised an update, so here goes:


  • Did the rewrite on my chapter book and sent it to my editor two weeks ago. She responded that I was "very speedy" and was looking forward to reading the new draft.

  • Sent "Leonard" to Agent S at the beginning of last month. Followed up a couple of weeks later -- she said she was still reading it and not yet ready to give comments but that the opening was "boffo".

  • Was quietly thrilled that my agent used the word "boffo".

  • Was told by Agent S that I could expect some information on my newest picture book submission "early in the school year."

  • Met with a small animation house that specializes in developing projects from Chinese production entities. Spent an interesting couple of days working up a script sample from a story board they provided. If I get the gig, I'd be helping them develop the shows bible. If the show sells, I'd be the story editor.

  • Kept finding reasons not to return to my screenplay. School just started so it's a little quieter around here and I'm hoping to get my mojo back.

  • Teamed up with an old buddy of mine and came up with a reality show idea that would be simultaneously hilarious and disturbing. Positive early feedback from several entertainment entities that apparently like hilarious and disturbing reality shows.

  • Discovered cheesy clip art of an ancient computer of the kind I had in the late 90's and included it in this post.

That is all.

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