Frenzied Finish

I am pleased to announce that I beat the Script Frenzy challenge late last week and have been using the remaining days to finish my script. I'm guesstimating that it will clock out at around 120 pages -- way too long as an average screenplay runs between 100-110. But not to worry. Editing will commence immediately following completion of the first draft.

I really like the script and think/hope kids will like it too. Lots of exciting action, a fun sci fi storyline, and some interesting kid characters that have a nice arc. What's not to like?

The Children of Hurin - Mini Review

"Based on a manuscript left unfinished by JRR Tolkien, this book suffers greatly from any comparison to the master's fully completed works.

The story itself revolves around the consequences suffered by Hurin's family after he dares to defy the evil Morgoth (Sauron from LOTR's bigger and badder boss). Chock full of unlikeable characters and relentless tragedies, it is a heavy and frankly depressing book to wade through.

(Son) Christopher Tolkien states that he completed the manuscript "with a minimum of editorial presence" and "without distortion or invention." But therein lies a large part of the problem. The Children of Hurin has a choppy, incomplete feel and was sorely in need of some vigorous "invention" to make it read more like a fully developed novel and not merely an expanded outline.

Interesting in a dry academic sort of way, it lacks any of the humor, warmth, and inspirational qualities of The Hobbit or LOTR. In short, The Children of Hurin is a dull and bleak read -- of interest, I'm afraid, to none but the most extreme Tolkien fans."

Half-Frenzied

Reached page 55 today so I'm over half way to my goal of 100 pages by the end of the month. A screenplay certainly utilizes a different set of writing muscles than a novel -- much more dialogue than description, no internal monologues, present tense rather than past -- that sort of thing. In general, I'm finding it "easier" as long as I remember to keep the writing uncomplicated and to the point. No room in a screenplay for the kind of richly descriptive writing that you need to do in a novel. Economy is the watchword when writing for the silver screen.

That being said, it still has to be an entertaining enough read that the script readers will want to send it up the food chain. After all, what screenwriter doesn't dream of seeing his script produced?

A Scripting Fool

Well, only two days into Script Frenzy and I find myself in the very pleasant position of being 16 pages into my script -- and liking it, too! It's called Timer and can best be described as a Family/Youth/Action/SciFi/Comedy. Yeah, that's what I'd call it. I think it might make a great middle grade novel so don't be surprised if that title shows up on my NaNo page in the fall. As I've mentioned before, I find that screenplays make great expanded outlines for novels as you've been able to work out a lot of the kinks already.

Script Frenzy

Brought to you by the same fine folks who run the NaNoWriMo event each November, Script Frenzy is the "Screenplays, stage plays, TV shows, short films, and graphic novels" version of that challenge. It starts at midnight on April 1st and ends at midnight on April 30th. To put it simply, your task is to produce "100 pages of original scripted material in 30 days." Quite a reasonable goal, in my opinion.

Their website is full of helpful info on formatting, outlining, and a lot of other things relating to scripts so go over and check it out.

As I've mentioned before about NaNoWriMo, deadlines are a great personal motivator so I decided to give it a shot this year. Care to join me?

Bartimaeus Trilogy - Mini Review

In an effort to provide more frequent updates for my loyal readers (my humble thanks to all three of you), I've decided to do the occasional review on books that I've been reading. They'll be short and to the point -- mostly about sf and fantasy because those are the types of books I like to read.

I'm kicking things off with a fun and breezy read, "The Bartimaeus Trilogy" (Book One: "The Amulet of Samarkand", Book Two: "The Golem's Eye", Book Three: "Ptolemy's Gate").

One of the best fantasy series I've read in a long time. The titular character is an "always too smart for the room" djinni in service to (he would say "enslaved"by ) ambitious magical prodigy, John Mandrake. Crisply written and laugh out loud funny in many places, these books explore a bizarre yet familiar world full of intrigue, powerful spirits, and exciting action.
Highly recommended.

Hey, Why Not?

Submitted Leonard for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. It's an annual contest sponsored by CreateSpace, Penguin Group, Publisher's Weekly, and of course, Amazon.com.

The Grand Prize is a publishing contract with Penguin that includes a $25k advance. Not too shabby!

They're only accepting a maximum of 10k manuscripts so the way I look at it, my odds of being chosen are much better than winning the lottery!

3/17 Update: Didn't make it past the first round. Rats!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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)

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!

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.

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)