Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Slight Detour From the Momentary Change of Pace

Taking a brief break from the screenplay to address editor notes on my chapter book. More immediate potential income always trumps longshot potential income when you're self-employed. Screenplay's going well. I'm about ten pages in and like it so far. I'll update on the chapter book after I make the changes.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Organization, Baby!

Finished the outline for my screenplay today. I really like how it all came together and am looking forward to cranking on it starting tomorrow.

I use an outlining program called Dramatica Pro. Outlining programs are somewhat controversial in the biz with a few folks crying foul and saying that it's cheating as the program "writes the story" for you. Not true (and I suspect this claim is made almost exclusively by those who have never used an outlining program).

Here's how it works. You come up with the idea. The outlining program asks you questions to help you flesh it out. Every bit of creative data comes out of your mind and all the program does is help you keep track of it. When finished, I ended up with a groovy six page, thirty-two scene outline that I promptly imported into my script writing program (Movie Magic Screenwriter 2000). Sweet.

Monday, July 7, 2008

It's a Perfect World...Not


In a perfect world this post would be titled "Ha! I Sold It After Only One Submission!" but alas, thanks to that business with the apple in the garden (Eve was setup, I tell ya), it is not.

Therefore, it pains me to report that my picture book editor has passed on Leonard. It's only the first submission so it's no big deal, but it is a tad disappointing. She was very nice about it and gave perfectly reasonable reasons for passing, but the bottom line is that the publishing world is looking for the next Harry Potter and I'm serving up "Ivanhoe with Jokes". As we know, HP had a massively broad appeal (read by boys and girls) but our Leonard is a little more boy-centric -- something I did on purpose. The children's publishing industry frequently laments about how hard it is to get boys to read so, genius that I am, I decided to write something a boy would want to read. Lots of bravery, action, and humor, not so much on the emotional development side of things.

So the quest continues. I just sent the manuscript to the book agent who's shepherding around one of my picture book manuscripts. Hopefully, she can get it into the right hands and I'll be creating a post entitled "Ha! I Sold It After Only (X) Submissions!".

In unrelated yet still painful news...
Thanks to the relentless radio spots for "Mama Mia!", I now have "Dancing Queen" stuck on a permanent loop in my skull. Ow. Ow. Ow.

Eater of the Dead: A Dragon Friend Excerpt

Just in time for Halloween! Check out a featured Dragon Friend excerpt on the BestSelling Reads blog: "The spooky season is upon us! H...