Sunday, January 23, 2011

Still Working It

I feel obligated to report that I've not been posting due to overall busy-ness. As in...

  • Finished another big edit on LTG: Dragonfriend. Cut out close to 6k words, caught more punctuation/grammatical/typographical errors. Lots of fat was tossed. Glow of overall positiveness now envelops me with regard to this manuscript. SIDE NOTE: Recommend using MS Word's "read text aloud" feature. It helped me catch many errors such as repeated/dropped words and clunky (poorly constructed) sentences.
  • Prepping above manuscript and support materials for 2011 ABNA.
  • Finished the first draft of a live-action spec pilot for kids, ala Wizards of Waverly Place. My reader's taking a look at it and I hope to be able to send it to my agents soon. I think it's a unique premise and is funny. We'll see.
  • Added some animation and kid's book FAQ's at the top of this page. Stuff I've been asked over the years which I hope you'll find of interest.
  • Minor revamp of this and my other blog.
Still chugging along toward the eventual publishing of Leonard on Amazon (via Createspace) but, as mentioned in a previous post, I'm going to shut up about my progress in that arena until  I'm close to pulling the trigger.

That is all.

UPDATE: I knew there was something else. Wrote an episode of a popular animated half-hour and just got another assignment for the same show. The pickup hasn't been announced yet so I can't reveal the name at this time. Yay, work!

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Are You a Thief?

Author Saundra Mitchell lays out a compelling argument for why "free books aren't free" and how "fans" with an overblown sense of entitlement might actually be killing the careers of (mid-list) authors whose work they claim to love. Here's a quote from her post. The parenthetical addition is mine:

"I’ve been very open about the money I’ve made and not made, to help give the writing community some perspective. So I’m going to be very open about money today. I’ve told you before that I made a $15,000 advance on SHADOWED SUMMER. In two years, I’ve managed to earn back $12,000 of that.

It’s going out of print in hardcover because demand for it has dwindled to 10 or so copies a month. This means I will never get a royalty check for this book. By all appearances, nobody wants it anymore.

But those appearances are deceiving. According to one download site’s stats, people are (
illegally) downloading SHADOWED SUMMER at a rate of 800 copies a week. When the book first came out, it topped out at 3000+ downloads a week.

If even HALF of those people who downloaded my book that week had bought it, I would have hit the New York Times Bestseller list."

 I'm going to go all Lars from Metallica on this one. If you illegally download "free" copies of books, music, films -- whatever, from a torrent site or anywhere else, you are a thief. No matter what your reasoning may be -- lack of funds, not available in your region, laziness -- you are literally taking food out of the mouths of creative types who depend on royalties/residuals to earn a living.  Stop doing that and start buying the product! It's the right thing to do (a thousand blessings on those who support their favorite artists) and the career you help to save will thank you by continuing to churn out the books you love to read.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Hit 50k Today!

Technically, I "won" the 2010 NaNoWriMo today at around 10am. Huzzah! Practically, I'm a little over halfway finished with my manuscript but still, 50k is 50k. All that's left to do is put my manuscript into the "word count validator" on the NaNo website to make the win official. Authors can start doing this on the 25th and receive (along with the praise and adulation of their peers) one of those nifty winner's badges.

Here are the closing stats for this year's effort:

As of 11/24, I have written 50,257 words. That averages out to 2095 words a day and leaves me with a 193 page MS Word document (double-spaced).

Althought I could continue adding to my word count until midnight on the 30th, I'll be taking a break because I have lots to catch up on elsewhere in my professional career(s) -- including some more animation writing that will hopefully be coming very soon.

PLUS...I want to go back to the beginning and pound out some structural and character issues that need to be fixed. Right around 30k, I realized that I had a problem in my set up that would only get worse if I didn't do some serious re-thinking. Nothing insurmountable, but it would be better to fix these issues early in the game instead of piling more plot on top of them.

In general, I am very pleased with how this year's challenge went. I really feel I'm getting the hang of it as, with the exception of a day or two, the writing went smoothly and was a lot of fun. Thanks for the motivation, NaNo, you're the best!

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Home Stretch

Broke through the 40k barrier today (cue fireworks and marching band). Oddly enough, due to day job related distractions (aka auditions - a good thing), the bulk of the past 10k was written after dinner between 7:30 and 11:00. I say oddly because I'm usually a morning writer who likes to split my word count into 1k+ before lunch and the rest of it anytime during the day when I can squeeze it in. This night writing has been focused and quite enjoyable so, who knows, maybe I'll switch things around for a bit.

One thing I do know is that I get a little nervous I won't hit my word goal when I start late. Maybe that's why writing at the end of the day seems to be working for me. Go fear! Whatever the reason, I'll take the words.

According to my stats page, I'm averaging around 2200 words a day and at this rate should hit 50k on Tuesday 11/23. See you then!

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Feelin' Good at 30k

Hit another mile marker after a very comfortable day of 2431 words. Broke it up in chunks throughout the day so it didn't feel like I was pulling teeth to reach that number. Today's work included a big action sequence that was a hoot to write -- humans, a wizard, and several mythological creatures all squared off for a classic sword and magic smack-down. 

Onward to 40k!

Thursday, November 11, 2010

What He and She Said...

Author John Scalzi scores again with his blog post in defense of NaNoWriMo putting published anti-NaNo snobs on notice to just chill. A quote:

"So if you’re a pro novelist or whomever wringing your hands over NaNoWriMo, remember that hands are for typing, not for wringing, and get back to your own work and let the kids have their fun. If you’re a NaNoWriMo participant and you’ve heard the grousing of the pros, ignore it and enjoy your experience of banging out words. In the end, no one cares how or why or under what circumstances a novel has been created, they care about the words on the page. Readers don’t read process. They read novels."
Go over to his site and read the post in its entirety, then visit published author Mary Robinette Kowal's blog to see the (also) excellent post which inspired Scalzi's spirited defense.  

In other news, I broke through the 25k barrier by cranking out a satisfying 2029 words today, ending up with a total of 26430 words on the 11th day of the challenge. That's over halfway to 50k! Go me.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Chugging Away Past 20k

Surprised myself by hitting this mile marker a little bit earlier than expected. Not complaining in the least, mind you, just surprised. Here are my personal stats thanks to a stat thingy they added to my Nano stats page:

Today's Stats:
Words Written Today 2476
Words to Write until 1667: 0
Suggested Daily Word Count 1667
Cumulative Word Count 20147
 
Total Stats
Current Day 8
Suggested Cumulative Word Count 13334
Average Words per Day 2519
At This Rate You Will Finish On Nov 20
Days Remaining 22
Total Words Remaining 29853
Words per Day to Finish on Time 1357


I find this kind of stuff to be interesting. Then again, as mentioned in a previous post, I'm a "geedork". I'd really like to keep up this pace and "finish" the challenge on the 20th. As always, we'll see.

Onward!

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