I just looked at when my last post was. 23 October?! Yikes!

So what have I been up to? Well, it was November, so my long time readers know exactly what that means for me: National Novel Writing Month. It managed to successfully eat my life pretty much all month, and now I am 70,060 words towards a first draft of a gothic horror/thriller novel. And I think that I might have found what I should be writing. Of course there is still a ton to do before this story ever sees the light of day, especially since the first draft isn’t even finished yet.

Still, I had some massive writing days (in excess of 6,000 words) and I sat down and pounded out a few thousand nearly every day. I hit 50,000 words (the NaNoWriMo “finish line”) at the end of the 14th. There were only a few days where I didn’t sit down and write something.

As always, this year was a bit of an experiment. In addition to writing in a different genre (yet again), I also used a different writing tool. It was still my trusty MacBook, but rather than using a word processor, I used Journler. Each day I started a new entry and tagged it as part of NaNoWriMo 2008. I had a smart folder that collected all of those entries so that I could spit the whole thing out as a single file. But each day I sat down to a blank page. At the bottom it gave me the word count for that entry, which meant that I knew immediately whether I had met my daily goal or not. And because I could not easily go back and reread work from previous days, it kept me from continually checking what I had previously written. While it might not work for some projects, for NaNoWriMo it was perfection (or close to it).

In addition to being Novel Writing Month, November is also National Solo Album Month. The goal is to write and record roughly a half hour of music during November with no outside help. I had heard about it a few years ago and have been wanting to give it a try. I thought that it might be a good excuse to finally write that goth album I have wanted to write for the past twenty or more years. In the end, though, I ended up with about 20-25 minutes of sketches and demos which will mostly wind up on the second Maniac Art Pond album, once I have reworked them. I know that I have still to wrap up Winter Colors, but these fit the theme that I had been planning on for the second album. I am hoping to make significant progress on both over the next two months. It would be fantastic to be able to release them both next autumn.

I think that this might be the last year for both NaNoWriMo and NaSoAlMo for me, at least for a few years. I have so much raw material to go through and polish that I think I could use with a break. There are a few other challenges that I would like to do, though. Feburary Album Writing Month, with the goal of writing fourteen songs in twenty-eight days is, not so surprisingly, in February. April is now Script Frenzy, and I think that it might work out well for me now that they have significantly reworked the rules. Of course, I may simply sit down and work on the scripts that have been on the back burner for the past few years without the help of the challenge.

First comes the holidays, though, and all of the work leading up to those. My stomach knots just thinking everything that I want to have done before I see my family again.

Tschuess.

Script Frenzy is over. At last. 30 days of script writing madness.

How did it go? Well, I did attend all of the write-in’s that I organized. Turnout was disappointing. I do not know if it is just June or if I am just not charismatic enough to energize people into action.

My final count is 12,200 words (including a new Captain Morgan short). Yes, I fell short of the 20,000 word goal. I am a bit bummed, but only just a bit. I tell myself that it is good to do one of these things and not quite make it. And I did actually get some good writing done. Now I just need to keep making progress.

So what happened this past month? Other than what I already posted previously? Well, I actually got an amazing amount done. I finally finished up my two year old project to expand my patio. For the past two years it has been a mud hole of varying sizes, as I dug out a bunch of lawn that had been killed by sun reflecting off of our pale tan house. Now it is all rocked and edged with landscaping timbers. It looks pretty nice, if I do say so myself. I will hopefully have some pictures to put up soon. In the meantime, you will just have to take my word that the seven-and-a-half tons of gravel that I moved a few weeks ago makes a fabulous patio.

Kristi and I have also been doing gardening. Finally. After failing to plan anything for the past several years, we finally were on the ball this year. Tomatoes. Peppers. Eggplant. Basil. Turnips. More basil. More peppers. Watermelon. Cantaloupe. Squash. And I (also finally) put in a peach tree in our front yard. On top of which one of our mystery trees has turned out to be a plum tree. We have quite a few plums set and growing bigger every week. The apple is going nuts, too. It is looking pretty amazing.

Part of the gardening was building a new raised bed and moving quite a bit of the soil/composted sod that was left over from digging out for the patio. Yes, we composted the sod. Yes, it worked. I still have a bit more soil to move and another old bed to weed and rebuild. And possibly another new bed to build, if I get some more lumber picked up.

And I finished a few random projects around the house. Simple projects that have been on the back burner for a year or more.

Oh, and I made a batch of witbier with some friends. That is currently bottle conditioning in the basement. I had a glass today while I was working on my script and it was pretty good. It should be even better later this week when we have a few people over for a barbecue. Hurrah beer!

So yes, I have been busy. Maybe not on Script Frenzy, but I have been very busy and very productive.

Now I am tired.

Tschuess.

Hi kids.

Script Frenzy? How is it going? Poorly. Sort of.

Over the weekend I did manage to sort of wrap up my outline. Sure, the last three items on it actually need to be expanded into quite a few scenes. Still, it does cover the span of the whole story. Now I just need to sit down and start working on the script again.

Instead of working on the script, I have been working in the garden, planting a peach tree, getting seven-and-a-half tons of gravel ordered for the new and expanded patios (and which I will be schlepping all weekend), cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, watching television, watching films noir with friends, and just generally avoiding my story.

Other than it being June, I am not quite sure what my problem is. I love my story. I am really excited to finish it, film it, and release it. (Yes, I am cutting out some major steps there like rewriting, casting, rehearsals, lining up props and locations, storyboarding, editing, and scoring. I am excited, of course, to do those as well.) Every time I sit down and try to script the opening scene, though, I get major writer’s block.

I think that I might need to pretend that the opening scene is written and just jump into the heart of the story. I hate to do that. Really I hate writing the script without having a more detailed plan worked out. True, I have some character and plot arcs. The villain is still really two-dimensional, though. His crimes, which need to be kept secret through most of the story but which motivate the action, are really generic at this point.

Perhaps I just feel like I need some more time to think about the plot and really fully internalize the world and the characters. Time? Time is what I do not really have right now. What I do have is a less than three weeks left to write roughly two hours of script.

I suppose that I just need to sit down and write it. If it sucks, it sucks. I need to treat this as “getting to know the world and the characters” and be prepared to chuck the whole thing when the month is over and I am ready to do a complete rewrite. I just need to keep telling myself that. I also need to stop thinking about all the projects around the yard and the house.

Apparently I take my scripts more seriously than I take my novels.

Now I am so sleepy.

Tschuess.