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.

So as not to disappoint my couple of readers, I thought that I ought to post an update.

First, let me direct you to a song that I wrote a few years ago during a hot summer and posted last June. In my own direct way, it is called Summer. That fairly accurately covers how things have been of late, weather-wise. It has been hot. By the time I get home, the house is hot and I don’t feel motivated to sit down and practice piano, compose wintry music, or delve into the inner workings of the characters in any of my fiction. I can sit down with my guitar and goof around, but only barely.

At the beginning of this month, though, I decided to try out some journaling software. After a few missteps, I settled on bizarrely spelled Journler. It seems to do what I need and at the moment it seems that you can use it without purchasing a license, though that looks like it will change with version 2.6. I will probably buy a license anyway, even if I don’t need one, just to support the programmers. I just wanted to have as lengthy of a period to get to know the software as necessary before shelling out money for it.

The good part about using software like this is that I can just type in lyrical ideas, story ideas, how I am feeling, what I dreamed, and what I had for lunch. Whatever pops into my head can go in. As a result, I have been expanding upon my screenplay ideas, as well as coming up with new ones. I have also been working on some wizard rock lyrics for the new band.

Other things. I have been checking out projects from some other folks. The one that I expect everyone is talking about is Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. I suppose that I should have mentioned it here last week when it was available as a free stream. Sorry. It is still available for $3.99 from iTunes and is worth every penny, as far as I am concerned. This is Joss Whedon and family’s 40 minute supervillain musical. It stars Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howser), Nathan Fillian (Mal Reynolds from Firefly), and Felicia Day (Vi from Buffy, the Vampire Slayer). It mixes comedy with pathos and a healthy dose of singing and action. We liked it.

We also started listening to Wormwood, a audio drama. So far I can only say that it is a bizarre paranormal mystery. The voice acting is reasonably good, as is the writing. Audio quality is generally good, though there were a few episodes where I had difficulty. That may have had something to do with using the Bluetooth connection to the stereo rather than plugging in speakers. Be that as it may, it is definitely an addictive storyline for us, the banter is often enjoyable, and we look forward to finishing up season one and getting started on season two, which they are currently about a third of the way through. A season is 24 roughly half hour episodes. There are apparently three seasons plotted out, so we have a fair amount more story to enjoy. Oh, and it is a free podcast and is listed on iTunes.

I also have been following Unleashed, the animated story of a dog trying to make it in Hollywood. Each Monday they have a new couple minute episode which generally amuses. Sometimes they have long running story arcs and sometimes it is just a one-off. The style makes me think a bit of Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist.

I am sure that there are a few other things that I have been watching or listening to. Most of them are sporadic or are currently on hiatus, though. Also, this blog post is probably long enough already.

Tschuess.

I have been so slackful this year on the blog posts. It could simply be that I do not feel like I have been doing that much of interest. Of course, that never stopped me before. Previously I viewed this as sort of a journal of what I have been accomplishing. Lately what I have been accomplishing is watching lots of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and trying to ignore my brain-sapping allergies.

When I have not been vegetative in front of the telly, though, I have been working on a story. My goal is to release it in video form as a web miniseries in October. Assuming I get it to a point where I am happy, that is. Otherwise it may have to wait until next October.

Why October? Because it is a scary film. Sort of a paranormal thriller. Something that will hopefully get people in the mood for Halloween, which is one of my favorite holidays.

As research, I have also been watching some classic horror films. Films that take a less gory, less graphic approach. Films that use the viewer’s imagination to create the frights. Films like The Haunting (1963) and Richard Matheson’s The Legend of Hell House. Still in the queue are The Innocents and the much more recent and very well done The Others. What can I say. Amazon has some really good prices on these right now and I can justify them as research into the sorts of horror films that I prefer.

I have been struggling with the current story, trying to get it broken down into five episodes. I have seen some web series where they basically take a movie and cut it so that each scene or two is a two or three minute episode. It is really frustrating and makes it hard to really get invested in the story and characters. And without that, it is hard to really feel the suspense.

My plan is to have ten to twelve minute long episodes. Each episode should be satisfying even as it tells the longer story arc. I have been thinking about this quite a bit as I watch Buffy. The writers on that were very good at having story arcs that are well planned out and can even cross season boundaries. At the same time, most of the individual episodes tell a relatively self-contained story. I want to head more that direction, even though this is a much shorter project than a season of a television show, and even though the individual episodes are a quarter as long as episodes of the programs that I am taking as inspiration.

REDACTED

I almost spilled the beans there. And since this is a thriller, that would be no good. You will just have to bear with me as I vaguely refer to work on this one. By now I expect that you are used to that, dear reader. And hopefully come October, you will have something good to watch and will thank me for maintaining the surprise.

And something good to listen to. The Maniac Art Pond album Winter Colors (which I am reconsidering the title of) has been pretty much stalled. I am planning on writing a soundtrack for the film, though, and plan to release it as a MAP album. I was wanting to release a good soundtrack for Halloween and I think that this might just fit the bill.

It does feel a bit odd to be thinking about Halloween in mid-June, with temperatures in the 80’s and 90’s and the garden yet to produce crops. Now is the time, though, if I am going to have anything ready in time.

In the end, another “not much to show” post. Hopefully you only need to sit through a few more months of this. Hopefully I will, too, as I am ready to be releasing things again.

Tschuess.