A Work in Progress

30 days, 42 pages.

The spirit, um, muse was willing, but the rest . . . not so much.

On the plus side, I did write 42 pages of script that I might not have otherwise. As I always tell others, “Any word count greater than zero is a good thing.”

Moving on . . .

28 days, 41 pages.

Without a miracle, 100 pages this year is not happening.

I’ll leave it at that for now.

21 days, 33 pages.

To say that this year has been challenging would not be an understatement. Between organizational changes at works, and constant interruptions in my personal life, my work flow has been a trickle.

Am I going to hit the 100-page target this year?

Maybe. Unlikely. I would say that, even with my best efforts, are odds are worse than 50-50.

Writing here isn’t getting it done, though. So back at it.

14 days, 24 pages.

Not exactly stellar progress.

On the bright side, I’m well ahead of where I actually finished in the disastrous year that was 2007.

I can’t really blame it on the muse. She is gamely trying to offer me tidbits to build the story from.

What’s hurting me most is the lack of solid uninterrupted writing time. The universe seems determined to throw obstacles in my way this year.

I guess the good news is that I haven’t given up yet, but I do wish that this event was taking place in May instead of April this year.

Back to the keyboard now . . .

7 days, 9 pages.

Nope. This year is not off to an auspicious start.

I wish I could lay the blame solely on the muse, but she has been trying gamely to offer me nuggets of ideas to work from. It’s just one of those times when there’s too much life going on and not enough hours in the day.

I hesitate to say it’s hopeless at this stage , but it’s going to take a real push this week in order to catch up.

The good news is that I think I’ve managed to wrap my head around the idea of the story. That should make it easier moving forward, since I have a better sense of how the pieces fit together to form the complete narrative.

I am almost certainly not going to be writing this one in sequential order, but that’s probably only a problem for the two of you (are there even that many?) following along on the daily blog.

Back at it. Many pages to go before I sleep . . .

It seems like NaNoWriMo wasn’t that long ago. Apparently, it has been, as it’s April once again and time for Script Frenzy. I’ve (finally) completed a new draft of an old short story and ready to start!

I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do it this year—for a number of reasons that I won’t go into here. But, following the advice I often give others, “Any word count greater than zero” is a good thing. It’s too easy to give up before you’ve even reached the starting gate. (Yes, I’m badly mixing my metaphors here. Deal with it.)

A friend challenged me this year to develop a story that had no science fiction or fantasy elements in it. Naturally, my brain immediately seized up at the thought. After all, pretty much any else is  . . . well . . . mundane.

However, completely lacking any other story ideas that I believe can be sustained for 100 pages of script, I’m going to pick up the gauntlet and accept the challenge. (See? I can extend a metaphor properly on occasion.)

My attempt at Script Frenzy was also a departure from my usual genre. We all know how well that turned out . . . (It didn’t.)

So . . .

Lights! Camera! Action! Keyboard!

30 days, 110 pages.

As you might surmise from the page count, the muse woke up yesterday and decided to spout out a generous number of pages. (It was also due to me holding back on writing the climatic scene for a day when I was completely blocked, but I had never had to resort to that, so it came out last night.)

While Script Frenzy is finished (and successfully won), the script itself is not. While I sincerely doubt it will have the length of the series pilot turned mini-series that my 2008 effort became, it still has several more pages to go. If I had to hazard a guess at this point, I’d say that the completed first draft will finish out at around 130 pages.

I’ll probably come back and finish it off during the next two weeks, as I dislike leaving these sorts of the things unfinished. (Completing first drafts I’m good at; after that, not so much.) I might or might not post those additional scenes as they’re written. We’ll see.

Until then . . .

FADE OUT.

28 days, 94 pages.

Despite a day out with the flu, and a couple of days lost due to newfound family drama, I’ve managed to force the muse to spill forth with a respectable number of pages.

It’s been both a struggle and an occasionally astonishing mystery. Fortunately, my characters tend to speak with minds of their own and have managed to carry on quite nicely. There have been two unusual twists that I had not seen coming. Subtle ones, and neither particularly vital to the plot, but interesting to be sure.

Two more days remain. So until then . . .

DISSOLVE TO:

21 days, 68 pages.

That’s two pages behind the suggested goal of 70 pages—and well behind my personal goal of 84 pages.

I lost three days due to a family visit. I had hoped to squeeze in a few pages during that time, but that wasn’t to be. (I knew that was the case when I pulled out my netbook on Sunday night and it refused to restart because the battery was drained.) I had, however, possessed foresight enough to go into the weekend about four pages ahead of the goal at the time, so it could have been worse.

I’m at the painful stage in the story where I’m trying to get to the ending from where the plot currently is. Even in novels, I find that I tend to falter at this stage. I know the conflict that is coming; I just can’t quite figure out how to get there from here—yet.

Back at it . . .

DISSOLVE TO:

14 days, 57 pages.

The story keeps moving along.

I’ve reached the point in the plot where my central idea came from. This typically leads to trouble, as I often have trouble building toward an exciting enough climax and conclusion. We’ll see . . .

As is also usual for my second week of a writing project, I know exactly how it ends. I have mentally written the dialogue and actions for the last scene. (I’ve been holding them in reserve in case I run into a stretch of days when the muse just doesn’t feel like cooperating and no amount of urging will suffice to spur her.

So, on to Week 3 . . .

CUT TO:

7 days, 29 pages.

That’s just slightly above my personal goal of 4 pages per day.

So far, I’ve just been setting up the story. Act I, I guess you could call it. Events are slowly building toward . . . something.

I have a general idea of where the story is heading, and what happens next, but I’m once again wondering how the climatic ending will play out. It needs a stronger ending than what I currently have in mind.

Well, I’ve got 3 weeks and 71 (or more) pages to figure it out . . .

DISSOLVE TO:

Tomorrow, April 1^st, begins this year’s Script Frenzy event.

I was going to report that I have only the barest concept of an idea for this year’s story, and not likely enough to sustain for 100 pages . . . but that would be repeating my claim from last year. (Do you sense a recurring theme here?)

Both my muse (and corresponding enthusiasm) for this year’s event seems to be lacking, but I intend to rely of my sense of discipline and churn out 4 pages of script each day for the next 30 days.

(That this event begins on April Fool’s Day is not lost on me . . .)

You can check here for my daily stats and here if you’re interested in reading the day’s work.

Get ready to . . .

FADE IN.

Two days, nine pages. It almost wasn’t much of a challenge. (Note to self: Never, never, ever, say that aloud to the muse.) Actually, the story came together nicely. All the gaps were closed up. The page count was achieved.

From a story perspective, I think it’s all there. I have concerns whether it works as a standalone story (but not overly concerned, as it’s intended in be an episode in an ongoing series, I assume readers would have at least passing familiarity with the characters and existing situations).

I do think at least one additional scene needs to be added that better link the two parallel stories within it. I’m not entirely sure what it is, as so far all of the ones that have come to me feel contrived and forced. I figure I’ll deal with the issue when the time comes to novelize it.

On to the next project . . .

There’s not much to report, really.

Word count is right on track. The muse is behaving (mostly). The story is coming together (mostly).

There are surprisingly few gaps in the flow of the story compared to previous years. Nearly all of the scenes have been written in sequential order.

I have little doubt that I will hit the goal of 100 pages this year. I’ll be surprised, though, if it goes more than one or two pages over, though. But that’s okay.

Due to commitments at work, I’ve missed two days of writing. Thank goodness I kept on track and am slightly ahead on word count.

Okay, back at it for the last two days . . .

The script remains steadily on course. The muse has been generally cooperative, granting just enough to keep pace with my daily word count.

The scenes are being written mostly in sequential order. Earlier in the week, as so often happens as I’m working on a story, the final scenes came to me. This is probably not a bad thing, as it keeps me somewhat directed toward a specific dramatic goal rather than wandering all over trying to find an appropriate and satisfying ending.

Slightly more than a week to go . . .

Steady as she goes . . .

I’m two pages behind of the halfway 50-page mark, but I’m not overly concerned about it because I know what the the next 2-4 pages are.

The script is progressing steadily. I’m actually surprised that the story concept looks like it will sustain itself for the entire 100 pages. I guess it really will be a “Special 2-Hour Episode” after all.

This project has been an interesting in that it has felt much more like a well-paced marathon than the usual series of sprints that I usually experience. The story is growing steadily, characters enter and leave as needed, and it is progressing toward its end.

I’m reaching the end, though, of the mental list of scenes I had developed going into this project. Next week could be rough. We’ll see . . .

So, I went for the idea that could potentially turn into something salable.  The concept is not as fully developed as the other idea, but when has such a challenge ever stopped me? ;-)

I’m not feeling the love from my muse.  We’re on speaking terms, but she doesn’t seem particularly engaged this year.

My word count progress is acceptable, but not at last year’s levels.  Nor am I feeling the thrill of creation to its usual degree.  I don’t think it’s a symptom of boredom, but more likely the results of turmoil in real life events.  Unfortunately, I’ve yet to figure out how to apply them (even in a metaphorical way) to this story.

That’s all for now. Back at it . . .

Yes . . .

It’s that time a year again and I begin to wonder, as I probably should have before, whether Script Frenzy isn’t some kind of cruel and sadistic practical joke pulled on compulsive writers for the month of April. Not that I’m into conspiracy theory, mind you, but it’s something to think about . . .

Anyway . . .

I’m at a bit of a loss this year. I have two possible ideas, but neither of them feels sustainable for 100 pages: one is a television script for a series of (possibly saleable) stories that I’ve been working on for a few years; the other essentially qualifies as fan fiction, as there is almost no chance that it will be saleable. The second one feels like more fun, and I have a better idea where I want to the story go. For the first, I have the basic concept of the story, but very little else.

So . . .

I have only a few hours to decide (or hope that the muse provides me with an entirely full-blown concept and story, a la Athena borne from Zeus). I’m tempted to tackle both and see which one works out the best in the end.

Stay tuned . . .

I've spent the past week editing my progress to date and starting to fill in some of the blanks. It took me two days to untangle the time sequence mess I had knotted myself in (kind of ironic, considering the subject matter of the story), but I'm pretty sure that is all straightened out now.

I ended Script Frenzy on April 30^th with 43 "[insert more here]" markers where I knew I needed a few more lines of dialogue or a bit of action to close the scene. I now have 38 of them remaining. That seems like I haven't made a lot of progress, but as I've added new scenes to fill in some of the blank spots, a few more of those markers got added.

The script now runs 123 pages. There's still several more scenes to write, so I fully expect that it continue to grow. There's a fairly lengthy scene in there now that will likely get either cut or seriously trimmed. While the concept it discusses is interesting, I think at might be better to leave it an ambiguous loose end to explore in a later episode.

The main story is essentially finished except for two key scenes. I'm really struggling with the secondary story for various reasons. I'm sure I'll get past them and wrap this whole thing up soon.

Finished, but not done. I ended the month of April with 115 pages.

(For the mathematically-inclined among you, that averages out to 3.8 pages/day. Not a bad average at all when you consider that I lost three days.)

The script is not quite finished. There's mostly a handful of transitions and two or three key scenes still to write, but it's close to being done. Before I do any more work on it though, I want to fix some of the sequencing and tighten up a couple of scenes so I don't end up adding transitions or dialogue that won't really be needed.

I'm generally pretty pleased with the final results. There were some twists and turns that I didn't expect when I started the project. I know of several sections that would be approached far differently in a novelized version.

All that said, I'm most pleased to have just finished and achieved the goal of at least 100 pages by the end of April.