50,109

Oh hello.

The non-stop hellbent ride that is November is over. I have stopped buying sketchy sandwiches from coffee shops, feeling guilty about not working on my script, and exhaustion-based drooling. Thanksgiving was a hit (both in fun and to my word count), so I had to make up 16k words in 3 days. Basically, I'm a winner AND a baller. This novel is a hot mess, but there are some moments and/or characters that I'm fond of, and after I take a break I'm going to attack it with a highlighter, lift the three moments that actually work, and structure something new.

I mean, that's the plan so far.

In the meantime, I have some very specific goals (I outlined day-by-days goal about a week ago, in an attempt to productive to the max. I didn't write for the subsequent two days).

1. Finish the script for V. We are halfway through and I promised the script before Christmas. I'm confident that I can get it done. Every meeting I go into with him I'm expecting to get fired. I don't really know why I feel this way, but I have this mental picture of us sitting down, him looking at the pages quietly, and then saying, "Yeahhhh, this isn't going to work."

But not so! We had a great meeting yesterday, and he's even secured a DP already. Every time I think about him talking to someone about the film, I get a little hyperventilatey-nervous. It makes it super real. It also makes me feel a little bit famous.

2. Rewrite The Exit Strategy over Christmas break. This seems unreasonable when I say it, but I'm going to prep for rewriting all this month, reread the script, figure out the new elements, restructure, replot, reoutline. I have a week and a day off for the holidays, and I can knock through a prepped script that quickly. I think.

3. See some movies. There are some great indie films out that I want to catch, and the holidays are going to bring both popcorn flicks and award nominees. I'm down.

4. Blog about screenwriting more. The novel distraction is over. It's back to work.

Other Things.

1. I am still behind on my novel. But it's going to be ok. I just killed off a character, it's good.

2. I don't remember the last story I wrote where the main romantic pair got together in the end. And when I last wrote a happily married couple, I killed one of them in the end. Er. Is that a reflection of my psyche?

3. Let's keep moving.

4. I saw Mat Kearney in concert last week. Amazing. I'm a little resentful that he's got a super cute wife, but whatevs. We all move on.

5.

6. Have you been to Whole Foods lately? I went yesterday to get some chocolate covered espresso beans and I caved and bought some chocolate covered toffee almonds as well. The one in town has this cute little wine bar in the middle of the store. I'm pretty sure I'm going to make the Hockey Player take me there on date night asap.

7. I cannot wait until he and I jump in my bullet-holed minivan on Wednesday and start weaving through the Thanksgiving day traffic like the accident prone people we are. Route 80, all the way! [along with about 90,000 other people, awesome.]

8. If you had to choose between moving to LA asap or living in the middle of nowhere for a few more years and shooting your own ultra low budget mumblecore, what would you do? 'Cause I've started saving for either of those options, and it's getting to be a conundrum about which to get excited about.

Right Through.

About 5k ago I realized that I was on a dangerous road. I was leading my motley crew of four underdog characters straight into the heart of the opposition. Even if they were the most powerful, talented, amazing characters you had ever met, they were destined to lose.

It was sheer numbers.

Sometimes, in NaNoWriMo, when you've written yourself into a corner or you realize that you're going down a tangent that will never make it past the first draft, you're encouraged to write a one sentence transition --

"And then they rescued/killed/bamboozled the roommate/mob boss/Puff the Magic Dragon and found themselves back in New York City/Candy Land/a galaxy far far away."

While I was tempted to do just that, I couldn't. I've never been a writer who can jump around in her story. Even if I'm struggling for a detail, I don't just put [INSERT HENRY'S COMPANY HERE]. I pick a detail and continue. Half the time this means that I end up forgetting to go back and change the things I need to, but that's the way I do things.

I've hit a couple spots in my novel where I've thought, "This is a terrible idea. I know they say no deleting in NaNo, but clearly they had never run into an idea this abysmal. I'm about to solve the whole story/kill my main characters/introduce a dinosaur. This is really quite horrid."

But I've run with it. The only way out is through, right?

And the thing is, while running through plot points I will surely never revisit again, I've met characters and developed themes and expanded ideas that are creating the foundation of my story. When I realized I had written myself into a corner, that my ragtag band of four characters was about to storm a fortified citadel, I realized there was no way they could get in, get their friend, and get out alive. Not in a million years. I was really stressing about it, until I realized--

They don't get out. They are captured almost immediately. I mean, you'd have to be an idiot to try what they did, and it only made logical sense for them to fail. Which suddenly opened up so many questions for my characters. Was my protagonist really who she said she was? Were the other characters going to believe her anymore after this? Was she going to have any faith left in herself?

Every time I have powered through a difficult section, I have come away with useless plot but a richer story. Every time I force the story forward instead of avoiding it, I discover something new. And if that is all I get out of this month, if I have to rewrite my whole novel based on my month long investigation of these characters and their story, then I will be satisfied with NaNoWriMo, declare it a success, and then delve back in to rewriting the whole dang thing.

November?

Hey, guys.

I have so much I want to write about. So much. So little time.

I want to tell you about my script on assignment, how we're almost to the midpoint and how some days I feel like I'm writing crap and some days I start out feeling like I'm writing crap but at some obscure, undefinable moment I realize that I feel good about what I'm writing and I have for a few scenes. I want to talk about the lessons I've been learning and what it feels like when you look at a scene and realize you've implemented years of lessons and practice without even knowing it.

But we don't have time for that (but it feels good to be a gangster, that's what it feels like).

I want to tell you about the huge colossal kitchen fail I had. Guys, it was bad. And super disappointing. And yet still I managed to pull it back around to writing, because that's apparently all I think about now.

But we don't have time for that, and it's still a bit painful.

I want to tell you that if you manage your company's Twitter account, double check to make sure that you've signed back into your own before commenting on a blog or Tweeting or any such thing that can be traced back to you/them.

Really, that's a PSA I always have time for.

I want to tell you about NaNoWriMo. How I am behind because I missed a few whole days earlier this month. How I wrote a thousand words in fifteen minutes yesterday, punks, and how when I made it harder for my characters I made it a bazillion times more interesting. I want to tell you that this novel is going to need significantly more work than I expected post-November, but I think there's a pretty good chance I'll let other people read it.

But we don't have time for that, because I'm still 4,000 words behind.

I want to tell you that if you're looking for a roommate, pick someone who wears your size. It's like instantly doubling your wardrobe.

No brainer.

I want to tell you about the amazing amounts of talented people I've been meeting recently and how you should be meeting as many people as you can, even now. The other day I realized how many talented people I knew that would jump at any chance to further their career, and the amazing opportunity we have right now to do something together.

But we don't have time for that 'right now' right now, sometime after November.

I want to tell you that I haven't been this immersed in the culture and physical act of writing in so long and that I'm being immensely productive. And that the longer I do this, write ten pages of my screenplay then switch to my novel, cram as many words into fifteen minutes as I can, do nothing besides work/write/occasionally see the Hockey Player, the more I love it. Some days it sucks to be a writer. Some days it's difficult and everything comes out clunky and you're uninspired. But if I could do this all day every day, I would be over the moon.

I think I'm in love.

Word Count.

I just hit 5k. That seems very refreshing to say, and I consider it a big enough milestone that I get to take a short noveling break (even if I hit that milestone after writing in Starbucks for 10 minutes).

5k seems like a lot, except I skipped all of Wednesday to work on my script and have date night with the Hockey Player. So even if I wrap up today's word count with another 700 words, I'll still be 1,667 words behind. Have I mentioned I'm throwing a party tomorrow?

I met with my director yesterday and he asked how I was going to do it, work full time, write a screenplay, AND NaNo. I think I said something along the lines of not sleeping and stop hanging out with my friends (see above party plans). The truth is, I have no bleeding idea. I see more than one all nighter in my future, and I'm way out of practice with those.

I had high hopes for this NaNo Novel. I don't know if it's because I'm "officially" a paid writer and now I expect everything I produce to be a money maker or if because I'm just tired of writing and writing and never progressing, but I was ready to do something with this novel. And I've been telling people that too, "I'm going to e-publish this when it's done" and "Ask for a Kindle for Christmas so you can read my naaaaah-vel." (PS. I legit do what a Kindle Fire for Christmas, so whoever's paying attention to those sort of things... yeah.)

But I've been discouraged. This novel has not been shaping up. My writing is rough, awkward, and overall subpar. My characters feel unfamiliar, my world undeveloped, and my plot thinner than a high wire (the circus is in town). I'm enjoying the noveling. But I'm not sure I'm enjoying the novel.

But today we got a pep talk from Erin Morgenstern in our NaNo Mail. And she talks about ninjas and circuses and how your NaNo novel might not even be the point, but the point at which you start.

This may not be the novel I publish. It may not be good enough. But at some point along the journey, I might find myself not just writing but writing my novel, that the real story has begun and the preceding 49,000 words have just been brainstorming. Lord above, I hope it doesn't get to that, but if that's what it takes to get there, I'll do it.

And now, it's back to the novel...

Courage.

Dear writers.

We're on the precipice of an adventure. We stand outside a dark cave of uncertainty. We wait for the trumpet that rallies us to the call.

We wait on the eve of NaNoWriMo.

We are a small band of devoted storytellers, impassioned voices, slightly unbalanced characters. We feel the urge to do what few would find even rational -- 50,000 words in 30 days? During a month of a major family holiday as well? Would a normal person attempt such a thing?

The answer is no -- but we are no normal beings.

If any of you fellow NaNo-ers out there are like me, you have the mere inklings of a plot, the foggiest visions of a character, and nary an idea what to do after chapter three. But NaNo-ers depart from weather outlines and other conventional wisdom. We believe in the compulsion of artificial deadlines, the longevity of caffeine, and the power of a story. And we will sacrifice our sleep, our fun, and our sanity in order to run the race set out before us.

For those waiting for the gunshot of midnight, best of luck. God speed you through your caffeine-tripping and sleep-deprived haze to the 50,000 word finish line. It's time to sparkle, little dreamers.

Here's to your literary abandon.

Coffee shops, my second home.

We're 17 pages into the script I'm writing for V, and I'm feeling pretty good. I'm hoping to have Act I finished in a week for next week's meeting with V. He thinks we'll have a first draft done by mid/late November. I'll be happy if it's before Christmas.

And then we're sending it out for notes.

This is where I get concerned. V and I meet (nearly) every week, and I'm sure if he had any huge concerns he would bring them up. But most of my changes so far have been cosmetic. Maybe that's because we're still pushing through Act I, where the drama is more situational instead of character driven. But I'm a little worried that we're going to drive through the first draft, and I'm going to be oblivious to any big problems, and then we're going to show it to other people (like other of my former professors) and they're going to think it's awful.

But I know I've only gotten better in the last two years. Sometimes it's just hard to remember that when you're sitting alone in a coffee shop, your tea getting cold and your page count barely inching along.

I am excited about NaNoWriMo, though. I'm trying to put some thought and planning into my novel this year. I'm hoping this year I'll come through with something more than just a self published paperback I only let blood relatives and the occasional Hockey Player read.

Want to read it? Sometime in February? Yeah? Well, we'll see.

I thought I had finished my zombie story. I'm trying to prune the list of short stories I have in their various states of disarray. The zombie story had been through two drafts and I thought only need a polish. And then I had a better idea for it. Work is never finished. You can always be improving...

It's so cold everywhere.

It's nearly mid-October

The month has gone by remarkably fast (I think the job has helped with that. One of my favourite stories of last week was when one of the boys asked me why I had a nail in my nose.) I wouldn't mind it slowing down some. Fall is my favourite. However, once we get done with October it's November (I just know my months so well) --

National Novel Writing Month.

I know I talk about screenwriting mostly, but my writing roots are in fiction. I haven't participated in NaNoWriMo in a few years now, but I have completed it three times, and it's always a good time. My favourite experience was when two of my college friends participated with me and we'd go to the library and have word sprints. My novel that year was a space opera with all characters named after Shakespearean characters. Should I try it again this year? I've been thinking about novel writing, but my main road block is that I haven't really come up with a great idea yet nor has that been a priority for me. And speaking of priorities, I want my screenwriting to take precedent over NaNoWriMo. So can I do it? Can I write a 50,000 word novel, keep consciousness during my job (so early...), be dedicated to my screenwriting, pursue my other personal goals, and take continuing stabs at a social life, all during one month?

I'll probably decide October 31st.

Also, NBC cancels Southland before it airs. I don't know -- there just seem to be a lot of TV shows with tired premises this season. What made Southland different than any other cop show? NBC also has Trauma (hello, ER) and Mercy (Grey's Anatomy for nurses). Maybe you won't have to cancel your shows if you come up with a new and compelling premise.

No no NaNo

I've thought of lots of witty things to write about in the past week or so. I've forgotten all of them, which is especially sad, because I think one of them could have been filed under "funny medical stories."

But I would like to confess, as much as I am a champion of National Novel Writing Month and as much as I intended to participate this year, it just didn't happen.

This would have been my fifth straight year. How disappointing to break such a streak. Am I sad? Truly, not really. I mean, I do enjoy NaNoWriMo as much as the next deadline-drive procrastinator, but that's a fix that's being filled by my projects and papers this semesters. I would like to blame it on the October 30th death of my beloved iBook laptop, I really just didn't make time for it in my schedule. I think the thing that perplexes me the most, in a mildly concerned sort of way, is that when it came time to sit down and write a piece of fiction, I balked.

The last time I wrote fiction was for last year's NaNoWriMo, and even then I remember having qualms about it as I had been focusing on screenplays for the past year or so. My aunt said to me once a few months ago that she missed reading fiction pieces, that screenplays were all well and good, but that there was something she missed about the language of straight of fiction. And I can see that and miss it too, in a sort of detached way, but I have no driving impulse to go back to fiction writing. Which doesn't matter, until you attempt it again.

It's another aspect of Paranoid Writer Syndrome. I've forgotten how to do this, the prose is coming out stilted, what should my descriptions be like. It's difficult to overcome when you first sit down and stare at the blank page, but luckily, it's also easily to vanquish. It, like every other genre of writing, takes practice, and soon those white flashes and spells of breathlessness as I squeeze the pen tightly in your hand and blink furiously will disappear, and I can find fiction writing a comfortable place once again.

I look forward to Script Frenzy in the summer. Congratulations to all who will be NaNoWriMo winners - make sure you get your free book from LuLu - and I hope to be typing furiously with you next year.

Luck of the Irish

My computer has managed to finally die, even though I was trusting it to last for another year so I could put the money for a new computer towards tuition instead.

It's just in time for NaNo.

To the Typewriter

It's that time of year again.

I had forgotten, to be honest. My fifth year, and it might have slipped by me if I hadn't gotten that email from Chris, making my heart pound and my mind go temporarily blank as I realized -

National Novel Writing Month is just a month away.

It seems so soon again (I think that's because of Script Frenzy), and it's great, I'm excited. I love November for this reason (well, there are other good things too). I'm sorta at a dilemma about what to write, however. Last year, after finishing a rather dark novel, I was determined to have more fun. I wrote a space opera in 2005 and all the characters were named after Shakespearean characters, and I had a blast. I wanted to have just as much fun in 2007, so last year I vowed to return to my roots and write a bit in a sillier genre that I used to dabble in when I was younger.

Some of you may know what I'm talking about.

However, over the past few months this idea has been percolating in my head, and I think it might be really good. But it's more dramatic, darker, and could just be sorta a downer to write. And really, it would be nice to write a novel that I felt actually has potential. This will be my *fourth finished one* after all.

When I was putting up my participation icon, I found out I can put polls on my blog! So if you'd like to advise me on what to write, I'd appreciate it. You'll have to read about it for a month or so, after all.

Is anyone else planning on staying up late on Halloween, not trick or treating, but tapping their fingers against the keyboard, waiting to start?

Current Draft v. Old Love

I am now 43 pages into Current Draft. I had a miserable time writing today. Perhaps it was because I went to the library this time, where there's internet but no eating or drinking. Perhaps it's because I started writing a scene that pretty much mirrored an earlier scene and yet I could not delete. Perhaps it's just because I really don't like this story. Only yesterday it was starting to grow on me when I made one of my angry but trying teenagers beat the crap out of a jukebox with his drum sticks.

That was fun.

I've started adding all these cool features to my blog, besides its recent face lift. I'm quite fond of them. I like how writerly my picture makes me look, though in reality I think that night I was trying to read an article for Film History on the French New Wave or something after three nights of getting an average of 5 hours of sleep. I'm going to try to figure out how to do progress bars for my stories like Emily does over on her blog, because I'm sure that's what you all are *really* here for.

My aunt has been reading The 4:05, which thrills me. The last time we talked about it she had just stopped right before the Climax. She only started reading it yesterday, and I'm sure she's done by now, so I said to her at dinner, "Don't you think it's easier to read scripts than novels?"

And to my surprise, she said "no."

The thing is, sure, she reads it faster, but she was telling me how much she misses the description of novels. "Purple prose," I once heard it called, and screenwriters are told to stay away from it like the plague. Which, I feel, causes a dilemma because film is also a *visual* medium, they tell us over and over again, trying to make us screenwriters feel bad about our words, it's a *visual* story that's where the art comes from not from your snappy dialog and I just want to say, oh yeah? then what about all those college guys who spend their lunch periods quoting movies? Yeah, I never had to endure forty five minutes of them trying to recreate the angles and proportions of the puzzle scene from Citizen Kane!

I digress.

And then she got me thinking... a novel would be nice. I know I'm scripting in June, but what if I worked on a novel, over the summer (this summer is turning into quite the writer's treat, as I shall expound later... oh, expound, what a fun word.). Because, see, I don't know if you've noticed, but I've gotten a lot more... verbose lately. Verbage everywhere! I'm pouring out by the paragraphs, frivolous, superfluous dialog that would be strictly forbidden in the scripting world.

And I remember, how I started as a *fiction* writer. All this nonsense about movies came later. I can practically already feel the salt wind coming off the ocean in my setting. There's even an indistinct character walking along the beach and a woman who's watching him. It's so tempting...

Here is the problem. I have written three novels and another novel-length piece, but I've never written a real novel without NaNo. And it's terribly difficult, or at least daunting, to switch from the style of screenwriting to the style of novel writing. I was terrified to do it for NaNo this past year, but somehow I pulled through. A writer is a writer is a writer. I'm confident that I could even be a halfway decent poet if I tried long enough and practiced hard enough. And I've already novelled. Maybe I'll start in secret and type away furiously until I think I have a sustainable effort that can be proudly touted in front of everyone (what am I saying, a secret? I have a blog for crying out loud). Maybe I won't attempt anything at all until November, when I was planning, I confess, to write something silly and completely unsellable as it would not even be under my copyright.

Someone actually called me a serious writer on the Script Frenzy board (much love to you, sir!). Perhaps I could be a serious novelist for once.

Because, you see, Old Loves never really leave. And mine is tempting me back right now.

Writers are God's most pretentious creatures.

I remember, last year during NaNo, I blogged a ridiculous amount, often bemoaning the duress of the month. I don't know the last time I did a substantial blog of anything other than song lyrics. I'll just say I've been expending all my creative energy on my other masterpieces.

That, and real life.

I'm going to school again in January, and I'm so psyched! It's a little surreal; I never thought, really, that I would be going where I've decided. On the other hand, once I decided, months ago, that it was where I wanted to go, I knew if it was in the smallest way feasible, I'd be there. I'm stubbornly persistent sometimes. Sometimes it works. Hopefully, this time the major will stick, now that I've decided to abandon all those programs I was in so I would have a day job to support my writing and just chosen instead a program that will facilitate my dreams of being a starving artist. My job is too important for it to be anything other than what I really want to be doing with my life.

In preparation for the program, and because of various contacts I've been making, I'm soaking myself in as much screenwriting literature and advice as possible. It's a little overwhelming sometimes, but I'm learning lots already, and it's just making me more excited for January, when I can actually start taking classes and applying what I know and learning more. I have a couple of script ideas spinning around, but right now I feel guilty working on them.

Because of NaNo.

Right now I'm at about 31,000 words with less than a week to go. With my average speed of 1,000 words a half hour and the fact that I don't' do much of anything now that I'm back in America, it isn't impossible to finish by midnight, Novemeber 30th. I'm having a hard time focusing. I picked a subject that was too serious, and I'm not having nearly as much fun writing it as I did last year. On the other hand, I'm sorta glad I stuck with this subject, because I was going to have to write it sometime, since it was just one of those ideas that kept sticking with me. However, it's so much flater than I thought it would be, and it definitely needs a lot of strucutral and plot work because it's anywhere near the work of literary genius I thought it would be. And it doesn't help that I'd much rather be reading about screenplay writing than writing my NaNo. But I suppose part of NaNo is the procrastination (not like I'm not a master of that already).

Right now, it's time for a game of Boggle with my family. Those three thousand words I need to write? Totally can do it later, no problem...

NaNoWriMo 2006

I will not fall behind on the first day.

Today was a beautiful day. It was the ditch-the-world, kite-flying-and-picnic, be-with-your-best-friends, reading-and-writing-in-the-shade day. I was working most of it. Work is a little bit strange at the moment. All the adults are stressed out about their personal lives. I'm struggling with my relationships right now, with my friends, with my family here, with myself. I think I'm getting the hang of it, though. I've given in and am now going to sleep ridiculously early, which means that I almost have enough energy to last the entire day.

I'm so psyched about NaNo. I'm going to write a novel about an au pair, because the weird family dynamics you get when you add in a third quasi-authority figure are just amazing. It's going to be complete fiction, though. And I've started ruminating on my next screenplay. I really want to rewrite The 4:05, but I need a hard copy, and I don't know where to print out a 50 page document. Of course, I was looking over it all last night, and it all looks completely brilliant to me, except for the horrid bits that need to be changed. Alas, I have to wait several months for any unbiased feedback. But I'm hoping to get it cleaned up for a contest next year.

I crave intellectual engagement.

Anyone else supremely disappointed by the casting of The Nanny Diaries?