| New place |
[Sep. 16th, 2005|02:04 pm] |
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I'm now keeping track of my writing progress on my own page, here. Nothing personal. |
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| Fractional tape |
[Aug. 21st, 2005|06:00 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Broken Social Scene - Looks Just Like The Sun | ] |
Slow War: 111,000 words.
Time for Bedlam: 80,000 words; probably full.
"A Boy In A Corner With Chalk In His Eyes": done!
Working on a new site for Saltboy. Also waiting on another package of DVDs from CHUD for reviewing. Last thing I got there was Park Chan-wook's awesome JSA, and that has been a couple of weeks now.
There's also the issues of maintaining a house that draw my time. Right now, Lis is scraping paint off of door jambs, and we just finished the refinishing of our 600sqft of soft-wood floors.
Back on the creative side of things, the working title of my next collaborative novel is Over the Hill and Under the Hill and I will be writing a novella called Last Name. |
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| Nobody likes our crab and cake |
[Aug. 3rd, 2005|04:48 pm] |
"Funny Guns" is done. I'm not sure, as of this writing, how long it has been since I first mentioned I was starting it. Since then, it turned into an epistolary story in a serious tone, then a serious story with straight prose, then a humorous story with straight prose, and now it's a humorous story in epistolary form. Once I got a little motivation (in the form of a story challenge at CHUD,) it all fell together in two days.
"A Boy In A Corner With Chalk In His Eyes" is next to be wound up, I think, and maybe following that will be "Tam Glowry and the Red, Red Water", which I started back before Marisol Bean and haven't touched for several months, owing to a lack of confidence in my ability to detach myself from characters meant to be satiric.
Slow War is up past 107,000 words. I'm really hoping to finish this draft by Labor Day weekend. It would be, I think, quite nice to put the last words down on my pocket pc while sitting in a meadow with a view of Mt. Adams. As luck may have it, I'll probably find myself putting the last words on the second-to-last, or third-to-last, chapter in that meadow, and there will be bees.
Time for Bedlam is nearly full at approximately 80,000 words, and I'm excited to get underway on the editing and layout.
In the future-products section, I'm leaning toward another collaborative novel, possibly a horror screenplay about a religious cult, and possibly a short novel or novella that doesn't involve the speculative genre. Not, y'know, because I think I have anything to prove. I'm still toying with the idea of compiling my published short stories into a volume, and it's an idea that toys back.
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Entirely unrelated to writing, Lis and I will be moving this weekend. This means that: 1) I need to finish sanding the floors in our new home. 2) I will be pretty much incommunicado for at least the weekend. 3) I no longer have to drive three hours to spend time with my wife. We found a house that is maybe three minutes away from my workplace, but I'd really feel more comfortable calling it two-and-a-half. |
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| How long am I here? |
[Jul. 14th, 2005|04:59 pm] |
Slow War is up to 100,000 words. 671 of those are bad words.
Time for Bedlam is up to nine stories, now, at heading close to 60,000 words. I'm going to have to cap it, soon, I'm afraid. I'm a little happy about this, because that gives us more time to work on the layout before publication (Novemeber 1st! Tell my friends!)
I've been working on a short called "A Boy In A Corner With Chalk In His Eyes" which has become, formally, the essence of my storytelling style. It's an anecdote I believe I've related before, but once upon a time, my older brother and I were discussing comic books, and our desire to do one. "I couldn't write one," I commented. "Yeah," he agreed. "It'd just be talking heads." I write conversations, and I'm not so hot with the action. No hot action at all, actually. So "Chalk In His Eyes" ended up being a series of four interconnected conversations. I didn't intend for it to be.
I haven't finished it, yet. I'm sure I'll know when I do.
"Senior Trip" got a revision, recently, and I started asking nice people to buy it from me.
I really, really want to do something with Marison Bean, Dragon Queen, but there hasn't been any interest from the agents we have contacted (i.e. all the agents listed in Writer's Market that accept young adult fantasy). We're waiting on replies, now.
Sometime soon, I'd like to collect my published stories together in a nice little volume (about 70,000 words worth) and call it Dead Generation and make sad goth people read it. I suspect this will happen, except that all the goths I know are happy.
I've got to finish Slow War. One section to go. 25,000 words. Call it... September? I'll finish it on Labor Day and dress it all in white. |
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| Treat you all like Santa Claus |
[Jun. 26th, 2005|03:37 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | efficient | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Iron and Wine - Jezebel | ] |
About ten minutes ago, I finished up the first draft of well-I-guess-it's-called Senior Trip. It came in short, but that's because there's lots of room for violence. 90 pages doesn't seem too bad for a project of small caliber. It feels good to have a project closer to completion. Slow War has, once again, been weighing on me in its incomplete state. I'm up to 90,000 words, now (almost exactly) which, if my previous sections are any indication, means I've got 10,000 words to wrap up Owl's young adulthood, and then one section in his middle-age. I've been outlining the second half, and I think that it's going to be significantly less than a half of the total words. In the second half, Owl (well, not Owl anymore, but...) is going on a bit of a road trip, and there will be a bit more action to the narrative. I predict 50,000 words for the whole second novel. I'm not going to tackle it right after finishing the first one, I think. I'm not even sure if it's going to be part of the book, or a sequel. I've never done one of those before.
So:
Senior Trip: Draft 1 fini!
Slow War: 90,000 words
Time for Bedlam: ~50,000 words, 8 stories.
We're getting some darn good stuff in for Time for Bedlam. I'm seeing a decent mix of the blatant and the subtle, the gruesome and the gorgeous.
Now, to replace Senior Trip in the peripheral writing slot, I think I may give a go at a couple issues of a comic book idea my brother and I have been batting around. I've had outlines written for a while, but not having any friends available to sit down and draw a book has stalled me a bit. Now I just feel like plowing on ahead and find an artist later.
My intention, right now, is to polish Senior Trip and then shop it around a bit. If no opportunities arise from that, I kinda feel like making it myself.
I'm not good with money. |
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| Saddle tack |
[Jun. 11th, 2005|06:19 am] |
A raft of excellent submissions have come in for Time for Bedlam, including some beautiful stories that sadly don't match the theme, whichwe have been forced to turn away. Nevertheless, the total number of stories is now nine (I'll get around to updating the Saltboy page, soon) and the content is shaping up to be a nice mix of familiar stories and brand new cautionary tales.
After a brief vacation, I'm attacking Slow War again, making my way through Owl's adulthood as he fights to keep his movie theater metapho9rically afloat and enjoys a church retreat with burning zombies. He's about to do something really, really stupid, but he doesn't know it, yet; the Earth has got some criteria for his life which he is tempted not to follow, even though he doesn't know what they are.
My time has also been spent on reviewing DVDs for CHUD.com. Done so far? Beyond the Sea, Tokyo Pig, and seven mostly-abyssmal made-for-TV Westerns. Yeeee-haw. |
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| I have received exceellent news |
[Jun. 2nd, 2005|10:20 am] |
From the Markov-chain-as-spam files:
Hello, the advantage of a surprise blow, which had put the fort out of would be -- the crowning argument. Supercilious until that moment, de Rivarol bit his lip. Captain Blood swept on without giving bad cess to your memory. Is there no good in me at all that you among these improvised men of war? Bridgewater, like Taunton, had plainly written on his enormous yellowish countenance. At his side, be rendered of all prizes severally taken, whilst the vessel taking still less his men. Resentment smouldered amongst them for a while; a ladder had been constructed in secret during those nights of waiting. Views as Colonel Bishop. His excellency asserted his authority ashore. Tell them he'll not be returning yet awhile, not be moved without peril to his life. Unspeakable lot with the tragic fortitude of despair. From the certain destruction into which my own act may have brought heavily outgunned. Captain Blood as the Frenchman's tale was unfolded. At the end.
Indeed! I Will Take Two!
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Confirming my suspicions that there are at least writers who like the concept of twisted fairy tales, Time for Bedlam has received a number of quite good submissions in the week that they have been open. The book is shaping up quite nicely, with a good number of 7,000+ word stories, which is what I was hoping for, anyway. I was worried about having to pad the pagecount with one of my own stories, but what I have been receiving has been of such quality that I'm gratified to announce I won't have to appear so narcissistic.
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Senior Trip (Or Maybe Something Else) is coming along nicely, with a scene or two added every evening. Half the outline has been dealt with, three characters have been dispensed with, and fifty pages are done. Now I get to do the breakneck slaughter of the remaining characters which, if the experimentation I've done with friends in the past is any indication, will be an incoherent streak of bloodletting. I'm trying something different. This time, I'm adding stilted dialogue.
Other writing projects on hold, sort of. Psychonauts and Jade Empire make for a lethal combination to my sense of the passage of time.
I'm going to finish "Funny Guns", though. I swear upon my own crossed fingers. |
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| Fake not fake |
[May. 24th, 2005|08:44 am] |
Finished a draft of "Sycamore" yesterday afternoon, and am pretty pleased with the structure and characters, though a revision is in order to do away with some redundancy and to make the title's application more clear. I spent the balance of my writing time working on the screenplay, which is becoming more fun with each scene, and I just hit the right tone for the one of the protagonists. And I forgot the trenchcoat.
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I think that, one day, there will be a religion built around Markov chains, and the first commandment shall be: Go to us, saying: you drink whiskey often in any who just ATE LARGE QUANTITIES OF CONSCIOUSNESS!
I will be its priest, because I am mean, the common man. |
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| Saltboy |
[May. 23rd, 2005|08:50 am] |
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The website for Saltboy Bookmakers is live, featuring information on our current project: Time for Bedlam, a collection of cautionary tales. |
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| Leave the bag holding |
[May. 19th, 2005|03:05 pm] |
Elisabeth writes: As I was getting out of my car when I got home someone asked me if I wanted a baby owl, like they had found one and now they had no idea what to do with it now. I said no thanks but I think I would like to have a baby owl I just don't think they would let us have them in the apartment.
This is why I often have good days. Parse that properly.
Each section of Slow War is turning out almost exactly 25,000 words long. Despite outlines of varying lengths, I have just finished drafting part three and my wordcount is 75,087. This means I'm three-fifths of one-half of the way through the whole novel. I've been threatening myself (or promising myself, depending on the mood) to take a break after the full one-half is reached. There are other projects that I want to work on, and I'm afraid I'm losing interest in this one, which, for me, generally means I need to step back for a bit to reclaim my gee-whiz-itude.
In the horror-script-that-will-probably-carry-the-title-"Sure, The Title's Lame, But The Movie's Great" news, I just got to write the first kill yesterday and, though the character had all of a dozen lines spread over three scenes to develop a character, I hope I gave him a suitably human termination. I'm all for emotional connection to the psycho-fodder.
I also finally figured out where exactly the FBI thought there were obscenities in the Kingsmen's recording of "Louie, Louie".
There is a short story that I have been cobbling together called "Sycamore" that I expect to work on over the weekend, while Slow War settles. There is memory manipulation involved in this story, and I may leave in place the fractured structure that develops when the first paragraph is written on my PDA, the second on my work machine, the third on my hand, and the fourth within a different OS on my work machine. The structure reminds me of the short story "Memento Mori", which Christopher Nolan sort of based his film Memento on.
There's also the short story "Funny Guns" that I have now started three times, and I may force one of those misfires into completion over the weekend.
So...
Slow War: 75,087 words.
Titled, Then Untitled, Then Titled Script: 28 pages.
Time for Bedlam: No further progress.
"Sycamore": 1,200 words/~5,000 words.
"Funny Guns": Heh... |
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iandonnell's journal