NaNoWriMo Blues

Yep, it's finally finished. I managed to get my Lands Of Mist wrapped up and then zoomed through the sci-fi/humour one.

I feel tired.

Like last year I didn't get that big rewarding feeling I got after I finished my first ever book (and I now realise, for a long time I thought I'd never say that), but that's okay because I wasn't expecting it anyway. The more and more I do it, sure, the better it feels throughout rather than at the end. The "end" leaves a kind of a void and that void brings me closer not to the writing but to life itself.

You see it's in moments like these when things really start to overlap.

Here's a list:
a friend with depression
a friend's critique of a short story
a fellow meditator going through some complicated stuff in his emotional life
the end of a month writing two books at the same time, still trying to figure out if I'm doing the right thing or not
experiences in meditation
family stuff
house stuff
life stuff
snowing throughout the day, home bound but glad
a beautiful night outside that I almost wish it would last forever though I know better
reading Gene Wolfe's Latro In The Mist (two novels in one)
the unmistakable feeling I've never done anything perfect, that everything has always been quite off the mark

Lots of things for you but, for me they're just one. They're all circling that very same thing that I can't put my finger to and that I'm always feeling will descend like an angel from heaven and sweep me and all the problems away, even while knowing that's a chimera more foolish than Quixote's.
I keep telling myself what I know is right but more often than not it just sound ridiculous, redundant and pointless like everything else.

But I know how this rolls also. My brain has been stuck into the same modus operandi for a month. Now it's time to go back to the real world. There are difficulties of adaptation. And the confines of fantasy have revealed their true limitations or, rather, my very own.
Perhaps one of the toughest things in being a writer is not to go crazy since you have to keep on searching for things deeper and deeper and deeper. That is, if you aim to achieve something with those words.
Which is the most foolish thing of all, to actually take them seriously.
But, if you do so, be advised that you are treading dangerous ground. I feel that there are rewards but there are also dangers. It's no wonder that most writers can be identified, categorised, known. They are mapping themselves out and, quite possibly, losing themselves in the process. Perhaps only a handful of the dedicated ones don't lose themselves. Those are the ones to pay attention to.

For they have found a way.

And they might still lead us there.

It's a beautiful night outside. Snow everywhere. As beautiful as it is dangerous. I want to be doing something else right now instead of writing. I don't know what.

Perhaps outside, walking in the cold and the snow. Hearing that vast silence of a city asleep. A silence that can only be made present with so many lying in their slumber. I love that silence. Just like the way I love the way the night is so much brighter whenever there's snow.
A part of me wants this night to go on forever.
But another knows all too well how long moments last.

Peace.

Tuesday's Beckonings

Now that I look back, I already wasn't feeling all that well during that day. But I kept writing stuff for Lands Of Mist as best as I could. I think this was the day I introduced (or at least started to explore a bit more) a new character called Fathiya, one whose role has been increasingly important as these days have passed. I wonder where it will all lead...

This was also the day my brother went back to portugal. I actually woke up at 7am and took him to the train station and so forth but, I was back home around 8 something and I went back to bed...

Schedule:
12-13, 1h - Breakfast
13-15, 2h - Lands Of Mist
15-15.30, 0.5h - Emails
15.30-16.30, 1h - Lands Of Mist
16.30-17.30, 1h - Lands Of Mist
17.30-18.30, 1h - chat + guitar (free falling)
18.30-19.30, 1h - Food
19.30-20.30, 1h - Lands Of Mist
20.30-21, 0.5h - Emails
21-22, 1h - Lands Of Mist
22-00, 2h - Curb Your Enthusiasm + guitar
00-0.30, 0.5h - Lands Of Mist
0.30-01, 0.5h - Meditation

This day kind of blurs with the rest of the week because I've spent most of my time at home writing. Everything becomes a blur - even if keeping a schedule does make you feel you've accomplished something at least...

Peace!

Monday's Lost

Monday was again another day where I didn't manage to write.
And the pressure was building.
I could feel those 12 thousand words tugging me...

07.30-22, 14,5h - Work
22-00, 2h - Rent + Family

After spending most of my day at work I still had to go out and sort out the (overdue) rent for my flat. I didn't really do much after this and I remember thinking since I wasn't going to be able to write anything I might as well have an early night.

Which was what I did...

Peace.

Lazy Sundays

Well, lazy in term of writing...

09-22.30 - Family
22.30-23.30 - Travel Arrangements
23.30-01.30 - FILM, You're Welcome America

Most of sunday was spent with my cousins, crazy as usual but good. Always good to be around so much energy even if sometimes there's just so much noise one can't even hear oneself.
(guess that would be a blessing for many - and for me it is)

When we got home I had to help my brother figure out how he was going to go some place close to Northampton the following day and, honestly, the thing I wanted the most after a busy weekend was some alone time which would enable me to write a little.
Because I couldn't get that I decided I'd see a film instead.
Will Ferrell's You're Welcome America, which was good fun but, being standup wasn't as great as most of his stuff. The extras were extremely funny though and, if just for his amazing performance playing ex-president George W. Bush, it's worthwhile watching.

peace.

One day and no writing...

Yep. That was saturday. A lot happened but little had to do with writing...

7.30-17, 9.5h - Work
17-23, 6h - Family
23-23.30, 05h - Lands Of Mist

After a good but hectic day at work (lately they all seem to be that way) I went my brother to visit my cousins in Billericay and we stayed there for the night - always good fun!
Then, when everybody went to bed I still managed half an hour of writing... but I fell asleep. On the floor.

And that was that...

Peace...

Time Takes Focusing

Here's the schedule for the 5th of November:
10-10.30, 0.5h - Meditation
10.30-11.30, 1h - Food + Hate Bearers
11.30-12.30, 1h - House Cleaning
12.30-13, 0.5h - Blog Post
13-14, 1h - Lands Of Mist
14-15, 1h - Food + House Cleaning
15-17, 2h - Lands Of Mist
17-18, 1h - House Cleaning
18-23, 5h - Travel
23-01, 2h - FILM, Bronson

This was last friday, the day my brother came to see me from Portugal. Therefore I didn't have as much time as usual to write. After cleaning the flat somewhat (it was my turn anyway) I went on the bus to meet with him in Marble Arch. I did write a bit on the way there though not much. After that it was really get ready for work next day and watch the weird Bronson film. It was one of those that I still don't know if I enjoyed or not. And, to complicate things further, it's based on a true story. About England's most violent prisoner.

Peace! Indeed!

Focusing Takes Time

Yesterday was a very productive day. It was one of those days where the writing happens slowly but keeps building some speed throughout the day.

8.30-09, 0.5h - Meditation
09-10, 1h - Food + Wizard Knight
10-10.30, 0.5h - Emails
10.30-11.30, 1h -Lands Of Mist + Royal Mail Claim Form
11.30-120.5h - Guitar playing
12-12.30, 0.5h - Lands Of Mist + Short story
12.30-15, 2.5h - Lands Of Mist
15-16.30, 1.5h - Shopping + Washing
16.30-18, 1.5h - Lands Of Mist
18-19, 1h -Book buying + chat
19-20, 1h - The Hate Bearers Plot + Story + Food
20-23, 3h - The Hate Bearers + Food
23-01.30, 2.5h - FILM - The Blind Side
01.30-02.30, 1h - The Hate Bearers

I wrote quite a bit on both stories and still managed to watch what is now my favourite Sandra Bullock film. The Blind Side. I never thought much of her as an actress but she really comes through on this one. The fact that it's based on a true story helps but, in any case, it's not just her, it's the rest of the cast and it's the script, quite clever, well paced and packing more punches than I'd ever expected.

It felt very good to write some more of The Hate Bearers. My initial intention was to type up most of the stuff I still have scattered around, longhand, in sheets of paper but, as soon as I began typing it, the ideas started flowing and I put the sheets aside and let the story lead me.

In a way I'm trying to have a very different approach to these two stories. In fact something which I think is crucial when writing two books at the same time. Personally I think it's easier if they are different rather than similar. If they're similar one easily tends to repeat things - or at least feel that way. It's easier for things to blur into one another. But, if you're writing a fantastical drama and a sci-fi comedy then you're pretty much safe...

Besides I wanted to have some sense of direction in Lands Of Mist, particularly because I know where it's supposed to end. Whilst in The Hate Bearers, even though I know where it's going to end, I wanted the free floating feeling one has whilst reading much of Kurt Vonnegut's prose and, to a certain extent, Ray Bradbury's. I really want the story to lead this one as much as I am able. And, so far, it's been good fun. A couple of crazy characters have showed up so far and it looks like that most of what I had planned to do may not be necessary at all...

We'll see...

I also read some more of The Wizard Knight which is simply a beautiful book.

And THIS IS what I'm talking about...

Peace!

Weird Writs

My Wednesday was a strange day.

Here's the schedule:
02-03, 1h - Lands Of Mist
03-07, 4h - Sleep
07-19, 12h - WORK
19-22, 3h - Food + The Hate Bearers + Lands Of Mist
22-01.30 - FILM - Dumplings + chat
01.30-02 - Meditation

Somehow I managed to wake up at 1.30 in the morning. I couldn't go to sleep. So I decided to write. So I worked on Lands Of Mist for a while - until I felt tired, really and went back to sleep.

Somehow I woke up - only later realising that I'd forgotten to set the alarm. I was supposed to be at work at nine so I rushed out believing myself late...

Somehow I got to work at 8am, not 9 as I'd intended...

Somehow I managed to have a longer day at work than I'd expected...

Finally I got home and ate and typed some more for The Hate Bearers and some more on Lands Of Mist.

Then I watched Fruit Chan's Dumplings. A really good film. It was labelled Horror but it isn't really. It deals with some scary stuff but the blood and guts is minimal and really done in a way to impress more psychologically than visually. He implies much more than he shows. I found it a very poignant film, a great social critique/parable of our times. As in the previous film I'd seen of his Made In Hong-Kong, he subtly deals with social conditions, the gap between the rich and the poor.

Throughout the film I was also chatting with a friend on skype - that's how these things go...
I still managed to meditate for a bit before going to sleep.

I'm a bit behind my personal schedule but starts do tend to be a bit slow - and it takes a bit of time to build enough momentum...

peace.

NaNoWriMonthing

Yep. Two days have gone and what do I have to show for it?!

Well, my schedule for one:
07.30-08, 0.5h - Meditation
08-09, 1h - Food + Wizard Knight
09-10.30, 1.5h - Lands Of Mist
10.30-11, 0.5h - Chat
11-12, 1h - Lands Of Mist + Emails
12-13, 1h - Lands Of Mist + The Hate Bearers
13-22, 9h - WORK
22-23, 1h - Food + Lands Of Mist

I was really with a good momentum on tuesday. I think it was one of those days that I would've just kept on writing. Not one of those where words just seem to pour and you write 5000 words practically non-stop, but one of those where you pause in between paragraphs and lines, just for a few seconds or a couple of minutes to try and envision where the story was gonna go next and it felt I could just keep on doing it. These days can be a bit frustrating initially, when you just want to write everything in one go, in a powerful torrent of words. But these days in fact enable to write more carefully, with more attention to what you are doing. we become conscious of the passing of time and all the little decisions and moments of awareness that add up to where the story is going.

I did chat quite a bit throughout part of the day with a couple of friends: life, contrary to what you might think, is not NaNoWriMo based. In fact, it seems to continue pretty well without it.

On my way to work I had a couple of ideas for last year's NaNoWriMo. What can I say, that's how the mind works... I also had an idea for the Hate Bearers. So, after the usual initial chaos of information after getting to work, I did manage to jot all I could remember down. It wasn't as clear and sharp and smooth as when you're cycling and everything just flows out in your mind so naturally (beware of traffic!) but it was good enough. At least the ideas and some of the twists in the dialogue were noted. It can all be refined and worked out at a later stage - revision!

I got home feeling really knackered. After some initial moments of questions and chitchat with my flatmates I was able to reach the relative safety of my room and engage with the age old process of eating spring rolls.
(yes, I know you thought I was going to say writing... I still have a few tricks up my sleeve - even if usually I wear t-shirts: just shows you how really skilled I am...)

After my belly was full (and full is the word) I began typing away at Lands Of Mists.

Soon after I was asleep.
Lights on.
As usual.
Music on.
Not as usual.

Peace!

Lands Of Mist Plotting...

Monday was a good day for writing. I did manage to do (with some ease - which was great to see happening) something that I'd wanted to try for a while now: if I could map out a whole book in one go (ie, under a day).

And I did! It took me only a few hours!

Here's the schedule:
8.30-9.30, 1h - Meditation
9.30-10.30, 1h - Emails + Food
10.30-11.30, 1h - tracks recording
11.30-12, 0.5h - Emails
12-15, 3h - NaNoWriM: Lands Of Mist prep + Food
15-19, 4h - Lands Of Mist Plotting
19-20.30, 1.5h - Food + Plotting part 2
20.30-21.30, 1h - Lands Of Mist writing
21.30-00, 2.5h - FILM Land Of The Lost
00-01, 1h - Lands Of Mist + The Hate Bearers

What can I say? Monday was also a good day! I spent a good part of the day typing up the stuff I'd found the previous night (for Lands Of Mist) and then I used up most of the afternoon to type up a semi-detailed chronology of events for the whole book. Some 34 chapters so far - which I aim to keep relatively short.

I am still amazed at how smooth the whole plotting process went. Of course it helped that I already had 9 pages of notes of things I'd like to see on that book - even if most of that was already bits of chapters/dialogue. But I managed to map it all out and insert some new scenes, chapters whenever needed. And, along the way, a couple of nice ideas for the story (to round things more) came through.

That was some 7 pages long so, roughly 3500 words. Then I think I wrote some 2000 afterwards. Still a bit low word count for what I'd like but I think it was a good start - and I can see that the first chapter is already going to be broken up in several others... oh well...

The first chapter deals with Anne-Marie and Thomas going to visit a guy that lives in a swamp on the north pole (don't ask... it works in the book though...), in an area called the Permanent Darkness.

If I recall correctly, this title came about because of Radiohead's track Permanent Daylight. Which, for a period, I was trying to learn how to play and singalong. So, there is also another chapter towards the end of the book (but not really the end) called Permanent Daylight - but that's a whole other journey.

What I didn't know was how those two chapters (in which something is given to the people living there - and yes, I won't tell you what it is...) related to the rest of the book. Now I do a bit more. But I suspect that will become clearer still after I get to that second part of the story.

It's all about building layers and layers and making things reflect one another like in a hall of mirrors (and there's gonna be quite a few things about mirrors on this one as well...) and create so much creative momentum that, hopefully, the reader will take a leap of faith and trust his/hers intuition and see the story for what it is on the big themes: be inspired and feel a sense of wonder, of the cosmic universe looming at each moment all around us.

That's pretty much the main objective of the series. In fact, the whole plot can be seen as simply a device to create this experience (hopefully - I'm still not there yet!). A series of devices created to help the mind transcend the four walls of our rooms and simultaneously perceive ourselves as in our own human space but also as a part of the Big-Bang.

Land Of The Lost was a great comedy - for those of us that love Will Ferrell.

I know, I know, lots of people don't - but the guy's expressions just crack me up. He's so pointlessly obnoxious you gotta yield... The script was probably one of the worst ever but he and Danny McBride amply made up for that. Some really good comedy moments - who cares about continuity?!

Afterwards I wrote a little more but managed to fall asleep lights on and so forth without meditating at all.

The NaNoChaos begins...

Peace!

Big Days Coming

The last few days have been quite busy with the whole NaNoWriMo thingamajig and my planned schedules have more or less been thrown out the window - even though I'm still keeping track of what I'm doing...

Sunday 31st
09-10, 1h - Meditation
10-11, 1h - Food
11-12, 1h - Blog posts
12-14, 2h - Guitar
14-16, 2h - The Great Temple
16-19, 3h - Tracks recording
19-20, 1h - Food
20-21, 1h - The Great Temple
21-00, 3h - FILM You Can't Take It With You
00-01, 1h - NaNoWriMo Hate Bearers
01-2.30, 1.5h - NaNoWriMo tidying up
2.30-3, 0.5h - Meditation

Sunday was pretty much a full day and I did spend a lot of time playing guitar and recording a few tracks - it was one of those days...
But I did finish the idea I'd had for a story for the Great Temple. The funny thing was that the firts tale in that story was supposed to be the short one and the second one the longest one. Turns out it was the other way around... They still need work but I think that they're an enjoyable read.

After midnight I started writing some things for my sci-fi spoof, The Hate Bearers. Two intergalactic mercenaries come to planet Earth to settle an old score. And even before they arrive they're already making trouble for the rest of us...
This one is going to be a patchwork of crazy, often impossible, situations. I don't really know where I'm going with it for the most part. I only know how it ends... the bits in the middle, and even the beginning - I keep writing a new beginnings with different scenes... - is a bit hazy...

After I'd writen a mighty 300 words... I spent quite a bit of time going through old paperwork and notes for ideas trying to scrounge up all the notes about the three projects I'd like to resolve this month...

And then I meditated. Of course my head was pretty much in the clouds but, there you have it...

One last thing, Frank Capra's You Can't Take It With You is an incredible film! I think it's from 1938 and it's so true to the American spirit that I don't think it could be made today...

I'll leave you with that one!

Peace!

Saturday Sun and Rain

Yesterday was a good day albeit I didn't get as much writing done as I'd liked... guess what? You're right - work!

8.30-9.30, 1h Meditation
9.30-11.30, 2h Wandering Mind Meditation Post, Short Story Submission
11.30-23.30, 12h Demo and Work
23.30-00.30, 1h Food!

A straighforward schedule isn't it?!
Meditation has been floaty at best even though there have been some really good moments of concentration. But, like a friend said yesterday, the important thing is simply to sit and be there. Well, at least that I'm doing...
;)

Afterwards I managed to revise the Is Meditation Difficult post and publish it online. Because I still had some time before I left the house I submitted The Running Man one more time. I also received my very first "not interested" reply.
Guess that accounts for some sort of triumph... it's getting out there!

I went to a small demo in Brixton about the ongoing public service job cuts situation before going to work...

Work was good. We showed The Dhamma Brothers today. A film about the introduction of Vipassana Meditation in a maximum security prison in the USA (Alabama of all places...). It's a powerfully moving account of the human ability for personal transformation. Even though it was the second time I saw it, it was as at least as moving as the first time. If you can, watch it. It's the real thing.

After work I had a couple of ideas whilst biking on the way home. (in fact I think I remembered a couple of ideas I had whilst going to the demo and had another one).
Of these I only remember one now. One which I will endeavour to write straight after this post.
But I'm hoping I'll remember the others - they were related to the stuff I want to do this year for NaNoWriMo (which I want to start typing coming midnight tonight...)

I was really knackered when I got home and so it was simply time for some food, for a few pages of Gene Wolfe's The Wizard Knight (I didn't even manage to finish the chapter!) and sleep - lights on and everything - not all my lying posture meditations worked exactly the way I'd like...

But, today, is another day!

Writing rules!

Peace!

Integral Replies and the Difficulties of Meditation

Friday was a more compressed day than I'd wished... sometimes you're just carrying a good momentum and... well, you just wanna keep at it, ain't it?!

Here's the schedule:
9-10, 1h Meditation
10-11, 1h Food + Emails
11-12, 1h Blog posts
12-14, 2h Reply to Ken Wilber's The Meaning Of Enlightenment Part I: Past, Present and Future
14-00, 10h Work
00-01, 1h Wandering Mind blog post. Is Meditation Difficult?

This a good day even if I didn't have that much time for writing as much as I wished. Particularly I did manage to write out most of the stuff I wanted to say about Ken Wilber's video. The stuff he has to say is quite interesting but, from my perspective, also substantially incorrect.
And I think the reason for that stems simply from a fact he himself mentions, that he is a Pandit, a theoretical teacher rather than a guru, one who practices. This is why he gets so caught up in the ideas, the reasons, the logic, the reasoning, the intellectual debate. It is very refreshing to hear him but I fear people might take it as being the truth, which it isn't, not by a long shot, on a practical way. My attempt is to correct that as best I can - albeit it being from a theoretical point of view also...

Because it concerns so directly with meditation I will post this on the Wandering Mind, Wondering Soul blog.

On my way from work I had this idea for another post for this blog and so that's what I did when I arrived home...

And then it was time for sleep...

Peace!

One Moment Left

Dear ones,

Yesterday was a much shorter writing day that I would've liked.
I had to go to work (and it went well!).
But I still had a schedule...

07-08, 1h - Meditation
08-18, 10h - Work
18-19, 1h - Revise Land Of Fog
19-20, 1h - Eat
20-21, 1h - Revise and send One Moment Left
21-22, 2h - Organise NaNoWriMo
22-24, 2h - FILM (first episode of Caprica and a 10 min short from LOST)
24-01, 1h - Revise Land Of Fog

Well, I had trouble sleeping the previous night and so, after some 3 and half solid hours of sleep, I promptly got up to meditate and sat for about 5 minutes. So that was that...
Work went well even though it was quite busy.
I came back later than I expected (which is what usually happens...) I showered and ate and did a bit of revision. Slow but thorough I believe.

And then I sat and wrote another bit to One Moment Left, something that'd been dangling on my head that day, clarifying a somewhat veiled thing in the story (TREN). I think the story is better because of it.
I did a short revision of those couple of paragraphs and then set out to read and revise the whole thing.
It stands at roughly 4800 words.
Just reading all of that took the better part of an hour...

But I did a few minor changes and went into the Creative Commons website and sorted out the licensing, revised the email about this short that I'd typed out already and clicked SEND.

And away we go...

I'm happy with this story - but not entirely so. There's a lot in it and I think it has a similar problem to what I felt in Morto and Land Of Fog - it doesn't flow smoothly. It goes up and down, loses and gains speed. It still feels a bit pacthy - from my perspective at least.
But, it is a first draft.
And this is as much as I'm willing to spend editing it for now. In any case, the story is partially aimed at being patchy, this will hopefully enhance the feel of how Kharther's perspective on life is.

Now I want to start with the third short... really wanted to do this today but there are a couple of other things I feel I should do before that...

One is these posts. Another is to revise some more of Land Of Fog. Another is to write a reply to a video I partially watched yesterday. A talk given by Ken Wilber about the nature of enlightenment and the direction of spirituality.
That's what I'm gonna do after this and I'm hoping to email/post it straight after.

And then I'm gonna go to work.

So, let's get on with it, shall we?!

Peace!

Revisions Closing In

Dear ones,

It seems like this whole affair of creating a daily schedule does help a bit to keep things going - well, at the very least it reminds me of things I've done during the day, thus enhancing the sense of accomplishment...

Here's my schedule for the 27th:

09-10, 1h - Meditation
10-11, 1h - Eat
11-12, 1h - Revise Land Of Fog
12-13, 1h - Mobile phone/shoppi
13-14, 1h - Revise Short
14-15, 1h - Email friends
15-16, 1h - Eat
16-17, 1h - Revise Land Of Fog
17-19, 2h - Organise NaNoWriMo
19-20, 1h - Eat
20-21, 1h - Revise Land Of Fog
21-22, 1h - Revise Short Story
22-24, 2h - FILM (Ninth Gate)
24-01, 1h - Revise Land Of Fog/Blog Post

Well, a few things got left out (NaNoWriMo and the final revision/blogging....)
All in all it was a productive day. One Moment Left became much closer to completion. I wrote quite a bit - an important scene in Land Of Fog wasn't flowing that well and I realised I needed to change it quite a bit - which I did...

Most of the things I set out to do happened at different times that I'd initially planned but, they were sorted, and that's what matters.

I enjoyed Polanski's film but found it deeply disturbing. The colours, the theme, just sucked me in (as I'm guessing it was supposed to...).

Peace.

The Short And Long Of It

Hey there,

Long time no see! Seems like that's how it's gonna be hey?
Well, it will until it ain't, right?!

So here's the news.

Last week I finished a short called The Running Man, just under 2500 words. It tells the story of man that becomes obsessed with death, all the strategies he comes up to dodge it and the result of all that.

I wanted (and still want!) to send something regularly to friends and family. It's a nice way to keep in touch, to hopefully give them something that they'll enjoy and to help myself finish some shorter stuff. I believe that this also helps in finishing the longer stuff.

I've been revising Land Of Fog, as you know, and this long winded process can be pretty frustrating, especially because, for a long time (in my case at least) you can feel that you're not moving. You spend three or four hours revising a single page and then, when you look to the number of the page, and you realise it's page 21 of 230, it might make you feel like you wanna go do something else. There's that certainty of a whole bunch of three and four hours still to come... you don't even know if you're gonna be alive by then!

With a short things are much simpler in many ways. It's like the short is all nicely packed inside your brain and you can see it all of it in more or less one go. Even if you have to spend ten or twelve hours dabbling with it, it's still much easier than the hundreds or thousands you may spend with a book (and believe you me, these numbers come from experience...)

The other thing I wanted to do with the shorts is send them to competitions.

Which I did do yesterday.

Yesterday was an easier day for writing because of what I did the previous night.
I came up with a schedule.

And the schedule was this:

08-09, 1h - Meditation
09-10, 1h - Eat
10-11, 1h - Revise Land Of Fog
11-12, 1h - Post Office
12-13, 1h - Revise Short
13-14, 1h - Email friends
14-15, 1h - Eat
15-16, 1h - Revise Land Of Fog
16-17, 1h - Sort out mobile phone
17-19, 2h - Organise NaNoWriMo
19-20, 1h - Eat
20-21, 1h - Revise Land Of Fog
21-22, 1h - Submit Short Story
22-24, 2h - LOST
24-01, 1h - Revise Land Of Fog

Well, let me tell you what I didn't do. I didn't organise any of the stuff for this year's NaNoWriMo. I didn't sort out my phone. And I missed one of the Land Of Fog revision times (we watched Lost's final episodes yesterday and we just couldn't stop...
I also swapped a couple of things around but, essentially, I stuck to the plan.
And it worked.
It gave structure to my day.

So I did it again yesterday night and, I'm hoping, I'll do it every night and keep things rolling...

The great thing about this is that it primes your mind so when you actually get to the moments you need, your mind is more pliable to actually do the things it's required, rather than just be thrown in the water and expected to swim.
I don't think minds like surprises for the most part...

Anyway, I shouldn't be here writing this: I should be reading some more of Gene Wolfe's The Wizard Knight (and if you haven't read it you should - it's one of the most beautiful pieces of writing I've come across in recent times - and probably more than that by the time I finish it... he's one of the best writers around, and more!)

(I could easily do another post just about the joys that this book has given me, in particular yesterday but I won't - I really want you to read it THAT BAD!)

I hope you are all well.

Peace.

PS - I forgot to say. The short I'm sending around is called The Running Man. The one I'm working on (and that I hope to finish today) is called One Moment Left.
(yep, I think that's the title that's gonna stay...)
If you want to read The Running Man just post a comment or something and I'll get back in touch with you and email it to you - because I'm sending it to competitions and magazines I can't really publish it here for the time being. A lot of these publications have the caveat that stories can't have been published anywhere else...

Be well!

Short Stories

Been a while huh?

Summer holidays, the getting-back-to-work period where everything seems to happen at once.
Then more holidays. More work. Friends staying over...

(no excuses though...)

so. What have been up to more recently? (my memory doesn't go all the way back to almost two months ago...)

Good question!

Well, several things.
I've written a short piece for an art exhibit I went whilst in Lisbon this last July. It's for an artist called João Palla and I'm just waiting for his reply to a few questions of mine before I sent it to him.

I've also written a relatively long text to a good friend of mine, Joana Bértholo. She's a writer (published!) and she's participating in THIS.
She sent me questions 2, 15, 18, 21, 22, 23 and 24 and I wrote anything that I felt might be relevant to her debate.
And, because of question 24 (about genetic manipulation, human beings and artificial life) I might be doing a book for this year's NaNoWriMo around this theme, an idea that's been in my head for probably some ten years now...
(if it doesn't let go it's because it needs to be written...)

I've written three short stories (from 2000 to 3000 words each) with death as the main theme. I'm planning on sending them to a few friends just for fun - but I've been lazy to compile the mailing list...
I'd really like to send at least one thing a month but... knowing my rhythms, this is probably another chimera of mine...
In any case, the first story is about a guy addicted to running. The other is about a being that knows the entirety of his life (echoes of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five...). The final one is, of the three, the one closest to what I ultimately want to offer a glimpse at, which is the realisation of death. But, of the three is the one that still needs more work - even though I do like the structure. There's an ongoing narration of an event with sudden flashbacks. Somehow these devices seem to work pretty well. For me at least...

Land Of Fog Revision continues! Of course. What do we care about deadlines?!
To be perfectly honest, I thought that this third (or is it fourth?!) draft would be easier. But, it seems to me that until I get to a fourth draft it's never gonna be easy...

For a good while I was incredibly frustrated with this. Which in turn caused revision to slow down (that and the fact that I was somewhat jaded with the material...). But I'm accepting the slowness of this process and trying not to worry too much about it. It'd be nice to have it ready before November but, if it doesn't happen, I'll just plunge head on to NaNoWriMo and think about it later.

My only question is if I should write the second part (of three) of the Fog trilogy. It's to be called Land Of Mists. I've already written quite a few ideas for it and I know exactly where it must end.
The advantage of doing this is that the setting and where I want to take this story is very present in me.
The downside is that I want to leave it behind for a while.

But, in fact, writing this down has made me think that the first option is better than the second. I can hold on for another couple of months. Unavoidably in January (if I do go to my meditation retreat) I'll have to leave all these stories behind so... might as well take advantage of having the story so clear in my head. Hopefully the new storyline and the new characters will refresh the whole thing.

I've also written some other short stories that I'm compiling for my little cousins. They're falling under the umbrella of BBT (I don't want to give out the title should they be reading this by some chance...) and they're more or less playful adventure stories with some twists and weird stuff thrown into the mix. My initial idea was to have a story per little cousin (that'd be five...) in which each of them would get to play the hero and be the main character. The tough thing was to find something that echoed their personality - which was a hard thing to do for I tend to play with them more than anything. I don't really know that much about their personal tastes and dreams - we meet only rarely. But I think I've got things that they'll identify with and enjoy.
And I was very happy when my oldest cousin suggested to me the setting that I was already envisioning in my head!
Right now I must have some seven or eight stories. A couple I've written beginning to end, either dialogue or plot. But most are still in an embryonic stage. There's also stuff written down on paper, scattered around... However I try to organise, inspiration comes when it pleases and not always I have a keyboard close by... Probably some five or ten thousand words by now - which I think will be enough to work into a small book (thirty to forty thousand). There is no end in sight. In fact what I wanted the most was to create a setting for stories for them.

At least that I have got. Now it's time.
And work!

Peace.

In The Land Of Fog Notes

Well, the pages keep on being added, albeit more slowly than what I'd like. Patience, patience... I'm on page 34 of my first draft (96 long, A4). I managed to do 11 pages yesterday. I was hoping to do even more today but I'm still on page 4...
Ah well... the night is still young...

peace!

Drifting Ideas

Lately I've been playing quite a bit of guitar and have even composed a few tracks. Nothing fancy - I can't be bothered to polish things to death - but honest!

Today I typed up a series of ideas that had been bobbing around in my head for a few days. Quite a few of them, as it turns out, for Batman.
I have a few files with just random ideas that I have in some of my favourite characters (those are the ones where ideas for stories come about...). I don't know if I'll ever write a Batman comic, or an X-Men, Wolverine, Hulk, Daredevil, Superman or whatnot but, if I ever do, I'll have stuff I can look up and quite possibly use. You see, I'm always aiming at stuff that is as atemporal as possible. Ie, I try that the plots are never technology dependent. More often than not, plots that are technology dependent simply bore me. As soon as I read them they become self-centred and dated.

In any case, I typed a couple of pages with synopsis and plots as well as some notes on the character and stuff I'd like to see Bats go through.

I also made some notes for the expansion of a short story I've posted here a while ago (Legacy) into a proper book.

Besides that, a couple more ideas for an post-apocalyptic story. I don't know where these will fit but, since I have quite a few post-apocalyptic scenarios thought out, I'm sure they'll fit in somewhere...

If possible today I'd like to at least write half of a review for Starman vol.02 Night And Day - which is as far as I've read so far. I'm just adoring this comic. And I want to write about it as much as possible since, if I ever do something in comics, it will be very similar to what James Robinson tried to do here. Not in terms of plot, story or characters, but perhaps quite similar in terms of inner truth, feeling of closeness and complicity with the reader. Similar in the objectives James had towards the story and the readership. Something that I'm finding increasingly important.
If you haven't read it my advice is that you do read it. Even if you don't like superheroes stuff. It is a boy's comic, in a way (it has lots of adventures and most characters are male) but it's so much more than that. And that's precisely what makes this book tick and awe.
Read it!

peace!

Land Of Fog Update

It's been ages, I know.
But here's a quick recap of what's been happening for the last couple of months...

I managed to finish the first full revision of the original text some 5 minutes before I landed in Lisbon on the 21st of July. That felt really good since I really wanted to start my holidays without having that thing incompleted, roaming around my head...

Until the 5th of August I was in Portugal on holidays. Still I made my objective to type 10 pages a day of the revision notes I'd compiled.
There were 249 pages.
I more or less stuck to the schedule (it takes so long to type... it just tires me...) and on the 14th of August, last saturday, I finished the typing. Dead on schedule...

I more or less took sunday off. I let the book rest.

But on monday I started weaving the revision notes into the body of the original text, thus slowly compiling the second draft. My aim is to have this second phase ready by the end of the month. Which means some 7 pages a day...

I've been a bit behind schedule. But yesterday I started to catch up and today I'm also more or less on track. I'm off until next monday so... I have to be ahead of the game by then - particularly because a couple of friends are staying over for a week, starting on monday...

Having said this, I have also started to type up notes that I compiled during the re-write for books two and three (now tentatively named Lands Of Mist and Tide)

As soon as all the text is ready I'm gonna read it all out loud (flatmates watch out!) and make a few corrections along the way. Don't know if I'll print out the whole thing (the second draft) or not. I guess I'll decide as soon as the text is ready...
Hopefully the second draft will be concluded by first week in september. And, before the end of the month I'll be able to revise the whole text a couple times more (I'm betting it won't take long, just re-reading and making a change here and there... keeping my fingers crossed....)

And start sending the thing out (at least the first few chapters to publishers - their requirements do vary...) in october. Beginning of the month, preferably...

Peace!

Land Of Fog Revision

Well today was an ups and downs day with this whole revising business.
I woke up relatively late (9.30am) and proceeded to revise another Invincible volume (7). I also read part of another graphic novel: Criminal Macabre by Steve Niles (a great, promising intro but that didn't deliver all that much for me in the end) and Ben Templesmith (really dig his art but sometimes I just can't understand what the heck's happening...)

Then I started revising.
And it was going well.
Until people started wanting my attention.
Which was fine.
For the first three hours.
Then I started getting somewhat upset at it because I couldn't focus for more than 5 minutes at a time...
So I did what I thought was best. I listened until I found that there was nothing else that I needed to listen, until there was nothing else left to be said.
And I excused myself.

Amidst all this I finished that Niles/Templesmith comic, the Invincible review, started another, read a bit of Scalped: The Gravel In Your Guts (now that's a GREAT comic - toes and thumbs up).

I began to revise...
And it felt good.
I really need these moments where I can focus at will and my mind just wanders.

You see, one of the reasons I started getting angry was because today really felt one of those GOOD REVISION days. And there aren't that many of them. I'd kept my momentum going as soon as my attention started being sapped and, after a while I couldn't stop but think at the great opportunity I was missing.

I still revised a couple of short chapters today. And I did finish yesterday's.
I'm on day six. Afternoon.
And tomorrow is a new revision day... well... until 2pm it is...

peace!

Revision Update

Well, yesterday I didn't manage to do a single line of revision. I had a REALLY long day and, as soon as I got home and had some food, I was ready to fall into the dreaming.
And I say fall because I couldn't jump, even if I wanted to...
And dream I did, even if they weren't particularly pleasant. Sometimes you seem to wake up in some ways more tired than when you went to bed and then you kind of work it out of your system during the day.

These days I don't try to remember my dreams so much since I more or less know what they represent.
Today they meant I'm stressed and I need to rest.
And that's what I'm going to do tomorrow.
(and write, of course...)

Yesterday the only writing bit that I did manage to do was to finish reviewing a comic book and revise that review. And then publish it on the livejournal website for the Graphic Novels Reading Group that I run.

If you want to take a look, you can just click HERE.

Today was more or less the same scenario with the difference I did manage to get a little bit more done. I revised Scalped Vol.3 Dead Mothers (amazing book - one of the best crime stories around) from beginning to end, revised the first 4 short stories in Flight Vol.5, published the review for Brit Vol.3 Fubar and am about to begin revising Invincible Vol.7 Three's Company.
I still haven't published any of the Invincible reviews I've done but I will do so as soon as I can be bothered to type them all up.
Hopefully I'll be able to blitzpost them during a couple of weeks or so.

In the meantime I'll revise vols 7, 8 and 9... and get my hands on vols 10, 11 and 12!!

I have found that doing a bit of revising someone else's stuff before starting to revise my own really does help me gain some perspective and, perhaps most importantly, some momentum.

I am in hopes of going home in an hour or so and still write a bit... let's see how that turns out...

peace.

Land Of Fog Revision

Hey there!

Well, I'm back from holiday (and I didn't do much while I was away... that I must admit...) and I'm back on good old revising...

I'm on page 30 (A4, single spaced...) of my manuscript and I already have 57 pages of notes... (longhand)

I've been thinking about the structure a bit and I do think I'm going to go for a less obvious one than the chronological. I think this will enable me to start with greater momentum and create more drama.

The book takes place throughout 13 days and I'm on the evening of day five. I'm expecting things to go a bit easier from now on, not only because I've gained some momentum but also because I've managed to sort out some of the slower/plot-holes in the story.

There are still two extra chapters that i have to write but I'll do those after I've revised the whole body of text. These two chapters need to introduce clues and hints to things that will happen in this book and on the following two so... I want to be as ready as possible for that to happen.

The revision has been going slowly but steadily. I think that it's probably quite difficult to have a "fast" first revision. This is where all the big things surface and it has always meant major re-writing for me so... I guess this is as good as it gets!

At least for now!

peace.

Book Competition

It's been a long time since I last wrote here...
Can't really tell why. I just seem to go through these periods where every little thing that happens needs to be blogged and periods where I just can't be asked. I mean, I think about it but...
Well, you probably know how it is.

As soon as I returned from Portugal I jumped straight into work with a Cory Doctorow talk that I organised. It left me wanting to write and try and publish more.

Soon after that I realised that there was a big competition closing by the end of the month that I could actually enter with my 130 000+ manuscript.

And thus my troubles began...

I've been meaning to post about this for a while and maybe I will post the solutions separately. Here I'll just blog the problems...

Say you have a book with almost 120 chapters. Say you want to format it to A5. Say you want to print it out in a way that saves paper, ink and some time (preferably...).
Say you've never done it before.

Then I'll say this: give yourself some time.

I spent ages just trying to sort out the numbering on the pages. Then it was the formatting of the text itself.
Let me make this very clear, if you're fiddling with margins - even if it's to do something equivalent to what you already have - you'll have to checke the whole thing again... and, if you're like me, that STILL doesn't know how to create a proper chapter list (either than manually that is... now I need to start learning some word... well... some more word...) you'll not only have to format the whole text again, but also check chapter pages...

Two days into it and I more or less lost track of what I was doing.
Well, kind off.
I picked up a few things as I went along.

As soon as I go the whole thing worked out I did another version of the text in Royal format (somewhere between A4 and A5). The objective with this was to then send the book to lulu.com, self-publish and then send the two needed copies to enter the competition.

But I was running out of time and, for about a week I didn't really want to go through the whole thing again, a couple of times more, create a cover, add the cover, make sure that the cover was larger than what I needed... and etc...

During that time I just revised Land Of Fog and wrote some reviews, read some comics and generally tried to chill.

Obviously I started to run out of time.

No problem, right? I can still print it out myself. It won't go a perfectly bound copy but it will be good enough.

So I did.

And thus my troubles began.
Or, rather, continued...

I had printed the whole manuscript once in A5 sheets that I myself had cut.
It wasn't a pleasant experience. I had to print out a very low number of pages at a time, pages kept getting jammed and I kept having to go back and repeat printings and ended up monitoring the whole thing through.
Which was what I was trying to avoid in the first place...

Well, how hard could it be to grab my A5 formatted book, print it in A4 - 2 A5 pages per each A4 side - and then chop it and bind it?
Surely it's not hard.

Well. It wasn't initially.

My first surprise was this.
Just because you've formatted your book in A5, doesn't mean you can just say,
Hey, it's two of these per one of that
and the formatting will still be hunky dory...
That did not happen with me, let me tell you...
(don't know why - it's one of those things that common sense tells you is completely crazy to happen but, there you go...)

So what did happen was me having to format the whole thing again.

Now that I could see that everything should print out nicely surely it was easy to just print it out, right?

I guess that by now you'll know the answer to this...

Just try and google, how to print A5 booklet on A4 paper or any equivalent.
You'll get lots and lots of pages with people complaining at how hard it is to do it.
I don't think it's actually that hard - but it can be quite frustrating if you don't get a decent page with some good tips.

My life saviour was actually a Microsoft Office/Word help page.
Believe it or not this is the truth. Clear, concise and to the point. It wasn't ideal in terms of the information I needed but it sure was the best one.
(Thanks for that guys and gals!)

I'll post this info later on at some point. There were a couple of things that I picked up along the way that I think might be useful for other people but I also want to keep a record of it so that I can refer to it at a later stage. Probably when the time comes for me to print out the next one...

(I'll probably have forgotten most of this by then...)

So I managed to print out two copies of the book.
Boy, was I happy!
I chopped the pages, no problem, bound them in my own special way, no problem, even found a little webpage that tells you how to build your own little binding press (easy and simple, you just need some hard wood and some screws), something that I may even do at some point.

It was done.
Great stuff.

Now, you ask,
Alright, what went wrong then?!

Well, nothing much.
I just happened to go to the publishers website to pick up all the details that I needed in relation to the competition and realised that they needed the manuscript in A4 format...

Then I looked at my ink levels.
Below half.
And I'd spent more or less half to print the two copies.

This was last wednesday. And I had to send it at best on saturday since monday was bank holiday...

Well... start from the beginning, right?!

Format the whole thing in A4 format. Compact the text in order to save paper and reduce shipping weight (being stressed has this wonderful perk of just allowing you to plough through things without worrying too much that things aren't perfect... I made full usage of this). And start printing the whole thing again.

I did it.
Two copies with a couple of warning low, very low, ink levels. And I still managed to print the cover letter and everything...

I burned the CD with all these multiple versions, instructions, cover letter, personal data, etc. I packed the whole thing as best as I could, to their specifications and sent all of it in one big beautiful bundle.

I felt relieved.

Later that day (or the day after, I can't really remember) I started to read the book to a friend. I read some forty pages (of one of my A5 copies... which I now am going to give out to friends).
Two things came across clearly.
I still need to do some minor revision on the first 20 pages (dammit!)
The writing is actually quite pleasant to read and engaging.
I think I would like to read this book...

Well, I had made my peace with all possible results and outcomes. I'm just happy that I got to send it. I'm just happy that the book is out there. I'm sure that it's going to be published. Of this I am certain. Don't ask me why (in truth I have no certain proof of this) but I just know it. In my gut. Despite all the little things that could do with some revising.
Perhaps because, despite all the little things, that story still stands. I think it's bigger than what contains it. And if I've managed to do that, then I've achieved my goal.

I more or less took a couple of days off. I still kept revising Land Of Fog but I wasn't that inspired. I was tired. I wanted to watch some films. Not having to think about anything in particular.
I more or less did that.
But I still revised a bit...

That's what I've been doing since.
It was a slow weekend. I had planned to do lots. But I only managed to revise 2 or 3 A4 pages of this other book a day.
That's the downside.
The upside is that I've been gaining momentum on that, that the beginning is much better than it was, that I discovered (and solved!) more problems than both of my friends (that had read that initial draft) had pointed out to me, that I now know how to give the book a better structure, that it's beginning to feel more rounded, that I know where it's going, that I already have the plot for most of the third and final book in the series, that it's getting bigger and better and more truthful to the spirit I had initially envisioned.

Or, in short,
I'm excited about it and working on things pays off...

The book is getting longer and I am still to add some two, perhaps three new chapters (that I'm hoping will be short).
I think it will be quite readable and eerie and gripping by then. It has a kind of Twilight Zone feel to it that I really want to keep and explore and make as cohesive as possible.
I'm throwing a lot of little things that will be explored more and more in subsequent stories.
Just yesterday, for example, I was re-writing a part where the main character chats with this elderly lady that ends up explaining (partially...) what the heck is happening. But before she does that, she tells him a part of her story or, to be more precise, the story of the place where they're sitting.
It's a nice piece, but I just leave it at that.
However... I just happen to know that we will be learning more about it in book three...

I'm going to portugal this coming thursday.
I'm taking all these notes and print outs with me and hopefully will work some more on my manuscript.

I read the submission guidelines to a publishing house a few days ago and I'm eager to send this one out!
I won't worry about Morto for the time being since the results from the competition will be announced towards the end of this year. I'll give out those two copies to two friends (and I already know who...) and wait for some more feedback. Probably read out aloud the whole thing again, polish those few lines where word repetition occurs (you can do it in english - but you really can't do it in portuguese...), get a decent cover for it at some point, send the whole thing to lulu.com and print out some twenty copies to distribute.

Anyway, enough chatting for now!
peace

New Challenges

My last few days in Portugal were spent visiting friends, talking, walking, going to the beach, buying books, phoning, texting, buying food, travelling and more ings than I care to remember.

I did think about writing.
And I did write a bit.

Or, to be more precise, I typed. I typed half of the changes (so far) that I'd done on the fourth draft of my book: Morto Árvore Besta.

And I spoke with Alexandra about a variety of projects. The short stories I had written to the New Scientist Competition came about. And so did a short script for MONO and another short piece for The City. And so did a not-so-short children's story about a Giant.
She will let me know at some point which story she wants to work on and I'll try and adapt/translate it for her.

My objective right now is to finish Morto and then find a cheap online printers, enter a few competitions and send it to a few publishers...

Gotta start sending some copies out the door my friends...

Peace!

Script Frenzy Day 30

This was the last day and, like every last day, you get the much helpful stress of running out of time...

I had more or less forty pages to write. And the problem with this script is that quite a few of the scenes need a lot of detail in terms of body language and what the characters are actually doing... (and I shall say no more...)

Since I still had quite a bit of plot to go through, scenes started to become naturally shorter. They had reached the summit of their happiness and things started coming down, relatively fast.
This was a curious writing day because not only new chartacters came alive but some of the scenes were quite powerful as well. At least one of the crucial scenes didn't work out as well as I wanted - the dialogue needs some fine tuning - but the more improptu ones came out quite well. Especially towards the end - which I wanted to be deep and moving. I was suprised by how well Ayoola's final words fitted the whole story. I think they added weight and momentum to the whole thing.

Despite all my difficulties this was a very visual script. Perhaps more so than The Softness Of Memory. The two main characters were very much alive and interactive. And I did feel that they were close and intimate thorughout the story. That was the main objective anyway. To convey that feel to the reader. And I think, even on a sometimes erratic first draft, I think I managed to do that.
In any case, this script is much closer to completion than The Softness Of Memory. And that's because it always moves forward in time. It's structure is much simpler than TSOM - not that TSOM's is that complicated but, you know how it goes, a few flashbacks here and there and you start getting confused on where you should go next... Perhaps that's simply because my idea for Ayoola was much clearer initially (and throughout) than the one for TSOM.
In fact that's one of the big differences between the two scripts. Ayoola is all about self expression and physicality. A clear and explicit sense of intimacy.
In TSOM everything is hidden and hinted more than revealed.

Actually, now that I think of it, it kind of makes sense to write these two scripts side by side. They do mirror one another in quite a few ways...

Perhaps my unconscious knew what it was doing all along... it only took me a month to catch up...

And now... onwards to typing away all those Morto Árvore Besta scribbled notes... (but perhaps some reading first... there's a Cory Doctorow book that I want to finish...)

peace!

Script Frenzy Day 29

To start the day I finished The Softeness Of Memory. Just a couple of scenes I'd left on the side to wrap up with a fresher head...

And now the real challenge...

As I opened my Ayoola file... well, I realised my script had stopped at page 40... oops!

The good news was that I had mapped out (though somewhat haphazardly...) the remainder of the script. I also had another handwritten page with ideas for some scenes.
Well, what else was there to do but type?!

Well, in fact, first, I read what I had written so far. I was still in the first fourth or third (at best) of the story. Ayoola and Maurice (I have to change his name somehow... it doesn't feel suitable anymore...) had met, they were romantically involved but... the real drama was to begin still.

I wrote all the way to page 62 I think. The story gained quite a bit of momentum and I advanced through the plot even though some of the dialogue was really perfunctory.

I didn't write as much as I could've because I went to a gig (a Mão Morta gig in Coliseu Dos Recreios) with my brother. And, to be honest, it was good to get out for a while.

By the time I went to sleep Maurice was about to buy Ayoola a way out, even with all the dangers that that might entail.

They were in love, oh so very hopelessly in love...
And their troubles were only beginning...

peace.

Script Frenzy Day 28

And this was the day that I almost finished The Softness Of Memory... I ploughed through the script but I found it hard to bring it to life. Still I had the road map and I only stopped when I had only a couple of scenes left to write.
It was quite hectic throughout the day for the scenes were being written out of order but I just wasn't caring anymore. I just wrote as things came in - during revision everything will be sorted out...
(at least that's what I keep telling myself...)
But it went well. I don't remember how many pages I actually wrote but I was nicely over one hundred when I finished.

peace!

Script Frenzy Day 27

Hey... today has been a looong day... I still haven't slept properly since I left the UK a few hours ago. I flew in to Lisbon and am now staying at a friend's place. Between chatting, playing some guitar, watching youtube clips and dozing a bit, I read some more of Cory Doctorow's book OVERCLOCKED and read a good chunk of the script I want to finish more or less by tomorrow... The Softeness Of Memory.

I was amazed that the first third of it is actually pretty good. Some good and engaging dialogue, the characters coming out much more strongly than I remembered. Then it becomes a lot more forced, in clear need of reworking!

But the story is there, building slowly (perhaps too slowly but that's on revision phase as well...)

I've already finished the scene that I left halfway through months and months ago... I'm feeling tired and not able to focus properly. I'll probably call it an early night and wake up halfway through the night and type.

Or just in the morning and type...

It's good to be in Portugal. It's sunny and warm, and it just feels so relaxing to be here...

I'm not going to go crazy on this script. I'm just going to type the scenes that I had in my mind so long ago and that's it. Type whatever I had planned to - and worry about the structure later.

And if something new comes... well then, let it!

Hope you are well!

peace.

Script Frenzy Day 26

This was a crazy day.

I had to go to work and finish some stuff for the Graphic Novels Reading Group and the Cory Doctorow's event that we're running on the 8th and thus, I cut myself a good chunk of the day that I had planned to use for writing.

Plus I'd arrived home well after 2 in the morning and still chatted with a friend into the early hours of the day. It was just starting to get bright when I went to bed...

And only when I arrived home did I realise that my flight to Lisbon was one of those early ones... So, if I wanted to finish that Miriam script I needed to be fast...

And that's what I did. I focussed on getting all the plot bits on paper and forgot a bit about structure or humour (there was a bit but not much...).

But I did managed to finish it. Already after 2 in the morning and starting to feel the tiredness creep in.

I wrapped up Miriam at 112 pages. It still needs a lot of work but the main thing of these exercises is to have a great big puzzle that you can then jiggle around and fine tune. And it was during the writing of it that I realised that not only it could be a fun film but also a multi-layered one, playing the in-film "real life" with the film ideas that Perry keeps up coming up with for his script. Something that didn't make much sense in the beginning of the writing kind of became one of the supports for this story.

I thought, I'll sleep on the flight.

And I did.

I woke up a couple of times during the flight but I don't even remember the lift off... (even though I did see the crew doing their safety demonstration...)

peace

AVATAR

Since there is no muse around to bear this lightness inside of me, the world then, unto which I release.

My heart is full.

Not just my eyes, my mind, my senses

My heart.

It's hard to say what this film now means to me.
So I won't say it.
I'll say only that this immense feeling of love, of gratitude and of connection came over me many times. In fact it swelled and it took me with it.

I'll say instead what it made me think of.
More than the wrongs, the rights.
It made me think how all of us, inside that room, inside that film, all of us who have shared this experience, we all tend to pick the side of life, the side of communion, the side unto which we are transformed into throughout this film.
And we can resonate deeply and movingly with these things because we recognise them. Even if we are seeing and consciously experiencing them for the first time.
They are in us and, intuitively, we have always known this.
Because we have always been this.
This is our home. This is where we dwell.
With this deep sense of communion, with this positive resonance, it is easy to let ourselves go, to lose sight of who we are and where and when we are. There is no I, there is only the experience at hand, and the utmost immersion in it.
This cannot happen with a negative resonance. With this we feel being sucked into something. We put up barriers, we try to dissociate from the experience. We become overly conscious in it, so much so that the experience itself might be obliterated simply by this feeling.

This is the best that drama can offer us. Becoming an engine to propel us further and higher and deeper and wider into our own truth. Which is shared. Which is everyone's.
That's what we're looking for.
That's what we are.
And to reclaim it, we simply need to reclaim nature.
Our nature.
Our being.

Script Frenzy Day 24

This was the day of AVATAR...

I was really tired from the previous day (and night!) at work and so I woke up late and feeling like I'd been through a boxing ring during the night. I was groggy and lazy. But... I didn't have that much time to type before I had to leave home again and so I more or less managed to type some twenty odd pages on that script pushing it into the eighty something pages.

It was a bit difficult because it's always a bit conflicting to type something that you know is not as good as something you might'v done three or four days ago, when you know that you could be doing something a bit better, if only you had more time.

But these days I really need to feel that there is some sense of completion in every story. If I don't lay down all the pieces of the puzzle then I don't feel quite relaxed. And, to be quite honest, I prefer to feel relaxed knowing that that story - for better or for worse - is "all there" than one third in, at a good level but still incomplete... never knowing WHEN it will be completed.
Because then what happens to me is that these stories keep coming back, over and over again. Like some sort of ghost we've created to haunt ourselves (and I actually think it's something akin to this...)
Completion is important. It frees up a lot of mind space. Even if it falls short of your initial objective.

To be honest I've never exceeded my initial objective.
On a first draft.
Probably not even on a second.
But on a third or a fourth, when the story is really there, rounded and ticking... oooh... that's another matter.
It has happened a few times.
You know why?
Because I had something to work upon. Something to improve upon. Something that I could gain some perspective about.

I mean, stories just keep turning up. Even the ones that we've finished. Some new idea, some new nuance, a slight change of perspective for that chapter that will deepen and impact on the whole.

And you take them in. Especially if you haven't published them. You make notes. You add. You cut. You change.

The story changes. But it changes to become more and more itself.

I still have ideas I want to add to The Shift and Lost Lines. It's just the way it is. Sometimes it's just another phrase that boils down all that you were trying to say for pages and pages. Making it feel simple and effortless.
And we've got to let these things come through in their own time.

But it's just easier if there's something there already to which they can latch on and resonate.

So, I keep telling myself to be fearless of bad first drafts. Their a good step towards a reasonable second draft.
And a good third.
And hopefully a great fourth...

Peace!

Script Frenzy Day 23

Saturday was another day where I felt I was writing against the clock. I don't even remember much of what I did, I just now that I managed to bang out some twenty odd pages of script (some of them a bit funny - whcich helps!) and rush out to a loooong night at work.

I took my stuff but I didn't even have time to think about it, nevermind writing.

On the way back I was so tired that I found myself yawning while cycling.
But then, as a truck passed by me, way past 3 in the morning, I had a flash and an idea for a short script. I didn't stop to note it down. It's one of those ideas that just swims in the background of your mind for years until it actually comes to the surface and defines itself in a moment with some clarity and force.

It's not a pleasant idea, but I think it's one that's important to tell... so, I shared that with Alexandra (it was an idea for her 18 themed project) the day after.
I think she enjoyed it.
That one and the other one I had been tinkering about.
The problem now is that she doesn't have enough time and, we both agree on this, these stories need a bit of space to breathe...

So, we'll see where time takes us...

My plan is to type them down whenever I'm so inclined and start looking out for a place where I can post them so that animators may take those scripts and do something with them.
I'll get the Creative Commons licensing for all of them and away we go!

That's the plan!

And now... onwards to more writing!

peace~!

Script Frenzy Day 22

Yesterday was a good day even though I didn't write as much as I'd wanted to... I'm still on page forty something and I wanted to have it finished by now!

However I crossed an important threshhold: Miriam now knows Perry exists... and she's curious!
(and so am I!)

One of the problems with this script is that it can go so many ways... so what I thought yesterday was to simply incorporate some of these spin off plots into Perry's eternal script, which could then be shown in short snippets throughout the main body of the film... and add to the humour of it all! I really want to show how the male brain can go head over heels over a woman and really go at a tangent...

Amidst all this pondering I managed to write a short animation script for my friend. It's called One Last Time and it's a story of a goodbye to a redundant previous life.

Actually, you can check some of her stuff HERE!

I'd thought initially to do a kind of combo version of the script, with dialogue and non-dialogue descriptions crammed into a single script but then I realised that the dialogue I'd written was mediocre and the whole would probably work a lot better without any words.
That's what I sent her.

I still feel that I haven't gotten to the core of what I really wanted to say but... there you go, sometimes you just get the taste instead of the whole cake...

Just before I went to sleep I started having these really vivid images about another story that I've tentatively called Fosters - simply because it's about foster parents and abandoned children. It's a pretty dark one but one that I think would be worthwhile writing about. It's about predjudice and expectations.
I jotted down the idea on a word file.
Saved it to my Films folder.
(organisation! organisation!)
And off I went to sleep!

peace!

Script Frenzy Day 21

Well, it's now 4pm and I've just finished drafting the second of the two ideas I had to help out my friend (I'm not mentioning her name here since I don't know if she'd like that or not... that's usually my policy)

We chatted for a good long while yesterday. The theme was about turning 18, the experiences, etc.

I more or less dropped the ideas we chatted initially, came up with another one, with lots of monologue, more internalized. Dropped that two and came up with two others. Both with no dialogue or voice overs.

She's at work now so I'll send her the short animation scripts as soon as she's back online.

The plan for the rest of the day is to finish typing my notes on MIRIAM, print them out and hit that script hard! I want to have it finished before the weekend starts!

Been listening to the B-52's in order to gear myself up to a more positive note. Tried to watch a film yesterday but only watched the first 15min...

I'm hoping that I'll write some 20 or 30 pages today... let's see what happens!
Even though I'm at home I've still been taking care of stuff for friends and friends of friends... that's life! And that's why it is good!

Peace!

Script Frenzy Day 20

Yesterday I went to work and had a mad day there. Ended up staying an extra two hours just finishing bits and pieces and then, of course, as I was about to leave, something would come up, just a few more minutes and on and on for two hours...

When I arrived home I started chatting with a friend of mine, working in Brasil for an animation company, doing an animation course there and wanting my help for one of her projects.
I was so tired that I ended up falling asleep during a long pause in our chat... I don't even remember lying down...
I just remember waking up at 8am!

So not much work on the frenzy yesterday...

peace!

Script Frenzy Day 19

After spending a good part of the day ceiling mounting my projector I ended up going to the IMAX to watch Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland 3D - which I thoroughly enjoyed. Probably because my expectations were quite low.
It's a blockbuster so, blockbuster rules apply...

But i'ts always a treat to see Tim Burton's wild imaginings take life on the big screen. Especially one as big as the IMAX one!

When I came home I didn't do much. Just went straight to sleep!

Then the next day I started working on my other script called MIRIAM.
After a lot of pottering about I managed to plot the whole thing and write a few scenes. But I felt far away from my 40 page a day frenzies...
The good thing was that the bits I did write actually felt funny - or at least amusing.

I decided I needed a little break so I didn't push myself that much...

peace!

Script Frenzy Day 18

Hello and good afternoon!
Well, I've more or less finished this one!

Just ended typing up 7 new short scenes that I'm going to have to insert back into the story in a second revision phase - even though I think I still need to create 5 or 6 more for one of the secondary characters. He kind of has a strong start and I never picked it up. So I'll have to develop that a bit more and then wrap it up quickly.
I'm also wondering if I should give Jennifer a bit of a back story. After all she is the only character in the story that doesn't seem to have much to hide.
oh.
I just remembered.
I did do that...
Ages ago...
Not to worry then!
Problem solved!
(I should trust my skills more...)

As soon as I finished chapter 25, Grace, my computer collapsed. I thought power had failed. But it turns out that it didn't... Maybe I've burned one of the RAMs... I don't know. I replaced one of them for one of the old ones I've kept lying about and it's working now... I need to clean this computer... TLC TLC TLC... it's always the first thing to go out the window...

Anyway, when I rebooted the whole thing I realised that the last three pages (that I felt were actually quite good) and disappeared.
And I'm pretty sure that I'd saved them...

I was really frustrated for a while and really didn't want to go back and re-write the whole thing again. It was the most gruesome scene in the whole series and I didn't feel like revisiting it at all for the time being.

But I did and I re-wrote it even though I don't think it flows as well as first time round...
Well... there's always revision...

Chapter 26, This Blinding Light, the epilogue, was much easier to write.
I still don't know if the ending that I've written is the one that will stay. I'm quite tempted to tone down the final scenes in chapter 25. My only fear is that they're not believable enough in that way. At the same time this might contribute to what happens in chapter 26 to be more believable also...

Revision will decide!

I think now I'm gonna sort out my room a bit. Find out where all the bits of information in relation to Miriam are located and prepare a file with all my notes about it. I don't think I'll start writing that film today. But I do want to start it tomorrow.
I'm gonna watch a film in a few hours!
I think I deserve it!

I had planned to go to one of the scriptfrenzy meets in Southbank but I think it's best if I hang back and actually clean my pc...

Peace!

Script Frenzy Day 17

Day 17 didn't go as smoothly as I thought it would. To start I woke up later than I had planned. I went to see a friend on the day before and we ended up chatting for hours... this is what tends to happen!

Then, when I finally woke up, around 4 or 5am, I realised I'd left my notes at work... I meditated for a bit. Then tried to write, found it difficult because I needed to see what I had done before, and decided to go back to sleep and see what would happen closer to the morning.

I decided to go to work. Which ended up being the smart choice because I'd forgotten to grab some details for a farewell party with some colleagues from work, later that day. I arrived home around noon and I type until 4.30pm, having managed to finish chapter 24, Requiem.

I went to the farewell in Clapham but truly felt alienated from it all. I was on script mode... that means I couldn't talk about anything else but this stuff... and I did try! My head just felt empty. So I watched and listened, trying to figure out in the back of my mind if all this chatting would in some way prove useful for my script writing abilities...

Anyway, cycled home and began chapter 25, Grace (at least that's what I think I did... the last couple of days are a bit of a blur in terms of what I've written, I seem to very easily forget the order in which I do things...)

Afterwards it was time to go to sleep!

peace

Script Frenzy Day 16 part two...

Hey there again!
I know, I know, I can't stop blogging... I guess I'm all hyper from all the writing. What can you do?! Might as well enjoy it while it lasts!

Right. After that little ramble a few hours ago I type away at chapter 24, Requiem. This is when Roanoke and Jennifer get themselves into some serious trouble.
I won't tell you much because I would spoil it a bit, I'll just say that what I've written so far as been great fun. So much so that I wish I could be at home right now (I almost wrote, write now...) typing away.

I've realised that my plot for chapter 24 is actually better than what I envisioned. After I finished chapter 23 I jumped into a couple of scenes that I assumed belonged to c.24 but are, in fact, chapter 25...
This is really the cliffhanger issue!
Like the last one!
But what I'm happy about is that these will have MEANING by the time the reader gets to them. It's not so much the cliffhanger per se but rather what it might bring about...

Anyway, enough chit chat, I should actually be taking notes for some ideas I had for that other script (a film script) that's been showing up every so often in my head... it's called MIRIAM, and just so you know, it's a romantic comedy.

Come on.
I need it.
After all this talk about dark stuff I want to do something light but equally fun (though a lighter kind of fun...)

Peace!

Script Frenzy Day 16

I did wake up at 3 something but then stayed in bed a little while longer. Just dozing and getting myself ready, actually enjoying the relaxation - must've been that hot bath yesterday.
I woke up and for the first time since I started this thing I actually manage to start typing immediately.

Of course, after ten or fifteen minutes I started getting hungry and went to the kitchen and made breakfast.

I ate it while reading the second half of The Astonishing Wolf-Man volume 3 doing the revising en suite.
With that done I plunged back into the script and I think I haven't left this chair since... I'm really feeling a good momentum here.

It's now almost 8am. I must've written more or less non-stop for the last two and a half hours, three hours. I've finished chapter 23, Free Of All Fathers and have jotted down some ideas to add to chapter 24, Requiem.

The Murrau confrontation went well but differently than what I had expected. I had envisioned something quite epic and brutal and it ended up being something much more about subtlety and dissent. Don't know if that's the correct word for what I want to say... Murrau's character came out really solid I think. This old guy that just doesn't care about the consequences of his actions, but whose goal in life is actually seeing the dull extent of his manipulations.

I think it went quite well and I think I managed to tie up a couple of loose ends fairly well. And I mean fairly because I left in there some bits from an older version of this scene (actually a fragment, a page long) that I still don't know if I'll need to use at a later stage or not. They stay here for now and when I revise I'll know if they're needed or not. At least they're in their right place.
Trust me, there's plenty more of that scattered throughout the other chapters... just don't stop to try and tie up everything. It's best to get to the end of the story first. Then you'll see much more clearly what you need to add, what you'll need to remove, perfect, etc.

Alright! That's it for now! I still have another hour before I have to make my way to work. Better use it up wisely!

peace

Script Frenzy Day 15 part three...

After finishing chapter 22 I made a headstart on chapter 23 taking it up all the way until the moment where Roanoke and Jennifer have to face Murrau.

Before this though I read half of The Astonishing Wolf-Man Volume 3 and revised it too. Even though I felt quite disappointed with it. But sometimes that's when you learn more. Since I've been working on my plot quite a bit so that, even on this first draft things stick together coherently (or as close to as I can manage) it was very easy to see how much Robert Kirkman didn't do... But, I guess I learned something from that so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

since I was feeling a bit tired I decided to go to bed around nine. And because my mind was feeling a lot lighter than it had in the last few days I decided to switch on the alarm clock for just after 3am since I was pretty sure I wasn't going to wake up by myself like in previous days.

Which proved to be right...

peace

Script Frenzy Day 15 part two...

Chapter 22, Free Of All Fathers is now completed. This is one that is going to need quite a bit revising. Some good moments but I felt Roanoke's parents backstory wasn't convincing enough. It needs some polishing... but it's done! And, in any case a couple of nice scenes did surface and some of the plot holes I knew I had were resolved. So, all in all, not a bad day's work!

It's now almost 6pm. I still haven't slept even though I did rest for a couple of hours. Nothing like some reading, some food and a hot bath!

I think I'm gonna have a mini-break and then jump into chapter 23. This is going to be one of the big ones and, even though I've resolved a major plot hole, I still don't know how the confrontation between Murrau and Roanoke will be - this also needs to be a major one...

Guess I'll have to write it to find out, right?!

peace.

Script Frenzy Day 15 part one...

Well, yesterday was a productive day, as much as I wanted it to be I guess.
After finishing chapter 19 I had a little nap, woke up, played some guitar and wrote chapter 20, Tempus Fugit, until about 9pm. Then it was time for bed once again!

In Tempus Fugit time is really running and the pressure levels increase. It needs a bit more of character development but the bones and some of the flesh are already there. There's a really good scene between Caulder and Roanoke where the power game really comes to the surface. A fun piece of verbal swordplay that I really enjoyed writing - and that came about more or less spontaneously. I knew that that scene was important and that a few things needed to be said but what actually happened was better than what I had anticipated!

When I finished it I couldn't wait to get my hands on issue 20! But I was tired and so I thought it best to call it a night...

Which was what I did.

I woke up some 5 hours afterwards with a headache. In my case, writing some 40 odd pages of script combined with not much sleep have the effect of making my head feel a bit funny, electric and tense.
I drank tea and plenty of water and, since it wasn't going away, I spent a good half an hour meditating and catching my mind going all over the place besides observing the rising and falling in the abdomen. At least my back was straight and the headache lightened up a bit.
When I emerged I didn't really feel like writing so much. I didn't feel like doing anything much. Not even going back to sleep.

So I started writing.
Chapter 21 which goes by the name of I Remember Nothing. Taken, obviously from the Joy Division track of the same name. I haven't bothered to read the lyrics but I probably will and add one or two phrases from it in the script if they fit in. In any case, it's the resonance of the title and the more direct meaning of it that I was looking for.

Well, since I wrote this I had to go and read the lyrics, didn't I? Still don't know if I'll use one or two of the phrases but the meaning... my god, it's there alright, closer than I even realised.

I started writing a bit haphazardly at first, not being able to focus properly. But, as soon as I got to the scene between Roanoke and Kronan things really opened up. Once again there was a lot that I knew had to happen in this scene. I just didn't know how... But the glimpses I had started to gain weight and meaning and I just wrote more or less everything that came into my mind's eye. Kronan kind of changed in this scene. I knew he would - that was the point after all. But he was already different in the beginning. All because of his talk with Caulder that kind of revealed some stuff I still didn't know about him. As a consequence, all those ideas I had about him became more real and more present - more likely. I think we might still see him after issue 22 but I'm not sure... actually, I think we might just have a glimpse on the final chapter. so that we can see what has happened to him...

I really think that this issue build up for the climax of the series. I'm still a bit uneasy about being able to pull it off with as much strength as I want to. But even if I don't in this first draft (it's what I keep telling myself...) I'm pretty sure that I will on the second.
Or the third.
Most definitely on the fourth.

After all the second draft will be the reorganizing of this whole heap of scenes and chapters, the refining of some of the text, adding all the page layouts and panel descriptions, getting the characters more clearly. And it will probably take as much time as this first draft to finish.

The third draft will be more looking at a chapter by chapter revision. Making the story flow better - even when it comes to the page and panel descriptions. I won't need to worry so much about the broad view because that will be more or less sorted (even thought there will always be details to add)

The fourth draft will essentially be the re-reading of the third with a critical eye to see if all those things revised actually worked or did anything to the story. It's the double checking so to speak.

This is more or less my modus operandi these days when it comes to writing something. Even with a short story I'll tend to pick it up and drop it a few times in order to gain some perspective over it. The difference is that with a short story it's much easier to go through the four phases in one sitting. With something like this I'll really need time to get it all done...

That's it!
don't know exactly what I'm going to do just now, but maybe it's a good idea to rest for a little while.
And enjoy the sunshine that came out!

Peace

Script Frenzy Day 14

Hi!
Just finished chapter 19.
Again went to bed around 10pm and then woke just after 2am. A bit of a headache but feeling good enough to write chapter 20 before I call it a day.
Everybody's still asleep in the house. They've been keeping weird schedules as well...
It's 10am.
I wish they would wake up so that I could play some guitar. I'm gonna have a break. Have some food. Watch a couple of episodes of anime.
Or read.
Then go shop for some food.
Then write some more.

was quite happy with what happened tonight. I had this important scene that I needed to write and actually think that most of the dialogue there is pretty powerful.
And the same with the end of the story between Williams and his wife.
Also realised that I need to throw in a few more scenes (short ones, thankfully!) in previous chapters to wrap up some loose ends and make Caulder's character more rounded. Hopefully making his confrontation with Roanoke on issue 19 even more meaningful.

That's it!
Off to breakfast!
(part two... part one was at 4 am...)

peace!

Script Frenzy Day 13

Howdy howdy!
Don't know what you've been up to but I sure do know what I have!
After promptly getting rid of anything remotely close to a steady sleeping schedule I have managed to keep on a steady diet of a chapter a day for my comics script.

Yesterday I went to bed at 11pm and promptly woke up at 2am. After a couple of hours of fiddling about I eventually started typing script 18.
Which I finished at 10 something am...

Scripts are a funny thing. I always think that, because of the formatting I've written loads (after 6 hours quite solidly on it...) but the 19 pages that I added didn't seem to amount to the quantity I felt I'd written...

In any case the story is progressing. I think tonight I'll do the same as yesterday. Go to bed early and wake up whenever my mind and body prompt me...

Chapter 19 is called Dreams Of Destruction and starts accelerating towards the big finale, still a few issues ahead.
The big things in this issue are the confrontation between Roanoke and the Bureau top dog as well as Roanoke's insight towards the strange crimes being committed...

And, to be quite honest, I'm also curious about some of the stuff that's supposed to happen in this issue... I guess I'll find out in a few hours...

peace!

Script Frenzy Day 09

Yes, well, I know I haven't written anything about the 8 days gone but... this is better than nothing!

This year I decided to write a whole comics series some 300 to 400 pages in length. I already had some 60 pages of script when I started so I don't feel that I'm cheating that much... I'm on page 200 and something right now and it feels more or less half way there.

It's called THE BLIND (previously known as RIGOR MORTIS, which is a title that I might go back to... I'm still not entirely sure on either of them...)
It chronicles the investigation over one Aldous Roanoke, a eccentric young man that is going around Unistat (borrowed from RAW, a version of the USA) visiting imprisoned serial killers and the like.

I'm half way through Issue 14.
They're supposed to have 24 pages each (though I'm writing in a meticulous enough way to page and label everything properly. I'm just focussing on getting all the dialogue done and some brief scene descriptions with the odd panel or page idea laid out)
In a total of 24 issues.
And I think I'm more or less on track.
I think I'll probably have a few scenes that I'll have to leave out but that's not a problem because I can then insert them on the revision phase - probably by chucking out those that are redundant or that don't work well anymore. But that's a phase I'm yet to reach and it will be some time before I get there.
Even though I want to have this ready by the end of the month, I want to leave it to settle for a while before I pick it up again. Exception might be to rework the first chapter and send it to a couple of people to see what they think.
maybe...

the good thing is that the story' pace has naturally increased and the tension and the drama are building up. Yesterday (actually today, at 7am... I still hadn't gone to bed...) I had an important piece of plot fall into place and this story is feeling more and more right the closer I get to the end. I love this feeling. The feeling that your idea has taken a life of its own and that now you've stepped from the role of narrator to the role of spectator. For me it's the best part of writing, is to simply see and experience what's happening, rather than directly and tiresomely building it.
That's the beginning. When you're building the momentum and defining the rules. Either intuitively or with story-logic at work.
This is the downhill phase, so to speak. In the sense that you just need to let yourself go and the story go and watch the landscape just flash by you at an incredible but clear speed.

Guess what I'm gonna do right now?!

That's it!
See you in the funny pages!

peace

MORTO ÁRVORE BESTA draft04

It's been ages since I've written anything in this place...
But these last couple of months have been crazy. Not with work - I've never had so much free time in my life before! - but with writing.
It feels that the more free time I have the more writing I get done. And the more writing I do, the more lost into it I get...
Days just fly by...
In any case, since my last post I did another revision of the whole thing - while one of my flatmates was reading it actually - but I still haven't typed it up. I still have 300 A4 pages with some scribbles, quite a few deleted words, some stuff to cut and a new page to add.
I don't think I've saved that much space but I think it will make the reading flow a lot better. Plus, I realised one of the chapters wasn't properly tied and I nudged it back in the right direction...
But, since I'm writing something else for ScriptFrenzy... I don't know when I'll have the time to type everything up!
Hope you are well!
peace!

MORTO ÁRVORE BESTA

Is finished...

It's now 0.43am, Saturday barely started and my book is finally finished.

Well, as finished as these things get...

But it's 119 chapters strong, 302 pages long (A4), totalling 136145 words.

And enough stats!

Next phase is to actually read the whole thing again and see if this crazy structure I've given it makes any sense.
Probably chop a chapter or two along the way...

Just happy that this big project has reached some sort of conclusion. Now I want to start to look into competitions and sourcing out a few publishers... Send out a few copies to some friends and see what they think...

But, one thing I can tell you now: my next project is going to be completely different from this one. I want an adventure story, probably SF, something that will be easy to map out...
(I've got just the thing...)

Anyway just to say hello.
I'm back!

Hope you are well!
peace.