projects

Enjoy the Ride

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  • Project Paradise Word Count: 357
  • Project Skye Word Count: 1617
  • Project Independence Word Count: 1723 
  • Project Ship of Shadows Graphic Novel Page Count: 12

So, I didn’t get any “mainline” writing done, but I did brainstorm a project and this brainstorming session, while unintentional, was very productive.  I’ve chosen which of the two projects that I will be working on to finish out the month.  To find out which one, read on:

Driving While Dreaming

So, as some of you may know that I have a fairly long commute from my house to school/class.  I usually listen to podcasts and (more rarely) play music.  The reception isn’t good enough to listen to anyone radio station the entire time, so these are my only two realistic options.  However, today, I found myself not really wanting to listen to a podcast after the first one finished playing and all of the stations had nothing but static and I didn’t want to hook up my bluetooth aftermarket connection for my phone to play music, so I just drove.  And what a drive it was.

Project Independent Comes into Focus

So as I was driving, there were long stretches with few cars and lots of quiet and my mind began to wander a bit, I must confess.  I kept my eyes on the road and had full road awareness, but I began to wonder what would happen next in the conversation I was in the middle of for Project Independence and boom, my mind was off to the races.  It was very much like reliving watching an enjoyable movie as scene after scene played out in my mind.  I knew what the main characters were going to do, what they were going to say, who would live and who would (possibly) die.  I had the setting, complications, and reversals all planned out.  This took place from about the base of Monteagle mountain, through the truck rest area and inspection station, and ended about at Manchester, TN (about a 20-25 minute Speed Limit drive).

Recapturing the Glory

When I finally got to school, I took a moment to jot down (in outline form) the key scenes and their importance from my brainstorming daydream.  I’m now super excited to write about it because I want to recapture that feeling and those emotions that i felt while brainstorming the story in my mind.  So, if you haven’t guessed already, Project Space Trucker (which should have a title that I really like now) is the one short story project that I’m working on for the rest of May (& a bit into June if I need to.  I will push Project Skye (which I’ve made good progress on) back to June.  I will work on the Ship of Shadows Graphic Novel on weekends (I owe my artist an email soon).

It was really amazing the way the subconscious took over and helped to fashion out a story that I’m itching to tell.  The moral of this story = if you’re stuck, go out for a drive (or a walk, or whatever), but just do something else for a while.  You’re subconscious is probably already working on a solution.

Talk to you later!

Sidney

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Mostly a Stop Sign Day

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Sorry about the lack of a coherent blog today, but I’m just barely functioning.  I actually wrote yesterday and I’ll include the stats today, but unless something major changes, I won’t be able to write today.  For some reason, I don’t really feel all that well today.  I’m not sure why, but I think it has something to do with getting over a minus sinus infection from yesterday.  The weather has also changed from warm and sunny to cool and rainy and that is also affecting my sinuses.

  • Project Paradise Word Count: 357 (+244)
  • Project Skye Word Count: 1617 (+533)
  • Project Independence Word Count: 1723 
  • Project Ship of Shadows Graphic Novel Page Count: 12

I hope to be back to writing and blogging as usual tomorrow.  Have a good day!

Sidney

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Day One

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Day One of Writing

So, there’s this new YouTube channel that I recently discovered called Film Courage and it has interviews with screenwriters, producers, and actors and is basically a channel dedicated to helping beginners break into the the movie and television industry. It features advice in the form of long-form interviews with these individuals, but it understands that most people don’t have an hour/hour and a half to watch the entirety of the interview and breaks them out into smaller, more manageable 10-15 “chunks” that talk about 1 or 2 specific elements of the craft.

I recently found one that was especially impactful called “Day One of Writing a New Screenplay.”  I’ve linked it below if you want to check it out, but basically the screenwriter tells how he gets started on new project and how he budgets his time to get the project done, and his advice for ending so that you’re ready to work on it the next day.

 

Walking the Walk

What I love about this video interview by Mark Sanderson is that he is super professional in his approach and much of his advice deals with both professionalism (i.e., sticking to a schedule) and working from an outline (still being creative even though he has a general idea of where he’s going.  I also liked the way he creates strategies to help him become and stay creative.

I started Project Independence on Wednesday night.  I tried to work on Project Paradise Thursday night and try to hopscotch between the two, but I’m probably not going to be able to do that (435 words on Project Independence and only 31 words for Project Paradise).  I’m probably just going to have to pick one “weekday” project that I work on through the week and one “weekend” project (right now, probably my Ship of Shadows graphic novel).  I’m going to try to work on 1 “script” page this weekend.  Again,  as I’m only shooting for 250 words a day, I need to figure out what it means if I blew through that goal for one project and didn’t even come close to meeting the goal for another.  Does it mean I’m more interested and ready to write one vs. other and should stick with the one I’m seemingly invested in until I finish?  Or is it that I was just enervated one day, where I was exhausted the next?  Not quite sure.

“Bottom Line is: ‘You Have to Write and Stick to a Schedule'”

I’m trying to take his advice and try to fit it into my life because the “daily schedule” is one I’m still trying to conquer.  I don’t know how many artists I’ve lost for my graphic novel projects (four (4) is my current count although it may be more) because I couldn’t produce work fast enough because I wasn’t able to keep to a daily writing schedule and let work and school interfere with writing.  I’m not really a fast writer–I only type about 35-40 words per minute, which is fairly good, but isn’t amazing, but I often slow down when writing because I’m trying to think of the words that I need to describe the action I see in my mind.

I’m not sure what I’ll try to write tonight, but whatever it is, at least I’ll put my behind in my seat and, as the man said, “write and stick to a schedule.”

Sidney

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Potpourri May 2018

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potpourri_wikihow

So this (short) post is just a little bit about everything that I’m currently doing right now.

  • Watching The Expanse: I’m not really feeling the show all that much, but I need a “spaceship” show at the moment to get me through Final Exam week and help me as I get my car repaired.  Will probably do a mini-review of it after I watch all the seasons (there are 3 total, but only seasons 1 & 2 are currently “free” on Streaming via Amazon Prime.
  • Project Poet (Rough Draft): Two-Thirds (⅔) way complete.  Not really happy with the way it is turning out, but then again, I guess that’s what rough drafts are for.  There’s no magic in this one, so it doesn’t really seem like a Fantasy story, but it is one that I really like the idea for.  I may have to find a way to add in a “magic system,” however, because it seems really slow and boring otherwise.
  • Recently Watched Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets: I’m putting this one on the list to remind myself that I need to do a mini-review of this movie as I saw it about 2 weeks ago.  I didn’t much care for The Fifth Element (never actually managed to ever get through the whole movie), but I thought this might actually win me over.  Spoilers for the mini-review: it didn’t. 🙂
  • The trailer for Ant-Man and the Wasp has just been released.  Now this is a Marvel movie that I think I can get behind this summer.  It looks really fun!  And best of all, NO SPOILERS ANYWHERE IN SIGHT!  🙂  🙂

 

  • Finished the OUTLINES for two (2) new Projects: Project Paradise and Project Independence:  I finished the plot outlines for two new stories.  Both are science-fiction stories that I’m really excited about writing over the summer.  More on these projects as when I finish the Rough Drafts for them.

Well, that’s all I have for right now as I need to work on finishing several small school-related projects.  Talk to you later!

Sidney

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Larger Than Life

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Image Source: IZQuotes.com

Reserved by Nature

I am a reserved person by nature. You’ll never find me gadding around being the life of the party. I am quiet and most definitely an introvert. However, as I’m writing Project Poet, I’m finding that maybe my characters really aren’t ciphers, but rather maybe they are too much like me– very quiet and reserved.

Larger Than Life Characters

People want distinctive and memorable characters. I personally am not distinctive or memorable unless I truly want to be–my choice (heck, yes would be hard pressed to find an image of me online) . However, in writing characters who are just extensions of various parts of my psyche, I’ve unwittingly been writing boring characters rather than dynamic and unique ones.

Living La Vita Loca

So, a way to fix this is to give my characters a one-word trait to describe the character’s behavior. For instance, the character for Project Poet just wants to have fun–so “frat-boy”/”party-guy” would get that fun loving personality with a little bit of immaturity & insecurity. Now I just need to characterize (show how these traits manifest themselves in the story) him better and make sure he is larger than life. I also need to make sure his backstory reflects his fun loving outlook on life.

To steal from a popular saying: “go big or go home!”

Sidney

Project “Space Trucker”

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Project Space Trucker

So this will be a short blog entry today.  I just wanted to let you know that I’ve started the “Rough Draft” of a new project: Project Space Trucker.  Yes, I know the title is inelegant, but it is what the story is about.  Well, not literally about Semi-Trucks in space, but about the future and how a “Trucker” in the future might be realized in terms of world/setting, characterization, plot, etc.

This project has no relation to the 1996 movie Space Truckers.  I’ve never seen that movie & didn’t even know it existed until I googled the words Space & Truck for the above image.  After seeing the trailer (see below), I’ve no real desire to see the movie as it is apparently B movie in every sense of the word (bikini-clad female co-pilot and ship that apparently has a semi-truck “trailer” attached to the back of the ship).  If I ever run across it on streaming (& I have a couple of hours to kill), I might watch it now that I know it exists, but its not something I’m going to go searching for as you can see for yourself from the Trailer posted on YouTube.

Inspiration

No, this project was inspired quite a bit by my commute to school.  I often pass by Semi-Trucks on the road and I started noticing the names of the shipping companies on the trailers or the names of the transport and logistic companies on the sides of the trucks and that started me to thinking about how these companies might exist in a space/science fiction environment.

Also, along the route to school, there is a truck “pull-off stop area.”  It isn’t a rest area per se, but a small set of lanes where trucks can pull off the highway safely and sleep/rest before making their way to a mandatory truck checking area that is a few miles up the road.  This way truckers can sleep/rest and not get fined or penalized for not having taken mandatory rest breaks as required by American law.  On one trip, I saw a couple of truckers conversing with each other outside their trucks and also began to wonder how that interaction might play out in a sci-fi universe.

What’s Next?

So, I really like the way this project is headed so far.  I have a fairly clear idea of the character.  I’m working on the Rough Draft this week and over the weekend, I hope to work on character sketches for the two main characters.  Right now, I’m plugging away on the “Working Draft” of Project Poet (Poet).  I’m not sure what’s on deck after Poet as I still need to go back and do another draft for Project Skye as well, but I’ll update you next week.

Well, looks like I’m out of time for today.  Have a great day!

Sidney

 

Potpourri: The Writing Life

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potpourri_wikihow

Today’s blog will be a short one on a few things that happened over the weekend pertaining to my writing life.  These are mostly updates that I feel are important milestones, but each one isn’t really so important that it requires its own blog post.  So, in no particular order, here we go:

Submitted All Tomorrow’s Children

So I submitted All Tomorrow’s Children (ATC) to its first market over the weekend. The market is a “major” market in the Science Fiction and Fantasy short fiction landscape, but I doubt they’ll accept it.  While they say there never receive enough Sci-Fi (and ATC is Sci-Fi), their Acceptance rate is .09%.  That means they reject 99.91% percent of the stories that are sent to them.  Still, I had to try as they are one of the “new” big publishers of Sci-Fi/Fantasy stories.  If the market doesn’t take ATC, I have two more publishers that I consider “big” to send it to and then I’ll step down a tier to the mid-level markets.  You never know until you try.

“Blogging” My Way to 250 Words-a-Day

So, I have a confession to make.  I have several Word Processors–Pages, SimpleNote (Mac App & Website), Scrivener, IAWriter App, and a couple of lesser Word Processors (and have access to Word through my school account and on their computers).  However, I found over the past few weeks, that for fiction, I really just like the ease and simplicity of SimpleNote (which I’ve mentioned in the past), but also, just the WordPress Text Editor that I use to create my blog entries.  While I used to draft in SimpleNote, I’ve now switched to the WordPress blog editor because I can quickly see the word count and when I reach my 250 limit for the day, I then copy and paste the work over to SN.  One I have a completed draft, I then copy and paste that over to Scrivener and make my major edits there.  Scrivener makes compiling a submission draft a breeze and that’s the draft I use to submit.  It was this workflow that helped me to get All Tomorrow’s Children off my computer and out the door to a publisher.

Finished (FINALLY) the Rough Draft of “Project Skye”

I finished this over the weekend as well.  It clocks in at about 4,000 words, but really needs some substantial TLC.  This was an exploratory draft and written “by the seat of my pants” because 1) I wanted to get an idea of the character and 2) I thought I knew enough about the world in order to just write.  The draft is a “poster child” for why I don’t write without outlining.  There are plot threads that just drop out, there are character motivations that don’t work, there’s setting issues, there’s a storm that never develops, etc.  This draft is an absolute “mess” and I will most likely have to rewrite the entire story from beginning to end rather than what I did with All Tomorrow’s Children which was “build” the story from the ground up.  This illustrates the difference in my writing styles: ATC was fun to write for me, while Project Skye was an absolute slog.  I can’t even show it to the Writing Center consultant to illustrate Skye’s character (which is the reason I wrote the story) because it really isn’t a “story” yet (at least, not in the way I think of “story”).  But its done–that’s the best part.  And what do they say?  If you’re at the bottom, you can only go up from there–hopefully, by the summer, I can put together a draft that I feel proud to show off–because it isn’t there yet!

Sidney