30 Days and Counting

The craziness that is National Novel Writing Month starts at midnight on November 1st, 2009. If you've ever flapped your lips about "someday writing a novel", then I'm putting you on notice that someday is almost here. Sign up and write the damned thing! Seriously though, it's a lot of fun and a great kick in the pants for those who (like me) thrive on a deadline. I've enjoyed and benefited from it enough that this will be my third year of cranking out middle grade November prose. Check out their site and then ask yourself, "Other than the fact that I'm a lazy mook, why wouldn't I do this?"

In other news --

• Finished my second draft of "Magic Man" my 2008 NaNo project and have sent it off to trusty beta reader JZ. On balance, I'm quite pleased with it but I sure he'll find plenty of wtf things for me to fix.

• I should be finished with my 2009 Script Frenzy effort "Timer" by the end of this weekend. I've got to finesse the final scene (to make sure that all the main characters get their due) and will probably change the title as 1) there was a recent indie film by the same name and 2) the original reasons for giving my main character that nickname never really made it into the script. Then it's off to the agent.

That's it for now. Get busy on that novel outline!

Surprisingly Not Bad

I'm a little over fifty pages into the rewrite of my second middle grade novel "Magic Man". It took me this long to warm up to the task since by the end of last November, I was about as sick of my manuscript as an author could be. But I forced myself to finish the first draft, made a few feeble attempts to start the rewrite, then chucked the whole thing aside for seven months.

And you know what? It worked! As I'm going through the text of what I knew was an absolute piece of poo, I'm delighted to discover that it's actually pretty good. No really! The story pretty much makes sense, dialogue is fairly crisp, the funny parts are more or less funny, and the action sequences border on being exciting -- all the kinds of things I can fix during the editing part of the program. That's what rewriting is for, after all. Very cool.

I've often read that you should give yourself a bit of time before jumping into a rewrite -- to clear your head and let things settle down -- but who knew the suggestion actually worked?!

I'm a Weiner!

Well, I did it. Went over the 50k mark at around 3:00 this afternoon. Go me.

Going to continue adding to the word count over the two remaining days in the challenge. Then I'll let it sit (probably until early next year) before I start what I know is going to be a rough and tumble edit.

In general, I'm pleased with what I've got, but there are some interesting logic flaws in the story's time line that should be quite a challenge to solve. I also I have a sneaking suspicion that I may have one or two more main characters than I need. Anyway, I'll deal with all after I've had a chance to rest my critical eye.

And...Begin

The NaNo site's super slow tonight -- not surprising considering all the folks that are logging in to update their accounts. If my little word count calendar thing ever clears up, you'll see that I had a very nice first day of 3765. Not half bad and especially gratifying considering that I was a little on edge when I sat down at the desk this morning. But, as I'd hoped, all it took was typing the first word and the rest seemed to follow. Phew! I know it's only day one, but I'm totally grooving on getting back to novel writing.

Sent off the most recent polish draft of Leonard to Agent S. late on Thursday. She's going to take a look at it and get back to me next week. I'm very happy with this draft. Didn't have to be lobbied too hard by Agent S. to add even more boy-centric humor. I don't think it's at the expense of quality either. Which is, you know, kind of a bonus. (insert smiley emoticon of your choice here)

Coming Along Nicely

Finished the rough outline for Magic Man and will take the next few days to flesh it out. Ten days to NaNo! As of today, I've got twenty-five chapters. If it's anything like last time, I'm sure I'll discover things along the way and add a few more. The outline itself is a little over six pages.

In a surprising burst of creative energy, I also find myself with a nearly completed proposal for an animated show. The idea has been bouncing around in my head for a while and last week I decided to write a few things down. Amazingly, these "things" kept coming and soon I had enough good ones to organize into a pitch-worthy "mini bible" (5-6 pages). The idea itself is action based with a healthy dose of comedy. At my most delusional, I would hope to compare it to The Incredibles.

I like this idea so much that I've actually convinced myself that I can do both the NaNo challenge and write a spec pilot script for my animation proposal. How insane is that? Very. I still have to squeeze in the "final" polish edit for Leonard that Agent S expects by November. Good grief! That loud scream you'll hear at the end of November will be the sound of pressurized steam escaping out of my ears.