Busy Busy Busy

Clackety-clack

This has been a great week in terms of work and writing-related by-products. In addition to turning in a fun outline for my next Littlest Pet Shop script, I was able to swing by a certain place to pick up my assignment for the sooper-seekrit new project that I've been praying/hoping to be a part of. A non-disclosure agreement prevents me from telling you anything about it at this time (insert "but I'd have to kill you" joke here or, more accurately, a "they would have to kill me" joke), but let's just say it would be an awesome show to work on and I'll share details when I'm allowed to do so.

To give you an idea of how excited I was to be at the certain place, I hugged the producer of the show -- twice -- and I'm not much of a hugger at all. Fortunately, she's a friend and seemed to accept the hugs in the spirit they were intended.

As a bonus, I got a lot of work done on Giantkiller -- reorganizing it from a prologue and seventeen chapters of disturbingly uneven length (the shortest being 917 words and the longest being 14,058) to a prologue and thirty much more balanced chapters.

So, as stated, a great week. Go busy-ness!

A Productive Week

Been a busy little robot this week.

Got my Script Frenzy screenplay over to the agent on Thursday. I'm very happy with how it turned out. Hope he likes it. I changed the name from "Timer" to "Nick of Time" for reasons stated earlier. Here's how I pitched it:

"Aimed at a youth audience this is a "flexible" script -- existing comfortably, imo, in a number of niches ranging from a big budget live action/cgi extravaganza through a Nick or D.C. original movie (personally, I'd love to see it as an anime style flick in the vein of Miyazaki's "Howl's Moving Castle", but we can talk about that)."

Agents always ask which niche you see the script falling into -- I'm guessing it helps them decide how they're going to position it. You'll note that I'm not going public with any of the script's content as I'm a little superstitious/paranoid about describing that kind of thing until the agent's had a chance to look at it and it's out on the market.

Got a significant chunk of my outline done for "Caden Brave", my 2009 NaNo effort. All of the main characters are laid out. They're archetypal, but that's how I roll.

Twenty more days until the National Novel Writing Month kicks off. If you're still thinking about joining in, now's the time to sign up and start working on your outline. If you decide to go for it, look me up under the author name of "sillyroger". We can be "buddies" and motivate/annoy each other into action during November.

And finally, got my second Scooby script approved. These are a hoot to write and I hope the kids enjoy watching the show as much as I do writing it.

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!

In Play

Quick update. A submission-worthy draft of "Leonard" was placed in Agent S' hands shortly before Christmas meaning that the game is afoot. I think the manuscript's pretty darned tight and a good read. Hopefully publishers will agree. Finger crossings, prayers, and happy vibe thoughts are all welcome and appreciated.

Busy Busy Busy

Well, this has been a very busy week. Commencing info dump in 3, 2, 1...

• Crack agent's assistant, Dustin, has been doing a copy edit on Leonard. He's going over the manuscript with a fine tooth comb in an attempt to weed out my numerous typos and punctuation errors. That's a lot of work and I'm very grateful he agreed to do it. He hopes to get it to me next week. At that point I'll do one more content edit (character stuff and humor, mostly) before shipping it off to Agent S.
• Finished a new picture book and sent it off to Editor Liz. I like it and think it will hit the sweet spot for early readers -- silly characters and age appropriate gross out humor.
• Finished a polish draft on another picture book. Took out every word that absolutely didn't need to be there. I'm very excited about it and, equally as important, so is Agent S.
• I'm about halfway through a very rough outline for my next NaNo novel. I'm doing brief, four or five sentence descriptions separated by chapter headings. After I'm finished, I'll keep going through it until the end of October -- fleshing it out and filling as many holes as I can find. I'm not a slave to the outline, but it helps calm my pre-Nano jitters to have some idea of where I'm going. I became an avid outliner through working in animation (where it's required) and through my own spec screenplays. I tried the "I'll just start writing and see where it goes" approach a few times only to discover that it usually goes to around p.30 and then stops cold. In my experience, some ideas have the juice to drive a full screenplay (or novel) others don't. Pushing an idea through the outline grinder helps me determine which kind I've got on my hands.

Info Dump

This isn't going to be pretty but I promised an update, so here goes:

• Did the rewrite on my chapter book and sent it to my editor two weeks ago. She responded that I was "very speedy" and was looking forward to reading the new draft.


• Sent "Leonard" to Agent S at the beginning of last month. Followed up a couple of weeks later -- she said she was still reading it and not yet ready to give comments but that the opening was "boffo".


• Was quietly thrilled that my agent used the word "boffo".


• Was told by Agent S that I could expect some information on my newest picture book submission "early in the school year."


• Met with a small animation house that specializes in developing projects from Chinese production entities. Spent an interesting couple of days working up a script sample from a story board they provided. If I get the gig, I'd be helping them develop the shows bible. If the show sells, I'd be the story editor.


• Kept finding reasons not to return to my screenplay. School just started so it's a little quieter around here and I'm hoping to get my mojo back.


• Teamed up with an old buddy of mine and came up with a reality show idea that would be simultaneously hilarious and disturbing. Positive early feedback from several entertainment entities that apparently like hilarious and disturbing reality shows.


• Discovered cheesy clip art of an ancient computer of the kind I had in the late 90's and included it in this post.

That is all.