Notebooks are a Constant

I am one of those people who watches and likes Lost.

And last week's episode made me like it even more. Do you know why? Because Faraday uses a notebook.

I have been using notebooks for years now. They are often employed by the really brilliant (see Faraday on Lost) or the really not-so-brilliant (see that guy in that movie The Lookout).

The first two pages of my notebook consist of Current Creative Projects. Basically, this is just a list of random ideas. When I fill up the notebook, I copy the best parts of first two pages over to the first two pages of the next notebook.

The previous blog entry chronicled some of my past writing "accomplishments." This one lists out some of the creative projects I am currently in the midst of or will be doing in the near future. Because this blog is kind of the dumping ground for creative shenanigans, consider this a preview of things that may or may not appear in the upcoming months.

Personal Myths - Last year, I wrote a novel for National Novel Writing Month. It didn't turn out as good as I wanted it to be, but there is enough in there for me to attempt to rewrite it.

The premise of the novel is this - a reality television show called "America's Next Hot Young Playwright!" comes to a college and basically wreaks havoc on the academic population. The main two characters are an English Professor trying to teach his students about great literature and a television producer giving them stunts that involve writing dramatic scenes for Scott Baio.

Plus, Scott Baio only agrees to do the show if he can go during Spring Break when all the allegedly wild co-eds go on an alleged rampage. Mr. Baio gets disappointed to find out that college isn't populated with lots of naked women and instead is filled with students who want to study.

Hodge - This one is already in progress in the hopes that I can submit it to the AAA Screenwriting contest in June (or in April for the early submission discount rate). This is my attempt at writing a super hero movie. The main character is a super hero dude named Hodge because Hodge is such an awesome super hero name. Can you hear a villain going, "Foiled again by Hodge! Hooooodge!" I have come thiiis close to insisting my coworkers start calling me Hodge, I like the name so much.

Age of Magic - I do not understand why there are not hundreds of books, comics, television shows, and movies trying to fill the void of Harry Potter now that it has ended. Anyway, this is a comic book about magic coming back to the world.

Imagine one day everyone in the world can do magic, but no one really knows how to wield magic. It would be the mystical equivalent of everyone on the planet suddenly getting handed a gun with unlimited bullets. Anyway, after some adventures the main characters decide to establish a school of magic. To be honest, this project is more in the spirit and tone of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell than the Potter books. Except it is in an contemporary setting, and it features the Bat Boy (Found in Cave!) from the Weekly World News. I'm not joking.

Brownsville - Historical fiction about the Brownsville Raid in Brownsville, TX. Basically it follows the lives of some dishonorably discharged soldiers from the Theodore Roosevelt administration to the Nixon administration when they were retroactively found innocent. Oops. Gave away the ending.

Redux - A short film about a guy who dies and gets reincarnated as himself. He gets to live his entire life all over again with full knowledge of how his old life was. He befriends Dionne Warwick and founds the psychic network.

***

And because I started out talking about Lost, please allow me to use this space to ask a couple of questions.

1) Why is Faraday using the same notebook from ten years ago? I go through about four notebooks a year. He must not write very much.

2) If Faraday is looking for a constant from multiple time periods in his life, and he's carrying around the same journal for ten years, wouldn't that mean the journal is his constant? It would certainly save him from the awkwardness of tracking down Desmond and telling him how much he loves him and how he's always loved him. I'm just sayin'.

Status Report on the Writing Thing

So I have passed the 20,000 word mark on the 50,000 word novel I'm writing for National Novel Writing Month, or as it is affectionately called, NaNoWriMo. My novel (working title Personal Myths) is about a reality show that invades a Literature class for a semester. Right now, I have really mixed feelings about the quality of the work (or lack thereof), but I think it might shape into something interesting after four or five dozen major rewrites.

But perfection is not what NaNoWriMo is about. It is about words on the page, even if by words we mean the word "very" repeated several hundred times.

I am currently 2555 words behind schedule, but I haven't done today's writing yet. I'm supposed to average 1667 words a day, so if we assume I hit the required 1667 words today, I'll only be behind 888 words. Which is nothing. I've written blog posts longer than that. (Please don't fact check that last sentence, and just accept it as the truth.) So I think, all things considered, I'm in good shape.

I have a NaNoWriMo page where you can follow my progress, see bar charts, and read an excerpt. It is here.

In other writing news...

The Slamdance Horror Screenplay Contest pushed the due date back from October 12th to November 12th and then again to November 21st. I had one screenplay ready by that first deadline, and I was aiming to have two done by the second one. Now that I have an extra week, I think I can squeeze that third screenplay in. As you can probably guess, these are not examples of my best work. They are low budget horror films written expressly for a low budget horror film contest. I do not plan to use these to get an agent or to drum up independent financing so I can get my personal vision on a screen near you.

Years from now, when people accuse me of forsaking my art and selling out, I will calmly point out that I sold out right at the beginning when I decided to write a screenplay called Zombie Prom Queen. It has zombies in it. It has a prom in it. And then it has a zombie prom in it. That's how good it is.

This blog post was 396 words long.

In Case You Are Expecting Things On This Blog...

I have a half-way finished blog post that isn't quite ready to go, so I'm putting it off until Christmas. Which is kind of sad because it was about torture in entertainment (specifically comedies about torture) and that theme fits more with Halloween than Christmas (unless, of course you are a Grinch).

However, I am going to take a one-maybe-two month break from the ol' blog because I will have too LITTLE time on my hands, particularly where writing is concerned.

Because I know some people read this, I thought I would warn you ahead of time - it is not going to be updated for some time.

Here is my writing schedule for the next two months (and remember, the writing schedule often takes the back-burner to job, family, and household chores):

Current writing projects - I am trying to enter three different scripts in the Slamdance Horror Screenplay competition. Currently, I have one completely finished one, and two half-finished ones. The deadline is November 12th, so I need to finish those two halfway done ones. There is a good chance I will only finish one of the two by the November 12th deadline. To give you an idea of the high-concept, lowest common denominator type of work I'm churning out, I'll give you the title of one of my scripts: Zombie Prom Queen!

Future projects - I am participating in NaNoWriMo this year. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. Sounds like a lot until you break it down to 1,667 words a day. I write emails longer than that. Anyway, this idea has been cooking for awhile and I already have an outline, so I'm excited about getting it finished. Working title of the novel: Personal Myths.

After November (and NaNoWriMo) ends, the December projects are the annual Christmas letter (which will turn up on the blog) and a super secret project for the fans of the Filmspotting podcast.

Next year, I want to start out by writing another spec script for The Office (I have a brilliant idea for a show and it won't leave me alone) and then get another screenplay ready for the BlueCat Screenwriting contest in March.

So that's the pie-in-the-sky ambitious writing schedule through Spring '08. Hopefully, I'll work some blog posts in there, too.

P.S. I will still update my other blog, WTFDVDs, on a regular basis. As you can probably tell, it doesn't take much to maintain that one.