As mentioned on Twitter, I’m attempting to write a novel as a creative palette cleanser. It’s a crazy little experience.
Also as mentioned in that Twitter entry, I can only seem to work on this novel for two hours… from 1am to 3am. I work on scripting from like 10am to around 6pm (that can go up to 8 or 9pm on a really good day).
Now for some random musings I haven’t revealed on Twitter (aren’t you lucky)…
Off and on I’ve been doing research on the craft of prose writing and other things related to creating a novel (since I’ve been a script writer for the best part of the last decade). One thing that stops most potential writers in their tracks is the first line. I understand the fear… it’s the first words a reader sees of your work. That line could be the difference between someone continuing into the story or putting the book down never to return. That’s a lot of pressure… pressure that I avoided.
How? By realizing that this is a first draft. Not even a first draft… a “trash draft.” I’m just getting as much of the story as I can down in whatever form it comes out in. My first sentence is a reminder to myself to research more about car accidents. Why not? I don’t plan for anyone else to see this draft anyway. Maybe Denise and John, but they understand, lol.
- Story Changes & Character Motivations
Originally this story was going to be a comic book mini series… but everything I wanted to put into it wouldn’t fit into four to six issues. Then I considered making it a TV series, but then I got caught up in freelance work and couldn’t devote any time to it. After a few months passed I realized I wanted to begin the story at the beginning of the incident and not years later as I planned. Then I made the antagonist the protagonist’s brother. So though I had plans and ideas on where the series would go, because of the character and story changes a lot of the motivations and plot will go in different directions. On one hand I like the challenge and adventure of seeing the new places the story will take me. On the other hand it’s a bit confusing having two unfinished versions of the same story swirling around in my head.
- Scripting Jobs & This Prose Project
Speaking of things being a bit chaotic swirling around in one’s head, I still have my scripting jobs. There are the freelance gigs I’m doing along with my creator owned projects that I have to stay up to date on. That’s a lot of writing to do during the day and it’s exhausting, so devoting the time and energy to this prose project is something I’m still getting used to. For a while there I was getting to bed around midnight-ish so I could wake up early to work on a “normal person’s schedule.” This 1-3am novel writing schedule is throwing my regular schedule for a loop. I’m sure I’ll figure out how to balance it all, it’s just the learning curve is a doozy! @_@
Alright, there were other points I wanted to bring up, but I can’t think of them at the moment so I’ll guess I’ll wrap up this blog entry. Thanks for stopping by and taking part in my insanity. I need to do more blog entries so maybe I’ll do a follow up soon. We’ll see.
Until then, back to work I go!
