Posts tagged writing

Got my first draft back from my editor and I actually quite agree with the criticisms. Now, this speaks nothing about my editor…quite the opposite as I greatly appreciate and respect her opinion. Bur rather it speaks greatly to the fact that I am a rather opinionated individual and usually don’t take any kind of criticism quite so gracefully.

Everything that was said I completely agree with, and no part of me felt the familiar burn of…whatever you call it, protectiveness of my own creation? I don’t know. Either way, I’m happy that I had that response because now I am able to really listen to the opinion of someone else for a change, and more importantly, someone else who knows more about the subject than I.

I’ve already started thinking about what I want to do. Small changes here, big changes there…now it’s just a matter of time to wait for the the viewpoint from my other friend who’s been asked to give me his opinion as a reader. 

I’m hoping that these two viewpoints will give me a complete idea of what I’m missing, what I need to do for my story both technically, as well as creatively. 

With my first novel off to the editor for it’s first draft. I feel it would be most efficient to start thinking about my next one during this time instead of just sitting here twiddling my thumbs.

Now, believe you me, I am not at all at a loss for ideas. In fact, I have an entire briefcase on my desktop full of ‘em. Some are still valid ideas, some need a little work and some are…well, let’s just say they’re in the folder named “DEAD ZONE” for a reason. Although funny story, Starhopper started off there not too long ago and look at where it is now.

At any rate, this is all moot because I know what story I want to write next…an untitled modern tribute the the Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns, with a little bit of Robert Rodriguez tossed in for good measure.

Yep, I’ve been sitting on this idea for a while. Mostly because for the longest time I was doing my best to actually see a project all the way through (aka Avery Library) and you see how well that worked out.

However, since Starhopper has broken that barrier instead, it gives me hope that I can do it again with other projects in a purely written format. Which works out great because not only do I have little to no real drive to draw anything anymore, but my Mac is quite dead.

I have the basic plot already in mind, the beginning is all set, the end is set, the only question mark is the middle. Which is odd, because they always say writing a beginning is the hardest part of a story. Go fig.

THIS F*CKING GUY!!!

That’s right! I just started work on the last chapter to my novel (or novella realistically) “Starhopper and the Edge of Reality.”

This doozy has been in the works for YEARS. I honestly can’t say when I first started writing this thing, I want to say 2009 but I know that’s not right. But I didn’t really start doing anything of real significance with it up until the hurricane last year. 

It was part of my routine to help me deal without power.

Come home.
Read GAME OF THRONES until the light went.
Write and listen to music until close to bedtime.
Play an hour of Game Boy until bed.

That got me through the front half of the chapters, and here I am working on the final one!

Granted this is a first draft. Which means I have to send it off to a friend to read and edit it. Do my own read-through, make changes. It’s far from completely finished, but it’s the project that has reached the closest to completion for a long time. Hell, even Avery Library fell to the wayside…although there is nothing to be done about that what with my drawing computer dead. RIP Mac G5 tower.

I’m hoping to have the last chapter finished within the month and have it off to the editor. As for what I plan on doing with it? Why, publish it as an e-book of course! And when I do, I’ll make sure I let everyone know where you can get your own copy of my cheap, sci-fi, comedy adventure!

Don’t worry, it doesn’t suck too bad :p

I’ve been getting the itch to write lately, and like every other creative project I attempt lately I’m stopped by this horrid mental block.

So, instead I look back at some of my failed projects and half written story fragments…and feel even worse.

I’ve actually written some pretty solid stuff, and have no idea where these pockets of genius come from. What’s worse, none of it is recyclable. Either the project is so unique that I can’t just drag and drop into a new one, or it’s an idea I never acted on and someone beat me to the punch.

Best example…that new show AWAKE…yeah, totally had that idea a few years back where an artist would fall asleep and wake up as a homicide detective investigating a serial killer who preys on artists, and vice versa. I called it PARALELL. Not exactly the same thing, but close enough.

I had a good portion of the first chapter involving the detective written, and it’s all gold. The attitude, the dialogue, the other characters…all of it gold, all of it unusable.

MAYBE, I could recycle it into a standard crime novel. Who knows…I’d have to get out of this artists block first.

God this is frustrating.

There’s been a lack of posts for a while, and with good reason. This week has been tiring as hell. I even skipped my exercises tonight…I KNOW!

Work has just been killer, and I’ve been exhausting myself with my own insanity, doing my best to try and keep myself from completely loosing my cool.

I really don’t care to go into it. Maybe later, because it really is quite stupid…but not now.

And things don’t look like they’re slowing down any. This weekend I’ll be pulling 10 hours of overtime…which at first I was dancing down the halls singing “Money!!! Is what I want!!” at the top of my lungs, but the more details keep popping up about what I’ll actually be doing during those 10 hours I’m just like…”Fuck me.”

Oh well.

I’ve been thinking more about my writing projects as of late. “Starhopper” has kind of hit a brick wall, whether I wrote myself into it or not I’m still not entirely sure. Either way nothing is really getting done with it, which sucks balls.

But on the other hand, I’m getting renewed inspiration to work on my age old “KAIJU!!” project. What began as a comic project has now devolved into a simple novel project. I really haven’t done anything more than think about it, although I’m thinking this time around to actually make plans and write notes and such before starting as opposed to jumping in with both feet right away…which may be the source of my issues with “Starhopper.”

I dunno, this is all moot anyways because we all know I never finish anything…ever. So, I guess this is all to hear myself talk…err type? Whatever.

Just a bit of a sneak peek, kind of a proving grounds kind of thing. Let me know what you think…

Read more …

Last night was the first night I actually did something productive with my free time…scary right? It’s been what, weeks? I think I’ve finally gotten to the point where work is slowing down enough for me to really soak in my free time effectively and not have it immediately destroyed by an early or late day the following day. That’s not to say I’m complaining…

For all the late hours and early mornings and extra bits of work I’ve done the last few weeks, I haven’t regretted a minute of it. In fact, believe it or not, I’ve reveled in it.

I love what I do at work, and the last two weeks for the most part have been nothing but the best parts of my job, producing and installing exhibits.

God I love it.

I don’t know if its the satisfaction of knowing that my work is in a place where I can point and say “I did that,” or if it’s working with my hands and power tools. Regardless, there’s nothing more satisfying than seeing a project from start to finish and being able to stand back and know that if it wasn’t for us, it wouldn’t be up there.

Anyways, back to what I did last night…

Sadly it wasn’t comic work, I still don’t have the energy for that. Instead I pulled the laptop up on the couch while I laid back and watched a few episodes of Fraiser and banged out the ending of Chapter 3 to my manuscript. Looking at the page count I’m astounded that I’m as far as I am. Sure, they’re short chapters, but that’s the style I’m going for. Short, sweet, and to the point. Basically, I’m taking point after one of my current favorite authors, A. Lee Martinez.

I’m still hoping to get a sneek preview up at some point, but I don’t want to jump the gun to early. As is, I’m working on it sporatically, and comic work as well as an upcoming Flash Cartoon project isn’t exactly helping. Then there’s always Halloween. Ohhhh Halloween, my absolute favorite holiday. It even beats out Christmas.

This year, I have plans to watch every last Horror movie in my collection alphabetically…and let me tell you, that’s a lot of movies. If I remember correctly, my first few movies should be “30 Days of Night,” and the first two “Alien” movies. It’s been a while since I’ve perused my collection so I could be wrong about “Alien” but, oh well, you get the picture.

I’ll be posting reviews and insights into each movie I watch so stay tuned for what I’m dubbing (no pun intended) B-DUBBZ’S TERROR-FEST 2011

Awwwww yeah!

So, while I’m waiting for the script for the first Chapter of AVERY LIBRARY to get to it’s final stages I’ve been putting some time in the project next in the pipeline.

Not to give away too much this early, it’s basically a fairy-tale story designed for a storybook format.

You’d think writing for a 20-page-tops storybook would be easier than writing for a comic book right? Well…you’d THINK that…that’s the problem. In practice, it ain’t that easy. Especially if you’re trying to decide if you want it to rhyme or not.

The problem I keep running into is that I can’t find a happy medium between Simplicity and Elegance. I’m not necessarily writing this for children, but I also want it to be read as such if people so choose. Another thing in the back of my mind is that the pictures are really going to help tell most of the story for me…but at the same time I don’t want the written portion to feel like an afterthought.

I guess the only thing I can do is just write it out and let the editor worry about it. She’s also a writer so she’ll be a big help in that aspect. Besides, I don’t really need to worry about this at all until AVERY LIBRARY is at least half-way done.