WWW.770DAYS.COM

I haven't had the chance to get a whole lot done on Poo Bah so far this month; typical life excuses - work, health, relationship stuff (nothing particularly bad, just the usual drains on one's free time/creativity.)

I'm working on setting up an Ebay store to sell a lot of the inventory of books and comics I've amassed over the years. If I can make enough money doing this, I'm thinking of going to 4 days a week at my job, to free up an extra day a week to focus on other matters - including writing!

April is over (and with it, Script Frenzy, which I completed.)

Back to Poo Bah. Plot mapping and then... MORE WRITING!!!!

As of today, 4/26/2009, I am a winner of Script Frenzy 2009. My story is not completed, and I'm seriously realising that this is better done as either a tv miniseries, or an actual television show... not sure that I'll actually finish this actual script, but I damn sure will be doing something with this story - this is even better than I realised.

As often happens with my stories, this is growing beyond the originally conceived boundaries. I rather see this more as a television program - one that would run several seasons on a network, or perhaps longer with shorter seasons (much like HBO or BBC...)

I don't know my progress at the moment; I'm still in the process of transcribing from longhand to computer. I've written almost 100 pages on paper - at this point, I'm guessing that's about 60 pages - if so, I'm fairly close to being on schedule. (I'd be ahead if I hadn't taken a break from writing for the past 3-4 days.)

The world is fleshing itself out on its own - again, this is normal for me.

Doing it longhand on the bus (since my laptop can't seem to carry a charge. Stupid laptop.)

Got at least a good 24-30 pages done. Am trying to transcribe them into a computer file so I know for sure.

Am happy with my progress so far - for never having seriously written a real script before, am rather pleased.

Did some minor edits/adds to the main pages for the FREE YLAM subsite, POO BAH subsite, and THE LANDS OF DAY AND NIGHT subsites, as well as the EVIL OVERLORD page - all reached from the menu to the far right.

Looks like I'm going to participate in Script Frenzy this year.

I'm thinking of doing a movie script, too.

Never done one before.

The concept I'm going with is "Thunder", a cyberpunkish setting story about a mysterious street fighter. It's a great story and I have no idea if I'll be any good at writing it.

For me, writing has always been easy. I hardly ever suffer from Writer's Block. I more suffer from Lazy Fuckwad Syndrome. Writing a novel in one month... rather, writing a novel-length amount of story in one month (as my novels tend to exceed the 50K goal of NaNoWriMo) is really easy. The trick is just to MAKE TIME and DO IT.

The process is ricockulously simple. Honestly, if you're doing NaNoWriMo and aren't having fun writing, then SERIOUSLY, please consider another career path. You're not meant to be a writer. I am amazed (and appalled) by the sheer number of people in some of the NaNo communities on sites such as Livejournal who spend as much time bitching they can't get their story going or get the time put aside to write, as they do actually writing.

Don't get me wrong - there are days during NaNo where I whine to myself, "But I just got home, and I'm tired and..." And then I write for 45-90 minutes, and I'm swept away to whatever magical land I'm writing about that year... and the world is GOOD. I have never come away from writing in a worse mood then when I started, and 99% of the time, I'm in a better mood.

It doesn't always work out well, the forcing yourself to write in this one story for one month. Sometimes, you walk into it unprepared. Sometimes you get 14 days into it and you're like, "Damn, this is gonna change..." This happened to me last year (2008) - the story I'm writing I like, but it's gonna go through some serious revisions, if I keep it at all. There's a lot of groundwork I like, but I really think it's gonna be completely retooled - it'll be vastly different, but the characters and the relationship stuff (damn good meaty stuff that I wrote that I had NO FUCKING IDEA was going to be so good) will certainly stay.

Here's the thing - I'm a writer. I'm not a published author yet (and there is the difference - it may be semantics, but to me it matters), but I AM (and always will be) a writer.

My mother tells a story about me as a young tyke, sitting on the couch with my brother. Mom had just been reading to us, but she had to go start dinner. From the kitchen, she heard me talking, and as she listened, she realised that I was telling a story to my brother. At this point, my reading ability was there, but not yet developed... she peeked around the corner and saw me 'reading' from the book, turning the pages, as I told the story.

A story that was not one she recognised... one that was not in the book. (She later realised that the book was upside down... and on top of things, my eyesight was so bad that I couldn't have read the book if I could've read - I didn't get corrective lenses until I was 5, by which point I was already reading.)

So, I've always been a storyteller.

I'm currently reading Stephen King's EVERYTHING'S EVENTUAL; in several of his introductions/afterwords for the stories, he speaks of how writing isn't a creative process, but an exploratory one - he believes that stories exist already in their completed stage, and just have to be uncovered. The writer is nothing more than an archaeologist, digging up artifacts.

I have to agree with him 100%.

(nothing about writing in this post)

It's all about perspective. I know this. I know this WELL.

However, sometimes, we get wrapped up in our own troubles and forget that.

Today, I was reminded of this.

A guy, we'll call him Blue, for the colour of the bicycle he rode into the shelter, came to do some Community Service Hours. He looked around at the approximately 6-8 people we had helping us out and said, "Wow, looks like you got plenty of help already," and he said it with concern.

(Not that he needed to be concerned, there's always plenty to do at the shelter.)

Anyhow, talked to him, found out he was doing CSH to qualify for food stamps (yeah, by the way, those of you who think people who get food stamps are all sitting on their asses doing nothing, here's some information - as of the past year or eighteen months, a LOT of the time they are required to perform Community Service to qualify.)

We had several people raking leaves, several people working on cleaning out and arranging things in some auxiliary areas, and a couple volunteers walking dogs. So I took Blue and we went to the laundry room.

I explained to him that we have a crappy washer that doesn't shut the water off when it's full, so we have to manually manage that or the laundry room gets flooded. (Yes, Terry is speaking from experience here, folks.) I told Blue that I wanted him to make the laundry room his project - we had about twelve blankets that were soiled, some floor mats and a couple loads of towels.

PLUS, the laundry room needed some reorganising.

He happily (yes, happily) set to his tasks. Throughout the afternoon, I'd go down there and each time I did, there was marked improvement. He was cheerful and chipper and a downright pleasure to work with. Didn't have to hold his hand (like I did with one guy who was there today, pain in the ass that he was.) Didn't have to correct him or tell him to put a little pep in his step or anything.

Oh, also? He's homeless. Lives in a tent on a guy's property (that he does work on the property for the guy in exchange to put his tent on his land.)

Lives in a fucking tent. How cold was it last week?

Does work for the guy in exchange for the right to squat on his land.

Is doing Community Service to qualify for food stamps so he can buy food, because he can't get a job because it's hard right now.

Man, I thought I had it rough, struggling to keep paying my bills and keeping my house.

Perspective.

Still about 1/2 way to where I should be on the word count.

Really wish I could get a laptop; writing on the bus would EASILY get me caught up in no time.

Dammit.

Dammit, I'm about halfway behind on my word count goal for the first month.

Shit.

I Drink Blood is an in-character blog written by a vampire. I'm having fun with it.

Right at 6800 words for the year, but I think I missed out counting a good 500... ah well. So I'm still 3 days behind.

I'm about 2000 words behind for the year. 4830 right now. I've started a new story blog, over at Wordpress. I've been working on Poo Bah. A couple other little writing bits here and there, too.

I'm confident that I'll catch up.

Well, 2008 is coming to a close and (as usual), I've done a lacklustre job at writing.

So, this coming year, 2009, I'm making a goal, the same goal I set last year and didn't even come close to acheiving.

250,000 words. A quarter of a million words.

(That breaks down to approximately 685 words a day. That's nothing.)

So, 2008 is out, another year wasted for the most part. 2009 is coming in and it's time to get serious about writing. POO BAH is still the priority.

50,884 words. The book is not complete, but I am done for now.

The subsite for The Lands of Night and Day, http://fightthescourge.770days.com/ has been opened. There ain't nothing but a simple overview page right now, but it's something...

This year's NaNoWriMo project is actually the 2nd book in the series, the first of the "Displaced" saga.

If you're reading this, chances are you got here from one of the social networking sites I use... and you've already likely be informed where I am on the NaNo project this year.

Just in case, though...

I'm at: 16881 / 50000 words. 34% done!

That's only four actual writing days this month so far! Averaging approximately 4200 words a writing day, 927 words an hour.

That 250K word count goal is not gonna happen, duh.

Gotta write something for my nephew's birthday next month.

Also, next month is NaNoWriMo!

On the silly side: Poo Bah For President!

Chances are I'm not going to be doing that story with Jack Johnson and the hurricane. I need to do some research, and I haven't even received the one book someone bought for me (a bio of Johnson) yet.

Got a bunch of other ideas - ideas ain't my problem, folks.