In case you missed it on Twitter or Facebook, I completed the first draft of Project Lima today. It is tentatively titled THE DOOR OF TIME. The draft came in at 55,149 words, which was written in 27 days. "27 days?" you ask. "But I thought this was the Clockwork Storybook 30 Day Writing Challenge." The thing is, I joined in two days late, and the thirty days aren't up until tomorrow. That averages out to 2042.56 words/day, which was a fairly lackadaisical pace in hindsight. My best day was 4,634 words, which didn't even feel that stressful at the time. It was the climax of the book, and everything was flowing onto the page without problem.
One major development over the past 30 days is a change in my writing setup. Early on, after my second 4k+ day in a row, I ordered a vertical keyboard from SafeType as my wrists had started to hurt from using the keyboard on my laptop. I first heard about the SafeType keyboard from John August, and I have to say it saved me over the past ten days of using it. If you're not a touch-typer, though, it's pretty much useless. I've said this a lot over the past week, but if you had told me in sixth grade that the most important class I'd ever take was keyboarding that year, I would have laughed in your face.
Tomorrow, I'm working on the book proposal, to round out the full 30 days of the challenge. We're also submitting Project Bravo to the publisher tomorrow, which is obviously an event of note as well. After that, THE DOOR OF TIME is going in a drawer for six weeks while I work on a second installment of Project Echo.
February 1, 2012
January 27, 2012
Another WARS Interview
Did a fun interview with James Wylder over at The Zocho for their WARS Radio 2 podcast last week. I had a great time, and it was nice to have a conversation with someone who really knows the WARS universe. I'll post an update as soon as the podcast is up.
Wrapping Up, Keeping On
Laid out the sample pages for Project Bravo this afternoon, after cranking out 2k words for Project Lima. It's always nice to see one project get that much closer to being finished while deep in the middle of another one.
January 7, 2012
30 Days
I'm participating in the Clockwork Storybook 30 Day Writing Challenge as a guest writer. You can follow along over at Major Spoilers.
I joined in two days late, so these first two days have required double-submissions, which has been a serious challenge so far.
The project I'm writing is "Project Lima," but only because I don't have a title yet. Once I have one, it'll be posted over at Major Spoilers. While I plan on doing some blog posts here about it, most of the updates will take place over there.
I joined in two days late, so these first two days have required double-submissions, which has been a serious challenge so far.
The project I'm writing is "Project Lima," but only because I don't have a title yet. Once I have one, it'll be posted over at Major Spoilers. While I plan on doing some blog posts here about it, most of the updates will take place over there.
December 27, 2011
Shifting Priorities
I had to disassemble the Project Juliet corkboard this week to make room for Project Hotel. I got some good feedback on it, so it's now become my priority.
A big part of writing is being able to change focus quickly, and hold multiple focuses simultaneously. The great thing with having different projects at different stages of development means they each take up a different section of my brain. I can be breaking the story for Project Hotel while writing the next issue of FAIREST, researching another story that's just starting to come together in my head, and revising an old story at roughly the same time. This is where having more hours in a day would come in handy...
A big part of writing is being able to change focus quickly, and hold multiple focuses simultaneously. The great thing with having different projects at different stages of development means they each take up a different section of my brain. I can be breaking the story for Project Hotel while writing the next issue of FAIREST, researching another story that's just starting to come together in my head, and revising an old story at roughly the same time. This is where having more hours in a day would come in handy...
December 10, 2011
WARS Podcast
This week I took part in a WARS roundtable for the Star Wars Report podcast. We discussed the first group of novellas, THE BATTLE OF PHOBOS: PRELUDES. Joining me were Josh Radke of Grail Quest Books, Nathan P. Butler, and Jim Perry. You can listen to (or download) the podcast here: http://www.starwarsreport.com/2011/12/08/warsinterview/
December 8, 2011
Writing Constraints
One aspect of working on FAIREST that I hadn't anticipated adequately enough was the constraints of working within 20 pages (which is the size of a standard comic book nowadays).
In film, you have to limit yourself to a maximum of 120 pages. There's a lot of wiggle room within that, though. A lot can be cheated by condensing description and action.
With prose, there are even fewer constraints (if any).
With comics, you're not limited to the length of the script; you can have a 200-page script for a 20-page story, with florid descriptions of costumes, and characters, and settings. Instead, you're limited to the length of the story itself, which is much harder to write for.
If you add a page, you have to remove a page's worth of story from the rest of the script (or find a way to cram a page more story into the 20 pages). I had a reshuffle a couple of pages because I added a single word balloon, which had the trickle down effect through the rest of the script. There are only so many words that can fit into a balloon, and only so many balloons that can fit into a panel, and only so many panels that can fit onto a page. And only 20 pages in a single issue.
It's been a challenge so far, but in a good way. You have to be concise with your storytelling, and trimming the fat becomes a lot easier when there's no room to spare.
In film, you have to limit yourself to a maximum of 120 pages. There's a lot of wiggle room within that, though. A lot can be cheated by condensing description and action.
With prose, there are even fewer constraints (if any).
With comics, you're not limited to the length of the script; you can have a 200-page script for a 20-page story, with florid descriptions of costumes, and characters, and settings. Instead, you're limited to the length of the story itself, which is much harder to write for.
If you add a page, you have to remove a page's worth of story from the rest of the script (or find a way to cram a page more story into the 20 pages). I had a reshuffle a couple of pages because I added a single word balloon, which had the trickle down effect through the rest of the script. There are only so many words that can fit into a balloon, and only so many balloons that can fit into a panel, and only so many panels that can fit onto a page. And only 20 pages in a single issue.
It's been a challenge so far, but in a good way. You have to be concise with your storytelling, and trimming the fat becomes a lot easier when there's no room to spare.
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