September, 2013 Video!

And that's a wrap! We know it's been a long time, so we'll try to do this a bit more often. :-)

SitCom vs. Webisodes

So, I thought I was writing a sitcom. I thought it would be fun. I'm seriously in love with How I Met Your Mother right now and have watched a lot of it. 25 minutes. I can do that, right? Well, let's just face it when I say that, when it comes to scripts, I have NO experience. I think I could build a decent comic book script, because it's between visual and novelistic, but I don't know about stage, screen, small screen, or even mini-screen. I've never written scripts and the last two years in a row I have completely futzed out on them and lost steam less than a week into screnzy. How do I do this?!

I have a head start. I'm 10.5 pages into my first episode of this sitcom and already considering maybe going back and altering it a little bit into webisodes. Then they only need to be 5-10 pages long for any one webisode and I think it would be a format I could handle more easily. Season 2 of The Guild was about 79 minutes in length for the whole season. I have enough material, I think, to put together a handful of linked webisodes for In The Big Ring.

Wish me luck!

In The Big Ring: Opening Scene

Episode One: The Gang's All Here

FADE IN:

EXT. Portland, Oregon Waterfront Park - MORNING

Early morning in Portland. The waterfront Park multi-use path is teeming with bikers, joggers, and people out for a morning with the kids. Clothing suggests a moderately warm morning and the beginning of what will probably be a beautiful day.

A young woman (Lydia Watts) wearing a bright green t-shirt and brother capri pants weaves expertly through the traffic on a blue single speed bicycle. She is smiling.

SOUND: Classical music is playing softly in the background

LYDIA

VO: This is Portland, Oregon. It's probably the best place in the entire world. Of course, most people don't really agree with that sentiment. They'll tell you it's New York, Paris, or maybe even Seattle. I'm going to tell you right now, though, that they're wrong.

Scene flashes to Vacation photographs of the woman on the bike in New York, Paris, and Seattle as she says those cities before coming back to Portland's bustling waterfront Park.

LYDIA

VO: Sure, it rains kind of a lot here, but you get used to it. Portland's that kind of place that you visit and then just never leave. That's how my housemate got here. And of course, nothing is ever as wonderful as Portland at the end of the summer. Like now! If you have a bike and an unfettered schedule, then you have the makings of the time of your life!

Lydia suddenly flips over the handlebars of her bike as the rear wheel locks up. Scene pauses with her in the air.

LYDIA

VO: Only trouble is, I don't really have a bike. At least, not one I can trust.

"In The Big Ring" (Working Title)

I've started plotting. Apparently, I got bit with the sitcom bug and have decided to write something in the ilk of "How I Met Your Mother," "Friends," and "The Big Bang Theory." Something about a small group of friends and their general hi-jinks in the not-so-big city that is Portland, Oregon. (Why does Seattle get to have all the fun, anyway?)

The main group will be four close friends known bemusedly as "The Peloton" (they're all cyclists).
Meet the main characters:

• Lydia Watts -Webcomic artist and bookstore co-owner
• Engaged to: Skye Nicolson - Acupuncturist who visits a lot, but lives in Seattle.
• David Briar - Bar Tender, Scuba Instructor, Bike Mechanic, Yoga Instructor, Wind surfer, &c...
• Katie Raymond - Amateur cyclist and ER nurse who hopes to make it to the London Olympics in Track cycling.
• Lionel Thompson - Called Taurus - Highschool Math Teacher

The length of Scriptfrenzy, 100 pages, suggests 4 episodes at approximately 25-pages long. Currently, I'm working on the basic plots for the four episodes and I'm most interested in what I'm going to use as the pilot. As this is a Portland-based sitcom, at least one of them is going to be about cyclocross. 

ScriptFrenzy!

Okay, NaNo'ers. I've never manage to successfully do scriptfrenzy. I've tried twice now and both times failed miserably. Therefore, I want to try again. Something about April just doesn't lend itself to extreme spurts of creative genius in my world. Maybe it's because April is the real beginning of Spring in Portland. Maybe I just feel lazy. Anyway, it's time for me to give it another try and see if I can manage something in a form I'm not terribly comfortable in.

Anyone out there? Anyone want to come along for the ride?

Phew!

On midnight Sunday, I wound up having my most productive day ever with over 4,000 words written in a single day! This brought the total word count to 48,333, which meant after 29 days, I finally managed to get caught up.

With only 1,667 words to write to make the 50,000 words, I was feeling relatively good. I worked for another hour and a half before heading to bed, which left only about 1,300 words to go. I toyed with the idea of calling in sick, and rejected it. I took an hour long lunch and banged out a few hundred more words. I spent my afternoon break writing a few more by hand. I thought I might get more written on the drive home, but I managed to make it through the majority of the lights.

But once I got home, it was tough going. I got kind of stuck until about 9. At 10 pm, my son called me. I listened to him and continued to type. I still had a few hundred words to go. But I knuckled down and managed to reach 50,000 words around 11:00. Feeling drained, I decided to call it a night at 11:30 with 50,264 words and 1,931 words written for the day, an improvement from last year for both stats.

I also have a grain of a possible idea for next year's Nano. And I don't think I'm going to Las Vegas in November next year. :)

The Winners' Circle

Final Official Word Count: 70,412

So there it is, the final official word count from the NaNoWriMo word count validator.

I am currently printing the whole shebang out, 306 pages, despite irritating printer problems. It is turning into a right bloody palaver. The six weeks of desk drawer time will, I suspect, pass quicker than I imagine.

In the meantime, I might torture myself by finally reading the 2006 effort.

Finale

Words Lately: 2,622
Word Count Total: 70,338

A rather abrupt end to MC #1's peroration about the fate of the empire, but the story is at an end. There will need to either be clearer prefiguring in the final version or an epilogue chapter, but this is done for now.

And, look! 70k!

This word count is a bit light since the NaNoWriMo validator which gives my official word count is a touch more generous than either wc or Scrivener (as well as having chapter headings to count, I suppose) but I know I have more than 70,000 words this month which is quite thrilling - more than I have written in November by about 12k.

Now off to print it out and bury it in my desk for six weeks!

Phew!

Wow! I did it. I surpassed 50K in one month. I still have about 20K to go to actually finish the story I started, but today, I'm going to celebrate and offer a toast to me. Unbelievable!

Uncertainty

Wow, the last weekend day of Nanowrimo 2009. Congratulations to everyone that's hit and surpassed the 50K mark!

Me on the other hand, I've still got about 4,500 words left to go. I'm not sure I'm going to make it, but I am gaining confidence with every 100 words I bang out.

So a short intermission for some household chores and tea brewing, and then back at it once more!

Dénouement

Words Today: 5,592
Word Count Total: 67,716

Action for all the MCs, as you would expect in the last three chapters of the book.

Nothing got written on Thanksgiving or the day after, but had a very good morning today and pushed to within half a chapter of The End.

I was hoping to be done by Wednesday this week, but that did not quite happen in the end. Still, nearly there eh?

I'm actually going to make it!

All I have to do is write 2000 words a day for the next four days. Just to goad myself a little further, I've already ordered my winner t-shirt. I have to win now, else the t-shirt is a dirty lie and I'll be shamed into never wearing it.

I had no idea I was capable of accomplishing a task this huge before this year. I'm so proud of myself! Sure, I've been through ups and downs with my story, but I've kept at it. Maybe I've even developed a habit that will last longer than just through the end of November.

Black Friday NaNo Video

Discovered

Words Today: 1,968
Word Count Total: 62,124

MC #1 being rumbled, and having to do desperate things to deal with it.

This was a continuation of the chapter I was working on yesterday, so I now have a single 4,000 word chapter, which is rather surprising. It's not the only 4,000 word chapter to be sure, but I confess that it is not one I would have expected to grow to that size. But there was more to write - I truncated a sword fight rather crudely, for a start.

Three chapters left, still looking at about 70k total I should say, although I am not sure that I will get all the time I need to write another 8k over this next weekend. I was supposed to be travelling on Sunday night which would have given me a good solid few hours in the airport and on the plane to work on this, but that has been put back a week (and which also stomps on any hopes of going to the TGIO party, much to my distress).

Still, I should have some time on Saturday which will get me most of the way there. If I have to keep writing a couple of days into December to finish satisfactorily, then so be it.

Committee

Words Today: 1,920
Word Count Total: 60,156

MC #1 learning more about the underpinnings of the society.

Something I have lamented in the past is my characters' propensity to have meetings. I suppose this is just another element of that, and I am fairly sure that this particular scene will not survive the edit, but it helped me articulate some ideas about my world which have been percolating for a long time. Good to have them expressed clearly, even if the mode of expression is unbearably dull.

And this is 60k, which is good. This is about two thousand words more than I have ever written during NaNoWriMo before.