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By Tgreen, June 18, 2010 1:52 am

So after spending a month lost in a writing frenzy, all I had to show for it was a pile of words that may or may not have all fit together and a little picture I added to a blog post to show that I “won”. And that was pretty much it, except for one other cool thing. I could also get a free copy of my book from CreateSpace. An actual, honest-to-God, you can hold it in your hands printed book. I got one one before, when I won NaNoWriMo 2005, and even though I won in 2006 too by writing more than 50,000 words, I never finished the story so I never got my book. This time around, since the free book offer was good until July 2, I figured I’d edit the book, make something presentable out of it, and then get a free copy of that. And so during the week after Christmas, when I was off from work, I went to Staples, got some paper and a binder, printed the whole mess out and set to editing.

Cut to June and I have a binder full of paper I haven’t even finished reading yet, much less started marking it up with red pen. Though honestly I think I’m gonna need a box of red pens to get through this one. But the point is, July 2 is roaring down the tracks, aimed straight at me, and I’ve got nothing but the same pile of words I had at the end of November. So this week I formatted them, slapped together a cover, and sent the whole thing to CreateSpace to turn it into a book. I finished that process tonight, so in a couple of weeks I’ll open my mailbox and find a 122-page pile of words that may or may not fit together, but at least they’ll look like something real. It should be cool, and I’m hoping that reading through this book will finally get me working on this story that at one point I’m sure I thought could turn into something decent. I’ll probably post a picture of the book when it shows up, and maybe I’ll post one of the 2005 book as well. For now, here’s a quick look at the artwork I submitted for the cover:

And you know what the scary part is? With one simple click of a button, I could have this thing on sale at Amazon.com tomorrow. I won’t, because it’s a steaming pile of bad words right now. But I could. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

The thing is, now that I’ve spent all this time learning how to design and format a book, I feel like I should find something profitable to do with that knowledge. Hmmm, if only I had a backlog of material that could be slapped together into some kind of book. If I had something like that, like a bunch of emails and blog posts from the last 15 years, I could do something. If only.

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By Tgreen, April 14, 2010 10:28 pm

I’m late. Soooo late. But I’m on vacation, so it’s understandable. And expected. I knew I’d fall behind this week. I also knew this week would be the one to bounce me from this ridiculous idea completely. And I was okay with all this. I could live with all this, no problem. So why did I spend my few minutes of downtime today working on my script for the first time in nearly a week?

Because I foolishly let the characters get in my head, that’s why. I didn’t know if that would happen, since it’s never happened before when I’ve tried to write a screenplay. But this idea’s been cooking for a year or so, and maybe that’s the difference. Maybe that’s what’s keeping my interest higher than usual.

Basically where I find myself now is wrapping Act 1 and preparing to swing into Act 2, and even though it’s taking me a few pages more than I’d planned, the characters are starting to feel real to me. And I’m really gonna need that to happen if I’m gonna pull off that scene near the end of Act 3 that gets the audience up on its feet cheering. Or, sunk into it’s seat weeping. I don’t wanna let slip what goes on in this story just yet.

But I’m writing toward a particular scene, and if the characters are real to me I’ve got a better chance of actually getting there. And I’ve also got a better chance of writing a scene as good as the scene I’ve been thinking about the last few months. Because the stuff I think about writing almost always kicks the entire ass of what I actually write. Which is why I think about writing a lot more than I write.

And I figure, I’m writing a script. The point of a script is that it’s going to be performed somewhere. So even if I don’t hit the ball out of the park on this one, a halfway decent director and a couple of actors, along with the song the scene revolves around, could all make it work anyway. Unlike when I write a story, all of the pressure’s not on me.

Unfortunately, this deadline’s all me. I’m the only one who can get there, and if I don’t, that director and those actors will have to work on Transformers 3 or something, and I’m not sure I want to be held responsible for that. For now, back to my vacation. But when I get home, I’ve got a lot of writing to do. No wonder they call this thing a script frenzy.