The Blog Tour

You must know about this thing. Do you know about this thing? Okay, well there's this thing called the blog tour and it's been passed around from one blogging writer to another. Well from one writer to three others, actually (which kind of reminds me of the projections for how long it would take John Carpenter's The Thing to entirely infect the Earth's population). 

The idea is for writers to answer four questions about their work and habits. The man, the legend, Phill Barron was kind enough to nominate me for a turn - which puts me in pretty awesome company. Phill doesn't like John Carpenter's The Thing (I know!) but I don't hold that against him.

I'm sure you're already familiar with Phill's blog but if you aren't then check it out. His no bullshit perspective on writing and the filmmaking process is invaluable, and always a breath of fresh air. He's written a shedload of films what got made too.

So, on to the questions...

1) What am I working on? 

Um... Well, I've almost finished decorating my little boy's bedroom...

But seriously, without getting all self pitiful (been there, done that), I've struggled to keep a good work routine since my little boy was born. There's been a lot going on for us and it's hard to be in full time work with a family and still bash out the words if you get some free time. 

Yeah, I know. It's hard. Boo hoo. Anyway, he's a big lad of (nearly) four now and I've been determined that this year writing becomes a priority again. 

Trouble is I'm out of my preferred cycle and I don't really feel like I'm working on any one thing. There are a couple of spec scripts rotting in rewrite limbo which are in dire need of taking apart and fixing. One is a pilot which I love but fear I may have been sat on too long. The other is a horror feature set in Wales which (I think) has the potential to be awesome but is nowhere near there yet.

I'm brainstorming a couple of spec projects which I want to take to script in the next month or so. They're both in mediums I've not really tried before which is cool. I hope the clickety-clack frenzy of a draft zero will be the nitrous injection I need to kick my writing process back into gear. 

One is a radio comedy. I haven't written anything funny, (well, not deliberately funny) for years and (despite being a big fan of The Navy Lark, Hancock's Half Hour, Nebulous, Cabin Pressure, the works of Big Finish and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) I've never written anything for audio. Not ever. So I'm very bloody excited about that. I don't want to say anything about the other thing yet in case I break the magic, you know how fragile it can be. 

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre? 

I don't think I have "a" genre. I'll write just about anything, same as I will read, watch or listen to just about anything. I guess if I'd ever had great success in a genre that might have changed but, as it stands, so far so good!

So lets ignore the genre thing and just ask how does my work differ from others? Oh shit, let's not do that. That's even worse. 

As Ray Davies sang, "I'm not like everybody else". None of us are. What makes my work different is me. My experiences and perspectives. My hang ups and obsessions. My secrets and my fears.

And maybe an over-awareness of my place in the universe.

3) Why do I write what I do? 

To see if I can. To test myself. I don't like to stick to comfort zones in my work so if I'm choosing between ideas for a future project I'm more likely to go for the most difficult one because that's the experience that will teach me the most.

Does everyone do that?


4) How does my writing process work? 

First I find a successful writer, then I lure them to my stone altar... 

This feels a bit pretentious. My process is nothing special. It's a mixture of things I've read in "how to" books, the insights of other writers and what I've found works, or doesn't, for me personally.

Still, the question has been asked.

First there's The Idea. Unless I've just woken up one day and said something like "Hey, how come I never wrote a radio comedy?" in which case first, there's the format. Then, later, sometimes much later, there's The Idea. In either case The Idea will be hurriedly scribbled in Evernote or an actual physical notebook and left to it's own devices for a while. Some ideas don't get beyond this stage. Actually most ideas don't get beyond this stage but they're probably just rubbish. 

When an idea starts to actually look like a viable story then out comes the A4 notepad and I start brainstorming that sumbitch. At this point I'm most interested in the possibilities of the idea, whether it or something similar has been done before and whether it worked. Basically - is there any point writing this? If the idea were to explore the Cosa Nostra in New York City through the course of the twentieth century then I'm unlikely to think, "hey, I can do that better than The Godfather." Although, if there was an angle... 

Actually, I'm aware that a personal failing of mine is to be too ready to think my idea is similar to something that has been done. If I'm not careful I can let that kill an idea dead before I've really considered its potential. At the end of the day, especially with specs and Hollywood, no one else will care if it's been done before if it's good enough.  

After the storming of the brain comes a one pager. From there we go to some index cards or an electronic alternative. 

Once I know who's who and what's going to happen then I'll want get into Draft Zero when I should be nailing the treatment. This takes some self control. I'm not a meticulous planner by nature, I like to busk. I can be so eager to get started (this is the fun bit - I'm actually writing!) that I go off half-cocked. So it's about nailing the story without going off the boil. I don't know that I've perfected this. I mentioned those lumbering rewrites, didn't I?

Once that draft is done then it goes on ice for as long as possible (my one NaNoWriMo effort still hasn't been defrosted). 

I'll read it straight through first to see if it's any good and make sure it's not just a hundred pages of "I am a fish". If it's salvageable then I start making notes. Usually reading off the screen and making notes on an A4 pad. 

It's pretty much rinse and repeat after that until I start to feel I could stomach the thought of someone else reading it. The first reader is always my wife. She's an English teacher by profession and damned good at spotting issues, from typos to plot problems. She'll always have notes and then it's back to work I go. 

After a few more drafts, if I'm getting to be generally happy with the script, I'll start looking at specifics like dialogue only, sometimes looking at the dialogue of individual characters in isolation. Any dead pages? Any unnecessary characters or scenes? Are the action lines as sparse as Poundland on Boxing Day?  If it's a comedy I'll count and categorise the laughs. 

Alright, that's enough of that. This is all pretty obvious, isn't it? You'd be far better off reading what Phill or Piers wrote for this anyway.

Now it's time for my taggees. I'll let them introduce themselves...  

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Lucy V. Hay is a novelist, script editor, screenwriter and blogger who helps writers via her Bang2write consultancy at www.bang2write.com. Lucy’s script editing credits include the British Thrillers ASSASSIN , DEVIATION and ACT OF GRACE and she is the author of WRITING AND SELLING THRILLER SCREENPLAYS and THE DECISION: LIZZIE'S STORY. A trained teacher, Lucy is Head Reader for The London Screenwriters' Festival's screenwriting competitions and schemes. As a script reader, Lucy has worked for funding initiatives and screen agencies, as well as literary agents and individual producers, directors and writers, new to professional. Lucy can be found on Twitter (www.twitter.com/Bang2write), plus her writing group “Bang2writers” is on Facebook (www.facebook.com/bang2writers) and at LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Bang2writers-4650546.

Bang2Write

www.bang2write.com

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Lucy doesn't like John Carpenter's The Thing.

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Rachael Howard introduces herself as follows: 

Only 75 words? Cripes. Well I’ve been writing since I could hold a crayon. Early success in a class Limerick competition gave me a boost, I won a pen so binned the crayon. I’m not a guru, just another writer pottering away. I tackle Film, TV, Radio, Stage and Novels. Some have been wrestled into submission, some are fighting on. Feel free to pop by and say hello at @rachwrite or my blog.

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I don't know where Rach stands on John Carpenter's The Thing.

Check out Lucy and Rachael's blogs next Monday for the next stops on The Blog Tour. 

Stickler OUT!

Resolution

Happy New Year!

I've been wanting to blog for a while now. I've rather fallen out of love with Twitter, I don't know why really, and I guess I've been missing the experience of venting my brain into cyberspace. I still think Twitter is A Good Thing, and really important, but I've been struggling to get back into tweeting, or even reading tweets. 

And anyway it's time the blog got some love. I miss that old blog camaraderie. So few people seem to comment on blogs now. It would be really cool to have some interaction on the here so if you read something you like, or something you hate, or whatever, then drop a comment please and we'll pass the time o'day. 

I'm going to aim to spew up a new post at least once a week. Might be about writing, or telly, or what I had for breakfast (cheese on toast). I really just want to get into a routine. It's a part of a 2014 relaunch strategy I've come up with because it's not just the blog that's been idle for a year. 

I've quite unintentionally taken a little over a year off from writing. I didn't want or mean to but there have been so many things going on in our lives that I've found it impossible to get any coherent work done. There was half a short story in February. Some script pitch busking in the last few months. Otherwise nowt.

So what were the distractions? Many and varied. Minor health issues, commitments, dayjob stuff, poor time management, moving house, and sometimes (for me at least) I think the less free time you have the less effectively you use it. I didn't find time to write but I have managed to complete sixty odd percent of GTA V. *ashamed face*

As a result of this lack of material I'm even missing Red Planet cos I have nothing ready that they've not already seen. That's a wake up call. I bloody love Red Planet. (in the wildly unlikely event that you don't know what I'm on about then go here or listen to this (you still have six days to enter your first ten pages)). 

Anyway, phase one (or January) of my 2014 Relaunch plan involves me coming out of the month having sat at my desk and worked at least three times every week. A modest ambition, surely? I'll keep you posted. 

Has anyone else got a January target they'd like to share with both my readers?

Orbiting the Red Planet

I'm through to the second round of the Red Planet Prize!

What a great surprise it was when the email came, just as I was queueing to pay for a falafel and houmous wrap in Tesco!

This is the third time I've entered the Red Planet Prize, the second with that script, and I'm absolutely over the moon to get to round two for the first time.

Congratulations and good luck to everyone who got through to round two. If you didn't get through this time then don't give up, have a read of these posts...

Jason Arnopp - Your Script Is Not A Lottery Ticket

Phill Barron - Ivory Tower

Script Punk - Red Planet Prize - What's Next?

I'd better get back to work!

The Road to the Red Planet

This update is late, sorry. I meant to do a 'What did I learn from NaNoWriMo' type post last week but time has rather got away from me. I will try and do something like that soon but in the meantime I'll just say that it was a really good exercise, got me in to a nice (if intense) routine and I'm happy to have met the traditional target. I hoped initially to write 60k words rather than 50k, and on learning of the Heartlands opportunity I amended this to trying to finish a week early, but due to a family emergency type situation I lost a few days and failed both of those self-imposed targets.

Although it was fun to write I can't see me ever going back to revise the book. It will require a lot of work to make it into a sellable, or even readable, manuscript and the potential for the market is teeny-tiny. Still, the exercise was the important thing. I didn't really set out to create something sellable, just to test myself. On the other hand I could see myself harvesting the plot for a feature script one day...

I definitely want to write another novel, whether I will leave that until next November or get underway sooner I don't know. Having shown myself that hey, I can do this! I think I would like to set a more demanding wordcount target for a fully prepared novel intended for publication.

No sooner had I wandered, dazed and confused, over the NaNoWriMo finish line I was thrown head first into revisiting a bottom(top?)-draw script which I felt was the most appropriate thing I had to enter into the BBC's excellent Heartlands opportunity. It's kind of funny really as I have never known quite what to do with that script but it seemed perfect for Heartlands, or that's my feeling. Fingers crossed they have a similar view at the Beeb. In any case I had a day or two to work that up and send it in. It was pretty rushed but hopefully I managed to make it shine. I genuinely like the script. Actually, while rereading it, I laughed out loud at a couple of lines. I hope that's a sign that the script is good and not a sign that I've lost all perspective on my own work!

The Heartlands shortlist will be announced on Tuesday. Good luck to all.

So now it's all about the Red Planet Prize again. This time I'm going to write something from scratch, specifically for Red Planet. In previous years I've sent in what I thought was my most suitable existing script (as you may remember they passed on what is still my favourite effort last time, sadface). I don't suppose it really makes any difference but I have some superstitious idea that it will infuse each word with extra special Red Planet-ness that will make it a winner, fingers crossed.

Obviously I won't say too much about the script, mainly because I'm not commited yet, I'm still kicking around a couple of ideas, but I'm very excited about writing a new script.

The Red Planet deadline is January 16th.

It's the Final Countdown

Greetings Carbon-based units,

It doesn't look likely that I'll meet my self-imposed target of finishing the novel today. It's a bit of a cliché but real life has caught up with me in a sudden and upsetting way this week which meant that work ground to a halt Wednesday and Thursday.

I guess there's a chance that I might write the last 9,000 or so words tonight but as I will be away from home for at least part of the weekend it's far more likely that I will finish early next week. There is still plenty of time before the official deadline of November 30th, after all. I was hoping to be able to concentrate exclusively on my Heartlands entry all next week but I do have a couple of days booked off from the day job for that purpose so I'm sure I will still be able to catch up.

If this were a film then we'd be at the part where you keep cutting between the clicking countdown and our hero's herculean efforts to beat it...

New Writing Talent Search: Heartlands

BBC Writersroom have joined up with the nice folk who make Doctors to develop an exciting opportunity for Midlands-based writers.

Heartlands will provide an industry training and development opportunity for writers with some of the most experienced producers in the country. A shortlist will be invited to a masterclass day. Selected writers will then be chosen to take part in an intensive three-day mini-academy for Doctors, and/or
receive mentoring on their original script from an established writer.

On Monday evening I went along to the launch event at Birmingham Library Theatre.

Will Trotter (BBC Executive Producer, Drama Series) Peter Lloyd (Senior Producer, Doctors) and Paul Ashton (Development Producer, BBC Writersroom) were there to officially launch the search, to talk about BBC One drama, Doctors, and to answer questions.

The main focus of the Q&A was on Doctors, as you would expect, but Paul Ashton did cover the Writersroom unsolicited script process and speak a little about television drama, both in the region and nationally, in the current economic climate.

I came away feeling really excited about the opportunity, but also about Writersroom in general. I think in the past I've thought of Writersroom as a big impersonal mechanical process, but having heard Paul Ashton speaking about it I can see that it really isn't, and of course it wouldn't work if it was.

All in all a brilliant opportunity and I will definitely be entering. The deadline is 9am on December 2nd so no time to waste.

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The NaNoWriMo novel is still chuffing along. Had a very bad time of it last week, so much so that I ended up feeling that the week might have been more productive if I'd just headbutted a wall every night for five days while chanting “NA-NO-WRI-MO-NA-NO-WRI-MO”.

This week I finally seem to be settling back into the groove and I'm now relatively happy with how it's going. Again.

I've found myself recalling the anecdote about Douglas Adams being locked in a hotel suite until he finished So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish quite a lot lately. I think I've found some strength in his example this week and it's helped me pick myself up. I'm also rereading Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency as a small tribute to him and a treat for me.

Support has also been provided by that lovely Neil Gaiman, who linked to this on twitter and cheered me right up. There can't be all that many professions where the news that it doesn’t get any easier can be encouraging.

Something else that I've been reminded of - years ago James Moran mentioned in a blog post that while you might say you don't have time to write, you still find time to watch television every night, or read a book (I can't find the link sorry, so just go and read his Big Writing FAQ again instead). I feel like the living embodiment of this point, having hardly looked at a television or seen my ever supportive wife all month. On the other hand I've written about 26,000 words of prose. It's amazing what you can do when you try, eh?

Due to the Heartlands deadline, and with a heavy heart, I've decided to abandon my secret target word count of 65,000 words. My new ambition is to finish (hit 50k) by November 25th to give me a full week to work on my Heartlands entry. A full week, you scoff. Yes, a full week. Luckily I have just the draft zero script for this competition sitting in a draw. I've been meaning to do something with it for ages but now the opportunity has come knocking it's time to make it shine.

Exciting!

Set Course for the Red Planet!

How curious, here was I just throwing together a post about my progress with NaNoWriMo so far and what I might do next month when BOOM! Scribosphere superstar guru Danny Stack throws down something more exciting to blog about.

Yes, it's that time again - Red Planet Prize 2011/2012

I'll let the man himself fill you in...

It's the best screenwriting competition in the world. Here's why:

- FREE to enter.

- A truly amazing prize: £5k, a script commission and an agent (if you don't already have one).

- Lots of opportunities and mentorship for the finalists.- Robert Thorogood, a finalist in the inaugural 2007 competition, developed his new BBC series 'Death in Paradise' via the Red Planet Prize.

- Many other finalists have launched their careers through the scheme and have worked, or are working, on other shows.

- Quite simply, it's a screenwriting competition by writers for writers.

Here's how it works:

- Submit the 1st ten pages of a 60-minute pilot or one-off 60-minute TV script. Any genre you want. A 100 word synopsis and a 16 word maximum logline is also required.

- If we like your first ten pages, we invite you to submit the entire script.

- A shortlist is compiled. A winner is chosen from an esteemed line-up of judges.

Full details and how to enter can be found on the website. And/or click here to read how and why the competition started.
THE DEADLINE IS 16TH JANUARY 2012.

Plenty of time to think of a new idea, polish the first ten pages to an inch of their life, AND have the entire script finished in case it gets chosen for the second round.

GET WRITING!

I'll be entering, of course, and so should you. It really is the best screenwriting competition out there.

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NaNoWriMo week one has gone pretty well. Hopefully you can see that wee progress bar filling up daily over on the right there. I'm now a quarter of the way to the 50,000 word official target, although I've actually set myself a more challenging target of 65,000 words. I've been pleased with the amount I've been producing. I do have concerns about the quality of the work but hey, that's what Draft Zero is all about.

Most of all I'm just pleased that I'm sitting at my desk every day and bashing out around 2,000 words. It's a long time since I've had a good spell like this and it really feels like a new start.

Even though I'm not accepting an award or anything, I'd like to thank my lovely wife (who is blogless but can usually be found on twitter) for all her support. She's always been enthusiastic about my writing but I'm sure I wouldn't have thrown myself into NaNoWriMo so wholeheartedly if it hadn't been for her encouragement.

I was only thinking this morning that come December, in the post NaNoWriMo glow, I might bash out a first draft on a feature idea I've had knocking around for a few months. Hear the sound of smashing window panes? Now I'll be working on a new TV script for the Red Planet prize - how exciting!

A Novel Idea

Where was I?

Oh yeah. So three weeks tomorrow marks the beginning of NaNoWriMo.

I mentioned this back in May when I revealed that I would be writing a novel in November, though I had no idea what it would be about.

I've been kicking around ideas ever since then. I came up with three possibilities. One quite heavy idea, which seemed like it would be a complex, if rewarding, story to tell. One which was a lighter, more humorous supernatural/detective sort of affair. The final idea is basically my very own pulp novel - A genre mashing thriller with no purpose other than helping me to produce at least fifty thousand words and be a NaNoWriMo winner.

It may seem daft to set out to write something that you think is probably unsellable, but I feel I have the best chance of completing this exercise if it's a fun, relatively straight-forward piece. I can start getting clever and stretching my technique with my second novel, all I want right now is to finish book one.

I'm excited. I've been concentrating on scriptwriting for so long I can't really remember the last prose story I wrote. I feel pretty rusty.

Also, this hasn't been the most productive year for me and I want to use NaNoWriMo to kick start my routine so I can get back down to scripting with some energy.

I may also start blogging more often. I miss blogging and I miss the community of screenwriting blogs we had a few years ago. I love Twitter but it has definitely thrived at the expense of the ol' blog. It's a lot easier to chuck a couple of thoughts straight on to Twitter than it is to develop them into a full post. Even a rambling aimless one like this. Must try harder.

I hope to keep you posted throughout NaNoWriMo but it will depend how I get on. Otherwise you should be able to follow my progress here, if you have a mind to.

Cross a finger for me why dontcha?

Feed The Birds

Evenin' squires,

Waaaay back in the dim and distant past, last February, that splendid fellow Piers set up a new screenwriting forum, to serve as a sort of UK version of The Artful Writer and Wordplay.

He called it Feed the Birds (no idea, ask him), and many of us twittering, blogging, screeching screenwriters signed up straight away and got electronic-chin-wagging. It was all very exciting.

Since then it's gotten a little quiet, so we thought we'd have a bit of a promotion and try and draw in some fresh blood.

As The Webmaster has said over at his gaff, it's a great place to ask questions, share knowledge and discuss writing (or not writing) with a community of like minded folk. Or to lark about when you should be getting on with some real work. You could even use it to make contacts and promote your work.

Why not check it out? I hope to see you there.

Feed The Birds

Elmore Leonard's Ten Rules of Writing

Came across this article the other day. It's ten years old now but may be worth revisiting. Much wisdom from one of America's most prolific, and most adapted, writers of fiction...

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Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle

from the New York Times, Writers on Writing Series.

By ELMORE LEONARD

These are rules I’ve picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I’m writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what’s taking place in the story. If you have a facility for language and imagery and the sound of your voice pleases you, invisibility is not what you are after, and you can skip the rules. Still, you might look them over.

1. Never open a book with weather. If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want.

2. Avoid prologues.

They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in nonfiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want.

There is a prologue in John Steinbeck’s “Sweet Thursday,” but it’s O.K. because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: “I like a lot of talk in a book and I don’t like to have nobody tell me what the guy that’s talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks. . . . figure out what the guy’s thinking from what he says. I like some description but not too much of that. . . . Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. . . . Spin up some pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language. That’s nice. But I wish it was set aside so I don’t have to read it. I don’t want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story.”

3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.

The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with “she asseverated,” and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.

4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said” . . .

. . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances “full of rape and adverbs.”

5. Keep your exclamation points under control.

You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.

6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”

This rule doesn’t require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use “suddenly” tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.

7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.

Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won’t be able to stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavor of Wyoming voices in her book of short stories “Close Range.”

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

Which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” what do the “American and the girl with him” look like? “She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.” That’s the only reference to a physical description in the story, and yet we see the couple and know them by their tones of voice, with not one adverb in sight.

9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.

Unless you’re Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even if you’re good at it, you don’t want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.

And finally:

10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he’s writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character’s head, and the reader either knows what the guy’s thinking or doesn’t care. I’ll bet you don’t skip dialogue.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative. It’s my attempt to remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing. (Joseph Conrad said something about words getting in the way of what you want to say.)

If I write in scenes and always from the point of view of a particular character—the one whose view best brings the scene to life—I’m able to concentrate on the voices of the characters telling you who they are and how they feel about what they see and what’s going on, and I’m nowhere in sight.

What Steinbeck did in “Sweet Thursday” was title his chapters as an indication, though obscure, of what they cover. “Whom the Gods Love They Drive Nuts” is one, “Lousy Wednesday” another. The third chapter is titled “Hooptedoodle 1” and the 38th chapter “Hooptedoodle 2” as warnings to the reader, as if Steinbeck is saying: “Here’s where you’ll see me taking flights of fancy with my writing, and it won’t get in the way of the story. Skip them if you want.”

“Sweet Thursday” came out in 1954, when I was just beginning to be published, and I’ve never forgotten that prologue.

Did I read the hooptedoodle chapters? Every word.

Elmore Leonard's Official Website

NaNoWriMo 2011

So I'm writing a novel.

Not yet. In November. Don't ask me what it will be about, or for any details other than how long it will be and when it will be finished. It will be at least fifty thousand words and it will be finished by November 30th.

I have, like many others before me, decided to take advantage of NaNoWriMo, the annual event where thousands of people set out to write a novel in thirty days.

I've started to write a novel twice before (see left for my first effort, circa '92 (I still may go back to this one day (this will never happen))), but that was in the old days, before I knew about structure, and planning, and... writing a novel.

Having focused exclusively on scriptwriting for a good five years now I've been feeling like trying something different. I love the extra motivation provided by i)having an external deadline, ii) having a community of people on hand who are all trying to meet the same deadline, and iii) having quacked on to anyone who'll listen (or not) that you're going to have written a novel by the end of November.

My head is spinning with the possibilities as far as picking an actual story go. I have had an idea for a novel knocking around for some years, but I fear it may now seem a bit like a British Dexter, and I never know whether an association like that works for or against you. Could adapt one of my script ideas, but not every story wants to be a novel. Plus it would certainly be more fun to come up with something brand new just for this exercise. New is always better, after all.

Anyway, if you fancy a challenge or have nothing planned for November why not check out the NaNoWriMo website, you might decide to churn out a novel of your own. Otherwise please do feel free to bother, cajole or even support me as I produce my magnificent octopus. You can find my NaNoWriMo profile here, but there's not much going on just yet.

In the meantime, I'd better get planning, there's only one hundred and seventy-three days and four and a half hours to go till the starting gun.

Wicked.

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EDIT - This post restored from Scribomatic folowing the great Blogger outage of 12th May 2011.

x of the Best

So I was hunting high and low for an awesome blog post I remembered reading and I suddenly thought, "Say," (I always think with Humphrey Bogart's voice*) "I oughta publish a list of swell blog posts."

This is it. It is in no particular order. Eat these posts and absorb their power.

EDIT: Greetings from the shining future world of 2011.

Screenwriter extraordinary James Moran has just posted a list which smashes this one to tiny blog pieces. I think there are some links below that don't appear in Uncle Jimbo's list, but you should still definitely check his out first!

James Moran - Free writing seminar blog post in a box

Thank you, people of the distant past. Edit ends.

Phill Barron - It's not fair

Danny Stack - Professional Screenwriter (This is a link to step 1 - read all ten.)

Lisa Holdsworth - Welcome To Real Writing

James Moran - The Big Writing FAQ (Uncle Jimbo's blog is solid gold reading for struggling writers, especially the early years.)

Michelle Lipton - The Path of the Freelance Writer

Jason Arnopp - Your script is not a lottery ticket

Piers Beckley - The other writing secrets

James Moran - Writer's Block, or "getting stuck"

Michelle Lipton - Structure

Jason Arnopp - Five lines henceforth banned from scripts (Especially the comments!)

Hope this list is of some use to someone. I'll add to it as and when I find/remember something cool. Any suggestions are welcome.

* I wish this were true. Instead I'm stuck with Marvin the Paranoid Android.