Sunday, August 28, 2011

Writing Plan

So I have been told that one should write to a particular reader....in this case, I think it should be the person who has still been following this blog...I speak, of course, to you MetaBlogStats.....whatever the hell you are. Unless, of course, one's ideal reader is one's self, but somehow that seems...masturbatory or something...

So where was I? So, the writing....I am nearly 40, so I figure that the amount of time its going to take me to not write Vogon Poetry/Michael Bay level soul melting (not in a good way) prose is probably 2-3 years. I mean, when you have to second guess yourself every paragraph as to whether or not you suck, I really think you shouldn't be sending things to editors...

But time waits for no man, so I'm going to be focusing on poetry which is according to others between average and somewhat actually good, which makes the improving into "making me money and renown so I can conqueror the world" level talent more likely. So I'm going to be working on I, Fenris for Jan....

I'm also going to begin working on the script for Unfood, whilst still reading books and working on the Writer Jail product. So far I have type 3000 out of 5000 non sucky prose.

We'll see as things go from there :)

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Writer Jail

So the same mechanism that I've been using to progress my production of crap, is also usable to measure my skill improvement. Specifically, one of the tangible suggestions from the Crushing was typing out the words from decent non sucktacular stories. So instead of producing more gallons of crap, I can just type 1000 words a day from stories that aren't. Right now I'm using the Hugo package. In the interest of being kind to myself, I'm giving myself a reboot.

1000.

I need to do 1000 more today.

There is a small chance out of jail early, I'm rewriting Unfood a third time trying to use merely the things they pointed out, though I'm writing it from scratch. It looks pretty good, but then again so did the second version (also written from scratch.) I may not be able to detect crap.

Oh and if this seems negative, its because I like to be able to record the truth and thanks to the lovely stat counter, I know that no one but a blog counting bot actually pays attention to this, so I don't have to conveniently leave some things out like I do on my family blog. :)

Truth for posterity that won't give a shit and all that. :)

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Go to Jail. Do Not Pass Go.

So, word count doesn't matter much if you're producing reams and reams of crap. Better 10 words that actually matter than 10000 that don't.

I'd noticed the phenomena before, but thought it was what I was largely writing ABOUT not the way I was writing or thought I just needed to spell check or grammar check more (I still do) but the reason I wear through readers like you might wear down teeth is because I suck. :) Yes. I said it, I'm an awful writer, especially given how long I've been doing this.

Bradbury said that it took a million words before you became a professional, and here I am at probably what...700000 and I bore people to tears?

Well I'm not giving it up but its back to basics first, writing in a way people find more comprehensible.

I'll keep this up but it will likely be boring for a while, grammar and such. I am going to rewrite Unfood because the idea is too good to let linger, but it will likely be more 'Oops, they rejected it.'

Might start putting rejection letters here though, that might be amusing to look back at if I ever do write something non-abominable...:)

Sunday, August 14, 2011

The Sunday Slot

So originally I was thinking that they had given me the Sunday morning slot in the writer's track because I had asked for a slot open because of the movie that Jay and I submitted. Then I thought it might be a 'save the best for last' type of thing. Now I think it is so that they can politely say, "You suck" or at least, "Your story sucks" without awkwardly having to run into me for the rest of the con....

We'll see, but in retrospect it makes sense.

Ah well. If such is the case do I keep writing? Yeah sure, but whatever feeble delusions I have of trying to sell it go out the window...

Thursday, August 11, 2011

In the Black, finally

Juice: 268
Blogs: 7083
Telesmirk: 1002 (2602)
Catgirl: 2982 (6000)
Unfood Script: 317
Diamonds: 1000
Dark Metal Descriptions: 500
Dark Metal Scene: 1000
(Parenthesis represents new total including this week)

Total: 14152 (44583)
(Parenthesis represent words this week and words total written)

Word Surplus: 2583

Too much of this was from blogs. Blogs are nice, but blogs are (probably) not going to further my career as a writer. Still Catgirl is looking solid. Nobody might buy it given the subject matter (I mean...a Catgirl in Boots...really?) but it sfun. Telesmirk is...getting there. Its about half way. Juice looks @$#@#$ amazing.

Unfood script looks solid but I'm on the first wave and it might be too long. Short film ideally needs to be 10 minutes to be competitive, and its a good plot, but we'll see.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Writing Progress

Catgirl: 1201 (3018)
Telesmirk: 1535 (1600)
Santa Vampire: 839 (4702)
Blogs: 4299

Total: 7874 (22557)

Word Debt: 2500

This is an approximation because I think I counted the eagle as phoenix blog twice but to be sure I'm averaging the average post length out. Good writing amount and glad I'm doing the blogs but not enough progress on the stories. Also starting a script tomorrow. Both stories are coming a long well but tomorrow I'm starting two new stories and the Unfood script.