Tag: NaNoWriMo

Calling All You Writing Freaks

On By C. L. BlackeIn Craft WorkLeave a comment

 

Halloween is by far the scariest time of the year. Not just because it is the one night when the veil between the worlds is opened allowing spirits, ghosts, and succubi to cross over into our realm or because gangs of teenagers run amuck through the streets toilet papering trees, waxing windows, and smashing pumpkins. Halloween is scary because it falls on the eve of NaNoWriMo. Yes, that dreaded month when every writer willingly surrenders himself into the depths of hell and participates in self-flagellation in the name of writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

So I thought Halloween would be a great time to prepare yourself for the month to come. All you have to do is write for one hour at some point on October 31. It doesn’t matter what you write because the best part about this is that your writing can put on a costume and pretend to be whatever it wants for those 60 minutes. If it turns out to be just a character sketch, or backstory, or even a few lines of dialog, it’s okay! It’s come as you aren’t night. So don’t get all self-critical or go all hyper-editor on yourself. Just have fun! Because the next 30 days are going to be anything but.

In case you need a few suggestions to get you started, here they are: (and they’re all conveniently Halloween related)

1. Find an eerie image or a piece of haunting music to inspire you 

2. Write about what monster scared you the most as a child (or as a grown adult): vampire, Frankenstein, mummies, zombies, mad scientists, ghosts, witches, etc.

3. Write about what the town children would do if Halloween was canceled because of a freak weather anomaly

4. Pick your favorite Halloween costume from childhood. What was it? Why? Now write about what kind of life you as that “person” would have lived.

5. You’re getting your fortune told at a fair when the psychic tactfully informs you that you are already dead.

6. You foolishly accept a dare to spend the night in a cemetery/haunted house/abandoned prison/insane asylum/whatever.

7. You arrive at your friend’s Halloween party when one of the guests turns up dead.

 

 

Come on guys, it’s just one hour. Let go of your old habits and have fun with this. You never know where your next great idea will come from.

Enter this Halloween challenge…if you dare! Muwahahahaha.

Priorities, people!

On By C. L. BlackeIn Craft WorkLeave a comment

I am a deadline fiend. Give me a date and a time when I need to have something done by, and I will do whatever it takes–stay up late, skip school, call out of work, etc.

In grad school, I thrived on deadlines. As part of a low-residency program, the creative writing degree required four submissions per semester via email to our mentors. Each submission consisted of two craft annotations, revisions from the previous month’s work, 30 pages of new material, and a cover letter detailing our experience. On top of that, we had to read between four-to-six books per month directly related to the genre we were working in or on the craft of writing books.

For the first two weeks of the month, I worked full-time, read all my books, and wrote my two papers. For the last two weeks, I took Fridays off from work and spent the entire weekends writing. On Fridays I would write from about 10:00 AM until 2:00 AM. Saturdays were the same except I would break from about 9:00 PM to 12:00 or 1:00 AM to play video games with my friend then back to writing until I fell asleep. Sundays I wrote from about 10:00 AM (or whenever I woke up) until 9:00 PM. I tried to write about one and a half chapters or roughly 15 pages per weekend. I got less done on Fridays because I always reread my manuscript from the beginning to get into the character, mood, feel, voice, etc.

The reason I excelled at this type of deadline was not just because I was getting something out of it (a terminal degree) but I didn’t want to let my mentors down either.

I have since tried to make my own deadlines to finish this novel or that screenplay, but I have never been able to enforce them or meet them. I blame it on my lack of priorities. I can sit at the computer and level my World of Warcraft toon until I use up all my rested XP or I hit the next level, but I can’t just sit at my computer and finish what I say I’m going to by my deadline. I guess I’m just not tough enough on myself.

Recently, it’s come to my attention that I am missing two opportunities to send my manuscript out to different publishers during their open submissions this month and missing an opportunity to enter a screenwriting contest with one of the prizes being a reading with Robert McKee. And it’s all because I failed to meet those self-imposed deadlines over the past few years. Oh, I get stuff done; it just takes forever.

Well you know what? I don’t have forever. I don’t want to miss anymore of those open submission calls. I’m sick of being a loser. I want a backlog of  manuscripts/screenplays ready to send out a moment’s notice. I mean, really, is this so hard?

(And don’t even get me started trying to complete NaNoWriMo or ScriptFrenzy. They happen in the two busiest months for me school-wise.)

I’ve decided what I need is to not call it a deadline. Because seriously, no one’s going to fail me if I don’t finish by a certain date. My “goal” is to finish revising/rewriting a specific manuscript by the end of the year (where have I heard that one before?).  And the reason why I think it might be doable this time is because I have a list of priorities.

The story needs some help not only with plot but with character. I also want to change from first-person, present tense narration to third-person, past tense narration. That will require one set of revisions. At the same time I’m going to focus on sentence variety (simple, compound, complex, compound-complex) and beginning sentences with more than just a noun, pronoun, or article.

Secondly, I’m going to do a major rewrite because my protagonist seems to have come down with multiple personality disorder. (I blame the photo I found for inspiration). I’m hoping this will lead the story to a plot more in line with my original vision.

And lastly, I’m going to tackle the first chapter. I’ve never really liked it and I think it’s because I’m not happy with the protagonist, so hopefully that by starting my revisions/rewrites after it, I won’t get frustrated and give up before page 10.

Pre ScriptFrenzy Frenzy

On By C. L. BlackeIn ScreenwritingLeave a comment

If you’ve ever tried to write a 90 page script or a 50,000 word novel from conception to completion in 30 days, you’re just as crazy as me. What I’ve found from multiple attempts is that it can’t be done. At least, not with anything worth a damn at the end of the month. I’ve read different blogs and posts by participants that all say the same thing: they went off on tangents just to hit the word count. They wrote characters who had no purpose, they wrote plots that led nowhere, and they often wrote a mess that was not even rewritable let alone revisable when they were done because they did not want to fail.

What is the purpose of this? Isn’t the point of writing to express yourself in some way? And hopefully to become published? Do we really have time to write a bunch of crap that is basically useless and would take way more effort to fix than to just spend quality time writing quality prose? Granted the allure of finishing a feature-length screenplay or a novel is enticing especially if, like me, it takes you years to complete one, but I find ScriptFrenzy and NaNoWriMo incredibly stressful. I blame that on poor planning. (Plus the fact that I always start late anyway.)

Last year, I tried to participate in ScriptFrenzy by writing a screenplay I had conceived of at age 11. The only problem was, I had tons of research to do for it because obviously it had changed in concept in some ways, and I labored over the opening scene for about three weeks until I decided that it just wasn’t gonna happen.  Had I taken the time to get all of my pre-writing done ahead of time, I might have had a better shot.

Likewise, I tried my hand at NaNoWriMo one year. I’m used to writing novels, so I didn’t think it would be that bad. And although I tend to write without a whole lot of focus, I do spend much of my time editing as I write, which does not work well with time constraints. It could take me an entire weekend to write one chapter of 7-10 pages. But it’s a damn good chapter.

So the advent of 2012’s ScriptFrenzy is almost upon us. (It starts on April 1st in case you’re wondering.) And I vow to complete a screenplay based on my WoW character’s secret life. (If you’re interested in what this entails, follow my blog at www.rumertales.wordpress.com) But in order to complete this insane quest, I’m going to spend the month of March doing all my pre-writing exercises. And I’m going to share them with you, so you too can succeed at ScriptFrenzy.

I know what you’re thinking. “Why should I take advice from this nobody? She can’t even finish a screenplay in 30 days?” Well, I’ll tell you. I am somewhat adept at the art of screenwriting. I’ve studied it at UCLA and I’ve taught Introduction to Screenwriting courses at Westfield State University. I even presented my Capstone seminar on screenwriting.

So there you have it. I’m an expert and you should listen to me.

For the next four weeks, I’ll be posting a series of exercises meant to focus your ideas into a cohesive and fluid storyline. You’ll learn how to write a premise and create a beat sheet, how to create characters and scenes, and how to structure your story using the ten elements of screenwriting.

And if you don’t want to listen to me, you should listen to this guy: Robert McKee, screenwriting guru and author of Story. http://www.mckeestore.com/Robert-McKees-book-STORY_p_11.html

I can’t promise anything, but if you join me, you might just finish that script after all!

It’s a Major Award

On By C. L. BlackeIn Randomness2 Comments

Recently, my very good friend, K, known to the poetry and blogging community as C. L. Sostarich (found at http://clsostarich.wordpress.com/), awarded me with a Versatile Blogger Award. When I was first notified of it, I figured she’d stolen crack from our hunter and started smoking it.  I mean, I’m the least versatile blogger.

Once given this major award, I’m supposed to tell the world seven things about myself that I think people need or want to know about me. Following that, I’m supposed to pass on the Versatile Blogger Award to 15 (Yikes!) more bloggers. I see this is going to take an extended period of time.

Seven things about me people could care less about…

1. I am the worst blogger in the world. I write sporadically and pretty much about the same thing–the trials and tribulations of being a writer. I started my blog as more of a personal online diary–I didn’t care if anyone was going to read it so long as my words were floating around cyberspace. On top of that, I rarely have time to read other blogs; hence, my list of “followed” and “following” blogs is minute.

2. I wholeheartedly believe in reincarnation. Humans have inhabited the planet for roughly 200,000 years. What makes anyone think that living 80, 90, or even 100 years is enough time to learn and practice the universal lessons needed to reach “heaven?” What happens when people die from mistakes like texting while driving or overdosing on heroin? That’s it? You don’t get a second chance? Sorry, but Hell has no more vacancies then.

3. I am neither a scholar (despite the many lettered degrees after my name), nor a literary snob. I think I’ve only read about five of the Top 100 Books of all Time. And no, none of them were Harry Potter.

4. I am essentially lazy. That is not to say I am not a hard-worker, but usually when I try new things, they come fairly easy to me. And if they don’t, then I tend to re-prioritize my goals. I don’t quit things; I put them off until I can concentrate on them more.

5. I like adjectives and adverbs, and I don’t care if Stephen King hates me for it. In my real writing (as in not this blog), I make concerted effort not to use them. Most of the time.

6. My ratio of loved to lost is 1:1. Or is it 50:50? I’m a writer not a mathematician. (See #3.) Once you make it into my heart (and that is a feat in itself) and I consider you my friend, you are there forever. You can ditch me, ignore me, hurt me, whatever, but I will still care for you forever.

7. Oh, god, when is this going to end? (See #4.)

There will be a test on these seven items, so study up.

As for 15 bloggers I’m supposed to give this major award to: see #1. I’m pretty sure the whole premise of this stipulation is to increase traffic, but most of these have been Freshly Pressed, so I hardly doubt they need the few referrals I can provide.

Nonethless, here are some of the blogs I follow just because they had something interesting to say:

http://acgatesblog.wordpress.com/  NaNoWriMo fiend.

http://suehealy.org/ Everything a writer needs to know. (Don’t tell her about my affection for adjectives and adverbs.)

http://peasandcougars.com/ Remember the MTV show Daria? Humor just like that. Gotta love it.

http://girlonthecontrary.com/ She’s on the contrary, and I am so unladylike how can I not read it?

http://catlas.wordpress.com/ I don’t know how one can remain so positive and full of good energy, but she does.

Failure

On By C. L. BlackeIn Craft WorkLeave a comment

Script Frenzy is out.  Day 26 and I have four pages.  (Does one of them count when it’s the title page?)

It’s not procrastination this time (I worked on it plenty and have brightly colored post-it notes and index ccards pinned to a bulletin board to prove it); I blame poor planning and a late arrival.  Maybe some people can do it all in 30 days, but I think to effectively complete a screenplay or a novel in 30 days, you must have it mapped out ahead of time.  And I don’t just mean the character work, the motivations, the external goal, internal need, blah blah blah.  The story needs to be fully realized in your head or better yet on paper unless you want to spend a month writing incoherent scenes that have nothing to do with each other by page 100.  I don’t want to spend the whole challenge frustrated by tyring to find my story.  I want to write it.

The thing that stumped me the most was the beginning.  Well, what else could it have been if I only wrote three pages?  My Theatre Arts professor, who directed all the program’s plays, told me that often the opening scene didn’t come to him until sometime deep within rehearsals.  Granted, he already had the words in front of him, but I understand what he meant.

En Medias Res is always a tried and true method.  I think I was trying to focus more on the visual aspects of how the story would look onscreen rather than concentrate on the story itself.  Not to mention, I had no motivation for the sorceress Ilaria to abduct the young male gypsy (who coincidentally looked like a young Johnny Depp) in the opening.  Whatever I thought was her motivation had turned out not to be the case, and the opening scenes I had written were just blocking me from moving forward.  They were bridgeless.

And even though I’m a complete failure at Script Frenzy 2011, I managed to use the time to concoct a story and a plan for writing it where ideas can flow unheeded by deep chasms of crap.