A tale of two word wars.

In my last blog entry, posted one week ago, I mentioned I wrote three thousand words in the span of a couple of hours. Looking back, I find the tone of the post optimistic and upbeat, and why not? At that point, I had been consistently writing every day, and July 1st in particular was a good one, since I participated in a so-called "word war" with a group of amicable strangers. We were only warring against ourselves and chatting, and it was a general good time.

Yesterday, I participated in another word war and got about half the amount written as last time because of difficulties focusing. The company and the conversations were just as fun, but my head space was nothing short of ugly. I hated every word I put down to the point where I was half-nauseous, I was berating myself for writing slower, and I was fretting about the fact that I don't know where I'm going. I ended up bowing out of the chat, and I've been sitting around hating myself since.

This brings several points to mind.

First. I think this post is one of the best I've ever written as far as communicating what I think. "Do what works for you" in terms of writing has never been truer for me than it is right now. I'm a different writer on different days, so I have to adjust accordingly. Forgiving myself for a lack of mojo was what I needed today, especially since I gave it a try anyway.

Second. I'm past the beginning. As usual, I had the beginning carefully envisioned, and getting it out was a dream...and now, I'm in a place where my thoughts are a jumble and nothing sounds good. It's called The Middle of the Story. Just as most second movies in a trilogy aren't as good as the beginning and/or the end, The Middle of the Story tends to have a decline in pace, and having no ideas makes it that much worse. There's going to be a lot more hack and slash before I emerge to an area that's clearer.

Third. At this point, I'll switch gears. It's probably that I'll work on another project -- I have at least one major original project, as well as a short story idea and others too numerous to list -- and I'll either keep thinking about this project or do some brainstorming. The list of what I want/don't want in the story is looking better and better at this point.

What I'm having problems wrapping my head around is that this is new to me. I've churned out stories, but I've never written one with the intent to edit and possibly self-publish/submit before. That's the biggest reason I'm trying to be patient; most new experiences are a little tough and awkward.

Wow, July!

We're up to July 3rd, but in the span of a couple hours on the first, I managed to write some 3000 words on my current untitled project. It really needs a working title, come to think of it! I'm nearly to 10,000 words on the story, and I have nothing in mind, even if it's too obvious or not quite accurate.

I guess that's the issue here. I'm making good progress because I'm diligent and I have a lot in mind for the beginning, but the overarching story? I have nothing. There's a situation that I'm developing, but I'm worried that it could dip into the whole "person with powers learning how to use them to face a challenge" sort of story when I want it to be more. There's a lot I could say about what I don't want, and maybe that's what I should do: list what I don't want and what I do want. Great idea, me!

There's a lot of work ahead of me. Once I get the basic plot in shape, I need to fully flesh out the characters, which shouldn't be too bad. I also need to decide if switching POVs like I have been is the way I want to go, since I'm not sure if there's enough in the way of important events to switch frequently (although I do know there are some major things that need to be seen from another perspective). Plus, I've been writing sloppy in order to write fast, so the prose needs to be refined, and I'm finding items that need research.

Phew. There's nothing quite like a project in the early stages. No wonder so few people actually complete a novel.

Continuing.

I've been writing original fiction again! Over the past few nights I've averaged about 1,000 words every time I sit down, which isn't bad considering I only work for an hour or two. My focus has been on "untitled project #1", which I really need to come with a working title for if only so I can label it here easier. Frequent visitors have probably noticed the word count in the sidebar climbing.

What I'm currently analyzing isn't how to improve the way the prose flowed, which I've been fixated with for years. I'm trying to come up with ideas to facilitate the editing and additional draft process and the basic structure of my stories. My first thought was to outline all my ideas before I started writing, but this never works. I start my plot outlines and my character biographies, but I discover character best when I'm writing, and the story is strongly character-driven. That means I'll always abandon the outlines when I start writing.

Idea number two has to have a complete first draft, which is why I'm working on completing my current idea at the moment. (I could probably resurrect an old first draft, but I'm going to try a fresh story and see how that goes.) The concept is this: write a basic outline when I'm done, make some notes on what I like and/or don't like in the story, and compare the two. After all, the very first question I should be asking is, "Does this story work?", and why I give the answer I do.

There's more I could say, but I'm falling asleep. Maybe that's why I don't like my work; I do most of it late at night when I'm about to pass out.

Nudges in the right direction.

I've been getting a little more work done, thankfully. Most of that involved online organization -- the keen-eyed might have noticed that I changed the "word/page counts" section of the sidebar almost completely, for instance -- but I've started writing again, too. Of course, I've been taking breaks to write blog posts a lot, but I like being reminded of the feeling of typing a lot and consistently. That's not happening with my current story.

My favorite excuse at the moment not to write is headaches. I've been getting them a lot, and if the computer monitor aggravates them, then how can I possibly write on my computer? Sure, I can keep going with my notebook stories, but I can't research or transfer or post like I need to. The fun thing is that it circles around, so I can sit around for hours whining without taking action.

Of course, when I'm actively trying to write, I'm still very good at finding distractions. They're sometimes useful, too! Dark colors hurt my eyes less, so I made OpenOffice darker. Pretty simple. (I also tried darkening my Windows colors, but I couldn't find a balance between dark and readable. Maybe eventually.) Going with a darker monitor helps, too.

I'm running out of distractions again. Time to write more!

Okay, I feel a little better.

I was deep in the middle of self-pity when I read the latest entry in Wil Wheaton's blog. He linked to this piece in the Los Angeles Times about how much time an writer actually spends writing.

A portion of the author's schedule:

9:40-10:26. Internet, including 20 minutes spent writing, revising, and ultimately abandoning angry Internet message board post.

10:26-11:14. Intense self-doubt.

11:14-11:31. Subject showers, dresses (including two new pairs of socks).

11:31-11:49. Really fast typing.

11:49-12:01. Bathroom break.

12:01-12:05. Frenetic typing accompanied by quiet sinister chuckling.

12:05. Subject saves file, turns off computer, makes sandwich.

It's funny, yes, but it's also far too true. I sat around on my computer pretty much all of yesterday trying to get some writing done, and I ended up reading a very serious discussion and hating myself for not writing. I stayed up until five in the morning, mostly because I didn't get anything written until nearly four in the morning. And I probably made my work worse than it actually was.

What I need to keep in mind is that most writers go through this. There'll be times when we spend days on end hitting the keys as fast as our fingers and computers can take it, and there's days where the dust on my drums is more intriguing than writing. I also know how I write and get writing done, and there are days when I can't bring myself to do it. As long as I recognize that these days are going to happen no matter what and I try to keep them to a minimum, it's no big deal.

Now I'm going to go do sit-ups. Maybe doing something I don't like'll encourage me toward writing.

The usual.

As my longtime readers know, there are periods where I get nothing done, both in my writing and on this blog. I have my reasons this time, as I usually do. There's a good amount of reorganizing that needs to be done on the blog, I have far too many writing projects and am therefore ignoring them all, and I have no confidence in my writing. This all boils down to one essential point: I'm having a bit of a rough period head-wise.

This isn't anything new. What is different is that I have two original fiction projects at the moment, and although I haven't worked on them for a couple of days, I have basic foundations on both. I have it in mind to try to get a rough draft done before NaNo; that way, I can spend NaNo on another story and leave the rough draft alone for a while. I keep trying not to think of the fact that I've never finished a rough draft without a deadline set by someone not me, but I'm sure that's not helping.

Still, things are going well despite being in a down period. I've written some three original short stories in the last couple of months, and I have bigger projects to work on. It's better to have no motivation temporarily than no ideas.

Pet peeves.

I keep mentally starting posts for this blog, but I haven't been writing them. There's a lot going on right now, some of which is both exciting and terrifying, but I don't want to share. Which, I know, is out-of-character, but I'm having a tough time putting my thoughts into words. A lot of that is due to my current cold, but I don't necessarily think it's a bad instinct, so I'm bowing to it for now.

That means it's time for my favorite type of posts: non-specific thoughts on writing technique and theory! (I'm not being sarcastic, either. I do like talking about this.)

Every writer I've encountered has pet peeves when it comes to prose. Actually, every writer I've encountered has pet peeves about every level of writing, but the ones associated with the language are the easiest to convey. These annoyances are usually good things to look out for, too.

The latest example of this came when my mom looked over one of my pieces of writing. She only gave me a couple of suggestions, then advised that one of them was simply because "I hate the word 'it'". I don't know why I'd never considered the use of the word "it" in my work, but I've been watching in the weeks since, and cutting down on "it" has strengthened my work somewhat, if only in a subtle way.

My strongest pet peeve: starting two or more paragraphs in a row with the same letter and/or word. This doesn't extend to every piece of writing; I mostly watch for it in my own work. I know this peeve's not unique to me, and in the grand scheme, it's a pretty minor thing to watch for, but I think varying the beginning of paragraphs improves the flow of reading. Even if it doesn't make a big difference, I feel a little better when I do it.

There's loads of pet peeves that I can think of that bug me or others. Any adverb usage, putting anything but "said" or "asked" after dialogue, lack of variety in sentence structure, lack of semi-colons, use of semi-colons...that's just the beginning. It's important to keep a lot of these concepts in mind, but dwelling too much or trimming writing too much is just as dangerous as using "wonderingly" every page.

A lot of my focus in recent months has been on refining my language. It's tough to pare down the annoying and useless and not cut the spirit of the text. When I took Creative Writing, my teacher emphasized precision, and I'm really starting to get an idea of what that means. And even though I think I'm getting better with it, I've realized that I don't really have acuity with the larger parts of writing a story, like how to restructure when the basic concept doesn't fly. Good language means nothing when the story isn't worth reading!

Have a pet peeve of your own? Feel free to share in the comments!

Some switches.

I've been contemplating self-publication in a more serious manner as of late. There's a slight chance that I could do a book signing in the fall, and although I don't currently have a product, I've been considering the situation as if I could by that point. It'd be a crunch, but it's not impossible.

As such, I've been considering how this blog and my online personas fit in to the promotional aspect I'd have to do. I'm not ashamed of my participation in fandom, but I'm thinking that I want to draw a clearer line between my original fiction and my fanfiction for simplicity's sake; I love having different subjects in different journals for some reason. That means I'm probably going to stop talking about fanfic in this blog and focus solely on original fiction and general thoughts about writing. I'll probably even archive my old posts about fanfic and post them elsewhere, possibly on my Dreamwidth.

The original fiction section of this blog probably needs some review and revamping of its own as well, particularly if I do decide to try self-publication. It's likely I'll move what I have to something where I'll use my name (or names, since I've been contemplating different names for different genres). I'm not fully decided on it, especially since I have over six-hundred posts that I'd need to transfer, but I'm thinking about it. What's the most likely is that I would get my own domain name and embed this blog in that site, but bigger changes are likely.

Anyway, I do have an original project that I'm going to start doing some work on in the next couple of days. (I've technically started work, but only in a preliminary sense.) I'll update more on that when I have more to talk about.

Writing sure is fun...

...except when you realize you've forgotten the basic prompt for the story you're writing and you throw a hissy fit and don't work for an entire day. But I suppose that has little to do with writing and more to do with how I'm completely bonkers (and how checking up on your emails can avoid disaster).

On the plus side, I managed to get the rough draft of the Dead Like Me fic done, and what I screwed up is fixable; I'm just going to be spending most of my Saturday fixing it. If I can get everything done on time, I can live with that.

spn_summergen prompts should be going out on June 1st. That means I'll have more prompts to freak out about soon! Luckily, I have until August to complete whatever I end up getting, and since it'll be one story that I have to write during a less-busy time, I should be able to handle it. I'm also brewing original story projects in the back of my head, since I really want to give that another go, and I'm working on "A Beast in Repose", so it should be a pretty full summer for me.

For now, I'm going to try to get to sleep early so I can get a jump on things later. Fingers crossed!

A few quick thoughts.

-I always try to trim my stories when I edit them, but for some reason, I've been doing nothing but add length lately.

-My beginnings are getting better, but my endings are getting worse. On the SPN Sweet Charity story, I just completely changed the ending, and it's not unlikely I'll change it again.

-I've gotten a lot done in a little bit of time tonight, which pleases me quite a bit. I'm going to put some work into the Dead Like Me Sweet Charity story after I have some dinner, since the SPN story is just frustrating me at the moment.

I never learn.

I've spent the better part of a couple months worrying about my Sweet Charity stories. I think several factors for my anxiety were in play here, the chiefest being that people spent actual money for me to write these stories, that I'm doing this to benefit a worthy charitable organization (which ties into the first), and that I took requests that were out of my comfort zone. As usual, I've spent more time worrying than I have writing, which is never a good thing to do in a situation like this.

Luckily, during the last couple of days, I wasn't able to write due to real-life circumstances (and positive ones, too), so I stopped worrying for a little while. That meant I got some time to think about why I wasn't writing and what I needed to do in order to write.

It was really simple, actually. I was being too hard on myself. I tried to be finished with both stories by mid-month when that just wasn't realistic, I was telling myself I had to write and finish both stories at the same time, and I was building up guilt whenever I had free time and I wasn't writing.

The other part was a matter of bad scheduling; I was only giving myself time to write right before my usual bedtime, at which point I was obviously too tired to get anything done. I got so little done that I was guilting myself about the deadline even more.

Addressing the difficulties was just as easy as the difficulties themselves. I restructured my day today to do a lot of the needed things at the beginning, and when I had the energy and the time, I sat down and finished the rough draft for the Supernatural story. If I keep up the scheduling, I should be able to edit and finish in the next day or two, at which point I can switch to the Dead Like Me story.

But I've hit my bedtime, so I'm off to sleep.

Writing and racism.

There was an interesting post today on Racialicious about writing: "Write What You Know: Limiting or Authentic?" The author not only discusses whether or not white authors should be writing characters of different ethnicities, but the racism that seems to be inherent in the publishing industry in general.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. It's due in no small part to others out in the world: there's Racefail '09 (see this post for the whole sordid business) and the follow-up involving Patricia C. Wrede's latest book. It's one thing to write characters that share similar cultural backgrounds as the author; it's something else entirely to pretend that other ethnicities don't exist.

Here's my point-of-view: I'm a white writer. There might be ways I fall outside of the "privilege" bubble, namely in that I'm a queer woman, but race is definitely not one of them. I have written a lot of white characters, since I have been worried that I would misrepresent other cultures, but the main character in When Sleep Closes In was Indian-American, and my perspective character in The Dogs was Latino, and there are other examples I could make for secondary characters.

I'm trying to learn more about this subject, since it's all too easy for someone privileged to stumble into offensive thoughts and behavior. My basic stance is this: shut up and listen. I don't have to live with racism on a daily basis, and therefore can't know it as intimately as those who do. I want to keep my screw-ups to a minimum, but I'm learning and am therefore hoping that I'll be able to apologize if I do mess up.

(Really, that last point is true for anything in writing; it's all a big learning process, and there's no way I'm going to be perfect at any point. And if I did ever reach an audience with my fictional writing, I have to come to terms with the fact that I'm going to screw up with others watching. But that's a subject for another post.)

Edit: I hit "publish" before I finished my point. Oops. Talk about screw-ups.

My point is this: there should be more published authors of different ethnicities. A good book is a good book, no matter what country the author or the author's ancestors were born in. And cultural diversity can only help the literary world, since one type of character or story not only doesn't represent the world at large, but gets to be boring.

That means white writers should try to write characters that are persons of color/non-white. It's going to be hard, since there's a responsibility to do it right, but it should be done. There's nothing that says writing is supposed to be easy, after all.

Communication.

I haven't been writing much. It hasn't stopped completely -- I've been blogging a lot and writing a handful of sentences on my stories every couple of days -- but the little creative writing I do is forced. I keep trying, since I never know when I'm going to hit a good period, but I don't have any mojo right now.

On the other hand, this has been a great period of reflection, and that's just as necessary for writing as typing out a story. For example, I was writing a post on online communication for my LJ, and I came up with this thought:

Writing is a bridge to others, especially in the online world, and if comments are fulfilling that need, then I don't need to express myself. It explains why so many writers cut themselves off when they're knee-deep in a project, anyway.

This was an idea I came up with as I was writing it, and the more I considered it, the more I liked it. I've always thought that authors avoided their writing blogs because they were simply a distraction, and that's true for some. However, it's never applied to me; I sometimes need to post as a mental break from whatever I'm doing.

What I do know is true about my work ethic for writing is that it's always stronger when I can't talk to anyone. That means I have an easier time writing both when I'm alone in the middle of the night and when I'm in a library with my headphones on surrounded by strangers. If there's no one around for me to talk to, then I have to channel that elsewhere. Often, it's on my LJ, but if I've been plotting my stories, that's where it'll go.

It's no great revelation, but I'm always looking to understand the way I write better. Maybe I can translate it into actual output.

Reorganization time!

I was getting sick of my old layout, so I restructured everything. It's a work-in-progress, especially the header, but I feel a little less annoyed when I look at the main page, so that's something. One particular improvement I feel very strongly about is the archive menu; since this blog is going to be hitting its fifth year in August, I think tucking was in order.

As for that pesky writing business that this blog is supposed to be about...well, there's still plenty of hours left in the day!

Edit: I'm also going to try the "reactions" element to see how that works out. I decided to go with "like" and "didn't like" to get some quick opinions, but if it doesn't get used much, I'll probably do away with it in a week or so.

A quick one.

I'll sneak on before Blogger has its scheduled outage; I still have some four hours, but I'll probably be in bed at that point.

Neil Gaiman covers reader entitlement regarding writers. I've actually been thinking a lot about this issue lately, and he not only covered what crossed my mind, but more besides. And really, this doesn't just apply to writers, but pretty much anyone, both in entertainment (singers/performers in particular) and otherwise. If life comes up versus a job of any kind, life is going to win. I know I've found that out the hard way sometimes, as have other authors (much of On Writing is Stephen King's example).

As for my writing projects, I have officially started my Sweet Charity stories. There isn't enough of a word count to tout in the sidebar as of yet, but considering the days I was spending staring at empty documents, it's a positive step. Hopefully, I'll have something to talk about in a day or two.

Edit: Neil Gaiman's post has sparked discussion in some of my favorite places (here, for one). This has led to more worthwhile links, such as John Scalzi's "10 Things to Remember About Authors", which is sort of a combination of the entitlement post and my own post about writing the way that works for you.

In any case, this is making me feel less guilty about the periods of time when I have no motivation, or energy, or mojo. I tend to get more work done if I'm not moping around feeling sorry for myself. Funny how that works.

This quiet spot is a good thing.

Sometimes, I won't be posting because there's nothing to say. I'll be in a place where I'll be completely uninspired and hate what I do manage to produce, and I'll be so disillusioned with the concept of writing that I won't want to even think about it in generic terms.

There are also times where I'll be so busy with ideas and outlining and writing and editing and deadlines that I'll completely forget that I have a writing blog at all. This is one of those times. I'm knee-deep in a Secret Project at the moment that I can talk about soon, and I'm dabbling with long-term projects at the same time. Next week is Sweet Charity week; I'm writing out a schedule of deadlines to get me finished hopefully by the seventeenth or eighteenth.

Most of my creativity seems to be focused in fanfic, which annoys me a little. I mean, I love writing fan stuff, but all the ideas I seem to have lately only work piggybacked onto the fandoms I'm into. And yet, I'm writing, and constantly, so I'm not beating myself up too hard about it. Refining my skill is definitely important, and I'm not doing any of that if I spend my days sitting around like I did at the beginning of the year. I'm going to try to do some original work next month, though.

Sorry, don't agree.

I've seen "So You Want To Be A Writer" by Charles Bukowski online a few different times. I have also never, ever agreed with it. I get the sentiment -- writing should be daring and new and crazy -- but in practice...no. You stick with the people who write because they Have To Write, and you get Stephenie Meyer. Maybe it's because I've been writing practically my entire life, but this sort of false romanticism makes me a little ill.

Also, I disagree with Stephen King in On Writing, who insists that writing has to be done daily on the same schedule. Or anyone who tells you that you have to do it a certain way. If I'm giving someone suggestions about their story, I'm telling them what didn't work for me or what I wouldn't do, not what I think they should do. I can't decide that for them. I can only decide, looking at my writing, what I want to do.

Here's what I think: do what works for you. It's never the same thing two days in a row for me. Two of my favorite stories were written completely different ways; the first was painfully reconstructed and torn apart over a period of several months until I finally gave up on it, and the second was written in a single night of energy of inspired initial writing and editing. I had to make myself sit down to do the first, whereas the second flowed out of me. And yet, when I reread both, I just think of how nice they turned out.

You can write on a schedule, or write when the mood hits you, or somewhere in-between like me. You can write one amazing work over the course of decades, or several enjoyable pieces in one year. You can write one good, short poem, or a multi-volume epic that can only be placed on reinforced bookshelves. Your prose can be neat and tidy, or it can be sprawling and descriptive. Nothing means anything except that final marker: does it work?

So yeah. Romanticize writing if it gets you to the finish. But personally, it isn't my thing.

A little organization.

The last few days haven't been great for me emotionally, mostly due to the fact that I wasn't sleeping. Anyone who has followed this blog for a while may have noticed that the "not sleeping" tag and the "not writing" tag are often matched together, and this post is no exception. So, instead of moping around, I got some organization done on Dreamwidth, the new LJ-clone that I'm now posting on.

It's also served as a little retrospective into the fanfiction stories I've written over the past five years or so. There has been some major improvements -- better characterizations, less adverbs, better story titles -- and there's been some consistent errors (the major one I've noticed is weak endings). I've also posted more in the last year than I did in the five years prior, and I've gotten more feedback in the recent interval, so it's probably done more for my writing than anything else besides the critiquing and fast writing in my creative writing classes.

I'm not getting any writing done tonight, but I'm going to try and get back into it tomorrow, probably with something that I don't have a deadline for. It's better if I don't feel too much pressure after a mopey-induced break.

And now it's May.

Script Frenzy has officially ended -- although it feels like it's been over for ages, since I finished days ago -- and it's now May. That means my attentions are going to be given to my Sweet Charity stories, amongst others; I'm probably signing up for spn_summergen again this year, at least.

On the original fiction front, I have actually made some progress. I wrote an entire rough draft of a short story when I couldn't sleep a couple nights ago, and it was fun to do. It made me want to try a bigger project, since I've been spending so much time on fanfic and because I have never written a full novel-length story outside of NaNo and my senior project. It's probably because I respond very well to deadlines, but really, I need to work on self-motivation.

There's more I'll talk about later, but I will say this before I dash off: it's also the season to revamp layouts and expand. I have a new fanfic community on another site, which I'll link to later, and I want to spruce up this journal again, since I've grown tired of the way this one's spaced. I just have to have a couple of days where I'm strongly in the mood for it.

I'm nearly speechless.

"Now You're a Man" has to be my most tangible writing success to date. I've gotten thirty-four positive comments on the story post, and it's been recommended in two different places. And I just posted it a week ago.

What's really great is that I've been writing pretty much non-stop since I wrote that story. I wrote some seventy pages of screenplay, about 2700 words on "A Beast in Repose", and the beginnings of two separate one-shots. And I've had a couple ideas for original short stories. I feel a little bad because I don't want to be the sort of writer who can only get stuff done if people are boosting their ego, but whatever the reason, I'm writing, and I'm really, really glad.

Anyway, I'm going to do a lot of last minute stuff, and the minute May hits, I'm switching to my Sweet Charity stories. (The observant probably noticed that I added word counts to the sidebar.) The Dead Like Me story in particular should be interesting; I'm always up for trying new fandoms.

And more!

I thought I was going to go bed early, and I did, for an hour or two. However, pains woke me up, and while I waited for them to go away and to get tired again, I turned on my computer and decided to kill some time.

Instead, I ended up writing some two-thousand words for "A Beast in Repose" in about three hours' time.

Yes, I probably should have slept instead, but my sleep schedule is terribly wonky at the moment. I have periods like this every couple of months or so. What's nice about this versus my usual difficulties with sleep is that I'm getting loads of writing done as a result. I'm also not freaking out or stressing about being awake as much. It's a lose-win-win, which averages out to a win!

...yeah, I need to go to bed.

A little afterglow.

There's several possible reasons for it -- lack of sleep, completion of Script Frenzy for the third year in a row, positive comments on "Now You're a Man", a general sense of accomplishment for the fact that I finished three major projects this month -- but I've been floaty and happy about writing all day. More importantly, I've been feeling confident about the quality of my writing and the fact that I can complete things when I set my mind to it.

Of course, that's not to say I think I'm the best writer in the world. Far from it. I just feel like I'm starting to get what makes a story enjoyable and implementing it. And I'm getting a much better eye for what doesn't work in my stories. It's less that I'm achieving the point of being a Great Writer -- I don't think that actually exists -- and more that I've hit another level in my peak/plateau journey. I get to enjoy a little optimism, and then I go back to toiling and feeling insecure for a while.

What I'm liking is that I have a strong taste for original short stories at the moment. I might try writing one of those in the next couple of days, just for the heck of it. I promised myself that I'd start my Sweet Charity stories on or right after May 1st, so I have a built-in deadline, and that never hurts. If I don't get anything done before then, it's not a big deal, but it's something to keep in mind. (I may also write more "Beast in Repose", since it drives me nuts when people have WIPs for years, and I've been doing that.)

A brief update.

I got to page eighty on The Dogs; I'd try to get further if I didn't have to get up early. And yet, if I didn't have to get up early, I probably wouldn't have been writing as fast as I was, so I suppose it works. It's just annoying because I hit a major turning point, and I have to decide how the story's going to end, and I really want to try...but I told myself I'd go to bed now. Sigh.

Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if I beat Script Frenzy as of tomorrow night, depending on how things go tomorrow. I'm certainly going to give it a decent try. Even if I don't, I still have a few days.

Edit: Okay, scratch that: I'm an official winner. I couldn't get to sleep, so I passed the time by finishing my script. The end sort of surprised me, and I'm annoyed with myself because I left it sort of open-ended, but whatever, it's done. I have officially completed a screenplay after years of trying. And it's probably better than my stage play and my graphic novel script.

Anyway, that's all my major projects for this month. Time to get a jump on the work for May!

It's going well.

More progress on The Dogs; I'm happy with some of it, and annoyed with others, but it's an unoriginal story idea in a medium I'm not too interested in actively pursuing as far as my career, so it's not like it's the end of the world if I get to one-hundred pages and never come back.

I'm about to get into the third act, and I've got big revelations and lots of peril to come. The middle is usually the hardest part of any story for me -- minus the last line or two, which is the actual hardest part nine times out of ten -- and it flew by, so I'm hoping the end will go even faster. I'm certainly looking forward to some payoff.

Script's a go. Again.

I'm finally back to work on The Dogs; I got a good fifteen pages done in the last twenty-four hours, and I feel like I'm getting a feel for the characters and the story again. The dialogue is a little trite and obvious, and if I were to make this movie, I'd probably make it a lot more action and a lot less talking, but it doesn't have to be perfect. It's a first draft, and one I need to finish quickly.

Also, at this point, I've gotten twenty-five reviews on my lgbtfest story. They're all positive, which is a big relief, since I was really worried I wasn't going to get the trans angle right. But responding to comments is a tricky thing for me. I mean, I definitely want to say something back, since the people were kind enough to read the story and leave me a comment. And yet, just "thanks" feels like too little and unoriginal, and I feel like anything about what I was thinking with the story is too much information and maybe too informal. I've been doing my best, but I don't think I'm getting it right. It's likely I'm over thinking it, but it's just as likely that there's no good way to convey how much gratitude I feel.

Bedtime for now, but I'll get back to work as soon as I wake up. I'm sure there'll be plenty more to say.