Writing Dare 2001, Week 4

michaeljasper.net

"Another Wrecked Web Site"

March 27, 2001

Back to it, at last!

Today's Progress:

Revised chs. 14-19

The Official Dare Page

It was time for another Executive Decision. I felt like I was floundering all weekend and yesterday, wasting precious time spinning my wheels. So I decided to not wait another week and just jump back into the horror novel revision. I was on a great roll at the start of the month, and I don't want to lose any more momentum. I think in the back of my mind, I knew I was getting sidetracked too much, so I had to do something.
So I've been going over the next set of chapters for Autumn's Fall. I'm in the process of revising what used to be chapter 4, I think. Now it's six chapters long, with switching points of view in each chapter as the characters go off on their own in town. Clint is busy reading the book they found at Pete's (and having weird dreams when he dozes off), Race is having his date with Diana and taking a walk to Pete's grave, Titus is chillin' with the fam, and Riley and Shawn are having a day to recover and unwind. This is the section we get to really know the characters, and it's quite enjoyable.
So I want to continue with the revisions, and move fairly quickly through the middle section, which I think is pretty strong as-is. All that's missing (in my opinion) is more emotional impact, more internal monologues/thoughts, and more descriptions. And I really want to play up Race's fast spiral intp mental instability. That should be fun.
So "Gunning for the Buddha" is on temporary hold, until the horror novel is done or when I need a break from revising. I simple can't multitask right now. Work has been picking up, and weekends seem to be busier than the work week. And I want to be able to sit down and enjoy a good book at night and during the weekend, instead of writing all the time. I'm still reading The Talisman, but I'm not enjoying it as much because of all the time between reading sessions. To really get a novel, I think, you should read it in a couple weeks. A couple chapters a day, preferably, with a little time to sort of sit back with the book closed to let it all sort of soak in. Right now none of it is sticking. Hopefully tonight I can do some reading. Usually by the time Elizabeth and I get home and get something to eat and everything in order, we're both about ready for bed. I can't imagine what it'd be like if we had kids!
Up next - the tour of the new and improved Rosecroft High. Go Wildcats go!!!
mjj

March 26, 2001

Get-rich-quick schemes and words on the page...

Today's Progress:

Still not much.

The Official Dare Page

My energy levels have been pretty low lately. I guess I've been pushing myself too hard and running too much. Consequently, there's no new writing news to report. But I still feel compelled to log an entry in here today. Just to show I have been at least thinking about writing.
My latest kick has been thinking about writing a screenplay. But, in my usual overdone manner, I now have a list of 5-6 screenplays I want to write this fall and winter. I figure I could knock off an adaptation of one of the three novels I've been working on pretty quickly, as well as another screenplay based on the alien stories I've written, and still have time left over to do a totally new one as well. No problem, right?
The whole reason I'm even entertaining such goofy thoughts is that a writer from Boone, NC, just had his screenplay picked up by Mel Gibson's production company for "a six-figure sum." Now, that could be anywhere from $100,000 to $999,999, but I'd be more than happy for any of those numbers, or anything in between...
So it's true -- I'm totally driven by greed.
No, I don't think so. I'd just like to be able to do what I WANT to do with my life instead of working and working just to stay ahead of the bills and debts. It's depressing to think that so many people live their lives like this, chipping away day after day, trying to get ahead, not necessarily miserable, but not necessarily content, either. Just "getting by." Now there's a depressing concept! I'm tired of just getting by. I want life to be exciting again, the way it was before 9 to 5 jobs and drudgery and living for the weekends. Is that asking too much?
So I'm keeping my options open for whatever possibility there may be to use my creative abilities and drive in my job as well as my fiction writing career, until those two things merge. I wouldn't mind doing something like screenwriting if it'd earn me some money so I wouldn't have to work so hard and get up at 5 a.m. every day to write for a furious hour before work. I could write some screenplays and sell them and then write novels, taking time off from the day job if not quitting it altogether. Now there's a dream to strive for! But I probably won't get to that until summer - I have the horror novel to work on 'til then, along with 1-2 stories and maybe even my own fantasy novel, if I'm feeling ambitious. Plus, a friend of mine said I should read a ton of screenplays before even attempting my own. So... I'll get there. Have to be patient. Later.
mjj

March 25, 2001

Weekends - what a concept...

Today's Progress:

Not much.

The Official Dare Page

Hmm... We've done a lot of running around this weekend, and doing some long-needed upkeep on the house, both inside and out. Probably a good thing. Our yard is looking pretty rough, and the house was getting pretty messy. And then we had a long list of errands to run yesterday, and so on and on...
So I didn't do the writing I'd hoped to do, but I don't think it was because of all the busy-ness of the weekend. It was more a case of getting caught up and getting my brain back in order. Like yesterday morning, for example. I got up early as usual, thanks to my pets (who are now officially trained to wake at 5 a.m. whether I'm up or not). The dog was whining for a walk and the cat was giving his intermittent "myow?" "myow?" every 3 minutes, just enough to keep me from getting back to sleep. So I got up and did some fiddling on the short story I'm trying to write. Didn't get a lot done.
Same thing for this morning, pretty much. Got up early and did some research with the Encarta software that came with my desktop, and found some cool stuff on different religions of the worlds. I'm thinking the Buddha story is going to cover that, along with the rash of violence in American schools and workplaces. Somehow I want to tie those things together, along with a group of time travelers in an old Monte Carlo... (the car type may change, but for now they're tooling around in the exact same car as Mrs. Thompson, Missy, Zed, and Walt Whitman from Natural Order). I enjoy little details like that. Just like how, in my older stories, an '84 Ford Escort always showed up somehow...
So while I didn't do any actual writing, I guess the day wasn't lost, writing-wise.
Also, I'm thinking that it's about time to get back to the horror novel. I spoke with my collaborator Greg on the phone today, and we hashed out a lot of stuff we needed to cover for the novel and figured out the best way to proceed. It was a very good conversation. Collaboration is hard for me. I think I'm getting the hang of it. So I'm feeling good about the work we've done so far. I just need to be patient and enjoy the whole revision process. I may still try and wait 'til April to dive back in. I need to give myself a little sanity rest, and just goof off for a week.
If you check my Dare Goals, you can see that I'm close to being on track, and even ahead of the game a bit with my 2 story revisions. Not bad.
mjj

March 23, 2001

Finishing stuff is good...

Today's Quote:

"The critters are why they moved this place, you know," Chandler said. "Old man Thoroughgood was camping close to that crater just south of us back in the forties, doing his peyote or whatever it was he did, and he came across some rocks. This was during his scientific period, so he did some research on them and found the rocks were covered with single-cell microbes that weren't, ah, shall we say, from around here.

Today's Progress:

Finished my story!

The Official Dare Page

All righty-then. Accomplished my writing goal for the week. "A Feast at the Manor" is complete! And I was able to cut it down to just over 7,600 words. Not bad. There's a mini-infodump at the end, but I think it's okay. It kind of works out well that way. I feel pretty good about the story. I'm sending it out today, so wish me luck.
Now I'm ready to take a look at the Buddha story. One nice bit of advice I got from the Stephen King book (one of many, actually) was that all his books and stories start with some sort of situation. He doesn't really outline, but puts his characters into these wild situations and sees what happens. Not a bad approach. It puts the focus on the story and the characters, not on some prefabricated plot. I'll still do outlines and make notes, but I like his approach a lot.
So I need to figure out just what the situation is for my narrator and her rowdy passengers, and why they're picking up Buddha at the side of the road, only to blow him away once they realize who he is. We'll see.
mjj

March 22, 2001

Sleep is good...

Today's Quote:

The driver of the taxi hadn’t stopped yammering on and on about Barringer Meteor Crater – “It’s only ten miles from here!” he’d shouted back at them over the blasting radio – and how they just had to visit it before their trip was over. Rob just hoped his heart wouldn’t give out and leave his body floundering on the hot sidewalk of the hotel next to his wheezing wife. They weren’t going to have any time for sightseeing on this trip.

Today's Progress:

Almost done revising story

The Official Dare Page

"I'm ahead, I'm advanced, I am the first mammal to wear pants, yeah!" -- Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, "Do the Evolution."
Sorry - that song's been running through my head all morning, and I had to get that line out. It makes me laugh every time I hear it. Turns out, by the way, that Pearl has released a TON of taped live shows onto CDs. And I mean a ton - the tape I have, when they played in Charlotte, is number 27, I believe. Crazy. I think one or two is plenty. And I'm a big fan of theirs. But I don't think I'll buy every single one.
I'm feeling much better today, after a really good night's sleep (I was out by 9 p.m. and slept in 'til 5:30, so I actually got over eight hours). The secret? Elizabeth is taking muscle relaxers for her jaw problems, and she let me take one. Bam. I was out.
So I got up a little late this morning, but I surprised myself and got a lot done on the story revision, in a short period of time. I was able to add a bunch of fixes into the text itself, getting all my scribbled notes from the hardcopy of the story I'd printed out last week.
Here's a weird insight into my writing process (if you don't a rat's butt about that, skip to the next paragraph, please!) -- I print about a dozen copies of my drafts, if not more, during the course of a story or chapter. Each draft is usually longer and always more detailed than the last. So what I'm left with is a big pile of documents, each telling the same story but in a slightly different way. I'm getting better at editing on screen, which saves time, but I still enjoying printing stuff out and scribbling all over it with arrows, carets -- these doohickeys: ^ -- and line-by-line fixes, sometimes whole sentences that get jammed into the margins or the back side of pages. I mark the hard copies up and then, when I'm in front of the computer the next day, I've got that marked-up copy in front of me. I guess it's sort of a crutch, in case I get stuck. It seems wasteful to me, to be using up all that paper for something I already have a copy of, just slightly changed. But I have this need to see the physical piece of writing in front of me, so I can touch it and scribble on it. Okay, end of my tangent...
I'm really hoping to get the rest of my fixes in today - I need to add a section where Rob stumbles across the secret of the hotel, and why they moved it from California to northern Arizona. I think I know where to put it. Then all I have to do tomorrow morning is finetune the new stuff and see if I can't cut some more (I'm trying to keep the story under 8,000 words, preferable 7,500). We'll see how it goes. Later.
From later the same day:
Hello again. Just got done fixing up the story, to the point where it's almost there. One more run-through tomorrow and I think it's done. I hope. And I've cut it down to 7,900 words. After I print out a cover letter for that and for the novella, I'll be ready to hit the PO. Cool. Until tomorrow...
mjj

March 21, 2001

Let the record show...

Today's Quote:

Once his eyes had adjusted to the dark, he found a stationary bike and a weird contraption made up of ropes, rubber straps, and pulley-mounted weights next to the door. He wasn't about to sit at the bench attached to what had to be another wacked-out Thoroughgood creation. Of course there was no cot. He sat on the seat of the bike instead of lying on the hard floor.

Today's Progress:

Still revising story

The Official Dare Page

Okay, first things first: for anyone who is wondering, I am working on a horror novel with another person, Greg Vest. He and I taught school together in the past, and he came up with the outlines and plots and we collaborated on the characters. I wrote the drafts and am currently revising the novel, which is called Autumn's Fall. Just wanted to clear the air and not lead anyone to believe that I was writing this horror novel on my own. I'm not.
Some of my author bios may have led people to believe I was working on this book by myself. Again, I'd like to repeat that I'm not. Though I have a strong feeling this will be my last collaboration with anyone else. It's just not worth it.
Nothing like a negative e-mail to really start the day off on the right foot. I'm glad I'm taking the rest of the month off from the novel to focus on stories. We may never get this book done. Seems like as soon as I get on a roll, something happens to make me lose interest. Hmmmm... Why is that?
Enough of that. I'm hoping to finish revisions to "A Feast at the Manor" by this weekend. I didn't get as much done this morning as I'd hoped, but I have some time tonight to get the first round of fixes incorporated. I'm up to the scene where Rob, our hero, gets busted for having a pizza party in his room. He's taken down to the dungeon-like basement for his punishment. It's at this point where the story begins to fall into the realm of fantasy. I need to tread lightly. More later.
Well, it's a bit later, but I'm too tired to make many changes. I did make some cuts in the scene with Rob and his wife (she no longer confesses to having an affair - she's not in the scene at all anymore, just Rob in the hotel room, finding her wedding band and getting sick after his rough night).
It's down to 8k now. Can't seem to cut more, and I know I'll have to add some more to clarify the ending. Oh well. See ya later. Time for me to sleep.

Home

mjj

	michaeljasper.net *"Another Wrecked Web Site"*
March 27, 2001 Back to it, at last! *Today's Progress:* Revised chs. 14-19 The Official Dare Page	It was time for another Executive Decision. I felt like I was floundering all weekend and yesterday, wasting precious time spinning my wheels. So I decided to not wait another week and just jump back into the horror novel revision. I was on a great roll at the start of the month, and I don't want to lose any more momentum. I think in the back of my mind, I knew I was getting sidetracked too much, so I had to do something. So I've been going over the next set of chapters for Autumn's Fall. I'm in the process of revising what used to be chapter 4, I think. Now it's six chapters long, with switching points of view in each chapter as the characters go off on their own in town. Clint is busy reading the book they found at Pete's (and having weird dreams when he dozes off), Race is having his date with Diana and taking a walk to Pete's grave, Titus is chillin' with the fam, and Riley and Shawn are having a day to recover and unwind. This is the section we get to really know the characters, and it's quite enjoyable. So I want to continue with the revisions, and move fairly quickly through the middle section, which I think is pretty strong as-is. All that's missing (in my opinion) is more emotional impact, more internal monologues/thoughts, and more descriptions. And I really want to play up Race's fast spiral intp mental instability. That should be fun. So "Gunning for the Buddha" is on temporary hold, until the horror novel is done or when I need a break from revising. I simple can't multitask right now. Work has been picking up, and weekends seem to be busier than the work week. And I want to be able to sit down and enjoy a good book at night and during the weekend, instead of writing all the time. I'm still reading The Talisman, but I'm not enjoying it as much because of all the time between reading sessions. To really get a novel, I think, you should read it in a couple weeks. A couple chapters a day, preferably, with a little time to sort of sit back with the book closed to let it all sort of soak in. Right now none of it is sticking. Hopefully tonight I can do some reading. Usually by the time Elizabeth and I get home and get something to eat and everything in order, we're both about ready for bed. I can't imagine what it'd be like if we had kids! Up next - the tour of the new and improved Rosecroft High. Go Wildcats go!!! mjj
March 26, 2001 Get-rich-quick schemes and words on the page... *Today's Progress:* Still not much. The Official Dare Page	My energy levels have been pretty low lately. I guess I've been pushing myself too hard and running too much. Consequently, there's no new writing news to report. But I still feel compelled to log an entry in here today. Just to show I have been at least thinking about writing. My latest kick has been thinking about writing a screenplay. But, in my usual overdone manner, I now have a list of 5-6 screenplays I want to write this fall and winter. I figure I could knock off an adaptation of one of the three novels I've been working on pretty quickly, as well as another screenplay based on the alien stories I've written, and still have time left over to do a totally new one as well. No problem, right? The whole reason I'm even entertaining such goofy thoughts is that a writer from Boone, NC, just had his screenplay picked up by Mel Gibson's production company for "a six-figure sum." Now, that could be anywhere from $100,000 to $999,999, but I'd be more than happy for any of those numbers, or anything in between... So it's true -- I'm totally driven by greed. No, I don't think so. I'd just like to be able to do what I WANT to do with my life instead of working and working just to stay ahead of the bills and debts. It's depressing to think that so many people live their lives like this, chipping away day after day, trying to get ahead, not necessarily miserable, but not necessarily content, either. Just "getting by." Now there's a depressing concept! I'm tired of just getting by. I want life to be exciting again, the way it was before 9 to 5 jobs and drudgery and living for the weekends. Is that asking too much? So I'm keeping my options open for whatever possibility there may be to use my creative abilities and drive in my job as well as my fiction writing career, until those two things merge. I wouldn't mind doing something like screenwriting if it'd earn me some money so I wouldn't have to work so hard and get up at 5 a.m. every day to write for a furious hour before work. I could write some screenplays and sell them and then write novels, taking time off from the day job if not quitting it altogether. Now there's a dream to strive for! But I probably won't get to that until summer - I have the horror novel to work on 'til then, along with 1-2 stories and maybe even my own fantasy novel, if I'm feeling ambitious. Plus, a friend of mine said I should read a ton of screenplays before even attempting my own. So... I'll get there. Have to be patient. Later. mjj
March 25, 2001 Weekends - what a concept... *Today's Progress:* Not much. The Official Dare Page	Hmm... We've done a lot of running around this weekend, and doing some long-needed upkeep on the house, both inside and out. Probably a good thing. Our yard is looking pretty rough, and the house was getting pretty messy. And then we had a long list of errands to run yesterday, and so on and on... So I didn't do the writing I'd hoped to do, but I don't think it was because of all the busy-ness of the weekend. It was more a case of getting caught up and getting my brain back in order. Like yesterday morning, for example. I got up early as usual, thanks to my pets (who are now officially trained to wake at 5 a.m. whether I'm up or not). The dog was whining for a walk and the cat was giving his intermittent "myow?" "myow?" every 3 minutes, just enough to keep me from getting back to sleep. So I got up and did some fiddling on the short story I'm trying to write. Didn't get a lot done. Same thing for this morning, pretty much. Got up early and did some research with the Encarta software that came with my desktop, and found some cool stuff on different religions of the worlds. I'm thinking the Buddha story is going to cover that, along with the rash of violence in American schools and workplaces. Somehow I want to tie those things together, along with a group of time travelers in an old Monte Carlo... (the car type may change, but for now they're tooling around in the exact same car as Mrs. Thompson, Missy, Zed, and Walt Whitman from Natural Order). I enjoy little details like that. Just like how, in my older stories, an '84 Ford Escort always showed up somehow... So while I didn't do any actual writing, I guess the day wasn't lost, writing-wise. Also, I'm thinking that it's about time to get back to the horror novel. I spoke with my collaborator Greg on the phone today, and we hashed out a lot of stuff we needed to cover for the novel and figured out the best way to proceed. It was a very good conversation. Collaboration is hard for me. I think I'm getting the hang of it. So I'm feeling good about the work we've done so far. I just need to be patient and enjoy the whole revision process. I may still try and wait 'til April to dive back in. I need to give myself a little sanity rest, and just goof off for a week. If you check my Dare Goals, you can see that I'm close to being on track, and even ahead of the game a bit with my 2 story revisions. Not bad. mjj
March 23, 2001 Finishing stuff is good... *Today's Quote:* "The critters are why they moved this place, you know," Chandler said. "Old man Thoroughgood was camping close to that crater just south of us back in the forties, doing his peyote or whatever it was he did, and he came across some rocks. This was during his scientific period, so he did some research on them and found the rocks were covered with single-cell microbes that weren't, ah, shall we say, from around here. *Today's Progress:* Finished my story! The Official Dare Page	All righty-then. Accomplished my writing goal for the week. "A Feast at the Manor" is complete! And I was able to cut it down to just over 7,600 words. Not bad. There's a mini-infodump at the end, but I think it's okay. It kind of works out well that way. I feel pretty good about the story. I'm sending it out today, so wish me luck. Now I'm ready to take a look at the Buddha story. One nice bit of advice I got from the Stephen King book (one of many, actually) was that all his books and stories start with some sort of situation. He doesn't really outline, but puts his characters into these wild situations and sees what happens. Not a bad approach. It puts the focus on the story and the characters, not on some prefabricated plot. I'll still do outlines and make notes, but I like his approach a lot. So I need to figure out just what the situation is for my narrator and her rowdy passengers, and why they're picking up Buddha at the side of the road, only to blow him away once they realize who he is. We'll see. mjj
March 22, 2001 Sleep is good... *Today's Quote:* The driver of the taxi hadn’t stopped yammering on and on about Barringer Meteor Crater – “It’s only ten miles from here!” he’d shouted back at them over the blasting radio – and how they just had to visit it before their trip was over. Rob just hoped his heart wouldn’t give out and leave his body floundering on the hot sidewalk of the hotel next to his wheezing wife. They weren’t going to have any time for sightseeing on this trip. *Today's Progress:* Almost done revising story The Official Dare Page	"I'm ahead, I'm advanced, I am the first mammal to wear pants, yeah!" -- Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, "Do the Evolution." Sorry - that song's been running through my head all morning, and I had to get that line out. It makes me laugh every time I hear it. Turns out, by the way, that Pearl has released a TON of taped live shows onto CDs. And I mean a ton - the tape I have, when they played in Charlotte, is number 27, I believe. Crazy. I think one or two is plenty. And I'm a big fan of theirs. But I don't think I'll buy every single one. I'm feeling much better today, after a really good night's sleep (I was out by 9 p.m. and slept in 'til 5:30, so I actually got over eight hours). The secret? Elizabeth is taking muscle relaxers for her jaw problems, and she let me take one. Bam. I was out. So I got up a little late this morning, but I surprised myself and got a lot done on the story revision, in a short period of time. I was able to add a bunch of fixes into the text itself, getting all my scribbled notes from the hardcopy of the story I'd printed out last week. Here's a weird insight into my writing process (if you don't a rat's butt about that, skip to the next paragraph, please!) -- I print about a dozen copies of my drafts, if not more, during the course of a story or chapter. Each draft is usually longer and always more detailed than the last. So what I'm left with is a big pile of documents, each telling the same story but in a slightly different way. I'm getting better at editing on screen, which saves time, but I still enjoying printing stuff out and scribbling all over it with arrows, carets -- these doohickeys: ^ -- and line-by-line fixes, sometimes whole sentences that get jammed into the margins or the back side of pages. I mark the hard copies up and then, when I'm in front of the computer the next day, I've got that marked-up copy in front of me. I guess it's sort of a crutch, in case I get stuck. It seems wasteful to me, to be using up all that paper for something I already have a copy of, just slightly changed. But I have this need to see the physical piece of writing in front of me, so I can touch it and scribble on it. Okay, end of my tangent... I'm really hoping to get the rest of my fixes in today - I need to add a section where Rob stumbles across the secret of the hotel, and why they moved it from California to northern Arizona. I think I know where to put it. Then all I have to do tomorrow morning is finetune the new stuff and see if I can't cut some more (I'm trying to keep the story under 8,000 words, preferable 7,500). We'll see how it goes. Later. *From later the same day:* Hello again. Just got done fixing up the story, to the point where it's almost there. One more run-through tomorrow and I think it's done. I hope. And I've cut it down to 7,900 words. After I print out a cover letter for that and for the novella, I'll be ready to hit the PO. Cool. Until tomorrow... mjj
March 21, 2001 Let the record show... *Today's Quote:* Once his eyes had adjusted to the dark, he found a stationary bike and a weird contraption made up of ropes, rubber straps, and pulley-mounted weights next to the door. He wasn't about to sit at the bench attached to what had to be another wacked-out Thoroughgood creation. Of course there was no cot. He sat on the seat of the bike instead of lying on the hard floor. *Today's Progress:* Still revising story The Official Dare Page	Okay, first things first: for anyone who is wondering, I am working on a horror novel with another person, Greg Vest. He and I taught school together in the past, and he came up with the outlines and plots and we collaborated on the characters. I wrote the drafts and am currently revising the novel, which is called Autumn's Fall. Just wanted to clear the air and not lead anyone to believe that I was writing this horror novel on my own. I'm not. Some of my author bios may have led people to believe I was working on this book by myself. Again, I'd like to repeat that I'm not. Though I have a strong feeling this will be my last collaboration with anyone else. It's just not worth it. Nothing like a negative e-mail to really start the day off on the right foot. I'm glad I'm taking the rest of the month off from the novel to focus on stories. We may never get this book done. Seems like as soon as I get on a roll, something happens to make me lose interest. Hmmmm... Why is that? Enough of that. I'm hoping to finish revisions to "A Feast at the Manor" by this weekend. I didn't get as much done this morning as I'd hoped, but I have some time tonight to get the first round of fixes incorporated. I'm up to the scene where Rob, our hero, gets busted for having a pizza party in his room. He's taken down to the dungeon-like basement for his punishment. It's at this point where the story begins to fall into the realm of fantasy. I need to tread lightly. More later. Well, it's a bit later, but I'm too tired to make many changes. I did make some cuts in the scene with Rob and his wife (she no longer confesses to having an affair - she's not in the scene at all anymore, just Rob in the hotel room, finding her wedding band and getting sick after his rough night). It's down to 8k now. Can't seem to cut more, and I know I'll have to add some more to clarify the ending. Oh well. See ya later. Time for me to sleep.
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