(A)bout Writing

Sinister Adventures, the new company launched by Nicholas Logue (incidentally one of my favorite adventure authors ever since the Viktor Saint-Demain trilogy written for the Eberron Campaign Setting), has a challenges page for aspiring designer/writers. I’m not sure how frequent the challenges will be, but there are two great ones up right now.

The two up right now are a monster and a treasure design challenge, with final entry dates of April 20th and May 1st, respectively. Simple, elegant, exciting and prizes to be won - perhaps it’s up your alley?

I was productive today, I swear. Unfortunately, the arenas in which I was productive weren’t the important areas.

Isn’t that always the case? It’s why I like to have a few projects going at once, though - chances are, if I’m procrastinating about dealing with one, another one will see a surge of attention.

I brainstormed some adventure ideas to submit to Dungeon when the 4th edition of D&D comes out (since they’re closed to 3.5 Ed. submissions now), I outlined some details of the module I might submit to playWRITE (if I can figure out some module design tools like the Aurora Toolset on time!), and picked away at an essay for a class I’m in - ‘Death & the Afterlife in England’, incidentally. I’m in over my head on two of the above projects, owing to lack of experience. Optimism and pep are my fuel at this stage, before realization and cynicism kicks in!

I resisted the urge to fiddle with GarageBand to make the opening/closing music for the SPP™.

I listened to a few podcasts. I caught up on a lot of blogs.

Unfortunately, no script frenzy pages got written today, and my brain was far from the project itself. I have a feeling this is going to come down to an intense, caffeine-fueled surge of activity near the end of the month.

Script Frenzy: 12/27 pages I should have at this point
D&A Final Essay: 917/3,000 words (due Friday!)

[Music] Black Dirt - Sea Wolf (Leaves In The River)

I haven’t dropped out of Script Frenzy, don’t worry - I’ve just been busy. Ah, exams.

But! A little birdy told me about an exciting opportunity for aspiring Canadian game designers. The deadline is April 28th, so get in there fast if you’re going to participate. The long and the short of it is that the National Screen Institute (with Zeroes 2 Heroes and Telefilm Canada) is offering an opportunity to get your foot in the door of the gaming industry. The prize for selected applicants involves a week-long bootcamp in Vancouver, and the possibility of an internship with a game studio later on.

From their FAQ .pdf:

“The fundamental principle of NSI playWRITE is to create customized professional and project development opportunities for each applicant and their script ideas.”

You can check out their site for a more thorough explanation.

Day 3 was an undeserved rest day. Why did I take it? Because it’s the end of the semester, of course! I’m back on track with day four, just by the skin of my teeth. I’m no longer ahead of the per-day required page count, but just on it. With a day of Eberron (D&D) ahead of me tomorrow, and a Sunday full of studying for exams on Monday and Tuesday, I’m starting to get a little worried. But I think the script’s in a good place, a place where it’ll be easy for me to pick up again and run with it.

Working Title: Living With Uriel Sam & Uriel
Genre: Comedy-drama
My screenplay is: Juno meets Dexter (with a dash of Ally McBeal, or perhaps Scrubs)
Today I learned: Any extreme emotion - glee or frustration and disappointment (both of which I got a dose of today) is dangerous to the creative urges. Coffee counteracts the braindead sleepiness beer provokes. Stifling the urge to use ample camera directions is about as useful as trying to hold in your pee
Beers consumed in direct support of the scriptwriting process: 1
Coffees consumed in direct support of the scriptwriting process: 1
Pages: 12
Morale: Still good. Happy to get Uriel introduced. I’ve started to give more camera directions, which is good for my page count. Before starting, I recalled reading somewhere that some directors like camera directions, and some really don’t, and I think that caused me to hesitate at first. Now I realize that if they’re necessary, they’re necessary - no use worrying about the opinions of some yet-unnamed director. The script’s inconsistent in terms of tone and level of direction, but I repeat the mantra “It’s a first draft” and carry on contentedly.

I ate three doughnuts today, and I regret nothing.

[Music] Kenny vs. Spenny on TV - it’s the “who’s the better stripper?” episode

I worked at a public library for a little while, back in the day. I worked there long enough to find some interesting items masquerading as bookmarks: a dried wasp corpse, a tissue that looked used, an opened condom packet (one of the lubey kinds), and a paper toy with an elastic-band mechanism which sent it flapping its wings at me when I opened the hardcover.

I’m inclined to believe most of those were deliberate boobie-traps.

(Then there’s the legends of Things Patrons Forgot: Bags, small children, their own names, and an artificial leg. True story.)

Keaggy.com has documented some interesting and unorthodx bookmarks of their own. It’s sure to tickle the bibliophile and the voyeur alike (or that hideous beast known as the bibliophilic voyeur), so in lieu of an informative update from yours truly, do take a look.

Sunny weather. The glorious release from post-secondary responsibilities (until the tidal wave of exams hits on Monday, at least.) I am so ready to wash my hands of this semester and embrace the self-directed learning and slacking that the summer offers. There is, of course, the looming necessity of finding a job that meets three criteria: a) does not crush my soul b) provides me with the funds I will need for various irresponsible purchases c) allows me enough free time and energy to get a Secret Podiobook Project™ written. In the spirit of enjoying the moment, I’m overlooking that stressful job-hunting process for now.

If I don’t get the SPP™ at least completed in a text draft this summer, I don’t want it to be because a job drained me and stole away my time - I want it to be because I was a lazy ass. (If I’m going to be angry, I’d rather be just angry at myself rather than angry and helpless in the face of things bigger than I am.)

Ideally though, I’ll get the thing recorded and out there. Since I don’t know what I’m doing, though, that may be a bit much to expect. We’ll see.

As I was trying to say (before the unavoidable segue into blabbing about my life), the weather and today’s schedule were fairly conducive to writing. So was the Anchor Steam I drank, though it made me sleepy and unmotivated afterwards, when I might have otherwise written even more. Further experiments to reveal the beer - writing output relationship will have to be done.

Working Title: Living With Uriel Sam & Uriel
Genre: Comedy-drama
My screenplay is: Juno meets Dexter… yeah.
Today I learned: Writing outside is nice, except for cool breezes, insects, and being unable to see your screen because of glare. Montages are irresistible. Voice-overs are irresistible. I am more wont to toss in predictable, two-dimensional supporting characters than I would have thought. I am as wont to write off drinking a beer brewed in San Francisco (where the script is set) as “research” as I would have thought.
Beers consumed in direct support of the scriptwriting process: 1 Coffees consumed in direct support of the scriptwriting process: 0
Pages: 9
Morale: Good. Ahead of necessary daily page count, the plot still seems salvageable, even if it’s already not what I imagined.

[Music] Damn Those Turks! (Turks’ Theme) - Voices of the Lifestream

Any plotting I would have liked to get done last night was ruined by a headache. A lack of food and four shots of espresso will do that to a delicate flower like me. I self-medicated with an extra strenth Motrin and some ingested meats (pork, to be specific), and took to bed early.

I woke up feeling like a million bucks. That little nuisance called school stood between me and tackling Script Frenzy’s first day, but I didn’t let it get me down. I only need to average 3 pages a day to make this thing work. From here, anything is possible.

Here’s the first installment in the maelstrom:

Working Title: Living With Uriel
Genre: Comedy-drama
Today I learned: The word “limnology,” that my main character’s major is marine biology, how to format a screenplay.
Beers consumed in direct support of the scriptwriting process: 0
Coffees consumed in direct support of the scriptwriting process: 0
Pages: 4

The project is already turning out different than I anticipated. It’s more comedic, much more Juno than the semi-serious mainstream drama I conceived it as. That’s all right - the good thing about throwing yourself into a project very shortly after conceiving it is that you don’t have your preconceived notions set in stone, and you’re not emotionally attached to it yet. I’m willing to go with the flow. The risk, of course, is that I’ll end up with gibberish. But that’s okay. Surely I can allow myself but one toss-out script in life.

For the curious, my Script Frenzy username is Marzo.

[Music] The movie “Bugsy” (1991) on TV

Somewhere along the way, I got it drilled into my head that there’s no motivation like accountability. For the next 30-odd days, this blog will be publicly documenting (to my shame or glory) my first attempt at Script Frenzy.

100 pages. 30 days.

I’ve never attempted to write a screenplay before. It’s a format entirely alien to me, making this endeavor somewhat like a blind man jumping into the Tour de France.

I doubt my stamina. I doubt my capability. But hot damn, maybe if I grip the bars and pedal hard I’ll get to the finish line. The helpful shouts of spectators and fellow participants will, I hope, prevent me from pedaling myself off of a cliff.

Besides inexperience and ignorance, I have a few items in my Inventory to aid me during this quest.

My armaments:

A 2-year-old iBook G4 named Farinelli

A program called Scrivener

A vague premise, sparked by this Craigslist post

A hefty dose of raw enthusiasm

It begins.

[Music]: Premonition of Pain - 3 Inches of Blood