13:00
Got up, made some calls and did half an hour's exercise at the gymn.
Having achieved so much, thinking about going back to bed.
01:30
Finished off the revisions, spent an hour back on the new project. It's going okay - the writing's a little poorer than I thought, but then it always is.
On a mad whim submitted my short film to Cannes. This means I have a week to finish it off before the deadline. But what the hell - I had no idea you could apply so late - it's a one in a thousand shot, but why not?
Will be back to the play tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be able to do some more play. I'll also have to spend time on the short - and possibly organizing a trip down to London for next week to dub the bloody thing. Oh well. Living on a pipe dream is a hell of a lot better than living in a depressive funk.
word count: 445
hours writing: 4.5
Thursday, 5 March 2009
Wednesday, 4 March 2009
Day 64
13:15
Got up today a little later - about 11am. Went off to the gymn, and nearly killed myself by cycling gently for twenty minutes.
Came home to discover the fantastic news that my beautiful girlfriend is getting published! The first ever story she's sent off is to be published in the annual Association of Scottish Literary Studies volume, New Scottish Writing.
Booyaaaah!
02:30
Inspired by my girlfriend's achievements, I decided to polish over the screenplay I finished in January and send it off to the London Independent Film Festival Screenwriting Competition, whose deadline is Friday.
So I worked pretty hard - have managed to trim it down from 133 to 125 pages, and shore up a couple of the scenes - though I've still got another fifty pages to finish off.
The only problem with having done these revisions is that, word-count-wise, in five hours I've only written twenty words.
But if I can get my screenplay up to scratch by tomorrow, that'll be worth the word-count hit.
Going to bed now - have to get up at a reasonable time tomorrow.
word count: 20
hours writing: 5.25
Got up today a little later - about 11am. Went off to the gymn, and nearly killed myself by cycling gently for twenty minutes.
Came home to discover the fantastic news that my beautiful girlfriend is getting published! The first ever story she's sent off is to be published in the annual Association of Scottish Literary Studies volume, New Scottish Writing.
Booyaaaah!
02:30
Inspired by my girlfriend's achievements, I decided to polish over the screenplay I finished in January and send it off to the London Independent Film Festival Screenwriting Competition, whose deadline is Friday.
So I worked pretty hard - have managed to trim it down from 133 to 125 pages, and shore up a couple of the scenes - though I've still got another fifty pages to finish off.
The only problem with having done these revisions is that, word-count-wise, in five hours I've only written twenty words.
But if I can get my screenplay up to scratch by tomorrow, that'll be worth the word-count hit.
Going to bed now - have to get up at a reasonable time tomorrow.
word count: 20
hours writing: 5.25
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Day 63
13:30
Managed to get up at 9:30 this morning. Have been talking with someone about doing a job next week - probably 10 days' work, but it'll pay the rent for a few months. So my writing is probably about to take another hit.
I'll have to see what I can do in the next few days: I really, really want to work on this play and make it good. I don't want to have to stretch it out forever.
02:15
Well, decided to take a night off (at 10pm) and watched Fincher's Zodiac on blu-ray. It was - as in the cinema - an unnerving, disturbing experience. It was really interesting too, in that for the first time on a first-rate film I noticed a keying job on one of the shots: the distinctive 'drawn around hair' on Mark Rufalo on a shot when he stands at 'Washington and Cherry' after the taxi-cab murder, and in the special features, they used that shot as an example, so that I saw that my initial reaction was correct.
This made me think that sometimes, no matter how good a team is, I guess, they won't be able to polish up one shot as well as another - nor make every shot as beautiful as the one before, nor every scene as uniformly excellent. And as mean as that is, it gives me hope with my own work - where I see nothing but patchiness.
Also today I joined the gymn with my beautiful girlfriend and intend to fit about a half hour of jogging or similar exercise in every day from now on. Got to get healthy again!
On the writing front, I had a pretty promising day - fleshed out three scenes of the new project, but didn't quite make my hours - having not worked out that by starting a 3 hour film at 10:30pm, I wouldn't be starting my final hour of writing till past 2am - and I'm trying very, very hard to get up at more sensible hours.
So I'm going to bed now and will work hard on catching up first thing in the morning.
word count: 2,002
hours writing: 3
Managed to get up at 9:30 this morning. Have been talking with someone about doing a job next week - probably 10 days' work, but it'll pay the rent for a few months. So my writing is probably about to take another hit.
I'll have to see what I can do in the next few days: I really, really want to work on this play and make it good. I don't want to have to stretch it out forever.
02:15
Well, decided to take a night off (at 10pm) and watched Fincher's Zodiac on blu-ray. It was - as in the cinema - an unnerving, disturbing experience. It was really interesting too, in that for the first time on a first-rate film I noticed a keying job on one of the shots: the distinctive 'drawn around hair' on Mark Rufalo on a shot when he stands at 'Washington and Cherry' after the taxi-cab murder, and in the special features, they used that shot as an example, so that I saw that my initial reaction was correct.
This made me think that sometimes, no matter how good a team is, I guess, they won't be able to polish up one shot as well as another - nor make every shot as beautiful as the one before, nor every scene as uniformly excellent. And as mean as that is, it gives me hope with my own work - where I see nothing but patchiness.
Also today I joined the gymn with my beautiful girlfriend and intend to fit about a half hour of jogging or similar exercise in every day from now on. Got to get healthy again!
On the writing front, I had a pretty promising day - fleshed out three scenes of the new project, but didn't quite make my hours - having not worked out that by starting a 3 hour film at 10:30pm, I wouldn't be starting my final hour of writing till past 2am - and I'm trying very, very hard to get up at more sensible hours.
So I'm going to bed now and will work hard on catching up first thing in the morning.
word count: 2,002
hours writing: 3
Monday, 2 March 2009
Day 61
10:30
That's right! I've been up for an hour and a half already. Kicking ass and taking names. Or... staring dopily at my computer. Pretty much the same thing.
Going to sit down and plan out this whole project, right now.
Will not rest until my four hours are done. Will not rest until my 2,000 words are written.
Onwards and upwards!
01:30
Wrote for four hours today, which is good - only wrote half my words, though. I'm trying very hard to plan everything out in advance, rather than force myself too far onwards too quickly.
As I read in my grandfather's autobiography: thinking is also research. This is difficult to reconcile with any tangible sense of success. But I'll keep on working on shaping the first couple of scenes tomorrow, and then see what happens.
But now, I'm going to bed, hopefully to get up at a sensible time tomorrow.
word count: 1,050
hours writing:4
That's right! I've been up for an hour and a half already. Kicking ass and taking names. Or... staring dopily at my computer. Pretty much the same thing.
Going to sit down and plan out this whole project, right now.
Will not rest until my four hours are done. Will not rest until my 2,000 words are written.
Onwards and upwards!
01:30
Wrote for four hours today, which is good - only wrote half my words, though. I'm trying very hard to plan everything out in advance, rather than force myself too far onwards too quickly.
As I read in my grandfather's autobiography: thinking is also research. This is difficult to reconcile with any tangible sense of success. But I'll keep on working on shaping the first couple of scenes tomorrow, and then see what happens.
But now, I'm going to bed, hopefully to get up at a sensible time tomorrow.
word count: 1,050
hours writing:4
Sunday, 1 March 2009
Day 60
23:45
Have spent the last hour or so being ponderous on my thoughts for the end of last month.
Haven't done any short film today - have spent the day reading up on my next project, taking notes. The reading and note-taking takes a damned long time - in future years, I'll include this in my 4 hours a day timeframe - because to try to do enough research to write a screenplay and write a screenplay at the same time is nigh on impossible - for me, anyway.
Going to try to finish off this very interesting book, then will write some more plans.
03:00
Going to bed now. On first look, I haven't acheived much today - having only 'written' for the last quarter of an hour and only producing a hundred or so words.
But I have managed to fit in more than six hours of primary reading today - with six pages of notes today, too.
So I start tomorrow on this new project, determined to plan it out to the fullest extent before I go barging in to write it.
We will see what happens. My other goal is to get up at a reasonable time tomorrow: which is why I'm going to go to bed right now.
word count: 152
hours writing: 0.25
Have spent the last hour or so being ponderous on my thoughts for the end of last month.
Haven't done any short film today - have spent the day reading up on my next project, taking notes. The reading and note-taking takes a damned long time - in future years, I'll include this in my 4 hours a day timeframe - because to try to do enough research to write a screenplay and write a screenplay at the same time is nigh on impossible - for me, anyway.
Going to try to finish off this very interesting book, then will write some more plans.
03:00
Going to bed now. On first look, I haven't acheived much today - having only 'written' for the last quarter of an hour and only producing a hundred or so words.
But I have managed to fit in more than six hours of primary reading today - with six pages of notes today, too.
So I start tomorrow on this new project, determined to plan it out to the fullest extent before I go barging in to write it.
We will see what happens. My other goal is to get up at a reasonable time tomorrow: which is why I'm going to go to bed right now.
word count: 152
hours writing: 0.25
End of February Round-Up
As promised yesterday, here are a few thoughts on my writing experience in February.
I've had a real struggle this month, and haven't come out of top a lot of times.
I've had some bleak moods this month. Other times I've been pretty happy. It seems neither a positive nor a negative mental attitude need help or hinder your writing. When depressed, the quality of my writing and the effort it takes definitely makes me feel miserable - but I've discovered that feeling bad it isn't really a valid excuse for not writing. If anything, a good mood is more likely to encourage you to play hooky or get caught up in distractions than a bad one.
Which leads us to...
I've discovered this month that just one other interest - in my case, trying to finish this fucking short film - can wreak havoc on your writing hours and output.
This seems especially true if this other interest is time-consuming in a more rigid and structural way than the free-f0r-all of writing - the fact that, after a certain amount of time you will have achieved x (as opposed to writing, where after a certain amount of time you might have achieved dick) can easily nudge out all the other concerns, and swallow up your day, night, and early morning.
In this situation, I've just have to sit down and decide what's more important to me. Over the last couple of weeks it's been the short film - because it cost me money, because it was a lot of effort, because I'd like to see one of my projects properly finished - but nonetheless, it cost me the targets that I desperately wanted to achieve by the end of the month.
This month I didn't make 100 hours, I didn't write 50,000 words, I didn't finish my second screenplay. Because I got distracted with finishing this film.
And so now I come into March with the feeling that I've fallen far, far behind.
This month I've learned that, until I'm consciously and subconsciously ready to start writing - when I know that I don't have to bullshit my characters' responses or muddle through a scene not knowing what i want to say or where to go next - then I shouldn't start writing at all.
Writing without a solid plan of where I'm going is miserable. I don't mean that to me, writing is an uninspired painting by numbers. If I don't have a clear map of where I'm going, I don't know how the characters are going to react, I don't know what I'm looking out for, and what's worse: I quickly get bored and depressed - because I don't have that map, I can't improvise a new route on the fly, because I already have no idea where I am.
With my crusaders script, I've created so many problems for myself that I've tailed off at page 66, unable to continue due to the huge numbers of inconsistencies in character, plot and pacing that are in the first half preclude any way of creating a believable, interesting and entertaining second half. The only way I'll finish it off satisfactorily will be to start again - go back to the plan, flesh it out, and get its proportions right (I'm only a third of the way through the movie's plot, but nearly 70 pages into the script) - then use what I can of what I've written so far and hopefully, find a way to finish it from that.
So my absolute dedication to forcing myself to write this script too early didn't help me at all - in fact, it set me back. And that's something that I'm going to make sure I don't do next time.
Because I was working on the short so hard, and have not made my hours or word-count at all in the last few days, I totted the totals up on my blog but didn't feed them into the spreadsheet I use each day to chart my progress.
This was a big mistake. If I saw how close I was to making 100 hours a couple of days earlier, I would have made sure I made that target.
Something like a spreadsheet is pretty dorky, but it concentrates my mind on what I want to do each day. It's become part of my writing process and helps me focus. By avoiding it, I have been avoiding one of the main tools that has been encouraging me to write.
Anyway, that's more that enough pondering for this month. Let's hope the next one is a little more successful.
month summary:
words written: 40,256
total hours writing: 91.25
average words a day: 1,437
average hours writing: 3.25
I've had a real struggle this month, and haven't come out of top a lot of times.
Moods
I've had some bleak moods this month. Other times I've been pretty happy. It seems neither a positive nor a negative mental attitude need help or hinder your writing. When depressed, the quality of my writing and the effort it takes definitely makes me feel miserable - but I've discovered that feeling bad it isn't really a valid excuse for not writing. If anything, a good mood is more likely to encourage you to play hooky or get caught up in distractions than a bad one.
Which leads us to...
Other Interests
I've discovered this month that just one other interest - in my case, trying to finish this fucking short film - can wreak havoc on your writing hours and output.
This seems especially true if this other interest is time-consuming in a more rigid and structural way than the free-f0r-all of writing - the fact that, after a certain amount of time you will have achieved x (as opposed to writing, where after a certain amount of time you might have achieved dick) can easily nudge out all the other concerns, and swallow up your day, night, and early morning.
In this situation, I've just have to sit down and decide what's more important to me. Over the last couple of weeks it's been the short film - because it cost me money, because it was a lot of effort, because I'd like to see one of my projects properly finished - but nonetheless, it cost me the targets that I desperately wanted to achieve by the end of the month.
This month I didn't make 100 hours, I didn't write 50,000 words, I didn't finish my second screenplay. Because I got distracted with finishing this film.
And so now I come into March with the feeling that I've fallen far, far behind.
Forced Writing
This month I've learned that, until I'm consciously and subconsciously ready to start writing - when I know that I don't have to bullshit my characters' responses or muddle through a scene not knowing what i want to say or where to go next - then I shouldn't start writing at all.
Writing without a solid plan of where I'm going is miserable. I don't mean that to me, writing is an uninspired painting by numbers. If I don't have a clear map of where I'm going, I don't know how the characters are going to react, I don't know what I'm looking out for, and what's worse: I quickly get bored and depressed - because I don't have that map, I can't improvise a new route on the fly, because I already have no idea where I am.
With my crusaders script, I've created so many problems for myself that I've tailed off at page 66, unable to continue due to the huge numbers of inconsistencies in character, plot and pacing that are in the first half preclude any way of creating a believable, interesting and entertaining second half. The only way I'll finish it off satisfactorily will be to start again - go back to the plan, flesh it out, and get its proportions right (I'm only a third of the way through the movie's plot, but nearly 70 pages into the script) - then use what I can of what I've written so far and hopefully, find a way to finish it from that.
So my absolute dedication to forcing myself to write this script too early didn't help me at all - in fact, it set me back. And that's something that I'm going to make sure I don't do next time.
Keeping Track
Because I was working on the short so hard, and have not made my hours or word-count at all in the last few days, I totted the totals up on my blog but didn't feed them into the spreadsheet I use each day to chart my progress.
This was a big mistake. If I saw how close I was to making 100 hours a couple of days earlier, I would have made sure I made that target.
Something like a spreadsheet is pretty dorky, but it concentrates my mind on what I want to do each day. It's become part of my writing process and helps me focus. By avoiding it, I have been avoiding one of the main tools that has been encouraging me to write.
Anyway, that's more that enough pondering for this month. Let's hope the next one is a little more successful.
month summary:
words written: 40,256
total hours writing: 91.25
average words a day: 1,437
average hours writing: 3.25
Day 59
01:00
Forgot to post during today - which means that 28th Feb is the first day I've officially 'skipped' on my blog. God damn it.
04:45
For the first day, I've reached the early hours of the morning, and I haven't done any god-damned writing whatsoever. I spent the afternoon around at my parents, helping them clear some shit out of their garage. (Mostly my shit, to be honest). Then I got back and started working on the short film some more.
I rendered out a grade of everything I'd done in hd and watched it on the playstation. I was quite heartened. The film has gone from being a real shit sandwich to something that I feel quite happy with, for all its flaws.
I recorded a little voice-over 'preface' to the film a month ago when I was working down in Leeds, and so I started trying to animate some photos to go with that. And now it's coming of five in the fucking morning, yet again.
This is my goal: to finish off my short film: to finish it off really, really well: to add value to the whole thing and turn it into a package. Then go straight into the writing and work on that tirelessly until I've caught up. Because I'm totally letting myself down on that front at the moment, and it's bullshit.
Will do a little summary on this pathetic month tomorrow. But for now, I'm going to spend fifteen minutes writing, then I'm going to bed.
word count: 132
hours writing: 0.25
Forgot to post during today - which means that 28th Feb is the first day I've officially 'skipped' on my blog. God damn it.
04:45
For the first day, I've reached the early hours of the morning, and I haven't done any god-damned writing whatsoever. I spent the afternoon around at my parents, helping them clear some shit out of their garage. (Mostly my shit, to be honest). Then I got back and started working on the short film some more.
I rendered out a grade of everything I'd done in hd and watched it on the playstation. I was quite heartened. The film has gone from being a real shit sandwich to something that I feel quite happy with, for all its flaws.
I recorded a little voice-over 'preface' to the film a month ago when I was working down in Leeds, and so I started trying to animate some photos to go with that. And now it's coming of five in the fucking morning, yet again.
This is my goal: to finish off my short film: to finish it off really, really well: to add value to the whole thing and turn it into a package. Then go straight into the writing and work on that tirelessly until I've caught up. Because I'm totally letting myself down on that front at the moment, and it's bullshit.
Will do a little summary on this pathetic month tomorrow. But for now, I'm going to spend fifteen minutes writing, then I'm going to bed.
word count: 132
hours writing: 0.25
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