Saturday, January 30, 2010

TELEVICTIM in progress....

So in November I did the NaNoWRimo - national writing month. I had an idea in mind for it but scrapped it at the last second and decided to surprise myself and go stream of conscious with it and see what story unfolds. It was truly a blast and I'm proud of the story I probed and laid out. I'm excited about the characters and general world that came about by just unleashing - not controlling. However, quite a mess of text. Many feverish sections detract and don't develop. I started to comb through and revise line by line, but it left me feeling quite bogged at the end of each session work. I'm finding sections that need further examination and sections that just don't fit. In a sense it was a successful endeavor, I accidentally created something promising and fun, however I am scrapping what I wrote and will be re-writing it completely. It's going to serve as a very in depth journal entry, laying the foundation and stirring the thoughts as I start the whole thing from scratch, again.

It was a good experience. I've written a lot of short stories, poems, scripts, and a couple "novellas" (=27,000) but this was my first crack at something 50,000 + . I'm glad I did it. It's not publishable the way it came out (who would expect it to, a novel crammed into a month...) But it forged the way to a new idea which I've spent a lot of time developing further and am now ready to embark on it again, with a much more precise vision. But I have realized that the thing I need to hold onto is the freewheeling spirit of the first stab, the loose and creative free-for-all that happened, and the connection to the subconscious. One of the most enjoyable aspects to writing I find is surprising oneself.

I will be posting some bits from the first attack at it from time to time in case anyone is interested. I'm usually fairly mum about the specifics of what I'm writing while I'm writing it. I feel that talking about what I am going to write ultimately takes the wind out of my sails and then the urgency to actually write it starts to dissipate. So until it is done, I won't be talking about what's IN it. But I'd like to talk about process and at times might find it appropriate to share sections of the first rough draft, because as I mentioned, I'm looking at the rough draft like it's a very in depth journal entry. The original stab is experimentation, not the result. Although I'd like to keep the next draft a bit of an experimentation as well, just a little more precise and concise and honed.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a good approach.

Apologies on the Whiskey screenplay delay. My life got sloppy but it's cleaning up this week.

The Igloo Oven said...

no worries fella, get to it when ya can. Good luck with the sloppy joe.