Happy New Year all!
So, the deadline for the Terry Pratchett Prize was yesterday - and I just managed to meet it.
It was back on Friday 8 October that I decided to try and finish my science fiction novel in time to enter the competition, at which point 15,000 words were written.
I finally reached the end of the book on Tuesday 28 December (and then spent three more days on a quick edit). I wrote 70,000 words in 81 days - that's 864 words per day on average. My wife stuck a graph on the wall to help me keep track.
Now I know what it takes to get the words out; the next step is to get it published. Being shortlisted (or even winning!) the competition would be a dream come true; failing that, I'll make a go of it on my own. And, meanwhile, I'll get to work on the sequels. :)
It's been an ambition of mine to complete a publishable novel for nearly a decade. Mission complete. (And yet, only just begun...)
Showing posts with label my lovely wife. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my lovely wife. Show all posts
Saturday, January 01, 2011
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Day 34
I'm on day 34 of my mad challenge to write 1000 words a day and get my novel finished by the end of the year.
It generally takes me at least a couple of hours, and sometimes twice that, to come up with 1000 reasonable words - so fitting that in around my day job has been challenging.
I've recently been suffering from a touch of stir-crazy since realising that I'm still not even halfway through and I have barely spent any time with my wife (who, bless her, has been remarkably supportive), let alone my friends and my films, for over a month.
At least, during the month of November, I'm in good company. Thousands of wannabe writers are torturing themselves in a similar way for NaNoWriMo. They're aiming to write 50,000 words in 30 days (about 1,700 per day) - I've so far managed a piffling 27,000 in 34 days (about 800 per day).
Yes, that means I'm currently 7,000 words behind. Well, I've got the day off tomorrow, and there's still a couple of hours left before I conk out today...
It generally takes me at least a couple of hours, and sometimes twice that, to come up with 1000 reasonable words - so fitting that in around my day job has been challenging.
I've recently been suffering from a touch of stir-crazy since realising that I'm still not even halfway through and I have barely spent any time with my wife (who, bless her, has been remarkably supportive), let alone my friends and my films, for over a month.
At least, during the month of November, I'm in good company. Thousands of wannabe writers are torturing themselves in a similar way for NaNoWriMo. They're aiming to write 50,000 words in 30 days (about 1,700 per day) - I've so far managed a piffling 27,000 in 34 days (about 800 per day).
Yes, that means I'm currently 7,000 words behind. Well, I've got the day off tomorrow, and there's still a couple of hours left before I conk out today...
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Premiere
Yay! My wife and I attended the private premiere of The Man Who Married Himself at BAFTA's Princess Anne Theatre yesterday, and it was brilliant.
The film looked great on the big screen. The music added a whole new dimension, emphasising the tragic elements of the main character's loneliness. People laughed in the right places, clapped plenty... there were even one or two heckles. :)
I'm generally not great at schmoozing at those kind of events, but it was fun to chat to Warren Clarke (he praised the film, and offered me one piece of advice for the future: "Write bigger!"), and Mark Joseph who I'd met on the set, and Film Four people, and some of Garrick's friends and family.
It's incredible how many people were involved in making an 11-minute film. Everyone worked so hard on it, with such an incredible amount of goodwill, mostly for little or no money - what other industry (apart from the charity sector I suppose) can claim that kind of dedication?
So, soon the film will be touring festivals and I'll be persuading all my friends and family to go see it. You too! Go!
The film looked great on the big screen. The music added a whole new dimension, emphasising the tragic elements of the main character's loneliness. People laughed in the right places, clapped plenty... there were even one or two heckles. :)
I'm generally not great at schmoozing at those kind of events, but it was fun to chat to Warren Clarke (he praised the film, and offered me one piece of advice for the future: "Write bigger!"), and Mark Joseph who I'd met on the set, and Film Four people, and some of Garrick's friends and family.
It's incredible how many people were involved in making an 11-minute film. Everyone worked so hard on it, with such an incredible amount of goodwill, mostly for little or no money - what other industry (apart from the charity sector I suppose) can claim that kind of dedication?
So, soon the film will be touring festivals and I'll be persuading all my friends and family to go see it. You too! Go!
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
10 Rules For Writing
My wife sent me an article about various writers' ten rules for writing fiction. It's fascinating to read how disciplined, intelligent and well-read everyone else is.
These are the ten rules I seem to live by:
1. Do anything - anything - to put off starting to write. Read about the bystander effect on Wikipedia. Play Scrabble on your iPod Touch. Just sit there and stare at a blank screen for forty minutes.
2. Leave the house. A cafe or a pub is a more productive place to write, particularly one without a wireless internet connection. Start by drinking Cokes, because 2pm is too early to be drinking alcohol. After a couple of litres, when the sugar buzz is making your eyes shake, start on the beers to calm yourself down.
3. Stay up ridiculously, self-destructively late. Several nights in a row. You'll know you've had the right amount of lack of sleep when you're barking at passers-by on the street for walking too close to you.
4. Dwell on a particular line of dialogue for at least an hour without moving on. Then realise how long you've been stuck on it, put in a placeholder, and end up cutting it later anyway.
5. Edit, edit, edit the first ten pages before you've written anything else. Editing is so much easier than writing more.
6. Bring your laptop everywhere with you in the utterly misguided hope that you'll pull it out to snatch a few minutes of writing on the train or wherever. Having to carry your microchip-brick all over town is a useful kind of penance for being a lazy writer.
7. Deadlines are essential enemies. It is perfectly natural to leave it just a little too late so you end up writing in an antisocial blood-sweating panicked frenzy. Face it, that's the only state in which you ever get any writing done anyway.
8. When you've finally finished a first draft, assume that there's nothing wrong with it, and refuse to listen to any constructive feedback for at least three weeks.
9. When a project is at last finished and out in the public domain, rest on your laurels. For goodness' sake don't do any more writing until you've milked all the mileage you can (to mix metaphors) out of what you've already written.
10. Remind yourself that you enjoy writing. It's fun.
Honestly, it's a wonder I ever get any writing done.
These are the ten rules I seem to live by:
1. Do anything - anything - to put off starting to write. Read about the bystander effect on Wikipedia. Play Scrabble on your iPod Touch. Just sit there and stare at a blank screen for forty minutes.
2. Leave the house. A cafe or a pub is a more productive place to write, particularly one without a wireless internet connection. Start by drinking Cokes, because 2pm is too early to be drinking alcohol. After a couple of litres, when the sugar buzz is making your eyes shake, start on the beers to calm yourself down.
3. Stay up ridiculously, self-destructively late. Several nights in a row. You'll know you've had the right amount of lack of sleep when you're barking at passers-by on the street for walking too close to you.
4. Dwell on a particular line of dialogue for at least an hour without moving on. Then realise how long you've been stuck on it, put in a placeholder, and end up cutting it later anyway.
5. Edit, edit, edit the first ten pages before you've written anything else. Editing is so much easier than writing more.
6. Bring your laptop everywhere with you in the utterly misguided hope that you'll pull it out to snatch a few minutes of writing on the train or wherever. Having to carry your microchip-brick all over town is a useful kind of penance for being a lazy writer.
7. Deadlines are essential enemies. It is perfectly natural to leave it just a little too late so you end up writing in an antisocial blood-sweating panicked frenzy. Face it, that's the only state in which you ever get any writing done anyway.
8. When you've finally finished a first draft, assume that there's nothing wrong with it, and refuse to listen to any constructive feedback for at least three weeks.
9. When a project is at last finished and out in the public domain, rest on your laurels. For goodness' sake don't do any more writing until you've milked all the mileage you can (to mix metaphors) out of what you've already written.
10. Remind yourself that you enjoy writing. It's fun.
Honestly, it's a wonder I ever get any writing done.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Website
The website for The Man Who Married Himself now has some content on it, including the trailer. I'm excited.
I was looking forward to introducing my wife to Richard E Grant at the premiere, but she attended the premiere of Food, Inc. on Monday as an ambassador for the Fairtrade Foundation, and he was there - so she's met him already! Apparently, they had an awkward conversation along the lines of:
"Who are you?"
"My husband wrote The Man Who Married Himself."
"Oh! It's a good story. Will I see you at the premiere?"
"Yes."
"..."
"Bye!"
We're clearly not cut out for this hanging out with famous people malarkey.
I was looking forward to introducing my wife to Richard E Grant at the premiere, but she attended the premiere of Food, Inc. on Monday as an ambassador for the Fairtrade Foundation, and he was there - so she's met him already! Apparently, they had an awkward conversation along the lines of:
"Who are you?"
"My husband wrote The Man Who Married Himself."
"Oh! It's a good story. Will I see you at the premiere?"
"Yes."
"..."
"Bye!"
We're clearly not cut out for this hanging out with famous people malarkey.
Sunday, February 07, 2010
The Wedding of the Year
Today I received an invitation to the wedding of Oliver and... Oliver. The premiere of the short film I co-wrote last year, The Man Who Married Himself, will be at the end of this month at BAFTA in Piccadilly.
Extremely exciting. Another chance to hobnob with the stars and feel terribly important. Also, hopefully a chance to introduce my wife to all the great people who helped make this project happen.
But I'm not going to deny feeling a shade nervous as well.
OK, deep breath...
Bring it on.
Extremely exciting. Another chance to hobnob with the stars and feel terribly important. Also, hopefully a chance to introduce my wife to all the great people who helped make this project happen.
But I'm not going to deny feeling a shade nervous as well.
OK, deep breath...
Bring it on.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Finding Time
Towards the end of last year I made an effort to reduce the amount of time I was spending on extra-curricular activities (ie anything but writing). I was running a film club, volunteering at Brixton Prison, regularly attending a go club, indoctrinating myself into the Common Purpose cult, and a bunch of other stuff. I gave all that up.
But I'm still finishing my part-time Creative Writing MA, and I still have a full-time job and a full-time wife. So when do I find time to write?
I don't.
If I was truly disciplined, I would do what they say in all the books - I would get up earlier each day and spend an hour writing before going to work. Ha! There's no getting me out of bed in the morning any earlier than I have to. Or I would dedicate Sundays to writing, forsaking all social engagements for the greater good. Nope.
The truth is that I often carve writing time out of sleeping time. I stay up until 3am on a school night four nights in a row, usually driven by a deadline.
What's worse, it takes me literally hours to squeeze out a few hundred words. My wife can spill a thousand words onto a page in an hour, and I'll still be staring at a blank page. It's a wonder I'm as productive as I am.
Should I be making an effort to develop better habits? Or is this a dirty secret that most writers have?
But I'm still finishing my part-time Creative Writing MA, and I still have a full-time job and a full-time wife. So when do I find time to write?
I don't.
If I was truly disciplined, I would do what they say in all the books - I would get up earlier each day and spend an hour writing before going to work. Ha! There's no getting me out of bed in the morning any earlier than I have to. Or I would dedicate Sundays to writing, forsaking all social engagements for the greater good. Nope.
The truth is that I often carve writing time out of sleeping time. I stay up until 3am on a school night four nights in a row, usually driven by a deadline.
What's worse, it takes me literally hours to squeeze out a few hundred words. My wife can spill a thousand words onto a page in an hour, and I'll still be staring at a blank page. It's a wonder I'm as productive as I am.
Should I be making an effort to develop better habits? Or is this a dirty secret that most writers have?
Sunday, January 25, 2009
A Taste of Hollywood
I am a writer. I want to be a successful writer. So, naturally, my heroes are writers. As a film enthusiast as well, my biggest heroes are screenwriters. And probably my biggest hero of all is Terry Rossio, whose writing credits include Pirates of the Caribbean, Shrek, Aladdin, and - most inspirationally for me - Wordplay.
Back in September, I went on an epic road trip across Western USA with nine friends. Before we left, I sent Terry Rossio an email about an unrelated matter, and mentioned in passing that we were visiting the States. So he INVITED US TO A HOUSE PARTY. Now, technically, we weren't available. According to our itinerary, we would still be in Las Vegas when the party was happening in LA.
Screw the plan.
My wife and I decided to temporarily leave the group behind and fly to LA, returning the next morning - and damn the cost. Getting flights and a hire car would have cost two dollars more than a package that included flights, hire car and a room at what turned out to be The Worst Hotel In Los Angeles. That's right, they actually paid us to stay there.
But nothing took away from the nerves and excitement we felt that day. It felt surreal driving through Santa Monica, knowing that we would be here again in three days with eight other people, and turning off into the beautiful Topanga Hills.
We found the address and crawled up the winding two-mile driveway. (At least it felt that long.) And there it was. In Terry Rossio's own words, "the house that Pirates built." My heart was racing. I felt thrilled, intimidated, proud, nervous...
The best possible thing happened: we were too early. Terry and his partner Jocelyn (top of her field as both a surgeon and a film producer - some people are just... more, aren't they?) were still setting up. So we helped them lay out chairs and canapés, and we chatted to them about how they were still in awe of this beautiful house after more than two years of living here. We chatted to them as normal people about normal things.
People started to arrive, so we let Terry act the host and we snooped around the house a bit. There was no-one there more famous than Terry - it was a launch party for Turbo Dates so there were lots of writers and publicists and distributors.
A few things about the house stuck in our minds. The plaque commemorating the $960,000,000 box office gross of At World's End. The handwritten note of gratitude from Gore Verbinsky (just lying around - Terry is a trusting man!). The mix CD from Johnny Depp. The Upper Hot Tub (yes, there was more than one hot tub).
The party passed its peak and eventually we said our goodbyes, asking Terry for a photo before we left. We went to sleep that night with glorious satisfaction.
Back in September, I went on an epic road trip across Western USA with nine friends. Before we left, I sent Terry Rossio an email about an unrelated matter, and mentioned in passing that we were visiting the States. So he INVITED US TO A HOUSE PARTY. Now, technically, we weren't available. According to our itinerary, we would still be in Las Vegas when the party was happening in LA.
Screw the plan.
My wife and I decided to temporarily leave the group behind and fly to LA, returning the next morning - and damn the cost. Getting flights and a hire car would have cost two dollars more than a package that included flights, hire car and a room at what turned out to be The Worst Hotel In Los Angeles. That's right, they actually paid us to stay there.
But nothing took away from the nerves and excitement we felt that day. It felt surreal driving through Santa Monica, knowing that we would be here again in three days with eight other people, and turning off into the beautiful Topanga Hills.
We found the address and crawled up the winding two-mile driveway. (At least it felt that long.) And there it was. In Terry Rossio's own words, "the house that Pirates built." My heart was racing. I felt thrilled, intimidated, proud, nervous...
The best possible thing happened: we were too early. Terry and his partner Jocelyn (top of her field as both a surgeon and a film producer - some people are just... more, aren't they?) were still setting up. So we helped them lay out chairs and canapés, and we chatted to them about how they were still in awe of this beautiful house after more than two years of living here. We chatted to them as normal people about normal things.
People started to arrive, so we let Terry act the host and we snooped around the house a bit. There was no-one there more famous than Terry - it was a launch party for Turbo Dates so there were lots of writers and publicists and distributors.
A few things about the house stuck in our minds. The plaque commemorating the $960,000,000 box office gross of At World's End. The handwritten note of gratitude from Gore Verbinsky (just lying around - Terry is a trusting man!). The mix CD from Johnny Depp. The Upper Hot Tub (yes, there was more than one hot tub).
The party passed its peak and eventually we said our goodbyes, asking Terry for a photo before we left. We went to sleep that night with glorious satisfaction.
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