Tag Archives: National Novel Writing Month

Reflection: End of 2013 – Homework

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So I started this last year, inspired by my friend’s list of things that she had accomplished in the past year when going into the new year… Since last year I had a list of items that I have completed in some capacity and what I was planning to do in an effort to continue into 2013 let’s see how my scorecard went:

1: Complete a full length play
2013: So I stared at the completed play and decided that I needed to do a major rewrite, but before I put pen to paper I was playing in my head of how I would like to story to go with only half of the cast. So while the original play included ten cast members, this I hope to bring down to only five.

2: Complete a ten-minute play
2013: Ironically, the whole “close to being public” got even closer. Close enough to the point that I am setting up a table reading soon. So why am I stalling? Well, I am currently editing another ten-minute that is tied with this one with two others simmering in my head. So perhaps that table read is going to have to wait til at least one other play is ready… preferably two additional.

3: Travel out of state more to visit friends
2013: Well, let’s see, I
– February: flew out to Anaheim for a friend’s Disneyland Birthday
– March: drove out to Rochester, Minnesota for FablesCon
– August: drove to Pennsylvania for MusikFest
– August: flew out to San Jose for a cousin’s wedding
And with more trips on the horizon, I think I am doing alright here.

4: Hit the community theatre audition circuit harder
2013: I did audition, but it wasn’t as much of a fruitful onstage year like it was in 2012, however, I learned a lot and worked on some things at home… so only time will tell if the work was worth it.

5: Work backstage
2013: And how… diving into Stage Managing, and with a planned trip to Los Angeles for a one-night only production… I think I found something that would be a worthwhile counterpoint from acting. However, I am also learning another skill set that only time would tell if it would be resume building.

6: Give someone a (second) chance when I felt they deserve none
2013: This, ironically, extended to a party this year that I did not expect and even though I felt I was being the bigger person and things were ok for a little while… everything kind of reverted back to square one and in the end it just wasn’t worth it. Ah well.

7: Reconnect with old friends
2013: Wow, this really took a 180 degree turn around in a lot of areas. It is true that you know who your friends are when you need help moving. Granted I did pick and choose people more this time around, but it was more because after I knew who was definitely going to help, who else could I invite where the personalities would blend… and if someone’s personality wouldn’t blend even though I knew they would help, I couldn’t bring myself to ask…

8: Polish my singing voice
2013: This still trip me up in vocal auditions, but I am slowly working towards being more confident in what I am capable of, let’s see what happens though.

9: Control my workload
2013: Even though this worked out for the most part in 2013, who knows if this would be the case in 2014. Time will tell I suppose.

10: Attempt NaNoWriMo
2013: Yeeeeaaaaah, this totally didn’t happen. Going to attempt again in 2014.

11: Focus on my secondary “career”
2013: Well, the secondary didn’t happen as much. However, a bunch of other irons that were in the fire are becoming rather ripe. So let’s see what happens in 2014.

12: Submitting writing works
2013: Just for the hell of it, I submitted a ten-minute play recently, though I doubt it would be picked up and that’s ok… as soon as I finish a few other things I’ll start submitting more and see what happens.

13: Spending more time with family
2013: After losing one set of grandparents in 2012 there is this need to spend more time with my parents and grandparents more this year than I ever did in the past. Although I managed to do this consistently throughout 2013 with my parents, that is not the case with my grandparents and that is going to have to change in 2014.

And what do I have planned for 2014?

Losing weight! Ok, no, not really… not exactly like that in any case, but more along the lines of bringing my size down to what it was back in early-2012 and I want to say that I am part way there, but who knows…

I will be at a point in my life that I am likely to want to get back into ballroom dancing and I think my ankles can handle it this time around… it is just the matter of timing, so I suppose my hope for 2014 would be to:

Expand my interests and hobbies… because one could never have enough.

Reflection: End of Year 2012 – Homework

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Ah yes, New Years Resolution time. You know, that time of the year when one reflects on the previous year and see what has been accomplished on one’s resolution list and what one has accomplished unknowingly… and what one still needs to work on.

I don’t usually have a resolutions list… but rather a list of what I would want to do and what I did not want to do. Some small and minor and others major and life altering.

But why am I doing this? Because I find that (after talking to many of my friends) we often get caught up in the details in life that we forget just how much we have accomplished when we sit down and actually think about it. So in many ways this is my attempt to put things into perspective and see what have I accomplished no matter how small. Afterall, if we stress about the little things we forget about the big things and if we forget about the big things we lose track of what is really important in life.

So before I head into 2013… what have I completed in 2012? Better question: what would carry over into 2013 and what would not?
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Endeavors: NaNoWriMo Weeks 2 and 3

Ok… so it would appear that it takes me another two weeks before I found a block of time to sit down and just write again.

So for a quick update of Week 3 (since I did squat in Week 2):
Day 15: edited the first ten-minute scripted. Deleted a character and streamlined the script more before sending out to a few friends.

Day 18: edited the first ten-minute again after talking to friends and going back to old comments. Also worked on other ten-minute scripts. Reprinted script that I didn’t have access to originally.

Day 19: I wrapped up all the scenes that were missing in the accidental deletion bring the overall word count to 5,019 (words written / added: 326).

Day 21: Expanding the Sixth Scene in the series of vignettes as well as re-worked a few of the earlier scenes so that the Narrator wouldn’t be talking so much or rather narrating the piece too much by himself. Also added an afterword kind of describing the purpose of the work and the inspiration. Word count: 6,010 (words written / added: 991).

Conclusion: So I did manage to get some decent work in, I am impressed with myself. It only took a week of doing squat before I was able to get back into the groove of writing.

However, there is no way I will be able to hit the 50,000 word goal that is typically set by NaNoWriMo unless by some miracle I pull off an all day marathon writing session… and who knows if that would happen.

What I will say is that for the series of vignettes, now that one scene is completed I am back to going back to the research material to plan out what I would like to do next. So it might be a day or two until I actually get anymore writing done, unless something presents itself.

Ah well… one can hope I suppose.

As for another other posts? I am not exactly dry on the posting front I have just been focused on getting some legitimate writing done this month since that was the commitment I made. Eventually I’ll start posting again… but until then I will work on the writing projects and maybe if things work out I’ll post a few tidbits, but somehow I am doubt that I would even do that.

UPDATE: NaNoWriMo Day 21

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Wow, this was a rather strong writing day. Didn’t expect that. I kind of just sat down, reworked a few scenes, redistributed a bunch of lines and expanded on Scene Six. Now I am done with Scene Six and am looking into my research to see what I have to do next…

Total Word Count: 6,010

Yup, that is a pretty decent jump.

Granted I have been doing a little bit of editing other stuff… so really is this any surprise? I also added an Afterword to the script to gives additional information about inspiration and how the idea came about… which added to the over all word count.

When looking at the “research” for the series of vignettes… I ended up breaking down approximately how many other scenes I most likely have and I counted at minimum around eight and at most? Ha I don’t want to think about that yet… yeeeeaaaah I am not even halfway done. Go figure.

So what else do I have in the queue should I be so lucky as to finish writing the vignettes? Well there is the first ten-minute play formally named “Cycles”, I also have another ten-minute that is going to undergo heavy revisions if not a full out rewrite called “Moments”. Another script that needs to go through heavy revisions is based off of Ray Bradbury’s “The Rocket Man”.

Then of course there is the full show that I have to streamline called “Arrangements”… if I do this right I would be able to whittle the character list from ten to six and possibly even five… but I am unsure if I could even do that! Ugh.

Of course I have all these prose projects that have been on back burner… in the end I am just glad to have gotten started on anything at all… hopefully this motivation lasts into the next month or so. We’ll see.

UPDATE: NaNoWriMo Day 19

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So I finally got around to completing a couple more scenes from the series of vignettes stage play that I have been working on being my word total up to 5,019-ish… Well more or less. I am sure I am off by a few words give or take.

From here on out the series will be new material compiled from previous stories… And as thus a kind of “starting from fresh” kind of mentality. Not a bad thing mind you but it may or may not make plowing along easier.

But really…
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UPDATE: NaNoWriMo Days 18 and 19

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So during a rehearsal line read through over the weekend I went through a couple of ten minute plays of mine and reworked and continued to edit them. I have completed the editing process for one and once I have implemented the changes will go through it again one more time before sending it off to a couple of close friends for their opinions on the changes.

As for the other? Well it needs work. I like the concept and the idea and the whys, but since a lot of the dialogue is based off of conversations I had many moons ago what works in real life doesn’t necessarily work on stage. So I have two choices I could rework from the script what I want or I could scrap the whole thing and just start from scratch. Now that I have a better idea of what I want to do and how to shape it, the latter might be more to my liking, who knows.

What is on the agenda? Other than the above I still have the series of vignettes to continue working on. I am tempted to just go back and start formatting the sucker for my sanity and so others could start reading (or I could start editing) but I don’t know if that would help or hinder the process… Meh, does it really matter? I am getting stuff done… that’s all that counts. 😉

Overall I have gotten… or have been getting a lot more done editing-wise than I had initially anticipated, and it is a good feeling. Moreso now that I have a couple half an hour or so just sitting down and focusing on editing during rehearsals. Multi-tasking is a beautiful thing.

UPDATE NaNoWriMo Days 4 and 15

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Yup, you read that right… I didn’t do any writing between days 4 and 15… and it is rather depressing, but what can one do?

So why am I updating? Because I have managed to go through and reproduce three of the five scenes that I lost in the deletion of one script… so that word count is up to around 5,000… but not only that I started expanding and adding in pieces here and there to fill out the scenes already written.

Needless to say I am a bit excited because the next two scenes aren’t not aspects just thrown together, but rather actual events with lots of information that could stand alone. Once I have these last two scenes rewritten I would be golden and after that it is all new material… in the matter of speaking.

Take that a step further and I spent some time earlier today editing the first ten-minute play I ever wrote. I purposely placed the piece on back burner because I wanted a fair amount of time to pass before looking at it again and most likely heavily editing it. Which is what ended up happening.

I deleted a character… rearranged a few lines… changed the mentality of one of the characters so there is more of a punch / conflict and I am happy with what I have.

With some time over the weekend… in between everything else going on, mayhaps I will find time for additional writing?

Endeavors: NaNoWriMo Week 1 Update

So… I finally decided to follow through with NaNoWriMo and chose to work on a script that not only has been on back burner but I made the mistake of deleting the original composition last month. Looking at the original hard copy, I had a lot of revisions regardless… so I felt this was a good project to work on first and see how far I could take it.

Most of the research and breaking down of the scenes were done months (if not years) ago, and now is just the matter of putting thought to paper… and already I was beginning to see changes on screen and improvements that I could add into the piece… which I did as I typed.

What is it exactly that I am working on? Can’t say… or rather, won’t say… considering that I still have to finish it. Granted I may actually make mention of it on my writing blog: Beyond the Abyss, but I won’t inundate you with details here.

So how did I do from day to day?

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UPDATE: NaNoWriMo Day 1 and Day 2

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As mentioned on my primary blog: Dancing Through the Universe… I am going to make an honest attempt to get something done during the month of November for NaNoWriMo. After all I have who knows how many projects in the pipeline that needs editing, reviewing, rewriting, etc?

So what did I decide to start on? A script… or more accurately a series of scenes (or vignettes as I would call them) that revolve around a singular theme. Unfortunately it is a script where I accidentally deleted the original digital copy of but still have a hard copy with a whole bunch of red-marks on it that I have yet to apply on the digital copy anyway. So I thought that it would be best to work on a script that I know what to expect, but am forced to redo from scratch.

Since this is a script… formatting on its own takes up a lot of time, so I am going to wait until NaNoWriMo is over before I actually go through the work and format it to the correct designations.

In the meantime I am just chugging along… but how did I do? Well Day One was a loss on so many levels.

As for Day Two, I actually got 824 words down during lunch time and then another 792 after I decided to stop working. Ironically enough, this is the completion of one scene or vignette in the series and as thus a decent breaking point.

Current word count: 1616

So what am I writing about?
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Endeavors: National Novel Writing Month aka NaNoWriMo

The first of November marks the beginning of the National Novel Writing Month aka NaNoWriMo. Typically, I do not partake in this endeavor primarily because I simply don’t have the time… but nowadays with so many writing projects up the air I figured that this year (2012) I would give NaNoWriMo a shot.

One problem… most of my current writing projects involve scripts… which would fit more in Script Frenzy which unfortunately closed their program in April 2012… doesn’t mean I can’t use it for my own uses though, does it?

So what is the purpose or goal for NaNoWriMo? According to their website:

National NovNational Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing on November 1. The goal is to write a 50,000-word (approximately 175-page) novel by 11:59:59 PM on November 30.

Compare that to Script Frenzy:

Script Frenzy is an international writing event in which participants take on the challenge of writing 100 pages of scripted material in the month of April.

But how do they compare?
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