A Brief Respite

Since my last post, I completed the first draft of my second short story (SS#2) and the first redline of my first screenplay (SP#1). I needed to let them sit for a while so that I could go back to editing them fresh. SS#1, draft 4 has been with Leia for a couple of weeks now and I decided to take it back because I need to finish it before pitching it to some magazines. I completed the initial sluglines for SP#2; with that project, I just need to start writing!

While many writers dread the editing project, I happen to enjoy it. Every time I draft something new, I look at the result like an unfinished blob of clay. It has some form, but it is so raw and unfinished that it cries to be molded into something wonderful. Every stage of editing remove unnecessary lumps of the useless stuff, some huge, but most small and strategic. The end result: something I can live with and hopefully for others, it's something to enjoy.

I decided that I have enough ideas for short stories to (at the very least) publish a collection at some point down the road if I can't sell them individually. There's no market for short story collections, so it will end up being self-published. I'll hold off making that decision until I see how they sell as articles.

I came up with a great idea for a children's book (or even a series of them). I already have sketched out an idea for another children's book already - the earlier one is for younger kids. This new concept would be for kids 8-12, I think. I've been fleshing out the basics on the characters and such over the week.

Leia (my wife) and I outlined an idea for a screenplay over dinner a few months ago. She's been researching related facts in her spare time for this project. Meanwhile, we already came up with a treatment for a reality show - actually, hers was the basic idea (including the title, which is brilliant for the concept), but I wrote out the whole treatment. We submitted it to the Scriptapalooza TV project. The winners will be announced in February.

TV writing is the only genre that doesn't interest me, at least now. I understand that sitcoms are particularly easy to write - very formulaic - but they're hard to sell because so many of them get pitched and discarded just as easily.

I estimated that if I could write full-time, I would be occupied for at least 10 years with all the ideas I have on the books. That's why OneNote has been so useful to me. Without it, all of my thoughts, writings and such would be difficult to keep straight.

OK, back to the drawing board (my other blogs have been neglected long enough!).

Best to you and yours,

Michael