Thoughts v. Ability
At the moment my life seems to revolve around writing, books and movies. A lot of people would consider that to be fairly boring, but I don't have too many complaints.
One complaint I do have is that comma in the phrase "writing, books and movies". I would really like to write books and movies. The trouble is, they are completely different forms of writing and unless you are someone like William Goldman it's really hard to get your brain around the two methods. It is for me, at any rate. Plotting and rhythm comes easy for me in novels (well, I think it does, though no publisher has put their money on the table yet to say they agree). This has possibly made me a bit lazy when it comes to writing. Most times what I write in a first draft is pretty much how things will stay. I don't need to go around attending to the plot or adding in major bits or characters or whatever. But scripts? Now there's another story.
When I was about 16 I wrote a terrible, cliched, boring, high minded thing that would have been too cloying for a Hallmark film. Since then I have had numerous ideas that I can not beat into something resembling a reasonable script.
I have a co-written television pilot that could be great-- ideas and characters from a now established genre (super-heros) but original enough to be... Original. Trouble is, it's only a first draft and I'm not sure I can make it any better. Where do we go with it? Nobody wants to read a first draft, even though most producers will bring in their own script doctors/writers to change and fix things anyway. Another mate and I are playing with an update of an old British TV comedy. We have a basic idea... Easy. Now comes the hard part. Neither of us are really sure how to go about it at this stage. Oh well.
I found out today that the short story I recently had accepted (in the anthology Encounters, published by the Canberra Science Fiction Guild-- http://www.camrin.org/csfg/main.htm ) needs no further editing or fixing or whatever. Which means my lazy streak is completely satisfied as I get to sit back and wait for the anthology to appear. That's what I like to see.
That will be story number 3. It's called The Final Battle. The other two were The Art of War in issue 28 (I think) or Aurealis. And The Ferrymen in Glimpses, which was an anthology put out by my writing group. (I'd put up the address for the group, but the site is in the process of having a nervous breakdown.)
I've noticed a strange thing with my short stories-- the few that I write. The main characters usually end up dying. Or, at least, it's suggested that they will be dying very soon after the story ends. Hmmm... What does that say about me, I wonder?
One complaint I do have is that comma in the phrase "writing, books and movies". I would really like to write books and movies. The trouble is, they are completely different forms of writing and unless you are someone like William Goldman it's really hard to get your brain around the two methods. It is for me, at any rate. Plotting and rhythm comes easy for me in novels (well, I think it does, though no publisher has put their money on the table yet to say they agree). This has possibly made me a bit lazy when it comes to writing. Most times what I write in a first draft is pretty much how things will stay. I don't need to go around attending to the plot or adding in major bits or characters or whatever. But scripts? Now there's another story.
When I was about 16 I wrote a terrible, cliched, boring, high minded thing that would have been too cloying for a Hallmark film. Since then I have had numerous ideas that I can not beat into something resembling a reasonable script.
I have a co-written television pilot that could be great-- ideas and characters from a now established genre (super-heros) but original enough to be... Original. Trouble is, it's only a first draft and I'm not sure I can make it any better. Where do we go with it? Nobody wants to read a first draft, even though most producers will bring in their own script doctors/writers to change and fix things anyway. Another mate and I are playing with an update of an old British TV comedy. We have a basic idea... Easy. Now comes the hard part. Neither of us are really sure how to go about it at this stage. Oh well.
I found out today that the short story I recently had accepted (in the anthology Encounters, published by the Canberra Science Fiction Guild-- http://www.camrin.org/csfg/main.htm ) needs no further editing or fixing or whatever. Which means my lazy streak is completely satisfied as I get to sit back and wait for the anthology to appear. That's what I like to see.
That will be story number 3. It's called The Final Battle. The other two were The Art of War in issue 28 (I think) or Aurealis. And The Ferrymen in Glimpses, which was an anthology put out by my writing group. (I'd put up the address for the group, but the site is in the process of having a nervous breakdown.)
I've noticed a strange thing with my short stories-- the few that I write. The main characters usually end up dying. Or, at least, it's suggested that they will be dying very soon after the story ends. Hmmm... What does that say about me, I wonder?
1 Comments:
At 10:58 pm,
Anonymous said…
Hi!
All my characters seem to die at the end of short stories. I think it is often the only way to make the story stop.
Kathleen
Post a Comment
<< Home