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plutherusI've been trying to write for one hour each day. I actually find time to do it about 3-4 days a week.
I have a few different projects which I'm working on, switching back and forth. Today, I decided to abandon one of them. I keep getting discouraged about my lack of progress, But I keep going back to them.
I've abandoned several projects over the years, and had many ideas which I've never even started, or forgotten because I didn't write them down when I had them. So this morning, I decided to concentrate on just two projects. One is my novel, which has a setting I think is pretty unique. I'm actually pretty proud of the setting, which is different from anything I've seen in the genre before, as well as the stories I'm telling there. I started with a good ending in mind, and two of the main characters. The rest still needs development, but is actually getting there. The only other project I'm working on is a re-write of my play, Jahid, which I hope to have producible by the end of May next year. The novel's arbitrary deadline is October 2004 for the complete first draft. If I can keep a schedule of 10 pages a week, which is less than two pages a day, I can do that.
Abandoned, in addition to a score of different ideas for short stories (which I may still occasionally work on off and on when I get stuck in my other writing and need a break) is my play on Abraham Lincoln & John Wilkes Booth. I thought it was an interesting idea, showing them both, and the differences in their lives and where they end up, but realized I didn't have much new to say about Lincoln. The idea that the approach I was taking, showing Booth's motivations, and why he shot the man, would have cast Bush into the Lincoln role is part of the reason, as well. I just couldn't bring myself to publicly draw any parallels between those two men, even though there are many. Hm, come to think of it, maybe I should have just gone with it after all, and not worried about the parallels or what anybody would have thought about it, or even intentionally exploited them. Lincoln's suspension of Habeas Corpus, and using military trials on civilians in defiance of the Constitution was just one part. His intentional sparking fo the Civil War was another. Though Lincoln actually seemed to think that, whatever laws he was breaking, and whoever's civil rights were being violated in the process, what he was doing was for the best of the country. Bush is only enriching his little gang of thugs and tearing the country apart.
Damn, that's the problem, many ideas, no time.
Actually, it's not really a matter of time, it's a matter of discipline. I just need to sit down and write more. Ideas are the easy part (which is why Hollywood pisses me off so much. With so many fresh ideas running around, why do they keep re-treading the same old ground? The new Star Trek show Enterprise is one of the worst in this regards, dusting off old Kirk-era scripts to re-write into their show, badly. I don't even watch it any more, which is saying a lot coming from a die-hard Trekkie-since-birth like myself, who even watched almost every episode of Voyager.
Anyway, I digress.
The other project, and the one which prompted my re-shuffling of projects was a play I was writing based on a usenet post a friend of mine wrote a couple of years ago. I found the story so powerful and moving, I asked her for permission to adapt it, which she gave me. Unfortunately, and the saddest part of all perhaps, is that the story is just too common. Many playwrights who are better than me and more versed in the subject have already told basically this exact same story, and I found I really don't have anything new to add to the dialogue, and everything I tried to put down just came off as cheezy monday-night-movie style trite tear-jerker. The original post is here preserved for all time in the databanks of Google. I still think it's a powerful story, but best left the way it is.
And now, back to work. Down to four items on my white-board, then I can turn to my main to-do list. Yay!
Actually, I think I'll go find coffee first.
I have a few different projects which I'm working on, switching back and forth. Today, I decided to abandon one of them. I keep getting discouraged about my lack of progress, But I keep going back to them.
I've abandoned several projects over the years, and had many ideas which I've never even started, or forgotten because I didn't write them down when I had them. So this morning, I decided to concentrate on just two projects. One is my novel, which has a setting I think is pretty unique. I'm actually pretty proud of the setting, which is different from anything I've seen in the genre before, as well as the stories I'm telling there. I started with a good ending in mind, and two of the main characters. The rest still needs development, but is actually getting there. The only other project I'm working on is a re-write of my play, Jahid, which I hope to have producible by the end of May next year. The novel's arbitrary deadline is October 2004 for the complete first draft. If I can keep a schedule of 10 pages a week, which is less than two pages a day, I can do that.
Abandoned, in addition to a score of different ideas for short stories (which I may still occasionally work on off and on when I get stuck in my other writing and need a break) is my play on Abraham Lincoln & John Wilkes Booth. I thought it was an interesting idea, showing them both, and the differences in their lives and where they end up, but realized I didn't have much new to say about Lincoln. The idea that the approach I was taking, showing Booth's motivations, and why he shot the man, would have cast Bush into the Lincoln role is part of the reason, as well. I just couldn't bring myself to publicly draw any parallels between those two men, even though there are many. Hm, come to think of it, maybe I should have just gone with it after all, and not worried about the parallels or what anybody would have thought about it, or even intentionally exploited them. Lincoln's suspension of Habeas Corpus, and using military trials on civilians in defiance of the Constitution was just one part. His intentional sparking fo the Civil War was another. Though Lincoln actually seemed to think that, whatever laws he was breaking, and whoever's civil rights were being violated in the process, what he was doing was for the best of the country. Bush is only enriching his little gang of thugs and tearing the country apart.
Damn, that's the problem, many ideas, no time.
Actually, it's not really a matter of time, it's a matter of discipline. I just need to sit down and write more. Ideas are the easy part (which is why Hollywood pisses me off so much. With so many fresh ideas running around, why do they keep re-treading the same old ground? The new Star Trek show Enterprise is one of the worst in this regards, dusting off old Kirk-era scripts to re-write into their show, badly. I don't even watch it any more, which is saying a lot coming from a die-hard Trekkie-since-birth like myself, who even watched almost every episode of Voyager.
Anyway, I digress.
The other project, and the one which prompted my re-shuffling of projects was a play I was writing based on a usenet post a friend of mine wrote a couple of years ago. I found the story so powerful and moving, I asked her for permission to adapt it, which she gave me. Unfortunately, and the saddest part of all perhaps, is that the story is just too common. Many playwrights who are better than me and more versed in the subject have already told basically this exact same story, and I found I really don't have anything new to add to the dialogue, and everything I tried to put down just came off as cheezy monday-night-movie style trite tear-jerker. The original post is here preserved for all time in the databanks of Google. I still think it's a powerful story, but best left the way it is.
And now, back to work. Down to four items on my white-board, then I can turn to my main to-do list. Yay!
Actually, I think I'll go find coffee first.
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no subject
Date: 2003-10-03 02:55 pm (UTC)That story made me hugely angry and hugely sad at the same time. It's very difficult to write something like that well - it is very easy to either come over as too trite or too sentimental.
Good luck with the novel - it does take discipline (obsession helps too of course)