A quick note

Just a quick update, the novel is still progressing, and I finished the draft of my Sci-Fi Horror movie.  I need more time for the novel so I won't be working on anything else for a while.  In fact, it's been taking up so much of my free time, there isn't much time for anything else.  My friends probably wonder if I'm still alive or not.  I need to get back to writing.

Serious multitasking

The WWII novel is coming along now.  It has gotten a little bit easier, but I'm only managing a page a day.  That has become the goal now, every day I need to get a page done.  I'm hoping that I'll have this finished by the end of the year.

I finished the latest draft of my Family Archaeology screenplay.  It was a little long so I had to make some tough decisions about what to cut out.  One was particularly heartbreaking since it had a key character moment.  It was hard to replace it with something shorter, but the scene will survive in the sequel.

We gave our Animated Halloween script to a couple of readers so we can get some good feedback on what works and what doesn't.  I always tend to fill in the blanks in my head and not on paper, so it's always nice to have someone look at it, and point out what they don't understand.

I did another quick draft of my Horror Trap screenplay to clean up some of the formatting and started on another draft of my Sci-Fi Horror movie.

Met with Mr. G.

I had trouble getting a hold of my Hollywood screenwriting contact, who I call Mr. G., so I decided to just go to where his office is to talk to him.  Luckily, he was there and had some time to talk.  We spoke about a low budget horror film that he was directing and was getting close to finishing it.  I pitched the screenplays that I have been working on over the last three years.  He said there were three that stood out to him, and possibly a couple more that could work, but needed a better log line and pitch.  Since he was busy finishing his movie, he didn't have any more time and said to contact him again towards the end of the year.

Screenwriter's Bible

I finished reading the Screenwriter's Bible, by David Trottier.  It's a complete guide to writing, formatting, and selling a script.  I received the book as a gift quite a while ago, but finally made the time to read it.  There were a lot of things that I already knew and help with getting started which I didn't need.  But there were some excellent formatting tips that I didn't know about.  So it's time to go through each screenplay for yet another revision, this time focusing more on the format of it.  It's an unbelievable amount of work (especially since I've written so many screenplays now that I have to go back to) but this should make each screenplay look like it's supposed to and give it a better shot of being read.

A week of novel writing

It's been a week now and it doesn't seem to be getting any better.  My wife and Lannie believes it will get easier and some days I'll have multiple pages written and others not so much.  I hope so because I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever finish this beast.

WWII Novel Begins!

That's right, I've finally begun my first novel.  It's an adaptation of a screenplay I wrote that takes place in WWII.  It is completely different from screenwriting.  When I'm writing a script, there are a lot of details I don't have to worry about.  The script is just the blueprint and there are many other craftsmen working on it.  So the details will be figured out by the costume department, the production designer, etc.  But in the novel, I have to figure all of that out.  Now there are a lot of details that I'm sure most people will just gloss over, but I would like to make this as accurate as possible.  For instance, I spent some time trying to figure out a type of tree that would be found in England.  I didn't want to have one that couldn't grow there.

I thought this would be pretty easy since I already have the screenplay to go off of, but with the different style of writing, and the more in-depth research, I don't think I'm going to complete this in three months like I had planned.  I wrote only a half a page today and it was a struggle.  What am I getting myself into?

So I'm writing the novel in the afternoon and working on another re-write of my Family Archaeology screenplay at night.  This presents a unique challenge going from novel to screenplay.  I'll be glad when this is over.

More writing completed

I finished the next draft of my Vampire movie and did a "final" (cough, cough) read through.  There's some great scenes and it has a fantastic ending.  In fact, the main idea started with the ending in mind.

I also completed my Post-Apocalyptic Zombie screenplay.  This one will need a little more work when I go for the next draft.  It's too long and some of the characters were forgotten about.  Now I'm gearing up for August when I start the novel.

Meeting

A friend of my wife's, mother, used to be a film critic.  I met her at a birthday party and she expressed an interest in reading my scripts.  She's into vampires so it was time to go back to my Vampire Screenplay and do another revision from all that I've learned recently.

I've also decided that my next project is going to be my first novel.  I will be adapting my WWII screenplay since I believe it has the best "hook" of all my screenplays.  There are huge differences between a script and a book so I went to the library to check out some books.  The main issue is the multiple characters a screenplay has, and there are about four or five that I want to focus on.  So I talked to the librarian and she made some suggestions of books that have multiple characters in them.  I'm looking forward to being forced to make the time to read again.

More re-writing

It's not just writing, it's re-writing.  Oh how true that is.  I finished the latest draft of my Animated Jungle screenplay, completed another draft of my WWII movie, and started working again on my Red Riding Hood movie.  I had my wife look at it (see her blog link under the Friends of One-Eyed Pictures) and she had made a really good critique of it.

Post-Apocalyptic Zombie screenplay

The outline is finished and I've started work on the screenplay.  There was some fun research that took place in Washington D.C.  It's been a long time since I've been there and I found out about other museums there that I want to visit now.  I'm planning on starting the next draft of my Animated Jungle screenplay tomorrow.

Red Riding Hood done, again

Yes, the latest draft is finished and it's a much stronger piece now.  I also believe it's a great showcase of my work.  It has the best balance of character development and action scenes.  There are a lot of good, personal, themes throughout, and some excellent character arc's.   I'm about halfway through my Post-Apocalyptic Zombie screenplay.

Just a status update

This will be a quick one.  There is turmoil at my work and I'll leave it at that.  The to be verbs have been removed from the Horror Trap screenplay, and I completed two drafts of my Animated Jungle screenplay.

Love is in the air and so is writing

Yes, it's Valentine's Day and it would be a good day to start on a RomCom screenplay, except that I'm already entrenched in two others.  I have learned the power of action verbs and have started a re-write of a horror trap movie.  I'm taking out all the to be verbs such as is walking and changing it to walks.  It's funny how many times I've gone back and forth.  It's a great piece of information I have and it has made my writing even stronger which is the reason for re-writing.

Animated Jungle Screenplay started

With the outline completed it's time to start writing!  So the first of the screenplays has been started and the research for the next one has begun.  It will be a Post-Apocalyptic Zombie movie.  It should be fun.

Two more drafts done

I finished another draft of my Family Archaeology screenplay and the one that takes place during WWII.  I'm still working on the outline for my Animated Jungle screenplay.

Happy New Year!

Yes, another new year is upon us and another new year for writing.  As usual, there are several projects going on, one of which is the completion of another draft of our animated Halloween screenplay.  We hope the new year is prosperous for all of you and keep your creative juices flowing.

We're hoping this year we'll have some time for some more video work.  There are a couple of short film ideas and some new sketch comedy that's been on the back-burner for too long.

New JWI Opening

Our sketch comedy show, "Just Watch It," is being retooled and redesigned. With the new camera, I wanted all of the footage to match so we shot some new sequences for the opening. It had been a while since we have gotten together to film something so it was very fun.

Peanut Sex

Our new sketch, "Peanut Sex," is online and ready for viewing here. When Linus can't find his blanket, Lucy warns him that Mom is the last person he wants to ask where it is.

JWI meeting

Lannie came over and we played around with some ideas for the new opening for Just Watch It. The whole show will be changed a bit. The opening will be shorter, the episode will now be more like 20 minutes (like a regular TV show) instead of 30, and we won't have the credits breaking them up. I also want to have shorter sketches, and not have any that goes to 5 minutes like several have in the past. I want to keep them closer to 2. It should be a more fluid experience.

JWI Episode 5 sign off

Lannie, one of our producers, was able to come over and watch Just Watch It episode 5 and said it looks good. So it is now finished. Now that I can create a more polished DVD, I'll have to redo the first 5 episodes. Not sure when I'll have time though, I have a documentary that needs to be edited.