condolences diary

What a pisser! I learned today that my half-a-book is longer than most books. I confirmed this with page counts from Nicholas Sparks, Nick Hornsby, Chuck Pahlaniak, Jeff Rivera, and others. The good news? I can fill pages. The bad news? Along with finishing the book, I now need to cut about half of what I’d already written.

condolences diary

Mid-point. That’s approximately where I am. I’m no longer judging by page numbers as I’ve switched to Scrivener and that information isn’t immediately apparent (and if it is, I haven’t noticed it). At last glance, it was past 275, so I’m guessing it’s around 300. I’m also not judging by word count because, like square footage in homes, I just can’t conceptualize it. All I know is that 1,000 words is double 500, but when thinking in terms of pages, I can’t make the leap.

I’m judging by story structure and I’m about half way through the story. Of course this is just my 1.5 pass, but still it’s nice to have a half-finished, unedited manuscript where as months ago, I had nothing. Yay for me!

Two struggles remain. One is writing the second half as it’s obviously taken me a while to write the first. I’m honestly not at all looking forward to how long it’ll take. I’m guessing half of ’12 will be gone by the time I have a semi-edited draft.

The other thing is the editing. I don’t think what I’ve written so far is perfect. But I’m also not counting enough problems. This is something I’ve faced in my screenwriting as well. Some people I know are so much better at self-assessment than I seem to be. So while I should be thinking “Oo, better take care of that,” I’m not noticing too much where I should. This tells me that I’m deluding myself that the manuscript is good. The problem with this is I’ve felt falsely confident with screenplays in the past, sent them out, and well, either nothing happened or lots of negative feedback came back. So I’m not entirely sure how confident I am in my self-assessment in rewrites.

I guess that’s where anyone who wants to read and give me feedback comes in.

Next up, I’m probably gonna do a combination of continuing on the book while also rewriting scripts and writing new ones. I’m thinking one day for each, or something like that. I dunno. Don’t know what I’m doing.

condolences diary

At long last I’m updating this. Yes, that means there’s an update to be had. At last count, I was past page 270. That was on Google docs’ count. Things have changed, however. I was tricked into using Scrivener and they have this nifty feature where I can split chunks of writing into this new fangled thing called a “chapter.” I did that. But, what Scrivener didn’t tell me was that in doing so, I don’t see an automatic page count. And besides, apparently in fiction (and non-fiction presumably), it’s not the page count that counts so much as the word count.

Problem.

See, I don’t think in terms of word counts because I mostly write screenplays, which don’t think in terms of word counts either. So, when I see something like “2,000″ words, I might as well be reading “2,000 nooglihoogs.” As of now, I have no real idea how many pages other than more than 270.

A very encouraging thought, though, is that including what I believe is all the “chapters”, the book is now about 12 chapters long. More or less. And as I might’ve said, I’m approximately half way through the story. Does this mean that the book will be 24 chapters long? Eh, I don’t know.

All I know is that I’m writing about two pages a day. Here’s hoping I have a decent manuscript by summer.

condolences diary

Back in the saddle. I don’t know when last I touched the manuscript, but it’s been months. I’m now writing on Google docs because, after upgrading to Mac OS X Lion and not realizing that any pre-Lion apps I had that weren’t designed for Lion wouldn’t work, those apps didn’t work.

That’s right. Word, Excel, etc. don’t work on my iMac. I’ve checked out prices and no, it won’t break the bank, but I simply don’t feel like dropping $100 or so on basic software that I was used to having.

The nice thing about Google docs is that its experience is almost identical to that which I would’ve had with Word. The shit part is that since it’s all on-line, I don’t have an instant copy on my HD. Just makes me a little nervous with the constant “Saving…” status updates. I’m almost waiting for that status to read, “Deleting because server went down. Sorry. Our bad.”

I’m also a little disappointed that, on Google docs, the page count isn’t what it was before. I was sure I’d written 230 or so pages. Not so much.

Sigh.

I’m also a little annoyed that at the supposed point in the book where I’m at, I not only have all that I’ve written to go, but probably all of that again. Basically, I’m between a quarter and a third of the way through. Bleh.

But I wrote a couple of pages today and yesterday. That’s how I got past the 200 page mark. More soon.

8-BIT diary

After many days of exhaustive polishing/rewriting, I’m finally going to send off for round two of comments. The upside is I think draft two is much, much stronger than the first draft. The downside is I’ve reached that point of lack of objectivity. I’m eager to move on, though, as I have lots of reading, rewriting of other projects, and writing of new projects to get to.