Ken vs. the City

Just a quick goal for this week: Finish a story

I’d have to take off my shoes and socks to count the number of stories I’ve started in the past few years that I’ve started but haven’t finished. It’s so much easier for me to report and write a news story than it is to sustain a great fiction idea long enough to finish it before I loose interest.

Too bad fiction writing isn’t like journalism. Otherwise I could just go and interview someone, and have 90% of the story done already. With fiction you are the witness. You are the expert. You kinda have to interview yourself. That’s hard, because you have to make up the answers as well as the questions.

Creative Update

I must confess that I haven’t done any significant fiction writing since my last Creative Update. Part of it is because I’m getting used to a new work schedule, but part of it is because I’m just lazy. I have 3 short stories that are complete, and need to be re-written and edited before I can even think about selling them. I’ve just been dragging my feet with them.

I’ve set myself a goal to have one of the stories ready to go by Monday (7/10/06). That means I’ll have the weekend to work on things. The one I have in-mind is codenamed B3, just in case I mention it later.

Creative update

Not a lot to report today. I’ve been away in Wisconsin this past week, so my writing schedule has been practically non-existant. It’s time to use the next few days to get back on the wagon. I have a short story to re-write and edit, and a few ideas to flesh out. I also start a new job tomorrow, which means I have to fit my writing time around a new schedule.

This weekend I’ll also try to reverse engineer a scene from Butch and Sundance.

Creative Update

I got the chance to read the first draft of a story of mine in front of a group of people this past weekend. I’m starting to see how the creative process is more like cleaning up a mess than anything else. I remember learning in art class long ago that Michelangelo (the sculptor, not the ninja) was once asked how he created his statues. He replied that he simply took a piece of marble and cut away anything that was not the statue. The art of writing is kind of the same way. When I read my story aloud, it my spidey sense was tingling. There was too much exposition… too many words… too much repetition.

Much like Michelangelo’s chunk of marble, the first draft of a story needs to be cut, molded, and shaped. There was a whole hunk of stuff in there that was distinctly not the story. I tend to repeat myself when I’m charging through a rough draft. It helps me keep certain details of the tale close-at-hand in my short-term memory. Unlike the sculpting of marble, we writers can’t just dig a story draft out of the ground and start cutting.

We have to put our story ideas into a bucket and pour them out in one big lump. That lump is the first draft. Hidden inside the lump somewhere is the story you’ve envisioned. Once you’ve finished the first draft, it’s time to start sorting through the muck and separating what is the story from what is not. But you have to get that lump out there, otherwise you have nothing to work with. That’s why first drafts are allowed to suck.

I actually have a bit of a problem with this. Psychologically, when something has an ending on it (e.g. a first draft), deep down inside I feel like it’s finished. It’s on the paper and out of my head. I haven’t actualy started on my second draft of that story yet, and that’s something I need to work on this week.

Creative update #2

I’ve gotten some feedback on my screenplay from my writer’s group. Armed with a handful of new ideas, I’ve been plugging away at it again. When I first started re-writing it, I had this tremendous creative burst and wrote 14 pages in about a week. That’s massive for a screenplay. Now things have settled to a relative trickle. Not a bad thing. I’m still writing regularly, and the story is progressing, and I’m certainly in no danger of suffering a creative blowout.

When I get tired of working on the screenplay, I’ve been working on a short story. I really don’t find it that hard to switch between writing disciplines. I do it at work with news and editorials. When you write drama, you have to stick with dialogue, action, and images. Prose writing lets you play with description and exposition. It actually feels pretty good to write in one style, and then write in another. It’s almost as it it exercises the brain in different places.

Creative Writing Update #1

I’ve been re-visiting a screenplay I started writing about two, maybe three years ago. It’s interesting how a story can develop from one re-write to the next. It started out as a psychic horror movie. Now it’s turned into a Hallmark made-for TV movie.

I”ve been working pretty consistently on it over the last few weeks. I wrote myself into a corner about a week ago, so I posted what I had so far to a casual writer’s group I’m a part of, hoping some feedback would give me more ideas. No feedback yet.

While I’m been waiting to hear from my colleagues I’ve been working on a short story. The screenplay was foremost in my mind when I started writing the short story, so I recycled some of the character and location names. I figure I’ll just think of new names after I’m done.

I’ve gotten into the habit of writing on the subway. Not much to do when you commute, few distractions, and it’s something you have to do. It’s the perfect time for writing.

When you write a story, you can’t stop. You have to keep the ball in the air. You have to play through. You can’t call an unlimited number of time-outs, otherwise you’ll loose momentum. The ideas you were working with will get pushed out the door by new ones that pop into your head. I can really feel it, after not having worked on my screenplay for about a week.

I still haven’t heard anything from my writers group, so I’ll have to forge ahead on my own. I want to have at least half of the first draft done by the end of the month. I already have some ideas about where the story can go. Hopefully things will be a bit darker this time around, and pull the story away from the pit that is the Hallmark made-for-TV movie. Oh, the horror!