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I was supposed to post something that my boss told me at work today, but something else caught my eye. :D I know I’m kind of been neglecting this website, which should’ve been launched, oh, I don’t know, 3 months ago but because of busy-ness, I couldn’t get around to sitting down and forming the site. Argh.
But let’s not get to that.
I got this from the Breaking News at the NaNoWriMo website:
I wanted to give everyone advance warning that the second-annual Script Frenzy will be commencing on April 1. We’ve moved it forward by two months, and made some changes to open it up to more writers. Now the escapade includes TV scripts, short film scripts, and adaptations of novels. As long as you cumulatively write 100 pages of script in April, you’re a winner.
If you’ve been thinking that one of your NaNoWriMo manuscripts would make an awesome movie or play, April is the ideal month to find out. I wrote my first screenplay for Script Frenzy last year, and learning to tell a big story using only dialogue ended up paying big dividends in my novel-writing as well. I’d say Script Frenzy made my novel dialogue and pacing 349% less sucky overall, bringing both of them all the way up to a third-grade level. A third-grade level! In just one month!
Sweet progress.
I was also pleasantly surprised by how easy the dreaded formatting turned out to be, and how many great pieces of free scriptwriting software there are out there to automate the whole process. Here’s to a heavily scripted April!
Chris
See the emphasized words? Adaptation of novels. That really made my day. I wanted to join Script Frenzy last year but backed out because of my schedule, plus I couldn’t write an all original screenplay without any basis like others who can put characters who are fascinated with collecting CAT5e. Even if I did use to write scripts back in high school, it was all based on another piece. I still like writing original prose than screenplays. My VD-PROD script was a perfect example, based on Shooting Star. Heh.
But I think I might just join this one. It’s my first time, and I’ll probably fail…but it’s a fun thing to try. :) I might be able to work on Red Meets Blue here, since I can see it more “on screen” than on paper. Or maybe that’s only because I make my characters burst into song all the time. Heh.
Is anyone planning to join Script Frenzy too? If you are, let me know! We can be writing buddies. :D
Yes, this is another NaNoWriMo post. :) Which I am supposed to post here (well, it is cross-posted, soooo) but this blog seemed to be abandoned now, and Mike has been demanding I make a new post…so here. ^^;
It has been six days since NaNoWriMo ended, and I’ve been feeling some kind of writing withdrawal syndrome. You know the feeling when you suddenly run out of things to do, when you’ve been in front of and burie deep in something big for the past month? And now it’s over, you don’t know what to do anymore? That kind of thing. It’s a relief to finally be free of work, but the missing feeling is there. It’s not that I could not write outside NaNo, but there’s this particular rush when you’re writing with more than a thousand authors all over the world.
This year’s NaNoWriMo is actually the hardest I’ve ever been in for the past four years. For some reason the words did not flow as easily, I feel like I lost my grammar skills. I know what I want to happen in my story and I planned my characters well, but they do not want to talk nor follow what the story is going to. It took a lot of effort to make my characters fight with each other. I jumped around the story a lot, making the not-so finished product very disjointed. Not only that, I had little knowledge with what I wrote, with little time to research, so everything feels fake, like I really don’t know what I’m talking about. The characters are not based on anyone I know, so it’s also a bit hard to form people out of them, unlike last year’s where I have a point character for every one in my novel. Yes, 2007 proved to be difficult even in the time of NaNo.
Of course, it’s a big learning process. I learned that in times like this, all I need to do is write. Write as much as I can, even if it did not make sense. I just need to put it down. Editing would be hell after, but that’s why there’s a certain time for it. What I need to do is to vomit out all the words, even if they’re redundant, if they feel awkward, if everything is cliche. Just write.
I finished writing to 50,000 words this year, but my novel is far from finished. I don’t know if I’ll ever touch it again. Maybe someday, when I feel like I could face Marianne and David (my main characters) again…but now it’s resting.
But before that…I am releasing my first and only excerpt for this year’s NaNoWriMo project, just because. Okay, fine, I’m releasing this because this will be a part of the Pinoy NaNoWriMo 2007 Anthology, which us Wrimos are coming out with for this year. :) This is a collection of NaNoWriMo 2007 novel excerpts from the talented PinoyWrimos, which is the first of its kind here. :) This is the only presentable excerpt I could get from my novel. ^^; It’s kind of long, and it’s semi-cheesy…so you’re excused if you don’t want to read it. :P
Excerpt starts after the cut!
(More…)
It’s no secret that I dream of being a writer. In fact, I call myself a striving writer because that’s what I am. I don’t have any fancy degrees in Creative Writing or anything related, and I know my English is not as strong as I want it to be. To be honest, I just write what comes to mind, and I’m sure I don’t win high points in any grammar book. My vocabulary is too limited, and I feel envious of people who write really well. I may seem like a good writer to other people, but if I was put beside all the other “good writers” around, I’d most probably suck real bad.
So last Saturday’s writing workshop was actually a big encouragement for me wannabe er, striving writer. Like I said, I don’t have fancy degrees. Reading classics make my head ache sometimes, and I hardly touch science fiction or fantasy because just like classics, I find it a bit hard to digest (yes, I’ve never read any LotR). I hardly have time to acquire and read Filipino literature (except for Bob Ong, hee!). I admit that I love ChickLit, and some people think that’s shallow. I love Young Adult too. My stories are all happy bubbly type of stories, which is why I quit the school’s literary folio back in college because I felt like my stories do not fit what they usually publish (that and I do not have time). I’ve pretty much given up hope being a writer until I got to know about National Novel Writing Month, where I finally found the reason to write and be creative at least once a year. And since the topic was pretty much about writing a novel in 30 days since Dean is also a Wrimo (and I just realized! A batchmate! I joined NaNo in 2004 too :D), the talk pretty much pushed the right buttons for inspiration. :P
Last Saturday’s workshop with Dean Alfar was an eye-opening and inspiring one. It made me want to learn more about the craft, to actually take this writing business seriously. It’s not going to pay any of my bills, but it’s what I’ve been wanting to do ever since I “met” Elizabeth Wakefield of Sweet Valley, and I don’t think I’ll ever really rest well without being able to fulfill my dream of publishing at least one fiction novel. As what I told Julie the other day, I’m really afraid of my works being shot down, but that’s necessary for the growth as a writer. It won’t kill me. Great adventure, yes?
So…by hook or by crook, I’m gonna get to 50,000 words on this year’s NaNo. I’m going to finish this novel (and finish last year’s too), and write, write, write. Of course, read, read, read too. Because if I’m not going to write about the things I see and how I see these things, then who will?
Onward, Pinoy Wrimos! :)
* Much thanks to Read or Die/Write or Die for this great initiative. :D Mabuhay kayo!
I’ve bene staring at Flash MX all day, it’s not funny anymore. Wah. I’ve never been so lazy to program ever, but maybe it’s because I’ve been distracted with NaNoWriMo (if you don’t know what this is again, it’s National Novel Writing Month) all day.
Yes, it’s almost that time of the year again. The time where I temporarily disappear from posting because I need to put in words in my novel and when I do post, it’s always about the novel I’m currently writing.I’ve talked about it a couple of times before in this blog, but I’ve concentrated most of my updates in my official NaNo blog, which you can visit right here.
Why do I keep on talking about this? Well, besides the fact that this is an excuse for me to be creative, I am the Municipal Liaison for the Philippines for NaNoWriMo this year, so I’m definitely encouraging people to join up. If you’re a NaNo-er and you’re from the Philippines and you haven’t made your presence known at the boards yet, then do so now! Make sure you set your regional affiliations to Asia :: Philippines so you can see the Philippines forum. If you’re a newbie and you just decided to join, you’re more than welcome to do so. :) You’ll also get some free stickers if you do (I’m serious). We’ll be having a big meet-up at the end of the month, so the more people, the merrier! :) Join the creative insanity! :)
Now the only thing that’s kind of bothering me right now is that I’ll be going to Singapore on Friday, which means my writing will be halted a bit because of the travelling thing. I won’t be bringing Ginger there because I don’t want to bring too many stuff, but I obviously want to write…so I guess it’s pen and paper for me for the entire weekend. Unless I can hostage my dad’s laptop for the weekend, OR, if I can get my Aslan by that weekend, then that would be so much better. :) Let’s see.
Oh, and aside from all the novel-related posts, expect a post about Singapore complete with photos. We’ll be bringing a couple of digital cameras there (yes, more than one — our normal digicam, a borrowed dSLR, and my brother’s video cam), so I’ll be breaking the monotony of my words with photos. Or maybe in my way to preserve the words I churn out everyday, I’ll just make a photo post. Whichever.
Okay, back to preparing for NaNo. :) Excuse me a bit while I talk to my characters.
Sorry for the long nonpost. I was bombarded with lots of work, plus extra rakets here and there that I have to do (FOR ASLAN! More to this on a future post). Truth be told I really don’t have anything noteworthy to post right now so I thought I’d share to the world er, my readers (whoever you are) my upcoming NaNoWriMo 2007 novel ideas.
- The working title of the novel is Red Meets Blue, much thanks to Matt Wertz for the lovely song. This is the second time I’m using a song as a title, the first time with A Page is Turned. I chose this (for now) because the colors red and blue means a lot of different things, which is sort of how my characters are — one is red, one is blue, but not in the traditional red-is-female-blue-is-male thing. :)
- The tentative genre for now is Mainstream Fiction. It’s not exactly the chicklit and it’s not young adult either…it’s a mix of chicklit/ladlit (I think?), religious and romance…so I go for a somewhat vague genre.
- I have two main characters, one female and one male. The female is Marianne Venia and the male is David de Gracia. Ooh, both surnames end with ‘a’. Anyway, they’re around 25 to 27 years old, both of them live in the same/near each other’s condo hotels somewhere in the Metro.
- Marianne is a tough chick. Half European (which exactly is yet to be determined) and half Filipina, sings and plays the piano on random times, and no day job yet. She’s also an atheist/agnostic (not yet sure, will get back at this) and does whatever she wants to do because she wants it. Her dad left them when she was young, and her mom died soon after and she was taken by her aunts to be taken care of.
- David is your regular nice guy. He goes to church, volunteers for causes, and is someone everyone gets along with. He’s also the manager and guitarist of Chasing Daylight (tentative name), an upcoming rock band. He’s quite strict with his personal standards and hangs out with the “right crowd,” which he grew up in.
- Other characters are: April, the lead singer of Chasing Daylight and David’s close friend (see the emphasis), Nathan, David’s best friend and Chasing Daylight’s drummer, a yet to be determined famous band who will be having a concert which Chasing Daylight will be the front act, Marianne’s sort-of-boyfriend/fling…and so far…that’s it. Oh, some people will also be making a cameo appearance in the novel. ;)
- The main plot is: band gets signed to play front act for a really popular band but female vocalist leaves for an emergency. Band could not back out, so they have to find a female vocalist. Nathan finds Marianne, who everyone loves but David dislikes because (although he doesn’t admit it) he think she’s not worth his attention because she doesn’t believe in God. Personalities clash and in the process, Marianne and David learns about God’s love, forgiveness and grace. Like what I told Grace earlier: This is what cheesy stories are made of. Hah.
And that’s it for now. For more NaNoWriMo 2007 goodness (tips, news and whatnot), hop over to More than Bitesized Fiction, my newly opened NaNoWriMo blog. :)
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