Thursday, February 12, 2009

Progress Report, Day Eleven

So of course there was no way I was going to post my results for yesterday before Sturges did -- not after that Bill-plus-one stunt he pulled.

Prose Writing: 6,097 Words.

Comic Writing: 3 Pages.

Notes: I had originally planned on making yesterday a heavily-prose weighted day, but then I got on the line with Sturges, and we plotted out the who-writes-what page breakdowns for our latest issue of JSA. So then I was going to switch to writing all comic book pages instead. But, while writing my 11 JSA pages, the ideas about the prose thing wouldn't stop nagging me, so I reluctantly stopped at three comics pages and switched back to prose. I'd written a bit on the prose stuff earlier in the day, waiting for Sturges to finally crawl out of bed and get to work. Switching back to the prose work turned out to be a grand thing, as the words flowed like some sort of easily, rapidly flowing stuff. I think I could have done another thousand words easy yesterday, but I wanted to leave off at a spot where I absolutely knew what was needed next. One of the best bits of writing advice I ever got was, "always quit for the day in a place where you know what you're going to write next." So that's what I did.
     Then I was going to read, but I ended up watching American Idol instead.
     I so want to brag about the novel, but I said I wasn't going to reveal stuff, therefore I won't. At Matt's very specific request I did start sending the individual chapters of the novel around to the Clockwork boys, so that they could read, critique and comment as we go along. But after six or seven chapters sent out, without a single response from any of these yahoos, the paranoid part of me has determined they are keeping mum because the story is pure crap, and they're just too polite or squeamish to tell me. So, no more novel bits for them until the thing is done.
     I did talk Sturges into sending me his completed (first draft only) superhero prose story, and read it. Even in its very rough first draft form, it's marvelous. If every other story in this upcoming superhero themed anthology is puerile crap, you will still get more than your money's worth with Matt's story -- which is a good thing, I suppose, because it takes some of the pressure off of me to produce a good one.

5 comments:

  1. Great job, Bill! I think this is your best day ever! For some reason, I can't get into the forum so I'll update your score when it's back up, but BIG CONGRATS to you!

    I'm still mad at you about F81, though. :P

    Chris

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, Matt's working on the no forum problem. In the meantime keep up on the stats, Chris, so that we can have a mass update whenever the forum is restored to us (although I hope it will be a matter of hours rather than days).

    ReplyDelete
  3. Don't worry, I keep all the stats in a spreadsheet w/a back-up on my flash drive, so they are very, very safe. :)

    Chris

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm dying to see what other folks are writing for this cape & cowl anthology. I'm about 80% done with my story, and feeling insecure. Will it stack up? Is it too comic-booky, or not comic-booky enough? Overpacked with detail, or insubstantial?

    I definitely don't want to see anyone else's story before I'm done, or I'll start re-thinking the whole enterprise.

    --d

    ReplyDelete
  5. Bill, My attemp to crash the forum to slow Matt down seems to have worked. You should be able keep ahead of him now.

    Please let me know when you have decoded this, as he has no idea I was behind it.

    ReplyDelete