New Year's Resolutions 2011

The year is almost over, and as usual, it looks like it went by too fast and I wrote too little.
What did I do in 2010?
I took part in ScriptFrenzy in April, wrote a 100-page script, did the same later in summer, and wrote 57,000 words for National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo in November. I continued writing after that to finish the first draft of that novel, a thriller mostly set in China, at about 72,000 words. Right now, I'm in the process of editing and rewriting that story. From the summer until NaNo started, I also worked on another novel, again a thriller, this one set among people vacationing on a Mediterranean island. I haven't finished it yet, but I intend to do so later next year.
So here comes 2011.
One other big thing happened in my life over the past few months: I lost my job. Instead of complaining and/or going to look for another job right now, I'm using this great opportunity to set myself new challenges. The main challenge has become my New Year's Resolution (upper case, please): write four books in 2011.
Now that I have the time, I need to be writing. I've carved up the next year in neat 3-month blocks, one block for each book.
I already have the main ideas of what kind of books I will write:
1/January-March: a thriller with an Asian theme, set in China, Taiwan and the United States;
2/April-June: a historical novel - a new genre for me - set either in Antiquity or the Middle Ages, about historical figures little known outside of some European countries;
3/July-September: a 'guru' book, yes, the only planned book that is not a novel, not fiction, but pure - well - fact and advice;
4/October-December: still so far away I have time to come to a decision about what I want to write, but candidates are a thriller closely related to actual European politics (think The Ghost by Robert Harris which was the base for the movie The Ghost Writer by Roman Polanski), the thriller about the island which I started this year but didn't finish, or another thriller set on a ship.
Add to that a vacation in Asia in January, the British Crime Writers' Association Debut Daggers in February, ScriptFrenzy in April, a European holiday after that, and the next NaNoWriMo, and I might have a hard time living up to those resolutions.
Anyway, 2011 is now or never. If I want a career in writing, if I want to get published, now is the time, now is the year to work hard. Wish me luck!

Plans for 2010

Will there be a second season of Concentric in 2010?
To be absolutely honest, there should be, but I haven't made up my mind yet. Looking back over the past few months since finishing the first season, I made an adaptation of Concentric into a pilot script for US television, and I made a British version entitled Kin for the BBC. The day I finished the first draft of Kin, I found that the BBC no longer accepted scripts from people based outside Great Britain and Ireland unless they were planning to move to those areas soon. Even British writers living in Paris or Amsterdam - a short flight away from London - were no longer accepted. So I still have the first draft of Kin, but there won't be a second one at present.
After that, I still wrote a couple of action movie scripts. I skipped NaNoWriMo for the first time in three years, but I turned my attention to Britain's Crime Writers Association's Debut Daggers contest. All they want are the first chapter and a synopsis of a thriller or mystery story. So I sent them two of each.
After the Debut Daggers deadline passed, I noticed early March was a deadline for two Hollywood-based script competitions: ScriptP.I.M.P. and Scriptapalooza. I sent the same original TV pilot script to both.
What's up next?
April is ScriptFrenzy time, the scenario equivalent to NaNoWriMo. I first took part last year and I found writing about 3 pages a day to reach 100 by the end of the month a breeze. The work I 'won' with last year wasn't really good, so this year, I'll try and write a movie script that can be redrafted into a potential promotional script later.
Since my wife is traveling abroad for 3 months soon, I will take the opportunity of having a simple and undisturbed home life to write the first draft of a thriller during that period, April to June.
What kind of scripts and thrillers?
Over the past week, I read about a duo who sold reworked scripts of the classic stories of Moses, Moby Dick and Marco Polo. It sounds a bit like Guy Ritchie's rethinking of Sherlock Holmes, so I thought, if they can do it, why can't I? Of course, I have to be careful to stick to figures that have no copyright tying them down.
So I came up first with Sir Walter Scott's Quentin Durward. There were movies and a TV series in 1955 and 1971, but I thought, if I don't watch them and stick to the original novel, or on the contrary, completely rethink the character, there should be no problem.
Other characters I am interested in rethinking are: Ivanhoe, Cleopatra (definitely not the Elizabeth Taylor version) , Queen Nefertiti, Napoleon's wife Josephine de Beauharnais, the Chinese navigator Zheng He, the Chinese 'pirate' Koxinga, etc.
Those are all possibilities for ScriptFrenzy, as is my idea of a light horror thriller entitled 'Sand.'
As to the thriller to write during my wife's absence, I also have ideas enough. I'll tell you about them later.
Keep writing.