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!

NaNoWriMo 2010

National Novel Writing Month. Writing 50,000 words in one month with no other reward than being able to say you did it - you wrote that much in one month.

I did it first in 2007 - actually, I came up with 72,000 words, on the one hand because I was worried whether I really could make it to 50,000, and on the other hand, because I wanted something closer to real-novel length. That's always the problem: 50,000 words is a lot of wordage for one month, but it's only near half a novel, so a lot of work is left for later.

In 2008, I took a different approach and wrote two stories of just above 50,000 words each. One was half of a valid novel, the other was a piece of fanfiction which I had wanted to post on a fanfiction site but which disappeared off my computer before I had the occasion to do so. I see that NaNoWriMo have introduced a 'novel backup day' which is an absolute must.

The biggest problem I had on both occasions was the post-NaNo momentum. Overwriting during one month made me slow down to virtually complete writer's block level for at least one month after that.

That post-NaNo depression was the reason I did not participate in the event last year. Instead I focused my attention in November on just getting on with my Work In Progress at the time. I also switched to participating in a NaNoWriMo-related event, namely ScriptFrenzy, writing a 100-page script in April. That target is much more realistic and at the end, before rewrites, you actually have a completed work, not one that's half-finished.

So what about 2010? The attraction was too strong to resist. But to counter a recurrence of the post-NaNoWriMo blues, this time I decided to go slow. 50,000 words will really be enough this time. I'm sticking to a realistic rhythm, one slightly higher than the normal average of 1,667 words per day in order to account for any lost days on the way. I already had two of those because I needed to fly from Europe to Asia earlier this month.

Right now, I'm on target and I intend to stay there. Because I'm not exaggerating, I hope I will be able to keep up the tempo throughout December and finish a whole novel by the end of the year. The rewrites and second and third drafts will come early next year.

For 2011, I plan to keep up the same tempo, i.e. write and rewrite one book every three months. I already have more ideas than I can write books about in two years. They include action thrillers involving European and Asian politics, historical novels centering on the Middle Ages and on the Roman and Egyptian eras, and a book based on a separate blog I'm setting up.

In the mean time, let's get this NaNoWriMo baby rolling. By December, I will be able to post the NaNoWriMo 2010 Winner logo on this site. And be looking forward to completing that novel, a thriller about young Americans wandering through China.

Beyond ScriptFrenzy

So I won ScriptFrenzy.

The competition is the screenplay sister to the amazing National Novel Writing Month, better known as NaNoWriMo, which invites you to write 50,000 words in just one month, November.

With the scripts, it's 100 pages in April. I took part in NaNoWriMo in 2007 and 2008, wrote one story - 72,000 words - the first time around, and two stories - for a total of 101,000 words the second time around. However, I also found that the tough tempo during November led to a backlash in December. I hardly wrote anything worthwhile for more than a month after NaNo, as it's commonly called.

Luckily, ScriptFrenzy is more relaxed. I found that out last year, when I first 'won' the competition with a screenplay that was, to say the least, a bit average. I did like the tempo of having to write just an average of 3.3 pages a day, especially if you know the way properly formatted scripts look - there's hardly anything on a page. It all comes down to knowing and feeling your story, and being able to take it to its logical conclusion after about 100 pages, in my case this year, 109 pages.

I was thinking of doing a more modernized version of an old tale - I considered historical figures from Cleopatra to Napoleon's wife, and finally settled on that semi-mythical English person who had Belgian chocolates named after her, Lady Godiva. I let her lead her life in the Middle Ages but I added other elements to spice up the story.

So I won ScriptFrenzy. All you need to do to win is write the 100 pages and have the website's counter count or 'validate' your number of pages. The end result is that you get to show off logos like the one at the top of this blog post.

Now that ScriptFrenzy is over, I don't feel a backlash at all. Quite the contrary. I'm playing with ideas for three stories, and none of them look like scripts.

The first one is a classic action thriller, which if it were made into a TV series, would look somewhat like 24 but with more exotic and international connections, if that's possible. But as said, it's not a TV or not even a movie script, but a novel. Which means it needs up to 100,000 words.

You know what those script sites say about TV scripts: no violence, no gore, no nudity, because it's TV. Well, my second idea for a novel would not make it as a TV script. The problem is not the violence, there will only be a little bit, not the gore, I don't plan any horror, but if it were TV, it would have to have a lot of nudity. Which does not mean it's all about sex or eroticism. It might have some Sex and the City elements but they will not dominate. I'll explain it later, but I can tell you now the novel will be an intrigue about strangers with mysterious pasts coming together.

Both previous projects are more than just ideas, since over the past month I worked out their outlines, wrote about the main characters and the direction the intrigues are supposed to take.

The third and final idea is really that: just an idea, no outline, and no plan to start writing straight away. It might be something for later this year, or next, once the two other projects are finished.

The story idea combines elements from LOST - but without the strong supernatural and time-jumping tones - with The Da Vinci Code - but no churches and biblical plots nor medieval conspiracies. Strange things will happen, and the hero will race against the time to save the world from a dangerous threat. Yes, it's a thriller again.

All three stories could be categorized as thrillers, because that is what I love to read and watch. But the three stories will definitely have individual tones: the first one is an international action thriller, the second one almost a single-location mystery with holiday elements, and the third one a thriller with supernatural and futuristic elements.

Tomorrow is Day One of 2010 Post ScriptFrenzy.

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.