this machine will not communicate

So I'm officially doing it for the first time.  Yay!  Like I have in the past for my NaScreeWriMos, I'm going to post what I have as I go, as a motivator for myself.  And hell, why not?  What am I doing this for if not to tell a story?  I am following NaNoWriMo guidelines and am not editing as I go, so there will probably be typos and I'll change things as I go and have to leave notes to myself to Bill and Ted things in later, etc., etc.  Such fun!

As always, feel under no obligation to read and/or comment. 


( Prologue )

I need to have a logline for the producer's book for AFF.  I FUCKING HATE WRITING LOGLINES.  I AM THE WORST AT WRITING LOGLINES.

What is a logline?  "A log line or logline is a brief summary of a television program or film, often providing both a synopsis of the program's plot, and an emotional "hook" to stimulate interest."  For most of the people who will see the book, they won't have read the script, so my logline is my one shot to get them interested in the script.

Here was my first attempt:

The people of the village have always lived in terror, cowering under the shadow of the mountain above them, and the dark Count who rules from the castle there – until the day a young woman decides that enough is enough, and journeys to the castle to end the terror for good.

And I thought that was really boring and sucked.  So I came up with:

An ancient evil lurks in the castle on the mountain.  The villagers cower in terror, but one young mother has had enough, and journeys to the castle to deal with the Count herself.

This felt better, but also...cornier? 

So please, please, help me.  Relevant info: it's a classic vampire movie, the protagonist is a woman, she is a BAMF who just like decides to tell the evil vampire guy "bro leave us alone for real" like to his face.  And it's more about atmospheric horror and unheimlich than it's about gore and such.

I need to turn it in by tomorrow afternoon at the latest; I'd rather have it decided tonight or tomorrow morning and have it over and done with.  So any feedback would be amazing and perfect and I would love you forever and maybe write you fic.  Please and thank you.  :DDDDD

I had to take a bit of an internet sabbatical the last few weeks, for reasons that are pretty boring so I won't elaborate on the details - suffice it to say, I've been busy.  I started checking my flist for the first time in forever and became promptly overwhelmed, so.  I think I'm going to catch up by user/comm rather than try to do everything at once.

Some of you may remember my vampire screenplay The House of Bathory from last year.  Good news!  It made it to the semifinals of Austin Film Festival in both the drama and sci-fi categories.  I was absolutely flabbergasted when I got the call.  That means I was in the top 20-25 in drama and the top 10-12 in sci-fi.  I'm pretty excited.  I am nursing absolutely zero expectations I'll make it to the finals, so I'm just very happy with how it turned out.  I had also been reading scripts as a first-round judge this year for AFF, so my conference and festival badge is free.  So I'll be going down to Austin in October, and I'm very much looking forward to it.  I'm taking on some extra proofing jobs to be able to afford going out to eat and such while I'm down there.  (Last time we ate a lot of stolen hotel breakfast foods for lunch and dinner, and cheap dollar menu fast food stuff.  Which is fine, but I'd like to occasionally travel like a real grown-up.)

So again, eighteen months after the fact, I want to thank all of you who read both drafts of that screenplay, who gave me advice and critiques and sometimes even told me what worked.  I know for a fact that screenplay would not have made it as far as it did without all of your help. ♥

Busssssssy.  Continuing revision on the zombie screenplay, started revision on the TV pilot - I finished the rough draft on that months ago, but never went back to clean up/rewrite scenes from the first two acts that needed changing after I wrote the rest/etc.  Always do things when the ideas are fresh in your heads, kids!  I'm also pondering writing a Game of Thrones spec in the next week - TV specs always are much faster to hashout, so I think I can do it if I really sit down and write this weekend.  Last year, for instance, I wrote a Fringe spec over three days that turned out pretty good, I think.

But anyway, yeah.  Busy.  Haven't really checked my flist much lately, responded to comments as much as I would like, or done my usual internet things.  However, yesterday I found time to read a scary story over on reddit, and guys.  GUYS.  Like, I am an atheist and a skeptic and all that, but I scare myself so easily with paranormal stuff, it's dumb.  And I knew - I KNEW - while I was reading that I was going to have a fun night, and boy howdy.  This is the first chapter, and warning: there is some very graphic violence and imagery in the first two chapters (like, I read and write a lot of horror and I was taken aback), so if that's not your thing, then avoid.  But if you like scary stuff and creepypasta and the like, then I can't recommend this highly enough. 

'Cause last night?  I was rill scurred for rill.  You never hear more noises in your house than when it's late at night and you're staring bug-eyed into the dark, sheet up to your chin, trying to hear noises.  I eventually got up and turned my computer monitor back on at 3:30am after laying there forever just getting more and more freaked out.  UGH.  So I'm feeling okay now - sorta punchy - but I'm really going to feel it this afternoon, because I got like three hours of sleep.



AND I JUST OPENED UP A TAB TO KEEP READING THIS THING.  I AM THAT DUMB.   (It's so scarrrrrry though.)

(Someone else will end up reading it and be like, bzuh?  This isn't scary at all!)

Howdy, friends.  I'm currently trying to climb out of my Biannual Extreme Aversion to Social Media Curation and Doing Things on the Internet That Are Not Dumb Games.  I'm never really sure why this happens, but the last couple days even the thought of getting on and checking my flist has left me feeling vaguely panicked.  (I think some of it is this one landcomm I'm in, my flist is absolutely flooded with posts to the social comm, and wading through it has become a nightmare.  I'm probably going to bow out of the comm, and that's about 80% of the reason.)

Took a week off from writing, but am planning on both revising my post-apocalypse TV pilot, which will involve rewriting huge chunks of the first half, and doing a revision on the recently-completed zombie screenplay.  If anyone would like to take a look at the zombie screenplay - not as an in-depth beta, just as a quick "does this read through okay to you?" thing - then let me know.  I feel sort of stuck in my own head about it.

And hopefully will get back to work on the novel soon.  I wish I could write for a full-time job.  Why don't we have patrons anymore?

Between work, writing, Avengers, Game of Thrones, and Community, I find I have very little else going on in my life.  Heh. 

You know what's awesome?  Hitting page 72 of a screenplay and realizing you don't really have an antagonist.







(BTW, I pretty much have not checked my flist at all in about six days, so if anything of import (like, good fic, you feel me?) has been posted, pls let me know.  Because I clicked it this morning and was promptly overwhelmed.)

How much did I write yesterday?

...

14 PAGES!



Basically I buckled down, pulled up my big girl panties, forewent morning internet, and wrote for a solid three hours with no breaks.  It's amazing how much writing I can actually get done when I just sit down and fucking do it.  I won't have that luxury the next four days - we're having the open house this Sunday, so it's preparation time - but we'll see how much I can get done at work.  I'm aiming for at least four pages each day to stay on track.

Today was pretty much the epitome of them, so I won't bore anyone with the details.  I've spent a lot of time musing on the difficulties of communicating in a 100% text environment, along with the conflicting urges of "apologize again to make things better" and "yell back even louder to be the one who wins."  Will likely just leave it at a stalemate.

LIMS motto: Make the exact same icon as everyone else, and you will succeed.  (Yes, being voted out this early did hurt my feelings for real, and yes, I am bitter about it.)

Also, re: writing 10 pages a day for a solid week?  So far we're at 4 pages over 2 days, so suffice it to say that's probably not going to happen, hee.  It didn't help that I struggled for a solid hour on how to write a single scene and came up with the brilliant solution of "that scene sucks just don't write it." 

Of course, it doesn't help that after working an eight-hour day, I come home to work some more.  Being able to work at home and in my jammies notwithstanding, a second job is still a second job.  I definitely need the money, but boo, today is not the day.

To end on a less woe-emo note, Fiona Apple is playing in Kansas City, MO on July, 17.  My sister has already said she won't go with me, so now I'm trying to find someone else to go.  But if I don't?  Gonna see her by myself, because Fiona is queen.  I'm already pre-excited about the concert. 

Also, I got three compliments on my nails today and one on my hair, so that made me feel marginally better. :)

Now to eat some Easter candy while I make dinner, eat my dinner while I do twenty minutes of internet things, then back to work.