To Begin, Begin
Over the past week, I’ve been thinking a lot about this quote. It is a quote from Wordsworth and it was on Duotrope’s splash page. I think they rotate those quotes monthly (or so), but this is the first time that I’ve paid attention to it this year. It struck me because of my “Year of Shadow” where I’m trying to branch out into various other mediums based on the short story that I’ve sold a while back (Ship of Shadows). What I’m hoping to do (which I’ve mentioned before) is to really understand my characters more. To me, the simplest way of doing this is to explore my the characters that I create would be to look at their lives at different stages of their live cycle. So, I’ve been brainstorming this for most of the summer and I think I’ve come up with a way to do this–now I just have to “begin.”
Living the Life
So, one of the things that I’m really hoping to do is to simply have fun with the projects. That is one of the reasons why I stopped working on DSRV Outrider because I had already “told” the story in short-story form. I was trying to simply “re-tell” it in graphic novel form, but it wasn’t working. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I needed to really “adapt” the story to fit the new format (and not just do a 1-to-1 retelling of it), so that it would be new, fresh, and exciting–both for the readers, but also for me, the writer, to work on. It’s hard to be enthused about a story that you’ve already done. I wanted to do something new and fresh and that’s where “living the life” came in. I just pretended to be both the character and the reader and what would I want to see the character do as a reader (what would be cool?), but also, what would the character logically do in this situation? This is also something that I thought about and came up with a couple of good ideas (at least, I think they’re good–we’ll see when I start submitting the script).
To Begin, Begin
I guess the reason why Wordsworth’s quote lodged into my brain is that there is no real reason not to begin. So I took a moment to write down my ideas–not just for the Graphic Novel, but for the novel, screenplay, and pilot episode for a TV episode as well. These have all been kicking in my mind, so I might as well write them down and work on them in small notational increments. Who knows where they might lead? For instance, if I’m able to do enough research in my (limited spare time–maybe in between loading a game or a level in a game), I might be able to do enough research to find a basic plot that I want the character to try to go through and if I can turn enough of those plot elements into paragraphs, then come November when NaNoWriMo is happening, I might (just might) have enough to turn those paragraphs into pages. The same with scenes. A scene can be a sentence or two long so that I know how the character will try to solve the problems in a plot. Did you know that many of today’s blockbusters have only 25-35 scenes (and some of those are taken up by intro titles and credits–and these days, mid-credits/post credit scenes). The Lord of the Rings (extended editions) movies clock in at about 50-60 scenes, but these are the exception to the rule. If I can find one major problem for my character (and perhaps one secondary one–or make it an external/internal project), then I might be able to swing a screenplay as well.) Now, all of this is contingent on my availability of time with school & work, but there’s no reason not to begin. Even if I have to “bleed” the Year of Shadow into 2020, I still feel like not trying is worse than trying and failing at it, so here we go!
Sidney
Please consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:
Read Skin Deep for Free at Aurora WolfRead Childe Roland for Free at Electric Spec
Purchase Dragonhawk on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase WarLight on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase Ship of Shadows on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase Faerie Knight on Amazon.com (Paperback) or Kindle
The Independent (Sci-Fi Short-Story)–
3rd Draft of 3 Drafts
Drafting Section 1 (of 3)
Mythic Mag. Deadline = July 31, 2019I, Mage (Fantasy Short Story)
Pre-Production Phase (Planning)
Pre-Writing on Rough Draft & Character Sketch
Mythic Mag. Deadline = January 31, 2020Current Longer Work-in-Progress: Ship of Shadows Graphic Novel
(Sci-Fi) Issue # 2, Currently on Script Page 32
Personal Deadline = September 30, 2019HawkeMoon (upcoming) = Edits turned in to editor 5/31/19
