It’s Friday! And that means it’s new episode day. No one noticed that we missed a week, right? Good, moving on…
This week it’s Episode 4, and things are getting weirder on board The Chimera as Tori and Jared find that Jared’s missing ship isn’t the strangest mystery facing them. As usual it’s nice and short – intended to be approx. 5 minutes running time if it were a real webisode.
Next time it’s Episode 5. Bet you can’t wait ;).
TTFN
Sorry, slightly late, but here is Episode 3. It occurs to me that I don’t have any copyright info on this website for my writing. I should really put something official sounding together, maybe use on of those nice tabs at the top of the page. But for now, here’s the gist: don’t steal my stuff, and if you want to share my stuff give me credit for it 😛
Episode 4 ‘Cargo’ is due on Friday, but you all know what I’m like by now.
TTFN!
Sorry this is late! It was ready on Friday but we had an emergency sci-fi convention* in Pwllheli, the land of no internet or 3G signal.
There are a couple blog posts from the original diary challenge that led up to this. It started off in challenge w/c 21st March, which was one of four brain storming weeks I had to prepare for Script Frenzy that year. I toyed around with four different ideas but this was by far my favourite and was of course the one I wrote in April. The following week I posted the premise I came up with. And now, I give you episode 1.
A few notes. This is written as a working script (mostly), meaning it includes camera directions. In real life the director would decide on those so they wouldn’t be on a normal script, but since no one is filming this I thought it was nice to put them in to help visualise the shots. If you are not familiar with scripts then apologies if it is tricky to read. If you are familiar with scripts then apologies for the horrid formatting mistakes I have probably made! On the plus side each episode is very short and should only take a couple of minutes to read :). Hope you like it!
The Captain’s Blog – Episode 1: Alone
Coming soon…Episode 2: The Visitor
TTFN
*Our attending was an emergency, the sci-fi convention was planned over a year before hand :P.
Yup, signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo! Before anyone says I’m crazy, let me assure you I have not signed up for another 50,000 word monster first draft to lie unfinished and unedited on the hard drive for years. I have signed up to complete another 30,000 words of ‘Homunculus’, my 2012 NaNo tale of androids and psions in the far-future encompassing large amounts of material from the DD303 course books (it was my final year of uni, my head was kind of in that zone). I’m hoping that this will take me to ‘the end’ and I can move it to the edit pile. Since I’m going to be concentrating on that for the next month I had hoped to get two short stories finished this month for my other challenge. I typed up two different stories from The Diary and spent a lot of time thinking before finally admitting that neither of them where right. These were the original challenges:
Point of View Character Tag: http://www.leighkeating.me/?p=56
1 scene written from 2 different PoVs: http://www.leighkeating.me/?p=68
They were both fun writing challenges, and I invite anyone to have a go at them for themselves :). But in the end I just had scenes, not a complete story, and I’d be happy to share them but it’s more of a writing group thing (any of the Lancs & Cumbria Wrimos fancy taking on the challenge?). So, I’m giving you something else over the next couple of months. Probably my favourite piece from the whole of the diary challenge – my 2011 script frenzy script ‘The Captain’s Blog’. This was planned to be a ten-episode web series, so super short episodes of about 5 minutes each. It was also the last Script Frenzy, so a fitting thing to share in April when the challenge used to run :(. I could just publish an episode a month and get to the end of the year very easily, but that seems like a bit of a cheat, so this month I will give you episode 1 and I’ll try and update once a week. That should get me through to the end of May and give me enough time to finish my novel before starting another short story editing job. So check in on Friday for Episode 1: Alone.
Right, where was I up to in that novel now…
Well, first thing’s first:
I am a Winner!
Yes, I successfully completed 100 pages in 30 days, and I even finished the story. My first thought was ‘Yay!’. My second thought was ‘Yikes, I need something else to write tomorrow!’. So I have only moments to bask in the euphoria of victory before I must press on with the year long writing challenge. I wonder if this it what being a proper writer is like?
Since it’s the last day of the week I think it’s ok to spend one more day on Script Frenzy before starting fresh next week for the new month, so today you may carry on with your script if you haven’t finished, or spend some time reflecting on what you did if you have. You can make some notes on what you would change when you edit, note anything that’s unresolved, or write down some ideas for a sequel. Then tomorrow it’s the start of a new week of challenges :).
2nd-8th May
This week it’s a Royal Wedding special. Markie set me a guest challenge and it fitted with the big news of the week so I thought I’d use it now. The challenge is to write 7 different conversations at a wedding. Any people at all can be involved, but they are all at the same wedding. It could be a royal wedding. Markie is offering bonus points if it involves a prince who turns out to be gay. I’m not offering any points at all :P.
Next week we’ll go back to the usual challenge format for a while. Have fun!
Because of Script Frenzy I didn’t post any new challenges last week, and I’m not doing any this week either, but I did feel bad that I didn’t blog at all. I’m dutifully writing one page of script into my diary every day, and as fortune would have it one A5 written page is about 2-3 typed script pages so I’m just about keeping my head above water and I’m only 4 pages behind. I am however having to waste precious writing time typing up the diary pages, and getting ahead is a bit tricky since I can’t go onto the next page until I reach the right day.
But enough about that. Today is a big day. It’s April 11th, which means it’s Day 100 of my writing challenge! Yay! I’m feeling very proud of myself for still going strong 100 days in. Last time I tried to set myself a challenge like this I wrote 67 words before giving up. Yes, 67 whole words. I think it’s safe to say that this year is going better. Not that it isn’t a challenge. This is what an average day looks like for me at the moment:
6:30am: Markie and I get up and get Ben ready
8:00am: I leave for work
8:24am: I catch the bus and start writing
8:40am: I get to work and carry on writing
9:00am: I start work and hope I’ve finished writing because I’ve got no more time!
12:pm: Have lunch and do OU work
1:00pm: Back to work
5:00pm: Finish work and get Ben
7:00pm: Ben’s bath and bedtime
9:00pm: Time for OU work again
10:oopm: Fall asleep on the sofa
6:30am next morning: start all over again!
Sounds fun, right? It’s not always like that. We do fit in some RPG in the week, but in general we’re busy busy busy, and if not for my diary challenge I don’t think I’d get any writing done at all. So diary, I salute you! And in honour of 100 days I think I should post something from the diary. Hubby is taking some Zombie photos tomorrow night, so I give you the product of my free writing exercise from February 13th, unedited and exactly how it poured out of my subconscious. The theme was ‘Alternative’.
Warning: contains homeopathy, terminal illness and possibly zombies, but no bad language or nudity. Sorry about that :).
Alternative Therapy
Alternative Therapy. That was how it all started. There were too many diseases that conventional medicine just hadn’t been able to treat yet, and there was so little hope of it happening within the lifetime of many sufferers at the time. We thought they deserved some hope. Our studies showed that health declined slower in patients who took our course of treatment. Our critics said it was just a placebo effect, and maybe it was at first. It was standard homeopathic treatments, but patients wanted to feel like they were doing something to fight their illness, not just sitting around waiting to die.
I can’t remember which of us came up with the idea first, not that it makes much difference now, but somehow we came to the agreement to change the medicine. Having diluted particles of the virus might be more effective if it was introduced with infected human cells, then the patient’s body would learn what the other body knew about the disease. It then followed that if we included cells from all the patients they could all work together. Hundreds of immune systems combining their knowledge to defeat the disease.
At first the patients were concerned at the thought of consuming the flesh of each other, but we assured them that through the dilution process there wouldn’t actually be any human cells in the medicine, but of course the water would remember the information from all the immune systems and transmit it to theirs. Many of them agreed. They had nothing to lose. Or so we all thought.
I don’t know what went wrong, but after a week of the new treatments the patients started to act strangely. Lethargic, slowed responses, cravings for high protein foods and offal. We stopped the treatment but they kept getting worse. Then, on the fifteenth day, the first killing happened. They devoured the doctor who came to check on them. The nurse escaped with a bite, but within hours she started to show symptoms too. Now it’s out and spreading like wild fire. I was bitten an hour ago. I thought I should write this down so someone would know what happened, before I forget…
It’s going to be April next week, which means it’s going to be Script Frenzy! It also means I’ve got 4 days to fill up before I get there. And you know what? 4 days is just enough to plan one more idea before the madness starts :). This week I’ve been working on a little webseries called ‘The Captain’s Blog’, which I’m thinking is the one I’m going to write next month, but we’ll see. It’s about a ship captain called Tori Keller, who was inspired by an old RPG character of mine (Yes, Markie, it is Lexi), who’s passing the time on a long solo trip by making a video blog when a man (no, Markie, it’s not Grey :P) walks onto the bridge. Who is he and how did he get there? It’s a mystery that can only be solved in a mini webseries, obviously!
But what are we doing next week? Well, let’s just stick with what’s been working for now. We’re planning a new script and this one can be anything!
Monday 28th March: Description Challenge
Generate a character name using the Seventh Sanctum quick name generator, then we’re going to look up the meaning of the chosen name and use it for inspiration for some of the character. Describe them in whatever way is appropriate for your chosen script style.
Tuesday 29th March: Dialogue Challenge
This week the conversation must be between at least 3 people, and the topic of conversation is a character who is absent.
Wednesday 30th March: Scene/Flash Fiction Challenge
Since we only have 4 days this week you can do a scene or a stand alone story with your character/s. This scene must include a McGuffin!
Thursday 31st March: Planning
It’s the last day before Script Frenzy so you’ve got one day to do a plan for this script.
Friday 1st April: Script Frenzy!
What are you still looking at me for? I just spent the last 4 weeks helping you come up with 4 ideas. Go write one of them! Go write all of them if you like. Come back and see me in May :P.
Good Luck!
Tomorrow is my first day back at work after maternity leave, so it will be interesting to see how I keep up with this and my college course, since I still plan to spend a few hours a night playing with my son :), but I’m starting out with good intentions.
Last week the name generator gave me Nona Saunders. Nona means ‘Ninth’ and is representative of the nine months of pregnancy, and Saunders comes from Alexander which means ‘defending men’, so my comic book heroine ended up being a pregnant woman trying to rescue her baby’s father. A tricky feat considering she doesn’t know where he is and she’s supposed to be pretending to be a boy so she can be apprenticed to a wizard who won’t train girls. Since one of last week’s challenges was to give the MC a buddy I tried the same thing with the name generator and got Sofia Byrd. Sofia means ‘Wisdom’ and Bryd is a family name for someone who hunts or raises birds, interestingly enough, so I made Sofia a more mature character who Nona goes to for help and confides in, and made her a sort of wilderness scout who has a falcon. Since the name generator thing still seems to be working we’re doing it again this week!
Monday 21st March: Description Challenge
Generate a character name using the Seventh Sanctum quick name generator, then we’re going to look up the meaning of the chosen name and use it for inspiration for some of the character. This week we’re going to be working on a motion script so what the description needs will depend on what you’re writing. If it’s a play or a film then costume and character traits are very important, but don’t focus too much on physical aspects that are not relevant to the plot as how they will look will really depend on the actor playing them in the end. So if it’s important that the character is blond because people are going to assume she’s a blond airhead throughout the story go ahead and mention it, but if not there’s probably not much point. On the other hand if you’re planning an animation then go into as much detail as possible on the physical characteristics so the artist will know how to draw them :).
Tuesday 22nd March: Dialogue Challenge
This week let’s give the character a monologue or a voice over.
Wednesday 23rd March: Scene Challenge
In this scene the character is going to make a shocking discovery! Maybe about another character, or an object, or themselves.
Thursday 24th March: Dream Challenge
Dreams again. OK, dreams usually look like a movie anyway so putting it back into script for should be a piece of cake.
Friday 25th March: Stream of Consciousness
Still on a poetry break so it’s free writing again today. The focus word is ‘Play’.
Saturday 26th March: Flash Fiction Challenge
Write a short script involving your character. It can be about anything that works for them.
Sunday 27th March: Pot Luck – series/story plan
If it’s a series, what are the first few episodes? If it’s a movie or play then do a more detailed plan for the one story your working on.
And we’re finished! Next week there will be a couple of exercises to refine the chosen Script Frenzy piece, then on April 1st it’s a break for script writing month!