The script writing went better today. I didn’t have to stop and look shit up at least. I’m feeling pretty good about it now—little rough on the first of today’s four pages, but then I got into a groove.

The nice thing about writing four pages, no more, no less, is that each day ends in the middle of something (kissing, in today’s case—something I’ve seen zero of so far in that novel I’m working on), which gives my brain something to latch onto when I come back a day later. Very, very handy since when I sit down in front of the script, my brain is floating around in the novel world (because that comes first on the writing schedule).

Speaking of the novel, writing on Too Dead went well today, too—1,877 words, making it the second most productive day on the book yet. In fact, I’m finding more often than not lately that I glance at the word count and go, “No! 934 words already?”

(It is so going to need cutting, though. As of today I’m also thinking that this first draft might go over 100K. So going to need cutting!)

Spent much of the afternoon researching for a clearer idea of the location much of Too Dead takes place in. The Internet is such a big help. Afterward, I went back and fixed up some bits in the last chapter based on what I’d found. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time on that, just pulled out stuff that didn’t fit and stuck some stuff in that did.

Also poked around at graphic novel/comic book script formats and possible titles for the Script Frenzy project. Which I’m not ready for. Can someone hold off April for a few more days? Danke!

I feel like a fair chunk of the day was also wasted. It wasn’t; it was time spent offloading a project onto someone else, which means one less thing on my plate, but it’s been time consuming, and I’m not yet finished.

Early today, I thought, “Hey, I could hit 40K today.” Then I watched an hour and a half of Gene Simmons Family Jewels, read for a while, checked email and Google Reader and all the other usual places, chatted online…. When I finally got around to writing, I got 2,143 words done, bringing me oh so close! 39,535. Then I had to stop and get ready to go out to dinner with some friends of ours.

But then! Then! After dinner and after we said our goodbyes, Mark and I brought our MacBooks to a local coffee shop, and I pounded out another 1,263 words, taking me very neatly past 40,000 words. (I totally love writing in public, by the way.)

AND I STILL LOVE MY STORY. (Which I’m calling Too Dead these days. We’ll see how long that sticks.)

[I installed OpenID capability on the blog today. Took about 30 seconds. I love Wordpress.]

Yesterday I grabbed some screenshots from Scrivener, now that I actually have content in it—click the images for larger.

I thought I’d use the supercool note cards on cork board to actually outline my shit for a change, but no—I fill them out as I’m writing the chapter or after it’s done. (Still a handy thing, though, when it comes to looking back through chapters for a specific detail.)

Each note card corresponds to an actual document (in this case, each document is a chapter, but they could be scenes or acts or parts—and chapters can have scenes under them, parts could have chapters under them—however you want to organize your work). It doesn’t seem like a bunch of separate documents, though, because they’re all right there; you just click from chapter to chapter. Or you can select some or all of the chapters and click “Edit Scrivenings” to work on them as (seemingly) one document.

I like how I’m able to customize the “labels” for the cards. I’ve set mine up to track POV; that’s why there are alternating push-pin colors on the cards; purple pins are Derek’s POV, and red ones are Eddie’s.

I haven’t done a whole lot with the character section. There’s not much more on the info pages for the characters than you see on the note cards in the screen cap. Alan’s info page, for example, just has an extra detail about a pet rat. It is handy to have a place to stick that info; I just, well, like with the outline, I keep most of that information in my head. (It’s also nice to have a place to stick Sims Body Shop representations of the characters. I can do the same thing with locations—stick in a blueprint of the textile mill or a photo of a maintenance floor hatch on a bus, etc.)

On the right-hand side about halfway down in this screen grab you can see a “Document References” section. This is cool. You just drag stuff over from the left-hand side, any stuff that pertains to the scene or chapter. Then when you’re writing, you can quickly access that data without having to scroll for it. Even better: you can include website URLs, so your web research can be connected to your project.

If you click the little notepad icon at the bottom of the Document References section, the Document Notes section opens, which is also really handy. I’ve been in love with being able to add quick notes for something I’m writing since I first used Rough Draft four years ago, so it’s always nice to be using a program that allows that. (When I’ve used MS Word, Q10 and other word processors that don’t have that capability, I put notes right in the middle of everything, bracketed and in all caps. It’s not as neat a solution.)

I love Scrivener. Unfortunately this super awesome program is only available for Macs. Windows users can check out yWriter, though, which has the extra benefit of being free.

And now I’m gonna fire Scrivener up and pass the 30K mark on this book….

To say that I am loving writing The Underneath, or whatever I’m calling it this week! I’m finally done with the beginning, and rather than finding myself going “Oh shit. Middle….” I’m happy to be here!

(Don’t rub my face in these words when I come crying to you about the middle later on, okay? Ta!)

The novel I’ve been drafting this month (it was Beneath, but I’m thinking of it as The Underneath these days, and that may even change to The Underbelly) is up over 22,000 words. I think I’m closing in on the end of the beginning—I think I might be there by the time I hit 25K. The end will work out to about the same, probably—it’s got a similar sort of logistics—and if the end’s anything like the beginning, I’m going to need pruning shears for the rewrite.

So on the one hand it’s great to be closing in on the end of act one. On the other hand, OMG SO MUCH MIDDLE TO COME. I keep thinking, “I’m taking 25,000 words just to get to point A? I’m going to be writing middle for ages.” I may up my daily word count goal for the middle part—that or set daily story goals instead of word goals….

Yeah, that sounds like a plan.

I’m having fun with the story.

I need to research access hatches in tour coach floors.

Started reading No Country For Old Men tonight while waiting for the food to arrive at Asheville Pizza & Brewery.

OMG.

In another news, we’re a week into Biffno (Band Fiction Novel(la) Writing Month) over on Rockfic.com, for which I’m writing the temporarily titled “Beneath,” original bandfic with a post-apocalyptic feel. I’m averaging just under 1,000 words a day, and this is a big’un; I expect to be writing it through May.

I have yet another book percolating in the dark reaches of my backbrain, but there are so many things, story-world-believability-wise, that would need to be worked out to my before I could consider it as anything more than “that thing I amuse myself with at night as I wait for sleep.” Like wings. Have you thought about wings? Let’s say you had retractable wings. We won’t even get into how wings large enough to carry a human in flight could retract into that human’s back; I have even more basic concerns. For instance: people with the retractable wings, would they just go through a lot of shirts and jackets? Or do they have clothes with vents in the back that allow the wings to slide through? Or do they just walk around shirtless all the time?

And let’s say we get past the wardrobe problem…. Hips, ass and legs are heavy. Gravity is more than a vague theory. Two and two….

(I obviously don’t read enough books with flying humans in them; I’m sure other people have already worked these problems out.)

But the sound of those large, black, membranous wings, flapping slowly in the night—whoosh. whoosh.—heard only by a guitar player as he lies awake on a tour bus, knowing that what’s up there is cruising just above, just waiting to get at him…. It’s so tempting.

You’ve heard of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), right? (If not, hang out—I’ll tell you all about it come October.) Last March on Rockfic.com, we started BFNoWriMo: Band Fiction Novella Writing Month (further shortened to “Biffno” ’cause it was funner to say). It was a blast! So we’re doing it again, only we’ve moved it to a different site.

The goal of Biffno is to write at least 25,000 words on a single band fiction story—at the end you either have a novella or you’re well on your way to a novel. (I actually intend to keep writing through the end of Biffno into April and May, and the Biffno forums will stay open so others can finish what they’ve started, too.)

To “win” at Biffno, all you have to manage is 807 words a day for 31 days. With a bunch of other people doing it, you’ll get plenty of support.

Biffno starts March 1, 2008. Signups begin today. To sign up, first register and log on to the Rockfic site—message board access is completely free, then go to the Biffno signup thread and sign up.

This year I’m writing an original bandfic horror novel called Beneath—what are you going to write?

I finished reading Old Man’s War (John Scalzi) late last night. Enjoyed the hell out of it. (I couldn’t find it anywhere as an ebook, though. That’s not right. Every sf book should automatically come out as an ebook edition, no questions asked.)

This morning I read a novella-length bandfic¹ AU² that took place in an open, integrated cell block system reminiscent of the one on HBO’s Oz. Featured bands were Queens of the Stone Age, Eagles of Death Metal, Nine Inch Nails, Mastadon and Zico Chain. I devoured the story. It had angst and gay smex and dark pasts (and dark futures) and did I say angst? Lots of angst. Angst is my guilty pleasure. If you’re into that sort of thing (bandfic, gay sex, angst, prison AUs), check out duffnstuff’s “Misfit Love“.

In addition to reading, I installed a mod on the Bandsmut message boards that allows users to get syndicated feeds of any or all of the forums and topics there. (ETA: Now if only the feeds would update in Google Reader…. *sigh*)

In and amongst all that, I retitled the novel I’m working on—it’s Rot now. I’m also playing around with its structure (in my head), how I can pull off doing in other-than-chronological order. I’m thinking back on William Goldman’s Control, though…differently.

Finally, an idea for a new novel popped up in my imagination today. I don’t know where it’s going yet, but I’m interested to find out. It’s not bandfic, though, so I won’t be doing it for Biffno in March, but that’s a’ight—I’ve already got a bandfic horror story to write for that (with fictional bands ’cause real ones don’t work for this….). It’s tentatively titled Below.

¹”Bandfic” is short for band fiction. Learn about bandfic on FanHistory.com.
²AU is short for “alternate universe.” Learn more about AUs on FanHistory.com.