Stuff, stuff, and more stuff

Huh, what happened to the last month? That was officially the first month I did not post a single blog for. Scary, though I'm not sure it's scary because I didn't post or because it's been nearly two, no three years? Of course I haven't written very much this year so far. I just checked and realized that I'll be posting a  200% increase today versus the rest of the year also known as January.

So what am I doing?

I am still unemployed. I am staying with a friend for a while. I'm planning on writing two scripts this month before I write my Screnzy script in April. Oh, by the way I'm a Municipal Liaison for Screnzy now. Basically I'm a local volunteer that tries to make the madness of Screnzy a little less so for the rest of the participants.

I've been doing 750words.com which is probably the time I would be writing for this blog. I am sick of it because the timing that is kind of interesting for the purpose of discovering how fast you write begins to get annoying as you get into the seventy day streak. Yesterday I used Ispum Lorem so that I could use the time to work on my scripts. A big difficulty with the site that some of us have noticed is that there is another step to writing call revision and editing. I might not be writing something new but I don't need to be if I am still working on a writing project. Because of that I'm probably going to quit the site before the end of the month, once I have reached one hundred days and have the phoenix badge. Cause phoenixes are cool.

Well that is about all that has been happening to me recently. Hopefully I will post again soon.

That's kind of embaressing

And by 'that' I mean when you look at your blog and realize that you haven't updated it in a month. Nearly a month. Close enough to a month.

In this past month I have been doing 750words.com and am on a 44 day streak. That's a lot of days. I can't believe I've done it, that I was able to think of things to write or that they made sense. As it is I haven't written today and after that one terrifying attempt to blog via that site I am not trying again. Of course today I could write that much without difficulty because it's been so long since my last post.

I started to edit my Nanowrimo 2010. It's hard work and I am often bored of it. Instead I showed my Script Frenzy 2010 to my writing group and got feedback on it. They like it. They say it's marketable. It's so close to salable that I can taste it. I should be working on it more, but as usual I am distracted.

On a similar note Screnzy is rolling around again in April and I am going to be writing the sequel to my first. I always hate the people that talk about writing a sequel before they finish the first, or sell the first, or have actually contemplated the first. They do that on the forums. It's almost as annoying as complaining about not having an idea two months before the event. Now I am one of those people.

I still don't have a job. I am staying with a friend for free, which is nice but I do want to be able to at least assist with some bills after a while. I don't like taking charity. Honestly I am surprised that I am able to be her comfortably as I am.

The only thing I really need to do still is I have to lose some weight. I want to fit back into my clothes and I want to look better, but as happens when I get busy I don't pay attention to Calorie-count. Putting that website on my radar always seems to make me feel like I have too much time that could be spent elsewhere.

Anyway. I just read two books at a rapid pace and am playing a video game I shouldn't have bought and barely runs on my laptop.

In the next day or so I will be updating my GOALS because I realize I haven't. I messed with the numbers the other day but they need a post to go with them.
-X

Here comes a New Year with 750 words

Today is New Years Eve! Yay!
The only good thing about the last year is that I moved to Los Angeles, California. Everything else sucked. I now have a couple of friends, if odd friends, but then again, what good are friends if they aren't odd. I'm currently living somewhere free of charge and fighting a winning battle against roaches. Christmas sucked a bit because I was alone, but I dealt with it by reading A Christmas Carol and watching A Muppet Christmas Carol. Yes, I am geeky when it comes to Christmas literature.

Yesterday, I finished the revision of my 2010 Screnzy and I will be allowing people to read it as soon as I can print it out. I'd feel bad about using my friend's printer because it'll be about five hundred fifty pages for all the people I want to read it. That's a little over a ream of paper. Not to even start on how much it is of ink (eek).

Since, I have that done I now get to reread my National Novel Writing Month Novel from this past November. The most difficult part will be not doing anything to it during the first read through. I know I need to add more description because I hate description. I still love my story (which I was saying about my script at this point too, not anymore) and I have many ideas on how to expand on it. My story is something of a prelude/origin story any I don't know how well it shows off my characters or the world. Most people have been looking at my synopsis on the Nano website and gasping at how long and detailed my concept is and you don't really get any of that in the novel I've written.

I started drawing again and I shall continue to draw into the new year. I am planning on pulling my art box out of storage and messing around with it. Technically, I should be going around and looking for a job and a permanent place to live, but what fun it that? What I would really like to do is play with jewelry making some more. I have some left overs from my class but a couple of important tools that make metalworking easy, like a blow torch. I like the blow torch.

God I want to weld. And I hate welding. It really sucks after the first couple of minutes. I probably just want to do theatre. What would be really nice is to go get a job doing the stuff I know and then I get to feel all superior on my first couple of days at least. Yeah, that would be good. I think I might have too many plans for this coming year.  I want to write 750 words everyday, I want to complete a script and a novel. That doesn't count participating and completing Script Frenzy 2011 and National Novel Writing Month 2011. Maybe even become a Municipal Liaison this year. I'm not committed to that last one, I am just toying with the idea.

Be the leader of something would be fun too. I like organizing people and making them do stuff. I find it too exciting. Particularly when events go well, which in my history they don't (not entirely my fault... actually so far it hasn't been my fault).

Lot of movies are coming out this year too and I need to get a job so that I can afford to see them. The ones produced by Disney I can go see for free, but that is a small number of them out of the year.

If you're wondering why this is possible the longest blog post I have ever written it's because I am writing this for the 750words.com website which gives you points for writing a lot without stopping. I can't even stop to think about what I am writing. I've written on the site most days this month, but this is the first time I have tried to write a blog post on it. A seven hundred and fifty word blog post. They honestly don't care if you put the same word down seven hundred and fifty times.

Yes, I have to write out 'seven hundred and fifty' each time. It adds more words and makes it so I don't have to add more content. I'm kind of getting tired and my back is hurting from the position I am sitting in right now. Hey look I made it to 750. Joy to me and you.

Happy New Year!
-X

This is required

I have to post simply to say that I once again completed National Novel Writing Month. Also to say that I once again plan on editing the novel in a month, just like I claimed last year. Hopefully this year I will not reread it and declare it the worst thing since Twilight.

Now instead of saying how I need to prepare for Nanowrimo I'll  be saying how I need to prepare for Script Frenzy in April. I'm thinking about doing the sequel to my previous work, but it is still four months away, anything can happen between now and then.

I got to see my family for Thanksgiving. My brothers brought me a ticket to Michigan, which begs the question, why go to Michigan in November when you're in Los Angeles? No one on the plane could answer the question.

On the topic of airplanes I really need to start flying during daylight hours. Flying at night is so boring. Everyone on the plane is usually asleep or if they aren't you still can't see out the windows. I like looking out the windows no matter what, even if all I can see is the top of clouds, and I can't sleep in a moving veicle. I've sort of done it a couple of times, but it not real sleep. Its closer to dozing.

I'll end with saying that LAX is not nearly as bad an airport that everyone was telling me. There were no lines or delays outside of my airline and it was the day before Thanksgiving.

Now we get too look forward to Thanksgiving and figuring out what you get a nine month old.
-X

Maybe not perfect

Of course a couple weeks after I post about how I feel so much better living in LA, I get the stomach flu and can honestly say that I think I lost some weight.

This is the almost the worst possible time for me to get sick. Worse would be after I had a job or on a day I needed to move into a new apartment. Still being unable to get out of bed means that I haven't looked for an apartment or job in three days.

Whatever. Being too sick to move makes you realize you need to slow down at time whether you want to or not.

Meanwhile I've been working on my Script Frenzy screenplay. It might have something to do with being in Los Angeles or maybe I just like the story enough that I actually want to see it through. I'm reading Essentials of Screenwriting and it is somewhat depression to discover that even if you sell a screenplay, it doesn't mean a studio will produce it, or if they do, that they will release it. Meh. This whole concept is a bit of a leap from theatrical design, but I'm slowing finding overlap, particularly in revision. I was going to have the revision done by the end of August, but losing that one day and the fact I feel like I should be sleeping right now instead of writing this put a slight crimp on that.

It's also two months before National Novel Writing Month begins. I will complete it for the second time this year and hopefully it won't suck like last year's did. The event founder writes in his book that you should avoid trying to write a 'good' book and try to write a 'not horrible' book. I'm going for that this year. We will see what happens as I argue with my plot.
-X

Now for a happy post

My last several posts were a bit sad. I need to do something happier.

I won Script Frenzy. I'm at 103 pages. Okay 102, the extra is my title page and I need to get an ending. Technically, I don't need that to end the month, but it's a little cooler to say that I finished a script, not that I wrote one hundred pages of a one hundred ten page script.

The job that I applied for nearly a month and a half ago informed all applicants that we would hear from them by the first week of May instead of the third week of April. So instead of my hopes being dashed, I'm being strung along for a couple more weeks. I'm really apathetic about it right now, I don't know if that will change as the deadline gets closer. This job is the last opportunity I will have to get into theatre for at least a year, unless I do really well in the retail sector.

My expenses are at the teetering edge of dangerous, I have enough money for my next month of credit card payments, in which I'm paying one hundred dollars for twelve months during promotional APR, but after that I'll have about enough for one last month and I'll have to do some kind of work in that time. Even if I get the job I really will need to move out there immediately and try to get some expenses taken care of with some type of job. The six hundred left on my one credit card isn't much of a problem, the greater problems are my car which takes sixty dollars to fill up, if I'm lucky, not to mention repairs which it occasionally needs, being an almost twenty year old car. My computer is funky. It's not dead, but it's a computer and they rarely warn you when they are planning on heading out. I would love to get on top of that and order a new one (desktop for easy repairs) and keep a functioning laptop as a spare. So yeah, some money would be nice. We won't even get into the discretionary spending I would like to be doing.

All in all, I'm pretty proud of myself for not spending that much money that last couple of months. I wasn't perfect, I bought some clothes and books with my own money (silly me). The clothes are silly because they don't fit me. I want them for when they do. It will be am instant reward. Or it's crap to be stuck in my closet forever.

Okay now for randomness.
-X

Levi's Slim Straight 514 Jeans 34x32
Chocolate Bar Variety Pack - 30 ct
Dell Alienware Aurora Desktop
The Complete Book of Scriptwriting

Reread

So, I'm one of those crazy people who reread books. Not just when the next one comes out so that I can remember what's going on, I do it all the time. Sometimes I don't finish them on reread number three hundred, but I still try. The other day I started rereading Dragons of Autumn Twilight, mostly because I needed to practice scriptwriting for Screnzy and I thought the easiest way to practice was to use a already created story and "adapt" it. I put that in quotes because that part I did was almost word for word from the book. Maybe three pages in and about ten minutes into the movie.

Anyway, I shouldn't be doing this. I have several books to read, such as Dune and Dracula. Instead I'm reading a book I know almost by heart, and no, rereading isn't any faster than the first time. Usually, it's slower because I stop more often to ponder other ways for events to happen. If you're familiar with Dragonlance you know that it is long running series and even the tiniest alteration in the early books could completely screw up the later ones. Which wouldn't necessarily be bad. The series gets seriously fucked up after awhile.

What could I do instead of rereading these? I could apply for the three jobs I discovered, search for more jobs, or watch more stuff on Hulu, which would maybe end up with me writing a more interesting entry.

I am planning on seeing Daybreakers soon and reviewing it then. Ta-ta for now.
-X

GOALS for a New Year (2010)

Image by asterix611 via Flickr- do you know how stupid hard it is to find a picture of the Times Square Ball???

I looked at my GOALS from several months ago and realized that I had in some ways accomplished most of them.

Having a job has allowed me to loose some weight, if not as much as I would have liked by now. I won a copy of Guitar Hero for Xbox that I had no use for and sold it on eBay so I finished that GOAL in a very random manner. My portfolio is 90% set up and I won National Novel Writing Month on my first try, which not everyone is able to do. Downside is that I'm bored with Illuminated University for the moment now and am not sure if I wil be editing my National Novel.

But this is a traditional time to make GOALS so here it goes.
-Reach my goal weight of 175 lbs. I should be able to do this by the end of March at the earliest, by the end of the year at the latest.
-Get a job in theatre. Obvious. Perhaps I'll be less picky.
-Participate in Script Frenzy. 100 script pages in the 30 days of April. Like NaNo but with more dialogue.
-Get a home. Directly attached to the job part. Hopeful, very hopeful.

I rechecked this a couple weeks after first writing it and I can't add anything to it, though expect a "how I intend to do it" post in a couple of days.
-X

Knocking on wood.

Image via Wikipedia

I have been writing as one would guess as I won NaNoWriMo. I have not written any fiction since the end of November, but I am trying to form ideas of what else to write, whether it is an idea for NaNo 2010 or Script Frenzy or just writing something outside of those events.

To help keep me organized I use a Word Document that maps my linear outline and I have been using GenoPro to map families and relationships. The examples in the help menu use Harry Potter characters. It really helps even when I am writing in a fictional universe and can't really use real time measurements. So I have decided that I should actually buy a license for it.

It costs $49. I get my paycheck on Thursday (probably deposit on Friday unless I am really awesome), which I really shouldn't be spending on this. I can't turn off my laptop for about four days or I will lose the map for my current project. If I lose it, it will be gone forever, because I make many random assumptions while writing the information down - choosing birth dates, especially years, as well as names.

I half turned off Windows Update. It keeps telling me that I need an update but I don't think I actually have the software that it wants to update. Not to mention it whenever it tries to restart for "critical" updates at three in the morning it freezes up on the shut down and/or start up screen. Sometimes I can't tell.

Bad laptop. You're not allowed to die yet!!!!
-X