If writing is your profession, then "mood" and "whether you feel like it" are irrelevant. Do you take time off work because you just "don't feel like it today" - well, you better not do it too often or you'll be in deep doo-doo.
I have been known to say this on a number of occasions, of course it's harder when it's yourself.
Personally if I take a day off from the day job I don't get paid because I'm a contractor. That's a fairly convincing argument. Luckily I can also work from home which has meant that the snow preventing me from travelling to Sheffield (all the Pennine passes have been closed) hasn't stopped me from working.
What brought this on? Well I really didn't feel like writing today: sleepy tired, and me old bones a bit achy. But I have less than two episodes of Winter to write and they need to get done. (Then there's re-writing, getting 3rd party analysis and critique, then working with the Director - Hi, Chris - and shooting in just a few of months.)
So I forced myself to sit down in my office in front of the computer and start writing.
You know what? I feel so much better for it. Getting things done does wonders for the way you feel.
EDIT: Couple of hours later - first draft of Winter is now complete and printing, for typographical and sanity check. (I deliberately changed some things halfway through, now I need to make sure the beginning agrees with the end.)
What's on the turntable? "Preludes" by Gordon Giltrap from "The River Sessions"
Showing posts with label procrastination. Show all posts
Showing posts with label procrastination. Show all posts
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Friday, June 26, 2009
Writing at last
Yes, finally back in Creativity Ville. Wrote the key scene from Tec that's been balking me for a while and the next couple. Then I lay down on my bed and stared at the ceiling.
Nothing like staring at the ceiling for a bit. I planned out the final few steps of this episode. The apparent denouement, when the murderer gets arrested, then the real end when the real bad guy reveals himself almost gets the protagonist but fails (Hurray!).
Although Tec is a "story of thee week" detective series there is a revenge arc running through the first season about why the protagonist - just out of jail - got in there in the first place. I had been relying on a character from this story to provide the final piece in the last episode of his own free will - which was dicey.
A reason why he must do his thing in the final episode suddenly evolved in this episode (it hadn't been planned) - I love it when a story comes together.
What's on the turntable? "Perilous Journey, Guitar & Piano version" by Gordon Giltrap from "Perilous Journey"
Nothing like staring at the ceiling for a bit. I planned out the final few steps of this episode. The apparent denouement, when the murderer gets arrested, then the real end when the real bad guy reveals himself almost gets the protagonist but fails (Hurray!).
Although Tec is a "story of thee week" detective series there is a revenge arc running through the first season about why the protagonist - just out of jail - got in there in the first place. I had been relying on a character from this story to provide the final piece in the last episode of his own free will - which was dicey.
A reason why he must do his thing in the final episode suddenly evolved in this episode (it hadn't been planned) - I love it when a story comes together.
What's on the turntable? "Perilous Journey, Guitar & Piano version" by Gordon Giltrap from "Perilous Journey"
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
You don't want to know
On the Shooting People screenwriters bulletin they have been discussing procrastination.
And methods of dealing with it. And what people procrastinate doing. And so forth.
I have some potentially bad news - there is a brilliant (and free) piece of software available (for Mac and Windows) which will tell you just how much time you spend doing something else.
In fact it was designed for people like me, web developers and other people who do all their work from computers and need to check how much time they are spending on different jobs.
What makes this brilliant is that it keeps track of the applications you're using and the window titles of those applications. Then you tell it which windows belong to which activities. Then it tracks the time on that activity by simply looking at the windows you're using.
It is brilliant and simple.
Plus you can then specify how much, or how little, time you think you should be spending daily on each activity and it will tell you how well you're succeeding. So if you think you should be spending less than 20 minutes a day on writing blogs, you can set it up that way.
You can get it to measure all your writing as a whole, or break it down into separate activities depending on the projects you're working on.
It's still a work in development but I've been using it this afternoon and it's great.
Get it from Slife Labs.
You really didn't want to know about that, did you?
What's on the turntable? "Waking the Witch" by Kate Bush from "Ninth Wave" (the other side of the "Hounds of Love" album)
I haven't written this at work listening to Kate Bush, I've used the clever post-dated posting that Blogger can do.
And methods of dealing with it. And what people procrastinate doing. And so forth.
I have some potentially bad news - there is a brilliant (and free) piece of software available (for Mac and Windows) which will tell you just how much time you spend doing something else.
In fact it was designed for people like me, web developers and other people who do all their work from computers and need to check how much time they are spending on different jobs.
What makes this brilliant is that it keeps track of the applications you're using and the window titles of those applications. Then you tell it which windows belong to which activities. Then it tracks the time on that activity by simply looking at the windows you're using.
It is brilliant and simple.
Plus you can then specify how much, or how little, time you think you should be spending daily on each activity and it will tell you how well you're succeeding. So if you think you should be spending less than 20 minutes a day on writing blogs, you can set it up that way.
You can get it to measure all your writing as a whole, or break it down into separate activities depending on the projects you're working on.
It's still a work in development but I've been using it this afternoon and it's great.
Get it from Slife Labs.
You really didn't want to know about that, did you?
What's on the turntable? "Waking the Witch" by Kate Bush from "Ninth Wave" (the other side of the "Hounds of Love" album)
I haven't written this at work listening to Kate Bush, I've used the clever post-dated posting that Blogger can do.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Elementary, My Dear Watson
This evening I lost another procrastinary device: I finished the 1,408 pages of the The Complete Sherlock Holmes Stories.
Phew.
I originally bought it because of a collaboration/competition thingy on Shooting People, someone looking for an original Sherlock Holmes story. I needed to research so bought them in order to get a feel for the style.
It's actually a fascinating historical document, and there are some cracking good stories, although watch out for the longer stories, the second halves are always the back story which can be pretty tedious, even if they are historically interesting.
In my blog this particular piece of writing was referred to as the Bohemian Project. It came to naught and a good chunk of the reason for that was me not reading the brief properly. I completely failed to notice that the company wanted something very dark and possibly supernatural. Mind you, Holmes wouldn't stand for that, read "The Sussex Vampire" story.
It's a crime I shall never be guilty of again, because I mean to win.
Back to Holmes, as I mentioned in a recent blog the word monograph comes up reasonably frequently. However there were turns of language that surprised me by their modernity, such as referring to the USA as "the States", and (I know it's not very recent but still...) a criminal saying "It's a fair cop".
What's on the turntable? "Heartsong" by Gordon Giltrap from "Perilous Journey". Heartsong was his only charts hit, and it's a lovely tune. Gordon Giltrap tells stories in music without words.
Phew.
I originally bought it because of a collaboration/competition thingy on Shooting People, someone looking for an original Sherlock Holmes story. I needed to research so bought them in order to get a feel for the style.
It's actually a fascinating historical document, and there are some cracking good stories, although watch out for the longer stories, the second halves are always the back story which can be pretty tedious, even if they are historically interesting.
In my blog this particular piece of writing was referred to as the Bohemian Project. It came to naught and a good chunk of the reason for that was me not reading the brief properly. I completely failed to notice that the company wanted something very dark and possibly supernatural. Mind you, Holmes wouldn't stand for that, read "The Sussex Vampire" story.
It's a crime I shall never be guilty of again, because I mean to win.
Back to Holmes, as I mentioned in a recent blog the word monograph comes up reasonably frequently. However there were turns of language that surprised me by their modernity, such as referring to the USA as "the States", and (I know it's not very recent but still...) a criminal saying "It's a fair cop".
What's on the turntable? "Heartsong" by Gordon Giltrap from "Perilous Journey". Heartsong was his only charts hit, and it's a lovely tune. Gordon Giltrap tells stories in music without words.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
On Air
Goodness me. I just completed the first draft of the first episode of Air.
I'd had a sticking point where I couldn't see how to introduce the father of the family that Air ends up staying with. Then I was thinking about it on the train coming home this evening and it came together, so I jotted down the entire sequence of scenes in my little black book as we trundled from Clapham Junction to Reading (actually it only took me from Staines - when I got a seat - to Ascot).
Having got in I made my dinner, handled some important money things, made a couple of phone calls, read a Sherlock Holmes short story, and with all the procrastination dealt with I sat down and blasted out the 7 pages in a little under 90 minutes.
Discovering various things as I went like: the bad guys are called the Witchbrood, and the people in our world are assuming Air has run away from an abusive home, taking refuge in fantasy. An amusing irony.
I'm pretty economical in my writing so I've still got another 7-8 pages to fill, which is great because I can put more emotional content into it.
The sticking point I resolved had some interesting features (I think). Initially I had made the Dad a Professor of History. This meant that I had to bring in Police to deal with the lost soul that is Air, and then have Dad be chosen as the person to take Air home.
It just wasn't working, I could not get my head around any sequence of scenes and dialogue that could make that work smoothly. So my first brainwave (last week) was to make the Dad a Police Detective himself, cutting out the middle man. Excellent.
Then I had to somehow make Air, as the Protagonist, do a protagonistic action in order to make the Dad take her home. I needed her to manipulate the action without that manipulation being "conniving" which is, of course, the trait of a baddie.
It was when I had the Dad walk into the scene wearing full plate armour (which fits the setting perfectly) that the solution flowed off the end of my fingers - naturally Air would look for a protector, a knight, and he just walked in through the door.
Problem solved: She chooses him, and he is duty-bound to accept. (It even works in the real world, Social Services don't work weekends so Air would have to be dealt with by the Police alone, and if she were 16, Social Services wouldn't even be remotely interested, so I get a free hand.)
It's true that I wrote down a whole load of stuff in my little black book but, in truth, I didn't write what I put in the book. But my initial inspiration would have worked, it just wasn't as good as what I ended up with.
Of course there is loads more going on, I have the two other major plot lines running through as well, all linked and interconnected so I'm quite pleased. I'll print it up tomorrow and work through making notes and seeing where it can be appropriately expanded.
What's on the turntable? "Refuge of the Road" by Joni Mitchell from "Hejira"
I'd had a sticking point where I couldn't see how to introduce the father of the family that Air ends up staying with. Then I was thinking about it on the train coming home this evening and it came together, so I jotted down the entire sequence of scenes in my little black book as we trundled from Clapham Junction to Reading (actually it only took me from Staines - when I got a seat - to Ascot).
Having got in I made my dinner, handled some important money things, made a couple of phone calls, read a Sherlock Holmes short story, and with all the procrastination dealt with I sat down and blasted out the 7 pages in a little under 90 minutes.
Discovering various things as I went like: the bad guys are called the Witchbrood, and the people in our world are assuming Air has run away from an abusive home, taking refuge in fantasy. An amusing irony.
I'm pretty economical in my writing so I've still got another 7-8 pages to fill, which is great because I can put more emotional content into it.
The sticking point I resolved had some interesting features (I think). Initially I had made the Dad a Professor of History. This meant that I had to bring in Police to deal with the lost soul that is Air, and then have Dad be chosen as the person to take Air home.
It just wasn't working, I could not get my head around any sequence of scenes and dialogue that could make that work smoothly. So my first brainwave (last week) was to make the Dad a Police Detective himself, cutting out the middle man. Excellent.
Then I had to somehow make Air, as the Protagonist, do a protagonistic action in order to make the Dad take her home. I needed her to manipulate the action without that manipulation being "conniving" which is, of course, the trait of a baddie.
It was when I had the Dad walk into the scene wearing full plate armour (which fits the setting perfectly) that the solution flowed off the end of my fingers - naturally Air would look for a protector, a knight, and he just walked in through the door.
Problem solved: She chooses him, and he is duty-bound to accept. (It even works in the real world, Social Services don't work weekends so Air would have to be dealt with by the Police alone, and if she were 16, Social Services wouldn't even be remotely interested, so I get a free hand.)
It's true that I wrote down a whole load of stuff in my little black book but, in truth, I didn't write what I put in the book. But my initial inspiration would have worked, it just wasn't as good as what I ended up with.
Of course there is loads more going on, I have the two other major plot lines running through as well, all linked and interconnected so I'm quite pleased. I'll print it up tomorrow and work through making notes and seeing where it can be appropriately expanded.
What's on the turntable? "Refuge of the Road" by Joni Mitchell from "Hejira"
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Halloween pictures
I promised to post a picture of me and I thought I'd throw in the kids as well. The first picture is me with our little puppy, Toby, he's only about 8 months old. He can be a pain in the posterior but he can also be very cute.
Some might say including my kids pictures is a bad idea but honestly there's far more risk in crossing the road. And the news media seems to exist largely to terrorise the population - and I refuse to be terrorised.
Besides the girl is 2nd Dan Jujitsu and knows half a dozen ways of killing someone, never mind breaking bones and dislocating joints - and the boy is also a black belt Jujitsu so knows quite a few of those methods too.
Unlike some martial arts real Jujitsu is not a sport and is intended as serious self-defence - how to disable an attacker with minimum effort and swiftly, it covers everything from distance attacks (kicks and strikes) to ground fighting (half a dozen exits from strangulation, for example), and how to deal with knife attacks.
Besides, this blog is semi-anonymous, it's not impossible to find out who I am - if you don't know already - but it would take a bit of work. (Do you think I've justified myself enough?)
So the second picture is them in their costumes (they don't look like this normally). All the costumes and much more besides, is kept in our cellar ready for events like this.
The final picture is the kids looking cool, as done by professional photographer, John Nichols, when the daughter went to get some headshots done.
What's nice is that they almost never argue, and get on well.
I'll stop procrastinating now and get back to Air.
What's on the turntable? "Bright Evening Star" by Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band from "Ringing the Changes"
Just a moment
I'm on my lunch break (cheese and ham baguette from Upper Crust) so I thought I'd take 5 minutes from my punishing schedule to throw out a blog. Plus the fact that accesses to my blog reached the lowest in ages yesterday so I thought I'd better write something.
In my day job I'm a contract web developer, the funny thing about developing websites is that most people have no clue as to what is difficult and what is hard. The usual rule of thumb is that non-techies think the easy things are hard and the hard things are easy.
Bit like writing really. I mean the actual writing bit isn't that hard, it's the planning and deciding what to write that's tricky.
Which brings me to Air - my kids TV fantasy series - I actually got down to some serious writing the past couple of evenings and I'm 7 pages in, a quarter of the way through a half-hour episode. Now that I've finished Russell T Davies's book I have no "research" excuse for procrastination.
I threw away my opening again and wrote a new one. Same basic stuff but just done in a different way, with the protagonist more at the centre of things, being more decisive. (And cut out a whole bunch of unnecessary speaking parts into the bargain, so keeping the budget down).
Then moved on to the protagonist's arrival here in the real world. It worked really well, not the way I originally thought it would play out but I like it - lots of action and emotion.
I can see people thinking this is "too heavy" for kids so I'll need something to lighten it up I suppose, but Tracy Beaker was pretty serious at times, so I'm aiming for that kind of level.
Anyway, better get back to work.
What's on the turntable? They never have music here.
In my day job I'm a contract web developer, the funny thing about developing websites is that most people have no clue as to what is difficult and what is hard. The usual rule of thumb is that non-techies think the easy things are hard and the hard things are easy.
Bit like writing really. I mean the actual writing bit isn't that hard, it's the planning and deciding what to write that's tricky.
Which brings me to Air - my kids TV fantasy series - I actually got down to some serious writing the past couple of evenings and I'm 7 pages in, a quarter of the way through a half-hour episode. Now that I've finished Russell T Davies's book I have no "research" excuse for procrastination.
I threw away my opening again and wrote a new one. Same basic stuff but just done in a different way, with the protagonist more at the centre of things, being more decisive. (And cut out a whole bunch of unnecessary speaking parts into the bargain, so keeping the budget down).
Then moved on to the protagonist's arrival here in the real world. It worked really well, not the way I originally thought it would play out but I like it - lots of action and emotion.
I can see people thinking this is "too heavy" for kids so I'll need something to lighten it up I suppose, but Tracy Beaker was pretty serious at times, so I'm aiming for that kind of level.
Anyway, better get back to work.
What's on the turntable? They never have music here.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Breathing
Well, last day on the current contract today and it's all over. Tomorrow I have a job interview which apparently I'm 95% likely to get, so much so that they wanted me to start work immediately. I refused ... assuming I got the job ... my family come before any of that and I have a Halloween party to go to.
So I do the interview and then go home. And hopefully start work on Monday. Excellent.
I had decided I wouldn't do that personality test thing where you draw a mountain and it analyses it for you. This was mainly because I'd seen other people's and they appeared to be coming out all very similar analyses.
But procrastination is a bitch, so I did it:
What does your drawing say about YOU?
In other news my daughter went for new headshots today, she's keen to be an actress (though she's training to be a zoologist, and is hoping to go to Borneo next year to push baby orangutans around in a wheelbarrow). She had an extra's part with an extreme close-up in The Street 1.3 but has mostly done stage work so far. She does have an IMDb entry as "herself" because of a TV documentary about a pantomime she was in last year.
Anyway, with 2 hours of the photographer's time available and it really doesn't take that long for her, it was decided that the boy would have shots done too.
Damn it the camera loves him.
He's indicated that he wouldn't object to making a few quid from acting or catalogue work - to pay for the games he'd like to buy. Daughter is jealous. She knows that he stands a much better chance of getting work than she does: fewer boys want to act and there are more parts available for boys.
We shall see, I shall speak to daughter's agent.
I've been thinking about my opening to Air and the rubbish scenes I talked about yesterday. they need to go completely. Enough with the scene setting and backstory, I can get that out in a few lines just before the thing happens that throws her into our world.
These walks to and from work have been very useful. If I do get this new job I shall have the same walk plus a long train journey. I hate long journeys to work. I used to do the whole commute thing, I thought I'd lost that for good.
Still, money is money.
Why did I call this post "Breathing"?
Apart from the fact it's one of the best songs Kate Bush ever did?
Actually that's the only reason ... and I'm still breathing.
Out. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. Out. Out.
What's on the turntable? "Haunted" by Evanescence from "Fallen".
So I do the interview and then go home. And hopefully start work on Monday. Excellent.
I had decided I wouldn't do that personality test thing where you draw a mountain and it analyses it for you. This was mainly because I'd seen other people's and they appeared to be coming out all very similar analyses.
But procrastination is a bitch, so I did it:
What does your drawing say about YOU?
- You tend to pursue many different activities simultaneously. When misfortune does happen, it doesn't actually dishearten you all that much.
- You are a thoughtful and cautious person. You like to think about your method, seeking to pursue your goal in the most effective way.
- You like following the rules and being objective. You are precise and meticulous, and like to evaluate decisions before making them.
- You have a sunny, cheerful disposition.
In other news my daughter went for new headshots today, she's keen to be an actress (though she's training to be a zoologist, and is hoping to go to Borneo next year to push baby orangutans around in a wheelbarrow). She had an extra's part with an extreme close-up in The Street 1.3 but has mostly done stage work so far. She does have an IMDb entry as "herself" because of a TV documentary about a pantomime she was in last year.
Anyway, with 2 hours of the photographer's time available and it really doesn't take that long for her, it was decided that the boy would have shots done too.
Damn it the camera loves him.
He's indicated that he wouldn't object to making a few quid from acting or catalogue work - to pay for the games he'd like to buy. Daughter is jealous. She knows that he stands a much better chance of getting work than she does: fewer boys want to act and there are more parts available for boys.
We shall see, I shall speak to daughter's agent.
I've been thinking about my opening to Air and the rubbish scenes I talked about yesterday. they need to go completely. Enough with the scene setting and backstory, I can get that out in a few lines just before the thing happens that throws her into our world.
These walks to and from work have been very useful. If I do get this new job I shall have the same walk plus a long train journey. I hate long journeys to work. I used to do the whole commute thing, I thought I'd lost that for good.
Still, money is money.
Why did I call this post "Breathing"?
Apart from the fact it's one of the best songs Kate Bush ever did?
Actually that's the only reason ... and I'm still breathing.
Out. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. Out. Out.
What's on the turntable? "Haunted" by Evanescence from "Fallen".
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Busy but not writing
Okay the 5 top methods of procrastination meme:
1. Reading blogs (I call that research)
2. Reading e-mails
3. Reading, currently Russell T Davies's "The Writer's Tale" (very enlightening, I call this research too)
4. Working on my pet website project (I call that "future income")
5. Getting a new job. Contract ends this week and I need a new job.
Tried to work on "Air" tonight and wrote a few things but really couldn't get into it, the "need to get a new job" thing is a bit pressing.
Got a nice e-mail back from BBC Wales complimenting my writing, and viewing my script as a serious commission (gosh, I wasn't expecting that). Got some very sensible reasons why they wouldn't commission it. It was interesting.
Still awaiting responses from the first round of agency submissions.
Agonising.
And did Danny Stack really mean it when he said "2 months"? We have to wait another month before we hear on Red Planet? I hope not.
I'll review RTD's book properly when I've finished it, but it's really making me think about budgets ... yes, I know, writers aren't supposed to ... but why not deliver something that is well written and works to a budget as well?
For instance the opening of Air originally took in 4-5 locations in a castle for the same number of scenes. Yet, with a little thought, I made it two locations without losing anything else. Also, particularly since Air is for kids, I ought to think about the number of characters. Can't really have that many.
Right. Stopping now. No more quick thoughts.
What's on the turntable? "Omie Wise" by Pentangle from "Light Flight". This is a very cruel story of a man who tricks a girl into running away with him, has his wicked way with her, then murders her. After her body is found much later, he is arrested, tried and executed without evidence. Luckily they got the right man.
1. Reading blogs (I call that research)
2. Reading e-mails
3. Reading, currently Russell T Davies's "The Writer's Tale" (very enlightening, I call this research too)
4. Working on my pet website project (I call that "future income")
5. Getting a new job. Contract ends this week and I need a new job.
Tried to work on "Air" tonight and wrote a few things but really couldn't get into it, the "need to get a new job" thing is a bit pressing.
Got a nice e-mail back from BBC Wales complimenting my writing, and viewing my script as a serious commission (gosh, I wasn't expecting that). Got some very sensible reasons why they wouldn't commission it. It was interesting.
Still awaiting responses from the first round of agency submissions.
Agonising.
And did Danny Stack really mean it when he said "2 months"? We have to wait another month before we hear on Red Planet? I hope not.
I'll review RTD's book properly when I've finished it, but it's really making me think about budgets ... yes, I know, writers aren't supposed to ... but why not deliver something that is well written and works to a budget as well?
For instance the opening of Air originally took in 4-5 locations in a castle for the same number of scenes. Yet, with a little thought, I made it two locations without losing anything else. Also, particularly since Air is for kids, I ought to think about the number of characters. Can't really have that many.
Right. Stopping now. No more quick thoughts.
What's on the turntable? "Omie Wise" by Pentangle from "Light Flight". This is a very cruel story of a man who tricks a girl into running away with him, has his wicked way with her, then murders her. After her body is found much later, he is arrested, tried and executed without evidence. Luckily they got the right man.
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