Writer's Block and "Felix"

As I continue to struggle with writer's block, I ask myself, why do I want to write "Felix"? Maybe that will get me restarted.

On one level  a story can be just a story; an exercise in entertainment. But to write a story a writer needs motivation. What is my motivation? In general I see any creative activity as a way for the creator to express their personal philosophy. When I look at the stories and movies I've done, they all reflect ideas or emotions that were important to me. That is even true of projects where I didn't consciously set out to make a point.

What about "Felix"?

My initial inspiration for "Felix" was a desire to rewrite one of H. P. Lovecraft's short stories. At the time I started, I didn't give any thought to what I wanted to say in the story. I believe that if I want to finish this story and make it worth reading, then I need to clarify in my mind what I want the story about.

In many of Lovecraft's stories he tries to evoke a sense that people are just a small and insignificant part of the Universe. His protagonists are horrified by that revelation. It is not that the other beings are evil, but that they simply don't care about humanity.

At the end of "Felix" I have a similar revelation. As I said in an earlier blog post, it is very difficult to hide the climax to a story like this. Since there can be no surprise ending to the story, my focus needs to be on how my protagonists react to the revelation. In the current version of the story I have the two protagonists react in different ways.

The story up until the climax needs to build up the reader's empathy for the protagonists. I need to develop the characters to the point where, while their reactions may be unexpected, the reader can understand why the characters react the way they do.

What I want the reader to think about while they read is how the characters might react to the revelation. Then, after they have read the story, I want them to go on to speculate how they would react in their place. I do want to provoke an emotional response, but I don't believe I would call it fear.

I would like reader to find what I seek; an acceptance of the Universe as it is. So often we get caught up in the travails and frustrations of our day to day existence. I believe that it is easier to find happiness and enjoy life if we see our troubles as not that important in the whole scheme of things.

This seems like a mighty ambitious goal for a little story like mine. I find it rather intimidating to think of it in those terms, which doesn't help much with my writer's block. On the other hand, just because I might not succeed is no reason not to try. A failed attempt may still be worth the effort.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

2013 goals

In my New Years Day post, I looked back at what I did in 2012. In this post, I lay out my 2013 goals. That is goals for 2013, not 2013 goals.

Some Days . . .

I finished this film last year and submitted it to the Hundred Dollar Film Festival. If it is accepted, I do have a little work to prepare it for screening. Not a big part of the work for this year, but something I’ll need to do.

My Most Difficult Case

I’ve let this project drag on far too long. It has been a difficult project for me to do. In many ways, the delay in this project has stopped me from moving forward. I really need to get this film behind me.

Xtranormal Film/Video

I want to make a long video with Xtranormal. What I really want to do is to make a feature film, but I don’t feel that I am ready. I have written some longer short stories and scripts, but I feel I need to do a film or video to really learn how to make a more substantial film.

In 2012, I made Make 'em Squirm: The Sharkbiter Way, which, at a little over 9 minutes, is one of my longer projects. I want to continue my exploration of the capabilities of Xtranormal in 2013. I feel that Xtranormal might be a good way to write a script.

I have had several ideas for what to make. At one time or another, I’ve considered adaptations of several of my stories; Hello, My Name is Bob, The Crying Woman, The Gladstone Barrier, or The Glencoe Project. I’ve also thought I should create a new story.

I need to pick one of these options and move forward.

Stories

I still want to write more stories. If Pete’s Plan sells, then I may start to write more short science fiction stories along the same lines.

I have several longer stories in development that I would like to complete. My aim is to have each of them finished at novelette length.

Felix is another science fiction story. I based it on a H. P. Lovecraft story. This one looks like it will end up shorter than my target; unless I add in more twists and turns. On the other hand, maybe I need to explore the characters more. I have about half of the first draft done.

Heat Wave is also a science fiction story. I find that I have drawn a lot on my personal experiences in this one. Like Line of Taxis, it allows me to explore personal issues at some distance from myself. Like Felix, I am not yet finished the first draft.

Bright Freedom is a story I converted from a feature script I wrote. I have a first draft done. I’ve done some notes for changes to the first draft, but I want to leave the rewrite until I have some of my other projects out of the way.

I want to combine and rewrite my two transportation planning stories, The Gladstone Barrier, and The Glencoe Project, into a longer story. Maybe even a novel. Of course, I want to make them into movies too. I shouldn’t try to do both.

Work Habits

I had a commenter on my look back at 2012 post who suggested that I would be more productive if I set deadlines for my projects. I actually did set some deadlines for 2012, but I didn’t find that they really helped me.

Deadlines have their place, but I don’t like deadlines because I find they stifle my creativity. Most of my better ideas come to me when I was doing nothing and had nothing to do. Deadline change the nature of what I create in ways I don’t like.

Never the less, I recognize that I can be more productive than I am. I believe that the approach I need to do is adopt better work habits. Most of what I’ve read about writing suggests that good writers set aside a certain time every day to write. I don’t think it needs to be a lot of time, but it does need to be consistent.

It is not easy to establish new habits, or drop old habits. I can’t allow myself to give up, but I should accept that I might slip from time to time.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

A Look Back at 2012

At the start of 2012, I did a post about My Goals for 2012. Before I do the same for 2013, I wanted to look at how I did last year.

Make Better Use of My Time

Well, I don’t think I did very well with this. I got some projects done, but I didn’t get as much done as I could have. I have an excuse for the first couple of months: I slipped on some ice and cracked a bone in my arm and a rib. That slowed me down for a while.

I said I would set deadlines, but didn’t. I did shift my focus from short quick projects to longer projects. I got several started, but some of them are not finished yet, so I look less productive than I was.

I read more this year. Forty-four books in total. That took up my time, but Pierre Berton’s advice is “read, read, read, write, write, write, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite”, so it wasn’t time wasted.

Contingency

I completed Contingency and got it into the Hundred Dollar Film Festival. It won the best of Alberta award. That was very gratifying.

Somedays . . .

I wasn’t happy with the version I finished earlier in the year, so I pulled it out of the Hundred Dollar Film Festival. I reshot it later in the year. The new version was much better, so, if it gets accepted, it will be ready for next years festival.

My Most Difficult Case

I set a deadline of April 1 for this project. I didn’t do anything on in 2012. Next year. For sure. Really. I mean it this time.

The Crying Lady

I planned to use Xtranormal to turn the short story into a film. I never started on it, but I did use Xtranormal to make Make ’ em Squirm: The Sharkbiter Way. I found that a valuable step toward a longer project.

Transportation Planning Story (Novelette)

I wanted to write a novelette based on one or another of my transportation stories. I made some more notes about ideas and developed the story a bit, but didn’t get to any actual writing.

I did start three stories I hope will develop into novelettes. I based Bright Freedom on one of the feature scripts I wrote in 2011. I got a first draft done, which was mostly a direct conversion of the script into prose form. I cut out some material and added some as well. I restructured it a bit. I left it for a while to work on other projects before I did a second draft. It is still on hold. The first draft came in at 17,400 words.

I worked on two other novelettes. Both were science fiction stories. Felix is about an expedition to Mars to search for a lost robot rover. The idea came from an H. P. Lovecraft story. I have about half of the first draft done. It looks like done the first draft will be less than 8,000 words.

Heat Wave is the story of a scientist who runs into resistance to his research. I met a researcher several years ago who told me about their experiences, which gave me the idea for the story. The story also incorporates some of my own experiences. It looks like it will end up about 10,000 words.

I did some research into the market for science fiction stories. It looks like there are quite a large number of magazines that publish science fiction. Some don’t pay very much.

One magazine has a long list of clichéd stories they won’t publish. Unfortunately, Heat Wave is similar to one they list. I could fix that with a different ending, but the ending was the point of the story. I plan to finish the story the way I planned, and then see how people react to it.

I wrote a shorter science fiction story, Pete’s Plan, which I submitted to a couple of the magazines. Both rejected it, but there are many more to try yet. I rewrote it after the first rejection, and I plan another rewrite before I resubmit it to another magazine.

The Unexpected

Several of my projects this year were not planned. That included Make ’ em Squirm: The Sharkbiter Way, as well as the short stories and novelettes I worked on.

Blog

My 2012 goal was to post at least one blog post a week. I did 58 posts. I did miss a couple weeks because of my accident. I didn’t had as many visits to my blog in 2012, but that may be partly due to changes in the way visits were counted.

My Goals for 2012

Next week, after New Years Day, I’ll do a new set of goals for 2013.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

My Goals for 2012

Last week I went over what I did last year. Now it is time to look at what I’ll try to do in 2012.

Make Better Use of My Time

Time and again I find myself with too many projects on the go, and I can’t make headway on any of them. This year I will try to keep my focus on one major project at a time.

Last year I had a bunch of goals for the year, but that leads me to try to do them all at the same time. This year I will try to set deadlines for each of the major projects I want to do. That way, I can space them out over the year.

Another way to focus is to stick to longer projects. When I do short small projects, I tend to want to just get them done and work on the next one. With a longer project I don’t think there would be the same pressure and I will create something that will catch people’s fancy.

Somedays . . . and Contingency

I need to have final versions of these films ready in time for the $100 Film Festival. The festival starts the first week of March. That pretty much sets the deadline for me.

My Most Difficult Case

This film has been on my back for far too long. I don’t think I really have all that much more I need to do before I have it done. I want to leave it until after I’m done with Somedays … and Contingency. I think I can safely set a deadline of April 1 for this project.

The Crying Lady

I did three feature scripts in 2010, but right now, none of them really seems to get people excited. The idea I feel best about now is The Crying Lady. I did it as a short story in 2011, but didn’t get much feedback on it. I think that the idea has potential and I want to do more work on it.

One way to get more feedback is to do a video based on the story. The website Xtranormal allows you to easily create animated videos. I believe I can use it to make an animated storyboard from my story. That will give me, and others, a better idea how the story would translate into a film. I will shoot for completion my mid May.

The story is still too short for a feature film, so I want to expand it somewhat. To do that I plan to do some blog posts and maybe short articles about the themes and details of the story. I did something like that for my transportation planning stories. This would help build and audience in addition to help build up the story. I won’t set any specific deadline for these, just let them happen as I develop the ideas.

Transportation Planning Story

I would like to develop one of my transportation planning stories into a longer form. The two stories I did last year run about 6,000 words. I’d like to build that up to at least 20,000 words. I have some ideas about how to do that and have several pages of notes.

Given my other priorities, I don’t think I can get to it until May. I’d like to set a deadline of July 1, although, that leaves me about six weeks and it took me that long to write the 6,000-word version. I’ll revisit this goal in April.

Small Projects

I have a bunch of ideas for small projects, but as I noted before I don’t want them to be a big part of my goals this year.

I have several ideas for short stories and articles lying about. I would like to get some of the short stories done. Articles, except those related to my major projects, are not a priority for me. I do make some money from them on Triond, but it isn’t so much money that I would lose out if I didn’t do any. Half the money I get comes from one article I wrote three years ago.

I enjoyed making the two shorts for the $100 Film Festival, so I’d like to do some more along those lines.

I won’t set any deadlines for this kind of project.

The Unexpected

My experience has convinced me that ideas can just pop up at any time. I’ll keep that in mind and try to stay flexible in my plans. If something catches on fire, I will want to run with it

I plan to do a review of my progress several times throughout the year: April 1, July 1 and October 1. That will help keep me on track.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

A Look Back at 2011

At the start of 2011 I did a post about My Goals for 2011. Before I do the same for 2012, I wanted to look at how I did last year.

Feature Scripts

A year ago I decided that one goal in 2011 I would rewrite the three scripts I did in 2010 and write two new scripts. I didn’t do that. Early on I decided that I would write some “longer” short stories to practice writing for a longer format. I did start to convert a couple of my short stories, The Abattoir Project and The Crying Woman, into scripts.

My First Feature

I didn’t set a goal to start a feature this year and I didn’t make one.

Short Films

I set a goal to complete a short film in 2011. I did better with this goal. I completed two shorts for the $100 Film Festival. It is the 20th annual festival and the organizer asked me if I could do a film. I shot both on 16mm. I still need to do a little more work on them before they are ready to screen. The festival runs in early March, so need to get that done early in the year.

I wanted to finish My Most Difficult Case and submit it for distribution. At first I made progress, but then a person I hired to help took my money and didn’t do the work. I sued him in small claims court. I got some of the money back, but all distracted me from the film. Patrick Aull gave me some good advice that will help me get it done.

I did a sound track for Extra Special Care and put it on my website.

Short Stories

My goal for 2011 was to complete three short stories I had started in 2010, and if that turned out well, I would try to do enough to publish another book. I published five stories:

The Abattoir Project: A Ken Walker Adventure,

The Glencoe Project,

The Gladstone Barrier,

The Crying Woman and

Book Review: Sharkbiter - The Secret to Success.

The Glencoe Project and The Gladstone Barrier were part of a larger project idea to do a book or movie about transportation planning. I hoped that it would be easier because I had 30 years experience in the field. It proved to be more of a challenge than I expected. I’ve put it on hold for a short time so I could work on other projects.

I stopped posting my short stories on Triond and Wikinut. I decided that in the long run I would be better off with them on my own site.

Articles

I published 13 articles this year on Triond, 11 articles on Bukisa and 8 articles on Wikinut. That is more than I planned to do. Actually, I didn’t plan to write any. I didn’t make much money. I did better early in the year, but then views dropped off later.

Part way through the year I decided not to post to Wikinut anymore. I get a lot of people who read my posts there, but it doesn’t pay very well. I feel that posting there just undercuts views on my other pages. I haven’t posted much to Bukisa recently. I intended to report reworked versions of some of my blog posts, but never got around to it.

Blog

My 2011 goal was the same as 2010, to post at least one blog a week. This will be blog post number 78. I would like to have more people read my blog.

Writing Skills

Several people had suggested that I work on my characterisation and dialogue, so I made that a goal for 2011. I did some reading on the subject and did some exercises. I think I improved my dialog a bit.

Website and Promotion

I’ve done made some changes to my website. I enjoy the work on my website, but I don’t think it helps draw people to the site.

My Goals for 2012

Next week, after New Years Day, I’ll do a new set of goals for 2012. The results this year were mixed, but I still felt it was worthwhile to set the goals.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog