There's a Refrigerator Full of Food... Challenge Yourself!

My longtime friend Alex may recall the title of this post from some witless movie we watched one evening in the early nineties. It made us laugh then, and it makes me laugh now, but it got me thinking tonight when I sat down to write.

The Pirate's Bride is coming along, adding another 11 pages this past week -- again, not bad considering I only had 4 nights instead of 5 to work within. It's pretty good stuff, though some of it could use a massage. That will come, as will the key into the next section that is currently eluding me. Thank goodness, so far, I can count on it to work itself out in my head.

The screenplay, on the other hand, has gone nowhere. I can't quite kick myself hard enough to get to work on it, and that's troublesome since we're A) writing from scratch and B) hoping to submit for the 2010 Nicholl Fellowship competition, with a May 1st deadline.

So... do I challenge us (Jeannine and me) to buckle down, write the screenplay, edit it, workshop it in a group and complete the additional edits in only 4 months? Or do we decide not to send an entry this year? We don't want to send a rough piece -- what would be the point? But should we set the goal and do whatever it takes to achieve it, knowing that pressure sometimes produces a great piece?

It would be a serious time commitment. It would take away from Bride for sure, and no doubt from other projects. Yet it's only a few months, and we have the idea mostly fleshed out.

Decisions, decisions.

A Century of Pages

Finally passed the hundred-page mark for The Pirate's Bride; 108 pages to be exact. This milestone actually occurred a few days ago, but I wanted to make sure I planned to keep what I'd written. (It doesn't happen often, but I do sometimes scrap whole scenes, and that would have taken me back into the nineties.)

Frankly, it doesn't seem like much for ten months' work -- only about 58 pages, 'cuz I had 50 when I started. I try to take into account, however, that I also completed a major and a minor rewrite to Slide in those ten months, as well as moved 1.5 households, provided serious emotional support to my dad as he coped with his wife's terminal illness and eventual death, and laid the groundwork for several other projects.

I would really love to knock out 50 more pages before November 6. That would still only bring my average up to about 8.3 pages per month... but who's counting?

Could It Be? Yes, It Could...

Updates, updates, updates.

Sent out the latest agent query for The Long Black Veil.

Completed the initial edit of Slide. Need to re-read it tomorrow and check accuracy, consistency, spelling, format, etc. Closing in on done, though.

Started the application for the Nicholl Fellowship (which I have been misspelling up to now). Doesn't appear to be terribly hard to get the basic information submitted properly. All online, due no later than 11:59 PM on May 1st. (I thought it was May 3rd; glad I double-checked.)

It's good to have things in motion.

It's the End of the World As We Know It (...And I Feel Fine)

The History Channel is running a docudrama on Nostradamus and the end of the world in 2012 as predicted by repeated mentions of the Maya culture & their astronomical prowess and Nostradamus' name. Wow. Based on this show, I will not be flying anywhere in December 2012.

However, since we've got a couple years left, I guess I'll try to finish The Pirate's Bride and maybe finish painting the upstairs hallway.

At least now I have a deadline. Thanks, Nostra! (Can I call you Nostra?)