...and a tardy slip for you, Mr. McFly. Four in a row.

Sorry, this blog entry is a day late. I got distracted by all the nothing I was doing this weekend, and forgot to write it. My bad.

So, Murder, Malice & Teeth (or MMT as I will refer to it from now on) is done and done. There were some last minute changes that I had to make, and there were several setbacks along the way, but done is done and I can now sit back and keep my fingers crossed for some good news.

These blog entries have been useful. They basically kept me going just so I'd have something to report each week, so terrified was I of lagging behind and having nothing to report. It wasn't exactly to the schedule I planned - I hoped to have it done by the end of March - but three weeks late isn't bad for a self-imposed deadline. The important thing is that I got it done, and the blog entries helped a lot. Even if they were of interest to nobody else, they at least partially served their purpose.

I think I might do something similar with future works, because if they can provide anything like as much of a kick up the arse for every project, my output will increase tenfold. Which would be nice.

So seeing as my current project is done, I'm taking this week off from all things writerly to catch up on my TV and my gaming. I've got a stack of DVDs and a brand new membership of Netflix to put to good use, and I've redoubled my efforts to fire up some of my lonely, neglected consoles to get through some of my back catalogue of games. First stop is Bayonetta, which I understand is a bit like Devil May Cry, only even more bonkers and pervy.

Which sounds like a fantastic place to spend my evenings before starting preparations to write a children's novel. It's called "Empty" and it's not going to be very nice.

While that's going on, I have a few other things to consider. I've not given up on my collaboration with Jack Tempest that was originally written for Clint, so you may see more of that in the coming months. Plus there are the Bristol and Kapow shows next month, and I'm attending both. Don't forget on Sunday 20th May I'll be on the Independent Comics Panel with a few others of the Bayou Arcana crew, which should have a blog entry in it at the very least. My first appearance at a comics show as a guest and not a punter. Result.

It Is Done.

What the title says. Murder, Malice & Teeth is finished.

I'll give it a proper write-up on Sunday. Right now I'm off for a drink to congratulate myself. Feeling a bit exhausted mentally and need to go numb my thinking parts so they don't hurt no more.

Murder, Malice and Teeth

Work continues. I now have only one or two things left to do and the script is done. Unfortunately one of those things is to go through the panel descriptions and rewrite them so they actually make sense. On the last rewrite I noticed that some of them don't even make sense to me, and I wrote the damn thing.

That's the task for this week, and barring a few additional things like character profiles and that, it'll be done.

Figured it was time to unveil the title, too - as the subject of this post says, it's now known as "Murder, Malice and Teeth." It sums up the events of the story nicely, I think.

Whoops.

Had to dive back into draft 3 tonight to perform some emergency surgery on the basic plot. I realised with a start in the middle of the night that my rewrite yesterday had created an enormous plot hole. It meant that the main character had no motivation to do what he did, as he was actually doing pretty alright for himself. Kind of hard to have a roaring rampage of revenge that means anything if there's no reason for the character to feel hard done by.

It's corrected now. I just had to revise the back story and relevant dialogue to make the character a hopeless loser again. All sorted. Phew!

Well, that didn't take long.

Draft 3 sorted - that was a much shorter process than I expected, and just a few little turns and changes to dialogue and individual panels have made all the difference. It's brought some themes out to much greater emphasis, while keeping the shape of the script intact.

It's also given me a potential title! Nothing definite yet, so I'm not quite ready for the reveal. I'll save it for when the script is properly done, which is a way off as I've still got a pretty big job in the form of the final rewrite. I realised when going through it this time that a lot of the panel descriptions need work. The information is all there, but a lot of it is clumsy and cumbersome. It's also riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, so that'll keep me busy for the rest of the week.

Fingers crossed it'll be done and done by Sunday!

But enough for today. I've been so wrapped up in the script tonight that I've only just realised I've completely forgotten to have any dinner. Oops.

Second Pass

I did a little tinkering on the script over the weekend when I wasn't lolling around gasping for breath or nursing my aching head. Not a huge amount, as I'm still a bit poorly, but progress of a sort was made. Draft 3 is about a quarter done. Still on schedule to have it done and ready for the final draft next week.

I'm astonished at how well it's starting to come together. When I rewrote a good deal of the opening narration, I stuck to the "every scene must be multi-purpose" system I've spoken of before. In the new draft, by page three you have a good deal of relevant character info on both hero and villain, the hero's motives are alluded to, the past of the characters leading up to that point are touched upon and two of the central themes are raised for the first time. I'm quite pleased that it manages to work as well as it does with all that information included. It doesn't feel cluttered or busy at all.

I just have to apply that to the rest of the script this week and we're nearly done.

I've also, once again, been searching for a new title. I think I'll leave it as it is for now. Maybe one will come to light when the writing is done, but if not "Broken" will suffice. I refuse to agonise over that more than I have done already.

Another Step Forward

Draft 2 of 'Broken' is complete! The 'Chronological Edit' is now done, and all that remains is to reassemble it into the original order and give the dialogue the once over.

This stage of the process was quite educational. I realised a few of the things I'd been doing were a bit redundant. There was a lot of repetition in there, mostly because I lost track of who had said what and when, so I had a few instances where the characters would go over the same material. It's given me a chance to edit that out and replace it with more pertinent character information and exposition. Now I know nothing occurs out of sequence, and everything that's there needs to be there.

I've used the opportunity to further explore some of the themes that underline the story itself, so that the villain's irritating habit of smugly smiling at the hero is given more emphasis. It makes him seem that much more of a patronising arsehole. I also found room to slip in a few references to the idea of wasting your second chances, which heightens the notion that the hero has become so obsessed with the past sins committed against him that he may well have been squandering other opportunities to turn his life around. I'm not sure if I've made enough of it to make the grade, but it's an interesting notion nonetheless and it currently forms the backbone of the ending and gives him a bit more character growth.

There's a few more things to do once I've rebuilt it into its proper shape. Some of the dialogue is a bit unconvincing - my working class squaddie character has a tendency to become a bit sesquipedalian, which is a bit out of character, and I'd like to slang up his dialogue a bit more. There's less work to do with the other characters, but they could probably use a lick and spit, too.

And there it is - quite a productive week so far. Roll on Draft 3!

Still no new title, though...

Ahhh...

All done. Gosh, is there anything that feels quite as glorious as finishing a first draft of a script? The relief and satisfaction are immense.

Admittedly there's a lot of work still to go. The rewrite process is going to take me into April, and I'm estimating that I'll have something in decent shape, ooh, let's be daring and say three weeks from now.

It's a layered process, my system for rewriting. Firstly I strip the script down and rebuild it in chronological order to make sure it all makes sense and follows. When I'm confident it is I'll put it back together as originally. Once that's done, I give the characters a once over, tightening up dialogue and making sure each voice sounds unique, and making sure nobody says or does anything inappropriate for any given scene. Then finally, a last lick of polish to make sure it flows well as a story.

Three tasks, three weeks. I should be able to manage it okay. Taking a few days off for now, though. I find it's always a good idea to take a step back from something before starting to change it up. It gives you a better sense of the big picture. When I'm writing I tend to get consumed by the details and the whole thing becomes a bit blurry in my head.

Oh, and then I have to come up with a new title. "Broken" just feels a bit lazy, and not really what the story is about.

But still - draft one is done! Woo, yay, etc.

The End of The Tunnel

Almost there, but not quite. The final scene for 'Broken' is written, but it's not quite as final as I'd expected. The fight has been won, but something more like a proper, independent denouement is required to draw together the themes and give the story the closure it needs.

I wasn't expecting that. I was expecting everything to be tied up in the final moments as written, but unfortunately it didn't work out like that. All relevant plot and character points have been covered, but where it is doesn't feel like the end of the story. It's odd how sometimes that happens and you realise you still have a little more to do.

It's no bother. As it is, it's only 47 pages long, so I've got a couple of pages spare. I've also stripped the last moments of the final confrontation of dialogue almost completely, leaving me with room to caption the ending, so all in all I've got about 4 pages to work with. I think I can do it in two.

I think it might work out well - the opening scenes are narrated via captioning, which fell by the wayside not far into the story as the dialogue ended up doing a lot of its work. It might be a nice echo to the first scenes to bring it back for another internal monologue at the end of the story.

I'll get it done tomorrow night. My brain is fried from today's efforts already, and I don't have it in me to do any more. And then it's on with the rewrite. That's going to be fun...

But for me, it was Tuesday.

Cor, today was busy. I got through a big 9 page splurge on Broken, and I've finally reached the final confrontation bit. I'm going to have to work hard to make sure I tie up as many loose ends as I have space for. There is much for my characters to discuss as they beat the tar out of each other on the edge of a cliff.

Like money and power. Friends. Traps. And teeth.

Actually I'm not sure I have space for that last one. There's a subplot about the villain's smile that I haven't had much of a chance to develop as much as I would have liked, so I'm not sure if it'll make the final cut. But meh. It's a first draft. I can cut it out or add more stuff in at the redraft stage if it doesn't work as it is.

I did a quick scan through the scenes in chronological order tonight too, just the see if they made sense. They pretty much do. There are a few things here and there that I need to tinker with, but for the most part it seems to flow well. That spreadsheet I made in the early days of all the events and how they relate to the characters really came in handy.

Sometimes having OCD is a boon.

12 pages to go. I should get it done by Sunday, fingers crossed. Go me.

Oops, a bit late.

I've slacked off immensely this week.

It was my birthday this weekend, so I was unable to do any writing due to being hungover for most of it. I've also developed a really weird sleeping pattern that doesn't appear to pay any attention to the day-night cycle. I should probably work on that.

So, no progress to report on Broken. I'm getting the first draft finished this week, come hell or high water, so at least next week's progress report will be a bit less sparse.

As predicted, I've been feeling very sorry for myself this weekend, brightened up a bit by seeing some of the finished pages from Bayou Arcana, which looks sensational. My contribution has been pared down to a single preview page, which is a little disappointing, but it can't be helped. I sat around sulking about that for some of this week, mostly because sometimes you just have to let yourself be miserable for a bit. I'm fine now, and I'm looking forward to the launch. Hopefully it will sell really well, rain down money on us all and turn us into superstars.

In other news, I've heard sniffs of Mike Garley's Dead Roots going digital for iOS, and the ball is rolling again on Accent UK's Victoriana book. I'm due to make appearances in both, with two very different scripts. The one for Victoriana is daft as hell, and should be a real challenge for Roland to draw.

There's still been no word from Clint about the submission myself and Jack Tempest sent to them, which I guess means there won't be one. I've had a brief chat with him about its future, and I'll be going to Bristol and Kapow armed with a copy of the submission to see if we can garner interest in it elsewhere.

So anyway, I've got writing to do, and I've got a copy of Mass Effect 3 to try not to play until the writing is done. Wish me luck.

Quick quick hurry just type it and hit post already...

Just a quick flying visit to the internet this week, as my head is still full of hangover after birthday frolics and I'm incapacitated beyond the point of rational thought.

It isn't actually my birthday until next weekend, but I had my celebrations this weekend for various reasons. Strap yourself in for next week's post, as it's likely to be full of self-pity. I've been feeling a bit sorry for myself being another year older.

Progress chugs along on Broken, much as it has been chugging. I might actually get it finished by the end of the month, as I've only got another 18 or so pages to do. It's not leaving me any rewrite time, but I'll decide what I'm doing with that when this draft is done.

It's certainly been an odd one to write so far. Sometimes it's felt really easy, other times less so. I did a semi-rewriter this week, as I originally wrote it with captioned narration where the main character directly addresses the reader, but it didn't really work so I'm trying to revise it into a kind of 'ranting and raving within his own head' sort of narration that works a bit better with his character.

This week I also changed a pretty major twist in the story. It was intended to weave a few extra layers of betrayal and scheming into the story, but I realised that it's not really needed and it works better if it's a bit more straightforward. I'm getting pretty confident that the end result is going to be very good.

Now that I've written that, I mist go lie down. My brain has an owie.

I'm too sexy for my shirt.

This weekend was a little embarrassing. Yesterday morning I got dressed up in a big coat and went up a variety of Welsh mountains for a photographer chum of mine to take a series of photos of me for author shots, the website-in-progress, etc. It was fun, but I don't exactly photograph well. The photographer was quick to explain to me his strategy for the shots, which was to find a background that looked nice and just keep the button on the camera held down until I stopped looking like a tool.

Charming.

Nevertheless, we got some decent shots of me looking a bit more presentable than usual. For my part I just had to suck in my gut as best I could and try not to smile. The true ethereal majesty of my dazzling smile is too much for cameras to pick up, you see, and it tends to register through the feeble lens as some sort of mad grimace. I assure you it's the camera's fault, not mine.

I shall be updating blogs and such with new pics soon enough, but in the meantime, here's a taster, and you'll be seeing more of dashing short-haired me in the weeks to come:

The wide shots look great. The close ups, not so much.

They need to be fed back to the photographer for some tinkering with the contrast and colour levels before they're ready to be seen, but I'm quite happy with how well some of them have come out. They're all a bit moody and interesting.

And for the record, I have definitely not spent the weekend being really vain and pretentious, and I resent the accusation.

In other news, I've pretty much hit the halfway point of 'Broken' and I continue bashing through it. One more scene to get through and I hit the 'angry final confrontation' part of the story, so I should be getting a bit more enthusiastic about it in the next couple of weeks.

You are feeling sleepy...

Bayou Arcana now has a Wikipedia page! Not much new to report on that front, except I hear sniffs of the possibility of a table at Kapow for the creators. No idea bout Bristol yet, but Markosia will probably be making a small fuss over it for its launch.

Work on Broken continues, albeit rather grudgingly. I'm in the middle of the 'crushing slog' part of the writing process which takes up the middle section of the story, and I'm basically writing streams of dialogue, making sure it contains the relevant information. Then I'm assembling pages out of it, building in the dramatic notes and beats as I do the panel descriptions.

It's a method I've employed before to good effect, especially with scenes that are absolutely dependant on exposition, which have a tendency to be really flat if you don't pay close attention to their structure. However, having done it before doesn't mean it's not a massive ball ache.

That being said, I'm making good time. I should be hitting the halfway point in the script by the end of the month, which will leave me with all of March to try to complete it. I was planning to have it finished by then, but I'm not going to be surprised if it slips into April during rewrites. Not that I'm not going to try my damnedest to have it finished before then.

Yeah, see my determination. Grr. I am a lion.

Will be glad when this evening's activities are over, though. I'm feeling pretty drained at the moment and it's proving difficult to not just sit here and dribble. I have the script open on my desktop now, and I'm currently looking at seven pages of solid dialogue to translate into scenes. Tonight, when my brain is barely working.

In hindsight having a valerian tea before getting to work might have been an error in judgment...

Zzzz....

Happenings on and off the Bayou

The Bayou Arcana machine continues to trundle along, garnering more and more attention. I've been confirmed as a guest at Kapow in London in May where I'll be one of the panellists for the BA talk. Here's hoping I don't make a tit out of myself. I have a feeling that the majority of the questions will be directed at and fielded by the female creators and by Jimmy, so I'm not worried too much.

The official announcement on the Kapow webisite is here.

Some more Bayou Arcana links to throw down here, too.
Preorder at Amazon.
...or at Markosia's own website.
And finally, the official Blog/Website of the creative group behind it.

In other Bayou Arcana news, it's not all been ice cream and balloons. Regrettably, "Comfort and Joy" - the story I wrote for it - will not appear in its entirety. Instead, several pages will be included as a lead-in preview-type-thing for Volume 2, in which it will appear. It's disappointing, and the reasons why are things I think everyone would prefer me to not broadcast online, but there is a significant upside to the situation. I still get credit, I still get whatever cut I was originally due to receive, and I now have a guaranteed place, credit and payout for a volume 2 that I didn't even know was happening. So every cloud and all that.

Outside of the swamp, work advances slowly but surely on "Broken." I'm into the meat of the story now, having got a good introductory sequence sorted, and now I can get properly stuck in. It's been an extraordinarily precise business to write, this one - because the plot is dependant on the slow release of pivotal bits of information as the story progresses, and because of the very narrow page count, I've had to keep extremely focused on hitting all the points I need to cover in each scene as efficiently as possible.

The end result, so far, has been a story that doesn't mess around, gets straight to the point, builds the characters into the story rather than the story around the characters, which is how I usually work, and despite being my usual wordy stuff, is pretty visual as befits my 'show don't tell' rule. I'm really enjoying the way it's coming together. The pace of the work isn't as fast as I'd like, and I'm still only about a fifth of the way through draft 1, but I think the work will start coming a bit thicker and faster from now on.

In any case, I'm tired, so I'm spending the rest of my weekend dossing around and playing video games, so be off with you.

Back to work

...so now that I am finally back online I've been able to start writing Broken again. I haven't managed to do a lot - mostly just getting through the opening scene. I've been trying to make sure enough relevant information about the plot is there to make what's going on clear, but still leave a lot unexplored in order for it to be revealed later. I think it's going quite well. The opening is punchy, visual and interesting.

In the dark days before my internet was reconnected, I didn't do any writing - I tried, but I did't realise how often I have to look things up online as I write. It made the whole process incredibly frustrating, so I made the decision to do a little pen-and-paper work instead. It was all about working out the order of events, structure of the story and when certain things will be revealed, etc.

The story has wound up as another 'dual timelines running in parallel and intercutting' type of story, which is a device I use a lot. It works and I like it, and although I may use it a bit too often in my writing, it's a good way to add an additional layer to the story and to keep the reader wanting to move forward through it. It also allows you to build a series of mini-cliffhangers into the story as it progresses, which can help build a sense of intrigue/suspense/whatever you want to call it. It's not easy to get the structure right, and one little change can seriously screw everything up, so the order of events needs to be carefully plotted out beforehand. So that's been keeping me busy.

In other news, Come & See was unfortunately rejected, which was disappointing but not a total surprise. It got some good feedback, which was encouraging, but basically it still doesn't have a home. Another thing I'll have going on while writing Broken will be to compile a list of alternative publishers for Come & See and start sending the submission pack out to them. It's not an enormous list, but it should keep me occupied for a while.

There have also been some developments in the world of Bayou Arcana that have been a bit disappointing. I'm not sure how much I can talk about, but suffice to say I'm still very much in the book, and have volunteered my services for May's Kapow show, where the book has a panel going on.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a teensy hangover and need to go lie down for a bit. You have no idea how difficult it has been to make this blog entry even this coherent...

Trying something new

Another week rolls by, another submission is sent - Come & See is once again done with for the time being, leaving me to soldier on with 'Broken,' my next project. Still a working title, natch.

I'm going to try something a little different with the blog entries for this one - I've noticed in the past that I've not been particularly specific about things until I'm done with them. I guess I like to play things pretty close to my chest. This time I'm going to try to change that, and make much more specific entries that dig into the minutiae of the writing of the script. That way the blog will not only include the usual progress reports, but will also chronicle the writing process, its missteps, dead ends and various other warty bits. The intention is to give people a much clearer picture of how I get through the writing process.

I thought it might be interesting to try it - being fully open about what I'm finding fun, what's proving to be a ballache, etc. Never let it be said I'm afraid of trying new things.

'Broken' then. It's a revenge story about a former soldier who gets volunteered for a super-soldier type program like Captain America. Only in this case, the powers manifest unpredictably and end up crippling him the first time they kick in, killing both his superhero and his soldier careers in one fell swoop. Then the man learns that he was volunteered for the program by his superior officer for exactly that purpose, to get him out of the way for nefarious reasons. The theme is the man learning to turn his powers to his advantage, taking a curse and it turning into a blessing in his pursuit of retribution.

Firstly, I'm fairly constrained by a limited page count of 40-50 to tell what could, if left unchecked, develop into a much more convoluted story that's just too long. I already have a lot of plot that I'm going to have to cut, as I originally conceived it as a story of intrigue that I just don't think I'll be able to tell in the pages I have. To that end, I'm going by the rule of "show, don't tell" to avoid it getting too wordy, and streamlining the story to cut out the stuff I don't need.

I've already thrown out what little I wrote last year and come up with a punchier opening that in one page exactly defines the man, his powers and his mission. That's what I'll be going for in this script - if a scene isn't doing at least two or three different and relevant things, it's getting the elbow and I'll be searching for some other way to tell the story.

So it's going to be a challenge. I actually think that keeping these blog entries is going to help. Being quite neurotic, I may not be able to cope with the guilt of not having anything new to report in my weekly posts. That should keep me writing.

In other news, I'm regrettably shelving my plans to attend the London Super Con in February. Unexpected expenses and London prices are not compatible. Hotel prices for that weekend are just bloody stupid. Unfortunate, but it didn't look like it was going to be much cop anyway (excluding Stan Lee), so I'm not losing any sleep over it.