Magic Ink

Finished, at 82,000 words, the stick-a-forklike-implement-in-me, I'm done, draft of NIGHT LIFE.

I finished the first draft in April of this year, and spent 3 months on rewrites, ultimately adding 1 sub-plot and 9,000 words.

I started NIGHT LIFE in November of 2005, as my second false start in that year's NaNoWriMo. I first got the idea in the summer of 2004 and have three previous false starts, one an urban fantasy, one a paranormal romance with hints of romantica, and one nothing more than a very dry outline that still makes me cringe.

It has been a long, strange journey with Luna, Dmitri, Sunny, Mac and Alistair, but I can honestly say I have not regretted a single second spend writing this MS rather than going out, watching movies, eating, sleeping or spending time with other Real Live People.

I can also honestly say that I am so sick of the MS that were it Napoleon, I would banish it to Elba and be content to never lay eyes on it again. I have one more grammar/continuity pass to make, a formatting run and a run to add one minor bit of lore throughout the MS, and then tomorrow morning it will be going out to the two agents who requested it, and can type gleefully at the bottom of my cover letter, "The manuscript is complete at 82,000 words."

Posted by Luna at 6:07 PM | Permalink | Comments

In light of the two requests for the MS, I am powering through Revision Hell like nobody's business.

In theory.

In practice, I got stuck on the yuckiest scene ever last night. Literally, I started at 10:30 pm and worked on the same 5 pages until 1, trying to wrassle this crucial (but highly sucky) scene into submission.

The pages in question involve Luna and her cousin Sunny, a witch, going to see a professor of occult junk for advice on fighting the Big Bad of the novel. In a movie, this scene would totally work, with ominous music and visual aids and lots of mood lighting. On the page it feels like a humongous boring infodump but there is no way that Luna or her cousin would know anything about any of this crap on their own. At least there are cool visual aids...described in words.

Onward and definitely upward, because after figuratively flinging the MS across my room about eight times there is nowhere to go but up.

Posted by Luna at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments

Through a series of unrelated and highly coincidental events, two agents (nameless for now) requested fulls of NIGHT LIFE today.

I am currently residing on Planet Squeal, but please leave a message.

Posted by Luna at 4:44 PM | Permalink | Comments

Queried Mary Louise Schwartz of Belfrey Literary Agency. I am planning, when all is said and done on NIGHT LIFE, to create a giant post detailing all my querying activity, but seeing 500 rejected queries posted on author blogs depresses me, so I'm holding off until a (much) later date. However, I will be posting the queries as they go out.

Posted by Luna at 3:05 PM | Permalink | Comments

I hacked through a huge amont of NIGHT LIFE yesterday, and made it to page 213 out of 346 (sadly, this was because I deleted a 3,000-word flashback that made absolutely no sense and was really crap.) So now I have 3,000 words to make up, but we're definitely edging into the third act and the plot is starting to make sense.

Whee!

Posted by Luna at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments

DEAD OF NIGHT is now totally complete, with a final page count of 83. I love the screenplay convention of pages instead of words...makes me feel so much more accomplished.

It took about two days longer than I expected to finish the zero draft because I kept seeing spots where I could sneak in character development or strengthen the plot and the thing just kept growing and growing. I like Jordan Kraft, my heroine, a lot more now. She may be a soulless killer with no regard for anyone else but she's fun! That and she gets a lot of great Hannibal Lecter-ish lines that freak the rest of the characters out.

I have a bad feeling the director isn't going to okay the ending I included, which is a lot more shocking and unexpected that what we'd originally agreed upon. It happened like this: when Ex-Friend was reading the outline before I'd written a word of script, he said "You know, it would be so much cooler if XXX took place at the end...", and I agreed, so now it does. The bad part is that there's no redemption of Jordan, when all signs in the ten minutes leading up to the ending indicate that there will be. I LIKE endings like this, and I like being turned on my head watching films and seeing a twist in the conventional anti-hero's journey. A lot of viewers (and directors, producers, ect) don't. So I have a feeling Jordan will end up in the arms of Mel (hero) and redemptiony stuff will abound. Bleh.

With the script in the (e)mail to the director, I now get to sit back and wait for notes. Back to work on NIGHT LIFE, which is perilously close to submission. Eek.

Also, random movieangst: apparently there's a easter egg at the end of Dead Man's Chest, after the credits, that I missed because it was 3 a.m. when my showing finally let out. Must go back and use free ticket to see egg...

Posted by Luna at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments

Saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest last night. The projector broke down and we didn't get to actually see anything until 12:40 a.m., but such is life on the fictional high seas. (And hey, I got a free pass out of it.)

Holy crap, is Gore Verbinski ever a horror director. He got his start with The Ring, the creepiest movie EVER (Ever. Forserious.) and his roots in the macabe shine through in Dead Man's Chest. There is enough horror and gore and angst to turn Hilary Duff Goth.

Dead Man's Chest is very much the Empire Strikes Back of the PotC franchise. It's dark. It's tragic. It makes Jack Sparrow look like not a very nice guy. Character development abounds. Story abounds. Theme abounds. I was frankly amazed at how much subtext Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio managed to cram into a big loud popcorn movie about pirates. This is good screenwriting, people. Make no mistake. I only wish I had half the subtlety and deft control of pace and character as this team does.

There's also a big freakin' sea monster and a huge suprise in the final frame. I haven't enjoyed myself at a movie on a turn-your-brain-off-and-have-fun level and a whoa-this-is-good-and-making-me-think level for some time, so my tricorned hat is off to Gore, Ted, Terry and of course Johnny Depp and whoever does his eyeliner.

Best line without spoilers:

JACK: Look! An undead monkey!

*There was also a teaser for the 'Transformers' movie before the show started. All the geeks in my theater whooped and hollered as the big-ass logo flashed on the screen, and went dead silent when the words "A Michael Bay film" appeared below it. I think a few of them whimpered.

Posted by Luna at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments

DEAD OF NIGHT is complete but unformatted. Updated page count/writerangst tomorrow, if I don't light myself on fire.

(And is it just me, or does the title make anyone else think of the Depeche Mode song of the same name? My screenplay is so emo!)

Posted by Luna at 7:52 PM | Permalink | Comments

So yeah, glancing at the outline for DEAD OF NIGHT (zombie screenplay), realized I had forgotten an entire (and pivotal) scene in which the MC heroine gets involved in a Mexican standoff with a prison guard, a drug smuggler and others while all the while zombies are trying to get into the hotel room.

The funny thing was, I didn't even notice it was missing until I read back through the outline to see where I'd pick up tomorrow. The brain is a funny thing...dropping details you think are incredibly necessary and replacing them with things your subconcious would want to see if it were sitting and watching a low-budget zombie flick.

Anyway, I typed 12 unformatted pages which works out to about 20 formatted pages and about 30 minutes of screen time with all the screaming/running involved in early Act II. So I'm up to 45 minutes of screen time or...(dun da da daaaa!) the halfway mark! (More when I add in the forgotten Mexican standoff...)

Braaaaaaains...

Posted by Luna at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments

So I have a work-for-hire gig going right now that involves handing in a 90-page/90 minute screenplay to an indie film director I met years ago and who decided that I can write and apparently I must be the one to complete his zombie-movie opus.

Deadline is 4th of July.

Current page count is 9/90.

Just to show that even when you're being paid to write something, delaying and fidding and excuses happen.

Don't look at me for ideas on how to beat procrastination. If I knew that I'd be rich and published.

Posted by Luna at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments