Wednesday, August 16, 2017

August Check-in 2: Freddy's Revenge

You are all my children now!

I have continued to write every day, but I've had no impressive, marathon writing sessions to boast about.  I went to the library twice last week and once this week, but I use that time to type up my novella (and today, the craptop froze on me, and when I restarted it, found that I had lost about a quarter of the stuff I'd typed), so it helps you not at all.

Wait a minute, NONE of this stuff helps you.  Whoops, I had my priorities way off.

But good old Taco Bell, I did go there on Sunday and force myself to write after I had eaten my Double Chalupa (I was the only customer), and I did manage to finish a short story I've been meaning to write since 2015.  It ain't good, but I had to do it now, or I knew I'd never write it.*

I booked work on a TV show last week, and was looking forward to it, not only because I've always enjoyed that kind of work, but because I knew I could use it to write for an hour or six.  But I ended up losing the gig three days later, to much bitterness and self-recrimination.  I had a second chance booking to do it again this week, and then never got a text or a call about it, and no response to my emails . . . which makes me think it's not me, but that the casting director is, how you say in English, part of donkey what makes urine?

But I might drive up to the cabin and sequester myself again, see if that might not be productive and/or enjoyable.  We'll see.

My other goal this month has been to work on audio every single day, and I honestly don't know if I've missed any days.  I think not, since I worked on a Dunesteef episode, a That Gets My Goat, a Delusions of Grandeur, and the most dreaded of the Rish Outcasts, all in the last week.  I've also nearly finished recording my silly Fantasy story with the ridiculous title.  In fact, that's what I was about to work on when I started writing this blog.  I'm not sure if I'll do it now.

Ah well.  At least I did this.

Rish Outfield

*I heard that a project very similar is coming out in the fall, and I'm not sure if I'd forgive myself if I waited until that was out there without at least having TRIED to write my own version.  I probably ought to record a podcast about that sometime, about where the line between "Influenced By" and "Ripped-off" is.
For example, I started reading a book a couple of months back, and something about it reminded me about an idea kind of like it I had had a couple of years ago, but abandoned it after writing the first couple of pages.  So, I unearthed that, and started writing it again (this the YA project I keep mentioning).  It's not going extremely well, but I'm still working on it.
Unfortunately, this week I started reading the second book in the series, and it is so very similar to my YA book, that even I am wondering if I'm just writing a third-rate knock off of it.  It's a little discouraging, whereas reading the first book was quite encouraging.  I wish I could be one of those people who writes a book that's just "Raiders of the Lost Ark" but with high school students (straight down to mathletes as Arabs and football jocks as Nazis), and never even blink an eye.  But I'm not, you know what I mean?
Or "Star Wars" with teenagers, or "Harry Potter" but with American (teenagers), or "The Last Starfighter" but with American teenagers, or "The Silence of the Lambs" but in middle school, etc..

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