There I was, heavy eyed and thinking I might bunk the last quarter of the Eagles handing it to the Raiders, when it suddenly occurred to me - I'd not posted about my NaNoWriMo day.
I'm not sure if any of you listen to movie audio commentaries, but I listened to a lot. I'll buy a bad DVD if it's got a audio commentary, just to hear what they had to say about the process.
There are a lot of repeated themes across these commentaries, the most frequent are statements about dropping treasured moments to drive on the story. The second most frequent, is of actors bemoaning how hard it is to act the scene they auditioned with. Simply because they have to dig deep coming up with something fresh.
Which is exactly what it was like for me today. In the first and abandoned edition of The Handyman there was an extensive scene in the hospital where Daniel repeatedly mixed visions of his dead wife with flashbacks of how they met. This is a scene I previously spent a lot of time writing, editing, perfecting and cared deeply for.
Except in this revised version of the Handyman it calls for a vastly smaller hospital section. So today has been about delving into what I'd previously written and working to create something new and fresh with less than a third of the original word count.
It isn't quite there, the first draft was first person past tense, where this is third person present. In the original Daniel's injuries were a lot worse - it took him almost a year to recover. In this it takes him three months. It has taken some serious effort trying to give insight into Angela's past in so few words.
It is getting there. For me Daniel's character has only ever worked if we care about Angela, and so anytime I give her life, everything comes together. It happened in patches today.
See you tomorrow.
I'm not sure if any of you listen to movie audio commentaries, but I listened to a lot. I'll buy a bad DVD if it's got a audio commentary, just to hear what they had to say about the process.
There are a lot of repeated themes across these commentaries, the most frequent are statements about dropping treasured moments to drive on the story. The second most frequent, is of actors bemoaning how hard it is to act the scene they auditioned with. Simply because they have to dig deep coming up with something fresh.
Which is exactly what it was like for me today. In the first and abandoned edition of The Handyman there was an extensive scene in the hospital where Daniel repeatedly mixed visions of his dead wife with flashbacks of how they met. This is a scene I previously spent a lot of time writing, editing, perfecting and cared deeply for.
Except in this revised version of the Handyman it calls for a vastly smaller hospital section. So today has been about delving into what I'd previously written and working to create something new and fresh with less than a third of the original word count.
It isn't quite there, the first draft was first person past tense, where this is third person present. In the original Daniel's injuries were a lot worse - it took him almost a year to recover. In this it takes him three months. It has taken some serious effort trying to give insight into Angela's past in so few words.
It is getting there. For me Daniel's character has only ever worked if we care about Angela, and so anytime I give her life, everything comes together. It happened in patches today.
See you tomorrow.
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