Writin'

I've got a lot of writing going on. Always do. And now I've got some more.

I recently found out that Figment Theatre is running a contest for people to write a one-act play that involves classical movie monsters.

(Unfortunately, registration is now closed. I wish I could've posted about it earlier, but I found out about this less than an hour before the deadline.)

Sounds like fun, but here's a good reason why I shouldn't enter: I'm trying to finish the first draft of this novel, hopefully by the end of the year, so I can start putting it up on the blog beginning in January. Now that I'm unemployed, it's not that hard to get down 2,000 words a day, but I don't need any distractions.

Here's a bunch of reasons why I should enter: It's the Year of Yes. I like classical movie monsters. I like distractions. It seems like fun. It's due in 30 days, so this won't consume my entire life and creative self. I've got an idea that I've wanted to do for ages, but never did because while it's easy to write a script, producing and putting together a film shoot is a huge, huge hassle. And most important, because I want to.

So I signed up. Whee!

I might have bragged before that I have a somewhat easy time writing dialogue. At least, that's been my experience, because then you have actors to give it life and a director to make sense of it all, and you can always rewrite things if they don't flow.

Working on this novel has been a lot harder. It's a lot more final than any script. Scripts are joint efforts, this one is all on me. And that's scary because I don't have any decent amount of experience writing prose, I don't how to do it, and all my sentences start with a character's name or "The [something-something]."

It's weird doing something you're not good at and then putting it out there on display to be judged and critiqued and given cease-and-desist orders from corporate lawyers.

I saw an excerpt from a zombie novel that was posted online, and you better believe I judged it (it was pretty horrible!). What if people think that about my story? Man, that would suck.

Also, I'm fully aware that this probably falls in the realms of "fan fiction," and all the stigma that entails. Part of me doesn't care about that, and yet, I just thought about the Prologue, which features Rafiki (from The Lion King) reading the entrails of a sacrifice and being bothered by what he sees.

That's ridiculous. I know it is. I'm taking talking animals and putting them into a grim scenario that's already overdone (zombies are everywhere, even at the Bust Craft Fair, where I bought a nifty ring... but that's another story).

People are going to think that's stupid. So half of me is like "I don't want people to think I'm stupid!" while the other half is like, "Eff 'em. They don't have to read it. And really, the title should give them fair warning about what I'm going for, here."

Beh. For now, I'm just ignoring all the self-doubts and plowing through. Editing will take place in the second draft (I haven't read over anything yet, so maybe it's better than I'm remembering. Or worse.), the first is just to get the words (all the words - good and bad) onto the paper.

But writing a play that's got a monster in it? Man, that practically writes itself! How could you go wrong?