Now at 21 pages

I only wrote 1 page on Friday. But two today. I hope to do another two. The total is 21 at the moment. I could have written that in a day in 2005. I've been distracted by my fantasies again. I stayed up to 5 am last night listening to Alice In Chains. My Music Bank box set arrived yesterday. I love it. I've listened to each of the 3 discs only once. But I was obsessing too much over Facelift. And Badmotorfinger. I've been listening to We Die Young all last night. I've played it nearly 400 times. It's my favourite Alice In Chains song.

My money's getting low. I'm down to just £528. I keep spending, that's the problem!! I'll need to watch my money until I can build it up again. I shouldn't need to buy anything else. But with me you never know. I see something on Amazon and I just have to buy it no matter the cost. ARGHH!!!

I hope I can finish Fade To Black. I'm becoming very paranoid that someone will steal the name Jodie Summers. I can't imagine her being called anything else. I need to finish something with her in it and get it published. And FAST!! Jodie's a great name. It's my favourite girl's name. I got a google search to this site for the name Jodie Summers. Which has me concerned that, like I said, someone will steal it.

I really hope Fade To Black gets published. Not just for that. But because I'm getting desperate to get famous. Even if it's just a little bit. It'll help boost my confidence and hopefully I'll be able to stick at things longer, and write more in a day.

But I won't know until it happens. Fingers crossed.

P.S DON'T STEAL JODIE SUMMERS!!!

Fade To Black Report

I wrote 4 pages of Fade To Black novel-cum-screenplay last night around 10pm. I started off by trying to get it to rhyme but ended up abandoning it after two paragraphs. I will maybe go back after it's finish and add the necessary poetry to it. It's not very arty. I haven't a clue how to make it so. I have no idea what I'm talking about when I say 'arty.'

Here's a brief scene.

EXT. ATLANTIC OCEAN.

A gigantic, crimson, cargo ship bobs through the delinquent Atlantic Ocean. Its fog horn sounds out into the weary, pitch-black, foggy sky. The plundering rain isn't shy about pummeling the surrounding area with seething droplets of clear water.

An airliner swoops over head. A human-shaped package drops down. An union-Jack parachute opens. The human shaped figure sinks down to the ship.

LESNAR (OFF)
You've been called into action.

JODIE SUMMERS (OFF)
What's the purpose?

LESNAR (OFF)
I can't give details here. It's highly classified. We will drop you over the Atlantic Ocean. The purpose of the mission will be revealed there.

JODIE SUMMERS (OFF)
Understood.

There's some rhyme to it. But not enough to satisfy me. I will, like I said, go back at the end once it's all finished and add the rhyme. If I finish it at all. I kinda like what I've written so far. I added another two pages around 5pm today. Brining the total to six. I hope to write again tonight and maybe add another 2-5 pages.

I've started well. Not perfect. But a good start. I will continue to edit, modify and rewrite the parts as I see fit. So hopefully, fingers crossed, I can write something that publishable. Providing of course; I FINISH IT!!

That's the big problem I face. I get bored and distracted easily by other ideas. My bipolar doesn't help since that fuels my creativity and idea generation. If things continue to go well. And I feel that Fade To Black is alright then I should more-or-less finish it. But if I think the quality drops or don't think I've written it correctly then I tend to give up on it and move onto something else. Repeat.

The Last Words Of Dutch Schultz

I have very much enjoyed this book. I found highly entertaining and quirky. I hope to start my own closet screenplay sometime tonight. I am going to do Fade To Black. I have definably decided on that. I hope to mold genres into a spy type narrative all written in a poetic/arty screenplay format.

I know I say that. But I don't know for sure if it's going to work. I won't know until I try so I'll post about how it went. I've been having lots of fantasies about it today. I imagine it to be hugely popular and start a sort of literature revolution. It sounds silly, but I was really involved in it. I hope I can write good. I know I can. I just haven't been living up to my standards that I know I am capable of. I seem to start well then descend into utter crap. This has to be different. This screenplay may be my only chance of getting published this year. Or even finishing something this year other than my Killing In The Name play.

The arty thing is going to be difficult. I will try to inject some quirky/bizarre scenes into it like William Borroughs did with The Last Words. I will also make the dialogue and descriptions poetic as I can. And sort of a mixture of long and short jagged sentences. That hopefully rhyme. I will have The Last words by my side as I write and try to borrow as much as I can from it without ripping it off.

Please. Please, God. Make it work for me.

Killing In The Name Rejected

My short detective play Killing In The Name was rejected. I received an email from the 503 Theatre stating that they weren't interested in taking it further. I received it back but didn't get any feedback about why they rejected it. I was kind of hoping they would provide something but nevermind.

Here's the email I received;

To Ian,
Thanks for sending your play through to us at Theatre503.

The piece has now been looked at by a number of people on our reading panel and it has been decided that this is not a project that we wish to pursue at the theatre.

We wish you all the best with the piece. It will be posted back to you in the next few days.

Yours Sincerely,

Steve Harper (Literary Co-Ordinator)

That leaves me with NOTHING to hold out for. KITN was my only hope of success this year. It's the only thing I've managed to finish. 2008 is proving to worse than last year. I had two comics completed by this time. Even though they were utter shit. I had at least completed two things. I've only completed a short play so far. And it doesn't look like I'll be completing anything else either.

I keep changing my mind about what I want to write. I move from Comics, Plays, Novels, Radio and game books. I just can't focus! I can't stick at anything! It's driving me crazy!! How am I supposed to get published if I don't finish anything? I won't. That's the simple answer. I don't know what's wrong with me.

I admit that Killing In The Name was a shitty play. I kept re-reading it over the course of these past few months since I sent it off and I realized how crap it is. I knew it would get rejected so it came really as no surprise. But I was holding out for it. A little piece of me wanted it to succeed because as the way things have gone this it; it was my only hope of success. But that's been well and truly dashed.

I hope I can do this arty/poetic closet screenplay thing. I'm concerned it'll be crap. It won't get published. Or worse yet, I give up on it before it's finished.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME??? I used to be able to finish stuff. When I used to write screenplays between 2001-2005. I wrote for 8 hours a day. Doing 40 odd pages. I finished quite a few but they're all crap. I came close with Fade To Black. (The old version) I was told by PFD agency that he didn't feel enough to take me on. But said it was very good. That was back in September 2005. I then went on to novels. For some reason. I was terrible at novels. That's when my problems started. If I would have stuck with screenplays I might have sold something.

I was getting better all the time. But I had a desire to write novels and moved onto them till 2007 when I went onto comics. Which I also failed at. Then onto plays. Which I enjoy and came close with with Killing Jake. If only I could go back in time and tell myself not to bother with comics and novels and stick with Plays and Screenplays I could've got somewhere.

Or maybe not. I guess I'll never know for sure.

Harder than I thought

Red October has proved harder than I thought. And I've given up on it. I know, it didn't take me long. But I just can't be bloody bothered with it. Instead, I have decided to do my Hunter idea as a radio drama. I will throw in some musical numbers and I think I have a masterpiece.

I was going to go back to Theatre but I've run out of ideas. I wanted to do my fantasy play Dark Omen but only managed 3 lines of story. Ah well...

Here's to the Hunter. Something I will probably give up on with a few hours.

Red October

I've decided to abandon my Messiah Novel. And once again return to Jodie Summers. I guess Science-Fiction and Detective mixture isn't the sort of genre I'm interested in. I'm more of a spy-thriller person. And that's exactly what I'm going to write. No, not Public Enemy. I'm almost certainly gone off that forever now.

But a new spy-thriller called Red October. It's along similar lines as the Metal Gear Solid video-games. No wait, It's a complete and total rip-off of the Metal Gear Solid video-games. It stars my favourite character Jodie Summers! Yay! She's back!

I have the general gist of the story written down. And I'll start writing it tomorrow. I'm hoping my interest can keep up long enough for me to finish it. I am so desperate to finish something! Arghhh!! I thought Messiah was it. But it wasn't. I thought Public Enemy was it. But wasn't. And now I'm hoping Red October is it. But probably won't be.

It'll be crap. And never finished.

Sigh.

Please, somebody kill me.

Despair and Turmoil

Things have gone wrong. I knew they would. My Messiah novel isn't as good as I first thought it was. In fact, it's damn right dreadful. I'm in turmoil, and in total despair. I managed to finish off the first chapter yesterday. It's 6500 words long. Which is quite good for 4 days work. But it's absolutely terrible. I hate myself.

Smells like Prodigy spirit

Another good day again today. I am so happy! I managed 1700 words of my Messiah Novel. And I have to admit. It's looking pretty good so far. That's 3300 in total. I'm doing good. And I am so proud of myself. I didn't think I could do it. But I have. All I need now is for this good spell to continue and finish the novel and get it published!

But I doubt any of that will happen. Something will go wrong. I won't finish. And it'll be so crap people will laugh at it. But for now, though I feel good. I was once again, determined to have a good day. And I'll keep being determined to have good days because right now, it seems to be working! Yay!

I'm really enjoy writing this novel. It's fun to do. It'll be some of the toughest writing I'll ever have to do. With all kinds of action sequences. But if I believe in myself (which I haven't recently) then I'm sure I can conquer it.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Messiah lives!

I've decided to rewrite my old, crappy, cyberpunk novel Messiah. I've changed the story from being about evil feminists to being about evil aliens. That way it'll have a better chance of being published if I ever finish it. I managed 29,813 words of the old draft and I'm hoping to surpass that and actually finish the bloody thing!

The book stars my favourite, Prodigy (Amy Anderson), and she's basically the Messiah that will save Earth, and other parallel Earths from these evil aliens creature type things. It's very inspired by The Matrix. Well, I mean, it's a complete rip-off of the Matrix movies. I've managed 1387 words so far. Not bad for 2 days work. I'm trying to write between 1000 - 1800 words a day. I've managed 800 words so far today. And I plan to do another 200-400 to finish off a pretty decent day.

I am determined to start having some good days. I'm getting sick of everything going wrong for me. I'm sick of failing at everything. I'm gonna try and do my best to write something that's publishable. 

Fingers crossed.

Been lazy

I haven't written Tuesday or Wednesday as I was feeling tired. I reread what I had written with Public Enemy and I came to the conclusion that it was total shite. So I'm feeling deeply depressed. I have cried a few times and given some thought to what I should do.

I've decided to abandon Jodie. And instead write my other favourite character Prodigy. But she is so versatile that I can't decide what to do her as. Detective, Vigilante, Messiah, Mercenary etc. She works in just about anything! So I have so long hard thinking to do. I want to write comics. I really do. But I find the whole thing incredibly hard. I don't know why though. Maybe it's because I'm just an untalented idiot.

I tried a vigilante novel today called The Hunter. Which stars Prodigy as the lead character. But it didn't go well at all. I am just to obsessed with writing comics at the moment. But I suck at them. Well, I suck at pretty much every form of writing. I am really, really upset. But I decided to buy some books to see if they could help me. I brought PANEL ONE and PANEL TWO that features top comic scripts by writers.

I'm hoping that I can learn from them. I'm hoping that seeing how other writers write their scripts could help me. I hope so anyway. But I won't get my hopes up.