A Little Writing Housekeeping
Throughout my life as a writer I’ve alternated my focus between prose and screenwriting. Both share some similar precepts (structure, plotting, character arcs, etc.), but also have differences that delineate them as different beasts. Just because you have experience in one doesn’t mean you’ll be able to execute the other. I had this conversation with somebody on Twitter recently: books are a cerebral journey, while screenwriting is a visual journey. In a book, we can sit inside a character’s head and explore what they’re thinking, how they’re feeling, and things (such as circumstances, events, and memories) that shape their decision-making. In a film, you can’t sit inside somebody’s head (unless…
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Here it goes: I’m finished! Well, the first draft anyway. Some people who aren’t writers have asked me if I’m ready to send that novel off to my publisher, Pantera Press. Ha! I wish I could write a flawless first draft. I can’t. Nobody can. Decades ago, when I was inexperienced and much more sure of (read: full of) myself, I was certain my early drafts were as close to perfect as they could be because I had such a instinctual understanding of story. But time’s taught me I’m an idiot. And it’s also drilled into me a question that almost incapacitates me before any session where I sit down…