It's April - What Will You be Writing?

The question is simple enough; right?

Tomorrow begins April and there are two big writing events. More, I'm sure, but I'm talking of the global scale.

Will you be doing NaPoWriMo? National Poetry Writing Month? Writing a poem a day for 30 days?

Or will you be doing Script Frenzy? Which is brought to you by the Office of Letters and Light. That's right: the same folks who bring us NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month for those who don't know).

Or perhaps you're still working on NaNoEdMo - National Novel Editing Month.

Whatever your April writing pleasure, which may be None of the Above, may it be fruitful and may the writing flow.

And that's not a joke.
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Script Frenzy update

Yes, I'm still writing the script. Whoa. Sometimes easy and sometimes not; two of the days the pages have flown by and I thought, wow this is easy! Then times like today - ugh. What do you mean I only typed 1.5 pages? So I typed another - what? 1? Okay....type type type type. Yay! I reached three pages. Wow.

It's still fun and I think I'm working something out through it.

Or priming the wheels for the other things I'm doing.

So my current page count is: 14!

And here is my little info from my Script Frenzy author page -- just for fun:

Title: The Not So Alternative Lifestyle

Script type: Stage play

Script genre: Romance/Romantic Comedy

Logline: A cautionary tale: the thing you fear may be no different than you. Love, laughter, and misunderstandings in a long term relationship.

Script Frenzy: Day One

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Yes. I did it - I hit the minimum number of average pages per day in my Script Frenzy play - and more.

I'm ending today with 7 pages of my script written.

And I decided to insert a Poet into the play. Well, more like a wandering minstrel who will appear throughout the play. So I am also doing a poem a day, as well (we'll see how this goes).

I'm not quite sure why I'm doing this.

Maybe because I'm a writer.

Because I want a challenge.

Because I have some words I need to get out to keep the flow moving and there's nothing like Write X in 30 Days to get me going. Because I have learned that the more I write, the more I write.

And I've just been given back some blocks of time - so I have more time. (For those who know me, yes, this means I've lost some work. I'm putting a positive spin on it and trusting the universe to provide enough for me to meet my obligations.)

I planned to step up my walking and we'll see how that goes starting tomorrow. Tonight when I arrived home, I moved the blender from the counter in the disaster of our kitchen (this always happens with the grandson visits), slipped on some water that had been spilled from unloading the dishwasher and not wiped up, slid into the counter and grabbing onto the sink so I didn't fall and break the blender and knock my head on the still open dishwasher door and land on my butt - and the side of my ankle jammed into and under the bottom of the cupboard. That hurt really bad. I cursed like I shouldn't of with the grandson in the house. I twisted my leg a little or my knee, I'm not sure. I've taken ibuprofen and arnica and have ice on my ankle now and foot raised. I don't think anything is broken but it hurts. So my plans for walking tomorrow are probably curtailed. If the ankle or knee are sprained, maybe for longer. So maybe going from the half marathon on May 8th to the quarter marathon may not even be a possibility. I was excited to get a reply earlier today that I could go from 1/2 to 1/4 - it means I didn't have to give up, I only had to scale back (my training was interrupted by a car accident; then I got sick in February with the respiratory illness floating around - so I was being realistic and not setting myself up for a bad experience by scaling back... now we'll see).

I'm not sure how this applies to writing a script and writing poetry in April, while I'm working on the memoir and in the Literary Kitchen. But somehow it does. Maybe in terms of time.

And my friend and writer buddy, Deb, is also doing NaPoWriMo and she will be posting her poetry over at The Writing Vein Playground. Last year I put up daily prompts for April and she and I posted our corresponding poetry there (the prompts and the poems are still there; click on the 2010 archives, April; then our poems are in the comments for the prompts). Make sure to hop over to read her poetry!
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April is bringing...

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Script Frenzy!

I wrote a post in Facebook this morning and, voila, it turned out to be a little piece of script-like dialogue.

Okay, I thought, it looks like my spirit wants to do a little script writing.

So, I hopped on over to Script Frenzy, another event brought to us by the inspiring Office of Letters and Light (NaNoWriMo), and signed up. My 100+ page script is tentatively titled, "The not so Alternative Lifestyle." [logline: "A cautionary tale: the thing you fear may be no different than you. Love, laughter, and misunderstandings in a long term relationship."] I stuck it under the Romantic Comedy category, but that could change. Well - at first it was going to be a drama, but I decided I'm already working on heavy enough material with the memoir, and, surely I can find some light things to write about!

Wish me luck and nimble, dialogue producing fingers.
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Do "-------" in 30 Days

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We're at the end of March. Surprise! Not really, I know.

What this means is that in just a couple days, there will be more complete X in 30 days activities. Which I may or may not participate in. Which I'm obviously thinking about participating in - and wondering if it's a good idea or a bad idea.

Maybe I could just say "it's an idea" rather than layering it with judgment heavy words. Good v. Bad. Yes, I like that better.

Back to my point. My options: [1] NaPoWriMo or PAD (Poem A Day), or [2] Script Frenzy.

I thought about doing Script Frenzy last year but chickened out (sorry, don't mean to malign chickens). It seemed too big and like I might fail. So, instead, I did NaPoWriMo (then just last week I saw there's another group that set up PAD as an option; looks like the same thing) - and I did write a poem every day. Some of those daily poems I did more work on and some have flown out into the world -- though not yet published.

I'm also working on the memoir - as my last post mentioned. And it's gaining it's own momentum:  there is an exponentially growing sense of completion and awareness of where it's going as I work on it. I'm also in  Ariel Gore's Literary Kitchen again - with a focus on the memoir, but an openness to wherever the prompts lead me. And I want to be sending out more submissions.

Oh - and I just renewed my membership with IPRC (Independent Publishing Resource Center) - because I saw that they have changed their orientation training to a time I can do it. I'm excited. I have projects in mind.

So, I have non-work projects lined up. All related to writing (yes, the IPRC projects are writing centered!). And now I'm considering doing another "in 30 days" event - and wondering if I'm crazy or if it will actually help my creativity!

Thinking.

Thinking I'll do Script Frenzy.

What's the worst that can happen?

I don't complete the 100 pages. Right!
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I'm Pressing the Reset Button

As the college term comes to an end, I have the opportunity - again - to build more writing time back into my schedule.

Let me correct myself already: to build in more editing and revision time. I actually have done well with my writing time. I have continued to meet with Deb once or twice a week when she comes into town; and I've pretty consistently met with Jenny to write once a week. Plus I've had other writing time on my own and the three of us did have another long day of writing together. So I've been writing, doing the quick writes and assignments for my online group/class, and doing feedback on the assignments (though I did fall off feedback on the quickwrites near the end). Writing has continued - editing stalled.

I have a big freelance interpreting job on Saturday which requires a lot of preparation (it's the statewide poetry recitation competition), after which I will have final journals and assignments to grade for the students in my classes. After that - more time for editing. And I will make it happen. I'm only teaching one internship course next term, so that will open up time. And I have only one play. So I think this will happen.

Although I am considering doing Script Frenzy in April. With the awareness that I write more and generate more ideas when I'm writing more. Sound like a circle of reasoning? It is - and it's true. I actually am more creative and productive during NaNoWriMo than other parts of the year, even though I was also doing the online group, teaching, doing my regular interpreting work -- I wrote more and had more ideas when I was also writing the 50,000+ word novel in 30 days!

Go figure.

And I am. I will not give up on me nor give in to my frustration that my editing has gone slower than I hoped. As I recently told Bonnie in an email - I did make progress. So that counts and that's what is important. I'll set a new goal - and should probably set myself a timeline to get the next draft done; I do well with deadlines!
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