I just pounded out seven and a bit pages. Unfortunately, I have done nothing since the last post, so my outline extends to about… twenty pages, max. I may have a couple ideas for scenes, but that’s no outline. I’ve yet to come up with a good antagonist (though Ben himself could be his own antagonist, in the “Man vs Himself” vein of things) aside from the government. That’s a little too general, although I know it will play a large part in the ending. I also need to come up with a conflict and resolution for the denouement, as that’s the part that always fucks me over.
Anyway, that’s it. Night.
Quite nicely, actually. I’ve got the order of the first four songs ready. Had to change the lyrics to one song to make it fit the situation it’s going to be in (fear not, however, as I’ve already decided it’s going to have a reprise later on with all of the original lyrics with the possible exception of the word “brother”). Got the beginnings of an outline, as well, and going to do a little work on the characters tomorrow (celtx has this nifty feature where you can add a character as an item, then enter age, description, motivation, etc.). And… yeah. That’s all for now.
And what is it about? Well, I’ll make it quick.
I was watching The 11th Hour tonight, and one particular line made me think of the Serj Tankian song Sky Is Falling. Which made me want to write the musical I toyed with writing before ScriptFrenzy just as much as the moment he began playing the song Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition during his concert in Edmonton.
For anyone who has no idea what musical I’m talking about, it’s about the successor to a non-violent political activist (who is assassinated at the beginning, with the main character filling his void) going from a protester at a college protest, to the leader of a movement to drastically change the government (a revolution of sorts).
Now, for the first draft, all save two characters will be named after people I know (just so I don’t have to spend hours perusing babynames.com, and to make it easier for me to see each character in my mind’s eye). Later drafts will, of course, have the names changed. If you’re curious, the two characters I don’t know would be someone completely made up (mostly for sexual/romantic tension), and a character based, somewhat, on Serj Tankian (thus the using his album as a title and basis for all the songs in the musical) and John Lennon. As for the others, one name only so some may be either flattered or pissed that I’m so horrible at names that I have to use theirs in stories: Ben, Gloria, Wing, Jessie, Hurley, Justin, Tim, Paddy, Ryan, and Patrick.
Anyway, that’s all for now. Good night, all.
One more thing, though. It’s fucking stupid that wordpress won’t let me have a single category called “writing and the process”, but rather splits it into “writing” and “and the process”.
Filed under: I am the boss of this blog, NaNoWriMo, Script Frenzy!, music, progress reports
As promised, the rest of the update I was too tired to write last night.
A final song was added to the soundtrack. Track 13: Alexisonfire – Charlie Sheen Vs. Henry Rollins
last.fm isn’t working, so I can’t post the link to the song’s page.
I finished at quarter to midnight last night. Just barely enough time to scramble it (lest it be pirated when I upload it for verification) and verify.
One thing I have to say about the experience this year. While I love using celtx, I was a little aggravated by its page counters. There’s an s on the end of that word because, technically, there are two…and a half. One is the one I used last year, so I trusted that one. The other is typeset, which was anywhere from one to three pages difference, plus or minus, from the first. The half comes from when you make a cover page, which adds a page to the typeset amount. I hope they fix this by next April, so I can get just one page count (plus the cover page).
Umm… what else? Nothing, methinks. Now I have to think of something to entertain my three readers for the next few months until NaNoWriMo starts.
