Works in Progress...

I was thinking about my plans for the year, in terms of the Resolutions (past and present years), and started listing some of the projects I want to work on. The conclusion that I came to (initially triggered by spending a lot of time yesterday afternoon looking at Stephen King's recently revamped site), is that I want to try something a little different. I don't write know how I made the connection - maybe it was also the fact that I was thinking about my class tonight... the "Research for Writers".

Sue Grafton compiles a file for each book she is working on - adding her research notes, thought processes, etc. A production journal, of sorts. I know this because she mentions it on her website. And I have gotten a little restless with some of my "older" habits. Creating a short story is not too difficult - in the context of it relying on only a couple of tension points, or addressing only one or two events. My attempts at writing a novel, though, have fallen apart for one of two reasons. Either I've outlined it well, and I've lost interest by the time the outline is done - especially true for a trilogy that I planned out (eight years ago), or I go into it with an idea, and try to make it all up as I go.

I am going to try an outline approach... working on some character sketches, and do some "brainstorming/free association" plotting, to explore the ideas. I'm going to go way back to my sixth grade English classes, and Elementary school classes, where we were encouraged to brainstorm and think about something for a little bit, plotting out the events.

I am going to spend most of the rest of January working from this angle on a couple of projects - both stories and scripts - before jumping (too far) into the other creative maelstrom that I want to pursue. Stephen King (in his FAQ) mentions, "As long as I'm a couple ideas ahead, I'm fine." With the list of projects that I put together last night, I think I'll have more than enough to keep my busy for the year, and well into the next.

I just need to finish them, so I can shop them around.