NaGraNoWriMo 2007?

Anyone interested in giving it a go again this year? I'm considering it, but haven't decided yet...

Done. Sorta.

So I'm finished. Instead of one month, it took three and a half. But I did go 100 pages over our 175 page goal. So I don't know exactly how that translates. Knowing what I know now - what I've learned from the process - I'd say I could definitely do a 175 page script in a month. But I'd need two months to do a good one.

So what now? I did a read through on Saturday, cleaning up dialogue, recasting some panel layouts. I have two bits that I still need write. One just says

CAROLYN: [quote from Kant]

in which I need to find the appropriate quote from Kant. And the other is a paragraph on the power of falsehood (a la Eco) that I just need to take the time to think out and write up.

After those two things get done, I'm going to print out a few copies to hand out to suitably critical folk to get a good critique. And then? After I get their comments back and implement any changes I'll need to take care of based on their impressions? Then I start the art. That parts got me far more nervous than anything else associated with the project. I'm not sure I've got the stuff. I know my weaknesses as an artist. But I still want to give it a shot.

*sigh* This is where I start crossing my fingers.

One/Third

Alright, so it's been a month since my last update and things are going fairly well. I just finished scripting page 131. Which means I'm a third of the way there. I anticipate two to three more months before the script is complete and ready for revisions. All told, that'll be about six months for a 350-400 page graphic novel, written in my little free time after juggling a full-time job and full-time family. Not quite the one-month we were all aiming for, but I am satisfied. Ah, if only I were a student on my parents' bill...

I am, of course, longing to be done though. And since I've promised myself no new video games until the script goes through revision and is sent to a couple people for critique, I'm pretty well inspired to keep on truckin'. (This sadly, means that I am having to forestall my return to World of Warcraft and its glorious crusade of burninating - which beckons me with an O-So-Sweet Siren's call.)

How 'bout the rest of our ragtag crew of overly ambitious GraNo scriptors? Have you guys made any progress? Dave, are you further than 31 pages? Rob, have you found the time to keep moving on your project (last you said, in November, you had potted out to 100 pages)?

NEWSFLASH: Past Deadline

So you know what happened? You know how I was going to try to finish my first draft of Influence by the end of the year, by 31 December 2006? Something happened that got in my way. A duo of villains initiated themselves into my life and duly hampered my noble work.

And who could these dastardly souls be? Why none other than An Oppressive Need to Finish Playing Oblivion and his foul sidekick, The Winter Holidays and Associated Parties and Hooplah. *sigh*

Still, I'm proud to announce that I am still making progress, chipping away at the beast while its minions harry me at every turn. I've successfully scripted and laid out (in simple thumbnails) forty-five pages my baby behemoth. Hoorah for that, eh?

One very real difficulty I am facing, though, is a ballooning of content. What I was anticipating to be a 325-page book is looking more and more like a 400+-page book. Which, among other things, just means I'll have that much more to draw. *double sigh*

Ah well. Wish me luck :)

Sigh

So, the good news is that I wrote 31 more pages of comic script than I ever have before!

The bad news: since I'd never written any comic script, that means I only completed 31 pages--far short of the goal of 175.

Ah well, I'll keep working on it. If I keep up the rate of a page a day, I should be finished by mid-2007...

The Stretch

So there's two days left on the official NaGraNoWriMo calendar and I finally finished plotting my story out page-by-page last night. It was tough - as I ran into some serious writer's block last week and didn't produce anything for six days (I assuaged my conscience by drowning it in Elder Scrolls IV and several movies). Currently, my plot calls for about 250 pages, but I think it will probably balloon by about 25% as I nail down script and art (which will actually take me to right around where I had originally planned to be).

So, while it's not realistic to imagine that I could have the script finished by tomorrow night, I'm still pretty happy with my progress. My new goal is to have a second draft of the script delivered into a critical friend's hands for review and advice by New Year's.

I'll post my final NaGraNoWriMo progress on Friday.

Half way and way behind

We're half way through the month and I am WAY behind. It's not that the ideas aren't coming, I'm just not finding the time to actually writing the scripts. I have only fifteen pages fully scripted, but I twelve more pages plotted in detail and a brief outline that would probably make for at least 100 pages. The ideas are coming but the page count it not.

But I'm not giving up! I'm going to push ahead and kick some butt. Seriously!

No, really!