Confessions of a Pop Fan

Friday, September 10, 2004

NOW MY AIM IS INSIDE

The writing yesterday went a little worse than expected, but then better than expected as well. (I hope I used the right "then/than" switch-ups, or someone I know will stop talking to me.) I ended up as far along as I thought I was going to be, but only after some real hunkering down in the late afternoon. First, I discovered I had not written a crucial scene I had thought I had written. Given that it's a scene I have been writing in my head since high school, I guess I'm not surprised. After 15 years of hanging onto it, writing and rewriting it mentally, I can be forgiven for thinking I had already done it. I managed to get that and some other clean-ups done yesterday.

Other than that, the only major thing I found was I had used the same anecdote twice. It's similar to the above. Over the years, writers gather ideas and scenes, stories that happened to them, someone else, or that came to them out of the blue. The end of Part II of The Everlasting is something I wrote some time ago, maybe a year or more, and so between then and starting the section proper, I had forgotten I had used it already. I like how I used it in the later scene best, so after I post this, I am going back and figuring out what to replace it with the first time it appears.

Yesterday, I also got a pretty cool surprise from Guy Davis: scans of the pencils for "Kago No Tori," our zombie story for the Dark Horse Book of the Dead (due sometime next year). Our editor, Scott Allie, told Guy to take two more pages than our allotted 8, and I think he opened up the script in great ways. Stuff I had compressed, he was able to break into two panels, adding to the suspense. I'm really knocked out by what he did.

Scott and I went over everything on the phone and troubleshot some problems with how dialogue is placed now, so next week I am going to go back in and do a polish to fit the new layout.

If that wasn't enough, earlier this week Andi Watson finished up our story for Four-Letter Worlds. He really made it come alive and brought a sense of visual fun to it that surpassed what was in my head. I am a spoiled writer. People should be pleased to note that "T for True" contains cameos from Orson Welles, Mason from Cut My Hair, and Greg Rucka. As well as me in a Wonder Woman costume. You can't wait to order it now, can you?

Current Soundtrack: The Trash Can Sinatras, Weightlifting (deluxe edition)