Got a novel/play/screenplay in your head? Get it on paper! Here is the page count thread for hopeful and actual writers.

[wilbur]

Are you a writer in need of some motivation? Post here each day or whenever you can with your page count. Or post your hopes for how many pages you want to write each day and then come back and see if you managed them. Even if they are rubbish, at least you will have them down on paper and can make them brilliant at a later date.

I will start. I am hoping to write a second full-length screenplay before August 2008. I have two days a week where I have time to write my own stuff and I am aiming to do 5 pages on each of those days.

Vonsud! I know, pseuds corner isn't it! Got it from a script editor I worked with a couple of years ago who was fantastic and quite wordy. Took it to mean any kind of big coming together where things could kick off: party, funeral, school play. I felt a ponce writing it but remember being impressed when he script ed used it.

Your nov sounds well proper.

Sonic, what's yours about then, can you be more fantasy specific????
I kinda have two things on the go one 'fantasy, shhhh' one 'chick lit' eeeekk Am I still allowed on this thread?

Hello
What a great idea for a thread.
Can I play?

I'm writing a novel and it's going in fits and starts.

hello, of course you can. What genre are you writing? (we're nosey eh!)

Oh , well it's nowadays fiction, is that a genre?
I've just made it into one...
It's not chick lit, more like hick lit , (or nick lit, cos I'm influenced by writers like Edward St Aubyn, Ali Smith, Zadie Smith and William Boyd)
but it has a love interest tho'

Frizbe, like you brshing your teeth and composing a poem!
I have notebooks everywhere. Have to pull over in the car to write something. There are all these laybyes with people on the phone, and I'm scribbling in a book.
The other night, dp was snoring, and I thought of something, so wrote it by feel in the dark.
And yes it was legible.
And yes I will use it.

Frizbe - it's science fantasy, hopefully more Douglas Adams-ish than Star Wars/Trek . Not sure how to sum up the feel of the plot yet . Problem is its a genre I really like so I'm hoping its not going to end up boring and stereotypical!

My major problem is I keep coming up with ideas for other stories and never fully commit to one .

And I didn't get anything written last night, got caught up in some college work instead - am planning to do 2000 words tonight after dd goes to bed instead .

Frizbe - it's science fantasy, hopefully more Douglas Adams-ish than Star Wars/Trek . Not sure how to sum up the feel of the plot yet . Problem is its a genre I really like so I'm hoping its not going to end up boring and stereotypical!

My major problem is I keep coming up with ideas for other stories and never fully commit to one .

And I didn't get anything written last night, got caught up in some college work instead - am planning to do 2000 words tonight after dd goes to bed instead .

Speaking of notebooks, I've been moving bedroom furniture around recently and in the course of it I collected more than 20 notebooks (stopped counting!) scattered around in drawers and boxes with all my random scribblings in Hopefully I can nick loads of ideas from there!

hi sonic, welcome - and good luck

Frizbe, the first writer I ever met was an Australian poet called Bruce... damn, last name's gone. Ah well, it was 20 years ago.

Anyway he came to my school to speak and utterly enraptured me - so much so that I even worked up the nerve to ask him how he wrote. He said, "at the kitchen table, surrounded by kids and dogs and washing-up yet to be done and the tv on." He said he liked to write about real life and the best way of doing it was in the midst of RL. As you are finding!

I have Friday nights off but have been thinking and thinking about my dance scene. lol at the 'energised arena' explanation.

Bruce DAWE. phew.

Hi PhD, good advice but if I have anything else to focus on I will, to get out of writing. Like now, I've just eaten half an Easter egg to put off starting tonight . The 2000 words may be tough but I will get at least 1k tonight, here goes!

aww, thanks Argh, shouldn't be on here, I'm going, I'm going!

you're right I shouldn't be on here either! lol, just one more thread to pop in on, then I should get cracking eh!

Wish I could write in the middle of all that real life. DH gets away with it. I just get bothered the entire time. Literally right now I'm being asked if I want to see DD2's 'treasure' (a bottle top).

I can't write while dd is going on "Look, I've drawn a battery, I need a drink of water.. no, not in a glass, in an EGGCUP mummy. Look, I've got sand on the floor. I want a Hairy Maclary story. Please can I wear a nappy again? Why haven't you got any nappies any more? Why are you typing? Why? Why? WHY? Why are you locking me in the cupboard mum?" (only the last one was not one heard yesterday, or ever of course!). God knows what my story would be like if I wrote from that!

Anyway, I got 1300 words done last night so not too bad, hoping to beat that tonight.

Hi sonicdeathmonkey - welcome. Love your name, obv you are a Nick Hornby fan. And hooray for chick lit (see my comments on the Jilly Cooper thread) and sci-fi/fantasy, I'm currently reading a very chunky sci-fi novel (the first of a trilogy, apparently, but it's 1200 pages long, so gawd knows how long the whole thing will take to read!) and it's great. I used to read a lot of sci-fi as my dad was really into it, but have read less recently.

Am loving energised arenas - I thought I was a bit wanky for using "production values" a lot, but actually, it's really important to think about those kind of things. There's a reason why Four Weddings did a lot better at the box office than My Dinner With Andre...

Also happy to read for you, Toots - I have some development experience, plus I used to freelance read for Polygram/Universal.

Hi wilbur - thanks, loved High Fidelity . Good luck with that sci-fi trilogy! And agree, unless you're writing something along Gormenghast lines you have to think carefully about keeping it 'energised'.

another vote for High Fidelity. 'cept I'm going to have to come clean and say, I never read the book - just watched the film. Three times! mmmmm, John Cusack

have realised I'm going to have to put novel down for a bit. next parts are not clear in my head and would rather spend a few evenings crocheting and sorting my head out, than writing and un-writing.

but I shall put a watch on this thread and cheer you all on!

Does anyone have friends/family in their novels who are instantly recogsnisable?
Does it bother you?
It's bothering me a bit,'cos I have a couple of characters based loosely on real people...How much do you write around experiences and how much research?
Or a mixture?

I like Nick Hornby stuff too.
I don't often manage to write with the kids rattling around me, tis too distracting.
I did manage a bit of stuff whilst at work yesterday afternoon inbetween customers, which was good! and again doesn't happen very often.
PHD am envious of your crochet! I keep trying it and then forgetting how to do it

I've put a mate in mine - he asked to be in it so I said sure! He'll have the chance to ask for a pseudonym when he reads the draft . Everyone else is imagined.

I have a real blend - lots of places I've been and some things people have said to me. But specific events and places are made up. For instance, I did go to an art class in the street I named, but the teacher is nothing like the character, and none of the events I wrote about happened.

Why? what're you doing? [nosy]