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.

Ok will find time to read that later Sobernow.
Well I booted myself up the arse last night, once the kids were in bed, and my poorly dh too....by going to Tescos and talking to a random woman in the book aisle about which books she prefered on the row . I then came away with her favourite and she took my recommendation, so she'll probably be found slagging my book choice off on a website somewhere! My other reason for going was to get a new journal for ideas and I picked up a novel by someone who I knew in a previous life for inspiration! (totally ignoring the pile of books I already have to get through at home) I did manage to write two character outlines last night, so at least feel I did something, prior to reading upto chater 5 of said old friends book. He really is quite good.

sobernow - where was this? what is it called? sounds like a lovely gift

I would value your opinion Ruty, but no rush

UQD - out of interest, how much do you charge?

sorry, I'm ELF1981, just a slight name change!

i started writing a long time ago but got waylaid

people consistently tell me i should write

i know it could work

i went on an arvon foundation week in 1999 but i came home and left my husband immediatel and i dont think i have written anything since

i have been thinking of trying again a lot lately

go on zippi.

i dont have any shortage of material its focus that i lack

and the feeling that writing actually does send me crazy slightly mad

thanks sobernow, what a great idea!

Fab idea sobernow. Zippi go on, give it a go, nothing to loose bar your sanity by the sounds of it

Agree with Zippi, sends me mad too. But expect would be madder if I didn't.

At the moment, I find the more I do, the harder it gets. I'm telling myself that's normal and it's to do with learning the craft and really delving to find emotional truth (Ashley Pharoah, top tv writer talks abou it on BBC Writers' room site). I had a half hour comedy get to rehearsed reading stage in 2004 and since not hugely long after that I've been slogging away on and off (feels like constantly on but with varying degrees of productivity versus wailing and garment renting) at my current idea which is a one hour comedy drama, pilot for a series kind of thing.

Have done several drafts and now finally starting one that I think is going to work. It's commissioned by an independent production company so I got some money for it back in the mists of time but as well as the hope it might be produced at some point, is that I will have a one hour sample script to put out there which might attract work on other shows.

Wilbur and Ruty - did you/your agent get your previous work out to lots of independents?

Elf - I'm always torn about quoting actual prices on here. On another forum where I did so, half the people who responded said (privately) that they thought I was under-selling myself, and the other half said (publicly) "WHAT??! HOW MUCH??!"

I had a similar problem when working out the fee for a day's course - some people (in the other forum) said they thought it was steep, despite my having found London-based examples of the same thing costing 3 times as much.

The key thing is that I charge the going rate for this kind of thing, or what I ascertain to be the going rate after having spoken to various other published writers who do similar things. It's based on the number of hours I work on it - and for a novel I'd expect to spend the equivalent of 2 days' work on it at least, maybe 3. I'd say think of what you'd expect an honest electrician or plumber to charge for that much labour and you'll be on the right lines.

I'll send a full document detailing what I do, with charges, to anyone who CATs me.

Sobernow - that "book spa" sounds brilliant.

You know Pandora - the music site, which has sadly ceased to make itself available to UK users? It works out what you might like from songs/artists you tell it you like. I've always wondered if there should be something similar for books. I've seen rough-and-ready ideas which are similar but nothing spot-on. There is a site where you put in your favourite authors and it does you a "map" of which are closest to them. I used to have a bookmark for it, but I appear to have lost/deleted it...

UD sounds like he might know what he's doing Elf. But I can always give you feedback anyway, just on a subjective level.

Toots, I don't have an agent, I had quite a high profile film producer who was very keen on my script at the time, and she sent it to a couple of agents who i then had meetings with. She also sent it to Film 4 who were keen for a time. the agents wanted to see something else too, and we were very focused on getting the film made at the time [I wanted to direct it to which isn't exactly the best way to get your first work done but we nearly got there and have made a couple of shorts that have done quite well] And then we had children and discovered mortgages and supermarkets, etc! So everything is now on the backburner until they're school age [second one still in womb!]

We still plan to do it, but we just have to have a longer term vision now...

when i say 'we' I mean my me and my dh - he produced my short films.

UD - email me on emma . foss @ yahoo . co . uk

Thanks I am sure you are reasonable, I have seen some prices before so probably wont be too shocked!

Toots - my agent got me a lot of meetings with Tv companies and a couple of film places and also the Granada option. She also entered me for the Carlton Writers course (they used to take a few bods each year and train them up to be tv writers) and I was shortlisted for that, but didn't get it in the end . That's one of my sliding doors moments - always wonder if I'd got that where would I be now?

We were shortlisted for a major European development award too - so frustrating when you get so close!

Today I wrote. I wrote 947, count'em, words.

I have however only the vaguest idea of where my characters are going to go from here. Fortunately quite a lot of them keep dying.

DP suggests that now DD2 is at school so that I work on Fridays, I actually keep Fridays for novel-writing. A good (and remarkably generous) idea which I keep not quite taking up as pay-for-words clients unexpectedly crop up.

well done MI yesterday I did nothing

Arf at MI's dying characters - I think I need to kill off some of mine, they are rendering my work ever so cluttery. I think the Friday novel writing is a great idea though - things will often crop up, but you may be able to turn the odd thing down once you feel your own work is going well.

Talking of CHARACTERS: I'm wondering how other dramatic/fiction writers approach them. Do you all write character studies before you start with back story and all that? I think I need to rewind a bit and do more of that, even for short scripts. I didn't with my first script as I was convinced by the old thing about characterisation in screenplays arising out of what the characters did/said rather than out of long descriptions (readers HATE long descriptions). But then I had to do a treatment with more detailed character work, and that was a v interesting exercise - very little of it ended up in the script though. So my question is - do you write out stuff about your characters even though you may not use it in your story, or do you just keep it in your head as you write, getting to know them as they develop?

Becster - I got that time management book and it's very good. I'm only a few pages in but I recognise so clearly what he means about procrastination and its effects on one's life. Even though I can be ruthlessly organised at times, there is a lot of faffing in my life which is unnecessary. Thanks for the tip.