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.

Yes, I've read the writers journey too and it's excellent and you see the mythic structure form in so many films. 'threshold guardian'...'entry into the special world'... 'ordeal'.... 'Return with the elixir'... . Think it's essential to know this stuff but totally agree that if it's taken too literally it can stifle confidence and imagination.

In a previous incarnation I too read a lot of scripts that had 'something' but often not enough (because it's hard) and also worked with a couple of well known tv writers. The great thing is they too went down cul-de-sacs and made mistakes on the way to getting into their stride with a piece.

Oh damn, I've accidentally eaten a whole plum and almond pastry whilst writing that and paid it not nearly enough attention. And now it's gone. Gone. And I never really knew it.

Am quite distraught.

Funnily enough it works very well on tv formats too (I used to work in factual tv in my previous incarnation); imagine Carol Smillie as the threshold guardian, our punters returning to their old life but transformed, etc etc etc.

I do use it on my fiction too, when something's sketched out and I'm not sure about the twists and turns of the plot, but not taking it too literally, like you say.

Right, I have done No Writing At All today, as I've been paying bills and posting eBay bits, so I have from now until dd wakes up (approx 20 min if I am lucky).

so have we all started mumsnet blogs then? the reason I've got nothing done tonight is on mine, in fact I'm just off to get some food as I'm starving! (this doesn't excuase my lack of writing anything since Wed though, ahem)
Hello to the newer posters

hello...Frizbe said I have to join this thread and get back to work writing.. so I'm here.. I havne't written anything other than random posts on my blog mostly about jewellery I have made or various baked goods..

I haven't really written much in the last few months, aside from a few DRABBLES which can be difficult and fun at the same time... I have been distracted by the glittering world of crafts lately and avoided the stories that swirl around in my cobwebby brain.

Right, I'm making some progress. though the plans was a bit scuppered by a full of week of family D&V that meant I didn't get much done. So now I'm getting close to the wire, BUT, I have got a first draft of my 3000 words and a long draft of my outline, which I need to extract from to get a version under 1000 words.

Getting there. I WILL make the entry date on Friday, and then will ahve to rely on this thread to keep the momentum going to get it actually written!

I did some writing today.

Not a whole hell of a lot but a small chunk that is quite defining; a rewrite which outlines the Unspeakable Act of Betrayal (involving someone who was dying, natch).

Fantastic smaug, well done! We will need to ask MN to give us a little medal emoticon for writers who reach their deadlines.

Toots - arf at your plum pastry. I do that all the time, shove in a couple of biscuits and then wonder where they went.

I've got a bit of time to work tomorrow and Thursday, but kids are on half term this week so will probably be distracted by WW3 breaking out about which Star Wars to watch for the 47th time.

Oh bugger, having writen Defining Chunk I feel utterly directionless...supposed I should go back to Point During Which Betrayal Was Happening.

Right, I have three and a half hours to do something while dd is at the childminders. I will not waste them on MN, I will not. But not only am I revising which I HATE, I also now have to write a new chapter to join things up. And I know it will be rubbish, but I still have to do it before I get on with the rest of the revising, which, have I said, I HATE. Motivation is a problem at the moment.

And a question. I'm really polishing up the first bit with the hope of sending it off in the near future. I know everyone says first three chapters, but does anyone know a rough word count for this? It's just that I have the main story, and then smaller scenes from other stories in between, so my first three chapters are really only two and a bit..

Revising is the bit I really enjoy, vonsudenfed, I like it once I have the bare bones down - then I feel I can play with it. Although the process is probably v different with drama vs a novel. Can't help you with word count, I'm afraid, but someone must know.

MI - but at least you wrote the Defining Chunk, even if you have to change it. It all counts towards the end Great Novel Of Our Time. Just as I was finishing up yesterday (having actually lost 5 pages of my short script as I had to cut it to fit the rules of a short script competition I want to enter) feeling a bit grumpy because it wasn't really right, I suddenly came up with a much better ending, one that I can see working. Didn't have time to write it yesterday but am now itching to get back to it. That's a very nice feeling that I have not had for some time.

Go smaug

Hello Meridian

Well I managed to write down some random blitherings going around my head last night and refine two of my character profiles, so I'm starting to feel I'm getting somewhere. That been said I've done nothing today will see if dd2 manages a sleep after tots tomorrow morning

Well, because I like to make my deadline as hard as possible, I decided I didn't like what I did on Saturday and decided to go back to something I did a while ago, but write it in 1st person rather than 3rd. Despite my (I thought) very good reasons for doing this, it didn't work, and I'm reverting to the 3rd person version. Only 3 days to go....

[taps watch and raises eyebrows at Smaug]

Well, I did actually manage 2 and a half thousand words (of mainly rubbish) yesterday, and was really feeling on a roll. But now I have a cold, and dd was up all night with teething and I feel like a soggy newspaper. Sigh....

Tell me to work, wilbur! I'm sitting here with it in front of me...and yet I'm still on MN! Aaaargh!

Get to it Smaug!

Did you get your entry in the post today, Smaug? Or can you deliver it tomorrow?

I have just managed to get sidetracked by a tiny piece of research for my script (is there a van that has an openable window between the cab and the back bit - there must be, surely) and utterly wasted a ton of time. Plus I am AGAIN waiting for the plumber as we have no heat.

OK, I'm nearly there, but not quite! (eeek!)

Luckily I can enter online and I have until midnight tomorrow. Unfortunately our half term break starts tomorrow and I have three children in the house - am hoping DH will take pity on me!

Ha! Wilbur - I too went up Tangent Boulevard the other day, researching the number of instruments in steel bands. Key, nay pivotal info, natch.

Still, I know a lot about Ford Transits now. As I'm sure you do about steel drums, toots.

Good luck for tomorrow smaug - I remember from Uni deadline that biscuits and pro-plus are your friends.

lol at pro-plus I remember that stuff, now I just have the dd's instead
So I take it the transit is your van for doing this sort of thing?

Have also researched allotments and pawnbrokers for this script. And wondered whether it would be useful to remind myself what getting a bit too stoned felt like. Decided not to go there. Could have lost serious time (at best!) with that one.

Have finalised my A story and rather rushed the fine points of my B and C story together, amalgamating them all to see what fantastic magic occurs in terms of themes and moods clashing or complimenting each other. Will read that back on Monday. And weep, I'll wager.

Just a question --- if you are writing about something serious that you have never experienced it yourself, whats the best way of researching to see if you are doing it justice?

A bit of a google (up to an hour) and one quick call to ask the three most pertinent questions. If it needs any more than that, I shouldn't be writing it because I'll simply disappear up my own arse get waylaid.

This is just me, and I realise you need to do loads more sometimes for novels. Maybe MI will have some more useful help.