Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Free Morning, Away From Home, Focussed Writing

Drove my daughter back to college yesterday morning. She had to be there for a 9AM seminar on TI calculator use in teaching math -- she was moving in to her apartment afterwards (with Dad's help).

Anyhow, that left me with free time to sit in my old Alma Mater's student union and WRITE.

I was able to crank out 500 words of new text and develop direction for this new section. I'm pretty excited about this new piece. It's actually the continuation of what was a 3500 word short story. It's definitely turning into a full blown novel. Subject: Ghosts and basketball -- it has "boy" written all over it. That's way overdue since my 2 WIP's have girl protagonists.

Hopefully those 500 words will spark 500 more on my train commutes these next three days.

Jim D.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Things I Learned About Making Movies

Filming of a major film at my work has taught me a few things about the movie biz. I share them with you:

  • Big stars sometimes in the same "lunchroom" as the other movie workers.
  • The stars sit by themselves and everyone gives them their space.
  • Set microphones pick up the tiniest of sounds. Eliminating them was one of our staff's main tasks.
  • Every scene is shot many, many times and from various angles to ultimately splice into the final movie.
  • The work that goes into creating sets is amazing. I can see why show tickets are so expensive.
  • Movie people put in long days.
  • Many of their tasks would be very boring after while.
  • The food is extremely good. Especially the desserts!

Jim D.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Critique Group Question

At my "face-to-face" critique group we experimented with reading someone else's piece out loud (as opposed to reading our own).

Have any of you tried it this way?

Any thoughts on it?

Jim D.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Batman, Packing for College and a Writing Exercise

Well, tomorrow is the first day of Batman filming at "my" building (where I work). I'm actually working 4 Hrs. during the filming and probably won't see anything important.

8 days til I drive my daughter back to Champaign-Urbana for junior year. The living room is stacking up with things to bring.

Last Thursday's SCBWI meeting brought the following writing exercise to mind: Do an interview with your characters to get to know them better. We're going to do it for our next month's meeting. Let you know how it goes.

I'll check back in on Batman too.

Jim D