So in order to explore my thought process, and to provide myself more things to talk about here, I’m going to occasionally give a glimpse at the real technology that is moving towards the technology of Capsule.

In part, this was motivate by something that Microsoft unveiled, as reported by Engadget and Gizmodo, the ability to create computer input through tapping different parts of your arm.  In Capsule, I’ve got The Wrap, a piece of technology that was originally based on a Nokia phone concept design called Morph, though more of a full fledged computer like we would imagine available in a laptop, rather than just a phone and personal organizer.  As of today the Morph is still a CGI concept, but the Skinput idea is actually a physical product, requiring just a sophisticated wristband to project images and detect where someone has tapped their arm.  It’s not really a useful thing in it’s current form, but it’s an interesting step towards the ability to integrate computation more thoroughly with the human body.

So here’s the plan going forward:

December I’m going to do all the writing I can, but between moving the last week of the month and a big photo scanning project with a Christmas deadline, that might not be much.  I’ll be thrilled if I can add 10,000 words to the manuscript by the end of the month.

January I’m going to pick back up.  With my current estimate, that should leave me needing 30,000-60,000 words to finish the draft.  I’d love to get that done in one month, but I’m going to give myself a reasonable deadline of February 15th.

Then I’m going to sit down and do an honest assessment between Capsule and Conqueror Worm, and decide which needs less work to get into a position where I can shop it around.  Once I’ve decided, I’m going to start a chapter-a-week program to get it ready to go.  That will take several months, but once I’m about 2/3 through, I might start actually (gasp) sending query letters off to find a literary agent.

I know.

So there’s the plan.  It’s nearly New Years, a good time for resolutions, and for realizing that I said similar things about last year.  I don’t know how I’m going to do better this year, other than really hoping and trying.  And hopefully engaging some ass kickers to help me out.

Then, I figured out why she died, who killed her, who suggested she be killed (gasp!), his motivation behind suggesting it, and where she was killed.  Because just bouncing questions of my wife is the single greatest writing exercise I know.

I’m starting to think I might be able to write this thing.

Reminder:  Less than a month til Capclave.

Capclave:  Seriously, a great place to be a writer and just to hang out.  This will be an early trial for CVS 2.0, but will not yet be the official coming out party.  Still, several of us are talking about being there, and at just $55 head, it’s a rather good value.  Last year I went to both World Fantasy and Capclave, and would you believe it’s Capclave I got more out of?  Well believe it.

Nanowrimo: This is when I’ll be doing a lot of work on actually writing Capsule.  There’s something about Nanowrimo that just gets me writing in a way that is hard to duplicate at other times in the year.  I’ve been victorious four out of the last 5 years.

Balticon:  When you see us talking 2.0, this is what it’s about.  This is where several CVS members have some name and face recognition, and this is going to be the big coming out party.  But the time Balticon rolls around, I really am hoping to have a first draft of Capsule, and at least a good chunk of the second draft of Conqueror Worm.

I need to know where I’m going.  I need a map.  So, thus, I need to start by making one.

I’m going to attempt a process called the Snowflake Method, as it feels very organic to the way I approach things, and lets me be as fiddly as detailed as I want to be before I get started.  It’ll be a modified approach, I know, but it’s at least some way to get my brain to start thinking in terms of breaking the story down into workable chunks, and then writing them.

The novel, I’ve mentioned it here, and at CVS (2.0 in the house) is called Capsule.  Step one of the snowflake is a sentence of no more than 15 words meant to provide the highest level most abstract view of the novel.  Think of it as opening Google Earth and seeing the globe just sitting there, waiting to be zoomed in on.  It’s earth, there’s no question, but there is so much more hiding that needs to be explored.

A greusome murder forces a detective to explore the horrific underbelly of a utopic future.

Fifteen words exactly.  Let’s do this thing.

Contests:  End of March I entered both Writers of the Future and the Rod Serling Screenwriting contests.  Writers got Belmeth, Serling got a teleplay adaptation of Doorman that I was much happier with than at any point when it was a short story.  Writers has been encouraging lately, as I got a hand-written “Keep Entering!” from the contest head on my last rejection, as well as an email that started “Welcome back!” when they said Belmeth had arrived.  So while I’m not doing well enough to be an honorable mention, I’m at least doing well enough to maintain a little name recognition.

Shame it’s blind judging.  Oh well.

Arkham:  Been working on the new pilot with Blythe, and we’re both liking it better than the original pilot.  Lots of monsters and blood and ooze and body parts and screaming.  Which I think will bring more people into the show than kidnapping and some stuff that, if I’m to be honest with myself, was largely ripped off from X-Files black oil.

Capsule:  Been world-building, and am going to present what I have of it tonight at CVS for comments and to see what kind of questions people have about it.

Hench:  New project, don’t know where it’ll go yet.

Conqueror Worm:  Just as soon as this draft of Arkham is done.  Probably mid-May.

…to prepare submit each of the seven stories from my previous entry for publication (at least one in the remains of 2008).

…to complete a full editing pass of Conqueror Worm and send out query letters within two months of this completion (not necessarily in 2009, but no later than the end of February 2010).

…to outline and draft an entire 42 minute script for an episode of Arkham on my own.

…to submit Arkham to a spec pilot contest, like People’s Pilot or Slamdance’s Teleplay Contest.  Glad to see you’re back, Slamdance!

And, if there’s time among all of that, there’s a few other projects I’d like to do, but won’t call Resoultions, as I suspect the above will take up plenty of my time but I hope…

…to finally update the look of this blog from template to my own little corner of the interwebs.

…to plot out an original feature-length screenplay for contest submission.

…to plot out a spec script for contest submissions.

…to finish worldbuilding of Capsule in hopes of approaching next Nanowrimo much more prepared to actually write it.

There we go.  Keeping myself honest yet again.

For now, a Nanowrimo post mortem.  I backed out.  Look, here’s the thing.  I was working on the thing-a-week project, which was keeping me busy, keeping me away from other projects.  And the very first thing I did was start a new project which would further keep me away from other project.  I like the plot, but it requires a lot of world building, and it deserves a lot more thought that Nanowrimo was going to let me put into it.

So here’s where I am.  I’ve got some short stories from either my aborted thing-a-week or earlier that I think can be worked into shape to submit to publications.  The list, to keep myself honest:

• Sleep (previous purchased, not published)
• Div0
• The Rustler of Drybone Gulch
• Carbon Offsets
• The Doorman
• The Queen of Belmeth
• Looking Over

Quite a list.  I’m hoping to go back into something like thing-a-week, but editing these stories over the next two months with an eye of sending them out.  Plan one is to submit something to the next Writers of the Future contest while I’m still eligible.   Then, it’ll probably be Queen of Belmeth sent off to Weird Tales.

In my novels, I need to give Conqueror Worm a big editing pass.  That’ll hopefully start no later than March, but if I can get started in February, that’ll rock.

The television pilot project, Arkham, still remains firmly on a front burner, gotta get back to work on that ASAP.

I’d like to write a spec script.

I’d like to do a massive rewrite of Halley’s Tail.

Dear lord that’s a lot of stuff.