YoC Progress Report
My current focus is on the projects involving other people. Strictly personal projects are more or less on hold. The Year of Creation will now contain as many as twenty-four months, though hopefully not quite, and I’m okay with that. Life happens. A lot.
1 Solo Novel
Substituted for the novel, instead the polishing of a previous novel. ”Heroes Inc”, a super-hero story of sorts, is the target here. It’s a short-ish novel at only 61,000 words, but going back to read it I still quite like the story. A little work on this and I might be willing to show it to other people. Revision notes are complete and I’ve enacted those in the first few scenes. Still quite a long way from the “make it pretty” draft, though.
2 Co-authored Novel
I said previously that I was prepared to flesh out my half of this Military SF novel into a complete, if probably shorter, story. I’ve taken what I’d originally planned for my half of this and added a couple of other interlinked novellas to it. The working title is Shattered Dice, and the “final” word count came in at just a little under 90k. Since the original outline ran at an 85k estimate, this is a bit tighter than the +10% I usually budget when I plot something out in advance. Completed 31 Jul 2011.
3 NaNoWriMo project
Arena, a YA fantasy novel about a girl Made the 50k goal on this. I didn’t actually finish the story until late December for a varietyof reasons, but it came in at a little under 63k.
4 Short Story
Nine Tenths of the Law. Complete on 20 Jan 2010 at 3,215 words, but that was the first draft. Final draft cut down to 2,804 words.
5 Short Story
Pilgrimage. Complete at 5,559 words on 08 feb 2010. This is the second of a group of stories related by theme, inspired by the songs on Paul Simon’s Graceland album. I hope to write the rest of them this year.
6 Short Story
Thorvald’s Wyrd. 100 120 125 129 Scenes, each scene exactly 100 words long. Complete on 27 June.
7 Short Story
The Things We Do For Love. A flash piece, I finished the first draft on 11 June at 799 words. The final came in at 804 after five rounds of poking at the prose. Zombie Erotica. Yup, really.
8 Short Story
Worm Bait. A Horror story, first draft completed on 14 June at 2,861 words. Final draft came in at 2,990.
9 Short Story
3-Minute Fiction. A flash piece inspired by a contest I can’t actually enter (from NPR and I’m Canadian). Completed on 12 September at 503 words.
10 Short Story
Santas and Bears. An alien practical joke story, sort of. Completed on 27 September at 3,846 words.
11 Short Story
A Grand Tradition. A contemporary fantasy story involving graverobbing. First draft completed on 28 September at 3,722 words.
12 Short Story
Reporting for Duty. Military SF story written as a background piece for “Shattered Dice”. First draft completed on 08 December at 2,512 words.
13 Short Story
Light Pressure. Near-ish future SF. First draft completed on 27 December at 4,099 words. The third Graceland story.
14 Short Story
Dancing in the Rain. Present day alien incursion story. First draft completed on 13 January 2011 at 6,688 words. The fourth Graceland story.
15 Short Story
A Good Run. Another background story for “Shattered Dice”. First draft completed on 21 January 2011 at 3,107 words.
16 Short Story
Hidden Songs, the fifth story in the Graceland project, completed on 18 Aug 2011 at 8662 words.
17 Short Story
My Name Is Al. Sixth story in the Graceland project, inspired by “Call Me Al”. Projected at 10,000 words and I’m hoping for a mid-September first draft completion.
18 Short Story
Seventh story in the Graceland project, inspired by “Under African Skies”.
19 Short Story
Eighth story in the Graceland project, inspired by “Homeless”.
20 Short Story
Ninth story in the Graceland project, inspired by “Crazy Love, Vol. II”.
21 Short Story
Tenth story in the Graceland project, inspired by “That Was Your Mother”. (Yes, there will be eleven stories for Graceland, but the tenth finishes off the YoC short story “requirements”.)
22 Stop Motion Animation with Paleoboy
Formerly a short story. Try to get a 12 year-old to focus on something that isn’t a video game. Maybe we should do a flash game instead or maybe I should spring for a capture card and do some Machinima.
23 Short Story with Nature Girl
This keeps changing. Still. And may wind up being a short Lego stop motion animation film. We’ve already done several in the 15-30 second range so might try for something that runs a couple of minutes.
24 Short Story with the Pink Princess
Completed on 05 Dec. This is really a flash piece, titled “Stephanie and the Strange Cracker”, and there have been a couple more since then. My daughters between them would like for us to write a book’s worth of short stories and publish them. Warm’s WritingDad’s heart, that does.
25 Crown of Sonnets
The Corona is complete. Wrote the last four all at once on 20 June.
26 Anthology: Distant Worlds
I’m sure the authors will agree that it’s about time that this happened. Package went to the publisher on 25 Jul 2011, but there are a few small changes to be made. Projecting the revised package to go on 10 Aug 2011.
27 Anthology: Distant Realms
Editing phase in progress. Big focus at the moment.
28 ST Audio Drama
“He’s not exactly firing on all thrusters,” as McCoy said about Spock in STIV, but I’m starting to. Finally putting together the dialogue for episode 2 (of 8).
29 Novella Podcast
“Turn the World Around” is currently appearing as a Tuesday Serial starting with the first chapter here. I haven’t started recording yet, but I’ve worked things out so it will round out to ten episodes, probably averaging about 25 minutes each. I may also podcast Thorvald’s Wyrd after that, which will also break very well into ten episodes, albeit much shorter ones, though I didn’t plan it that way.
30 Short Film
Zombie Kids never got shot, though everyone still professes to want to. ”Charlie’s Angels: The Next Generation”, starring my girls and the daughter of good friends of ours as the Angels, and my son as Bosley, is slotted to film Monday afternoons in August, when it’s not raingin. We still have some casting to do and locations to work out, but this should be a lot of fun. It’s a straight forward adventure story with the Angels kicking butt and fighting an evil villain who wants to take over the world. I may even get to play Charlie. I think we can shoot the whole thing in three or four afternoons. Editing… I don’t want to think that far ahead.
31 Audio Drama Script
Formerly the One-act play. Switched for a 6-episode Season Two for Star Trek Voyages. This became a 7-episode story arc with episode 7 more than twice as long as they rest, so perhaps it should be 8. First draft completed on 23 May 2010.
32 Piece of Instrumental Music
Complete on 09 June 2010, but it probably needs a bunch of listens and some tweaking before I’m satisfied with it. The software I used does export as a wav, which I can easily convert to mp3, so I’ll probably release it into the wild eventually. That was the plan, after all.
33 Pop Song
Complete. “How Can I Live Without Her” is probably more of a ballad by the tune in my head, but I’m calling this one a win. Polished and posted on 17 May 2010.
34 Recreated 80s Music Video
Yes, I still want to do this, but keep changing my mind as to what song I want to do. It shouldn’t involve me singing very much. Not that more than my lips moving in the video, but no one wants to hear me sing.
35 Audio (Video?) Mashup
There’s something I so want to do to tie in with the current Canadian election, but I don’t know if I can find the time.
36 Photo Essay
Has changed several times, but I now have a couple of dozen photos on my i-pod towards it.
37 Comic Strip
38 Abstract Painting/Drawing
39 Self Portrait
40 Sculpture
