Motivation. I finally got me some. I have no idea where it came from, but fall tends to do this to me. Good things happen to me in the fall. The new fall shows start, I crave cookie dough, I buy myself “birthday presents” that I have to pay off for another year, and I get really creative. I have a ton of ideas bouncing around in my head right now and they will get done. Yes they will. YES THEY WILL.
NaNoWriMo
November is National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. You can’t start until midnight on November 1, and you have until midnight on November 30 to finish. Then you upload your “novel” to their web site, the words are counted by a program and then it’s immediately deleted so it’s not hanging around on the internet where people can laugh at how bad a writer you are. What do you win? Not much. A certificate, some web badges and oh yeah, a first draft you can edit to completion, if you like. And a sense of accomplishment. I’m all about that. It’s pretty much an honors-system thing. I’m good with those.
The point is to get it all down without editing yourself right out of the project. I’ve only done this one other time, in 2007. I got my idea within a couple of days of the start, so I did no planning at all. The main character was based on me as a senior in high school. The true story is rather interesting, because my mom got a job in Austin that year and I stayed in Richardson with people I didn’t know until graduation. Cool, huh? Well, it was until I started to write about it. I had also just broken up with my first boyfriend at the beginning of that year, was immediately replaced with another Amy (yes we have the same name), and let’s face it, I was pathetic. Oh man was I pathetic. So pathetic in fact that by the time I finished my 50,000 words, I was completely annoyed by everything the main character did. I didn’t even care what happened to her anymore. I was looking for fictional buses to put in her path. Maybe a falling piano on the sidewalk. I couldn’t wait to finish. I just wanted her out of my life.
The cool thing was, I actually wrote 50,000 words in 30 days. So just think what I can do with some actual planning and a main character that doesn’t suck.
I decided I would do this again just a few days ago. And the other night after much mental struggle, I got my idea. Of course the main character will be based on me again, but the trick will be to change her enough so that I actually find her interesting and don’t want to kill her by Thanksgiving. Yeah. She’ll be cooler than me.
The plot (so far) is to take this cooler-than-me person out of her awesome film job in San Francisco and move her back to Oklahoma to take care of her completely delusional grandmother when her mom, the only caregiver, is sent overseas. There will be side stories, probably involving men, and I have to be careful there. I’ve learned a lot from my relationships but there are people I don’t want to spend another 30 days with, even to write about them. In any case, the delusional grandmother will ironically be the wisest person in the novel. This is the part I’m looking forward to.
There will also be weather. I hope there’s weather. I miss weather.
Break
This is the animation I want to do in honor of Paul. I’ve already written the script and done a little work developing a rendering style. I’ve even talked to DreamWorks about legally letting me work on this project and put it in festivals. They want to see more of it before they can draw up the contract, but it is officially in motion. Slow motion, actually. It’s going to be a while before I can do a storyboard and some render tests. Definitely after November. The concept is a little abstract (and personal) so it’s hard to describe without giving away every detail. Suffice it to say it does him justice as someone who genuinely cared about me. And then some. And if the technique I’ve come up with actually works, it’s going to be beautiful.
Piano recital
Yeah, I’m actually going to be in a piano recital on November 19. With maybe two other adults and a bunch of kids. I’m doing two pieces, so I have to keep practicing regularly (perhaps even obsessively) until that time, while planning my novel until October 31, writing 1667 words per day starting on November 1, and oh yeah, working. For someone like me who never does anything the easy way, November is a beautiful thing.
Empathetic Mirror
This is something I came up with at SIGGRAPH this year. What if I could create interactive wall art that took your picture, “read” your emotions and then showed you an artistic portrait of yourself based on what it saw? Yes I actually do have an idea of how to pull this off. Really, I do.
Obviously I’m going to need an energy boost to get me to December. Cookie dough anyone?
NaNoWriMo
November is National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. You can’t start until midnight on November 1, and you have until midnight on November 30 to finish. Then you upload your “novel” to their web site, the words are counted by a program and then it’s immediately deleted so it’s not hanging around on the internet where people can laugh at how bad a writer you are. What do you win? Not much. A certificate, some web badges and oh yeah, a first draft you can edit to completion, if you like. And a sense of accomplishment. I’m all about that. It’s pretty much an honors-system thing. I’m good with those.
The point is to get it all down without editing yourself right out of the project. I’ve only done this one other time, in 2007. I got my idea within a couple of days of the start, so I did no planning at all. The main character was based on me as a senior in high school. The true story is rather interesting, because my mom got a job in Austin that year and I stayed in Richardson with people I didn’t know until graduation. Cool, huh? Well, it was until I started to write about it. I had also just broken up with my first boyfriend at the beginning of that year, was immediately replaced with another Amy (yes we have the same name), and let’s face it, I was pathetic. Oh man was I pathetic. So pathetic in fact that by the time I finished my 50,000 words, I was completely annoyed by everything the main character did. I didn’t even care what happened to her anymore. I was looking for fictional buses to put in her path. Maybe a falling piano on the sidewalk. I couldn’t wait to finish. I just wanted her out of my life.
The cool thing was, I actually wrote 50,000 words in 30 days. So just think what I can do with some actual planning and a main character that doesn’t suck.
I decided I would do this again just a few days ago. And the other night after much mental struggle, I got my idea. Of course the main character will be based on me again, but the trick will be to change her enough so that I actually find her interesting and don’t want to kill her by Thanksgiving. Yeah. She’ll be cooler than me.
The plot (so far) is to take this cooler-than-me person out of her awesome film job in San Francisco and move her back to Oklahoma to take care of her completely delusional grandmother when her mom, the only caregiver, is sent overseas. There will be side stories, probably involving men, and I have to be careful there. I’ve learned a lot from my relationships but there are people I don’t want to spend another 30 days with, even to write about them. In any case, the delusional grandmother will ironically be the wisest person in the novel. This is the part I’m looking forward to.
There will also be weather. I hope there’s weather. I miss weather.
Break
This is the animation I want to do in honor of Paul. I’ve already written the script and done a little work developing a rendering style. I’ve even talked to DreamWorks about legally letting me work on this project and put it in festivals. They want to see more of it before they can draw up the contract, but it is officially in motion. Slow motion, actually. It’s going to be a while before I can do a storyboard and some render tests. Definitely after November. The concept is a little abstract (and personal) so it’s hard to describe without giving away every detail. Suffice it to say it does him justice as someone who genuinely cared about me. And then some. And if the technique I’ve come up with actually works, it’s going to be beautiful.
Piano recital
Yeah, I’m actually going to be in a piano recital on November 19. With maybe two other adults and a bunch of kids. I’m doing two pieces, so I have to keep practicing regularly (perhaps even obsessively) until that time, while planning my novel until October 31, writing 1667 words per day starting on November 1, and oh yeah, working. For someone like me who never does anything the easy way, November is a beautiful thing.
Empathetic Mirror
This is something I came up with at SIGGRAPH this year. What if I could create interactive wall art that took your picture, “read” your emotions and then showed you an artistic portrait of yourself based on what it saw? Yes I actually do have an idea of how to pull this off. Really, I do.
Obviously I’m going to need an energy boost to get me to December. Cookie dough anyone?
