The Moonlight Writer

What is one to do when work piles up? I have 3 deliverables this week!!

I spent 8H just get 25% of the first one done and I wanna die already (lol).

Been listening to Japanese Jazz/Funk – https://youtu.be/nQufZEijRmc

Yesterday’s writing session was pretty good. The opening scene was a fly-in to a supposedly stormy planet, strong gusts and heavy rain. Our lone protagonist being dropped off on a high oil-style rig for mining and only one man there to greet him on arrival…. things are not as they seem…

Dunno if I will write more tonight – but even thinking about the chapter takes me back into it.

This is the first day in 19 days where I am actually going to write something, no more outlining, no more learning random stuff.

Just writing.

Swamped in work prep for the week ahead, went through a bout of depression of “”what am I doing with my life”, and dealt with plumbers.

All in all, not too shabby.

Tonight – I’m probably gonna watch a movie and scribble in my notepad about what I want in my own story on the side. I have two characters for that horror novel I’m writing for my challenge, now I feel like it’s time for a little worldbuilding.

Simple – but it’s all I feel like committing too.

And lo behold! I find a video on Youtube for the exact step I’m on!

THE SIMPLEST WAY TO OUTLINE YOUR NOVEL (pantser-friendly!) – YouTube

It’s friday night – I think I’m gonna watch a flick and chill out. Try to analyze it as well, see if I can spot the story beats exactly.

I have a better grip on my story. Working on a better outline. I’m worried it might be too violent/macabre but we shall see.

That’s all for tonight.

Because I don’t expect anything amazing from this project, I’m not afraid to just take inspiration from wherever. The whole goal of this piece is to literally say I finished one whole novel – not to be my best work or an original piece.

Somebody in a comment of all places wrote a conspiracy theory that honestly falls apart very quickly but frankly what they wrote from a narrative perspective unsettled me to my core. I know what they wrote is going to vanish into the abyss because to them it’s a “theory” they actually believe in but their story felt too PERFECT to ignore.

It’s in the horror genre if I may have mentioned, but now I’m not sure if it should be space. I feel like putting it in space would detract from the fear and put it “”far away” from the reader but we shall see – maybe it’ll be a dystopic future apocalypse world.

We shall see….

That’s all for now!

I wrote an about page today – it’s a little basic. But it should hold up for a bit.

I also chose my story for my nanowrimo – it’s a space “”horror” (depending on how good at horror I may or may not be) but it could very well turn out to be a suspense/thriller tale as well.

I had work today so not much else was accomplished. But now I have a goal: a shitty first draft, a deadline – by Nov 30th, and the type of story I’m going for.

I should probably sketch some ideas out before bed.

Wow it’s been two weeks already. Time flies!

Honestly two weeks ago I only started with an intention— to quietly work on my writing dreams and not put them off for yet another year.

Two weeks later:

• I’ve built a simple system to manage my writing easily
• Rather than putting off my stories “”till im better at writing”, I’m actually going to tackle all of them one after the other. Big step.
• Got a bookhaul on writing advice books. Read turning pro by steven pressfield from this haul.
• Started outlining some basics for my ideas. Yes, I’m still working on that heist story.
• Wrote my first story prompt (in what must’ve been years)

And yeah, those are pretty much all the big beats that I remember off the top of my head. I don’t feel like I’m prioritizing the right things and I feel like I should be writing more. But at the same time, it’s tough to write when you don’t know what you don’t know.

There’s a part of me that feels like I should just hail mary it and write a first draft that’s beyond trash. Like without even knowing what half decent prose looks like or what certain mechanical elements are. (As you can tell – I’m the overthinker).

Shit. I think I’ll do that. It makes sense the more I think about it, and it gets me ready in time for Nanowrimo to even get a solid outline ready and fly by the seat of my pants writing.

(Sigh) Alright, I’ll do it. One of my big stories – done by Nov 30th. Now to pick a good one…

A cloudy day for a nice long drive, a sprinkle of rain, and a radio station that played ‘What a wonderful world’ by Louis Armstrong.

Yup, today was a good day.

I don’t have anything special to say—it was just another day. Life tends to be like that if you ask me; long stretches of quiet with a few moments of spectacular action.

But on a side note: I did come across a book called The Anatomy of Story by John Truby…

My little goal for tonight: come up with a formal premise (basically a 1 sentence pitch) for each of the stories on my backlog.

Examples of a premise:

■ The Godfather: The youngest son of a Mafia family takes revenge on the men who shot his father and becomes the new Godfather.

■ Moonstruck: While her fiance visits his mother in Italy, a woman falls in love with the man's brother.

■ Casablanca: A tough American expatriate rediscovers an old flame only to give her up so that he can fight the Nazis.

■ A Streetcar Named Desire: An aging beauty tries to get a man to marry her while under constant attack from her sister's brutish husband.

■ Star Wars: When a princess falls into mortal danger, a young man uses his skills as a fighter to save her and defeat the evil forces of a galactic empire.

I’ll spend tonight reading the section on premise from John Truby’s book and work on my own for my stories. Hopefully it solidifies the exact concepts I’m going for in each story and leads to a better outline.

Another realization I had – national writing month is coming up! Should I go for it? I have no idea. While it would be nice…

I honestly have no idea how next month’s workload is going to shape up like; lots of deliverables for the client all by no later than Nov 28th. (Sheesh). I only was reminded that it was happening because I came across a humble bundle on it.

So, if you wanna support charity and get a few books (legally):

The NaNoWriMo Writing Bundle (pay what you want and help charity) (humblebundle.com)

Take care for now!

Spent all day doing javascript work. That’s the thing I love about coding – it’s absolute pain trying to solve something but when you do – its like beating a boss in dark souls or something.

The pain meant something…. :D

I view creative writing in a very similar way. It’s a lot of work – but when you hold that draft (wether first or final) in your hand. You know you just achieved something most never will. (Bringing an idea to life and eventually showing it off for the world to judge)

Yesterday was a rousing success. I now truly know what I wanna write on this website and how to organize it. The problem is — I know its gonna take me a long a** time to write that content. But I promise, when the catalogue of ideas in my mind actually hits this site; then you’re going to feel the unifying content that you’re looking for.

But for now – more daily updates.

I believe it’s also thanksgiving today in my country (Canada) – happy thanksgiving!

Quieter day on the writing front. Lots of real-life work to get done so it is what it is. But considering how much I worked on over the last 2 days – I ain’t complaining.

Today my priority was a little bit of housekeeping — I started coming up with an ideal reader for this blog and what type of content they might wanna read. As fun as it is to just write these daily little updates: if I want people to actually enjoy this site and find it useful then I need to give something a little more substantial.

(And also make it easy to find the useful posts from the daily updates)

That’s all for now. I’m till sketching out early ideas for the 7 novels on the backlog that I committed too earlier.