Somewhere around 9:30 last night I ploughed through the 50,000 mark on my novel, which I was very pleased about. Still got a way to go before the end, but I feel good for getting this far. I’m aiming for 65,000 words, as that seems to be the place to be at for a first time novelist.

Following Maura‘s advice, I stumped up for a copy of Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into Print so I’ll be working my way through that between now and the New Year, once I’ve got the novel finished.

I got a nudge today about the John Malkovich Script Project that Sony are running in collaboration with the great man himself:

“Make a movie with Malkovich.

The Vaio Online Script Project (http://www.vaio-john.com/) is a unique opportunity to collaborate with one of todayís true renaissance men.

Through his many creative endeavours but particularly through acting and directing for both screen and stage John Malkovich is someone who genuinely recognises and encourages talent.

And now you have the chance to work with him. The idea and process is very simple. John has written the first scene to a movie. What happens in the next scene is up to you and the web community. Scenes can be uploaded to the site and after each month one successful scene will be chosen by John.

Anyone can contribute at any point throughout the project. You might have a killer idea for the end of the movie and wait for the last scene. The process will be repeated monthly until John is happy that we have a very special script.

The project starts on November 16th who knows how it will endÖ”

This looks quite a interesting idea, but with the Novel still in full swing, I’m not sure I’ll have much time take part.

Just watching him read his bit of screenplay out made me a little warm and fuzzy. It’s like when Ken goes all actory when he’s pitching a new idea for a film, I could sit there and listen to him all day…

Good luck to anyone that does take part.

Despite not being able to stand up much in the past few days thanks to a god-awful flu/cold/sick virus thing, I still managed to just about keep my head above water with the NaNoWriMo word count. Although some of what I tried to write Friday and Saturday might not make too much sense when I come to edit it…

One of the things I’ve enjoyed over the course of the month so far is the pep-talks that the NaNoWriMo crew send out from established authors. It lifted my heart immensely yesterday to know that when you’re deep in the think of it, thinking all you’ve done is a stinking pile of crap and you’d wish you never started, you not alone, and even people like Neil Gaiman have been there with the same doubts and fears over books you’ve read and admire.

One thing Neil spoke about in his pep talk was the downward slide at the end, which, he reasoned, if we’re sticking to out 1667ish words a day, we wouldn’t have reached yet. He talks about the surge of energy you get when you suddenly catch a sniff of the finish line. I think tonight, I just caught the faintest whiff it, and it felt really good.

I’m now ten chapters down, six to go (according to my Dramatica/STC! inspired structure) and I can feel the sails starting to billow and a bit of tail wind picking up.

It’s also great to see other writers, such as fellow bloggers Les, Maura and Xander, ratcheting up their word counts too… (or not in Les’s case – C’mon Les!)

I smashed through the 20,000 word barrier last night and have kept on going this evening. I’m still right on target at the moment though I’d like to be a little ahead of myself if possible. Methinks some lunchtimes will have to be blown on this little endeavour as well.

I’d plotted the first act quite a lot, but now I’m deep in to the second act and flying by the seat of my pants. It’s exciting, and very nerve-wracking. I have no idea what comes next but stuff keeps coming out, and I read it back and find myself taken by surprise that it isn’t complete guff!

Just gotta keep writing…

Yay, I just hit my first milestone of 10,000 words. Me’s a happy boy. Next milestone the halfway mark of 25,000.

It’s interesting to see what’s coming out. I think I’ve read Jonathan Strange one too many times, but on the whole I seem to be finding a fairly consistent voice to my writing, something I’ve never had before.

I’m so behind all the writers striking out in the US at the moment. I’ve followed the debate leading up to the strike with both interest and incredulity and I really cannot understand the AMPTP’s stance on New Media. The Internet is not that new. In fact, as I recall, I was designing my first web pages back in 1995 before I’d even brought my first DVD (The Matrix in 1999).

I just wish I could be out there on the front line showing my support with all the others. I’m there in spirit, if nothing else.

Some people have said that good things would come from the strike, as many writers would have spare time to crack out those spec scripts they’ve had floating around in their heads, but the best thing about it so far is that Josh Friedmann is blogging again! Huzzah!

We all had a great time over at the Kino in Hawkhurst last night. It was a real buzz to see the finished film up on a big proper theatre screen (the one at BAFTA had been quite small). There was a good turnout of people too, and they all seemed to enjoy it and be scared by it, which is excellent. The best thing of all was that the sound issue we’d had at BAFTA didn’t present itself last night, I think because they’d forced the sound into the centre, which sounded fine to me.

However, it’s clear to me that if the film does get some kind of distribution, it would be worth doing a really pukka mix in a professional environment as there were still a few things that could be improved on the sound front – nothing major, just irritating anal things that I just didn’t have the time to fix before Ken took it off to be graded.

Of course gallivanting round Kent and Sussex last night meant only a few hundred words of the novel written yesterday, and bonfire night tonight meant the same. Still I’m up to 5300 which is a little ahead of where I should be. I’ll have to crack out a load tomorrow though as monday night will probably be band practice, then on thursday I’m going to see Terry Jones (he of Python fame) do a talk as part of the Folkestone Literary Festival, and friday night is Darren’s engagement party.

Where did I suddenly get a social life from? Gah!

I got over 3000 words done today – that’s the whole of the first chapter! It took me a while to get going and to resist the urge to go back and edit what I’d written, but once I got past that, the old right hemisphere was in full flow. Very satisfying.

Question is – can I keep it up?

You can check out my NaNoWriMo page for a bit more information. If you’re doing it too, drop by and add me as a buddy (is it me – or is there no obvious way to search the NaNoWriMo site for other authors?).

It’s a good job I got almost double my daily quota done today as tomorrow evening we’re heading over to the Kino in Hawkhurst for another showing of Greetings (which alas will have the dodgy sound track still – but at least Paul Miller will be there so I shall be handing the hard disk drive back to him so he can fix that and a couple of other little things Ken wants tweaked).

More good news on the Scribomatic front; several of you are taking up the call and using the widget which is fabulous (thanks guys!) and the lovely people at MovieScope put a little mention in their e-newsletter about it, so if you’re a new visitor that’s clicked though from there – Hi!

More tomorrow, if I’m back at a sensible time…