Continuing Virtue

Yet another day of virtue. I cleared out another big box from the office closet and just have one more to go. I also de-Christmassed the house and got everything back to the garage. The stuff that gets stored in the house hasn't been put away yet, but it goes in the office closet, so I want to finish clearing it out and arranging it before I put more stuff in it. However, I didn't meet my writing time goal for the day -- but that was because I finished the screenplay. I figure that finishing a project automatically counts as meeting the goal for the day, since I don't really want to dive into a new project for just 45 minutes.

The screenplay will require a lot of revision, I'm sure, but that will go on the back burner while I work on something else. Even if I don't end up doing anything with this screenplay, I think it's been a beneficial exercise. For one thing, it was a different form of writing, so it forced my brain into new patterns. It made me focus on action and dialogue to convey absolutely everything rather than being able to rely on narrative. It made me look at how to create more active, condensed scenes instead of using summary. After I get some other stuff done, I'll take another look at it, do some revisions, then talk to my agent about the viability of seeing if maybe the agent who represents my books in Hollywood can do anything with it. If not, I may novelize it and self-publish it as a Christmas season release.

Now, though, I need to get back into that book I was working on. Today will mean re-reading what I've written to get my head back into it, to see where I was going and to maybe replot it (using what I learned from structuring a screenplay).

Meanwhile, choir starts again tonight, so I need to come up with a lesson plan. We have the man who collects flutes coming, which will eat up some time with an activity, so I don't need much more. I'm sure a lot of time will be spent with the kids eagerly telling me what they got for Christmas. Next weekend, I'm going to a workshop on choral directing, with a lot of sessions about little kids, so maybe that will give me new ideas of things to do with them.

I think I'm going to re-start the writing posts next week. I don't have any ideas burning to get out, so I'm taking questions or suggestions. What do you want to know about writing or publishing? Is there anything you want tips about?