NaNoWriMo 2011

NaNoWriMo 2011I didn’t post much about this year’s WriMo. After last year’s horrid experience which resulted in my first win but in my complete dissatisfaction at what I wrote where normally I fail but am happy with my writing, I wasn’t 100% sure I would play.

But I did, and after waffling between a couple ideas, I picked one and ran with it.

This year’s major hurdle was a lack of planning. Not on purpose. You see, I was planning pretty well for Idea A and then I ran into a snag. A huge central element of my story turned out to not be feasible. So I could either A) write it anyway and fix it later, B) spend the first week or so of November fixing it and start way behind, or C) go with Idea B. I chose option C.

With my second idea planned only half-assedly, I jumped in. Things were going well to start but my lack of an outline began to show and I stalled out around 10,000 words. I needed to break and fix my outline so I knew where I was headed. I took a couple days off and did that. I wrote a little each day, very little, and about a week later I’d finished the outline and got back to real writing. Only now I’d lost my momentum and my passion for the project. I’ve continued piddling with it and I’ll end the month with around maybe 25,000 words. Half way.

Anyway, I’ll back burner the project and come back to it when I’m inspired. In December I’ll be tackling a different writing project, a re-write of a previous work. In January I’ll be taking on another re-write. In February I plan to be starting on an entirely new project, assuming my research goes well. I am excited for all three projects. And I have a goal now. I want to polish up a couple things enough so I feel comfortable letting other people read them, another pass of re-writes/corrections and then actually paying someone to copy-edit them, either learning to format them myself or pay someone to do it, and then make them available for purchase for Kindle, iBooks and other markets.

I want 2012 to be a good year.

12:01 PM

If you have never seen the short film 12:01 PM, then you have missed out.

Don’t confuse 12:01 PM with 12:01, a horrid movie update of the same basic plot starring Jonathan Silverman and Helen Slater. 12:01 PM is about a man, Myron Castleman (played wonderfully by Kurtwood Smith) who appears to be repeating the same hour, from 12:01 PM to 1:01 PM. Its kind of like Groundhog Day, only its just the one hour. Looping a whole day over and over again isn’t really all that scary, because you have a whole day, but how much can you really do in an hour. Anyway, Myron realizes that he is repeating the hour and tries to figure out how to get out of the time bounce, but one hour just doesn’t seem to be enough to get anything done.

This is a masterpiece of short film making as its only 25 minutes long and yet in just about every way is more satisfying than most feature films.

Now, I bet you are wondering why it is I’m talking about a short film that was made in 1990, over 15 years ago. Its because I really would like to see this short film again. I’d like to own it on DVD. Its only 25 minutes long, but I would gladly pay $20 for a DVD with this on it and nothing else. The problem is… its not available. Well, not in the US anyway.

I really hate region codes. They suck. As does the NTSC and PAL crap. There is a box set for sale over on the Amazon UK site called Academy Award Winning Shorts – Cinema Collection – 56 Movies – One Box. It looks like a pretty damn kickass box set. There is a full list of the shorts over on Play.com. I want to own this box. Of course, its confusing, because the Amazon site and the Special Features section on Play both say its Region 0 or All Regions, but the details on Play say its Region 2, which is more likely. But it doesn’t matter, because its PAL, which means my TV won’t play it. And this box, which is just awesome for its content, is not available in the US (Region 1) or in NTSC. And I just find that to be really crappy.

So, I’m going to do something I don’t normally do and make an open call for piracy… if they won’t sell it to me, I have to resort to other methods. If you know where I can get a copy of 12:01 PM, point me at it. And if you work in the film industry and have any influence, put this on a Region 1 DVD and I’ll buy it, even if I already get a pirated copy.