Taking a look at the ol’ calendar on the wall, it looks like it’s been about three months since the last round of the ever-popular Project Status Update Time (or PSUT, which is an extremely lousy acronym, and will henceforth never be used again.)
This is your opportunity to let the rest of us know what’s been going on with you and whatever project or projects you’re currently undertaking.
Got a short you want to share? Trying to put one together?
Finished a draft? Started a new one? Run into a little trouble in Act Two?
Need help with a logline? Trying to finding the right lines of dialogue?
Connected with anybody new? Discovered a phenomenal new gem of a movie?
Got something you want to announce?
I’ll start the ball rolling.
In the middle of providing notes on a couple of scripts. Putting together a new batch of interviews (very excited about these). Gearing up to fine-tune the outline of another low-budget comedy. Considering writing a short. Seriously considering converting one of my story ideas to work within another medium.
Watched TRUMBO and THE REVENANT. Fantastic performances from the lead in both.
How about you?
Maximum Z 
Pushing my Epic Sci-Fi adventure’s first draft up the hill, I’m about 90/119. Looking forward to the weekend, when I really do my writing, hoping for another 20-page weekend. The fiery finale is in sight, can’t wait to get there.
Go, Hal, go!
I’ve got writers block so I’m doing a little research to help me break out of it. Hopefully I can do a little freewriting this weekend. Good luck with your comedy, script and short!
Thanks! Much appreciated, and I know you’ll smash through that block in no time.
Thanks!
Currently taking a break from writing Coconut Oil eBooks for Amazon kindle, to rewrite a feature film.
All I’ll say, is that it’s related to a hobby of mine – metal detecting.
Nice! Could you provide a link to the Amazon page?
The writing has been almost non-existent over the past couple of months. Well, that’s not exactly true. I’ve been doing a different kind of writing. Instead of screenwriting (which I love), I’ve been busy writing press releases, updates, shameless plugs and solicitations in between all of the fun that comes from producing and directing a short film in New Orleans. Now the editing starts but I’m still hoping to be able to get back into whatever my next writing project is as well.
Could (and probably will) be a rewrite on an earlier feature. Could be a rewrite on a pilot. Either way, time to get the writing muscles working again even while in post on the above-mentioned film.
As for you, Maximum Z-man, I’m also curious about that project where you’re thinking of taking one of your ideas into another medium. Which medium might that be?
Will whisper it to you elsewhere…
I’ve been told I write a of “on the nose ” dialogue. I thought I had avoided this. So I’ confused. How do YOU prevent from doing this this?
Oooh, Pauline, try writing dialogue with an agenda, where they will not say what it is they want. Without them being coy, try to get across what they really want without ever mentioning it in any way.
It’s just an exercise (tho you can use some of what you create), but I kinda think it’s how people talk about everything.
Only protagonists in Spaghetti Westerns really ever just come out and say something, the rest of us have an agenda of some sort.
After all, I didn’t^^ just want to come out and say how clever I think I am, did I …? 😉
Finishing up another short script I’m hoping to get into Shriekfest (have a Feature and a Short in now) before the deadline, Modding Shadowland, trying to move along on a novel about a group of college students who discover a way to create a new God and what they’re willing to sacrifice to have it born.
Gardening!!
Nice!
Yesterday, I completed my first re-write of a recent Sci-Fi project. I’ve got a way to go to get it where I want it to be. I’m taking the weekend off from that project. Here I am scrolling through social media and keeping in contact with other earthlings. I’m wondering about the climax. Could I delay it? Thanks for the post.
Outstanding! Go, Boomer, go!
It’s my logline. I don’t know if I have it right yet. If you could give me a thumbs up or down, I would llike that.
From This Moment On
A former horsewoman is on a collision course with life and must find her own moxie to teach a spoiled, belligerent teenager how to ride before a sixty day time limit runs out.
What do you think?
Pauline Hetrick
G’day Pauline. I doubt she’s “on a collision course with life.” She is clearly on a collision course with “a spoiled, belligerent teenager.” How she resolves that issue within 60 days is the story.
PUline: The 60 day timer seems artificial. What will happen in 60 days? Can you up the stakes in your logline?
Is it important that the MC is a former horsewoman? Will viewers identify with her more as a former horsewoman or as a mother? Or as a teacher?
Aren’t we all on a collision course with life, seeking our own “moxie?” Can you be more specific? What happens if she fails?
Reviews and offers of reviews are trickling in. Got a notice that the Historical Novel Society has officially received a copy of In the Mouth of the Lion. Sales are slow, but still faster than for my first novel, Sail Away on My Silver Dream.
Nice! Fingers remain vigilantly crossed
I’ve just been through an extended period of ill-health, which involved a few trips to hospital. The upside is that those experiences gave me enough material for a comic novel about the collision between an older man and the modern medical world. (The things they do to you!)
HAEMATEMESIS: or How One Man Overcame a Fear of Things Medical and Learned to Navigate His Way Through Hospital.
I’m contemplating turning that into a screenplay.