Sie müssen schlafen aber Ich muss tanzen.
The Roundup continues.
YEAR-IN-REVIEW HIGHLIGHT REEL
Word Count Edition, '09
First, the reading.
Earth X - Jim Krueger
Gomorrah - Roberto Saviano
Four Freedoms - crowleycrow
The Fixer - Joe Sacco
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
The Night Manager - John Le Carre
Lush Life - Richard Price
The Tenderness of Wolves - Stef Penney
Art - Yasmina Reza
Perfect Circle - Carlos J. Cortes
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - John Le Carre
The Honourable Schoolboy - John Le Carre
Smiley's People - John Le Carre
The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate - Ted Chiang
Generation Loss - lizhand
Blood Meridian, Or the Evening Redness in the West - Cormac McCarthy
Last year's tally: 23
This year's tally: 16
Fewer books, but some of them had been chilling on my shelf for a long time. And I conquered the New Years Resolutions in a big way by finally enjoying War and Peace AND the Smiley v Karla trilogy. There were quite a few highlights this year and I severely enjoyed every book in the queue. Hopefully, next year I can marry my resolution to get more books of the long-awaiteds shelf and, at the same time, increase my total. Maybe next year I can start to take a crack at the longer tomes. Sacred Games and The Given Day in particular have been clamoring for my attention and I'm torn as to whether I should read The Kindly Ones first in its English translation or shoot for Les Bienveillantes in the original French. Already a very polarizing book, I'm excited to see which one I decide, as I'm pretty sure I want to read both versions which seems like a very masochistic endeavour.
Anyway, now onto the writing:
Headshots - A Short Film - 10 pages
Police procedural spec script - 52 pages
Selim, My Brother - Feature Length - 110 pages
Ancona - Television Pilot - 52 pages
Home/Away - A Short Film - 20 pages
Old Country - Television Pilot - 22 pages
A Season in Tears - Feature Length - 99 pages
Labor Flows - A Short Film - 5 pages
In August - Feature Length - 88 pages
Dust to Dust - A Novella (Revision) - 22k words
Sons of Eden - 29k (so far)
In terms of word count, this is going to be impossible to calculate, but looking at the screen projects alone, that's 458 pages of new material. In Standard Manuscript Format, Dust is at 109 pages and Sons, 145. Which, when added together, is a whopping 712 pages!
Definitely a filmic year and, looking at the variation in length and subject matter, I'm rather proud. These things are much, much, much easier to write than novels. Not to say that scripts are walks in the park or anything like that, but after the 9 month pregnancy of a novel's gestation period, these little nuggets are much easier to pop out. For instance, Ancona was written in 4 days. In August, written in 9. I might have knocked down Home/Away in 2 days and that was only because there was a part of it I hadn't quite figured out.
So this year, I'm not sure whether the assessment is that there was less volume or that there was simply a different type of volume produced here. Apples and oranges, I guess. Well, now that I know I can produce these things with relative ease, I'm eager to get back to my roots and be able to find a nice balance between prose and film where I can maximize my output on all fronts. Getting good at one has definitely informed my acquisition of skills in the other. And vice versa.
Word count resolutions for '10:
Reading-wise: Tackle bigger books. I'd like to take a stab at the aforementioned as well as Anna Karenina. Had I stuck with the Tolstoy class in the spring, I'd have both Tolstoy books read by now, but I want to digest them at a slower pace. But The Given Day and Sacred Games are definitely slated to be read.
Writing-wise: Finding the balance between the prose projects and the filmic projects as well as getting something published! Or at least securing an agent. I was lucky with Selim winning that nomination back in November and hopefully August can do me proud as well. Also, I'd like to finish Sons by the summer and shall be hopping on the novel_in_90 bandwagon in January to help with that. And I'd like to find a home for Dust. The little novella that could is proving to be a tenacious little guy and he just won't let go. So we shall see.
Maybe 2010 will finally be the year. (Whatever that may mean.)
Next in the Year-in-Review series: The Reflection.
Stay Tuned
YEAR-IN-REVIEW HIGHLIGHT REEL
Word Count Edition, '09
First, the reading.
Earth X - Jim Krueger
Gomorrah - Roberto Saviano
Four Freedoms - crowleycrow
The Fixer - Joe Sacco
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
The Night Manager - John Le Carre
Lush Life - Richard Price
The Tenderness of Wolves - Stef Penney
Art - Yasmina Reza
Perfect Circle - Carlos J. Cortes
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - John Le Carre
The Honourable Schoolboy - John Le Carre
Smiley's People - John Le Carre
The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate - Ted Chiang
Generation Loss - lizhand
Blood Meridian, Or the Evening Redness in the West - Cormac McCarthy
Last year's tally: 23
This year's tally: 16
Fewer books, but some of them had been chilling on my shelf for a long time. And I conquered the New Years Resolutions in a big way by finally enjoying War and Peace AND the Smiley v Karla trilogy. There were quite a few highlights this year and I severely enjoyed every book in the queue. Hopefully, next year I can marry my resolution to get more books of the long-awaiteds shelf and, at the same time, increase my total. Maybe next year I can start to take a crack at the longer tomes. Sacred Games and The Given Day in particular have been clamoring for my attention and I'm torn as to whether I should read The Kindly Ones first in its English translation or shoot for Les Bienveillantes in the original French. Already a very polarizing book, I'm excited to see which one I decide, as I'm pretty sure I want to read both versions which seems like a very masochistic endeavour.
Anyway, now onto the writing:
Headshots - A Short Film - 10 pages
Police procedural spec script - 52 pages
Selim, My Brother - Feature Length - 110 pages
Ancona - Television Pilot - 52 pages
Home/Away - A Short Film - 20 pages
Old Country - Television Pilot - 22 pages
A Season in Tears - Feature Length - 99 pages
Labor Flows - A Short Film - 5 pages
In August - Feature Length - 88 pages
Dust to Dust - A Novella (Revision) - 22k words
Sons of Eden - 29k (so far)
In terms of word count, this is going to be impossible to calculate, but looking at the screen projects alone, that's 458 pages of new material. In Standard Manuscript Format, Dust is at 109 pages and Sons, 145. Which, when added together, is a whopping 712 pages!
Definitely a filmic year and, looking at the variation in length and subject matter, I'm rather proud. These things are much, much, much easier to write than novels. Not to say that scripts are walks in the park or anything like that, but after the 9 month pregnancy of a novel's gestation period, these little nuggets are much easier to pop out. For instance, Ancona was written in 4 days. In August, written in 9. I might have knocked down Home/Away in 2 days and that was only because there was a part of it I hadn't quite figured out.
So this year, I'm not sure whether the assessment is that there was less volume or that there was simply a different type of volume produced here. Apples and oranges, I guess. Well, now that I know I can produce these things with relative ease, I'm eager to get back to my roots and be able to find a nice balance between prose and film where I can maximize my output on all fronts. Getting good at one has definitely informed my acquisition of skills in the other. And vice versa.
Word count resolutions for '10:
Reading-wise: Tackle bigger books. I'd like to take a stab at the aforementioned as well as Anna Karenina. Had I stuck with the Tolstoy class in the spring, I'd have both Tolstoy books read by now, but I want to digest them at a slower pace. But The Given Day and Sacred Games are definitely slated to be read.
Writing-wise: Finding the balance between the prose projects and the filmic projects as well as getting something published! Or at least securing an agent. I was lucky with Selim winning that nomination back in November and hopefully August can do me proud as well. Also, I'd like to finish Sons by the summer and shall be hopping on the novel_in_90 bandwagon in January to help with that. And I'd like to find a home for Dust. The little novella that could is proving to be a tenacious little guy and he just won't let go. So we shall see.
Maybe 2010 will finally be the year. (Whatever that may mean.)
Next in the Year-in-Review series: The Reflection.
Stay Tuned