So, I now have a Five Year Plan. The bad thing about plans is that its something else you can fail at... but without them you dont get *anything* done. This post will probably end up resembling the list of forthcoming books from Harlan Ellison that was in his Pyramid Editions... some of which never came. Thats okay. Sometimes it helps to set goals in public to create a stick that keeps you from just sitting around in your underpants eating Cheetos all day. My Five Year Plan is pretty simple... and the best part is its only going to take *4* years! Finish all 20 Blue Books. Get the last 2 Hitchcock Books done (finish off Fridays With Hitchcock). Write the DIY book (which requires interviewing a bunch of people and combining a bunch of different versions of articles into one version that covers everything). Finish off the THRILLER Thursdays (and then do the research, etc for the book version). Once I finish off THRILLER Thursdays, find something else to write about on the blog to fill that slot (Im thinking about some funny Hollywood war stories about my experiences plus some fascinating weirdos I have met along the way). Continue Trailer Tuesday for the next 4 years (now with the plan of turning those into five books, so the entries will be more focused). Next year Im going to really do the five pages a week novelizing one of my screenplays (started it, but didnt keep it going this year). And continue that every year. I want to try and squeeze out a Mitch Robertson novella at least once a year but maybe twice. Oh, and write screenplays. I know that seems like a lot, but most of it is just doing what Im doing now. The five pages a week on the novel is the new thing. I failed at that this year, but dont see it as impossible. I stumble every once in a while on the blog stuff, but much if that is just me playing hooky and goofing off. Most of this is slow and steady wins the race stuff. The Five Year Plan was all about the Trailer Tuesday stuff, focusing the six page entries into something that adds up to five books. This year I have a bunch of entries that Id have to rewrite to be part of a book... but I have that raw material that can be rewritten. I watch movies all the time, its not difficult to watch one and scribble down some notes and knock out a six page article every week. Okay, some weeks that is difficult... but not impossible (how freakin long is this post now?). I think the slow and steady thing is a great writing tool. If I write five pages a week on a novel, that is over 60,000 words at the end of the year. One of those paperback novels I own hundreds of. Its interesting to read the Richard Stark Parker novels because they have 4 parts in each... like there are 4 weeks in a month. You just know thats how Westlake wrote them. Each of those parts are in that 15k word range, and if he wrote 3k words five days a week, he could knock out a novel in a month. I had a 3k word day this week. If I could maintain that... In one of those Film Courage segments I said if you write 1 good page a day you end up with 3 scripts a year. Slow and steady. I think the problem many people have is looking at a full screenplay or a full novel or book and its intimidating. How can anyone write something that big? Answer is: one page at a time. Okay, now everyone gets to watch me fail at my Five Year Plan. Did anyone add up how many books I will have on Amazon at the end of the plan (including the ones I have already)? Bill
Posted on: Sun, 26 Oct 2014 00:10:42 +0000
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