SOMEWHERE ELSE

This is what I've been doing for the past two months.

When I was out in CA, a while back, I wrote a feature-length screenplay. A director expressed an interest in it, but couldn't get the project organized. I shelved it. The story has been nagging at me, though, with re-vamped scenes appearing in short stories over the past year or so.

In mid-May, I decided to adapt it as a novel. The title may no longer be available (a TV series with the same name appeared shortly after I passed the screenplay around), so I've been using the working title SOMEWHERE ELSE. It's a crime story. Noir as noir gets. "Everybody smokes, everybody dies," as I explained to my daughter.

The writing itself has been a lot of fun. The novel quickly took on a life of its own. It's not just a matter of filling in the blanks: although the basic plot remains, the pacing is different and so many new scenes have been added that the middle section bears little resemblance to the original work.

As of this morning, I'm 173 pages in. Writing a novel is largely a matter of commitment and endurance. I average 3 pages a day. Sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on the momentum and how much time I have available. At 3 pages a day, however, the book should be finished by or around the end of this month, when I depart for New Orleans.

As soon as it's done, I'm going to write another--a horror novel that is taking shape--then come back for a revision.

Meanwhile, I've stopped writing poetry and short fiction. Sporadic pieces happen and I try to meet reasonable submission requests, but I haven't set out to deliberately write any short-form work since May 15. Too often things get put aside because I attempt too much at once. I'm determined to finish this book without interruption.

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Over at disenthralled:

I have a new issue of Paul D. Brazill's WARSAW MOON ready to go up today and several others awaiting photography. Hopefully I'll be caught up by August or September and can decide what's next for the site.

Walter