OG’s BLOG

The summer wound down so fast, my boys were caught almost unawares. So many things they’d intended to do – write that comic book, read those novels, blade those rollers. One of the things they’d been meaning to do was do some animation.

Well, yesterday, with one day of summer vacation remaining, nothing would stop them. They seized the family digicam and made some good old fashioned stop motion animation, 4 little movies in fact, before we all went off to the pool for what might have been our last swim of the season.

They began to see the work involved in animation – my oldest son said to me, “Boy, this takes a lot of patience, doesn’t it?” – and the charm of the whole thing. I was reminded of many of my own stop motion projects from days gone by. Ah. I love animation.

Well, this is a big milestone for me. I’m officially past the point I thought I’d be when the novel was finished: 75,000 words. 300 pages.

Yet, I’m still writing, and I have a good 10 to 15 per cent left to go. At the same time, I know when I restructure the second act, I’ll be losing tens of thousands of words.

Still, I celebrate. **victory dance**

I’ve told you before how I wind up working in public places sometimes. You know, the coffee shop, the pool while the kids are in lessons, on the back porch of a rented beach house. Basically, I try to grab whatever time I can grab without affecting my family and hop on that laptop and write as fast my little fingers will carry me. The sight of the laptop often leads to people ask me if I’m able to get WI-FI there.

When I say no, the conversation often turns to asking me what I am working on then. Until recently I’ve been making the rookie mistake of telling the truth. It has taken me several fruitless, interrupted writing sessions to realize that when I tell someone I’m writing a book, people often take it as an invitation to plop down next to me and either inform me what kinds of books they’d like me to be writing, or to ask me a series of questions about structure and whether I have an editor and a publisher and, hey, they’re a writer too, and would I please read their work for them. And… scene.

Learn from my example, people. It doesn’t matter how politely and patiently you say “Go away and leave me alone you freak — can’t you see I’m trying to work!?”, it just seems to come off rude to some people. But if you still want to try to write out there, do yourself a favor and make it sound as uninteresting as possible. When they ask what you’re doing, do NOT tell them that you are writing a book. You’re reviewing a friend’s thesis paper. You’re going over some technical specs from work. You’re editing a dry, dusty historical document. Something ennui-enducing. Blah.

If you can’t bring yourself to lie, then tell ‘em you’re just trying to catch up on some work. Well, it’s true, right? The downside of the truth, however, is that it may lead to follow-up questions about what kind of work you do and whether you are often asked to bring work home. I know because this has also happened to me.

You who write in public – what techniques do you have to allow you to write in peace without having to insult the occasional curious passer-by? Any tips? Drop me a line below.

But such is the risk of trying to write in public. If all else fails, you can always just shut the laptop and enjoy the conversation. It’s not as productive, but it can be nice, too.

When I first began writing, I assumed the three acts of a Three Act Structure were Beginning, Middle and End. Embarrasing, but I’m finding it’s a common misconception. Yes, even a pointless and completely unstructured story can be said to have a beginning, middle and end, but that’s not what the Three Act Structure refers to.

It’s hard to imagine marching into writing without knowing this, but people do. I thought I’d set the actual structure down here for those interested:

ACT I – Setup. About the first fourth of your story in length, the first act introduces the characters, the premise, the dramatic situation, and the conflict. About halfway through the act, there is an incident which sets into motion the events of the story. Act I usually ends with a plot point, or reversal, where the protagonist takes on the problem.

ACT II – Confrontation. The second act is the bulk of the story. The protagonist encounters obstacles to his goal. At around the midpoint, everything falls apart, and the protagonist is farther than ever from reaching his goal. At the end of this act is another reversal, pushing the plot in another direction and driving the narrative into the third act.

ACT III – Resolution. In the third act, the narrative reaches its highest level of tension as the forces in opposition finally meet. The climax takes the conflict to the peak of physical or emotional action, and then resolves. The climax is followed by the denouement, a period of relative calm where a state of equilibrium returns, such as it may be.

All of that is in the strictest, most generic terms. It’s a good structure for your narrative, but don’t be afraid to experiment with it.

Some people are taking great liberties with the form. See Jane Espenson’s blog for a discussion on 4-act, 5-act, and even 6-act structures that take advantage of ad breaks on TV shows.

When I first began writing this novel, I thought it would be a little 20,000 word novella. I quickly realized the book was more like 75,000 words long (and I’m thinking closer to 80k on my first draft).

Last night, I wrote my 70,000th word. It’s amazing to me after all this time that I’m this close to the goal. However, there’s a lot of work ahead, so don’t be fooled. Over the next few weeks, I expect to hemorrhage tens of thousands of words before building back up through the end of the book.

Still, I’m dancing… on the inside. It’s a big milestone for me.

Aster Hill asked if they could use my Karma illustration for their forthcoming album Good Karma. I did ‘em one better and designed the CD cover and jacket for ‘em.

Good luck, guys. Hope you sell a bazillion.

Here is the daguerreotype illustration I was asked to do for a portion of the Discovery Kids show featuring Wanzi’s ancestor. See yesterday’s post for more info…

AGENCY: Bully Entertainment

Last year, I was asked to design a soccer playing monkey for Discovery Kids. The character was to be a virtual host for a TV/DVD series about media literacy for their education centers in developing countries. The original design I submitted is above. They chose this design out of several, after seeing the funny little napkin sketch I did (below). Something about seeing him standing on one hand like King Louie really appealed to them, and they wanted to be SURE he read as a fun-loving monkey, not just a strange little blue boy with big ears and a tail. OK.

After they approved the design, I modeled him and slapped some simple texture on him. Actually, the model isn’t textured at all, I only colored the polygons – orange shirt, blue “hair”, lavender skin, and so on. Then, I lit him with the extra-cool lighting program VRAY, and voila. Almost looks like something made out of clay, or maybe vinyl. Either impression is OK with me so long as it doesn’t look like crummy CG.

Click the picture below to see the character move. I called him Freddie. But as he’ll be in use on South American and African TV, Discovery has decided to call him Wanzi. Also OK.

It’s fun to watch him move, but please keep in mind: I’m not an animator, even though I sometimes play one in real life. Pretty simple stuff – only took me about an hour – but it at least showed the client what he could look like animated. They fell in love with Wanzi, and the rest, as they say, is something or ‘nuther.

They also had me design a variety of props, and a historical family portrait of one of Wanzi’s family ancestors. Or is that “hysterical”? More on that tomorrow.

AGENCY: Bully Entertainment

We went skating over the weekend at Ice World, in Abingdon. One of my friends works there, and is an avid hockey player, and insisted my wife and kids come over with me and do a little skating.

None of us were much good at it – on the ice, I have the grace of a pregnant elephant walking on a bunch of ballbearings – but it was a lot of fun nevertheless. We did it Friday, and went back Sunday night for an encore. My five-year-old grabbed one of those walkers they have for people to take onto the ice, and in no time at all, he was skating circles around me, with a HUGE smile on his face. Solid Gold.

I have such renewed respect for hockey players. Not only do you have to know where to go and what to do, hurtling around at high speeds, swinging sticks at each other and trying to get a tiny puck into the net, but you have to do it all ON SKATES! Bleah! I was having trouble just not falling down. Did you know ice is slippery?

Ice World turns out to be the place where Olympic skater Kimmie Meissner trained. Funny how many Olympic athletes come from Maryland. Must be something in the water.