1000 Days

I mentioned earlier I am poking around Celtx. I still am. Some of the tools I play with come and go like the tides. I can’t seem to find enough value in them to hang on for too long. But then most of these organizey things are for high output producers. If you aren’t producing stuff there’s next to no reason to organize it.

With Cetix I spent the day front loading all the content I have on 1000 Days for Shanty. I actually have quite a few posts and thoughts regarding that early producing thread. I am hoping that a bit of sorting and shuffling will yield unexpected gems of plot. I don’t want to work these guys too hard, but I don’t want to let them off the hook either.

How will this rummaging about result in anything useful? I’m always short on magical answers like that. I’m starting to think that this is the hard part of writing that successful authors lament. Making something out of nearly nothing I guess.

Day 252

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A friend bought a Mac the other night. The all-in-one jobby that looks like a fat wide-screen monitor. I took over and downloaded Scrivener so I could see it in action. Once we figured out how to install applications on a Mac and figured out that the program actually was open after five minutes of trying to open it I was immediately reminded of Celtx.

Scrivener offered the same template projects. Much of the minimal tour I did reinforced the similarities more then eroded them. So today I thought I’d try writing some here, in Celtx.

You may recall 1000 Days began as a private doc in Google Docs. Following that it became a test of Movable Type until that install mysteriously collapsed and I reverted to my solid standby WordPress. Sometime in there I wrote in MS Live Writer, DarkRoom, and most recently and regularly in Q10. I suppose this illuminates my mercurial behavior more than anything, but when you work on the Internet, there really is something better around the corner.

What I do here doesn’t require all that much. I rarely post pictures and never any other sort of media. Why not just write in the editor provided by WordPress? that question makes me snicker because I really should be. The WP editor does everything I need it to do: align text, highlight colors, create links, insert photos when I need. The whole CMS aspect organizes and stores my daily posts. I don’t know. I just like trying things out.

Other than its similarities to Scrivener, Celtx interests me more now because with this week long theme thing I started–and promptly abandoned–I’m wondering if I have enough mass to start keeping track of similar posts in the same place. I’m wondering if I need to start populating character datasheets and prop information. Celtx lets me do that.

Now to find out if I can format this text or do a word count.

Word count: 339
Day 251

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All this mess with Jansa and her mother and Jansa’s drama disabuses me of the joy of theme weeks. Especially if you get a dud—or what you work into a dud. I like the serenity of the Juena character too much to ruin any potential by exploring the hotheaded Jansa further at this time. Theme week ends early this week.

In the housekeeping category I should note that I’ll be out of my usual environs for the weekend and into a more challenging writing situation next week. I’ll do what I can to roll with the change-up, but I think any long time reader of 1000 Days knows whats up ahead for 1KD.

I’d planned to leave off of the shanty thread initially and I will after this brief exception to prove the rule.

You post your black-out welding goggles to your forehead to review your work in real light. The welds tighten better near the end, of course they’re not as crisp as Daddy might have done them, but they’ll work for tonight’s gig. And they’ll hold till you get the gravity guitar back to that shop in Tsarko II.

You untie the leather drape across you face to blow out the bits of slag [find out what thats really called] from the pick-ups. However, eager for a warm-up, you begin tuning her out before taking off your coveralls or gogs.

Much better. That soft G wave tightened up and seems gapped better between the D and the B waves—the E’s not hairy. Your tuner-monitor redundantly agrees with your fingers. A few more strums to be sure everything’s heavy and you grind into “House on Fire” by The Oh Johnny! Girls.

Word count: 286
Day 250

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