Damian Robb

After having finishing the novelette last weekend I ended up not writing much this week; instead I plotted out a few ideas and tried to figure out what my next project will be.

I’m still very much in a prose state of mind, to the point where at night I find myself subconsciously writing descriptions of whatever odd things my brain is providing while I drift off to sleep. A good practice for the craft I suppose, but not great for my sleeping pattern. I’m tempted to go with another short story as I have an idea for one I really like. Two, actually, as an idea popped into my head as I was looking at the hairs on my arms while in the shower (thank you subconscious). It’ll be a very short one, probably fitting into the flash fiction section, and I think I might even try bashing it out this weekend.

However I’m also considering writing an idea for a TV pilot for the next project, mostly so I’ve got one in the bag in case any opportunities come up. It’s this idea that I’ve been attempting to plot out this week, but I’m struggling to fit it into a TV structure. Part of the problem is that I don’t know what the full story is. The idea came from one of the earlier scene-a-day’s I wrote back in 2014 (you can read it here if you like) and while the scene sets up a lot of intriguing things past Damian didn’t really have answers for them, and present Damian isn’t much better. I instead have colourful blobs of ideas that have yet to resolve themselves into the fleshed out storylines they will hopefully one day become. Basically I might have to let it gestate in the back of my mind for a while until I can see what the blobs are. Sometimes that’s all you can do, forcing it might get me answers but chances are they’ll be of a lesser quality that the one’s my subconscious might come up with given enough time.

Given this point I think I will go with the short stories next, and see if by the time they’re both done I have more in the idea bank for the TV one. Thanks for letting me talk that out, clearly I needed it.

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June is now over and with it my June Retune. Mostly it went well, although I have to be honest and say I unintentionally took a week off last week, using my busy work schedule to justify it to myself. This week I was back on it though and now have many pleasingly sore body parts.

The end result was a loss of three kilos but the real prize was getting myself into a routine that I am more than happy to sustain. I can now quite easily get up at six and get an hour of writing done before work. I continue writing during my lunch hour and, if possible, for even longer. Once home I do half an hour or so of exercise and call it a day. Having kept that routine for (mostly) a month now it’s feeling natural to do so and my body and brain seem to have adjusted; meaning I actually have all the energy to accomplish all these tasks without too much internal complaining. I’m also doing all this on a much better diet that I was before the retune started, mostly thanks to having cut my sugary snacking back drastically. Once again my body seems to have adjusted to this change as well. I’ve read it takes doing something consistently for three weeks for it to become a habit and this clearly fits that model. Yay, improvement!

I also wrote almost all of the novelette in that time, which at twenty six pages of prose is the longest thing I’ve written to date other than my screenplay, and I wrote that in a year and a half. So I think I have to include the completion of that wee story in the June Retune prize pack as well.

I’ll continue on with this routine for the immediate future, which was always the plan; giving myself the month long timeline was a lie I knowingly told to myself in order to maintain motivation. It’s weird that we can do that, and it’s weirder still that it works. I’ll probably be a little more flexible diet wise, especially when eating with other people, but otherwise the only other change I’d like to make is to get some writing done in the evening too. I never really managed to work that into the retune and, while I have a strong feeling I’m more of a morning person, wouldn’t mind seeing if I can learn to get used to that as well.

Hell, it should only take three weeks, right?

Talk soon

Damian