31st of May, 2011 - Blog Redesign

Eh, so not much to say today. Didn't write anything new, but got feedback from a friend on the latest on the script (Hi Tippie.) and fixed an error on page 27 she noticed. Clever her. I'm listening to the credits music from the Portal games, totally unrelated, but they're funny. Em, so I've done some redesigning on the blog. Tweaked the template a bit. Colors and backgrounds, not much. Made three different backgrounds for the blog, trying to decide which one...

One:


Two:


Three:


-Icey
Mountains of Parchment

30th of May, 2011 - Another read-through!

So I'm doing another read though since I'm at Act 2B. And it's a good thing I do them because I discovered a continuity error. Apparently I have two characters that have this ability to teleport and swap locations with one another? This only requires tweaking in one scene to fix it though, thankfully. But it was hilarious none the less, because I record myself reading, and you hear me go into this... dot dot dot... state. Totally crack up. Gonna keep on reading and then fix that. Andddddddddddd done. Read through came out to 57 minutes in total. Fixed the teleporting problem by changing a bit of dialog. Luckily for Edan, it meant he got a compliment! Aww, lucky him! But it's short-lived though of course. Heh, typical Galen.

-Icey
Mountains of Parchment

29th of May, 2011 - Eh...

Whoops, I forgot to return with another paragraph yesterday... Sorry! Got caught up writing. Really like Celtex. Especially the Index Card function. VERY handy. Coming up to the end of Act 2A. Just a couple more scenes. According to the page-a-minute rule, I should be at about 35 minutes at the moment, so that's good. About where I'd like to be. I can say though, from saying that I'm near the end of Act 2A, that something's going to happen. It's kind of to be expected that something will happen, though. Else it'd be boring. And some of you reading this probably already know what's going to happen, but there's a difference between saying it and doing it. There have been many variations of the saying over the years, but Mendel says: "Because words are one thing. Actions are another." Going to write more, then return.

Look! I returned for another paragraph! Just wrote another scene. I need tissues. Toilet paper is hard. It's a sad scene, evidently. And the next one is sad, too... And the ones after that, actually. Wow, isn't that sad of me? So much sadness. so very very sad. No, I'm not writing a Doctor Who episode for the Greek tragedy that is the tenth doctor. And no commenting with spoilers of Series 6 Doctor Who, or else Shadowleaf will hunt you down. I’m hoping to write at least one more scene. Actually, it's a scene I've written before, as it appears in Veil of Trees, but in a slightly different form. It's the end of an era in the world of Bowstring, story wise. You'll know why soon enough. This particular assassination is very key. Shall I explain? Alright.

Spoilers.

Anddddddddddddddd adding another paragraph even later. I've written some more scenes and have reaches Act 2B. Just thought I'd note that here. 43 pages now. 8 pages in one day, I'm pretty pleased with myself!

-Icey
Mountains of Parchment

28h of May, 2011 - Celtex

Up until now I've been writing the scripts in Microsoft Word. I'm now giving Celtex a go. But before I play aroudn there and get awestruck, I'll let you know I wrote another scene last night, on a bridge. Oooh, yes. A Bridge. Nice, eh? Now I'm gonna go fiddle about. I'll return in the next paragraph.

-Icey
Mountains of Parchment

26th of May, 2011 - Why am I up at this hour?

So it's 11:29 PM... Thursday evening- though I should say night. I just finished up a couple more scenes. And I gotta say, they were awesome (In my humble opinion... which probably didn't sound so humble.) And they were actually quite important scenes. Exciting stuff. Poor Iven probably felt like a bit of the third wheel though. Oh well, he's meant to then. But yes, not only were these scenes important and exciting, they were sad too. I was kinda... crying... I admit. I think I need to add a bit more in before them though, because having a big thing like that I just felt was a bit soon. Although it's about 25% in, we'll see...

I'll probably do a full script read through tomorrow. It's always a good thing to go through and read what you've written. I usually record it when I do this too. It helps gage time, speed and feel. If someone's gonna watch a movie, they're not going to pause every second scene, come back the next day, watch another couple scenes and so on. So yeah, checking the script constantly that way helps a ton for clarity and continuity. It'll let me know if I need to add a bit more in before, if I'm on target, or actually running a bit slow. Dannflow accuses me of being slow most of the time. Oh well. Good night.

-Icey
Mountains of Parchment

25h of May, 2011 - Finding the plot

Hi again, Icey here... I think I'll scrap the greeting next time, because you know it's me posting... And I always say it's me at the bottom anyway.

I thought I should mention that I write by the seat of the pants (or skirt, depending what I'm wearing.) style... Mostly. I do have a vague sort of idea where I'm going, but not really. Most things I write are thought up on the spot, and edited later. So I'm about 18 pages into the script, and soon coming up on the time for a good plot-twist. But what's gonna happen? What should I do next? A blank page can beckon creativity, or a mocking rebellion of nothingness... Can nothingness even rebel? Oh well, I guess it can, because at the moment it is. I know Mendel and John are heading south east at the moment, and so is Iven. (Iven's another Ranger.) And Iven's gonna catch up with them probably in Taesh. Then I've got to employ my twist, but I need a reason. And it should have something to do with Edan, I suspect. It's most viable... but we'll see. Spoilers. Oh, I should also mention that since yesterday, I've written two more scenes. And I've re-drawn the map, this time in color. Map-drawing helps me think for some reason... I guess I like some form of direction.

-Icey
Mountains of Parchment

24th of May, 2011 - Where'd I go?

Hi, Icey here.

So I've written a bit more on the script, only a couple scenes, but at least that's something. I particularly like the recent developments in the latest part; it's quite interesting for John's character development. So that's pretty good. The reason there's so much time between this post and my last is because I had my birthday party in that time. (Doctor Who party on the 21st of May, perfect timing. My actual birthday was the 12th.) So other news since then; talking to Dannflow a few days ago, he hopes we can be filming in the summer holidays later this year. It's almost winter at the moment.

And just thinking at the moment... An interesting conflict in The Archer's Fable; I want to have John learn a particular lesson (he's a bit... how shall I say it? Vengeful, at the start. Not hard-core though, thankfully.) And he's so going to learn by the end, but I expect the movie to have a somewhat tragic ending. Never did I think I would see the day that I wrote a story where the bad guys won. Now although it's only the beginning of the saga, and there's a second movie planned to improve the situation, those that only see the first movie I'm worried will get the impression that being bad will get your way, and being good will hurt you in the end. This is not true in the long run, but I'm concerned it will come across that way... An predicament for me then, who's going to have a character learn a lesson, only then to feel great loss. Though it's true that in doing the right thing, things aren't always easy, I need a way to offset the balance, or else it'll be really dark.

-Icey
Mountains of Parchment