It’s been a bit quiet here on Andron.ca for the past month. April has been a remarkably productive period for me.
In the past month, I have completed a short novel, created two pieces of cover art, and completed a motion capture collection. So yeah, productive’s the right word.
I’m going to talk a little bit more about the novel later on as we get closer to release, but it’s enough to say that I was able to put this together very quickly. I got started doing the plotting on it in mid-January, and then proceeded to write fairly regularly over the next month and a half. The last month and change has consisted of doing revisions and tweaking of the novel to get it ready for release. I also wanted to make sure that I left enough time for the novel to sit so I could give it an effective proofreading before doing the final release.
Now, it becomes a matter of putting together the website and other promotional materials and going through an entire preflight checklist of all of the various details that have to be ready prior to the book’s release. It’s been a very interesting project to work on, and I’m looking forward to finally getting it out into the public’s hands.
So, what’s next?
I have a second novel that has been completely plotted, and I’m already starting to work on it. I’ve also taken on a larger project, which is scripting a web series. The multi-episode web series is going to be a challenge to write, simply because of the combination of structure and length. The outline for the the web series should be completed completed within the next two weeks, and the script itself done ideally by the end of June. Then, I can start taking a look at various production options.
As part of the development process, I’m going to be making regular posts on the blog describing the progress of each stage of this web series. I’m not going to talk about the subject matter of the series, at least not yet. Ideas can be delicate things, and they can lose their luster if they’re shared among too many people.
Besides, I have often found that simply having the idea isn’t enough. You have to get it to a prototype stage before you can start really working it and discovering its true potential. Once you have it in a concrete form, no matter how rough, the idea acquires substance at that point. Then, and only then, are you able to start polishing it until it shines.
Also, when you have it in a concrete form, that gives you credibility when you show it to others for their help in taking the idea to the next stage. While there are people who are able to excite others just on the strength of their oratory and ephemeral ideas, I’m not one of them. Like I’ve written in the past, ideas can be like drinking from a firehose. They can come all at once and flow down the drain just as quickly. Managing that creative flow is a sign of real professionalism.
In my next post on this, I’ll talk about the scope of the project. That will give you an idea of the challenge that awaits over the next couple of weeks.
