Wednesday, July 1, 2009

the math of writing

I finally crumbled and signed up for Netflix. My first experience is "The House Bunny" which I highly recommend for parody humor. Anna Faris always makes me laugh. This movie shot her to the top of my favorite actress list.

Fav lines:
In teaching some girls how to apply make up to look sexy: "Take special care with your eyes. They are the nipples of your face."

After the second reference to information being delivered by "a little birdie": "I have to meet that freakin' birdie!"

Anna is told that she is so incredibly vapid: "Oh, thank you! You're like the hundredth person who's told me that!"

Excellent movie with fantastic laugh out loud moments.

Other shit: I'm working on She's Got Balls with the intention of finishing it by end of next weekend. I've decided that in order to convey the proper mysterious air around Vin, the story will be written in a single POV (point of view) from Chris. Not my usual style but effective for the tone and emotional climax in such a short work. I shall post an excerpt as release date (Nov 17th) draws near.

Other-er shit: A longer project will take up the rest of the month and all of next month to complete. I mention this because of the questions about my time-frame for writing and releasing new work. Projects contracted at a smaller word count often find ways of expanding into longer pieces as they are worked. SGB will remain short but end between 15-18k (multiply by 4 and you'll find your page count). Mind F*cked ended at 36k and is already in edits. This next one will be approximately 65k.

As you see, they range the full spectrum of lengths and this is why I can schedule a book every month, with these several months lead-in time. The majority won't reach 65k, perhaps only two will. But as I write 3k a day, and my process has a fairly clean rough draft, production won't be a complication. (for the math impaired: 3k a day x 5 days = 15k and a weekend of edits. One week, start to finish if I don't take time to relax in between, when I have an entire month scheduled for completion.)

Note to self: "Mia, I know you're amused at the pettiness of school-yard bullying by a certain hat-wearer, but try not to guffaw too loudly. She reads this blog and appears rather obsessed with ownership of your series. Isn't that cute?"

4 comments:

J said...

I've often wished I could hear the actual sound of a guffaw. I've seen the word used widely, and yet, can never quite seem to grasp a true guffaw. No doubt something I should add to my Bucket List.

wv: nostib
nostril
No Stab! (something yelled at a foreign mugger)

Mia Watts said...

J, It sounds exactly like this:

Rassles said...

Jesus, your organization skills impress the fuck out of me.

Mia Watts said...

Ha! Easily impressed, are you Rassles? Asking a writer not to write would be similar to asking you not to people watch. But you understand. You're a writer yourself.