Day 64: Direction

When I was in college, there was this awesome moment during which I really fell in love with directing. I haven't done it as much lately as I think I should, which is why I was really fortunate to be able to direct a commercial yesterday. I was in the hallway of the Center for Dramatic Arts when a friend of mine asked me to come in and watch him perform a scene with a partner. I gave the two of them a little advice and the next day he told me he knocked it out of the park.

After I gave the directing advice, I felt like I'd come upon something of a calling. I've directed some shows here and there since, but I'm often caught up in the producing side of things and I can't focus. Yesterday, working with the cast of Jersey Shore: The Musical was awesome and I hope that what Brian Sly and I come up with will be something special, whether it wins the Crash the Super Bowl contest or not.

On the writing side of things, this morning I worked on Ted Saves the World, including a scene where our hero has to catch a thief while wearing nothing but his boxers. On the blog, I wrote about how to recover from procrastination. While I'll be writing most of the day, I'll be buzzing with anticipation until I see some of the footage from yesterday. Woo hoo!

Day 63: Quality and Quantity

I've had more than a few people ask me during this challenge if I was going for quantity over quality. This is a perfectly legitimate question, because it's obvious that I'm spending a whole lot of time on writing, which may be cutting into my editing time. In actuality, I've always been a quick editor and I'm happy to hand off some of the duties to my editor and friend, Ashley Daoust. By making sure I have someone on hand to help me through the important process of re-writing, I hope that I can strike a good balance between quality and quantity.

Today in writing, I continued to work on the beginning of my new full-length novel version of Ted Saves the World. I also created a page of middle school writing prompts. Off to shoot a Doritos commercial!

Day 62: On a Whim

Last night I decided, on a whim, to scrap my plans for adding content to Writer on the Side for the time being because I was inspired to turn my novella, Ted Saves the World into a full-length novel. It was my initial research for Writer that made me realize I've been spending too much time helping others to be creative without giving myself enough of an outlet.

I was a little rusty at first at bringing my fantasy action-adventure back to life, but I really got into the swing of it with Ted and the rest of the good guys. I've pegged the book as my homage to Joss Whedon and mixing the witty, the hilarious and the tragic in equal measure. I'm really excited to do what I can to make it a jam-packed book with humor, action and general craziness :).

On the writing blog today, I created a page of journal writing ideas to give people a different perspective on writing about their boring, routinized days.

Day 61: Doritos and Callback!

This is a big weekend for me. On Saturday, I have my callback for the role of Bartley in The Cripple of Inishmaan. On Sunday, I'll be directing a commercial for the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest featuring the awesome cast of Jersey Shore: The Musical. When you have a lot of projects going on, it can be difficult to stay focused on the task at hand, but as long as you stay as close to your routine as possible, you'll usually be fine.

For example, today I had to figure out how to load in all the equipment to Vibes Media in downtown Chicago and fit my writing in. Since I was able to schedule the load in for the afternoon, it didn't conflict at all with my writing. One of the benefits of freelancing is that you have the freedom to fit stuff around such a wacky schedule :).

Today in writing news, I finished 1,000 Character Writing Prompts, Part 1 and I started doing some work to revamp my previous books Sharpening the Pencil and Writer on the Side. In addition, to keep myself in the holiday spirit, I wrote a Thanksgiving writing prompt list.

Day 60: Writing Challenge

After approximately two months, I think it's time I took some extra time to reflect on my writing challenge. I am just four writing prompts away from finishing my second book of the self-generated competition, which will have been my longest book of all time at around 70,000 words. I'm extremely proud of myself and I think that I've grown since I began 60 days ago.

Starting a writing challenge like has caused me to think outside the box about what was directly affecting my writing productivity. I knew that I needed some extra oomph, which caused me to purchased the Fit Desk X bike. Since I bought it, I've used it over an hour each morning to get the oxygen necessary to my brain to complete my daily task. In addition, I know now for a fact that having an office for my very own with a door I can close has been extremely helpful. The days in which I finish my writing before noon have tripled in our new apartment because of the office and the added space.

I was a little worried about splitting my writing between the three sources: my books, my writing blog and this blog, but I've learned it was a great decision. Not only is my web traffic up, but my book sales and advertising clickthroughs have gone up as well. This helps me a great deal in the challenge because I can immediately see my results having an effect. If I was writing the books alone, it would be a bit tougher, since you can't make money off a book until it's edited, designed and published. Even though the books are likely to bring more "pudding" in the long-term, having that short term reminder that, "Hey, your writing pays!" is a welcome reminder.

Now that I've finished The Post-College Guide to Happiness and have come quite close to completing 1,000 Character Writing Prompts, Part 1, I have proven to myself that the longer I go with this writing challenge, the more books I will write. If I can keep up the same pace, I'll end up 12 books completed by the end of the challenge with another book on the way. In addition, I'll have over 450 blog posts completed (since I'm posting parts of the books along the way), which should help me to reach my website traffic goals.

In other words, life is good, and I'm glad I've embarked on such a journey! Continue to follow along to see if I can make it to the end :).

In today's writing, I wrote a blog post of short story topics and post a page of character writing prompts on landlords.

Day 59: Next!

One of the reasons that I decided to split my 1,000 Character Writing Prompts book into two parts is because I've gotten a bit tired of prompts for the time being. This will allow me to take a break with the prompts and focus on another book for the time being. I will be just about finished the first 500 prompts tomorrow or Friday, at which time I will have to pick something new.

I have a few ideas in mind, including revamping a few of my old books in time for the wonderful gift-giving holidays coming up. I've always been very proud of my book Writer on the Side, but one of the issues is that it's too short and doesn't include enough information. I'd like to beef it up from 32,000 to at least 50,000 and give it the most up to date information I can. I really think it could be one of my top sellers if I can make it as amazing as I'd like it to be, and get it out to as many reviewers as possible. Then again, I'd also like to go back to my Ted Saves the World series because it's so fun. I've got 24 to 48 hours to decide, let's see what happens!

Today on the blog, I wrote a post about my favorite free writing prompts and I caught up on posting a few character writing prompts pages like this one on the subject of royalty.

Day 58: Habits

I've found that the productivity in my life has been directly related to my habits good or bad. When I worked out every morning at 5:30 a.m. during my junior and senior years of high school, my productivity went through the roof my first few periods of the day. When I worked at a coffee shop and downed double shots to keep myself perky during work(-y), I found that my productivity suffered when I went home.

Now that I'm writing 2,500 words every morning (that is more recently accompanied by a laptop bike ride), I'm finding that I'm able to get a ton of stuff done each day. While I would like to be able to market my books 24/7 when I'm not writing them, my other tasks like my freelance work, housework and my fun activities on the side have been much more tended to then they were when I wasn't on the writing challenge. If you can make it your habit to get something done each day, you'll find that other things get done as well. Hooray!

I wrote an article today about giving up caffeine and I came very close to finishing at least the beginning of all 500 prompts.