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First off, in case you missed it in my New Year’s Day newsletter — “Welcome to the New Year (and a New 5AM StoryTalk!” — I’ve opened all comments sections, including the comments of my Weekly Questions, to everyone. The goal is to expand the arts conversation we’re having here. But bear in mind, all Weekly Questions’ comments sections will still lock after one week.
Second, happy New Year! Resolutions come hand-in-hand with every new turn around the Sun. Let’s lean into that today. I want you to commit to a New Year’s arts resolution. It can be about the arts in general or, preferably, what you hope to accomplish this year as a storyteller in whatever medium you work.
In short: What’s your 2024 New Year’s art resolution?
Mine is to write my first TV spec. I’ve somehow made it fifteen years into a screenwriting career and never done this, but this story is very personal and demands I write it on my own terms. Now, I just need to find the time to do so in between the work that’s already paying my bills.
I might periodically check in with you on here about how it’s going for you. Feel free to ask me the same.
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Happy New Year! Wishing you all the best with your resolution.
My biggest 2024 goal is to become a certified book coach (I'm about halfway through a great course!) and then start a side coaching business helping writers finish their novels.
Happy New Year! I've never even heard of such a thing. Is that just a different way of saying a book consultant or editor-for-hire? What does it entail?
My main two things this year: Finish what will be my most ambitious novel yet (a spine story with fourteen interlude short stories all set in different places across the world); and to write my first (spec) comic script, adapting the story I started working on when I was ten. So far I've written it as I play when I was 14, a novella and feature screenplay when I was 18, expanded and continued it into a novel in 2022. I've only got the comic medium left! But I think it will work well in that format... just gotta find an artist, eventually.
The story you've been writing most of your life sounds like a fascinating creative experiment. I wrote a novel when I was 23. It's surprisingly well-written when I look back at it (I actually think I've lost some of what I had back then), but it's also just not a very good book. Incredibly derivative in hindsight. I've often considered rewriting it with the real novel being written entirely in lengthy footnotes that reflect on who we are as young artists and the artists we've become. 80% footnotes and 20% "old novel" basically. Anyway, I always think there's a lot to learn from these exercises. Good luck on it and the novel!
It has been rewarding so far with all the iterations of my story. Your idea to rework your early novel sounds great. Who doesn't love 80% footnotes! Thanks for your well wishes
To keep arts and culture blogging, and ShowScoring. Trains permitting (!) I'd like to travel farther afield this year to new cultural venues. Bury St Edmunds booked in for the Spring to see Richard My Richard. 2023 was about theatre, I'd like to mix it up and see more museums and gigs this year.
Happy New Year! The train situation in the UK is infuriating. I was back for two weeks in September of last year, and the situation had catastrophically deteriorated from the already terrible situation that existed in 2021 when I moved away. Where are you in the country? (Also, I miss the U.K.'s theatre. I live in Australia, and fairly regionally at that, and it's...not the same.)
Hi Happy New Year too. Just beyond Winchester, so about an hour and a half from London. I really believe in public transport, particularly as a non-driver, but I have to allow an hour to get a 15 minute bus ride to connect with the train, which may or may not turn up or may (as happened this week) experience trainmageddon when the whole infrastructure falls over without a definite plan of how to get everyone home to begin with! It's really sad as I feel it pushes everyone into cars.
UK theatre scene is wonderfully vibrant. I hope that can change as local/regional arts and culture is wonderful for community well-being.
I spent my last two hours in Abingdon, just to the north of you. Allowing an hour for the fifteen minute bus to get me to the train into Paddington was the worst part of the trip, absolutely!
Good luck with your resolution, Cole. Mine is to... also write my first TV spec! Which will be my first TV script, full stop (I've written several features). I've written a one-page pitch for it, and have been devouring books/podcasts/articles/screenwriter interviews about writing for TV, been reading scripts and watching pilot episodes of various shows; been compiling pages of ideas for characters, storylines, scenes, themes, moments/images, character arcs (which is also what I do when a feature idea is percolating away inside me!)... and am feeling excited and daunted in equal measure. :)
It does sound like it's time to get writing, then! At some point, you just have to let yourself come out on the page, good or bad. The reason I really say that is that 90% of pilot or TV or feature writing is rewriting, in my opinion. If I'm too precious about something in the first act, it slows me down and then realities revealed in Act 5 necessitate I throw out that previous work and start over anyway. But it sounds like you've done all the work, so I'm not worried about it for you. (Plus, writing is just fun). Best of luck as you dive in and discover the true identity of all those ideas you've been trying to wrangle like cats!
Ha, I fear I'm still wrangling them! ;) I hear you on writing = rewriting; it feels like that sweet spot between 'not preparing enough before writing the actual script' vs. 'preparing too much when you really should just be writing the actual script' is something I've been learning about and working on with every film script I've written thus far... And I suspect I've been leaning towards the latter on this one because it's a) my first TV script (so: craft to study!) and b) set in a world that I want to portray authentically, but which isn't my immediate world (so: research!). Thanks so much for the insight (and good luck wishes!).
As an arts consumer more gallery visits, more books read (top 25% on Goodreads seems a bit of a fail). As an art practitioner start a sketch book again after 15 years and consider getting back to oil painting.
Where in the UK do you live, Paul? As for Goodreads, I don't trust that toxic system at all, even though it's treated me quite well. Too many people on their exploiting and abusing it. Too many people able to destroy a person's art with petty one-star reviews. I'm keen to start drawing again this year, too...but just for personal pleasure. I don't create enough for what I refer to as creative meditation. Happy New Year!
Query letters are disheartening experiences, so you're not alone there. The response and lack of response to them can break strong people. But it's always exciting to start a new project you're passionate about. Best of luck with this first draft and then hammering it into shape over the course of 2024!
Happy New Year! Wishing you all the best with your resolution.
My biggest 2024 goal is to become a certified book coach (I'm about halfway through a great course!) and then start a side coaching business helping writers finish their novels.
Happy New Year! I've never even heard of such a thing. Is that just a different way of saying a book consultant or editor-for-hire? What does it entail?
Hi there! This is from Jennie Nash (who founded the coaching course Author Accelerator that I am taking) just wrote a great post explaining this: https://jennienash.substack.com/p/book-coaching-101-part-1-whats-a
Thanks. Best of luck on your next steps with it!
Thanks!!!
My main two things this year: Finish what will be my most ambitious novel yet (a spine story with fourteen interlude short stories all set in different places across the world); and to write my first (spec) comic script, adapting the story I started working on when I was ten. So far I've written it as I play when I was 14, a novella and feature screenplay when I was 18, expanded and continued it into a novel in 2022. I've only got the comic medium left! But I think it will work well in that format... just gotta find an artist, eventually.
The story you've been writing most of your life sounds like a fascinating creative experiment. I wrote a novel when I was 23. It's surprisingly well-written when I look back at it (I actually think I've lost some of what I had back then), but it's also just not a very good book. Incredibly derivative in hindsight. I've often considered rewriting it with the real novel being written entirely in lengthy footnotes that reflect on who we are as young artists and the artists we've become. 80% footnotes and 20% "old novel" basically. Anyway, I always think there's a lot to learn from these exercises. Good luck on it and the novel!
It has been rewarding so far with all the iterations of my story. Your idea to rework your early novel sounds great. Who doesn't love 80% footnotes! Thanks for your well wishes
Draft this f*#!?! series pilot! 😑
It's a good resolution!
To keep arts and culture blogging, and ShowScoring. Trains permitting (!) I'd like to travel farther afield this year to new cultural venues. Bury St Edmunds booked in for the Spring to see Richard My Richard. 2023 was about theatre, I'd like to mix it up and see more museums and gigs this year.
Happy New Year! The train situation in the UK is infuriating. I was back for two weeks in September of last year, and the situation had catastrophically deteriorated from the already terrible situation that existed in 2021 when I moved away. Where are you in the country? (Also, I miss the U.K.'s theatre. I live in Australia, and fairly regionally at that, and it's...not the same.)
Hi Happy New Year too. Just beyond Winchester, so about an hour and a half from London. I really believe in public transport, particularly as a non-driver, but I have to allow an hour to get a 15 minute bus ride to connect with the train, which may or may not turn up or may (as happened this week) experience trainmageddon when the whole infrastructure falls over without a definite plan of how to get everyone home to begin with! It's really sad as I feel it pushes everyone into cars.
UK theatre scene is wonderfully vibrant. I hope that can change as local/regional arts and culture is wonderful for community well-being.
I spent my last two hours in Abingdon, just to the north of you. Allowing an hour for the fifteen minute bus to get me to the train into Paddington was the worst part of the trip, absolutely!
Good luck with your resolution, Cole. Mine is to... also write my first TV spec! Which will be my first TV script, full stop (I've written several features). I've written a one-page pitch for it, and have been devouring books/podcasts/articles/screenwriter interviews about writing for TV, been reading scripts and watching pilot episodes of various shows; been compiling pages of ideas for characters, storylines, scenes, themes, moments/images, character arcs (which is also what I do when a feature idea is percolating away inside me!)... and am feeling excited and daunted in equal measure. :)
It does sound like it's time to get writing, then! At some point, you just have to let yourself come out on the page, good or bad. The reason I really say that is that 90% of pilot or TV or feature writing is rewriting, in my opinion. If I'm too precious about something in the first act, it slows me down and then realities revealed in Act 5 necessitate I throw out that previous work and start over anyway. But it sounds like you've done all the work, so I'm not worried about it for you. (Plus, writing is just fun). Best of luck as you dive in and discover the true identity of all those ideas you've been trying to wrangle like cats!
Ha, I fear I'm still wrangling them! ;) I hear you on writing = rewriting; it feels like that sweet spot between 'not preparing enough before writing the actual script' vs. 'preparing too much when you really should just be writing the actual script' is something I've been learning about and working on with every film script I've written thus far... And I suspect I've been leaning towards the latter on this one because it's a) my first TV script (so: craft to study!) and b) set in a world that I want to portray authentically, but which isn't my immediate world (so: research!). Thanks so much for the insight (and good luck wishes!).
As an arts consumer more gallery visits, more books read (top 25% on Goodreads seems a bit of a fail). As an art practitioner start a sketch book again after 15 years and consider getting back to oil painting.
Where in the UK do you live, Paul? As for Goodreads, I don't trust that toxic system at all, even though it's treated me quite well. Too many people on their exploiting and abusing it. Too many people able to destroy a person's art with petty one-star reviews. I'm keen to start drawing again this year, too...but just for personal pleasure. I don't create enough for what I refer to as creative meditation. Happy New Year!
I’m in Manchester, I only really use Goodreads to log what I’ve read and want to read, never read the reviews
Finish the novel draft I started in December. Query it would be good, as I am waiting on rejections from the last years's book.
Query letters are disheartening experiences, so you're not alone there. The response and lack of response to them can break strong people. But it's always exciting to start a new project you're passionate about. Best of luck with this first draft and then hammering it into shape over the course of 2024!
Thank you!