What pieces/projects are you working on?

rock_show_host · 09-22-2008, 11:11 AM

I posted in Today's Reason to Smile that I just finished a rewrite of a screenplay I've been working on for the past year (which I'm reasonably happy with, it's certainly much better than my awful first draft). Since the writing forums are mostly for songs, poems, short stories, etc., and since it's not really feasible to post entire novels and whatnot, I was just wondering what other big projects CGRers are working on. Either professionally or just for fun.

You don't have to go into plot/creative details if you want to protect your ideas. Just mention briefly what you're working on. I'd be interested to hear some others.

**Skeeter** · 09-22-2008, 11:21 AM

A friend of mine and I are working on ideas for a screenplay; I need to read the book he suggested we adapt before we go any farther though.

Jeffrey · 09-22-2008, 11:21 AM

I'm still editing a novella in free verse, and have started planning my second chapbook.

**Skeeter** · 09-22-2008, 11:37 AM

I also have a longform free verse poem in the works, but it's been stalled for some time now. I'm unsure what the final poem will look like.

**H.M. Murdock** · 09-22-2008, 04:38 PM

I am working on an absurdist/fantasy novella, something along the lines of "pedantic, multi-layered narratives meets A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court."

Jeffrey · 03-04-2009, 10:40 PM

I'm less than a week away from releasing my next chapbook, which I honestly think folks here will really, really enjoy. Most of it has not been posted anywhere.

**Skeeter** · 03-05-2009, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey

I'm less than a week away from releasing my next chapbook, which I honestly think folks here will really, really enjoy. Most of it has not been posted anywhere.

DO WANT!!!

Jeffrey · 06-04-2009, 10:32 AM

The chapbook is for sale, don't forget. Right now, poetry-wise, I am working on accessible renderings of several key Near Eastern and Greco-Roman myths. This is the result of a focused year of reading commentaries and translations, and chasing the meaning of some particular words and phrases.

1) From Mesopotamia: "The Descent of Inanna." This is the myth of the Sumerian goddesss of love and war as she enters the Underworld, seemingly to take her sister Ereshkigal's throne. When the god Enki sends two agents to free her, she must choose a substitute - and only her husband Dumuzid seems to have not mourned her disappearance.

2) From Anatolia: "The Pacify Telepinu." This is the myth/ritual involving the fertility god Telepinu who has stormed off from his estate in anger, having to be coaxed back by the goddess of magic, Kamrusepa and the great mother goddess Hannahanna.

3) From Canaan: "Kingship for Lord Hadad." This is the "Ba'al Cycle," wherein the storm god of the Canaanities (and associated groups, such as the Phoenicians) contends first with Yahm-Nahar, then the Mavet, the god of death, for supremacy. His sister Anath, the virgin warrior goddess, plays a key role, alongside the mother of the gods, Asherah.

4) From Israel: "A Taunt for Babylon." Isaiah's raucous poetic curse against Babylon, often conflated with the fall of Satan.

5) From Greece: "Persephone and the King of the Dead." The familiar myth of Hades abducting Persephone, the daughter of harvest-blessing Demeter. I am translating (in this one exception, actually doing so, given that I know my way around Latin) from Ovid's version, which includes the fact that the fiery goddess of love, Aphrodite, makes Hades fall for Persephone in order to extend the power of love to the Underworld (sound familiar?).

Possible #6 and #7, time permitting this summer: a selection from Book Six of the Aeneid, and the traditional Exultet Easter liturgy about the rise of Christ.

Jeffrey · 07-07-2009, 07:44 PM

Well, to update: I have finished the first complete draft of my renditions of ancient literature related to the Underworld. I have the Sumerian myth of Inanna, two Egyptian hymns (one to Ra, one to Osiris), the Hittite myth about Telepinu (a nature god who in anger abandons his station), the Canaanite Baal myth (imagine Zeus fighting Poseidon and then Hades in order to rule the Greek gods), a selection from Isaiah 14 (that references many aspects of Near East religion during a taunt against the king of Babylon), Ovid's account of the abduction of Persephone by Hades, a Norse myth where Odin learns about the coming death of Balder, and a Christian hymn about the resurrection of Christ that is attributed to St. Ambrose.

Meanwhile. I wrote my first short story in over three years. I may hone it and submit it. I'm also kicking around the idea of writing a short fixed verse play. I also have a blatantly commercial project on the horizon, working with a friend.

**Role Modlin** · 11-04-2009, 12:57 PM

I'm on Day Four of NaNoWriMo so that's pretty much all I'm thinking about this month. I've hit the daily quota of 1,667 words every day so I'm happy. I've actually made quota for today and it's just 1:55 pm. I'm hoping I'll get close to the 9,000 word mark by tonight.

**The wirerat** · 11-04-2009, 01:56 PM

I am currently in the process on writing a novel for Nanowrimo, which I need to kick into high gear on. (I have 2,000 words, thats it). I am also doing extensive research for a second novel about a 3,000 year old assassin, so I need to develop a very quick understanding of key world events during that time. I am also editing and putting together a poetry book, with a short story series in it as well.

rock_show_host · 11-05-2009, 01:54 PM

I'm on page 97 of an original screenplay I've been working on since June. Hoping to have a complete draft by the end of this month.

Jeffrey · 01-17-2010, 11:30 PM

I'm working on something likely to fail miserably: a philosophical verse novella that's a love letter to Virgil & Milton, Mad Max, and my nation. It's eating me alive. I'm quite a ways into it. For fans of Stephen King's The Stand, W.V.O. Quine's "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" and Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run." That's how I'd pitch it.

Travis · 01-18-2010, 01:23 AM

This I have to read.

Jeffrey · 01-18-2010, 11:49 AM

We'll see how good it turns out. It has to be True like Virgil or Ovid, both of whom wrote for audiences who knew the vast myths of their cultures but didn't really believe them. I'm not writing something for mass consumption (Virgil and Ovid were high-sellers, but did the average Roman plebeian really read their stuff?), but I want it to scratch an itch. So it departs from our history at the height of the cold war, based on a real incident that was perhaps the second-closest we came to nuclear warfare, and all of the characters are real people, thinly-disguised (some major folks, some very minor). One of our most notorious serial killers (who was never caught) fits my timeline well and is the "villain." I'm trying to ground it in some semblance of reality - fallout is bad, gas is in short supply, everyone is pretty much dying, and none of my characters are really deluded enough to think their quest will end in joy. But the quest is heroic. The only really major epic poem of the 20th century was Eliot's The Waste Land, which isn't heroic. Crane's The Bridge was heroic but fell short for most critics.

The philosophical Problem of Induction is the narrator's preoccupation.

Every true epic needs gods, and I think I have it covered without making a pantheon out of Ronald McDonald and Elvis. All of my American gods were worshiped in the 20th century as gods.