Two-bit scene

Unfortunately, I had been a little under the weather (though I got better just in time for work) and life at the paper has been extra stressful this week, so I haven't gotten anywhere near as much writing as I'd hoped. But I finally got my first battle scene written with the Quarter Master. Of course Captain Venture won the day (t didn't matter that he had to fight 8-bit and 16-bit video game monsters -- the Quarter Master is a two-bit thug), but should he have killed him, or did our hero make a mistake in granting the supervillain quarter? Stay tuned.

It was a bit harder than I figured, because I had a hard time remembering video games circa 1984. There was Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, as well as Frogger (Venture had to hop to it, or else he could have croaked), but I didn't want to use a lot of the space ones, which is what I used to play. I'll have to do some research for the second draft. Heck, doing the whole screenplay has been a lot harder than writing "Boston Thomas." The book was a lot of freeform writing -- a screenplay has too much formatting to do to really allow for that. But, this will pretty much be ready for people to read after it's written.

And tomorrow I'm off to Vegas! With luck I'll come back a bit more refreshed and maybe even a bit richer (or more accurately: a bit less poor).

Page count: 14.

Loose change

I'm trying to write the battle of the first major supervillain Captain Venture took down. He basically would have advanced computers and virtual reality for years had he not used his powers for evil. A computer programmer who can control video game characters and make them come to life, his goal is to take the world's quarters (yes, I'm still stealing from Futurama). His name: The Quarter Master.

I've also already written excerpts of skirmishes with the Groovy Goon (who has a giant disco robot), The Downsizer (he's bad business) and the Lab Rat (he wants to experiment on humanity, making people go through his diabolical maze).

I've got a few more ideas, plus some good ones from Abby and Austin, but I need plenty more.

Page count: 10.

Working for the weekend

Well, the script is off to an OK start, but I need to get a lot of pages done this weekend since I'll be gone from Saturday through Sept. 14. I have to work on Labor Day, so I don't have a full weekend to write (and I'm not complaining since I volunteered because I need the extra cash). And, I better get used to a five-day work week for the time being. At least I have a little break tomorrow; this has been one of the worst weeks of work I've had in a while, and it was only three days! Ugh.

I started out the story with the evolution of Captain Venture's costume, from a '70s leisure suit, such as above right, to '80s spandex, to cool digs that look like the X-Men uniforms from the movies. A warning to all who know me well: I've found that this genre has given me the perfect venue to spew forth lots of puns.

Austin's submission will be used, though the obsessive-compulsive will start out as a supervillain. Any other ideas would be appreciated.

And because I did scripts in college and also the mockumentary format, editing shouldn't take too long. I think this will be ready to read not too long after I finish.

Page count: 5.

Who wants to be a hero?

Well, it's a new month, and instead of editing in a couple of weeks, I decided to hold off on editing "Boston Thomas" until Wendy is ready to edit hers too. (She passed the 50,000-word mark earlier this week; congrats to her.)

So I've decided to see whether I can write the first draft of a screenplay in 30 days. A feature-length script is at least 90 pages, but this is a rough draft, so unless there are objections, I'm going for 60 pages, which should be 2 pages a day. (This also helps since I'm going to Vegas this month.)

It's going to be a mockumentary about a superhero about to retire, so he's willing to let a film crew have full access in his last week fighting crime. His name is Captain Venture, and he's like Mr. Incredible but without the family.

And, of course, I need everyone's help. Got an idea for a superhero/villain? I want to hear about it. You give me a submission, it'll get used. You can be incredibly detailed, or just a few lines, like the PMS Avenger from "Mystery Men" -- "I can only work four days a month. You got a problem with that?"

And finally, I promised a picture a while back, but our illustrator got a bit carried away and rather than just sketch Boston Thomas, he's going full-on with a painting. But he did give me a working sketch of our space hero.