Kyle Kerr

Where I’ve Been

06/15/10 | General, Movies, My Writings, Reviews | 0 Comments

Yes, I’ve been gone for a while, but I have my reasons.  The biggest thing to happen recently is that I (finally!) moved back to the Boston area.  I’m in an area called Somerville, literally just across the city border from Cambridge.  Just a T ride away from my favorite city in the world!

Moving is a real pain in the arse.  I’ve moved almost once a year for the past 7 years, which is kind of ridiculous if you ask me.  I’m ready to settle down for a while, and I think this living arrangement is going to be both positive and productive (I’m living with two other writers).  No distractions, no more excuses.

The only thing that I regret about moving is that I won’t be able to attend ThrillerFest like I’d hoped.  There’s no way I can afford it after the move, so I’ll have to wait until next year!  And, since the Maui/Hawaii Writers Conference & Retreat is now officially defunct, it looks like it’s going to be the only party worth going to.  Good thing I’m writing a thriller now.

Speaking of which, it got put on the back burner for a few weeks while I’ve been in transition.  No time to write amidst packing, moving, and unpacking.  But now that I’m (mostly) settled into my new place, I hope to increase my output exponentially!  I’ve actually joined a local group of writers that get together once a week for the sole purpose of… writing!  We literally gather and spend two hours in silence.  Sounds dull, but it’s surprisingly helpful.  In fact, I’m writing this Journal Entry at said meeting right now!  I also used it to finish a chapter I’d been languishing over for a couple weeks, which brought me into a new one that I’m currently working on… 18,000 words down!

With 15 chapters, that’s about 1,200 words per chapter.  My first book averaged just under 4,800 words per chapter.  Yeah, it’s a big book (134,000 words within 28 chapters—which you can BET is going to be cut significantly for publication)!  The way this book is going, there’s probably going to be 80-90,000 words and 70ish chapters.  Writing a thriller is a much different experience and I’m enjoying the challenge.  It’s also undeniably adult – there’s sex, torture, murder, and lots of yummy, juicy stuff to write.  There’s all that stuff in my other book too, but not in the same way.  You’ll have to read them to see!

I’ve come to realize that I need to do a bit more plotting of the sub chapters.  I have all of the big events that need to happen and the sub plots that will make it a decidedly non-linear story, but need to fill in a little of the… filler.  How am I going to get from the big event I’m wrapping up to the next one?  I don’t know yet, and that’s one of the things that’s making my productivity lag.  I’m trying to write this as chronologically as I can (as an experiment… the last book was written on a per chapter, hodgepodge-like basis and I didn’t stick to any particular pattern) to see if it helps the flow of the book.  Obviously there are some bumps I need to work out, but it seems to be working fairly well.

In the time since my last post, I’ve seen a number of movies… Iron Man 2 (8/10), Date Night (7/10), Clash of the Titans (6/10), Sex and the City 2 (8/10), Letters to Juliet (7/10), Shrek Forever After (9/10), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (8/10).  Upcoming movies I’m looking forward to are Toy Story 3, Knight & Day, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, The Last Airbender, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Inception, Salt, Charlie St. Cloud, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.  Those are the summer releases, but of course I can’t NOT mention Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 in November and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in December!

Honestly haven’t read any books worth noting.  Sad, but true.  Though I’ve recently acquired The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Kathy Griffin’s memoir, Official Book Club Selection… both of which I have high hopes for.

I need to start planning out some of my other bajillion projects, but want to get seriously back into the flow of writing this one first.  I’m hoping that by writing more than one project at a time I’ll be able to be more productive, because if I lose interest in one I’ll have another to go to, which should hopefully eliminate much of the down-time in my writing.  I.  Freaking.  Hope.

That should be it for now, but I’ll be writing more entries now that I’m not going crazy.  Let me know how you’ve all been either in the comments or by sending me an email!

Until next…

Kyle W. Kerr