March 28, 2007

Hard Copy: Project Book

Now she's done it! Here's yet another new project Sloan and I are attacking, in a parallel and mutually encouraging sort of way.

While we had lots of fun and sunny lazy time in Boca, we also got a lot of good creative work done. We read a lot, and did a lot of various writing, and wrote and shot two comedy shorts. At some point, Sloan came to me with another part to our plan for artistic world domination. "I'm going to use my blog as a first draft for a book I want to write," she said. "I think you should do it, too."

Partially inspired by the delightful Bill Bryson (whose book we feature in one of the shorts we shot poolside in Boca), we talked about this idea more and realized that yes, if we shifted our blogging habits just a bit, we really could have a very full book of humor essays within a few months.

We flopped down on a pair of chaise lounges in the warm Florida sunshine and got to scribbling in our notebooks. Before long we'd each come up with over one hundred possible short essay topics. Funny personal stories, vacation tales, family tattle-tailing, a great range of things.

One hundred essays, two or three pages each? That's a book.

So we're going to hold each other to the commitment of writing at least one full-on essay per week, and posting it on each of our blogs. Once we get to a certain number, we're going to start putting out book proposals (a project in and of itself).

Until then, I'll be sharing first drafts of these essays here on Bella Rossa, and will be very happy to hear your thoughts and opinions on this project as it takes shape. Deal?

4 comments:

Chancelucky said...

Bella,
is this like that show Deal or No Deal where they have like all these dollar amounts out there and you have to decide if you want to hold onto the right suitcase? The host guy with the shiny head is truly weird, but not as weird as all those women from the Robert Palmer videos who stand in front of the briefcases.

Anyway, Deal sounds good to me....You're very funny....so it wouldn't surprise me at all if the book thing flew....

Dale said...

Sounds like you and Sloan are a force that's unstoppable! Excellent idea and I'll be curious to see how things go.

Coaster Punchman said...

Yet ANOTHER creative project???? You put me to shame! One day I will shed all the dead weight of my life, follow your example and start living. One day.

Elizabeth McQuern said...

Thanks, guys, we're doing our best with all of these projects - not so much the work itself as keeping our morale high.

And last night I went to a local tavern for a dry run of my stand-up debut, so there's that, too. Almost 20 years of wanting to do this, and I'm still knee-knockingly terrified. Yay!