Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Writing Lonely Dog x 2

It is seriously full on at the moment! Friday we met with Warner Bros for a quick update. They came through NZ en route from Sydney to LA, and stopped over briefly. Their main focus is scripting with the hope of having draft one complete by the end of September.

We are currently sorting diaries so that the screen writer can come to New Zealand, visit Queenstown, catch up with Ivan, see the home of the Lonely Dog, and pick up a feel for the landscape that has inspired the fantastical world of Alveridgea, and use this as fuel as he completes the script. Can't wait.

At the same time we are deep in plot outlines as we craft the novel version of the book. This will be a largely text based book, with only the maps and one or two pencil sketches. Those of you lucky enough to have a copy of the source code - The Almalogue - will know how important Ivan's sketches and paintings are in bringing the world to life. ( Along with all the ephemera and found pieces inserted into it as well). Without these, we need to pay attention to adding extra descriptive passages to the writing so that those not in possession of an Almalogue still get a good idea of the world of Lonely Dog. Our goal is to have the book ready for worldwide release hopefully next May. For that to occur we need to be ready for the Frankfurt Book Fair in October. That is putting some pressure on!

The book editor is flying from London to New Zealand to be with us over the next few weeks and keep us on track. Ivan has been drawing, and has come up with a simply sensational sketch as a basis for a painting that will be the feature of the cover. Awesome.

As you might imagine, one of the things we are trying to do is to keep the two developments running in tandem, being informed by each other. It is great that over the next few weeks we will have both parties here getting immersed in the "real oil". It is quite humbling to be getting this level of attention from large international companies. It certainly feels as if the world of Lonely Dog is about to be enjoyed by a whole lot more people!

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