Update

101.5. That was my temperature as my body waged its battle against the flu. Never mind that I got the flu shot in October. Well, actually it did lessen the severity of the flu. And now I'm back.
The screenplay that was halfway done on January 10th I finished on January 11th. I decided to sit myself down and not get up until it was done. Something was driving me to finish it. Phew. Two screenplays in less than thirty days? Talk about mentally draining. Serious adrenaline rush though.
So what is the writer up to now?

February 4th is the deadline for Gotham Writer's to announce the winner of their YA novel contest.
February 18th is the start of the CS Open. What is that you say? Well, it's a contest with industry recognition and filming of the winning scene. You write a short scene, 3-5 pages, based on the premise they give you on the 18th. If you win, you advance to round two and do it again. The final winner gets the aforementioned prize.

The remainder of this month I am finishing what I like to call my final steak edit of my YA fantasy novel. What is a steak edit? I've been going through and adding more meat to certain chapters, and in places adding whole new chapters. I'm about forty pages from the end of the book.

After the steak edit comes the dessert edit. That's where I print out my novel (again), and do a spelling and grammar check. (Special shout out to Office Depot and Hp for having Hp ink on sale for 40% off this month).
Goal for my novel is to have it ready to submit to a publisher/agent
by February 14th.

February is also time for me to edit the last two screenplays I wrote (still haven't decided which one I'm submitting to the Nichols fellowship-The Oscars), and to work on the second novel that is already in progress.
What I have learned is that you cannot blaze through the rough draft of a novel the way you can a screenplay. The format of a screenplay allows you to write it much quicker than a novel.

Screenplays are a visual medium and novels a mental medium. It could take me six more months to finish the second novel and by that time I will have written at least five more screenplays. Then again it could take me one month to finish the novel.

I don't believe in writer's block. There was a time that I did, but then I realized, writer's block is actually a choice to not do what I love to do. Why would I deliberately block myself from that? Sure I may not like the first five minutes of what I'm writing, but after that I am in the zone.

I may write five pages or twenty one in an hour, either way I am doing what I love. And let's face it. If your not doing what you love, what are you doing?