Welcome to Potrero Research Labs

Title: Welcome to Potrero Research Labs
Format: Audio drama script
Genre: Science fiction, suspense, spy
Purpose: Production by audio drama group
Progress: Script complete, 22 pages. Download from here (copyright Arman Borghem).
ETA: Script is currently not scheduled for production

Welcome to Potrero Research Labs is an audio drama script originally written for production by an Internet-based audio drama group. We follow a young researcher being hired at a research lab that officially makes peaceful products, but which in fact makes weapons. The employee doesn’t seem to mind that, but voices concerns about how they should be used. And, there’s something else about him too, which we don’t quite figure out until the end.

The green island

I went to Ireland with English class over the weekend last week. It was pretty cool, even though I don’t drink as much as most people, and going to the pub is basically the only thing you can do on evenings. Or so it seemed. It felt like half of all advertisements were for alcoholic beverages, and the other half was Drink-aware ads or ads which contained Orwellian messages (I saw ads proclaiming things such as “Shopping is good for you” and even “Guinness is good for you”).

I’m really behind on the novel, but I’m going to try to write a lot today, tomorrow and whenever I get the chance in general before the winter holidays. A lot of work in school these upcoming weeks before X-mas.

Today I went through ‘That’s What I’ll Keep Telling Myself‘ one more time thoroughly. Don’t know why I wanted to do it, I just did. Tuned it quite a bit, in any case. Comes in at just over 8k words, or 38 pages.

38 pages – that’s 38 minutes. Could have been an episode for a one-hour drama show on TV.

Anyway, now I’m going to rest for a while and then see if I can write something on the novel.

Status update… #5

Just a quick update on a couple of things. First of all, my two fantasy short stories (in Swedish) as well as the script (in English) for my Dark Matter episode have been released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

During the last month or so, I’ve been editing those two short stories here and there, changing a line or rearranging a sentence. A few days ago, before I decided to release the stories under the CC-license, I worked myself through them one more time to fix up any mistakes and errors, and improve a scene or three. In general, this behavior isn’t particularly professional, because I have to learn to write, edit and finish what I do. Completely. This is something that I haven’t been used to before, since I haven’t really published anything, and thus I’ve always been able to open up a file of my choosing on my hard drive and edit away. But as soon as you publish something (at least theoretically), you can’t really edit it afterwards. It’s already out there. So in addition to getting a new and better host space at archive.org (which actually works in Firefox), the Creative Commons license is another reminder that it’s time to let go of those stories. At least for now.

Second, I’ve written about 1500 words on the novel. This isn’t much. In fact, it isn’t much at all. But now that the short stories are done I hope I can focus more on it. I’m still working on the prologue as it is, but that’s almost done. For now, the prologue is going to be a bit longer than I first anticipated. This is so that I can take facts from it later on and put them into the beginning (or rest) of the novel. The shorter the prologue the better. Then again, blatant info dropping in the middle of prose isn’t really all that fun either. That’s why I need to write a comprehensive prologue from the start; so that I pick out only the most suitable parts and put them into relevant situations elegantly.

Dizzy

I’ve been sick the last few days, and although I’m getting slightly better, I’m still not feeling well. Haven’t been able to get anything done, really. Just been resting, listening to music, being passive. It’s boring, boring I tell you.

At least I had an idea about the two short stories that I might pursue. I’m thinking about writing a total of five short stories in the same fantasy universe. The two short stories I’ve already written are two seperate storylines, so the plan is to write one more about each person/group of persons and then let them converge in the final, fifth short story. How I haven’t decided yet. But I like the idea. I’ll definitely do it if I can come up with something satisfactory.

It’ll proably take quite some time until ‘That’s What I’ll Keep Telling Myself’ sees the light of day. I learned a lot writing ‘Last Shot’, though. Overall it works, but there are definitely bits in it that don’t feel right. Others I smile as I listen to them.

Anyway, it feels like ‘Last Shot’ could have done with more polishing from my side. It’s definitely been rewarding to listen to it, even though the actors did a great job I can hear where they might struggle with saying some lines convincingly, probably thinking “Who the hell wrote this cr*p!?”. I promise to think even more as an actor when I polish future scripts. Promise!

This is my first post running Blogger Beta. Yay for labels!

‘The Last Shot for Freedom’ released!

This audio drama from Darker Projects is the second episode of their science fiction anthology series Dark Matter. It was released on October 2, 2006. And it was written by me.

In the year 2210, Earth is at war with an alien species on a distant planet. When three journalists realize the conditions for Earth’s military presence may not be what they seem, they must endeavor to free everyone from the lies before it’s too late; to risk it all in what becomes… the last shot for freedom.

Download the episode (copyright 2006 Darker Projects).
Download the script (released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License).

Written by Arman Borghem
Original music composed and performed by Kai Hartwig and Kevin MacLeod

Featured in the cast were:

Laura Post as Serena Vince and The Wife
Philip Bennfall as The Technician
Delon Eubena as Mark
Mark Bruzee as The Announcer
Colin Snow as Carl Strad
Brandon Cole as Robert Hudson
Elie Hirschman as John Kempfer, Badger 2 and Interviewed Soldiers
Chris Snyder as James Spencer and The Husband
Dan Gorgone as Commander Russell
Byron Lee as Interviewing Reporter and Commercial Announcer

The series was produced and directed by Paul Mannering
Post-production by Philip Bennfall and Byron Lee
The executive producer for Darker Projects is Eric Busby

Status update… #4 (I guess)

I didn’t win the Eragon-contest. Someone in 8th class in a school in the same city as I live in got a shared second place, though. Good for her. I haven’t read all the ten winners yet, but those I looked at briefly contained both destinies and evil enemies.

Anyway, the two short stories I sent in (which didn’t win) are going to be the beginning of a small series of short stories set in the same fantasy universe. I have an idea for a third short story, but I don’t know when I will be able to start writing it.

It looks pretty much like I’ll write Hotet mot ovissheten (‘The Threat to Uncertainty’) as my project in school. I probably won’t have enough time to finish it all polished and ready, but a decent first draft shouldn’t be impossible.

My episode of Dark Matter is still not released. It’ll come when it comes. Should be soon, though (yeah, I’ve said this before – and I hope I’m right this time). For some good news, I’m basically finished with the script “That’s What I’ll Keep Telling Myself”. Feel pretty satisfied with how it turned out, too. And if I know my subconcious it’s probably in the process of coming up with a new idea for another script already…

That’s all for now.

It’s a first draft, baby!

It’s 03:30 and I just finished getting through the first draft of ‘That’s What I’ll Keep Telling Myself‘. Finally! When I’ve gotten some sleep I’ll have to plow it through again, look for mistakes, touch up on dialogue, etc, etc. Then it’s time to send it off. I think it’s pretty solid. Better than Last Shot, even. Last Shot has a decent amount of action, but with this script I really think I’ve managed to have a healthy mixture of suspense/action and some of the heavier stuff as well.

But then it’s 0330 hours and I might just be delusional. Have to wait until tomorrow, look at the script with a fresh set of eyes, thoroughly read it through and evaluate any weak spots.

Looks like I didn’t write anything on TTU this summer, even though I have jotted down a lot of ideas. It’s strange, I really thought I’d have time to do it. But I’ve been too busy (and written other stuff too!), I guess.

There’s also a short story (in Swedish) I’m hoping to write for a magazine. Something about a sea monster. There’s a deadline for that: October 1st. We shall see if I get around to writing anything.

Slow progress

‘Last Shot’. Delayed. Early August. Seriously. Not a joke.

Edit (August 20): We’re now talking mid September. Sucks, I know.

I’m thinking about ‘The Threat to Uncertainty’, which I was supposed to work on this summer (or maybe even finish the first draft!). I’ve been going over the story, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s still broken; i.e. there are still things that have to be fixed before I start writing. Been checking out the snowflake method, which is pretty close to what I’ve had in mind for this novel. In any case, I have to work on ‘Telling Myself’, which isn’t entirely solid yet (although I’ve already written a lot of it, I have yet to figure out one important point), I’m practicing driving because I want to have a driver’s license, and playing waaaaay too much Age of Empires II as well as rewatching Farscape, Babylon 5 and the occasional episode of TNG. Oh, and my desk looks like a battlefield.

I simply have to find a day when I sit down and do the planning that’s required for TTU to work. I have to find the day and feel like doing it. Only then can I start writing the true first draft.

Vacation and title

“The Last Shot for Freedom” has unfortunately been delayed another few days. The good news is, I’m about halfway through with the previously untitled “LSF semi-sequel”. I now have a working title, which I’ll probably use: “That’s What I’ll Keep Telling Myself”.

From July 10th until the 20th I’ll be on vacation a bit more north in Sweden, and I don’t know if I’ll have Internet access during that time. This makes things even more frustrating, because it means I might have to wait until after my vacation to actually hear the episode. Anyway, I’ll get back to work now. “Telling Myself” is waiting for me to finish it.

I was afraid there for a while

So after I completed my second short story (both have been sent away to the competition now, the last date was earlier than I had thought) I realised I had nothing going on creatively (except the novel, which I’m not actively working on right now). Several days passed, and I was desperately trying to come up with something to write; an idea, a concept, anything that I could expand on and use for an episode for Darker Projects, or even for another short story.

Luckily, I just came up with something. It started off small, just a character and a setting, then some special circumstances, and then it evolved into a story. So now I know what I’m going to write. Another script (hopefully) for Dark Matter. I’m glad my brain started working again, because I was indeed really afraid there for a while.

As for my already written episode of Dark Matter, it’s currently in production. Hopefully it will be out before long. I know I can barely wait; this is the first time I’ve done anything like this.

In other news it seems that our miniser of justice denies any criminal involvement regarding the police raid on (amongst others) the Pirate Bay server. He is even considering changing swedish law to make sharing copyrighted material legal. I don’t know if it’s just a flirt with the general public (and he doesn’t really mean it) or if he’s actually serious. In either case, interesting times lie ahead.