down with squirrels

Sleep is for the Weak

2012-02-06T07:50:00.000-05:00

If you've been writing for any length of time, insomnia is inevitable. One of these days, you'll be in the middle of a perfectly wonderful dream, and your brain will wake you up. "Hey! Hey! I fixed your plothole! Grab a pen! Let's get to work!"

Sometimes you're lucky enough to go back to sleep. But if you're anything like me, you're wide awake. Once the muse has struck, you're stuck. It's 3:43 in the morning, and the squirrels in your Panda brain are running at the speed of light.

Not that I would be going through anything like that right now. Because that 3:43 AM is just some arbitrary time I pulled out of the ether. I was definitely not awakened from a nightmare last night. Especially not a nightmare about how my daughter left the rabbit cage open and the rabbit jumped from four feet straight onto the concrete floor. I most certainly did not wake up screaming, "Ah! Oreo!"

The rabbit, not the cookie.

This also probably has nothing to do with the fact that I got a script last night that needs a polish and it's due ASAP. The two events are totally unrelated. I'm sure of it.

Ahem.

From one chronic insomniator to another, here are some suggestions.

Exercise

Not right now, not in the middle of the night. But on a regular basis, and in the mornings or afternoons. Exercise before bed has the tendency to keep you up, not let you relax. If I exercise before bed, it's some sort of relaxing yoga.

I missed a few days at the gym last week, and now I'm insomniating. Learn from my mistakes, Pandas. Watch and learn.

Tell Yourself to Stay Awake

Sounds counter-intuitive, I know. Just like concentrating on going to sleep keeps you awake, if you try to stay awake, sometimes it makes your brain shut off. Sometimes.

Drain Your Brain

Read, work on puzzles (I sudoku), and do whatever it takes to keep your brain going. If I can make it through a tough sudoku without falling asleep, I know it's inevitable. It's time to-

Shut up and Color
If it's been more than thirty minutes, you're probably in it for the long haul. What? Do you need a personal invitation? Get up and write already!

And then tweet at me on Twitter, because I'm probably already up.

Decisions, Decisions

2012-02-02T19:16:00.004-05:00

Hallo, Pandas! Miss me?

I've been here, slinging words, working on deadlines, living in a basement with a rabbit, and going thru some major life-changing events.

I'm also juggling two screenplays with deadlines, and a teleplay writing course.

I've been thinking a lot about the blog. There are so many ideas I have for the blog, but I'm not sure any of it is interesting to my Panda pals.

I think what I need is a bit more focus. More importantly, I'd like to know what you, my favorite Pandas, want from me (and the blog).

Should I keep things the way they are, amusing stories about life in general and sometimes spin it back to writing?
Should I focus only on writing?
Should I focus on my quest to go from basement-dwelling to writer-with-a-paycheck?
Should I post more? Less? Give it up altogether? It's been a while since I last posted--does anyone even care anymore?

So, Pandas, weigh in. Let me know what you're looking for.

For Today's Homework...

2011-11-11T18:50:00.001-05:00

Hey there, Pandas. I'm not dead, it just feels that way. Round two of the antibiotics seems to be helping. I will defeat you, bronchitis!

Give me a few more days to cover, and I'll be back to my verbose self.

In the meantime, I saw this video today about the power of words, and needed to share.

Take two minutes to watch it, Pandas. Keep a box of tissues handy.

Talk with you soon!

Sorry So Short...

2011-10-30T19:51:00.000-04:00

Better Late Than Never

2011-10-26T23:10:00.000-04:00

So, it's getting a little late here on Wednesday evening, but I thought I'd stop in to say hello to all of you lovely Pandas!

An interesting week, to say the least. We pulled Drummer Girl out of her Tae Kwon Do class at the YMCA because the instructor threatened to knock her out. I don't care who you are, there's no reason anyone should say that to a nine-year old--but especially not an instructor. Silly me, I thought "Courtesy" was one of the Tae Kwon Do tenets.

Luckily, my kid let it roll off her, like water off a duck's back. When I asked her about it, she said that the instructor talked to the other kids like that all the time.

Um, no.

So, she's at a new dojang this week. It's awesome. Very strict. She loves it, too. I haven't seen her this excited about something in a long time.

As for ROW80 goals, I'm doing well on the fitness and weight loss. Down four pounds since Sunday, mostly because I'm walking 3-5 miles a day, plus doing the yoga.

Writing-wise, got the Executive Summary for the screenplay out to the people who were interested in it, so I can cross that off my list.

I will have this screenplay outline done by Sunday night. No, seriously. Set in stone, brought down the mountain, this is gonna happen. I'm about 75% of the way done, so it's almost there.

When I was at UCLA, we had two weeks to do the outline, this will be done in one. If it's done on Sunday, I'll be a week ahead of schedule.

I know that some people are anti-outline. Personally, I need some sort of road map.

How about you, Pandas? Do you outline?

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

2011-10-23T23:45:00.000-04:00

Hi dee ho, Pandaroos! I know what you're thinking, a Sunday update on Sunday?!? How can this be? It simply is, Pandas. It just is.

The yoga/exercise part of my ROW80 goals is going strong. I feel great, and now Drummer Girl has joined in. Now we're doing Vinyasa before bedtime. Okay, sure, she's doing it so she can earn a Girl Scout badge, but she's doing it for a month. If nothing else, that will help me stay on track.

DG also wants do get up at a really early hour and do Vinyasa before school. I give it three days, tops.

As for the writing goals, all I can say is Oy. Don't get me wrong, I've been busy. Really frickin' busy. Last week was all about the outlining (mostly done!) and the synopsifying (done!) and the vamping and the revamping and the re-revamping. It's a good thing I'm a go-with-the-flow kinda gal.

So, all those goals I keep making that keep changing? Let's just take those pretty little goals and throw them out the darn window, shall we?

Whee!

Things are in so much flux that I'm not even going to post my goals. I'm just going to say that for this week, I'm going to do whatever shit needs done on the project. Maybe I'll have more concrete goals by Wednesday.

Then again, maybe not.

Cloak of Invincibility

2011-10-19T11:17:00.000-04:00

Good morning to all my Panda pals out there! I hope your weather is better than our weather. We got the cold, wet and dreary going on here in Ohio.

For those of you keeping up with the home game, I'm still living in my dad's basement. Last week, Dad and Stepmom asked if I'd like to be Dad's personal chef. Now, I've been a chef before. It was my career before food allergies decided to manifest, and I was forced to quit. Sure, I could always go into pastry again, but there weren't many calls for pastry chefs in Alaska. At least, not in corner of nowhere where I lived. Never mind that it's hell on the waistline.

But personal cheffing for anyone, let alone my dad, was never something I considered.

Dad's a non-compliant type-two diabetic who eats cheez doodles and ice cream, and never takes his medication. Or monitors his cholesterol. But when he did a stress test last week, they told him things didn't look good. He needed to get rid of the crappy food, exercise more, and get healthy.

So, I agreed. Partly because he needs it, and partly because he was sabotaging my diet with the chips and chip dip. I simply cannot resist the oniony goodness of chip dip....

Hello, friend.

Life took a realistic turn this week when Dad went in for an exploratory surgery and wound up having an angioplasty. Basically, his arteries were full of sludge--one was 99.9% blocked!--and they put in tubes (stents) to open the arteries back up.

So, yeah. Personal chef, c'est moi.

Here's the thing, Pandas. I can make all the healthy food I want for the next two weeks. My biggest fear is that he's going to eat junk when he goes back to work, and all this exercise and diet stuff is going to get thrown out the window. Because he really thinks he's invincible. That he doesn't have to test his blood sugar. That he can eat whatever he wants without consequences. And it almost killed him.

It is in that light that I ask you to be good to your Panda selves.

Most of you are writers, and I get it. It's tough. You're on your butt eight hours a day, surviving on cookie dough, pizza, and a Mountain Dew IV drip. I get it. I've been there. I've had so much caffeine in me I could see the flicker of the fluorescent lights in my office, fluttering like they were strobes. I don't think that's ever supposed to happen.

We are the creators of worlds, the gods of our own universes. We can call forth dragons and demons and unicorns and bunnies with the touch of the keys, but we are not invincible.

Get your body moving. Write for 30, then walk around the block. Eat better. Try a healthier snack. Put down the pizza and grab a carrot stick. It won't kill you. No, really. I promise. And hopefully, you'll live a little longer. You've got one shot on this twirling whirligig of life. Gotta make it count.

As for my ROW80 goals, I'm doing well. Dude and I revamped the outline last/this week, so I obviously didn't get the pilot done on track. Big bummer, but it's moving in a direction that is full of awesome, which is... awesome.

Today's all about turning my pages of scribbled notes into a cohesive outline.

Tomorrow, the rewriting begins! I'd like to be able to check in on the 30th with a complete pilot. Unless Dude makes any more changes, at which point, I may have to virtually strangle him.

Injured myself in the office chair on Monday (long story), so I had a bit of a set-back on Monday and Tuesday with the exercise thing. Did 70 minutes on the treadmill today along with 25 minutes of Vinyasa yoga to make up for it. I don't know if I'll make my goal of being completely fit and fabulous by my birthday in 5+ weeks, but I'd like to at least drop down a size. We'll see how it goes. It's forward momentum, and sometimes, that's enough.

How about you, Pandas? What's new in your neck of the bamboo forest?

I'm Sure It's Sunday Somewhere...

2011-10-10T23:53:00.001-04:00

Evening, Pandaroos! How are things in your neck of the woods?

I took Sunday off to spend the day with Drummer Girl. We had an absolute blast at a local festival.

Drummer Girl looking as pretty as a princess!

The fountain full of bubbles.


Drummer Girl on her way down the rock wall. I missed the moment when she actually pushed the buzzer.

Why, yes! Those *are* woollybears
on my head! Thanks for noticing!

The dresser we bought from a local artist. He painted the entire thing with spray paint.
Yeah, you heard me right. Spray paint.

After we got home, I did some online writing with Dude. By the time I was ready to post my update, it was already Monday, so I figured I might as well get Monday's writing done before I posted my update.

It made perfect sense early in the morning.

Anyway, for my #ROW80 goals, things here are about as well as could be expected. Still ~~chained to my laptop~~ working relentlessly on my mondo project. I'm about halfway through the pilot, and hope to have the first draft done by Thursday, Friday at the latest. It's doable, but I may have to live at Panera in order to get it done. It is what it is.

Oh, and I haven't yoga'd or cardio'd since Wednesday for under-the-weather reasons. I should be back on track tomorrow. I really need to yoga. I could use some inner peace right about now.

Though, I have started a new project with my daughter, Drummer Girl. We're making 1000 paper cranes, also known as a Senbazuru. Drummer Girl is really into origami, and we're having fun working together to get the cranes made.

Obviously not a crane, but one of
Drummer Girl's favorite origami projects.

According to Wikipedia:

An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury. The crane in Japan is one of the mystical or holy creatures (others include the dragon and the tortoise), and is said to live for a thousand years. In Japan, it is commonly said that folding 1000 paper origami cranes makes a person's wish come true.

Also according to legend, the more people you have fold the cranes, the more luck you will have. So, bonus!

We bought our kit online from Paper Jade, and got the gold foil kit.

So, yeah. Like this, but not. *This* kit comes
with twenty different colors, which is cool.
Drummer Girl wanted the gold foil kit, which is shiny.

There's a neat way to string the cranes, so you can keep them as a decoration.

1000 cranes full of awesome!

That's what's going on with me. Anything good going on with you?

Yeah, I Changed My Mind...

2011-10-05T08:42:00.000-04:00

Morning, Pandas! It's early enough over here that I still haven't finished my morning tea. I thought I'd start the morning out with an update on my #ROW80 accomplishments.

For those of you playing along at home, I signed up yesterday for an 80-day writing challenge. I set my own goals, and have 80 days to accomplish everything. Check-in is twice a week, Wednesdays and Sundays, which means more blog posts for all you Pandas out there.

Yesterday was my first day doing the ROW80. I posted my goals, got all excited, and was on-track to get everything done...

...until about ten minutes after I made my post. I got a call from Dude, and he wanted to know what I thought of turning the series into a movie. Well, it originally was going to be a movie, but we were approached and asked what ideas we had for a series, so we went with that. Now that we've started the groundwork on the series, people are asking for the same thing, but as a feature.

This is a good thing. People are interested in our project. There's buzz, and it's not even written yet. But, it means more work for us. Well, mostly me. Which is chock full of awesome.

If he would have told me this twenty minutes earlier, I could have changed my blog post. Since it was already out there, I decided to just update everything today.

So, I'm one day in, and I'm changing my goals for this project. By December 22, I will:

write the show bible;
write ~~three episodes~~ one episode;
write 13 leave-behinds for the first season in final form;
complete a script on the same project;
write a new treatment for that same script; and
do a half-hour of cardio/yoga/exercise/
movement per day.

So far, I've done one leave-behind on the project, and Dude is working on the bible. Today's goal is to finish the outline for episode 1 so I can start writing the episode tomorrow. Deadline for episode 1 is October 15th.

Oh, and I'm also keeping up with the yoga. I could use some inner peace right about now.

Anyone else doing ROW80? NaNoWriMo? Any other writing challenges? Do tell!

I'm Not Dead Yet...

2011-10-04T15:13:00.000-04:00

...just hibernating.

Boy, have I missed you, Pandas! So much has happened, yet so much is still the same.

I'm still in Ohio, finally relocated into my dad's basement so my daughter could have her own room. In a couple of weeks, the sports car will be put away for the winter, so I'll be carless. So, I've got that going for me....

Huh? Writing projects? Oh, yeah, baby. I have plenty. Top priority goes to a pilot project I'm co-writing with Dude, and a rom-com for Famous Producer.

The pilot's taking up most of my time, and I feel like I'm reinventing the wheel. Screenplays and teleplays are the same thing, only different. I'm learning to speak teleplay.

As I write this, there are four projects sitting on Agent's desk. If one of my projects doesn't pan out soon, I'll be working at Panera instead of writing there. Or maybe not, since I won't have a car...

It's October, which means that National Novel Writing Month is around the corner. I did it in the past, but I'm not doing it this year. Mostly because I need to focus on my screenplays and teleplays this year, not my novels.

Anyway, since I work better with deadlines, I've decided to join in the fun at A Round of Words in 80 Days. It's an 80-day writing challenge. I'm a bit late in signing up for it, because the program started yesterday, but I did my goal yesterday, so it's all good.

My ROW80 goal is to get this damn series knocked out. By December 22, I plan to have the show bible, three episodes, and the 13 leave-behinds for the first season in final form. Plus, a half-hour of cardio/yoga/exercise/movement of some sort per day. I'm paying for that YMCA membership. Might as well use it. And, I can walk there! Bonus!

Anyway, it's a hefty, but do-able goal. And I'll be in better shape because of it.

The nice thing for you, Pandas, is that they make you blog about your writing journey for the 80 days. Regular blog posts? That's just crazy talk!

So that's what's going on with me... What's new in your neck of the woods?

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

2011-07-13T19:47:00.000-04:00

Hello, Anna's Pandas!

Let me introduce myself. I am Anna's chinchilla, here to assure you that she has neither forgotten nor abandoned you! She thinks of you often in the midst of every day chaos and will be back to corresponding soon. In the meantime, awarding of prizes is in order. Tomkatzz, Aspiring_x and Vicki Rocho all had fabulous submissions so Anna has decided to give each a choice of a "Squirrels mug or a B&N gifty cert". Please send her your address if you are one of these prosperous pandas, and thank you for your entries!

And in case you were wondering, a chinchilla is NOTHING like a squirrel. I am much more fluffy and cuddly.

~Anna's chinchilla

Paradigm Shift

2011-06-27T18:19:00.004-04:00

If you've been keeping up with the blog at all, you'll know that I recently spent some time in Nashville, where I bought the most comfortable boots I've ever owned. I also discovered that it's completely acceptable in Nashville to wear cowboy boots and shorts. I don't know if it's acceptable anywhere else, but I'm doing it anyway. It's hot, the boots are comfy, so... Neener.


The only pic I have of these boots. I'm wearing them a lot, but my feet keep getting cut off in pics.

I also don't know why, but the boots seem to be getting me a lot of attention. Or, maybe it's just because I'm no longer wearing yesterday's food-stained pajamas in public when I write, I've lost *cough!* pounds, and I'm actually taking care of myself. Who the hell knows. Ask the guy who whistled at me while I was at Target yesterday. Maybe he's got a clue.

Anyway, when I was in Nashvegas, I did most of my writing at a Panera. Any time I completed a project, I celebrated with a mini cupcake from Ivey Cake. I completed two projects while I was down there. The first cupcake, I told you about already. This is the story of the second.

FLASHBACK TO:

Me, at Panera. Again. Writing, writing, writing. I had an awesome spot in one of the comfy chairs with a little side table for my mouse and iced tea, and an electric outlet. I set up shop.

Notes on napkins because I couldn't type quickly
enough to keep up with my brain. Can you read those?
Neither could I. Next time, I'm doing a voice recording.

For what it's worth, I wear the WRITER hat for several reasons. When I'm at the house, it's usually just to get my brain in the shut-off-the-Internet-and-write gear. But the main reason that I wear it in public is not to be all, "Ooo! Look at me! I'm a WRIIIIIITER!" It's to get people to stop asking me where the damn wi-fi hotspot is. Unless I'm #wordmongering on Twitter or doing minor research, I'm usually not on the Internet. I'm writing. Leave me alone.

I sooo need this.

If I'm on a break, coming back from a tea refill, or whatnot, yes, please talk to me. I crave conversation. Even listening to conversation. I have notebooks filled with other people's conversations. Pay no attention to the redheaded wallflower. But if I'm on a roll, and the words are flying, don't ask me anything.

Case in point, just last week, my kid interrupted me right when my brain said, You know what you should do, change...

It was like coming out of a trance. I had no idea what was going on, where I even was. All I knew was that the words were lost. Change? Change what? Drove me nuts for 30 minutes until my brain came right around again.

Speaking of which, where was I? Something... Somewhere... Oh. Boots. Nashville. Panera. Ivey Cake.

Right.

So, I'm at Panera, done with my project (WAHOO!), and I'm ready for my mini Ivey Cake. Now, I have two options:

SMART OPTION: I can pack up my computer, my hat, my pens, pencils, apples, half-scribbled napkins and the rest of my debris. Take it all with me, and then hope my spot is there when I get back.

CONVENIENT OPTION: Treat the jaunt to Ivey Cake as a mad dash to the bathroom. In and out in two minutes, flat.

I chose the convenient option. What would you do, Pandas?

So, I'm tromping down the sidewalk, a woman on a mission. I'm barely past Panera when this sweet-looking older gentleman with a Coldstone cup jumped in my way and blocked my path. I'm not sure, but I think it was the boots.

It was like being mugged with kindness. This guy kinda looked like my dad, I figured I wasn't in any harm, so I stopped.

NICE GUY

So, are you down here for the festival?

That, and for my job.

NICE GUY

What kind of work do you do, little lady?

And I tell him -- as briefly as I can without breaking my confidentiality agreement -- about the Nashville Project that I'm working on and how important it is, and-

BRAIN

Psst. You left out your laptop.

I want to leave, but I don't want to leave. NICE GUY seems like a, well, nice guy. But I should at least be polite....

What do you do?

And he smiles at me like I should KNOW. Which probably means he's famous. Here's the thing, Pandaroos. I don't drool over famous people. They're regular people with cool jobs. They wake up in the morning just like I do, they put their shoes on the same way. People are people.

Should I ever be a famous writer, L-O-Frickin'-L, I don't want people drooling on me. Spoils the taffeta.

Seriously, I wouldn't want my kid bothered by it, I wouldn't want my private life on TMZ, and I definitely wouldn't want to be mobbed by doting fans.

People who appreciate my work, sure? Let's do this thing quietly, and without fuss. I'll even chat your ear off if we both have the time. But don't make a scene. It's unsettling.

So I don't make a scene.

FAMOUS NICE GUY

I used to drive for Brad Paisley.

See Pandas? What I tell you. Cool jobs. But the way he said it, he implied something more. It's what we writers call subtext.

BRAIN
(fast and rambling)

Is he Brad Paisley's dad? Is that why
he said it that way?

Or, maybe he started out as a driver,

now he's the bass guitarist? Or, I know! Maybe-

He asks my name, and I tell him. I ask his and-

BRAIN

Maybe Famous Nice Guy's a drummer?
I needz Ivey Cake.

Shoot. Famous Nice Guy just told me his name, and I don't even know it. I can't focus. I want to be involved in this conversation, but my laptop is sitting out. Someone's going to steal it.

And since I forgot to save my latest creation to a flash drive, I will LOSE MY WORK, and the hate spiral will commence.

I'd love to chat, but I'm doing
this... thing. Let me get you my card.

A quick search of my pockets tells me that I have $3, my credit card and ID, and nothing else. Not only do I not have any business cards, my wallet with all my other credit cards, and my military ID, simply isn't there.

BRAIN

You left your computer AND your wallet
unattended in Panera? Oh, you're so screwed.

I start to freak the hell out.

As Famous Nice Guy starts to ask what kind of country music I listen to, his BUDDY comes out of Coldstone. I nod in acknowledgement, which got me a cheshire-cat grin from Buddy (read as: also probably famous). As soon as Famous Nice Guy finishes speaking-

Oh, is this your friend? I'll let you go.
Nice meeting you.

And they're standing there with their mouths hanging open while I dash off. For the Ivey Cake, of course. I'm back in Panera in less than a minute.

They're gone before I get back.

Well, my curiosity was piqued. Could I find Famous Nice Guy's picture on the 'net? Google, schmoogle, no, I can't. But when I Google Brad Paisley directly, I realize that I just blew off Brad Paisley. Yes, that's right, Pandas. I ignored his famous self right in front of Coldstone. At least, I think it was him. He was wearing sunglasses, but he looked like the guy in the picture. Damn.

Now I feel like gum on the bottom of my boot heel. Because I may not gush when I meet the famous and fab, but I don't want them thinking I'm a jerk, either. Damn, damn, damn.

It was at that moment that I knew what an opportunity I had lost. If I had only packed up my laptop. If I only had asked for five minutes and went back to get my laptop. Hell, the tour bus was in the parking lot. They were on their way to Cleveland. I could have left my suitcase, packed up my laptop, hitched a ride home, and chatted their ears off all the while.

Or, until they left me for dead on the side of the road because I wouldn't stop talking. Because when I'm excited about something, you can't get me to shut up. I'm working on that.

So, that was my moment of clarity. I knew right then I had to be more in the moment. It's something I've been studying recently through yoga and meditation. Be in the moment. Go with the flow. Be still, and let it happen.

Because right now, things are tough. I'm still in Dad's basement. I have my kid with me. I'm on the verge of my first paycheck. And it's huge, especially for a "first-time", seven-year overnight success of a writer. Whatever you think it that check is, Pandas, double it.

My friends are excited for me, my dad's wife wants us out of the house, tension is at an all-time high. And everyone asks, When is it coming?

It is not today. It is not tomorrow. I have no answer. Go with the flow.

While I was in Nash, I sent an email to a producer with projects she requested. It's been two weeks. Should I write her every day and see what's up? Should I call and fill up her voice mail?

Be still, and let it happen.

And today, it did.

The biggest one: Are you moving? And if so to... Ohio? Nashville? Spain? The Moon? Los Angeles? Anchorage? (insert your town here)? Where will Drummer Girl go to school?

Be in the moment. Today, I am in Ohio. And that is enough.

The questions keep coming, and still, there are no answers.

It's hard, because I cannot plan. There are so many things that I want to do. But I do not think it right to make plans, then cancel. Better to show up unexpectedly, than to let people down. I guess.

At this point, I have two choices. I can stress about it, get all worked up, and crumple under the pressure. Or I can stop worrying about things I have no control over, and stay sane.

Go with the flow.

Tall Tale Challenge: The Shiner

2011-06-20T09:59:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, I went to the roadside fruit stand with the fam. And it's not just any fruit stand. They have a soft-serve ice cream stand, complete with fresh berries or fruit. The flavor changes every week throughout the summer months, depending on what's in season.

This week, they had strawberry and/or vanilla or chocolate and/or raspberry. Fresh raspberry topping, if I remember correctly, but I could be mistaken.

See, as yummy as it all sounds, I didn't really eat any of it. Because less than a minute into our stay, just when we're all figuring out what to get, my kid slipped on the gravel, and knocked her eye on the counter.

She now has an amazing shiner.

It's on the other eye, but yeah, this is what she looks like.

She won't let me take a picture, so that'll just have to wait until she goes to sleep.

Anyway, I just realized that she has a pretty lame story to go along with a pretty spectacular bruise. That, dear Pandas, simply will not do.

So, make something up. A shiner story she can be proud of. She's already got the war wound, how did she get it?

Prizes to the one with the best story. PRIZES, I tell you!

EDIT:

Here's the pic I took of it last night, about two minutes after it happened. Now, it's all purple and blue.

I got this pic in exchange for more ice cream.

The coloring when she shuts her eye, it's phenomenal. I probably won't be able to get that pic without buying her another rabbit, so this will have to do.

Viva Nashvegas!

2011-06-10T07:58:00.002-04:00

Greetings from the land down yonder! Nashville is awesome, Pandas! Having a blast!

Tuesday was spent shopping and stressing. My cousin and I squeezed every moment out of that day that we could. We both bought some awesome cowboy boots, too. Got there ten minutes before the store closed, still walked out with boots. They’re the most comfortable shoes I’ve ever owned. I’m wearing them everywhere now.

Even with socks.

I am convinced that this is a sign of the apocalypse. I never wear socks. Even in winter with my eighty-below snow-clomping boots, socks are not even part of the equation.

Socks are evil. It's one of my "things".

Perhaps the looming apocalypse is also to blame for this heat. I haven't checked the temp yet today, but yesterday it was five thousand degrees in Nashville.

I'm pretty sure the picture for this book cover
is not doctored in any way. It is a genuine
picture of a tree spontaneously combusting,
in the heart of downtown Nashville.

It’s like someone left the heat on. I get it, Nashville. It gets hot down here. Let’s move on, shall we? Does it rain down here, too? Freakin' prove it!

Met some cool, famous people on Tuesday night. Supposedly, I’m going to be on TV at some point. If I find out anything, I’ll let you know. Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if they cut me out. “See that crazy girl in the copper dress? The one drooling on herself, with the cicada in her hair? She needs to go.”

I got dive-bombed by several cicadas *moments* after I told one of my
Tweetpeeps that there weren't any cicadas around. Turns out, those
little buggers lovelovelove to play in the light. When there's a lighting crew,
and super-duper bright lights? The better to dive-bomb you, my dear.

If there’s a giant blur or a floating logo on your screen when you watch this thing, it’s not you, Pandas. It’s me.

I also have a lot of music-related activities going on this week. This week, we have the CMA Music Festival, Country Fan Days, and Bonnaroo.

My cousin and I went to the CMT Music Awards on Wednesday. In spite of waiting in line for three hours in triple-digit temps, we had a lot of fun. Definitely a memorable experience!

I gave a guy in line ten dollars to buy us all a round of waters. He ran to the booth, which was a block away, came back, and didn’t drug my water, or anything! Seriously, I think that water was the only thing that kept me from passing out in the heat. Even then, I think I still came pretty close, for I am a fair-skinned delicate flower of a woman who has a hard time tolerating anything above 72F.

Three people in line with me passed the hell out.

Awesome.

The week’s not over. Still have a CD release party on Saturday, two different things with awesome country artists on Sunday, and a lot of writing to get done.

I’m getting caught up, in spite of it all. That’s a good, good thing. Yesterday, there was even a celebratory, just-finished-a-draft mini cupcake from Ivey Cake. If you’re ever in Nashville, check them out, Pandaroos. Much, much joy to be had there.

Mostly, I’m writing at a local Panera. When they tried to vacuum around me last night, I decided that maybe I should leave. Tho they told me I could stay inside until they locked up for the night, the one guy insisted that I couldn't stay after closing. Seriously.

Tho I completely understand where he's coming from, I'm now slightly disappointed that I couldn't. It would have been nice to have kept going with that endless stream of ~~liquid motivation~~ unsweetened tea. I could have written all night and had a three-AM kitchen raid.

Panera should totally hold write-ins for the crazy writery types. Lock us in at night, let us out in the morning. Send us home once every few days for a mandatory shower and wardrobe change.

Since they wouldn't let me stay forever, I decided I’d go out and sit on the patio. Took my laptop out there, got set up just in time for the sprinklers to kick on. Duck and run, baby. Duck and run.

I’m only sleeping in five-hour chunks. Creative insomnia at its finest. Just enough sleep to feel rested so I can write, write, write. Tho, I did do a pretty good zone-out at Panera. Never quite closed my eyes, but I stared off into space enough that it felt like I slept. Yeah, it doesn’t make sense to me, either.

If I can get ten hours of writing time in today, that would be awesome!

So, Pandas, what’s new with you? Anything good? Do tell!

Your Personal Creative Genius

2011-05-24T03:44:00.000-04:00

I won't be around for a few more days, but here's a video to enjoy in my absence. A TED talk from Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love.

Yes, it's a twenty-minute talk. And worth every second.

Watch it, Pandas. Watch and learn.

Sequestered

2011-05-16T09:19:00.000-04:00

The Four Curses

2011-05-04T00:09:00.000-04:00

Howdy, howdy, Pandaroos! If you're a follower of the blog, you'll know that I don't venture out much. Part of this is because I'm a writer--it's my job to sit on my butt all day and do the tappity-tappity on the computer.

Should I be brave enough to venture out into the great outdoors, the weirdness usually hits the fan. Sometimes, I'm my own worst enemy, and I manage to set myself up for catastrophe. Sometimes, I channel Lucy Ricardo, and have, um, comedic misadventures. (Comedic for you, Panda. For me, not so much.)

I also have several curses.

From least to worst, we have:

THE CONFUSION-PHEROMONES CURSE

This doesn't affect me directly. My husband insists that I can confuse him just by being in close proximity. He runs the red light, and I get blamed for it.

On second thought, it does affect me directly. I'm the one screaming in the passenger seat, trying not to die.

My confusion pheromones were very strong during pregnancy. My husband ran the red light and we were almost t-boned on the passenger's side by a Coca-Cola truck. We weren't hit, but you couldn't tell my brain that.

Instinct took over and I found myself unbuckled and in the driver's side back seat before I knew what happened. Apparently I can move quite fast, if properly motivated.

THE DINING CURSE (aka THE BLACK CLOUD OF DOOM)

If I dine out with someone, something's wrong with my food about ninety percent of the time. Everyone else has a marvelous dinner, and I get the pasta with five hairs in it. And some of those hairs are short and curly. Yum.

THE WILDLIFE CURSE

I love Alaska and the outdoors and furry woodland creatures. It hates me. Yes, wildlife in general.

My husband took this picture. Notice how the
moose stares off into the distance.
Guess who the moose is glaring at? Yep. Me.
It was going to charge me, so I got out of sight.

These same creatures whom I love then break into my house while I'm on vacation, hold a kegger, eat my ramen, make a nest out of marshmallows and cookbooks, and pee in my bed. I didn't name this blog "down with squirrels" on a whim, you know. Damn varmints.

THE CAN'T-TRAVEL-UNINJURED CURSE

Let's just take a minute for that to sink in, shall we? Because this curse is, by far, the weirdest of them all. I don't know why I have "Travel Karma", but I do. If I am going on a trip, I must be injured. I've had broken toes, dislocated toes, plantar fascitis, all kinds of drama. Especially with my feet.

Two years ago, I took a trip with my husband. At the airport, I made the mistake of mentioning that I was flying injury-free for the first time in six years.

He tripped me while we were boarding the plane. With my heavy laptop backpack, I couldn't stop the fall on my own. Luckily, my face hit the wall, and stopped me from falling. I also twisted a knee, an ankle, my shoulder, and threw my back out in the process.

Conversely, I *didn't* injure myself before my last flight. We:

had terrible weather and turbulence;
had a race-the-clock then pay-thru-the-nose Fierce-Bad-Rabbit-debacle,
got diverted because we almost ran out of gas. In a plane. High in the air. No way to go but down,
had a two-hour delay in getting to the right airport,
missed our fourth and final flight
got booked with a 23-hour layover.

Eventually they put Drummer Girl, the two Fierce Bad Rabbits, and me on standby. I still say it was my slightly frazzled and desperate demeanor that got us our tickets for the last leg of our journey.

Suffice it to say, I don't know why there is Travel Karma. Thousands of people each day travel without injury. I don't understand why Travel Karma has singled me out. But I have come to accept it as my fate.

If I have to break a toe in order for everyone to have a safe flight, I'm okay with that.

The accidents happen to me, so they don't happen to anybody else. And the worse I am injured, the better the flight. Somehow, for some reason it always seems to balance out.

So I can honestly say that when I dropped the heavy stockpot on my foot Sunday night, there were mixed emotions. After the pain, tears and screaming subsided, my first thought was, "Holy crap-a-mundo! I think I broke my toe!"

This was closely followed by, "That's weird. I didn't know I was going on a trip...." Seriously. Can't make this stuff up.

Now I know what you're thinking, Pandas. I'm accident prone. It's true. I admit it freely. There is also nothing I can do about it. I've tried. I yoga. I balance. (Mostly. I do my best, anyway.)

I try to be more "in the moment" so I can observe things around me and not kick them with my feet--all to no avail. I cannot eliminate my accident-proneness any more than I can wash away my freckles.

If I only injured myself that once, I would have just called it unlucky. Same old story, been here, done that.

But after that pot fell on my baby toe, I dropped two more pots on that same foot. While picking up those pots, I dropped the first pot back on the hurt toe. I guess because it was so much fun the first time.

I staggered from the kitchen, tried to find a place to sit down, and knocked my boo-boo-footed ankle against the wall, which made me off-balance, and I nearly toppled down the stairs.

I turned around, tried to find another place to sit, and stubbed my owie toe against against the wall. Six injuries to my foot in about four minutes. I didn't know where I was going at the time, but I strongly suspected it was going to be a trip. And a good one at that.

Then, this happened.

After that happened...

to be continued...

Sleep is for the Weak

2011-05-02T05:39:00.001-04:00

Morning, Pandas!

This blog post is courtesy of the nimwit from Ford who called this morning at 3AM. I cannot go back to sleep. Thanks.

Yay.

Since I can't sleep, I thought I'd tell you what's going on today...

Back in March, Famous Producer sent me an email. He was--and is--a busy guy, but he would be taking a flight, and do I have a script he could read on the plane?

Why, yes, I did. You remember, it's the one you all helped me name all those months ago.

So I overnighted a hard-copy to him with a handwritten letter, and he promised me he'd read it.

Except, he's a busy guy, gets about three hours of sleep a night, and he wound up doing something else on that flight. Probably sleeping. I know that when my insomnia's in full swing--like, oh, NOW--any sleep is good sleep. Can't fault a guy for catching some Z's.

Anyway, he promised me he'd read it.

And time passed, and there were crickets, and I moved from Alaska to Ohio to work on this other writing job.

As much as I wanted Famous Producer to read my script, there were other things on my plate. In a nutshell:

My 91-year old grandma had surgery and moved in with my dad. I was the one who got to drug her at midnight, then get up at 6 AM and do it all over again. Talk about no sleep....
My stepmom had knee surgery,
My kid started at a new school,
Oh yeah, I've got a looming deadline for a $50M script.

Grandma's fine, thanks. She's now out of this house and back in to her own. She can't drive now, which means that my dad or I visit with her daily and take her groceries.

My stepmom still walks around with a walker, and there is a lot of cursing when she's trying to get in or out of bed, but she's good, and functional, and can do a lot herself. Well, a lot for herself.

Dad and I are still doing most of the chores. Drummer Girl isn't much help. It takes her about five hours to do a 30-minute task, and this is not an exaggeration. I timed her.

So, I've got all of this going on, and I'm hardly getting any writing done on my own projects. Famous Producer's promise to read my script was far from my mind.

Until yesterday.

Long story short, he's still a busy guy. He somehow found some time to read my script, and though he wasn't all the way through it, he liked it enough to call.

Except, I no longer live in Alaska. My phone number there has been disconnected. I didn't add my cell number to the cover because the cell reception there was so spotty, I had to go outside every time. If I get a call on my cell phone, and it's sixty below, I'm not throwing on a parka and standing in the driveway. Not even for a bazillion dollars.

I did, however, have the presence of mind to add my email address. He emailed me how much he liked the script so far, and he'd like to talk with me about it. He's in Kentucky on a project--

What? Kentucky? That's four hours away!

Long story short, I'm meeting up with a good friend of mine for lunch, then it's off to a meeting with Famous Producer tonight. Maybe something will happen, maybe it won't. But there's an opportunity here, and I'm jumping on it.

(Jumping at it?) I'm not sure anymore, the words are starting to blur. Blame Ford.

Off to catch a 20-minute nap.

Monday Monday

2011-04-18T06:58:00.001-04:00

Hey there, Pandas! How's it going? I missed you!

See how sad I was without you?

I'm finally over the jetlag. It was a bit touch-and-go for a while there, but I am now back on my regular schedule of four hours of sleep, and working twenty-hour caffeine-fueled days.

Granted, it's not all writing work. There's much going on over here, and I won't bore you with the details... today... but the days are busy and the days are long. And yesterday was the last “fun day” for a while.

Today, the sequestering begins.

But, it's good to be back in Ohio. The weather was better here, but it's supposed to snow later today. I do not approve.

Drummer Girl is enrolled in school again. She seems to be fitting in well enough. I don't know the whole story, but there has been a bit of drama on the bus. Again. All I know is that she got moved for a few days for whatever reason (no surprise there), and when the bus driver moved her, she wound up sitting next to a cute boy.* She's a bit sad that the driver moved her back.

In writing, this is what we call “foreshadowing”. I completely expect her to act up so she can sit next to him again. I am thankful for every day that we don't get a call from the bus driver. I don't want to go through Buspocalpyse Redux.

The Fierce Bad Rabbits are settling in to their new habitat and are back to being bad on a regular basis. Life in Ohio is the same thing, only different.

There's a lot going on, writing wise. Some projects I can talk about, others I can't. Let's just say I have a lot of irons in the fire and more deadlines than I can shake a stick at.

After this week, things get better. By the end of the month, which is next week, things are supposed to lighten up a bit. Things might get crazy next week, too, but it'd be a different crazy. A bigger, better crazy. As always, I'll keep you posted.

Meanwhile, it's back to the board. If you're on Twitter, some nights I hang out on #pubwrite for a bit. Swing by and say hello.

Keep writing, Pandas. And tell me, what's new with you?

*Actually, she never came out and said he was cute. She was extolling his virtues, and I asked her. “Is he cute?” she replied. “What would you know about it?” When I told my husband this story, he laughed at first. Now he wonders how to take it.

SPOILERS

2011-04-02T15:19:00.002-04:00

Greetings, Pandas! Sorry it's been so long. Life over here in Alaska has been hectic, to say the least. After this weekend, I'll be back to doing blog posts on a regular basis--for me, that's two or three times per week.

Lots of changes have been going on. All of them good.

I GOT A JOB I LOVED, THEN I QUIT...

In November, I started substitute teaching for various reasons. Partly because one of the subs asked me to apply, partly because I hadn't earned an income in almost nine years, and partly because I was going stir crazy staring at the keyboard all day. In a tiny hovel of a room. By myself. With only the Fierce Bad Rabbits to keep me company.

Don't believe me? Check out my Twitter feed from last year. LOTS of posts about my rabbits. Oy.

So, I applied for, and got, a job substitute teaching. I figured one, maybe two days a week, tops.

Then, someone got fired, and I was a permanent sub in the classroom. I didn't think I would love it as much as I did. After all, it's not like I went to school to be a teacher. Okay, well, once I did. Years ago. Even took a couple of education classes somewhere in there. But the degree hanging on my wall is a BA in Political Science (minor in French), and next to it is a Screenwriting thingy from UCLA.

But, my years as a homeschooling mom kicked in, and it was a good fit. The job was open, I was (over)qualified to apply, and so I did.

I don't know how things are with you, but it seems like sometimes in life you must have no action in order to see a reaction. Give up on something in order to let things take their course. Be still and let it happen.

Because holy jumping billy goats, you won't believe what happened next.

I applied for the job on a Thursday, it closed that Friday. The following Monday, I get a call from a screenwriting friend of mine. I've known him for *mumblemumble* years. We're good friends who work well together. He's Drummer Girl's godfather. We're tight.

He's got a project he's working on. It's been interesting watching things develop. It started out as this low-key indie pic, and it's snowballed into this uberproduction with an eight-figure budget. And Icon wants to direct and star in it. It's Godfather's golden ticket. A career-maker.

Months before, we talked about the possibility of me working with him to polish the script. And the pay on a polish is nothing to sneeze at. But that's not what he called to discuss. He wanted to bring me in as a full-fledged writer. As in, he already negotiated my contract and emailed it to me, and I needed to sign it and return it as soon as possible, so I could get to work on the project right away.

An opportunity like this comes along once in a lifetime. So, I jumped at it.

LEAVING ON THAT MIDNIGHT FLIGHT TO CLEVELAND...

So, since my writing partner is in Ohio, and I have family galore in Ohio, I'm heading out there for a bit until this project is: a) done; or, b) shit-canned.

Days? Weeks? Months? Who the hell knows. I bought one-way tickets for Drummer Girl and me. We leave on Sunday, and we're taking the rabbits with us. Should be an adventure!

Stay tuned!

Hibernation Days

2011-03-02T22:34:00.001-05:00

Howdy, Pandas!

Contrary to popular belief, I haven't abandoned the blog. And I am not dead, tho I was really sick for quite a while. And working full-time, instead of writing full-time. More about that later.

Right now I am so busy that I'm trying to figure out when I'm going to see my family again. And they're in the same house with me, right outside my closed door.

I can't tell you exactly what's going on, partly because of the confidentiality agreement I signed in blood, and partly because I know that if I blabbed what little I *could* say about the project I'm working on right now, it would fall thru faster that you can say Super Secret Project With LOOMING DEADLINE (i.e. ASAP). Like, I was told on Wednesday that they wanted it on Tuesday.

So, no pressure.

Suffice it to say, Pandaroos, I'm here, I'm alive, and if my friggin' cough would ever go away, I'd be really happy.

If any of you faithful Pandas go out drinking, have a Jack for me, will ya? I'm in super-caffeinated mode, because sleep is for the weak.

Sorry it's so deliberately cryptic. At least I'm not dead. Hopefully, neither are you.

Take care, Pandas. Talk to you soon. And, if you really, really love me, please don't call.

Short and Sweet

2011-02-12T17:51:00.000-05:00

High Anxiety

2011-02-03T06:25:00.000-05:00

Several years ago, I submitted a screenplay to a competition. It was my first real competition, the first time I felt a script was competition-worthy, and I was nervous.

That night, I had a ~~dream~~ nightmare that my script morphed into a life-sized thing, with legs, hands and arms. Think of some half-crazed person in a script-themed mascot costume with no eyes, and you're pretty close.

Then it gets weird.

The six-foot tall script chased me around the house. It ripped out its pages, and screamed at me when it found a flaw.

I still remember the panic and fear I had when the script monster cornered me. It pointed at a passage with its scraggly arms and cartoonishly gloved hands, as it screamed, “Look! Look! This part right here! What were you thinking?”

It doesn't take years of analysis to figure that one out.

Fast forward to a few nights ago. I'm currently rewriting a rom-com for Famous Producer. It's been a long road on this one, and I've hit several brick walls along the way. But, after dissecting it, and revamping the concept, I'm much happier with it overall.

Things are coming along nicely. If I keep my nose to the grindstone, stay off Twitter, and don't have a coronary from all of the jalapeno poppers, BICHOK and complete lack of exercise, I'll be done by Monday.

The BICHOK badge from Merit Badger
(Butt In Chair, Hands On Keyboard)

The script would still need a few weeks of rewrites, but it's easier to rewrite than it is to write.

Anyway, two nights ago, I was in bed, hoping against hope that sleep would get here soon. All of a sudden, I got an irrational fear that I was going to die in my sleep.

My biggest concern was not about my family; not how they would get on without me; not if the Fierce Bad Rabbits would miss me, or simply devour my corpse. Nope. I was petrified that someone would crack my laptop password, look at my writing, and realize that I write crappy first drafts.

Oy.

I don't know what it is about writers and other artists that makes us self-doubt. My husband always tells me that I need to have more confidence in myself and in my writing. After all, I have three options, I'm working on a script for Famous Producer, I have a script on Jack Black's desk, and there's a chance that I could be working on a feature with Icon¹.

People have worked a lot longer than I have and have gotten less. Even though I haven't received any pay, my husband considers me a success².

That's not saying that a critical eye is a bad thing. For every one of us who stresses over the little things in writing, there's another who doesn't worry enough.

I used to have a favorite author. The first four books in her women's fiction series were hilarious. They were fun, good reads, and right up my alley. The characters were real. They arced, grew, changed, won, and lost.

I was hooked. I devoured the books, then got them all on audiobook. I joined the fan club, lurked on the website. I couldn't get enough.

Then, book five came out. What a big steaming pile of squirrel poo. And you know, Pandas, how I feel about squirrels.

Evil, disobedient little buggers.

The characters stopped arcing, the story stopped progressing. It was several hundred pages of funny, but very little substance. I tried, I really did, to stay with the series. I stopped reading around book 9 or 10. I've scanned the other books—I think she's on 15 or 16—but it's more of the same. Blech. Barf-o-rama.

Once she became super successful, she spread herself too thin. She started another series, then another. She's churning out two or three books a year. I don't know how they're getting published.

Sure, she still has a fan base. But, if you look at her webpage, or look at the comments on Amazon, former fans are outraged. Stop churning out crap, take your time, and you'll get people back. Yeah, Janet, I'm talking to you.

I think she's missing that self-doubt. Who can blame her? She has bazillions of dollars from writing, she KNOWS she's good. Some days it seems like she could publish her grocery list and make a profit.

That doesn't mean she should.

I wish you tons of success, Pandas, in what ever you do.

But don't ever get complacent. Don't rest on your laurels. You should always be trying to better yourself—whether in writing, in art, or just in life.

Personally, I'd rather have one good novel than several mediocre ones. Or a decent screenplay instead of 120 pages of feculence³.

So, maybe I worry too much, or am too self-critical. Maybe overthinking is partially to blame for my creative insomnia. But if being too hard on myself makes me a better writer, then I'm okay with that.

1. Oh, man. I really really wish I could tell you more about this, but things are very fluid right now, and I don't want to jinx anything. If this ever gets off the ground, I'll tell you everything, Pandas. Pinky promise.

2. Why I love my husband, Reason #524.

3. My new favorite word. Look it up.

The Great Squirrel War: The Beginning

2011-01-24T08:03:00.001-05:00

In case you didn't know, Friday was Squirrel Appreciation Day. No, seriously. As you can probably guess, with a blog name like "down with squirrels", I'm not much of a fan.

In recognition of SAD, I'm going to do my own anti-squirrel campaign. Starting today, and then every fourth Monday thereafter, I'll do a post on the Great Squirrel War. How I won a battle, but lost the war.

I grew up in a small town in Northeast Ohio. Amherst is near Lake Erie, about midway between Cleveland and Cedar Point. If you don't know Cedar Point, Pandas, hoo boy, you're missing out.

Known as America's Roller Coast, Cedar Point is the number one coaster park in the world.

Yes, I've been to Disney. It's cool. There were singing puppets. Cedar Point doesn't have rides like that. They have coasters. And other rides, sure. But, Pandas. Come on. Seventeen coasters.


The Maverick. Zero-G's, baby. Pure awesomeness. They don't have anything like this at Disney. I checked. If I had one day left on earth, you would find me on this coaster.

Of course, Amherst doesn't have anything like that. Amherst was, and is, known for its sandstone. In fact, our tiny town was the sandstone capital of the world.

But, this was supposed to be about squirrels.

When I was in about fifth grade, our family moved to a nicer neighborhood on the other side of Amherst. Chipmunks and squirrels romped and frolicked in our semi-wooded lot. And they were cute and fluffy, and full of sweetness.

Awwwwwwwwwwwww.

Not long after we moved in, we got a puppy. Chelsea was a poodle-terrier mutt, but you couldn't tell it by looking at her. She was mostly black with tan and white markings. She strongly resembled a miniature collie.


Like this, but, well, not. I couldn't find any pictures of my dog. Someone else was blessed with this bundle of cuteness. But this picture is very, very close. Scary close.

Just like any other puppy, Chelsea was a bundle of chaos. She loved to play, but never really go the hang of dog games. She tried frisbee, but preferred to chew on it once she caught it. If she caught it. She never understood the point of fetching, and would run around with the ball, and never bring it back.

But she understood about the squirrels. I think deep down, she knew they were evil.

She spent countless hours chasing these critters up the trees, and around the yard. When she was in the house, she monitored the yard like a guard dog. We had sliding glass doors in the back, and she was on constant vigil.

For variety, she would sometimes rest her front paws on the front window sill and look out at the lawn. Not for burglars, mind you. The only time someone broke in to the house, she was waiting for my folks on the front lawn, as happy as a clam.

Sum guyz let me out. Itz OK.

Nope, her excited, high-pitched yip always indicated a squirrel sighting.

I think my dad was the first to egg her on. When Chelsea spotted a squirrel, he would taunt her. “Are there squirrels, Chelsea? Squirrels? In your yard?”

SQUIRREL!

The dog would go ballistic, and do this happy yipping dance, with many jumps and spins. It was very cute.

Eventually, it got to the point that this was all part of the process. The dog barked, one of us would wind her up, get her yipping and circling, and then we would set her loose on the squirrels in the yard.

She never caught one, mind you. They were small and fast, and she, well, wasn't.

All went well for about a year.

And then Buffy and Scooter came into the picture.

I'll post the next Great Squirrel War installment in February, but I'll have several posts on the blog before then. Until next time, keep reading, and keep writing! Take care, Pandas. May all your days be squirrel-free!

Random Recap

2011-01-23T06:04:00.003-05:00

So much has happened this week, Pandas! I have enough blog fodder for the next few months. Where to start, where to start...

We've had more drama with our renters.

I don't think I've blogged about them before, and I don't really know how much I should put on here, since there will be lawsuits. Let's just say that if they hadn't destroyed our house, and hadn't started a turkey farm on our property, we would have let them stay in the house.

Oy.

As it is now, we're moving back into our house, even though it doesn't have any heat. Or water. And the electricity is on the fritz.

And, turkeys? Maybe? Who the hell knows.

There was an earthquake today.

It was a 5.4, and about 100 miles away. It shook the house pretty hard, but we're all fine. Drummer Girl was completely clueless.

My husband sprained his ankle in a spectacular fashion.

It was opening day at the new gym on base. He was playing volleyball, and came down on his ankle wrong. He screamed so loudly that no one else heard his ankle crunch.

He said afterward that he was glad he didn't scream like a girl.

Interestingly enough, he was the THIRD injury in the new gym that day, not the first.

I spent way too much time on Twitter.

Farm Girl and I did a writing session (well, I wrote, and she did homework). We started around 10PM, and went until 4AM.

I expected the bar to be open on base, but they closed early. Farm Girl was smart and brought snacks, which she shared.

When we got done, we were overtired, loopy, and starved. I came home to a car that wouldn't start, and 40-below temperatures.

Farm Girl's kids are in the bus stop carpool. So I wouldn't wake anyone at her place, I tweeted her. We went back and forth for quite a while.

Steve Martin came on Twitter, and we commented on his tweets. Of course, since we still hadn't really eaten, our comments were all about food.

He called us Rastafarians. Not that we are, mind you, but it was funny at 5AM, with no sleep.

The Stomach Flu Fairy stopped by our house.

Only Drummer Girl and I were hit by the stomach flu. My husband has the immune system of steel.

The worst of it? Drummer Girl was sleeping on the top bunk of her loft bed. She leaned over the guardrail, and threw up on her computer.

The kid's fine, the computer's fine. Everything cleaned up okay. The stench still lingers.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to get rid of that stench, I'd love to hear it. Lysol just makes it smell like someone threw up in a field of wildflowers.

I pissed off a bunch of people in Texas.

They seemed like nice people, but I prefer getting emails from people that I know. Or at least with people with similar interests. I don't think I have a lot in common with a bunch of homeowners in Texas. I could be wrong. (This may require a blog post of its own, one day.)

But the icing on the cake?

Friday was Squirrel Appreciation Day.

Really? Squirrels need to be appreciated? They're glorified rodents with bushy tails and plague.

In honor of Squirrel Apprecia- Oh man, I can't even type it anymore. It just churns my stomach.

In recognition of SAD, I'm going to do my own anti-squirrel campaign. Starting Monday, and then every fourth Monday thereafter, I'll do a post on the Great Squirrel War. How I won a battle, but lost the war.

By the end of the year, you will understand, Pandas. You will know. Squirrels are evil.

Or, just think I'm nuts.

Writers Guild meeting reminder

2011-01-18T16:41:00.000-05:00

For all of you interested in the Interior Alaska Writer's Guild, tonight is the third Tuesday of the month, which means it's time for our monthly guild meeting! Yay!

As you probably already know, we have been looking for a new location for our meetings. We'll be meeting at the Bear Gallery in the Civic Center in Pioneer Park at 7PM.

We're going to conference with the Anchorage branch and listen to their speaker, Michael Catoggia. He's a longtime local librarian and will speak on The History of E-Books, Pros and Cons, Ways and Means of E-Book publication.

Our speakers for February and March are being planned. If you have any ideas for guest speakers, or would like to be a guest speaker, please contact Dick Ourada at drfarmer@hotmail.com.

The meeting is free and open to the public.

There are many benefits to membership, including our annual conference in Anchorage. If you are interested in finding out what the Guild can do for you, please see the website, join our mailing list, comment below, or contact me directly.

Thanks again. I look forward to seeing you there!

How Al Ramrus Became My Inner Compass

2011-01-18T05:17:00.002-05:00

Years ago, my husband was deployed to the Sandbox, and I was left home alone with Drummer Girl the toddler.¹

I knew I would go all stir-crazyish if I didn't stay busy, and I was fresh off my first indie feature, so I decided to go to UCLA Professional Program in Screenwriting online.

In a nutshell, the UCLA program is a graduate-level course based on the MFA screenwriting degree. Good class, one of the best. I went into it, expecting it to be fun, exciting, and completely doable. Easy peasy, rice-and-cheesy.

Hoo boy. My first quarter at UCLA was tough.

I had Al Ramrus as an instructor. What a hard ass. The harder Al critiqued me, the harder I worked to get his approval. And boy, did I work.

Between the mommy job and the writing, I slept in three-hour shifts. I ate cookie dough for lunch because it gave me that extra caffeine and sugar push. I drank a case of Mountain Dew per day just so I could get it right. My caffeine addiction was so bad I was twitchy.

But I trudged on, doing whatever needed done. Every week I'd re-plot, re-outline, and rewrite pages. That's a lot of writing. And I made tons of mistakes, so it took me longer than a seasoned pro.

One week, I was super proud of my pages. This week was my week. There was simply no way Al couldn't "love" my pages. So, I dropped my kid off at the sitter, sat down in class with a bottle of celebratory Beaujolais Nouveau and waited for my critique.

When I used to be a chef, I had wine with almost every meal. Now that I'm a mom, I may drink once a month or so. All of which means I'm a terrible lightweight.

Let's just say it didn't go well. Everyone told me my pages were laugh-out-loud funny, but I needed to throw out over half the pages. The more they ripped me, the more I drank angry, and by the time Al got around to ripping my pages, I was schnockered. I blamed Al for everything, told him he didn't know what he was talking about, and my pages were fine.

Definite low point.

It was the first and last time I drank in class.

Truth be told, the pages were funny. And I understood what Al meant about how everything is supposed to relate to the story. For whatever reason, I was hearing Al's words and not internalizing them. I needed a moment of clarity.

I got it the next day, while getting my toddler ready for bed. She has always been very independent, and insisted on getting into her pj's by herself.

I watched her as she took off her pants, jumped on the bed, played with the dog, threw a stuffed bunny, jumped on the bed, took off her shirt, ran around the room, spun until she fell, put on her pj top, jumped on the bed, pulled the dog's tail, played with a toy, and put on her pj bottoms. All told, it took her 20 minutes to do a two-minute task.

But it made me a better screenwriter.

Because I finally realized that as funny as some of the stuff was, most of it didn't have anything to do with putting on pajamas. Just like when Al told me that some of my funny stuff didn't have anything to do with the script. It was a definite smack on the forehead.

So now, when I'm uncertain if something fits, I channel my "inner Al" to see if something belongs. Now that crap doesn't even make it into the outline.

Thanks, Al. I owe you one.

1. Okay, Pandas, you caught me. This is a re-post from my abandoned MySpace blog. I'm moving everything over to this one, since MySpace is, like, so rive gauche. Besides, it's not like any of you actually read this before...

Shhhh... Don't Listen to the Voices

2011-01-13T14:35:00.003-05:00

If you've read my blog at all in the past, Pandas, you already know that my kid is a character. In the past three days, she was sent to the principal's office, got suspended from the bus (which we now refer to as the buspocalypse), and got confused about which library to go to, even though I spelled out explicit instructions for her in a bright yellow note. Had she actually read the note, instead of just carrying it around all day, she would have known what to do and where to go.

She always keeps me on my toes.

I know you were wondering, this isn't me.
I would fall on my face and break something.

Our homework struggle for the past few years has been with her writing. She hates facing the blank page. I've seen her sit and stare at the same one-page journal prompt for hours without making a mark upon the page. She's so afraid of making a mistake that she puts nothing at all. Once she gets going, she's golden, but getting started for her is the hardest part.

Can I get an AMEN?!?

Fear of failure is a terrible, and realistic thing. As long as I've been writing, I've heard all kinds of quotes about how “Writing is rewriting,” or how you need to keep your butt in the chair and your hands on the keyboard (BICHOK). I've never heard anyone say that it's easy to face the blank page. It's your personal antagonist, and so's that annoying voice that tells you you're a failure because you're stuck. I hate that little flippin' voice.

We've all been there, staring at that blank page. First you start thinking that you should do more research, or that you're not good enough, or that you can't find the right word because you're not good enough, or that no one is going to like it, and that maybe you should quit fooling yourself and stop writing all together and go work at the local gas station, because then at least you'd see another human being once in a while, and have a steady source of income...

SNAP OUT OF IT, PANDAS!

Don't be a slave to that nagging, whiny voice. If writing were easy, we'd all write haiku and live in our mom's basement. Try as you might, sitting there and staring at the page for hours on end won't will the words into being. Trust me, I've seen Drummer Girl try.

If you get nothing else out of my blog, Pandas, please remember this. You can't edit a blank page.

The next time that annoying voice comes around, the one who tells you you're a failure, the one who preys on your innermost fears, here's what you do. Take that annoying voice out into the alley, and beat it over the head with a two-by-four until it simply stops.

I'm not sure, but Hemingway just may be fighting his
inner voice, here. Time to write, get the boxing gloves.

Then get your butt back in the chair, and get back to your writing. Get your words on the page, even if they're crap.

What? You think your first draft is supposed to be brilliant? Pshaw, Pandas. Hemingway supposedly said, “The first draft of anything is shit”. If he can suck, so can you. It's okay. You have my permission. And, apparently, Hemingway's. Are you going to argue with Hemingway?

Now, what are you doing reading a blog post? Shouldn't you be writing? Stop procrastinating, Pandas! Grab your two-by-fours, and write, write, write!

Merit Badges for Everyone!

2011-01-05T18:04:00.004-05:00

Writing is a thankless job. You're your own boss. There's no one telling you you did a good job today. No holiday parties or bonuses to make you feel appreciated.

Some days, the choice between writing and depression is a hard one. Both involve me sitting around all day in my pajamas and drinking tea, so...

Anyway, it's up to you to find your own motivation, your reason for showing up at the keyboard every day when it's simply easier to, well, not.

Merit Badger to the rescue!

Got a NaNo novel, or any novel for that matter, sitting in a drawer where no one else could ever see it? Congratulations, Pandas. Here's your merit badge!

Easily distracted? Here ya go.

Did you take my advice on character and give your protag some depth? You've earned the 3D characters badge!

Merit Badger is not just for writers. No, Pandas. She covers readers, too!

Have more books than you have shelf space?

Do you read banned books? You should, you know. Be a rebellious Panda.

Have you ever hated a novel so much you threw it against a wall?

For my screenplay today, I'm earning the writing everyday badge,

the making progress badge,

and the BICHOK badge (Butt In Chair, Hands On Keyboard).

On my novel, I'm currently rewriting it, so I get the word warrior badge.

Hopefully by the end of the day, I'll have earned the

badge, and right after this post, I'm unplugging the Internet.

Panda QandA: What badges have you earned today?

Everyone's a Character

2011-01-03T06:05:00.012-05:00

Drummer Girl has always been a bit unique. When other parents were teaching their kids the alphabet, DG already knew how to read. While her friends read Dr. Seuss, she devoured books on anatomy and would spout random facts to anyone in her path.

She has always loved rabbits, to the point of obsession. This year, we caved and bought her two house rabbits that hop around the place, chew our HDMI cords and use the litter box. Mostly.

Oreo's the broken black baby, Flopsy's the chestnut agouti.
I now know more about rabbits than I ever cared to.

She has asthma that manifests itself a persistent and annoying cough. Sometimes she hides her coughing by doing this weird neck scrunching thing and shaking it off, which makes it look like she has some sort of tic.

She almost always has some sort of drama on the school bus, whether she's protecting someone who's being bullied, standing up when she's not supposed to, or losing just one boot (at forty below!).

Oh, look. She's a bunny. Surprise, surprise.

She swordfights and does Tae Kwon Do. She plays drums, tinkers on the piano and guitar (lessons start next week!), and loves Bon Jovi more than life itself.

I have no earthly idea what she's doing here.

Last month, she played an elf at the school choir holiday concert. During the finale, she held up her hands as peace signs and headbanged until the song ended.

No one ever forgets who she is. Ever.

When you write, your characters need to be just as interesting.

I recently got Farm Girl hooked on the awesome TV show Supernatural. We're starting at the beginning, Season 1, and working our way through. If you don't know the story, it's about two brothers who drive around in their dad's classic Impala, and hunt down supernatural beings. It's full of awesomesauce. If you haven't seen it, you're missing out. Get thee to a Blockbuster.

Gotta love the classic car!
Photos from http://www.supernatural-fan-wiki.com

In the Season 1 episode Asylum, the brothers wind up, well, at a haunted insane asylum. When they enter, they find a young couple trapped inside. Now, I know what you're expecting, Pandas. The guy should be all strong and protective, and the woman should be a panicked, nervous wreck.

And you'd be wrong, because the writers on that show are completely brilliant and wonderful and are my heroes.

Instead of following traditional horror-film stereotypes, the guy freaked out--mostly because he thought he made out with his girlfriend, but instead swapped saliva with this bloody mess of a spirit:

The kind of girl your mother warned you about.

The girl stayed strong and knew how to use a shotgun. It made the characters that much more memorable.

In writer-ese, character quirks are often called “a limp and an eye patch”. This doesn't mean that you need to turn every character into a one-eyed peg-legged pirate.

But, you don't ever want to bore your reader either. You can write the most beautiful and lyrical prose ever known to man, but if your characters are dull and boring, no one will read your novel. No one will turn your screenplay into a movie. Flat, one-dimensional characters will get you nothing but a form rejection.

When you find yourself struggling with your characters, if they seem too stereotypical, try giving them an interesting characteristic or two or ten. Maybe it's a speech pattern, or a word they frequently say.

Maybe it's an obsession, like with DG and her rabbits.

Whatever you choose, the more quirks and unique characteristics you give to your characters, the more you will come to know them as a writer.

It may take you several drafts to develop your characters, Pandas. That's what rewrites are for.

But if you do it right, readers will want to go on a three-hundred page journey, movie-goers will watch your three-hour epic.

Make your characters interesting. Give them depth. Put them in interesting situations. And I'll see you on the big screen.

Panda QandA:

What do you do to make your characters memorable? How do you break out of those stereotypes? Who's your favorite character?

Resolutions, Schmezolutions

2011-01-01T18:40:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year, Pandas! I hope your holiday season was filled with family, friends and fun. I know mine was!

In fact, right now at two in the morning, I'm still wearing my New Year's Eve festive attire, complete with blinking beads, feathered tiara and giant holiday bow. I probably shouldn't blog while tipsy from my Gentleman Jack and mimosa binge, but I'm celebrating and my New Year's resolutions don't kick in until Monday, so there ya go.

Last year, Pandas, I'm sure you remember that all I wanted to do was get my script to Jack Black's agent.

From what I hear, it happened. December 30th, but it happened.

And there was much rejoicing!

Mostly with Gentleman Jack and mimosas, but rejoicing, nonetheless.

Which means that all of my resolutions about getting my script out there in 2011 are now kaput. I got it where I wanted it to go, I'm not doing more with it. If it happens, it happens.

My baby went far! I'm totally stoked!

Bye-bye, baby! Love you!

For this year, I have several resolutions. From the traditional to the specific:

Take care of myself

Lots of yoga, veggies, and weight loss in my future. It needs to be done, Pandas. In just a few short months, I'm gonna be arm candy. As pretty as a princess.

Drummer Girl one Halloween.

Drummer Girl at Disney, with her
princess make-over and photo
shoot. Many people thought she
was the real Tink. She posed
with tons of Japanese tourists.

You'll be proud. You'll see. I'll even post a photo. The "after" pic, not the "before". Never the "before".

Okay, maybe just the one...

Me and Farm Girl having way too much fun at
the bowling alley on New Year's Eve. The party
was okay, the after-party at her place rocked!

Blog more

Yeah, I've been slacking on the bloggy front. And my tweets. And Facebooking. I'm getting my social network back on, Pandas. Blog posts ~~daily~~ ~~Monday~~ once a week, if I'm lucky. ~~Be forewarned!~~

Write more
Between work and the holidays, my writing schedule got a little off. So, I'm getting back on track with the regular writing. There are several projects that are up in the air that I really can't talk about, so they may interfere with my plans. I'm aiming for four scripts this year.

Write even more
I'm doing it, Pandas, I'm breaking out the novels. In my spare time, I'm rewriting one of them, I just need to pick which one.

Embarrass my kid even more
And I'm starting here:

We took three planes to get there.
My dad took this pic.

The obligatory naked baby pic. She's on a
plush duckie rug that quacked.

Proof that babies really are made out of rubber.
If I tried this, I'd pull something.

Why, yes, Pandas! Those *are* dishwashing
gloves on her feet. And, she wore them
in public willingly. It was her favorite part.

and the last one:

Drummer Girl on her latest birthday, at
Chuck-E-Cheese. Look at that SWAG!

How about you, Pandas? What are your resolutions? Any writing goals? Please share!

New Year's Day Eye Candy Blog Jog

2011-01-01T16:22:00.002-05:00

Started by Vicki over at Rambles and Randomness, here's an eye candy blog jog for all you Pandas out there. Everyone on the following list was to post a picture that made us smile whenever we saw it.

Here's my favorite pic of the year.

My husband took this picture of my daughter during one of our hikes to Lake Samsing out at Clear Air Force Base, Alaska. When he's not working for Uncle Sam, Bryan is a professional photographer. There are more awesome photos on his site. Go on, check them out!

Here are the rest of the blog joggers, so you know where else to go.

Have an awesome day, Pandas. Another post is coming soon, so stay tuned!

Cookies and Contests and Freon, Oh My!

2010-12-10T17:31:00.000-05:00

Hope you're having a good holiday season, Pandas. I've spent much of the season so far trying to eat my weight in holiday cookies. As much as I love baking, and really, I do, I didn't make any of them this year. I bought them at my kid's school's holiday bazaar, and I can't stop eating them.

I know at least one of you is thinking, "Hey! I thought you gave up on flour and its starchy carbness." And I did. Really. But these are COOKIES we're talking about, here. Cookies get a free pass.

Besides, I strongly suspect there's a freon leak in my fridge right now because everything tastes like gasoline, which means I can't eat anything that's in there. Where are the cookies, Pandas? They're right on the counter, safe from the freon, begging me to eat them. No, really, I heard them. It's true.

When I'm not stuffing my face full of peanut-butter-and-chocolate-kiss cookies, I'm working at my kid's school as a substitute teacher, or writing. Last week, I actually considered going back to college and getting my teaching degree (which would only take a year), so I could have a steady job. Long story, but I finally figured out that I need to focus on writing and stop getting distracted by shiny things in my path. It's okay to be a substitute--it's not my life-long goal. Writing is my life, and it's what I need to do.

Speaking of writing, I follow JM Tohline's blog. His first novel comes out in June. I'm so excited for him!

And jealous. Just a bit. Mostly, excited.

Anyway, Panda dears, he's having a twitter contest over on his blog for the best line to complete the phrase, "I like books because...." The winner of the contest gets an advance copy of his novel, which would be way cool.

I submitted, "I like books because they have, like, words and stuff." My entry made it into the top eight, and needs a few more votes, Pandas. JM did tell me I could "use any means possible to get friends to vote". I'm sure when he said "friends, he meant "Pandas". Pandas just like you.

So, hop on over to his blog and cast your vote! It's on his sidebar.

Then come on over and have some cookies. I have plenty to share, and they don't taste like freon!

PANDA Q and A: What are you doing to get in the holiday spirit, Pandas? Are you celebrating? decorating? shopping? eating your way into a cookie-induced coma? What gets you in the holiday mood?

Lucy Moment #2: The Bee Incident

2010-11-22T14:41:00.001-05:00

When I graduated high school at seventeen, I got a job working at K-mart in the Sports and Auto department. This was back when almost everything was made in the USA, and we dressed up to go to work. I spent my days selling car parts to people who thought I couldn't do my job because I was too young or because I was a female, or both.

Oh, if they only knew the depth of my training. My dad and his older brother are car junkies. They still buy and fix up cars more often than the Brady Bunch boys fixed their bikes. My dad and uncle were each blessed with one child, both girls. So my cousin and I learned more about fixing cars than a lot of men do.

My dad is an electrician, and over the years, he taught me a lot about wiring, too. We ran cord, I helped him make cables. I did so well on the electrical portion of my ASVAB test in high school that Uncle Sam wanted me to be an electrician. They called me for months.

When I learned to drive, I had the traditional driver's ed, and then I had Dad's class. He showed me how to change a tire, change my own oil, top off the fluids, change the brakes, and do various other things that most people will never get to do. Neither my cousin nor I could drive very well, but that didn't keep us from trying. I totaled my first car at sixteen.

One summer day, I was late for work. I still remember the dark olive dress pants I wore; the heat inside the car because of the shut windows; and the can of Barq's root beer I held between my legs since the car didn't have any cup holders.

So, I climbed in the stifling car and backed out of the driveway. Once I was going forward on the road, that's when I see it. A bumble bee. In my face.

I'm mildly allergic to bees, and I didn't want to get stung, so I slammed on the brakes. At least, I thought it was the brakes. It somehow registered that the pedal was completely floored, and the car was still moving, so I pumped it. My hands were nowhere near the wheel, as I was too busy flailing about trying not to get stung by this minuscule insect.

Next thing I knew, I was tossed around like a pinball. My face smacked the ceiling, then the side window. My root beer sprayed. The car came to a final sideways stop in the middle of the street.

I got out to see what exactly happened. I hadn't gone very far. In fact, I was less than two houses away from where I started.

Apparently, I had floored the gas pedal with such ferocity, that I was able to make the car go up and over a boulder at the end of someone's driveway. A boulder. A frickin' boulder. My car even moved it a little.

The boulder I hit was only
a bit smaller than this one.

The front of the car was so bent up, it was never to be driven again.

The ever-helpful neighbor lady to the rescue! She ran out saying that she saw the whole thing, and then she stopped dead in her tracks. She looked at me, I looked at her, and then I realized why she was so horrified. When my car ran over the boulder, the root beer spilled everywhere, but especially on my inner thighs. She thought I ran over a boulder and then peed myself.

I had to say something, anything so she wouldn't think I was a total moron. But all I could manage was, "There was a bee."

Yeah.

I left the car in the street, and ran back in the house to change and hopefully die from sheer humiliation. My parents came home seconds later. My dad got the car out of the street while my mom called work and told them I wasn't coming in. She even lied to them and told them that I had been stung by the bee. Apparently, it was less embarrassing that way.

Bite Me, Fellini-loving Emo Boy

2010-11-18T10:02:00.000-05:00

I hate the dentist. Hate hate hate. They sell pain and fear there. Oy. Only within the past year or so have I been able to zen myself out and get past the fear and meditate my way through a dental experience. Before that, they resorted to really good drugs which were like legal roofies. They're hypnotics. I'd wake up hours later and wouldn't remember a thing. Joy! It was like I never even went!

Once, when I couldn't get a ride from the dentist (and you can't drive on legal roofies), my friend offered to pin directions to her house and twenty dollars for a taxi onto my shirt so I could make it there in one piece. I was afraid I'd wake up somewhere really wrong and with a different non-dental kind of pain in my, um, nethers.

Amazing how meditation can work when you're really motivated.

About a year ago, I had a dentist appointment. They don't have dentists where I live. We don't even have a gas station, why would we have a dentist? I had to travel three hundred miles to Anchorage to get tortured. Joy.

Since that's all I had to do in town, and I didn't really know the area that well, I showed up hours early. Fortunately, there's a coffee shop in the same building. They have outlets, I have a laptop. It's like fate.

As I'm sitting in the coffee shop drinking my tea, for I am a rebel Panda and that is how I roll, this guy behind me asks what kind of screenplay I'm writing. I figure, hey, if this guy in Alaska can look over my shoulder at my screen, see what I'm writing, and know that it's a screenplay and not a stage play or a novel, this should make for some interesting conversation.

So, we talk film. And it's clear a few minutes in that he watches things because he thinks they're artsy or trendy and make him Cooler-Than-Thou. You know the type. Wears all black, knows all of the Fellini films by rote, and thinks I'm beneath him, because I don't. Couldn't tell you one film that's in the cinema right now, but knows all the directors are doing it wrong because they don't have his cool vision.

He ragged on Akira Kurosawa. He dissed American cinema as a whole.

Then he snarked on Hitchcock.

Laserdisc, I love you!

Now, I no longer worship Hitch like I used to. But I've studied the hell out of his body of work. I own every one of his films in one format or another, all on VHS, most on DVD, and even several on laserdisc. Criterion versions, FWIW. (Yay me, and my useless technology!)

I ask him how many Hitchcock films he's watched. None. Not even Psycho or Rear Window or The Birds. Hitch fan or not, most people have seen at least one. And if you haven't seen at least one, you have no right to snark.

So pull from my arsenal and let loose. Bring up how Hitchcock based a lot of his ideas in filmmaking on Russian theories of psychology and throw around "Kuleshov effect" and "Eisenstein's theory of montage" and "Odessa Steps".

Note her hand reaching towards
the viewer. 3-D, baby.

I talk about how Hitch revolutionized film by being an early adopter of tech, using 3-D when it was new (Dial "M" for Murder), scale models (North by Northwest) and long cuts to make the film appear to be done all in one shot (Rope).

I throw in useless information about how Mr. and Mrs. Hitch used to throw crazy themed parties and once had a party where the theme was "blue". Everything was blue, including the food. I *so* want to do that one of these days. Who's up for a blue party?

I told him all about how Psycho was the first time they required people to show up on time at the theater because in 1960, it was perfectly acceptable to show up twenty minutes into a film. Hell, it cost a dime to see a movie. I'd show up late, too, if it only cost me a dime. But people were showing up late to Psycho, and saying, "Where the hell is Janet Leigh? Wasn't she in this? Am I in the right movie? WTF?"

So, you actually had to show up early, wait in line, and they wouldn't let you in if you were late. At the time, it was commonplace for the theatre, revolutionary for the cinema.¹

I gave this guy a ten-minute lecture, easily. And, he sat there and took it like a champ. But when I got up and used the bathroom, he wasn't there when I got back. For some reason, he took a two-hour smoke break. I could see him standing on the corner outside, smoking away, but he never came back in. I left my contact information, just Facebook and an e-mail, but he never contacted me. I never could figure out why.

The moral of today's story, Panda? Don't piss off an over-caffeinated red-headed writer who has a firey temper, a looming dentist appointment and a bad case of dentophobia. You never know what's going to happen.

1. Has anyone noticed that people are getting ruder by the second? Last time I went to the theatre, people showed up late.

I was on vacation in the lower 48, paid $150 for tickets, and was dressed up. I don't live in a community where I can do this all the time, or I would live in the theatre and have season tickets. Or just perform because I miss it. I get to go to the theatre about once every two years or so. Big deal for me.

The show was interrupted--not once! but multiple times!--by people who didn't care that the lights flashed ten minutes ago and the show already started, they had to flirt one last time with the bartender. So, screw the actors, screw the audience, screw us all. They had the usher open the doors, spill the light into the theatre, and it brought us all out of the moment. Several times. When I did theatre, they never let people in late. NEVER. Even in high school. It just wasn't done.

I don't know what bothered me more: that people showed up late, or that the ushers let them come in at all. If you show up late, you can sit in the lobby and suffer. Next time, have a better watch. *steps off theatre-snob soapbox*

Zombies, Brains, and Awesomesauce

2010-11-11T18:55:00.001-05:00

How has your week been so far, Panda Dear? For me, Monday was mediocre, and Wednesday was a bear, but Tuesday the day that could not go wrong.
I call it Awesomesauce Tuesday. Yes, "awesomesauce" is my new word. No, you can't get me to stop using it, no matter how many times you beg or roll your eyes.

I woke up Tuesday morning to find that I won a blog contest. Okay, honestly, I didn't actually win outright because I didn't get all you Pandas over there to vote on my entry (admittedly my fault), but I did win the consolation prize, which was what I wanted anyway.

The contest was for 500 words or less on the worst day ever. It didn't have to be traditionally written, even bullet points were okay. Since the contest and the kick-butt prizes were done in the spirit of Halloween, I did mine about Zombies and in Twitter format. If you want to see it, I've posted my entry at the end of this blogpost and after my sig.

In the mail and on the way:

Brains: A Zombie Memoir by Robin Becker

Like my chocolate, I prefer my humor dark. This book promises not to disappoint. Can't wait to get started on it!

I also shall receive a bag of zombie blood and a finger sucker. Though she didn't post pictures, if the zombie blood is anything like the stuff at Think Geek, it's probably something like this:

I can't find a picture of a finger sucker anywhere. I'll just have to be surprised.

Anyway, with the contest win, Tuesday started on an up note. Then I get a call from a Panda friend. He's got a project he's working on, and thought of me. Lots of coolness, a bit out of my comfort zone, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. I can't really say more (TV pilot), but I might jump on that bandwagon when it comes by early next year. We'll have to see how things are. For now, let's just refer to this as Job Offer #1.

My laptop was broken which was sad, but when we took it in for repairs, I found out it would only be forty dollars to have it fixed! Last time I did this, it cost me $125. Even more awesome, my dad offered to pay for it, since he was looking for a birthday gift to send me. No, you haven't missed it. It's on Thanksgiving this year, Pandas. You have plenty of time.

To add more coolness to Tuesday, we bought our second rabbit, Oreo. He's a baby dwarf Holland Lop, and he's covered in baby fluff. He is cuteness, pure and simple.

In case you were wondering, his ears will drop over the next few weeks. Right now, he still has the ability to put them straight up in the air, but favors the "airplane ears" position.

Here's Oreo with Flopsy. She's a fully grown Holland Lop. Oreo will never get this big because he's a dwarf. Their kits should be interesting, and Flopsy's excited about the whole process. She has already started on her nest, even tho Oreo is too little to "man up", as it were. We're looking at having new baby bunnies some time around April or May of-

Huh? What? Where was I? Oh yeah, back to Awesomesauce Tuesday.

I also reconnected with Famous Producer, and we're having a meeting late next week on our joint project. (In reality, that means I need to quit working on my novel in my spare time, and focus on this and get the script finished by Monday so I have several days to edit before I turn it in on Thursday and we talk about it on Friday. I thrive on pressure, Pandas. Bring it on.)

As if the day couldn't get any better, at the end of the day, I had another potential job offer. The second offer eventually fell through on Wednesday, but it rocked on Tuesday night.

No, I'm not upset about it. Yes, it would have been a life-changer. But it also would have been a step backwards, and for very little pay. Everything happens for a reason, Panda. Don't sweat the small stuff.

Well, now that I have my laptop back, I must return to Getting-Caught-Up-Thursday. Without the awesomesauce.

annaliterally Anna Hailey

morning, Twitter! ::offerstea:: ::drinkswithraisedpinky:: Off to watch news. #riseandshine

12 hours ago

annaliterally Anna Hailey

TV won't work, needs new HDMI cord #petrabbitchewedthecord #nothappy #badrabbit #furhat

12 hours ago

annaliterally Anna Hailey

made it to @RadioShack in no time! No traffic, lots of pedestrians #latestcraze #needmorecardio #notetoself

11 hours ago

annaliterally Anna Hailey

Crazy clerk @RadioShack! Tried to lock me in w/him. Save humanity? What's Zday? Freak slashed my tire! #psychomuch? #gonnasue #nutjob

11 hours ago

annaliterally Anna Hailey

@RadioShack psycho freak said money doesn't matter. As if! Didn't charge me for the cord! #bonus! #silverlining #freestuff #stillgonnasue

11 hours ago

annaliterally Anna Hailey

Attacked by weirdo while changing tire! I think he bit me! What's with people today? #crowbarismyfriend #brokeanail #needmanipedi

10 hours ago

annaliterally Anna Hailey

Great parking place at mall! Almost no cars. Everyone must be walking. #needwalkingshoes #shoeshopping #JOY

10 hours ago

annaliterally Anna Hailey

Shoe clerk as nutty as RSguy! Told her about him, she's going over there! #weirdos #matchmaking #myworkhereisdone

10 hours ago

annaliterally Anna Hailey

Shoe clerk gave me her keys, said take whatever I want! Who's up for a shoe spree? #freestuff #doublebonus #bestdayever

10 hours ago

annaliterally Anna Hailey

Twitter's quiet today. Where's my tweetpeeps? ::taptaptap:: #isthisthingon?

10 hours ago

annaliterally Anna Hailey

Got new sneakers in every color! Off to get mani-pedi! #lovethemall

9 hours ago

annaliterally Anna Hailey

Salon weirdness, big puddle of red hair dye(?) on the floor. Smells yummy. Still no clerk. #someoneshouldgetamop #notme #bored #waiting

9 hours ago

annaliterally Anna Hailey

Sick of waiting. Did my own mani-pedi! Not my color, went with red anyway. #thatshowIroll

8 hours ago

annaliterally Anna Hailey

Woozy, not feeling right. Need to eat. #flu #bed #chickensoup

8 hours ago

annaliterally Anna Hailey

At superstore. People give me funny looks. Check mirror, HUGE bags under my eyes! #ohthehorror #grabsconcealer #gettingoldsux

8 hours ago

annaliterally Anna Hailey

Smell of chicken soup in deli made stomach churn. Need to find something! #starving #feedme #where'sthebeef?

8 hours ago

annaliterally Anna Hailey

ransacked the meat department. So hungry, I almost ate a raw steak. In the store! #mayneedanewfreezer #lotsofmeat #havingaBBQ

7 hours ago

annaliterally Anna Hailey

They didn't make me pay for my cart of meat! #freestuff #JOY #addcrazyclerks2XmasList

7 hours ago

annaliterally Anna Hailey

Ate steaks on way home. Good stuff! #steaktartare #NEWJOY

6 hours ago

annaliterally Anna Hailey

Sick. Sleepy. #naptime

6 hours ago

annaliterally Anna Hailey

Hungry. Needz 2 eat #meat #foood #brainz

2 hours ago

annaliterally Anna Hailey

Found rabbitz. Gud rabbitz. #snak

1 hour ago

annaliterally Anna Hailey

Come ovr. paRty. #eatyurbrainz

21 minutes ago

My Handy Dandy Notebook

2010-11-03T02:58:00.004-04:00

I don't know about you, Panda, but I love to listen to other people's conversations when I'm out and about. Yes, I know it's wrong. Yes, I really probably shouldn't do it. But there's something about the way ordinary people spin dialogue that makes it so, well, raw--so full of emotion and intent and character that I not only eavesdrop, but I write it down.¹

I jot down these random bits of dialogue, or stray thoughts, or half-baked ideas into my notebook. Technically, it's a loosely bound set of index cards, but same difference, Panda. Stop nitpicking. Anyway, the notebook is a great resource for me, and I've pulled from it more than once. Show fish. Enough said.

So there I was at Jo-Ann Fabrics, trying to pick out a Halloween costume for my child. I really was minding my own business when I overheard this perfect snippet of dialogue. This all happened behind my back in the costume aisle, so I have no idea who said it, or to whom this guy was speaking. But this was too funny not to share.

GUY:
So my son learned the hard way yesterday: never sneak up on me wearing a clown mask. I broke his nose before I knew what happened.

Brilliant.

1 If this post seems vaguely familiar, it's because I updated and reposted this from my abandoned MySpace blog, since I have real world deadlines, and self-imposed NaNo ones, and neither enough hours in the day, nor sufficient caffeine in my blood system to do it all, all the time. But the chances that you've read my abandoned blog are slim to none, since it only had about two readers. Of course, I only have about two readers now²....

2 Actually, that's not true. According to my stats, I have about sixteen Panda readers, and a friend (Dude) called me yesterday³ to tell me that he reads my blog but doesn't comment, also known as blurking (blog+lurking). Dude reads my blog from work, and they monitor what he does on the computer. So, while he may be able to explain that he accidentally stumbled upon my blog while "doing research", he could never explain how he accidentally commented on my blog, so he doesn't comment. Ever. But, he reads it, and that, dear Panda, is enough.

3 Actually, that's not true, either. Dude really called to tell me that he's down in L-frickin'-A doing a voice test for Dreamworks on the next installment of How to Train Your Dragon. (And, that, dear Panda, is actually true. No, for real this time.) He apologized for not calling me sooner, but he said that there just wasn't time.⁴

4 I think, tho, that this falls into the category of "what may have seemed to be true, but isn't precisely true". From the time he found out he was going to LA, to the time he made the journey, do you know how long he had, Panda? Four frickin' days. Plenty of time to rub it in that he's going to LA, and I'm not. You know, I once had several hours to prepare for a business trip. As in "What are you doing in four hours? Would you want to move to Minneapolis? Let's get you to the airport, and you can look for an apartment tomorrow" (also, really true). And in four hours, I had time to pack a bag, get to the airport, AND CALL PEOPLE! And this was way back when cell phones were the size of bricks, and weighed just as much, and only business tycoons had them and the rest of us had pagers. I had to actually use a pay phone from the airport, but I still managed to make some calls before I went to Minneapolis. Not that I'm bitter.⁵

5 Okay, I'm bitter. Just a little. Because as much as I know people in LA, I don't really "know" people in LA. Yes, I have "people" and we have contact on the phone and thru e-mails. But I haven't met them. I haven't been to their house. They haven't invited me over for tea.⁶

6 I guess that's not precisely true, either. Famous Producer invited me out for coffee once, but since I didn't have a plane handy, I had to pass. But honestly, Pandas, I consulted with Billy Mernit on a script once, named his book for him, and owe him a drink. Would Billy Mernit let me couch crash? Um, no. Especially not after the inkwell debacle.⁷ Would my agent let me couch crash? Double no. Would Famous Producer let me couch crash, simply because we're working on a script together? Hrm. That's both iffy and awkward. But even if he would, there's no way in hell I'd have the chutzpah to ask him. So, I know people, but haven't met people. We're all faces in the Internet ether. But Dude, my friend, the one in LA at the moment, the one who blurks on my blog, the one who never comments, he knows people. As I write this, Dude is staying with people. Different "people" than my "people", but "people" nonetheless. And if he would have given me at least some notice, I may have been able to convince my husband that it was a good idea for me to raid the bank account and race down there so I could stay with Dude and his total stranger of a friend to do the networking in LA that I can't do while in Alaska. Okay, maybe not.

7 I'll have to blog about that later, but it should suffice, Panda, for you to know that I seriously think Billy seriously thought I was seriously disturbed. Which I'm not. Even if I do have a mild, non-stalking crush on Kiefer and blog about it on a semi-regular basis (much to my husband's dismay⁸ and probably sincere embarrassment). Tho, at least I'm not this bad.

8 After reviewing my blog post, my husband declared that I ramble. I admit, it's probably true.⁹

9 He also said that I could have written an entire blog post about this instead of including it all in the footnotes. And that, dear Panda, is definitely true.

Do You NaNo?

2010-10-23T19:42:00.000-04:00

I don't know about you, Panda, but things have been busy over here. That's the great thing about deadlines. They keep you focused and moving forward on your draft. The bad thing here is that I've been so focused on getting this draft done that I feel that life has just passed me by. I'm sitting here with the Panda fam, and just happened to look at the calendar. It's October 23rd? Really? What the heck happened to October?

November is just around the corner, and with it comes the beginning of the holiday season. Thirty days packed with Thanksgiving, my birthday, holiday pageants, early Christmas songs, even earlier Christmas decorations, my birthday, TV holiday specials, It's a Wonderful Life marathons, my birthday, the latest Harry Potter movie, real holiday movies, and shopping madness. Oh, and my birthday.

Just to add to the chaos, November is also National Novel Writing Month, known as NaNoWriMo or just NaNo to the participants. Every November, people from all over the globe sit down at their laptops or their notebooks, and write a 50,000-word novel. It averages out to about 1667 words a day, which is a realistic goal.

For anyone under 18, the people at NaNo also offer a Young Writers Program (YWP). The advantage to the YWP is that the word goal can be changed to match the needs of the student. For example, it would be ridiculous to ask my 8-year old to do 50,000 words in a month. According to the YWP website, the suggested wordcount for a fourth-grader is between 500 and 1200 words. When you do the math, she would have to write between 17 and 40 words every day to make her goal. If she only wrote it at school or on school days, she would need to write between 25 and 60 words each day. Again, very realistic.

If you're interested in writing a novel, screenplay, or anything longer than a grocery list, the YWP has awesome workbooks to help you plot and plan. What, you say? Reserve your judgment, my Panda friends. Check out the high-school workbook found under the youth program and see if you don't agree with me.

For screenplays specifically, they also host Script Frenzy every April, which is a screenplay in a month. It works out to about four pages per day, again, an achievable goal. If you're interested in screenplays, there are workbooks for Script Frenzy, too! Check them out on their website.

For NaNo this year, I'm resurrecting an old script that had so many sex scenes I was embarrassed by it, and using it as a basis for a romance novel. Yes, prewriting is allowed, even encouraged. No, using a crappy script as a basis for a NaNo novel is not cheating.

Even if the script were absolutely stellar and I copied and pasted it in, it would be in a completely different format--closer to an outline than any sort of prose. Unfortunately, I don't have to worry about any of that. My script's in such bad shape, it's barely cohesive enough to be considered a beat sheet, let alone an outline.

So how 'bout it, Pandas? Are you joining me in the chaos that is NaNo? Shall we write together, hrm?

October and the Contest Craze

2010-10-12T21:44:00.001-04:00

October must be the month for blog contests. There’s a contest going on at Rambles and Randomness for your worst day ever in 500 words or less. Fiction, non-fiction, your pick. I already entered, you should, too!

Also, if you're a blogger, Unicef is hosting a blog party. From http://www.bookortreat.com/:

Want to be part of the blog party? Through October 31, post about scary stories, costumes, treats, or another seasonal topic (we’re flexible!) on your blog. Throw in a link to BookOrTreat’s UNICEF fundraising efforts, and submit your post to us. We’ll feature you in the next party post!

Also, don't forget about my brainstorming contest about the show fish. E-mail me, or post your answer in the original blog post.

With all these contests going on, what are you working on, Pandas? Are you writing? Are you preparing for Nano? How do you spend your time?

Panda Q and A

2010-10-07T19:05:00.004-04:00

Many thanks to all the Pandas who have been reading my blog. ~~Lots~~ ~~Several~~ Two of you have written to me to ask me questions! Joy! My first Panda Q and A!

Shiloh gets credit for first official question: What's a Panda (other than the fuzzy bear from China)?

Great question, Shiloh. I liked it so much, I added it to the FAQ.

The "panda" origin is a long story involving my friend Vlad, a Mardi Gras party, and way too much free alcohol. I don't know what brought it on (other than the alcohol), but Vlad had the urge to spout, "I'm as helpful as a panda."

Now, I live in Alaska. I've met grizzlies face-to-face. When I sold my Mustang, it had bear scratches embedded in the hood. Grizzlies are not helpful. They're terrifying. Ditto on the polar bears. They'll hunt you down like prey and eat you for breakfast.

When I lived in Tahoe, California, I met a couple of black bears. One was a docile thing that waited outside the restaurant for table scraps. You could pet it and scratch behind its ears. Dangerous and sweet, all at the same time.

For my second black bear encounter, I had taken Stefan, a Slovak exchange worker, to the Renaissance festival (I still wonder if he knew what was going on). When we came back late that night, we had a close encounter with a scared black bear in a tree. Stefan and I thought we were going to die. So did the fifty workers who scared and treed the thing via air horn just prior to our arrival.

When we first saw the group of people leaning out the second floor windows, we thought it odd to have a welcoming committee. We smiled and waved; and sure, they saw us. No matter how close we got to the black bear, no one warned us; though, when we rounded the corner and found we were only three feet away from the scared bear with long claws, you could hear the audible gasp from the mob on the second floor.

Not that I'm bitter.

So, mixed feelings on the black bear issue.

Now, I've never met a panda. They may be the most helpful bears around, I don't know. But Vlad made his statement, and since I'm his friend, I was under obligation to never let it die. Vlad is the original Panda, I'm known by some as HelperPanda, and now, you're all Pandas. Congrats!

Plus, I like saying "Dear Panda" much better than "Dear Reader". That's how I roll.

The second question comes from Mike: So how do I get to be a writer?

Again, another awesome question, and it has a very simple answer (though I have a feeling that the Pandas won't like it). Whether you're looking to write the next Great American Novel, or sell your million-dollar spec screenplay, the answer is the same: get your butt in the chair, and your hands on the keyboard (aka BICHOK).

The long answer:

1. Read, read, read

Janet Reid recommends that you read one hundred novels in your genre. I think the same thing goes for screenplays.

2. Read some more

Study mythological structure, especially Campbell, Hague, Vogler and their ilk. I'm a big fan of Save the Cat, which is billed as being screenwriter-centric, but if you're looking to write a novel that can be easily adapted to film, then this may be the book for you.

Read reference books in your field. There are books on just how to craft a mystery, a romantic comedy, or a sci-fi novel; books on YA, books on screenplays, books on plotting, books on scene-work. It's all important. Absorb it like the Panda sponge you are.

3. Get yourself out there

Take classes. Read good novels, read bad novels, and learn from them. Join a critique group. I've been in several, and I always learn something, even from the newbies.

A quick note on criticism: No one likes the hard-ass who rips people to shreds just because they can. Writers and Pandas alike often have fragile egos. When you're critiquing someone's work, always, always, remember the Oreo cookie philosophy on criticism: start with something positive, then do the negatives, then end with something positive. Even if it's just, "I really like the way you used twelve-point Courier for your font. It's very retro," say it anyway.

4. Be a people-watcher

Pay attention to how people dress, speak, act, interact, move. It's all important. Write down memorable characters, overheard bits of dialogue, or other lovely tidbits into that notebook that you're going to keep in your pocket from now on. It will help you immensely.

My hubby once had an interaction with the goldfish guy at the five-and-dime. Hubby was looking at the piranhas, and Goldfish Guy assured my husband that the piranhas were indeed of show-quality. I know people with all kinds of show animals: Goats, pigs, geese, quail, rabbits, ad nauseum. Never in my life had I heard of "show fish".

Now I don't know right now what I'm going to do with that little tidbit o' info, but I simply have to do something. It's too juicy. I bet you could come up with a few questions just on this topic alone. Do the fish wear leashes? Jump thru hoops?

Challenge: come up with five questions, thoughts, ideas on the show-fish topic, and post it in the comments. I'll give a prize (TBD) to the writer with the best comments.

5. Write

There comes a point in time where you need to stop with the researching, and just write the darn thing. So, do it. Stop reading about it and write, already. Write as often as you can. Ten minutes here, twenty there can really add up. Get your game plan together and attack that blank page.

6. Don't be afraid to suck

In fact, first drafts are supposed to suck. That's why you don't show it to people. Ever. Which goes along with the next topic...

7. Writing is rewriting

Polish your draft until it shines, then show it to people: People who write, people who don't, anyone with an opinion. Remember, Panda, you're looking for constructive criticism, not ego-stroking. If someone tells you they like your work, that's great, but it doesn't help you get better. If someone says that your work has problems, and it makes you a sad Panda: LISTEN TO THOSE NOTES. If it hurts to hear it, it's probably right on target. Take notes on what they say, and don't interrupt. Don't defend your work. Listen.

Then, fix your problems and do it all over again.

Also, don't write your first draft, then look for an agent or make your movie. Bad, bad, Panda. So what if your tenth draft has plotholes you could drive a truck through? Maybe it takes you twenty seven drafts to find your winner. When it's ready, when you've written something worth reading or seeing, you'll know. Trust the process, and ...

8. Have patience

You'll hear of people in the biz as being "overnight successes". It's a myth, Panda. No one ever got up in the morning, wrote a script for the first time by late afternoon, and had a million-dollar deal by nightfall. Overnight successes are often six or seven or ten years in the making.

This is the hardest one for me, and if you've ever met me, you've heard me say, "Patience is a virtue that I don't have." I am not a patient Panda. Yoga is helping. ~~Some.~~ ~~A bit.~~ Not so much.

But what really helps me the most is staying busy. I'm working on that next project, and planning the one after that. Because when you're finally ready to get your name and work out there, they're always going to ask you about your next project. And you need to have one, even if it's just something you've plotted out in your Panda brain.

In the same vein, literary agents aren't willing to take as much as a risk on you if you have a mediocre first draft, and plans for one novel. Now, if it's the first book in a series, and it's a great first book, doors will open. Trust me.

Just like in your story, stasis=death. Keep writing. Keep improving. Keep moving forward.

And keep asking questions! I love it!

Write on!

Keep on Keepin' on

2010-10-02T14:50:00.001-04:00

When I went to the writers conference a few weeks ago, I came back with a renewed confidence in my writing, and courage to face the blank page.

Now that my latest screenplay is polished and on my manager's desk, I've had many a panda ask me what's next on my plate.

Maybe I should call her
Fighter Girl instead?

First and foremost, clean the house. When you pull a marathon session like I did last week, write for an average of twenty hours a day, and sleep three of it (if at all), there's not much time for housekeeping.

As minor as it sounds, cleaning the house has been no small feat. I couldn't have done it without Drummer Girl. My goal for today is to see the floor in my laundry room. No matter how long I leave the clothes alone locked in there with the washer and drier, they refuse to wash and fold themselves.

Then, it's off to the next project. Remember my near success with that one screenplay, Pink Slipped? The movie didn't get made, sure, but thanks to a zealous director, my script was circulated to just about every studio in Ho'wood. Eventually, it got me noticed.

I'm working on a rom-com with a gen-yoo-wine Hollywood producer. He gave me half of a script, and I'm doing rewrites.

Technically, I've had this project on my plate for a few months now. Things were put on hold while we each dealt with other commitments.

My commitments are all met; but, he's still in post production on three different projects and won't be free until the end of October. That essentially gives me a month to work on his script. After last week, one script in a month is no problem. Even better, it has a deadline. I love deadlines.

After that, I have a couple of older scripts I could tweak, plus almost a dozen fresh ideas circling 'round in my brain. The hardest part is figuring out where to start. But that's another problem for another month. I'll worry about that in November.

Lucy Moment #1: The Rug Doctor of Doom

2010-10-01T13:10:00.001-04:00

All my life, I’ve had the misfortune of when things go wrong, it goes really wrong. Like the Car Calamity of ’99, when Jiffy Lube almost blew up my car over an oil change gone awry. Or the time I tried to change the water filter, and almost burned down the house. And let’s not even talk about the squirrel drama.

When this particular incident happened twenty years ago, it felt like something right out of an I Love Lucy episode. Now that things like this happen to me on a daily basis, I have come to the only realization that makes any sense: Lucy Ricardo is my spirit guide.

The first time I channeled Lucy was the day of my high school graduation party. My dad rented one of those Rug Doctor carpet cleaners from the convenience store. Sounds simple enough, right, Panda?

Now, they sell the recommended cleaning solution at the store, and keep it right next to the machines. It’s not that Dad didn’t see the right stuff. It’s that their cleaning solution was umpteen bucks a bottle. With the price of the Rug Doctor rental, and the costs of the party looming over him, he wanted to cut a few corners. Instead of buying expensive name-brand cleaning solution, he picked up a few bottles of an off-brand, and called it good.

So, my dad came home with the Rug Doctor, and we got to work on the dining room floor. Things went well for the first few minutes, just long enough for my dad to feel smug. Then, bubbles happened. They poured out of the machine, down the sides of it, out the front. Bubbles all over the carpet, bubbles everywhere. Frothy chaos.

As quickly as it all started, it all stopped. The Rug Doctor died on us. Together, we opened up the rabid beast and peeked inside. Bubbles from the belly of the beast cascaded out and onto the carpet. Our autopsy of the poor creature concluded that when the bubbles got too high, the machine choked and died. Essentially, death by bubbles.

As with any good catastrophe, enter the ticking clock. Company would arrive in a few hours. We didn’t have time to get the right cleaning solution. We didn’t have time to get a new Rug Doctor. And with as much as he was charged for this rental, my dad was going to clean every inch of that damn carpet. We had to make do.

So, I was Lucy to Dad’s Ethel. Ethel ran the foaming beast of a machine, and Lucy loaded up with mega-handfuls of bubbles, dashed to the kitchen sink, and rinsed off. Every so often, Lucy wasn’t fast enough, and the machine died anyway. Then we both dove in and carried bubbles to the sink until the fiend resurrected. This twenty-minute project turned into an hour-long debacle.

By the end of it all, the formerly clean kitchen was now wet and trashed. Lucy and Ethel were soaked to the bone. The carpet was saturated with a fine layer of froth. But the carpet was clean, so we chalked it up as a win.

After all was said and done, we checked the Rug Doctor instructions to find out the cause of the trouble. And there it was, in black and white: use only with a non-foaming carpet cleaner.

Contest Update: we have a winner, sort of

2010-09-28T15:58:00.004-04:00

Many thanks to all the pandas who entered my please-name-my-script-contest. Tho Ruth posted heavily on the blog, and I love her for it, I did have a few other people give me title ideas on the phone, thru chat, and just in casual conversation.

And the winner is:

::drumroll::

Nobody. Sort of.

I found the title while on the 15th(?) draft. It's a line buried somewhere around page 100. The new title is "Sole Man". It would make sense if you knew all the high-conceptery that I won't blog about.

Have no fear, Panda. There's more going on here than you know. One of Ruth's suggestions was so awesome that I wish I could have used it. Had this been a drama instead of a comedy, this would be the title. Life in Minor Keys. Awesome, isn't it? So I made it a line in my screenplay.

Ruth wanted SWAG, so she gets a handy-dandy downwithsquirrels mug.

Thanks to all of you who entered. I really appreciated the help.

Which leads me to my next point. A writer spends countless hours alone in a room, in a state of BICHOK (butt in chair, hands on keyboard). By the time the written work is in final form, many people have helped the writer along the way. Open up any novel, and you'll see a page or two or ten of acknowledgments.

Screenwriters don't have an acknowledgment page attached to their screenplay, wedged in between the title page and page one. Ho'wood doesn't care where you got your idea, or who your readers were, or how many nights it took, or how many soccer games you missed.

Now that the screenplay is turned in, and its fate rests with others, I'd like to thank the pandas who have helped me on the screenplay:

My husband Bryan, who let me pursue this crazy dream of being a screenwriter, while living in Alaska. You've put up with so much: A messy house, late dinners, me waking you up to ask you a question or have you read pages, and the general chaos that is me. I cannot thank you enough, but I can try. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

My dad, who didn't laugh when I said I was going to screenwriting school. The idea for this screenplay came to me while I was in your kitchen. Thanks for letting me pursue my dream and write when I come home to visit, even though it takes precious time away from us. Keep calling me with your ideas. I love them.

Tim Albaugh, my UCLA instructor, who gave me great notes on my first draft, and loads of inspiration in class.

Billy Mernit, who helped me early on when I was struggling with plot. I still owe you a drink. Next time I'm in LA.

Scott, the awesome reader. Dude, you give great notes. I have no idea how many times I sent it to you all told. Six? Seven? Your notes in April were painfully on-target, so much so that I threw the script in a drawer for a while. But I couldn't have gotten through this marathon week without you giving me notes only hours after I sent you the latest draft. Your three critiques last week alone really helped me pull it all together. Thanks for Carrot Top.

RJ, the original Panda, thanks for planting the "Jack Black" idea in my head, because it really helped me spin this script in the right direction.

Travis, who read it just to read it, and came back with a few suggestions that made it into the screenplay. I named a character after you.

Alaena (aka Farm Girl), for going on vacation and letting me farmsit. There's no way I could have put in these crazy hours and did all the passes that I did while being at home. I always thought that writers' retreats were a waste of money, but now I get it. It's totally worth it.

To Kara, Mark, Maria, and Carlos, and countless others. Thanks for being my cheerleaders and never letting me lose faith in myself.

I appreciate everything you all have done for me.

Saving the Cat

2010-09-23T18:11:00.001-04:00

This post is long overdue.

Kristan Higgins is guest blogging over at Riding with the Top Down and she mentioned in her blog how important it was for a character to Save the Cat. It hit on all kinds of nerves, and I had to write about it.

"Save the cat" is a screenwriting term developed by guru Blake Snyder. In order for the audience to take a two-hour journey with your film, you have to hook your audience. Make them like your character, even if all they do is something simple, like save a cat out of a tree.

When I first started screenwriting six years ago, I dove in head first. I went to school for it, I wrote things just for practice, and I devoured every book I could find on the subject.

Everyone has their own method in writing, and Save the Cat was a wonderful book that made perfect sense to me. I "got" his paradigm. It spoke to my soul. I kept the book on my desk or in the bathroom, and read it repeatedly. Whenever I was stuck, I used the book. What was my story missing? Blake's bible had the answer.

A few years back, I was on MySpace, and I was catching up on my blogs. A fellow writer blogged that Blake Snyder was mentoring her with her screenplay. I was beyond jealous, for Blake was my hero, too. She told me to write him. Write him and he would help me.

Me? At the time, I was a housewife from Alaska with nominal credentials. Why would he help me? And, what would he help me with? His book was already awesome, I practically had the thing memorized. I wasn't stuck on a problem. I had no nagging questions. He had helped me out so much already, what more could he do?

So I did nothing.

Eight months go by, and I'm rewriting a spec script, changing the tone. When you read Blake's books, he's very page specific. Theme by page 5, Act I break by 25, and so forth. My theme was in the right place, but everything else was consistently five pages off-paradigm.

As a newbie writer, you're always trying to keep your script out of the slush pile. Would this five-page drift kill my script?

I go back to the beginning, and eventually find the problem. My five-page character introduction. It takes five pages for my character to Save the Cat twice. The character is a bit of a weasel, and it's important that we like him in this opening scene, or we won't want to take the journey with him. I absolutely cannot cut the scene.

I now had a reason to e-mail Blake! I do, and within hours he responds. With a phone number. He wants me to call him, so we can chat about it. My hero wants to talk to me? I practically screamed myself hoarse.

So, I put on my big girl panties, and I call him. I was so nervous, I almost puked. Blake and I chatted for about ten minutes just on who I was and what it was like in Alaska. It was awesome, just to be on the phone with him. And I'm nervous, and I keep interrupting him, and I know I'm doing it, but I couldn't stop myself. I actually wound up biting my lip to keep my mouth shut long enough so I could listen.

Blake references my question, and we start in on the whole reason for the call. Which is just about the time the UPS guy comes to the door. Now, I ask Blake to hold on, but he's walking in L.A. I can hear the traffic. Either he can't hear me or since I've already interrupted him fifteen thousand times, he's tuned me out.

Well, the UPS guy won't just leave the package, he has questions. The package has the wrong address. Yes, we moved. Blake, can you hold on a sec? Just two doors down? This place is bigger. Blake, can you hear me? Blake won't stop spouting his knowledge, and I'm missing it. I grabbed the package, and shut the door in the UPS guy's face.

And then Blake said he had to go. He asked if I had any more questions, which I didn't. He had already answered mine, I just didn't hear it. He was nice enough to recap it for me: if you write a really great story, page count doesn't matter.

I sulked. A lot.

A few days later, I got this great idea. I'd write Blake to let him know what happened during the phone call, and do it in screenplay format.

He loved it so much, he contacted me. I was talented, he liked my style. Told me that if I ever needed anything, just to let him know. He'd be there to help.

I had a mentor!

Time passes, and Blake and I e-mail sporadically. It was enough for me at times to know that he was in my corner, a resource and friend on whom I could rely.

I send off the spec to a fringy acquaintance in Hollywood. Almost a year later, I get an e-mail from the acquaintance saying that he wants to option my script!

I e-mail Blake and ask him what I should do? Can I do this on my own? Should I get an agent? A manager? What is my next step? Instead of responding with a form-letter answer, Blake sends me his agent's and manager's contact information. Blake's manager did an awesome job and fixed a huge loophole in that contract. (I still got no pay for the option. Welcome to Hollywood.)

I only talked with Blake one more time before his death, and it was on FaceBook chat. If I had known it was the last time, I would have picked up the phone. I'm glad I at least took the time I had to thank him for what he had done for me.

I never met the man, never shook his hand, couldn't even tell you his wife's name. But he left a void, all the same. A hole in my heart.

It's been over a year since he passed, and I still have his number in my phone. It's my security blanket. Somehow, somewhere, I'd like to think he's still looking out for me.

It reminds me, too, of a wonderful man who helped me when he didn't have to; guided me without asking for anything in return; and taught me how important it was to really save the cat.

Enter My Contest! Win Some Swag!

2010-09-20T18:02:00.007-04:00

Remember how, in my last post I was talking about my favorite Jacks? In no particular order, we have Jack Bauer, Jack Daniel's, Gentleman Jack, and Jack Bauer.

Well, I do have one other favorite Jack. Honestly, the whole reason I didn't include him in my last post was because I spent over an hour looking for just the right photos of Jack Bauer, Gentlemen Jack, and JD, that I was too tired to find that last photo.

Blame the frickin' Lhasa Apsos. They woke me up at 3:45 this morning. And with the light off, and no glasses on, 3:45 looks a lot like 8:45 on a gray-on-gray digital clock (who designs this crap?). So I do the hair/face/teeth thing, grab some caffeine, and start my day.

I can't wait to be done with farm sitting. My rabbit never wakes me up at 3:45 in the morning. Thursday cannot come fast enough.

Only this white-on-white clock could have been less helpful.

Anyway, since I was falling asleep while blogging, I neglected one of my favorite Jacks. Not because I don't love him, but because the words were starting to blur, and I was afraid that I was incoherent. So I left you out. Sorry, Jack. I was wrong.

And then fate bit me on the ass so hard that I have marks.

You see, Panda, I'm a writer. I can see you nod your head. You know I'm a writer because you read my blog. Yes, but for my real job, the one I sweat blood for and slave over and still get no money, I'm a writer. I write all sorts of things, mostly novels and screenplays. I even went to school for it. No, really! It's true!

About a year ago, I had a script called The Solitary Man. No, not the one with Michael Douglas that just came out. Mine was a rom-com (romantic comedy for you non-screenwriters out there) about a loner of a guy who didn't want love, but through a series of complications, he finds it anyway.

It's much more high-concept than that, and I can say the logline in five words or less, but I'm deliberately keeping the details somewhat vague. It's one of those things that when I tell it to people, they say, "I wish I'd thought of that!" Then they give me the evil stare because they secretly hate me. I love the evil stare. It lets me know I'm on the write track. (pun intended)

So, I looked at this script that I had that I loved, mostly. It's one of those tip-of-your-tongue type of things. Oh, it's almost there, but it's just not working. Something's wrong, but I just can't figure it out. Notes from my favorite reader weren't helping. He suggested a change that would have fixed it, but it would have made it a movie that I wouldn't want to see, let alone spend weeks rewriting.

In screenwriting classes, they say that when you get in a situation like that, put the sucker in a drawer and forget about it.

So I did.

And the seasons came and went, and lo, and behold! One day I opened that drawer, and there was this script that I loved six months ago. I read it and I read it. And it still wasn't working. But never fear, for time has indeed passed, and now I have shiny new Panda ears to tell my story to. My Panda friend called me up, and he's having trouble, which I helped him fix. And then we talk about a new project of his, and I helped him fix that, too. I figured, what the hell, and told him my story that needs a-fixing.

He didst say, and I doth quote, "I'd see it if Jack Black were in it."

Well, holy hell on a popsicle stick. So would I. That "click" you just heard was everything falling into place.


Of course, this picture took me all of two minutes to find.

So, I wrote, and wrote, and wrote some more. The Jack Black angle put a new spin on the script, and it was fun, and a joy to write, and I had a blast.

I sent it off for notes, which were encouraging. Lots of good stuff, but still not there yet. Very close, but no cigar.

I've been working on it off and on, but other projects were getting in the way of me delving in.

Today, I get an e-mail from my director on my optioned feature (not this one). Did I have the rewrites I promised? She's got a production deal in place, money to burn, and needs a script.

Well, yes and no. I had a script that was slated for production a year ago, called Pink Slipped. It was a romantic comedy about a guy who fires people. Yes, Panda. Very similar to Up in the Air, which was the whole reason it didn't get made.

I bit the bullet and rewrote for the tenth time without pay into Wingman, Inc., a rom-com about a guy who breaks up relationships. Heartbreaker just got released this month. Same premise. When I got the email last week from Creative Screenwriting, I almost cried.

So, I tell her that I've given up on Pink Slipped/Wingman. But does she want to see my Jack Black feature?

"Oh," she says. "Did I ever tell you that Jack Black and I have the same agent?"

Holy crap.

So, rewrites are due on Friday, because she won't have time to look at it by then. If all goes well...

Holy crap, again! My screenplay has no title. This awesome screenplay that Jack Black is just going to love and star in has no freakin' title.

Help me, Pandas. Help me name the screenplay. If we get an awesome title by noon on Friday Alaska time, the person with the best name can get a "down with squirrels" mug, or a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble, your pick. If the name kicks ass, I'm be willing to do both. And possibly bear your children, but we'd have to negotiate terms.

The protag is an average guy. I call him Joe, but I'm not sold on the name. He's a musician, a piano teacher, but lives his life more like a gamer. If his mom were alive, he'd live in her basement and eat Funyuns all day. He likes his solitary lifestyle, he's not looking for love. High-concept complications ensue, then he's looking for love in all the wrong places.

Ideas? Comments? Anyone? Please, anything but crickets.

down with squirrels

Sleep is for the Weak

Decisions, Decisions

For Today's Homework...

Sorry So Short...

Better Late Than Never

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

Cloak of Invincibility

I'm Sure It's Sunday Somewhere...

Yeah, I Changed My Mind...

I'm Not Dead Yet...

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

Paradigm Shift

Tall Tale Challenge: The Shiner

Viva Nashvegas!

Your Personal Creative Genius

Sequestered

The Four Curses

Sleep is for the Weak

Monday Monday

*SPOILERS*

Hibernation Days

Short and Sweet

High Anxiety

The Great Squirrel War: The Beginning

Random Recap

Writers Guild meeting reminder

How Al Ramrus Became My Inner Compass

Shhhh... Don't Listen to the Voices

Merit Badges for Everyone!

Everyone's a Character

Resolutions, Schmezolutions

New Year's Day Eye Candy Blog Jog

Cookies and Contests and Freon, Oh My!

Lucy Moment #2: The Bee Incident

Bite Me, Fellini-loving Emo Boy

Zombies, Brains, and Awesomesauce

My Handy Dandy Notebook

Do You NaNo?

October and the Contest Craze

Panda Q and A

Keep on Keepin' on

Lucy Moment #1: The Rug Doctor of Doom

When this particular incident happened twenty years ago, it felt like something right out of an I Love Lucy episode. Now that things like this happen to me on a daily basis, I have come to the only realization that makes any sense: Lucy Ricardo is my spirit guide.

The first time I channeled Lucy was the day of my high school graduation party. My dad rented one of those Rug Doctor carpet cleaners from the convenience store. Sounds simple enough, right, Panda?

By the end of it all, the formerly clean kitchen was now wet and trashed. Lucy and Ethel were soaked to the bone. The carpet was saturated with a fine layer of froth. But the carpet was clean, so we chalked it up as a win.

After all was said and done, we checked the Rug Doctor instructions to find out the cause of the trouble. And there it was, in black and white: use only with a non-foaming carpet cleaner.

Contest Update: we have a winner, sort of

Saving the Cat

Enter My Contest! Win Some Swag!

SPOILERS