Wednesday, March 07, 2012

move.

The newly redesigned blog is up and running! This old blog served me faithfully, but I'll be doing all my posting over at the Wordpress location now.

Check it out -- The Unsolicited Memoirs of an Infrangible Writer.

Monday, March 05, 2012

remodel.

First, in screenwriting news, if you haven't read Scott Myer's round table with Hollywood's newest screenwriting darlings, go there now.

I'm sprucing up the old blog. I'm looking for something a little more "serious and career-driven writer" and less "PAISLEY! SONG LYRICS!" I've been working on a Wordpress blog all week, and I think it's almost time to put a sign in the window here and head out. (Mind you, "working on the blog" is, to me, rearranging my side widgets into the optimal order. It's not like I'm doing actual coding or anything.)

Step 3 of my 5 step blog move was to import all my old blog posts. As a writer, it's incredibly difficult to give up what you've written and start with a clean page, even if you do want a clean start. That is what I thought, at least, until I started going back and reading some of those old posts.

I've had this blog since 2004, people. Eight years. And I will be honest and frank with you and say I was downright mortified by some of those old posts, what I had written and clearly how I was acting. Yikes. Obviously, I had an inability to keep my personal life out of my blog (er, just skip the below post entitled "romancing") -- or maybe I thought I was writing a LiveJournal. So I decided that I'd leave some of those chronicles here. I want a writing focused blog, so I only took from January 2007, when I started the screenwriting program at Michigan, and on.

Today I am super grateful for growing up -- at least a little. And now I'd like to share with you some song lyrics that recently have been making me all misty-eyed--

Thursday, March 01, 2012

back.

Look, guys, I'm not going to say that my trip to Israel was a life changing experience. But I mean, I was physically closer to God, you know, being in what three religions claim is His favourite part of the world. Oddly enough, proximity didn't seem to affect sound quality.

Basically, I have a hard time telling people about Israel because I'm still trying to figure it out myself. I wish I could at least share some of the pictures I have right now, but I think my poor overloaded computer would fry itself out if I even approached it will the 700+ pictures I took. Soon. It is a gorgeous country.

And the last day we visited Caesarea Maritima -- on Monday I was frolicking on a Mediterranean beach -- and now I'm back to data entry and answering the phones in rainy and super gloomy Michigan. My brain hasn't come back with me, at least not right away.

But it'll have to come back, because I have a lot of work to do. V and I are about to commence a pretty rigorous rewrite on Consideration. I'd like to take another pass at The Exit Strategy and get it all dolled up for contest season (Nicholl quarterfinalists, here I come!). And, in other good news, my next project has been picked.

Back in December Script Doctor Eric, a writer and script analyst, held a mini screenwriting contest. You sent in your logline and first three pages, and Eric promised to give the top five finalists a free consult. I knew a woman who got her agent by placing in Eric's contest last year, so I thought I'd give it a try. I sent in The Exit Strategy and another rom com that I had tangled with a couple times last year, to no avail. It was a good, strong, marketable idea, the best one I had had yet -- and had probably stolen somehow from my Dad -- but I had never been able to get it off the ground. If it placed, I'd finally have the motivation to write the darn thing.

And now I have to write the darn thing.

'Cause I placed! I received the email right before I left for Israel, so it was a happy little start to my vacation. And what was even more fun was that one of my new screenwriting friends also placed! After whining and moping about how I was struggling to write, it was a nice shot of encouragement. I believe that if I can get The Exit Strategy straightened up and this rom com (tentatively titled Attachment Issues) cobbled together, I'll have the foundations of my portfolio.

And once I have stories that I am proud of, that I think are good, then I will start to plot my move to LA, to the beach and sunshine and obsessively skinny people.