Snow day

It started snowing yesterday morning and kept on for 36 hours straight. Crazy amounts of snow. I'm starting to think about maybe considering not all that the weathermen say to be completely bogus.

If it's going to snow like this, it should be socially acceptable to play Christmas music.

Over the last couple days I've finished notecarding Keys to the Garden and the first half of my TV pilot and I've tinkered with my rom com idea, to no great gains. I really need to do some research for the rom com, but I'll admit, the thought of checking out half a dozen books from the library about men and dysfunctional relationships intimidates me.

I've also been majorly productive by watching 30 Rock. I've watched some of the recent episodes on Hulu, but thanks to the beauty of Netflix, I can start back at the beginning. I've watched the first four or five episodes, and they are hil-aaaar-i-ous. And honestly, I swear I'm not making this up just to justify my waste of my life by watching TV, I have been learning a lot about comedy from 30 Rock.

Ms. Fey, if you have a minute, I have an idea for a film that I think you would loooove. Mr. Baldwin, if you have a minute, I'd just like to bask in your presence.

For instance, in 1x02, The Aftermath, Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) starts off with one problem. In her attempt to fix her one small problem, she causes a big problem. In her attempt to fix her big problem, she causes an even bigger problem. One, that's an incredibly smart model to use for rising conflict in general, and two, it's wonderfully funny, especially when Lemon's gone through this whole song and dance and you think she's finally smoothed things over - only to find out she's just got herself into a worse mess than before.

And then in 1x04, Jack the Writer, there is a small but brilliant moment. Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) comes into the writer's room to monitor their efficiency. And of course he says to act like he's not there, and of course we expect him to be anything but inconspicuous. However, I was expecting him to be difficult and demanding, when actually all his interruptions stemmed from him getting too excited and involved in the creative process. (Ok, clearly I was not paying enough attention to the title of the episode here.) A great example of expectation reversal. I was expecting the story to go one way, and instead it took the opposite route.

You may not have realized comedy is so contrived. It's actually "easy" to study, analyze, and deconstruct the structure of a joke and learn how to build your own. Thank goodness it is, for those of us who need to be book funny.

Go for the Gold

I watched the ice dancing competition last night. Really fantastic. I'd also like to brag a few minutes - two of the three American teams were Michigan students. Six of the eight competing athletes representing USA in this sport.

Davis and White, with some non-Olympic medals. Doesn't he look like Steve Zahn?

As I was watching, I wondered if it was to late to switch careers. The medal ceremony unfolded, and I wistfully thought how amazing it would be to be presented with a shiny gold medal for being outstanding at what you do. To not be mediocre. And then I realized...

Hollywood DOES give out shiny gold awards for being grand!

Someday, you and I will have a date, sir.

Day 4: More note carding. I'm more than halfway through the script, close to Act III.

How I rewrite --

I read through the screenplay again, refamiliarized myself with the script and the notes I already had, took a few more notes. The first rewrite is mostly structural, so I'm not really taking nit-picky notes. I reverse engineer my step outline on 3x5 cards. I then sticky tack it up on the wall and playing around with the structure, rearranging scenes, adding scenes, throwing scenes out. This is the best way I've found to wrap my head around the immensity of an entire screenplay. When I take out a note card, I can see the hole in the structure. I can see when an act is top heavy with scenes. I can identify actions scenes, sub plots, character moments. Structure has to be addressed first, and I find using note cards to be more effective than an electronic document or even a printed step outline.

When I know what the next step is, I'll let you know.

When a girl skips class to bake you cake...

First of all, anyone else notice how sappy the Olympics are? I nearly cry every time I watch it. I'm a veritable waterworks anyway, and then when they throw in the stories of Olympic athletes in life threatening accidents and their doting families, I'm pretty much a goner. Have not cracked yet, though.

Kevin Pearce

I was talking with Dear Friend G. the other day. I'm trying to overcome my dislike for the phone, since the distance between my friends and I is not getting any shorter. We were talking about our lives and we brushed on relationships, and I told him, "I think everyone should have their heart broken at least once." He did not seem as gun-ho about that idea. Listen, I'm not being flippant. I'm not saying everything about heart brokenness is great. It's a rather unpleasant experience, in the whole. But I've also found a whole lot of growth, maturity, and self knowledge in it. I've known people who've never had their heart broken. Sometimes I think they're too scared to. Once you've had your heart broken once, you know what'll be worth the risk again.

Of course, on the flip side, I once bought Dear Friend G. "A Walk to Remember" for Christmas. I was sort of joking. He loved it.

Talk about waterworks!

Day 3 - Ironed out the rom com logline, I think. Might test it out with a few more people. Broke down the first act of Keys to the Garden on notecards. Most productive writing I've done in the past few weeks... without actually writing. I'm gettin' back into it.

I will not try to influence you... just yet.

Unk tweeted this blog post about a new idea of having writers pay to compete in the slush pile. I commented, just to throw my two cents in, and have gotten wrapped up in the dialog. Instead of ranting and raving in two places, I thought I'd just post a link.

Check out Bruce's blog. I haven't looked through it all yet, but it looks like he's got some interesting stuff to say.

Mr. Hanson, I'd love a job.

One of my favourite Bones episodes is up on Hulu. Two Bodies in the Lab. Check it out.

Day 1 - Still Gearing Up

I've always steered away from writing at home. I can never focus. So I tend to take off when it's time to write. I don't know if that's because if you have to get up, leave your house, travel, readjust yourself some place new, and stay there for a while to justify the trip you're more likely to work. Or if it's just a procrastination technique. Dicey.

I'm trying to get over that. Partially because I'm trying to maximize my productivity. Partially because I already spend too much on tea at coffee shops. Previous to this day, the desk in my room has primarily been storage. I really don't have any space in my room, so I tend to toss things like mail, books, and magazines onto my desk. Anything that needs to find a permanent space in my room makes a "temporary" stop at my desk. But today I decided that my desk needed to stop being storage and start being a creative space. So, at the risk of looking like a complete disaster, I'm going to show you before and after pictures.


Ok, so on my desk we had my diploma (seriously, you'd think I'd take better care of that thing. I guess at this point I was just lucky it was in a frame.), birthday gifts, apology notes my second graders wrote me after a particularly bad recess, a Script magazine, and that book about screenwriters that I'll probably never read. All things that are waiting for a permanent spot in my room. I feel like it's like my house's equivalent of the Island of Misfit Toys. Well, I cleaned house, and here's what we ended up with --


My desk still has stuff on it, but it's definitely more organized. The stack by my computer is all notebooks, screenplay pages, and legal pads. Sometimes I can be very productive. The pictures I put up are just because I think I'll be more productive if I can converse with real Hollywood types. Ok, I'm not that far gone yet. I'm trying to play on my visual side. The pictures are the actors I could see playing the characters I write (I know, there are huge debates about writing for a specific actor. I'm really going for physical similarities.). The pictures under the cork board are for my tv pilot, and the pictures beside the Empire poster are for Keys to the Garden. And look, I got my diploma up.

I worked at my refurbished desk today. I didn't do much (so creatively drained from redecorating), but I think the changes will actually encourage working at home. I read through the first half of Keys to the Garden and took some notes. Before I can really get to rewriting, I need to refamiliarize myself with this story. It's been about 9 months since I finished the first draft. There are some choices I made that I'm hazing on what my thought process was. On one hand, this makes me nervous. How out of touch with my story am I? On the other hand, if I can't remember my reasoning or motivation for a certain choice, than maybe it wasn't a strong one. Maybe my eyes will be more analytical and objective. Altogether, tackling this second draft is a daunting task. I've only done a rewrite this extensive on a full length piece once, and that was for our rewrite class at Michigan. This time, instead of having a full class of peers, an easily accesible professor, and a course syllabus, I have a handful of notes given to me about a year ago, half of which will probably become irrelevant once I complete the deep structural changes. It reminds me of this Sorkin quote --

"It says...'I'm not your agent, and I'm not your mommy. I'm a white piece of paper, you want to dance with me?' And I really, really don't."

Somehow, I think he manages to conquer his reluctance anyway.

Day 0

First of all, I'm sorry I initially mentioned Shaun White air guitaring the national anthem in my post yesterday. I think it was silly of him, but now I feel bad about all the people who Googled that and were directed to my blog. I have nothing important to say about Shaun White, air guitaring, or the national anthem.

I did want to write a post on the Olympics and writers, but Scott does it so well here, it's more effective for me to point people towards him than churn up something of my own.

I just spent the last 20 hours in a car driving back up from Florida. So no, no real writing was done today. I did scribble out about a half dozen beats for a revised outline for Keys to the Garden. Real productive. Tomorrow, I'm going to prep myself (meaning, maybe I'll organize my life and my millions of pieces of paper) for the next 90 days.

But first I'm going to sleep in for as long as I want.

Page Count

NBC just showed a promo for the Olympic ice dancing set to "Bad Romance." I can only hope.

Since I've been chilling down in Florida these past few days (chilling for real. It's COLD down here!), I've spent more time thinking about my projects and trying to work out problems than I have over the past three months. It's very relaxing and not busy down here, and besides the ever present stress of what I'm going to do in four months, my mind's been pretty clear. I got to thinking, how much writing could I get done if that's all I committed to doing for three months for at least 4 hours a day? 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, for about 13 weeks. 260 writing hours.

Wouldn't it be cool if writing this much was as easy as finding this picture?

I thought about how I could pull this off. How to pull it off productively and not just goof off for three months. And then I realized that this will probably never happen. HOWEVER, I can just as effectively ask the same question for the next three months. I'm obviously working and won't be able to dedicate four hours a day to writing. I will be more tired and more distracted. But I'm still interested in seeing how much I can get accomplished in the next three months. I'm still learning how to have a day job and have the energy to write on the side. It's sort of a gimmick, but let's see if it works.

Some Backup

I'm trying to work out summer plans. It's a little bit stressful. I'm thinking about taking some bigger risks. Sometimes I don't know who I can talk these things through with. I need someone objective... but who knows me incredibly well.

Having someone to bounce ideas off is important. I've been stuck on a character issue for my rom com idea, so I've been expounding to anyone who'll listen, family, friends, former classmates. Writing is solitary. You do it alone. Even if you have a writing partner, there's some point where you are the one putting the words down. However, you also have to be comfortable enough with your ideas to take them to the masses early when you have a problem. Even though I no longer have a screenwriting class every week or a writer's group I go to, I have a pretty large screenwriting support group just an email away. One of my friends from LA and I chatted on the phone about the problem the other day. My dad has some great ideas. Even if I don't always agree with them, there are always good points raised. I get to know my characters more, and I get closer to my story. I know some people have a hard time with this (I do sometimes), but it's ok to ask for help. Jane Espenson agrees.

Poor Taste

I'm in Florida for a few days, relaxing on vaca (it's so hip to say "vaca") and visiting family. I've found my place in my family. I make humorous though mildly inappropriate jokes, like telling my grandma - in front of my grandpa - that moving to independent living will give her a chance to move in with her boyfriend. Or that my grandpa should start a boys' night with poker and cigars and gambling. (It doesn't take much to be mildly inappropriate with my family.)

Amanda the Aspiring Writer has a link to the WB Workshop winners. I was thinking back on my experience with the WB Workshop, and I realized that I never got a rejection letter. Maybe I did something wrong with my application, though I'm not sure what. I think my Bones script that I sent in had a lot of potential. I'd like to rework it, but I've heard that Bones scripts are getting stale. I'll ruminate on it. I've been ruminating on my rom com as well. Lots of ruminating in this writing job.

Also, my all-time favourite TV character? I'd probably have to go with the character that's made me sound much more intellectual and well read than I actually am. Definitely Wishbone.