The Lovely Raven Revisits

Friday was a nadir in my screenwriting endeavors and frankly my life.  You get to that point where you wonder why you're even bothering.  All the creatures from the dark side of your subconscious swim over to the light and start yowling and screaming:  It'll never work!  You're crazy for trying!  ...Well, you get the picture.  I'm certain of few things but this is one:  I'm not the only one that faces these demons on a daily basis.

Woke up on Satuday at a cruel, cruel hour, even before the alarm, ever deeper in Nadir-ville.  Came to work and in my email in-box was a holiday message from the lovely Raven:  How are you?  You have been on my mind.  How is the screenplay coming?  I took that as a Good Sign.

There is Nothing New Except a Shooting Star

Ecclesiastes:  (and forgive me if I misspelled it)  There Is Nothing New Under The Sun.  The sun goes around and it comes around.  It it all utter foolishness, all chasing the wind.  

I haven't updated this blog in a while because, There Is Nothing New Under The Sun.  Still slogging through re-writing and how many times do you want to read that trite phrase?  So I haven't written.

This morning I was thinking of the musings of Solomon in Ecclesiastes.  But riding in the clapped-out derelict school bus that is relegated to taking the pump station personnel to and from work, this morning, this morning I saw a shooting star.  At oh-my-god-it's-early-thirty.

Of course it's pitch black dark in Prudhoe Bay now for about 23 out of 24 hours so a pitch black dark sky is the norm.  But not a shooting star.  I heard words that were mine:  Oh wow.  Wow.  Didja see that?  No one else did.  Someone said, "Well, you gotta make a wish!  You gotta make a wish on a falling star!"

Cripes, have I become that far removed from childhood that I'd forgotten that set-in-stone LAW?

Evidently.

So wish I did.  We will see if it comes true.

It's a wrap, baby.

Tomorrow Act I, Scene I, of Stubborn will be sent to E.L. to document I've met the conditions of subsection 181 of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act - which will allow any aspiring investor to get a 100% tax credit for investing in the production of Stubborn.  No deadlines,  I can be 'grandfathered' in because the conditions have been met prior to the end of 2011, when the bill expires.  Hurrah!  Of course E.L. will want to charge me for opening his mail and finding the DVD.  But -  *sigh* nothing comes without a price...

On to other good news:  on NBC Nightly News last night there was an article about family-frendly movies - outside of vampire-themed movies, G- and PG-rated movies are the only ones selling right now.  Another selling point!

So all is well.  Continuing with the re-write.

A One-Take Wonder

Today hubby & I went to a studio to record a voice-over for Act I, Scene I, of Stubborn.  *false modesty* I nailed it in one take.  And sounded Fab-u-lous.  Hah!  I just may quit my day job...yeah right.  I'll quit my day job when Stubborn hits the theaters...

Read an interesting treatise on the way home from Prudhoe Bay, called Tales from the Script.  It is a compilation of interviews of successful screenwriters.  And according to Tales, screenwriters are the original red-headed stepchildren of the Entertainment Industry.  There were common threads in all of the interviews, namely:

• It's tough to get a screenplay turned into a movie, really tough (really? Gosh!);
• Dumb luck and coincidence are a screenwriter's best friends; and
• It's possible to be luckier if you have faith in yourself.

Reminds me of a John Wayne adage I read once:

Life is hard.

But it's harder if you're stupid.

When I get my video back from the studio, faithful reader, I'll post it on my blog.

Embracing the Arc

One of the comments that multiple reviewers had about my original screenplay was that my lead character didn't have a "character arc."  Well, yes, that's true.  In the script, she first came to light as a victim of an unfortunate circumstance and strove to do better.  As one would expect any contributing member of the human race.  Turns out, that's not what people want to see.

Nope, to have a "character arc" she has to be a generally rotten person who makes bad choices but is basically good inside - she just needs a good and regular thrashing by the Forces of Nature (here played by my computer keyboard) to make her see the Way, the Truth, and the Light.  So - Stubborn, Revision 1 is coming along nicely.  Slowly.  But coming along.

Oh - and I promised you the first scene of Stubborn.  Here it is sans dialogue.  Hubby has (hopefully) found a studio that will do a professional job of dubbing it in.

Thawing Out in the Midst of Icebergs

Hurrah!  The writer's block has unfrozen.  Who woulda thought it'd take me returning to The Land of Frozen Sewers to get un-tube-blocked?  Two scenes have been successfully edited just today!  Goal:  get this edit completed and get Stubborn in the Right Hands by the end of this year.  We will see.

Reading last Sunday's post I was struck by the self-pitying misery.  Faithful reader, why didn't you reach through my monitor and smack me in the back of my head? 

Hubby circumvented Tuesday's pre-Wednesday travel moping misery by taking me to an indoor go-cart race track.  For grown people.  Heck, these carts were nothing like I remembered as a little kid, scrawny things with lawnmower engines.  No - hell for stout with seriously amped-up engines that went real fast around a LeMans-style track.  Zoom!

What great fun!  Until the next morning.  Cripes, it felt like we'd been in a mondo rock-tumbling machine.  We had bruises all over and sore in places where we didn't know we had places.  Oh well, that's why God made ibuprofen.

Go Speed Racer, Go!

From Sunlight to Darkness, and I Really Mean It

It's about 10:00 PST and tomorrow I will get aboard a big, inhoSPITable airplane that will dump me off in Seattle, home of an horrific and inhoSPITable air hub, and then catch another similar aircraft - oh hey! - both rife with screaming kids - that will finally excrete me into Anchorage.  Sound bitter?  Yah, pretty much.  About 65 here now, 30-ish in Anchorage; then on to minus 20-ish in Prudhoe Bay the following morning.  Nothing like a visceral slap of incredibly cold weather in the face to make you own up to - what the hell were you thinking?

You make it what it is.

After four months incapacitation I find myself dreading and yes, afraid, of what awaits me back where I work.   My colleagues have given the disease we all have about our occupation a name:  the Golden Handcuffs.


See, the compensation is so excellent, and you cannot even hope to find a better deal;  and you're working less than half a year so it's easier to forgive the misery you deal with when you're on-shift.  I guess.

You make it what it is.


Tomorrow I'll see the little brown dogs - the ones that pester the life out of me when I'm cooking in the kitchen - and the ones that have learned that I will take them for walkies every morning - for the last time in two weeks.  How can I explain it to the little guys I'm going away for awhile - I don't speak dog-ese.

I of course will cowgirl up like I always do.  I will make it what it is - and nothing more.  It is a job.  It pays the bills.

What has this to do with Stubborn?  Not a lot, faithful reader.  But perhaps you can get an insight into my mindsight.

Cripes, don't we all have our crosses to bear?