So, what now?

My comedy pilot script is as complete as I can make it prior to submission. Come Monday, it will be out of my hands.

So, now what?

First, there's a lot more to do with this script and idea. I can work on that story more, flesh out the characters, more plot, etc in case I get a call for more info. This I will be working on as a constant back project. I don't want to write more scripts for this show as it's highly likely that even if they do select me there will be significant rewrites but being prepared to hold an intelligent discussion on my ideas and plans is a must. At the least I could take all this work and down the road flip it into a novel where I could be much more free in ideas and plots.

Second, there's that novel I started that's languished for a month. I still have so much enthusiasm for it but I feel it can wait a bit while I deal with other things.

Then there's that fanfic I haven't touched in 3 weeks. I left it at a moderately crucial but not cliffhanger moment. There are promised events that have yet to be written. I owe the 50 or so fans a completion. There are at least 3 chapters to write.

But then we have this set of ideas I can't get past unless I give into them: spec scripts. Specifically, Bones spec scripts. I've already started writing one. I have the opener laid out, ~5 minutes worth, and the rest of the 38ish minutes broadly planned. I'm very proud of this story and I'm feverishly writing out the details as fast as they come to me. I'm trying to ignore that big hairy question of how you actually get something like that into the hands that could use them. I'm passionate about this particular story and I just know that if the right person read it...yeah...I'm just going to go write now.

I can't worry about that, at least not yet.

LOST Finale

I'm not good at theories though I do read what other say. I have 2 things of my own:

1) I guessed John was in the coffin at the start of that scene. I was unspoiled and had no clue until right as Jack walked in. Wild guess - he had to move the island which banned him.

2) DES AND PENNY ARE TOGETHER! My LOST wish is fulfilled.

Script is Registered

So close to submission time...

The WGAw website has a wealth of information that I've been perusing today. Maybe it will matter directly to me soon!

Catspeak

more cat pictures

I think I'm Finally Happy

...with my blog look at least.

This template obsession, combined with a random audit at work (yay government paper pushers!) has kept me pleasantly distracted from screwing with my tv script. I think I'll stick with this template now that I have performed a few minor tweaks on it. I'm still messing with link accent colors but overall I think I like it.

Templates Templates - still driving me nuts

This isn't my first post about this. I'm still utterly unsatisfied with my template choices. I'm about the make the choice to make my own. I've been highly resistant to this thus far, for both sanity and time's sakes. My Bones blog is for the readers, this blog is for me. I want this blog to properly reflect me and the closest one I can find just doesn't quite sit right. At the time of this writing I am using this one, which while pretty is only me on certain days and not at all what I want to convey here.

Garfield ... Minus Garfield

A friend turned me on to this site today. It's Garfield comics...minus the Garfield.

"Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb."

This is my favorite thus far:

You can see many more here.

Title Page Makes it Real

This weekend I finally gave my script a title page. It's all so real now. I sat down, over a month, and wrote a pilot. My husband and at least 1 very good friend have helped me immensely but it's still my baby. It has 'written by' and my name on it. And people are going to read it. People who could actually decide it's good and that it merits the efforts of others to turn it into a real live show.

It's at once exciting and scary. I wish I could imbue it with the essence of my intent: blessing it with all the enthusiasm and hope I can hardly tamp down. Blood, sweat and tears come no charge.

Buffywatch: When you have trouble liking the main character...

My husband and I have now finished watching Buffy and Angel through the ends of Seasons 4 and 1 respectively. Comparing between the two shows I have seen a few things but one really stands out:

I really don't like Buffy.

I love both shows, and I think Sarah Michelle Gellar does a wonderful job but when it comes right down to the character I just...don't like her. Seeing Angel brought that into focus. Angel is a tragic hero but he bears that with grace and strength. Buffy is in some ways equally tragic as Angel but in many ways she's got it much better. Yet she is barely more than a spoiled brat most of the time. And much of her tragedy she brings upon herself. She listens to no one at some crucial moments and can easily get in the way of solutions.

I hope I like her more in the end.

Songs that Won't Go Away

Like the last song video I posted, this song is another one that's by a band I'd never listened to before. It features a cast of YouTube all stars which is attractive enough on it's own but the song is completely stuck in my head now. It's called "Pork and Beans" and is by Weezer.

Edit: Embed gone. Video can be viewed here.

Needs more Imagination

The world can never have too much imagination. This is one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time. Imagine if you could stand on a content, look into a tunnel and see across the world, instantly bringing you into another place. They have done that here.

First, the 'tunnel' must be complete.

New York


London
Today, it was.


And now, people in London can look into New York scenes like:

Something like this should be permanent. This article goes into fantastic detail about the enjoyment of the Telescope. You can view the official website here.

To pick a theme...

Picking a template/theme on my Bones blog was easy. As it deals with professional content it is best to keep the layout clean and simple. But here...this is more like my surroundings, my virtual home. I want it to reflect me. Only I can't find a good 'mirror' out there, so to speak.

I like old things - old farm buildings, old pictures, old cars. Anything with a fantastic vintage feel. I like flowers of all kinds. I like quilts, old styles of dress from turn of the century through the 50s, old leather bound books...you'd think with such broad ideas it would be easy to find something.

Nope.

I have flipped this template many times. I've tried this one, this one, this one, this one and this one. Likely as not, you're looking at one of those right now. I find her templates to be creative and of high importance - they don't break important parts of the blog. Some do. So I'm leery where I find templates because of just that reason.

Why not make my own? See I have this problem. I WRITE. A lot. I write for my novel, I write for my TV script, I write for this blog, and this blog, and I write comments here and emails to this guy and chat with this person. I have no patience left for painstaking image work and composition.

There is no point to this other than to look each at rock and hard place and congratulate them on a job well done.

Books I should read

My husband and I went out to see 'The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian' last night. In all honesty, the movie drug out terribly. It was good, but it was long. Nevertheless, it made me want to read the books. I know, it's amazing that anyone makes it this far without reading them. I just...never did. I've read some of Lewis' more cerebral works and I love The Screwtape Letters so I have no doubt that I would love these books as well. I hate to talk about the symbolism without reading the books but I can see a lot already that intrigues me, especially in the role of Aslan.

House

It's no secret that my TV heart belongs to Bones. But I must say...the House finale was gut wrenching.

Funny

more cat pictures

Writing Update

The countdown to the Bones season finale sort of sucked up all my blogging energy over the last week. Fortunately I didn't neglect my script so badly.

Sunday I went through it all and tweaked a bit of dialogue, cut out a whole scene, took one funny bit from that scene and moved it, and other miscellaneous things. I also sat down with my trusty spiral that I take everywhere and wrote out everything I could think of that constituted a long-term plan for the show. It's a bit crazy to do that...I'll be one of 1500 submissions...but that helped me look at the pilot script as part of a greater whole. I hope it helped.

Two weeks to d-day!

Quotable LOST

"Jesus Christ is not a weapon."

That's definitely a debate worthy quote.

Jesus can be a comforting blanket, a stern teacher, a loving parent...why not a weapon? The line just stood out to me.

Script Update

Well last night I sequestered myself away from the computer awhile and made some great headway on a new draft in the script. I cut up the opening and reworked its guts and the added and changed quite a bit of the dialogue. I stayed up far too late and woke up far too early.

Mental forecast: blurry.

House

Okay I haven't updated on my final decision on House so here it is...I'm sticking with it. I caught up fully last night online and I'm hooked now. I'll put aside my nitpicky thoughts for the moment and this summer I'll use my online resourcefulness to watch all the House available and catch up.

I can never watch it post-Bones though. And what is up with them taking 8 days to get episodes online? Grr. Bones usually does it within 12 hours!

Songs that won't go away

I'm mired in distraction today. I think it's because I've given out my 'baby' yet again so there's not much else to do but sit on my hands which leaves me with a lot of excess brain energy.

Enter...Nickelback.

This is seemingly incongruous for me. My favorite music list is: everything but rap and hiphop. I mostly listen to country since the local country station rules the radio here and has the best morning show, but in my car you'll find everything from Garth Brooks to Sheryl Crow to Shakira and Bagpipe music. Yes, I did say that.

I'm a big fan of Bones and I can't imagine anyone here not knowing that, but people can always surprise you. Monday night, a soon-to-be-dead-guy sang a version of Nickelback's 'Far Away.' As I was more than happy for this guy to fulfill his victim destiny I was disinclined to listen to what he sang. But, I later did find the original version and was pleasantly impressed. I've started to listen to other songs by the band and now I can't get this one out of my head:

Draft is out!

I haven't gotten as much input as I'd hoped at this point but I did get some great ideas from my husband and reworked the script a little. I managed to put distraction aside long enough to do the edit and mail it out. June 2nd at once seem so close and so far!

Untooning? Yes, Untooning

So...the point of animation is replication and imagination. So why, pray tell, would someone take the cartoon and attempt to turn them into flesh and blood? I don't know but it gives some interesting results.

You can view many examples here and here but I've picked out a few of my favorites.

Jerrari

I should be working on refining my script and yet I am puttering from distraction to distraction.

Check out the Jerrari. It's 1/2 Jeep and 1/2 Ferrari. Many pictures to see at the source link below the picture.
Source

Debate

Racist?
Innocent?

You decide. (Poll on the lower left)

Things to make you smile

The Dailymail has a profile of an Australian nursing home where they have taken a unique approach to patient therapy.

How do these pictures not make you smile?!

Rough Draft finished

I have finished the rough draft of my pilot contest script. Poor baby is untitled but complete enough to meet the critics! I sent it to 6 people and eagerly/nervously await what they have to say. I'm sure it will need reworking. In researching script writing info recently I think I found more references to 'writing is rewriting' than anything else. Such is life!

Writing update

I'm only a few pages away from finishing the script. I have the remaining plot completely outlined it's just a matter of forming the dialog. Then a last check on formatting, maybe tweak a few details, and hand it off to the friends nice enough to savage it. It needs it, I'm sure. And better they savage it now and help me improve it. I dare not dwell more than a moment on what could happen if I win this contest. Better that I put my energy into doing the best job I can and then leave it be. Other than that and prayer there isn't much I can do!

I did put up a new fanfiction chapter today. Took me a week and a half to get those 1200 words up though for a week I've had most of it written. I often get stuck on where to start. On that chapter I had the start outlined in description but not truly formed. This morning the start came to mind and from there the rest quickly flowed. I've put over 25k words up over there. That's about 40 pages of a novel!

Script Progress

So I'm up to 21 pages complete now! I'm shooting for 30 pages and I'm seriously determined to have this finished by this weekend so my friends can savage me with a virtual red pen beginning Monday.

I spent a lot of time today on the formatting and I can completely understand why formatting software is a must!

Distractions? Me? Of course!

See I sorta fell asleep Tuesday and missed NCIS so I had to watch that (great episode!) and then I wrote and wrote and then the husband offered to watch some Buffy's so we finished season 3.

I did get 3 or so pages done, up to middle of page 15 and I've outlined the rest of the plot and budgeted pages. Not a bad night even with distractions!

I'm on Fire Today

Starting around lunchtime the juices began to flow and at this point I have almost 1/2 a pilot written. I hope to actually finish it tonight which will give me nearly a month to refine it, smooth the formatting and of course make it as funny and interesting as possible before submissions begin on June 2nd.

Even if it's terrible I have to look at it this way:
Nothing to lose
It's great writing practice
Nothing to lose
So much to gain!

Quote of the Day

"There’s something fascinating watching and hearing somebody who is obviously useless, but believes for whatever reason that they’re incredible. I find it addictive."

-Simon Cowell, in Parade

Write a comedy for Fox?

One of my late-night (or early morning) ideas concerns this. I had a comedy idea and jotted down about 2 pages worth of the opening. Comedy isn't what interests me long-term and I'm not sure I can pull it off but I don't see the harm in trying I guess. Looks like I better get a move on. I have5 weeks or less. They'll stop the contest as soon as they get 1500 submissions.

Late night ideas

My husband and I stayed up past midnight getting in a couple more Buffy episodes. We have about a disk and a half to go in Season 3. Problem is...my alarm goes off unmercifully at 6 am. Ouch. Worse than that? I spent at least another hour after lights out getting writing idea after writing idea. Twice I got up to go into the computer room to write them down. The first time I shoved a quilt rack pole between the last 2 toes on my right foot. That...hurt...which doesn't even begin to describe it. I filled 3 pages of notes on those 2 trips. I hope they're worth it!

Buffywatch: One thing bugs me

Humans often don't like to tell another person the entire story when they are emotionally troubled. We like to hide things, hoping the other person will just 'know'. I understand that, I do. But in a TV show it bugs me. It works for the characters' relationships, but what about the relationships between the characters and the viewers? I don't like having to guess: now wait a minute, did she just walk out because she was upset that he...? or because he...? or something else? Throw us a bone!

Ironman

This type of movie isn't what I normally get excited about. I go for romantic, I go for deep, I go for funny. But, as I watched previews over the last months, my interest was definitely piqued for IronMan. And...it delivered. This was simply a very cool movie.

Robert Downey Jr may have been an 'interesting' choice to play a superhero but he nailed it. The action was great, the tech was wonderful: it was simply a great ride. I would highly recommend it to anyone.

PS Get there in time to watch the Indiana Jones trailer and stay all the way through the end of the movie credits.

Playgrounds aren't always happy places

No, this has nothing to do with bad things happening at them; rather that some can be bad by design. There's a 2 part blog that starts here, chronicling playgrounds that are mostly found in former communist areas. Some are horrific, some are strange, some funny, and some just artsy but odd. Definitely worth a browse.

Buffywatch: Neck Ruptures

I don't know why, but that ghastly line stuck with me (where Joyce is talking about how they've all lost friends to various means, including neck ruptures). The wonderful one-liners on Buffy never cease.

We're more than 1/2 way through Season 3 now. It's funny, it's deep, it's enthralling. The stories are great. Buffy goes through a lot in this season. I was sad to see Cordelia and Xander break up, humored to see Joyce and Giles temporarily hook up, happy to see Spike return for a moment, and am excited to see Angel grow stronger.

I still have a bit of a hard time with Angel. I was led to the series because of David Boreanaz and stayed because of the writing. DB is a far better actor now (and age has done him very, very well indeed) so it's still hard to watch him before he grew in his craft. Angel is far too dark for such a sunny, happy person and his short moments of comedy really shine.

Sarah Michelle Gellar is a really good actress, I believe. I didn't like her before watching Buffy. But she's perfect in the role and plays it very well. The humor, the sadness, the strength; nothing is beyond her ability.

I'm surprised to say it, but I think my favorite character, at least so far, is Cordelia. Charisma Carpenter delivers her lines beautifully and they give her some of the best scenes AND lines. The prom night fight scene where Cordelia has a spatula had me rolling and great lines "Now lets be clear. The brain damage happened before I hit you." give tense scenes great comedic value.

Xander is ever-funny, Willow does straight-funny and Giles and Oz are both deep AND funny. I wish it hadn't taken me so long to find this show.

So many scenes stand out in the episodes we've watched but it's hard to convey such a witty, on point show with a few lines of text. Simply put: it's worth the watch.

Even though it's a massive distraction...

Cat hair

see more crazy cat pics

*Grumble*

Song of the Day

Dido - 'White Flag'

Some songs just grow on you, insidiously. I watched this video simply because David Boreanaz is in it and how can you have a proper celeb fascination without viewing all the work? Admittedly, I didn't like the song at first but now I've gone back again and again and I don't even watch it while it plays. I just listen. Enabling is disabled by request on the video, but you can view it here. I can see why it was such a popular song.

Buffywatch

As I posted in my Bones blog, we received our Buffy and Angel complete box sets yesterday; 2 days ahead of schedule (go Amazon!). The plan was to start watching them Friday evening but dear husband caved and we watched the first 3 episodes of Season 3 last night.

I've been told that Season 3 is the best season of Buffy and I'm not inclined to argue that, based on what I've seen so far. The one liners are great, the story is deep, and the last thing I've seen at this point is naked David Boreanaz falling back to earth. What's not to like?

I'm still not sure I like Faith, but I do know that Buffy's Mom really annoys me. She's just kinda...mean and whiny. Empowered Willow is great and I'm happy that Xander and Cordy quickly got back together. I've been snoopy enough to know it won't last...but I really love watching them together.