I did it.

Before every golf match in high school I would get physically ill. Yep, every single time. I would be miserable. Riding the bus to the match, waiting for my turn to tee off, teeing off (don't even get me going on the day I whiffed in front of EVERYONE in Ann Arbor), all of it made me physically sick. Needless to say I don't like to put myself into stressful situations.

So why'd I choose a career in screenwriting? The NBA of the writing field? Because it's what I want to do. It's what I have to do. It's what I do for hour upon hour upon hour late at night, early in the morning, when I could be doing something, anything, else.

I say all this to announce something very stressful -- I have finished my latest screenplay. Yeah, yeah, I know, a script is never done, not even once it's shot and up on the screen. But I'm done for now. I wrote a blog back in March about getting the idea and first sharing it with a friend. And now, over eight and a half months later, I'm done. There's a stack of pages eight inches tall next to my computer (I measured) that indicates drafts done and rewritten in just the past few weeks. There are countless drafts on my external hard drive. But now it all comes down to one neatly bound (with three brads, yes, I know, there's synergy to those three brads) stack of 94 pages. Ninety-four pages that are basically me, standing naked, in front of the entire world.

Tomorrow Ang is going to take my screenplay to a co-worker who's husband is a retired agent. This wonderful co-worker insisted Angela bring it to her upon hearing that I was a screenwriter. So tomorrow I will stand naked in front of the world. I will bare my soul, my hard work, my brain, my creativity, my being, a good portion of my life for the past year to this stranger. And I cannot express to you what this feels like.

I am rational in realizing nothing may come of it. John Grisham had hundreds of rejections before getting published, yeah I know the stories. I know the odds are so not in my favor. But the fact is this: I wrote a screenplay. I didn't just talk about it like everyone in this town does. I didn't start it and never get back around to it. I wrote it. And then I rewrote it. And then I picked at the scabs and made it bleed and wrote it again.

And now I am done with it. I have to be. I have to move on and finish a "shitty first draft" (God bless you Anne Lamott) of my TV spec for class. I have to delve into this huge black binder containing my novel that I've been stubbing my toe on since I finished that first draft last December. And I have to start work on my next screenplay. Yep, that's write. Tomorrow I'll put away all my papers and notes and scribblings about "Operation Gold Digger" and I'll open up to the musings on several new ideas I've been playing with. And I'll begin again. All over again.

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Turning the music up and the world down

Music has always been a big big part of my life. I can remember listening to eight tracks in our red car when I was little, and in the stereo that my dad finally sold a few years back at a garage sale...to my grandma who now has it in her basement. I missed the record generation but I had my share of cassette tapes. I still remember the first tape I bought on my own - Whitney Houston's Whitney. I loved that album. I now own it on CD.

There was Madonna and Bon Jovi and Tiffany and New Kids on the Block and all those really great, horrible late 80s early 90s groups like Color Me Badd and Kris Kross (Gonna Make You Jump, Jump!). I remember passing around the lyrics to Papa Don't Preach in a portable at Northwest Elementary School like it was the biggest contraband around.

And then of course, there was Michael Jackson. I remember hearing Beat It for one of the first times in my friend Sandy's room. She was older than me, our families' were friends and she was cool. Michael Jackson was cool. And I was reminded of that this weekend when Angela and I went to see This is It! - the concert documentary. I was immediately transported back to my childhood and just hearing those first few chords made my feet tap and my shoulders start to move. That music is a part of me. I came home and bought twelve Michael Jackson songs on iTunes Saturday night and have listened to them over and over all day.

And yet I go through stages with music. For the last year or so it hasn't been a large part of my life. In high school I was in choir and there was music everywhere. For a time in college, when I lived in a room with two other girls and barely had a mattress to call my own I played music all day at work, pounding the songs into my being. Jennifer Knapp's Kansas will forever be a part of my soul. Right now, it's silent in my room and yet I can hear the first song as clear as if the stereo were on.

I love country music, pop music, rock music, showtunes, even rap. I know the words to Kanye West and Eminem songs. I know every verse to more hymns than I can count. I love Billy Joel and Barenaked Ladies and obsure songs I get for free off the Internet. I listen to songs over and over again until I know all the words. And this summer that happened again. It started with a song from the Fox TV show Glee. And then another song and another and before I knew it I was listening to music again, all the time. Loudly, iPod plugged into the speakers, blaring through the house. I hope my neighbors loved it.

And then something else happened. I discovered this little known singer songwriter who I had been all but oblivious to until this spring: John Mayer. Yeah, I know, where I have been for the last ten years or so. Apparently not listening to John Mayer records. But suddenly I couldn't stop listening to his first studio release. I played it every day on my commute to my internship. I played it as I ate lunch in my car and then drove around the block and back in the parking garage. I listened to it until I knew the words and the chords and the stories. And then I bought two more of his CDs. And I've listened to them for a few weeks straight now.

It occurred to me, the other day, as I sat in Starbucks, trying to write, loud music blaring, that music helps me. I knew this a while ago, I don't know how I'd forgotten it but I had. While writing most of my novel I listened to the Garden State soundtrack (I adore soundtracks, and I buy them, all kinds of them!). It's the most played CD on my iTunes account, by far. Those songs have become white noise to me. I know them so well that I can use them to block out the world and focus on the project at hand. I'm now doing that with John Mayer's work. Or, while I'm writing my Bones spec, the Bones soundtrack.

I remember once, asking a new acquaintance what type of music he liked and he said he didn't really like music and I thought that was so strange. There had to be something. Yo-Yo Ma, the Beatles, Johnny Cash (just some of my faves), somebody, anybody. But no, he wasn't a fan of music in general. And I remember thinking how sad. Without music I think life gets too loud.

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A view askew night

Saturday night Angela and I ventured downtown L.A. to the Orpheum theater - a beautiful, very ornate old building with surprisingly easy to find parking. We went to see Kevin Smith on stage for one of his Q & A shows. We'd gotten the tickets in June, a birthday gift from my parents, and we had second row center (yet on an aisle!) seats. We were excited.

Kevin Smith, for those of you who don't know, is a screenwriter, director and actor. He made his first movie, Clerks, in 1994 in the convenience store where he worked. His films are known for their fast-paced dialogue, for introducing the world to Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, for being completely past the line of taste at time, and most of all for being funny.

I first discovered Kevin Smith in college, when his movie Dogma came out. It the film Smith skewers the Catholic church and religion as a whole. But he does it in only the way a lifelong Catholic could do and get away with it. And there's a poop monster in the movie. You have to see it to understand. And laugh. But anyway, I was told by some friends that Dogma probably wasn't the movie for me seeings how I was very active in church and a person of strong faith. I shrugged and said okay. Then I saw it for myself. And loved it.

So fast forward over ten years. Kevin's made a bunch more movies, written blogs, produced hundreds of hours of podcasts and I've been a loyal fan all along. So Saturday, getting to sit and listen to this master storyteller talk about working with George Carlin and Bruce Willis and ordering eight hundred dollars of food online was just pure enjoyment. It was also very cool to sit mere feet across the aisle from Jason Mewes, one of Kevin's best friends and fellow actor in all his movies, and to see his wife in the balcony laugh along with stories she's probably okay with never hearing again.

It was just such a unique experience. And one I'm still amazed I had. Especially that I had it so easily. It took us twenty minutes to drive downtown (and there was a lot of traffic and an out light!) and we were there. Back as a college student at Olivet seeing a Kevin Smith movie for the first time I never would have dreamed I'd arrive the point in my life where one night in October I'd get to drive a few miles and sit right in front of the man who wrote all these movies that have entertained me countless times. So thanks Mom and Dad, for giving me one of the best birthday presents yet!

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Workin' on my slapshot

I envy those people who go to work and do a job and at the end of the day have tangible results. Maybe it's receipts of items sold. Maybe it's a harvest. Maybe it's grades earned by students. Maybe it's patients cared for. Maybe it's widgets made.

When I go to work (and I'm not talking teaching here, I consider that one job, and I consider writing another job) and do my job I rarely have tangible results. I feel a little like what the philosophers must have felt like back in the day. If you watch The Big Bang Theory (and you really really should if you don't) you'll remember the sequence in this week's episode where Sheldon and Raj worked - basically they stood around and stared at equations for days on end. That's often what I do.

I've been working on my current screenplay since February. Technically, if you count the Final Draft document files, I'm on draft eight. But in reality, this draft is probably somewhere in the hundreds. I write and I change and I move and I rewrite. And then often I sit and stare. I did that for a good portion of today.

I have a good draft done. Angela thinks it's good. I think it's the best yet. People ask me when I'm going to send it out to producers and managers and anyone who'll accept an email attachment. And I stop dead in my tracks. It's not ready to go out yet. Not at all.

I'm not one of those people who thinks her work is precious. I know it is. It's precious to me. But I also know it's not sacred. I know that once I put it out into the world it is no longer my own. That begins when I show it to a friend or family member to read. That begins the second the words print out of the printer. Communication is as much about the receiver as it is the sender. It's not all about how I intend the message, it's about how you receive it.

So I have this draft. This draft that has taken almost eight months to come into being. This draft that changed quite a bit after a hard core plot session with Angela on Saturday afternoon. This draft that has jokes I love and is missing jokes I adore. This draft is good but not excellent.

So today I made a note card for every single scene in my film. I charted the entire plot. I wrote fifteen incantations of a logline before I came up with a simple sentence that defines my story. I went over notes from a whole year of study at UCLA. I went over notes from books and reels of movies stored in my mind.

And I realized two things. One, I have some work to do. But two, I can do it. Am I scared? Of course. Out of my mind. I cannot imagine sending someone my screenplay, these characters I have birthed, this world I have created, these words I have agonized over, and have them rip it to shreds. I cannot imagine having someone reject it as I know it will be. But I've also realized something else. I have to do this. I have to because it's my job. It's me.

I don't get paid to sit and stare at note cards for six hours on a rainy Wednesday afternoon. I don't get paid to come up with countless spec ideas for an episode of Bones. Yes, there are people who do get paid to do these things and I pray that one day, I will be among that group but guess what? I do it already, for free, because I have to. It's who I am. It's what I am.

Every time I think about giving up or wishing it was easier I think about athletes who spend countless hours training to get where they are. That's what I'm doing. I'm training. I'm trying to make my game the best it can be before I get in front of all those scouts. Because no one's going to pick me if I can't make free throws or get the puck to the net. And I really really really wanna be picked.

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Blessings in no particular order

One of the nicest parts about my parents' retirement for me has been the opportunity to have conversations with them during the day. See, I work from home, so I have a flexible schedule. Sometimes this means I can take my sister's car into the garage for repairs (as I did today), volunteer at church (as I did Tuesday) or even work, as I do most days. But I also get to sneak in some quality phone time, something I've been doing lately with my parents who are back home in the eastern time zone.

And today as I was talking with my mom I realized something. I realized that I am blessed. I am so blessed. My whole family is really. But mostly me. I have parents who have loved and cared for me and still worry and care for me almost thirty-two years later. I have a host of people back home, and all around the world literally, who care for me. And I'm well. I can work. I can go out with friends. I have a house and food in the cupboards and heat and clothing and all that stuff one needs to live a normal life.

But mostly I am well. And I take that for granted too much of the time. Sure I've had a touch of the flu this week but who hasn't. And I thought about it as I was eating the eggs and toast Angela made me for dinner tonight as I laid on the couch. I'm okay. I'm going to be okay.

Because there are people who aren't. There are people in my life who might not be. And that breaks my heart. It breaks my heart to know that someone I love so dearly, someone who helped raise me, is hurting, isn't well. And I need to be thankful for what I have.

So here's my top ten list today. The things are I am thankful for on this Friday in October (in no particular order):
10. My parents and Angela.
9. My fingers that help connect what my brain says to the paper in front of me so I can do my job and write.
8. People who've known me only 365 days yet think I'm someone they should invest in. And that they went ahead and gave me a scholarship to prove it.
7. The Internet. It keeps me connected (sometimes, a little too frequently) to the outside world, to my family and friends, to people.
6. Warm blankets on my bed and windows that keep the wind out.
5. Legs and arms to carry me to the grocery store and lift all the packages that will sustain me through the week.
4. God. Even though we don't talk as often as we probably should, I know he listens when I whisper my pleas. I know he cares. And I know he loves me.
3. My hair. I really like my hair and I'm thankful it's full and pretty and getting long. Yeah, so what. I'm thankful for it.
2. My job. I make just enough to live on and that's really all I need, all anyone needs.
1. The past thirty-one years. For every single thing, event, person that's touched me. For all the good and the bad. It's brought me here, to this moment. And I wouldn't change a second of it.

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Happy 96th Birthday Grandma

Today would have been my Great Grandma Ruth's 96th birthday. All month I've been looking at her name on my calendar. I'm a card sender and I kept feeling the need to send her card out. But I can't because she passed away in January. I also still have her number in my cell phone and I still remember the last time she called me. I loved that she called in the evening, late in Michigan but early here, because we'd be home. She'd tell me the same story about growing up in Yorba Linda, California and living just down the street from the boy who would become President Richard Nixon every single time we talked. She called more after I moved to California, I think she liked that I was here where she grew up.
These pictures are of a beautiful glass serving tray I bought in June. Grandma always gave presents on holidays, it didn't matter that she didn't have a lot of money, that she was the one who introduced us to government cheese when we were little, she liked to shop and it showed. And once I left home and got a place of my own my gifts changed from shirts and wallets to things for my house. I have a beautiful crystal bowl that I adore. A chip and dip server that comes in handy. Vases and candy dishes and just all sorts of things that are practical but really very nice. She had a sense of style about her.

This past fall grandma had to be moved permanently into a nursing home. She had lived alone for as long as I had known her, my great grandfather died the year I was born, and even though she didn't drive she managed to travel and go out to eat and was really never at home. She had wonderful friends and lived in a nice apartment steps from my grandparents' home. But she was getting older and had some health problems and it was time. So this was the first Christmas we spent without grandma at the table. But we went to visit her a lot over the few weeks I was in Michigan. We took her things for her room, Christmas gifts (she loved yogurt covered pretzels and crossword puzzles), and just sat and listened to her tell the same stories over and over again. But then the day before I was to fly back to California we noticed a change. She was agitated and didn't understand at all why she was there. She wanted to walk and couldn't and it wasn't going well. I left her that day with a hug, a kiss and a heavy heart.

Angela and I flew into LAX late on a Friday night. Saturday morning the phone rang before sunrise. Grandma had passed away. And as I moved through that day, that weekend, that week, very numb I thought about how it was really for the best. She was a free spirit. She missed her home and her life and what she'd been reduced to was not what she had wanted. So she went somewhere better. Someplace where she could be with her beloved Kenneth, have a kitten and gamble the day away.

This glass tray is what I bought with the money I got in my last Christmas card from grandma. I hemmed and hawed over the purchase for six months until Angela grew very aggravated with me. It was only ten dollars but to me it was so much more. I'd look for that perfect thing to spend the money on everywhere we went and I went back to Crate & Barrel several times to look at this piece. It wasn't until my parents visited this summer that we talked and I finally made the decision. It was also then when my mom brought the roses that sit on the tray. They're roses from the arrangement that we sent to grandma's funeral. The funeral I couldn't attend.

It broke my heart knowing I couldn't go back to the funeral. We'd literally just gotten home and the thousand dollars it would cost just wasn't there. But I took comfort in the fact that we'd spent so much time with her at Christmas. That I'd actually hugged and kissed her goodbye instead of just looking at a wooden box.

When my parents visited they not only brought the roses but several other mementos my mom had saved for us. Angela and I both got a cross necklace and a cat figurine (grandma loved cats but couldn't have one). There's a small dish for rings that sits on the kitchen sink window sill that reminds me of her every day and a wooden cross above a bookshelf that keeps watch over the house.

So happy birthday grandma, I know that today you're wearing one of your favorite sweatshirts, watching your programs, working on a crossword puzzle, sneaking a piece of chocolate and enjoying the freedom you deserve. I love you.

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Turning on the TV within me

Last Tuesday I headed west again, onto UCLA's campus. Yes, I left early and no, there wasn't traffic so I ended up sitting in the classroom with a good forty minutes to spare before class started. But I didn't care. I was excited. I was ready. And I was terrified.

See this fall I'm taking a course on "Writing the One-Hour Television Drama". For the last year and change I've been studying feature film screenplays and using television for my escapism, purely for fun. I study every movie I watch for the three act breaks, the cute meet, the big gloom, the characters, the everything. I can't turn it off. I read screenplays so I know what happens in most movies before I pay to see them. I watch them over to understand how they work. And now I get to do that with TV.

It must be the same though, right? you say. A little bit so but then completely different. Four one thing TV has a whole extra act in it, and the thing at the beginning, the teaser. Also, each week (at least for most non-premium cable shows) you have to reintroduce the characters and the main idea of the show for the new viewers. Because you pray each week you have new viewers. So it's different.

What else? Oh, let's see, the fact that I have to write in someone else's voice. I have to use already well established characters and plot devices and settings. It's a little more like mimicry than actual creation. It's basically a whole new skill set.

So back to class. I found out that we'll be dissecting shows each week, writing our own beat sheets (detailed outlines) of them, and then working on our own spec scripts. A spec script is a TV writer's calling card. It's what's used to say, "Hey, I can write X on CBS just as well as their writers and I could do the same for you at NBC." A spec will never be read by the show it's written for but it'll hopefully be read by agents and others who could give me a job. So it needs to be good. And written as if it could be shot which means it has to sound just like a X script and has to be something they've never done. No small feat. Especially when some of the shows we're looking at specing are 80 shows in.

In class we've started breaking down The Mentalist. I've never seen it but don't worry, soon enough I'll be an expert in all things Simon Baker and company. Then we had to pick our show to spec from a list. I chose Bones for two reasons. One, I've seen every episode, many times over in repeats, and two, I like that it mixes comedy and relationships with the crime procedural format.

So what's next? Well, I've spent the last week brainstorming ideas. And this is where I start to freak out. What do I know about crimes and murder and forensic anthropology? Not much. And that I do know? I've learned from Bones and CSI and NCIS and all those other crime shows.

So yesterday Angela and I spent a few hours in Barnes & Noble pouring through the true crime and criminology section. (Patrons walking by were probably very scared, especially when I got all excited about what fire does to a person's cranium!) I made a lot of notes, things I hadn't heard of before, and started formulating ideas.

My teacher told the story last week about how he pitched over 100 ideas to two producers before getting his first writing assignment on a television show. Tomorrow night I have to pitch 4 and then pick one. Right now I have 2 very loose ideas. They're basically sentences. But they're mine. And they're what I've got so far so I'll forge ahead.

What I'm noticing already is how much I like the brainstorming process, the idea of learning about new things. I've always said I wanted to be a writer so I could do a million jobs: be a politician, a movie star, a lawyer, a cook, a parent, anything and everything. And right now I'm getting to be a forensic anthropologist and a special agent in the FBI.

Also, if you have any ideas you wouldn't mind me stealing, send away. By tomorrow at 6:30 nothing will seem to out there!

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