Tuesday night I had my first "section" class, as they're called in my program. Basically it's a small group setting - 8 students, 1 instructor. My instructor is a guy named Bennett Cohen who's a working writer. He's just published a book called The Zebra Wars about black on white killings in San Francisco in the 1970s and it's been optioned by Plan B, the production company owned by Brad Pitt which means it may be a movie sometime in the future. So that's pretty cool. He's apparently written and produced a lot of movies of the week and some TV episodes. (Check out this link for a more complete bio.) He seems like a great guy and while I am nervous beyond belief to be in this program, write and SHARE what it is I am writing, it's nice to know it's a supportive environment.
My class is made up of people from all walks of life, younger and older, professionals in Hollywood and other careers, some just graduated from college. There's one other woman and then 6 men and again, while I'm nervous, everyone seemed great last week. It'll also be nice when I go to the lecture class tomorrow to know some of the people there.
For homework we have to come up with 3 loglines, essentially one sentence movie ideas, and then a beat sheet for one logline. I've been struggling with this all week. I've got tons of ideas, some fleshed out into beat sheets already (where you break down the plot of the movie into what happens at the beginning, middle, and end) but they're just in notebooks on the shelves in my room. Or stuffed in boxes at the end of my bed. Or floating around in my brain. Tuesday night they take a breath and go out there into the world. Yeah, that's freaking me out a little.
But I have an idea I think is good, dramatic and funny and stolen from a story a family member told me (well a really small part of the basic premise) of something that happened in our family in real life. And tomorrow I'm going to flesh out the beat sheet for it. So we'll see how that goes. I could use something I've already worked on but I want to use this course to keep me moving forward so I'm going to try something new. Here goes nothing!
On the job front - I got one. Well, let me clarify. I'm going to start training for one. Late last week I was offered a job to teach online courses for Axia College at the University of Phoenix (their undergrad program). I accepted and now am going through the paperwork process. Once that is complete I will start training (hopefully 10/14) and then after 4 weeks of training (for free, as they advertise!, in reality it means unpaid) I'll teach 2 courses while being mentored (yes, I am paid for these, thank goodness!). The courses are 9 weeks long and after the mentorship I will be a full-fledged faculty member and be able to teach 4 course at once. So we'll see how that goes! I'm excited because a)I have a job, even if I won't be paid for a while, b)from the people I've spoken to this is the wave of the future, teaching online, and hopefully I'll be more employable because of it, and c)I get to work from home. No long commutes for me! Get up, stumble four feet to the desk! I could get used to that. I think it'll be really good for getting my writing done too. Speaking of, I've been working on the novel this week - for those of you waiting to read, soon, I promise!
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