30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 29

Black & White

I love the show NASHVILLE. It's a fun music-filled soapy family drama that's set in a cool town. But each week I'm amazed at how they portray the writing process. The singers sit down, knock out a song in a few minutes or maybe an alcohol-soaked night, and boom! Hit single! Gold record! The message to me is writing (even just "a song") is easy, relatively painless and quick.

That is not how I experience writing. 

The photo above (yes, taken with the black and white setting, not photoshopped) shows the title page of my latest draft of my one-hour latest pilot: TORCHED. I have been working on this rewrite for about a month with a day off here or there while I await notes or clear the cobwebs in my cranium. It clocks in at 56 pages. Just this morning I read the entire thing aloud (to myself, and the birds outside) and finally sent it on it's way out into the world. Again. 

See I started writing this script years ago. No, I'm serious. Below is a picture of the first time I typed the words "END OF SHOW" onto the script pages (notice it clocked in at 67 pages back then). The date?

 

November 18, 2011.

Yep. Two and a half years ago I finished my rough draft of the script. Today I finished my eighth draft of the script.

February 28, 2014.

Eight drafts. Notes from seven different writers, a room full of actors, and a handful of other people who's opinions I respect. Countless hours spent hunched over the keyboard, the note cards, the scraps of legal paper. Lost days Googling gang wars and burn patterns and handgun brands. Joyful jubilation at completing another draft. Entering it in a contest. Losing said contest. Tears and silent screams (okay, maybe not so silent) after realizing a complete overhaul was needed or characters needed to be written out. Deep sighs of relief when the finish line was close. When the notes were widdled down to mere lines instead of pages. And then this morning? A mixture of happiness and terror when I hit the send button to fly the script through the Internet to land on one of a dozen showrunners' desks. 

What will come of all my work? All the hours? All the days? 

I don't know. I never know. (God and I talk about this a lot.) But for today? Pride. A sense of accomplishment. A feeling that I did my best. I told my story the only way I knew how. And now? Opening up the file on another script and doing it all over again.

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 28

Flowers

I took these this morning in my backyard. They grow along the fence just outside my west-facing bedroom window. We had 1.01 inches of rain last night/this morning and it was kinda crazy to wear my flip flops outside and immediately slide in the mud in the backyard. It's been so hot and dry we don't really have any grass so when it rains, everything turns to mud. But I love that the sun is shining again and that you can see water droplets on the second set of flowers. I'm always amazed that these flowers continue to bloom. No one waters them, fertilizers them, or even bothers them. They've been growing on the fence/concrete wall since I moved here.

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 27

Celebration

This is a celebration selfie of week 4, day 2 of working out. I've been doing an exercise challenge with a group of friends from far and near, coast to coast, and we've committed to working out at least 30 minutes a day four times a week. If we don't meet the challenge, we have to give money to a predetermined charity or organization that we don't want to give money to. 

My organization? Sarah Palin's PAC. 

Needless to say, I've worked out each of my committed times and then some. 

I haven't seen any weight loss yet. That's frustrating. BUT...I've been more motivated than ever. More encouraged that ever. I love logging in to Facebook, posting my selfie (that's a requirement of the challenge too) and "talking" with my friends. Men and women, professionals of all stripes, all ages, all committed to moving our God-given bodies. How cool is that? How cool is it that we're moving on from being just workout friends to friend friends? So cool.

So I am celebrating today. I walked when I could have sat. I spent 11 hours in my desk chair working and felt I owed it to myself. Here's to a healthy me and collectively, "A Healthy Us"!

AFI Actors Group

Back in December I audited a session of the AFI Actors Group and it was fascinating to peek in on a world I've rarely seen from the inside. To watch actors doing their thing, taking it seriously, working on their craft. I was invited to submit a script for consideration and sent it along the next day.


Fast forward to last night.

After being invited to submit scenes to the group I chose the first ten pages of my pilot TORCHED. It's a one-hour drama about an arson investigator set in Detroit on Devil's Night. It's a script I've been working on for about two years and a script I love. But also a script I really want to finish, make better, and move on from. (Until it's sold to a big production company and we start producing episodes, of course.) So I was excited to take it to the group last night.

The process was really interesting. The actors took their assigned parts and acted them out. They read the pages, they acted them, they asked questions and wanted to know motivation and relationships. They wanted way more than I was expecting and that was kinda cool.

We rehearsed for an hour and I have to say, it felt kinda cool to "direct" the scene. I didn't have a ton of notes but I did give a couple, including a line reading (telling the actress that I imagine the line being said much differently), and it was cool to have people be receptive and do it again and again.

After rehearsal we performed the scene (I read stage directions so I was a part of it) for the rest of the group and then I sat in the front of the room with the leader and listened to comments. That was hard for me. Not to hear criticism or accolades but to not be able to respond or engage in dialogue. The group just gives notes, they don't have conversations, which is fine but hard. I wanted to say, yes, we learn that on page 11 or no, that wouldn't work and here's why. But overall, I got some great feedback and it was nice to hear people liked the first 10 pages.

So today, as I sit down to work on the rewrite of TORCHED, which will be done tomorrow (fingers crossed), I'll pictures those actors and give another round of thanks to them, for going on this journey with me, and for being so respectful

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 26

close-up

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 25

Strangers

At the LA Zoo's elephant exhibit, 2/16/14

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 24

Animal

A picture I took a week ago at the Los Angeles Zoo. The baby's name is Joey and frankly, there are about 150 more pictures of him on my computer. He was adorable, awake, and very clingy. The Zoo volunteer told us baby koala's stay in their mother's pouches (which open on the bottom, not the top like a purse, and are held together with very strong ab muscles) about six months and Joey had been out of the pouch at least 2 months. Needless to say, we'll be visiting Joey again very soon!

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 23

PATTERNS

Angela has been learning to knit with a new pattern - we have washcloths galore!

 

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 22

Inspirational

The bulletin boards in my bedroom/office

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 21

Faceless Self Portrait
It was the first day of summer vacation. I was eight years old. It was June of 1986. It was the first summer my mom was back to work after having my sister and I. We lived just down the street from Thompson Lake and the beach there was small, roped off, perfect for Michigan summers. We had a babysitter for the first time, a long-term babysitter who would surprisingly be our babysitter for many years to come though if I had been her I might have run after this first day. Kim was a teenager, the daughter of two of my mom's high school friends. It was her first day with us. 

We headed to the beach for the afternoon and immediately Angela and I found the water. The was a dock jutting out from the beach that we jumped off of time and time again. Dozens of kids standing in line on the dock, jumping off, swimming around the dock for a minute, standing and watching your friends, swimming back to the sand, getting back on the dock. It wasn't as exciting as a water slide but it's all there was. There was also a big square floating dock in the "deep end" of the roped off swim area. I honestly can say I never got on that dock. Not that summer, not any summer after. I took swimming lessons in that lake for many years but not once did I get on the dock again. On any dock. 

I remember it being very warm, Michigan in June usually is, and I remember taking my turn and jumping off. Then walking back up to the sand and instead of getting in line again, heading to where our towels were, to where Kim was sunbathing with her friends. I remember no pain, nothing out of the ordinary. I remember looking for my towel and then seeing the stricken look on Kim's face. And then her scream. I still didn't understand. And then I did. Then I looked down and saw the blood and the meaty flesh where skin had been and knowing in an instant that I didn't understand what was happening or what was about to happen. 

Somehow I got to the lifeguard's shack, that little brick building where we begged our moms to buy us fireballs and chips. (I only ever licked the fireballs once or twice and then always chased those licks with lake water. Yum.) I don't know if someone carried me or led me there or what. But I was there. In a folding chair in the back. Something could have been wrapped around my leg by that point but I don't remember. I do remember my Grandma MacDonald coming to the rescue in that big old red pickup truck with the vinyl seats that were always so hot. I remember getting somehow to Doctor Earl's office in downtown Howell. I remember sitting on the paper on the exam table in the far back exam room. That table was different and in all my years going to Doctor Earl I rarely was back in that exam room that I later learned was a procedure room. I remember my mom being there with grandma but have no recollection of Angela or Kim. Thinking back now I assume they went home though I still don't know.

My mom and grandma held my leg still as Doctor Earl looked to see if a tendon was cut. Somehow, mercifully, that hadn't happened though my leg had been sliced so deep it needed at least three layers of sutures. I can still remember what the inside of my leg looked like and I shiver when I think about it. I remember asking where my dad was when they got ready to give me shots in my leg and my mom telling me he was coming. He'd get there eventually, to take us all home in our car. 

I remember the stitches. The layer upon layer of stitches that would literally mark my first day of summer. Those stitches that would be the bane of my little eight year old existence all summer long. There would be no swimming for me, no running, not much playing that required physical activity. I remember the doctor saying it was a good thing I had fat legs or I might have lost the leg. To this day whenever I wish I was thinner I try to remember that being a fat little kid saved my life. 

You see, when I jumped off that dock in the water on that beach there was a spike, no not a little nail but a big old spike, poking through the dock the wrong way. When someone, I suppose someone who worked for the city, put the dock together that spring, they put the spikes in the wrong way -- sticking out instead of sticking in. And when I jumped off the dock, a little too close to the dock, my leg hit the spike and tore right through it. 

However, that summer gave me two things. It gave me the chance to become a pretty convincing storyteller. I remember telling Mom #2, Marilyn, that yes, I was allowed to go in the water at the lake if I had my leg wrapped up in bandages. I told her the doctor had said it was okay. She believed me. Or maybe I just wore her down. Either way, I got in the water, and water got in me. And the result? Some new stitches. The same thing happened at a picnic I went too. Of course I could run and play a little if I was careful. But when you're eight, you don't really play carefully. More torn stitches. Stitches that took way too long to heal. Layer upon layer that needed to heal and took all summer long. 

That summer I also got a scar.

A scar that is still with me all these years later. A scar that for years after the fact was much more pronounced and much more visible. A scar that the attorney of the city of Howell offered to have the city pay to have removed when I turned 18. Yes, that was the only compensation my parents could get the city to provide because they did not want to accrue thousands of dollars in legal fees fighting the city. I don't even have any idea if they fixed the dock that year or years later, no one in my family every went near it again. 

I remember being confused as to the though that I might want the scar removed. I wasn't ever going to be a leg model so I knew that it wouldn't be necessary. And frankly, it's a part of me. It's who I am. I am my scars and my bruises and my wounds, visible and invisible. I am my pieces and my whole.

This scar doesn't hurt. Once it healed, it never bothered me again. The only thing is the skin is much thinner where the injury didn't heal properly. There is a deep indentation on my left leg right through the scar. But I only notice if I rub it. I've been able to walk and run and play college sports and do anything I ever wanted despite it. I have been fortunate. 

Some scars are hidden but cause so much damage. But this one? This one tells a story. A story of a day I'll never forget even if it fades. A story that has since become family lore. This is my faceless self portrait. This is me.

Post Script from Mom: 
"What happened to the dock, we went for a walk in the winter, the city had let the water down so people could work on the shore or beaches. We walked on the ice and saw the nails still there. Your dad went home got the camera told the city to fix it or we would sue. The dock was removed."

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 20

In My Bag...

 

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 19

Something I Want

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 18

My shoes

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 17

Technology

I honestly don't know what I'd do without technology. I'm rarely without my iPhone, or tiny red iPod that clips to my waistband or my laptop or Angela's iPad. I am constantly amazed at what I can find out or do with technology. I can order clothes, wallets (black travel ones yesterday), dish soap (a case coming Wednesday), a car (Uber is awesome), food, just about anything. I can talk with friends and family continents away. I can watch almost any movie or TV show or listen to any song. I can create screenplays, film movies, manipulate photographs, it's truly amazing.

I can also plan a trip abroad like I spent the afternoon doing today. So far we've booked our hotels for London and Paris online, booked our Chunnel tickets and started researching all of our sightseeing adventures. We have interactive maps, we figured out it's a 10 minute walk from our hotel to the nearest train station and how to rent a bicycle in Giverny all from our laptop today. 

Yesterday we went to a bookstore and looked through the map section. We figured out which maps we wanted and then realized it would be over $30. So we decided to go home and reevaluate what we already had and could find online. We soon discovered all 3 of our travel books had pull out maps including metro maps. So I copied what we had and we started coloring our routes. We've already planned our day trips to Versailles, Giverny, and Sacre Coeur. 

Add that to the info we've figured out about all of our hotels and the museums and it's been a pretty successful planning day, all using technology, and some good old fashioned maps. Maps I get great joy in writing all over! Highlighting and circling and imagining how much fun it'll be to walk the streets. Only a few more months...

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 16

A good habit

breakfast

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 15

Silhouette

Today's challenge was a challenge. And not just because Cedric was involved. I had no idea how to shoot a silhouette so Angela started researching, I played with the buttons on my camera and well, we got the first two pictures. (Angela said the second picture looks like Cedric's in heaven. We'll frame this because I'm sure that's as close as he'll ever get.) Finally, we got a silhouette on the last shot but not a true one. It's not what I wanted but I'll keep trying and I'm learning new things about my camera every day, which was the point.

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 14

Eyes

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 13

Cannot live without

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 12

Sunset

Taken by Angela and me, between 5:10pm and 5:50pm 

from the sidewalk in front of our house in Los Angeles

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 11

Something blue

 

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 10

Childhood Memory

Last summer when cleaning out boxes at my parents I found these treasures and just couldn't part with them. I think it's important to remember our prior selves. Where we came from. I came from plastic charm bracelets that had charms like feet and wrenches and toothbrushes. And yes, I wore this pink banana clip in my hair so much. Might have to break it out again some day. Until then I keep these treasures in my dresser in a Crown Royal bag. Ah, childhood.

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 9

Someone you love

#sister

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 8

Routine

Laundry day.

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 7

Changes to come

Yesterday I restarted (I'd started back in November but the sitcom pilot sidetracked me) the rewrite I've been meaning to do on my arson investigator pilot. This morning I spread out the notes I have to incorporate, go through, weed out, put in, etc. These notes come from three different readers and me. I'm completely overwhelmed. So, I'll do as the awesome Anne Lamott suggests and just take it "bird by bird".

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 6

Obsession

 It's February and I've already been working on next year's Christmas ornaments for a month...

Aunt Gloria

My mom posted this picture on Facebook this morning. And though I wasn't there when it was taken last year, I've seen a similar scenario play out countless times in my life. My dad, next to his sister. Laughing.

I love it.

My dad has four brothers and one sister. His parents divorced when he was a child and remarried and the result was a large family. Different cities, different states, different generations. And yet? My dad has stayed very close to his half-siblings. That's actually an odd phrase to me, half-sibling. It's not one we ever used in my family. We're family. Not half or step or anything else. Family.

This is a picture of my dad and Gloria at what I imagine is a basketball game that her daughter Blessing was playing in. Blessing is a senior in high school right now. She has an older son, Jeremy, as well. All of this is amazing to me because Gloria is amazing.

Gloria has a disease that has ravaged her body for my entire life. I cannot really remember a time when she wasn't in a wheel chair. I look at pictures of her holding me or running next to me and I have a hard time reconciling that with the woman above. Because for my whole life Gloria has been fighting MS.

If you want to argue things that aren't fair in life, get in line. Gloria is smart. Like college-crazy smart. She takes after her Uncle Ed who was one of the smartest men I've ever known, my Grandma Millie's brother who taught in Chicago. Gloria was athletic. She's funny and sweet and sentimental and I see a lot of myself in her. I love that. She's also one of the most devout Christians I know. She goes to church regularly. She makes sure I get my subscription to Guideposts magazine every year.

And she does all of this without the use of her arms or her legs. She can't feed or dress herself. She eats mostly via a tube. She talks into a microphone affixed to her wheelchair but even that doesn't help us understand her very well. You have to get up close and focus on her mouth and listen intently to figure out words and phrases. And yet? On good days, she is able to speak more normally. And when she does, she asks questions, she knows exactly what's happening with everyone in the family and the world. As I said, she's so smart. And she's trapped.

It makes me cry. It really does. And yet I have to stop and remind myself that every single day she wakes up and she greets the world and she lives in it. She doesn't just exist. She goes to her daughter's basketball games. She came to my grandparents' funerals in Howell this summer. She seems to thoroughly enjoy life. And to me, that is awesome. That's what faith and love and belief do to a person.

Happy Birthday, Aunt Gloria. I love you. You are an example of a life well lived to me and to everyone who knows you.

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 5

After Dark

From the ashes...

A few weeks ago I wrote about not knowing what was next. Since then I've had some great conversations with friends and peers and tried to be even more intentional about using my time. I'm good about time management, for the most part, you have to be when you work from home. I get that it's not for everyone. I have to make myself sit down at my desk every morning and not flop on the couch. So over the past two weeks I've set deadlines with two writer friends, last Friday I had a pilot rewrite due to Tami and this week I have another pilot rewrite due to her. On Valentine's Day I have a deadline with Krista. That one? It's a bit bigger. I've decided to rewrite a feature I wrote back in film school. And not just rewrite it but retool it completely. Instead of male main characters? Female main characters. So just change the whole thing basically. And I'm beyond excited. I close my eyes at night and my mind drifts to the characters. I try to read a novel in the waiting room and my mind goes to the characters. That's a very good sign I tell ya.

Also, I've started a photography challenge which has gotten my excited about art and capturing life. And I've started praying with a friend/accountability partner. We started this just this morning officially though we've been doing it unofficially for about 14 years. One of the things I asked her to pray for was my writing and my employment situation.

And just two hours ago I got offered another contract with the University of Phoenix. It's not full-time. It's not forever (the semester starts next Monday and runs through mid-April) but it's something. It's for now. It takes a huge weight off my shoulders, shaves it down a little, and puts it back on. The weight's not gone but it feels just the slightest bit better.

So, I'm back to teacher-mode. I'm in writer-mode. And also? Thanks God, for the pretty obvious reminder that You are awesome and prayer works.

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 4

Something Green

I was really focused on the leaves in this photo. I've been reading all of the books that came with my Canon Rebel and I wanted to try getting a macro photo - where you focus on one thing while the other thing in the background or foreground is blurry. Those photos always look so cool to me. This isn't a true one, I'll have to work on that, but I did manage to refocus the lens manually onto the leaves. The green leaves. Also, I love that on February 3rd there's a rose blooming in my yard.

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 3

Clouds

Abbey Place - photo credit Sarah (with DSLR camera)

Abbey Place - photo credit Angela (with DSLR camera)

Amazing art

Yesterday I walked over to Angela's school at her request. Sometimes I pop into the school a lot. I've been known to clean half the classrooms there (this is an exaggeration but it's not much of one, every time she moves into a new classroom we clean, deep clean, and she moves a lot - well she did, until this year thank goodness). Sometimes I'm absent for long periods of time. I haven't been over much this school year as she has no prep. She teaches straight through from beginning to end with a 25 minute lunch break. So there's no time to walk with me to get a coffee or sit on the bench out front after I get done with Homeless Lunch. Alas, I've not spent as much time with these students as I have in the past.

And yet? 

They didn't forget me. I went on a field trip with them back at the beginning of the school year - to see the Space Shuttle. And on Friday I was greeted by name by almost every child. They were giddy to see me, to talk to me, to ask me questions. Mind you, I was only there an hour. An hour during which I supervised an art project to give Ms. Knapp a second pair of hands. An hour during which I noted several things. One, these are kids. For all their foul language and anger and laziness and refusal to share what they learn, they're kids. Little kids. Eleven, twelve years old. They ask tenderly for an extra sheet of paper. They get frustrated when their crayon breaks. They ask questions that seem so simple and sweet. What color is your house, Ms. Knapp? Why do you sound like the other Ms. Knapp? 

And two? Kids are amazing. Just look at the artwork above. Their learning how to "graffiti" their names or words. They're coloring bricks (rubbings made on actual bricks against the school). They're putting time and effort into their projects. They're so proud to show off what they've done, even when they're shy about it. And I love that. 

Today Angela and I flipped through some old scrapbooks. I came across my photos from my old classroom in Yuma and my heart sung, sadly at times. I miss those kids, those four walls, that time we spent together. And I'm so grateful when I get to spend an hour or two with Ang's kids nowadays. Kids are amazing. All of them.

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 2

What You Wore

This is what I wore today to get a pedicure (this pic is post pedicure). It's Los Angeles, it's February first, and I'm comfortable in jean capris and flip-flops though I do have a long-sleeved red shirt on. The high today is 66 degrees, the sky is blue and the sun is shining though it's very windy.