Life In My Head

The One Night Stand of Screenwriting

2011-12-28T00:10:00.000-08:00

Hi Kids!
As this was one of my earliest posts as CSSC Writer Laureate - I figure about 5 people read it, so here it is again with a promise of fresh material later this week!

First off I want to know how it happens to be Wednesday again? Time is truly a fascinating thing, isn’t it? Especially since in some real science way it doesn’t exist. Those of you not inclined to think esoteric thoughts about space time, or question whether or not stars have souls, are likely skipping ahead right now wondering how far I’m going to wander down this time tangent. You tuned in after all to get the answer to that big icky question left outstanding last week – How do you know your idea is a movie? Of course the short answer, and the cheap pop psych answer is, that if you truly see it and believe in it as a movie, then of course it is!

But that’s not the way it works in my head aka the Cocoverse, so leaving that with you as an answer is likely the coward’s way out. Not that I’m against that completely, sometimes the coward’s way is best, but it’s only Blog the 4th so I want to put off any overt displays of creative cowardice on my part for at least a few more weeks.
I’ll try and give you a bit more to work with. Then back to my time ruminations (that’s your word for the week).
First off, when the character chatter gets going in my head and I have to decide whether the story idea is best expressed as a novel, short story, song, poem, play, short film, feature, TV series, webisode, game, etc. It’s kinda like a Broadway audition. Except that instead of yelling “Singers who can Dance stage left and Dancers who can Sing stage right!” I yell “Doers who can Talk in the green room and Talkers who can Do wait out in the house.” Hmmm, that last is going to be pretty cryptic to those of you who know nothing about theatre. If that is you, your homework for the week is to see a play, doesn’t matter what it is, or even if it’s any good. If you want to want to write for the screen you have to know not only what that is, but what it is not.

All that to say that if my characters are exploring ideas and the expression of those ideas through language, I start to frame the story as a play. On stage the play of language takes the place of a sweeping landscape shot or a close up of a cherry blossom falling. So the chatty Cathy’s who want to wallow in hyperbole get the stage.
If the conflict plays out in a place, or places, I start thinking film or TV. If the place is big enough and complex and important enough to the play of the story that it becomes a character in and of itself then I’m thinking feature. Whenever big sky or weather or rocky shoreline or acres of cracked concrete are key to making the story work, it’s a feature. But also to be a feature it has to meet a couple other criteria. Is the plot all of a piece? There needs to be a certain unity of story to make me believe in it, in that I have to at least sense the shape of the beginning, middle and end. As well, it had better be wildly interesting to me if I’m going to invest myself for months and months in the story landscape. For me too, a feature has to have a complexity of plot and action that exceeds the budget of a TV show. Features have scope, even low budget ones.

TV for me is more about complexity of character. Characters that tangle and untangle and re-tangle themselves around each other. As well, TV ideas for me don’t have crisp endings, being so character driven, a good ending of one TV episode is just a good beginning for the next. Feature endings need to come down more, to a place of greater quiet and rest. Maybe because the up part has to be of such scope and intensity that the great exhale at the ending needs to be longer and deeper. And in terms of investment? For a writer a TV series is a marriage while a feature is a fling, so if you don’t want to be married, careful about heading down the TV development road.

Do I really think about all this stuff before I start writing? Yah, sorta. Sometimes I’ll sketch out a few scenes and just ask myself what it feels like. If I produce an inciting incident and a lot of internal dialogue, I start thinking short story, if a new world or a series of events jumps in, I’ll start thinking novel.

Short films come to me quickly, within a space of hours I have a beginning, middle and end sorted out. Writing one is like planning a big party. I know the time commitment won’t be that great but it still needs to be one hell of a good time, so I try to make sure that I give it a tight container to fit in. I like my shorts to have a unity of time, place and/or action. I find setting limits or story parameters keeps it from spinning out of control. Whether it is limiting character number or location or theme, I limit something about the structure in order to stay focused. In the Cocoverse the short film is the one night stand of screenwriting, so I try and have fun and not take it too seriously.

Honestly though, here we are at the end and in truth, back at the beginning because I’m going to leave you with the thought that your story idea is a play, song, painting, graphic novel, short script, feature film, TV series – indeed all of the above. Your idea is all of these things and none of them until you choose. I think the only way you can choose is to actually have some knowledge about the different storytelling techniques that come into play with each format. That means read. Read short scripts, plays, novels, features, teleplays, novels and cereal boxes, and oh, yah, blogs. If you are a screenwriter writer you read every day. Sorry, but it is a non-negotiable. Watching short films on the web, your favorite TV show or a movie marathon, is negotiable. Reading is not. Best of all is to get a hold of the screenplay and a DVD of the film, read, watch, repeat, read, watch, repeat.

Time for me to go do all that right now. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, always has a slot in my space-time continuum.
-Carolynne

Someday I'll Stop Writing These Dreadful Songs

2011-12-02T21:46:00.001-08:00

The Canadian Tenors Moose Wearing My Writing Hat

But evidently that day isn't today.

Sorry my friends it seems to be an itch that I have to scratch. I will grow out of it. Really I will. It's just some weird delayed adolescence thing where I must write out my feelings. Even if I was feeling them twenty years ago. Please hang in here with me, we will get through this and I will start writing like an adult again sometime soon.

Someday by Carolynne Ciceri

Because I knew your favourite kind of chocolate
Because I knew the right thing to say
Because I knew when to hold you tight
Because I knew when to walk away

You love me more than you know
You love me more than you can say
This lifetime, or maybe the next, we’ll be together, someday

Everyone is happy to give an opinion
Everyone is happy to have their say
Everyone can be wrong you know
Everyone doesn’t get to choose our way

You love me more than you know
You love me more than you can say
This lifetime, or maybe the next, we’ll be together, someday

For now it is our secret
For now on different roads we walk
For now all we can do together
Is steal a few moments of sweet talk

And what if it’s all untrue
What if it’s all in my head
That doesn’t make it any less real
It just makes it my beautiful dream instead

Jeepers. Okay. That whole different roads, sweet talk thing - yikes. Maybe a jealous fellow writer put a curse on me? Could happen. Fine. I will keep working on it. Because that's what we writers do. We re-write.

And Then We Ate Cake

2011-11-30T21:40:00.001-08:00

Best Staff Meeting ever today.

7 of us gave 3 minute presentations on whatwe (and our unit) do. I put up a picture of the Star Trek bridge crew and gotto label Lt. Uhura with my name. It worked out that there was a Trek characteranalogous to each team member and their job. So much fun.

We were only permitted one slide á la 3MinuteThesiscompetition format, but I missed the memo saying we were permitted to use noteson paper so instead I rehearsed my spiel with jazz hands interpretive dancemoves to help jog my memory. It worked except that for the big finale I ran outof thumbs. I guess you had to be there.

And the Student Academic Services teampointed out that each clerk on their team has 2000 students. Can you imagine ifeven 1% of them decided to email a question on the same day? Yikes!

Then the PDFO (Postdoctoral Fellows Office)presenter was especially cute a) because he ran out of time and gave JFK’s mostwords in a minute record a run for the money and b) he grew a Movember ‘stashand struggled the whole time to keep from playing with it – but he managed toarrest the hand moving toward the ‘stash. Bravo!

Doc Exams was a hoot in a dark and lovelyway as they bordered their slide with images of Prozac pills and read out anastonishing record of transactions accomplished during one month - 75 DoctoralExaminations in the month of July! Can you imagine? 75 stressed out PhDstudents plus supervisors plus external examiners? Jeepers. Well done Ladies!

One of the coolest things was that some ofthe units let the newbies give the presentations so The Girl With Two Hats andthe longest job title in the office won the Best Use of Puns award as sheilluminated all present about her quest to eradicate Curriculamaphobia fromacross our 250 degree programs. While the Thesis duo pointed out that they wereundoubtedly the smartest of us all as they read, and reread, about 1000 Master’sand Doctoral Theses a year. Ouch.

Then my favourite of all - an Awards Veteran who didn’t need a slidebut only a wicked sense of humour to share with us the trials and triumphs of ashort-handed team who fought through a labyrinthine mountain range of processand paper to emerge on the far side of their silly season with their sense ofhumour intact, an appreciation for each other and millions and millions ofdollars awarded to thousands of graduate students who depend upon it to pursuetheir dreams of making the world a better place for all of us.

Yes, one an all of us ordinary heroes forsure, but still it was nice to be reminded of how smart and creative and funnyand caring this strange and motely group of folk who spend the labour of theirdays trying to make the world a better place for UBC graduate students becauseUBC graduate students make the world a better place for all of us.

And

Then one of us declaimed Scottish poetrywhile the Dean played the bagpipes

And then we ate cake

Now that was an awesome day at the office.

A Rather Distressing Compulsion

2011-11-27T21:48:00.001-08:00

I think I have a virus. Or a brain fever. How about a virusthat is causing a brain fever? I can’t stop writing songs. It is becoming arather distressing compulsion. Like that great musical episode of Buffy theVampire Slayer where everyone sang their feelings because they were compelledby a demon of song. Urkk. I can’t stop with the song ideas. Maybe they areactually poems but I don’t think so cause I just spent the last hour workingout the chord progression for Dragon Young Dragon, a blues lament in E major.Jeepers.

I’d share many more feelings on the subject but I want to gowork on another song idea – this one inspired by the line “Every day is anordinary day, until suddenly it isn’t.” So I guess is going to be song about love at first sight since after thelament of Dragon Young Dragon I am determined to write something peppy. Yes youheard me, peppy.

Dystopian Malaise - a Bookclub Rap

2011-11-17T16:08:00.001-08:00

Dystopian Malaise
by Carolynne “CoCo” Ciceri and Aynsley “Zombie Mom” Friesen

Aynsley "Zombie Mom" Friesen

You ask if I can talk and I answer okay
But I really have no interest in what you have to say
I put smile number 5 up onto my face
And I let my brain start wandering all over the place

I’m suffering from Dystopian Malaise today
How can I tell? ‘Cause I hear myself say
Uh huh? Oh yeah? Cool. Uh huh? Oh yeah? Cool.Uh huh? Oh yeah? Cool.

There’s so much post-apocalyptic drama in the lives of my friends
It’s a tragic soapy opera that has no end
I’m so sick to death of hearing all about it
So crazy bored that I could just spit-it-it

I’m suffering from Dystopian Malaise today
How can I tell? ‘Cause I hear myself say
Uh huh? Oh yeah? Cool. Uh huh? Oh yeah? Cool.Uh huh? Oh yeah? Cool.

I nod, I smile but if you could look in my head
I’d really be watching Robert DeNiro movies instead
I’m thinking of puppies and bunnies and cool mountain streams
Sorry but your sad sack reality just gives me bad dreams

I’m suffering from Dystopian Malaise today
How can I tell? ‘Cause I hear myself say
Uh huh? Oh yeah? Cool. Uh huh? Oh yeah? Cool.Uh huh? Oh yeah? Cool.

When you talk at me I say
Uh huh? Oh yeah? Cool. Uh huh? Oh yeah? Cool.Uh huh? Oh yeah? Cool.
When you talk I say
Uh huh? Oh yeah? Cool. Uh huh? Oh yeah? Cool.Uh huh? Oh yeah? Cool.
I say
Uh huh? Oh yeah? Cool. Uh huh? Oh yeah? Cool.Uh huh? Oh yeah? Cool.

A Mutated Chromosome 17

2011-11-16T11:16:00.001-08:00

Okay 3:09a.m. I am really not happy to see you again. Seeing your pale green LED face –a bit blurry from my lack of eyeglasses and a bit wobbly due to the large greenplastic water glass strategically positioned to mute your radiant…ah, radiance --makes me realize that in the past 15 years or so, you and I have spent some partof this Lost Hour together. Sometimes only a few moments, sometimes the wholedamn thing and then some, but at least 2 out of 3 nights we exchange ournocturnal greetings. I for the most part groan, sigh and from time to timelaunch a curse word in your direction. You return to me your intense faintlymalevolent green stare.

While I recognizethat our early morning conversation is hardwired into my genes – insert some scientificjibber jabber here about melatonin cycles and genetically linked paucity of theenzyme required to break it down, or else too much of the enzyme I can neverremember which it is. No matter, I have accepted you as part of what my Dadused to call “your specialness” in which context “special” takes the samemeaning as the word as “funny” does to the word “peculiar”. That does not mean, however, that I welcomeyou or have to be polite to you whenever you decide to show up.

Tragicallyfor me, a wage-slave of the most ordinary 9-5 kind, you often come tip-toeingalong with my Muse in tow. He seems tofrackin’ love you. A night person he definitely is and I’ve got no problem withthat except for when the alarm sounds at 6:45 a.m.

Thismorning’s thoughts decided to take a few laps of the brain chasing down theidea of winning the Giller Prize. For those of you not in the know of Canada’sliterary stuff, the Giller Prize is a big deal north of the 49^th parallel.It is a yearly $50,000 prize given to Canada’s best English novel or collectionof short stories and comes with lots of press and a huge bump in book sales. I’dseen a news clip a few days ago about the award and this year’s winner (EsiEdugyan Half-Blood Blues) and her comments were humble and heart felt. Istarted thinking about what winning a big splashy prize like that would mean toa writer, not in terms of their career so much but a few layers deeper thenthat. I started wondering what it would mean to the writing.

So my Musesat down on the end of the bed and started playing one of his favourite gameswith me – “What if that were you?”.

And so webegan. It started with me imagining what I would say if I won such a thing.What would I talk about in an acceptance speech. Would I spend a lot of time thanking all thepeople who ever helped me and then all of those who got in my way? Becausetruthfully they’d have had just as big a hand in any literary success as thosewho tried to help. Or would I say something real. Something about writing. Thena transformation of some kind took place. Even though I was still writing myGiller acceptance speech in my head, all of a sudden I was talking about why Iwrite. Why I have to write. It surely isn’t to win prizes I thought, for I don’tthink it is possible to actually do the work at all with that goal fixed in one’shead.

It may seemodd to many but it was the first time in my life I spent a big chunk of timethinking deeply about why I write. Divingunderneath all the surface reasons like, “I’m good at it.” Or “So I can fullyexpress myself” or “I get to be the hero of every story” or even the big reasonthat though it appears on the surface is a True Iceberg of Thought – “Because Iget to play God.” – so that surface thought is also one that goes all the waydown to the bottom.

In theprocess of trying to explain why I write to my Muse I came to understand that Iwrite because I have to write. Forbetter or worse, prizes or no, twenty years of writing has created a Writer,which is as you may or may not know is only kind of a half- human, halfmythical sort of construct. A creature that splits her time pretty equallybetween the Here-and-Now(HAN) and the Land-of-What-If and –Maybe (LOWIM) and nomatter how fantastic HAN might be at any point in time, she is always piningfor the forests and valleys and oceans and planets of three moons that lie inher truest home LOWIM.

So there itis. I write because it is now as much a part of my genome as the weirdness onchromosome 17 that inverts my melatonin cycle. It’s a curious sort of group ofthoughts that make me as sad as joyful. But analysis of that emotional responsewill have to wait for another day’s Lost Hour. For tonight my Muse has snuggleddown in the blankets next to me and closed his eyes, so now I will too.

Welcome to Cocomania

2011-11-05T11:41:00.000-07:00

Things that I am thinking.

Wondering why my blog fan base is as big in Russia and Brazil as it is in the USA? Georgia and Latvia too seem to have developed a recurrent interest in the Cocoverse. Guess I’ll have to plan stops there on my book tour.

Today I shamelessly flattered a male co-worker into changing the colour printer cartridge for me so that I wouldn’t risk my guitar finger nails.

In the last twenty-four hours I’ve written two new songs and outlined a new story property charting out it’s dramatic progression from short film script to web series to one act play, full length play and feature script. It’s called Brandon Fury and I seem to think it is immensely funny in that I snort with laughter every time I think about it for more then 30 seconds. But I’ve worked it over a few time and I think it is genuinely funny and not just the serotonin talking.

So I guess it’s a comedy.

If not for the day job I’d have written at least two more songs and finished three other scripts in this time period. Got a big stack done at the office too. So either somebody needs to throttle back on the caffeine or the Bipolar type 2 pendulum is finally swinging back in the happy direction. If so - no worries my lovelies - in my personal expression of the disorder the manic phase is notable only by a clean apartment, excessive chattiness and a new draft of my proposal to achieve total world literary domination. Yah, but also don’t believe anything I promise for the next little while K? The blizzard of personal and professional improvements that I have planned for the next six weeks are all well intentioned but a girl has to remember that a few baby steps and a few pages written everyday will get a girl over the rainbow more surely then a mad dash ending in a sprained ankle and tears.

Spending some time with Mom too working on “Dummy Hand” our theatrical magnum opus about a septuagenarian bridge club. Okay thats’ a word one is not called upon to spell very often. So many stories to write so little time.

Twitchie the House Elf did finally cough up the guitar capo so in addition don’t be surprised if you pass by my door and hear the sound of my voice singing “Hallelujah”. That would be the Canadian Tenors arrangement of the Leonard Cohen tune of course, but transposed by capo magic to a better spot in my vocal range.

I love weekends.

BTW I thought you all might like to meet one of the most often referred to magic talismans in the Cocoverse - the Rock of Truth. Which, just as an aside, is still jammed in the printer. I guess I'd better go find the tweezers.

Scented Candle Wax & Potato Chip Crumbs

2011-11-01T20:03:00.000-07:00

Okay, now I know for sure that the Fae are ticked with me. First was the incident of the disappeared guitar capo which I blamed on the House Elf. Hey Twitchie, my little man, where there is scented candle wax and potato chip crumbs there is fire pal. Then the broken guitar nail as the neophyte guitar player counts down to her first recording session. Now I've gone and lodged the "Rock of Truth" into my printer in a manner that can only be described as bizarre. The frackin' capo is still AWOL by the way, the nail is still broken and I haven't yet figured out the right tool to liberate the "Rock of Truth" without wrecking the printer - which is also out of ink on the eve of a script competition deadline. I've tried the extra heavy duty nail file, the pen and the stray knitting needle previously blessed by my friend Angela, goddess of the fibre and pottery arts, but no joy. Rats. I had high hopes for that knitting needle which is one of the few things I own that could be construed a holy artifact.

If I could be bothered to record a sound track for this post you'd be hearing Lady Antebellum in the background - some musicians and songwriters that I'm very impressed with by the way - and the sound of me snorting air into my nostrils and flame out of my nostrils in the foreground. Now maybe that is just from the chipolte chili mishap at lunch but I don't think so. I've ticked off some Major Minor Deity big time. Now will have to do all of the dishes, change the sheets and take a nine orange peel bath to re balance my chi. Not to mention scheduling an eco-terror attack on the UBC Botanical Garden to secure some hyssop, holly and rowan. Unless any of you has some fresh mistletoe or hair from a live wolf to offer up? Thought not. Somebody needs a hug. Oh, wait both the Cossack and IrishEyes emailed or FB'd in my direction in the last 24 hours. Heh. Maybe a girl should stop complaining. Yep. Okay, she will. But Twitchie, you'd better watch your back pal.

The Critical Nature of Extra Napkins

2011-10-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

So one ofthose things that has always struck me as odd is the big wad of napkinsthat often come with a fast food order. It has always seemed to me that thenumber of napkins that one receives in any specific instance is inverselyproportional to the actual need for extra napkins. You know what I’m saying,the two napkins and two tiny wet naps with the family size bucket of chicken,the four napkins with the extra large pizza and the fist full that accompaniesthe relatively dry burger and fries, no ketchup.

While allthose who’ve ever seen me eat or imbibe liquid of any sort can testify, I am amultiple napkin kind of girl. Always have been, always will be. Over the years Ihave therefore developed a wee bit of a paper napkin collecting habit, a habitwhich has served me fairly well all in all as witnessed by the events of thepast 24 hours. A dirty grocery cart (ick!), a broken egg on the kitchen floor,milk spilled on the coffee table, coffee spilled on the coffee table too forthat matter, an errant sneeze at the computer keyboard, a stray tear squeezedout in response to a memorable musical performance on TV, you get the idea.

But today Isaw my spare paper napkin collecting habit in a slightly more sinister light asa colleague witnessed me pulling a spare napkin from my desk drawer in order toput it to some minor use and she asked, in a tone of voice that I thought wasrather melodramatically aghast given the circumstance, if it was indeed thecase that the entire drawer was full of spare paper napkins. Ah, yes, in factthat is true. I have an entire desk drawer devoted to the accumulation of extrapaper napkins. Is that so wrong? It’s not like it’s a big drawer. Does thatmake me a hoarder or just well prepared?

As long asI’m the Empress of the Cocoverse, which is a position held in perpetuity by theway, I’m going with “well prepared”.

P.S. I promise to figure out how to get rid of the annoying advertising that I added in a strange fit of "I wonder what this button does?" Now I know. Ick

Just a Little Bit Cocoa

2011-10-21T20:40:00.000-07:00

So here I be, trying to get all organized for a serious turn off the tv/phone/internet writer's weekend and suddenly all I can think about is how great it be if I rolled a few teaspoons of peanut butter in chocolate cheerios and then dipped them in the melted remains of the organic chocolate chili bar stashed in the filing cabinet. Now I can hear many of you screaming "no don't do it" but truth to tell, sweets are not my food waterloo and that chocolate chili bar has survived unscathed for at least ten days, so regardless it won't be as bad as you fear. Chocolate seems to be the one thing I like to eat for which I have a reasonable "off" switch.

In the end, laziness will out and I'll just snap a couple squares off the bar and retreat to the purple velvet couch for this week's episode of "Supernatural". Which since you're asking is something for which I do not have an "off" switch. Then to bed cause I did in fact rise in the deep dark of the night last night to work on my spec "Lost Girl" script. Awesome funny scene actually, and a little bit naughty. Though if any of you have any practical suggestions about how to get my Muse to show up at about 7 p.m. instead of 3 a.m. I'll save the rest of that chocolate chili bar for you.

Instead of a Moldy Rutabaga: A Reprise

2011-10-07T13:58:00.000-07:00

Okay, yes, the ultimate in lazy blogging is re-posting an old blog. But since me, with the new found expertise reading my blog stats, has concluded only three people ever actually read this one, I don't feel so bad out the re-post 'cause it is one of my favourite rants and I'm in a ranty sort of mood but too pooped to work up the fresh head of steam required for a truly fabulous original shellacking. So here's hoping one or two more of you enjoy this, the inaugural Friday Rant.

Really I crack myself up sometimes. I mean seriously, who am I to have such strong opinions about writing and story. Me with my one and only option cheque for 1$ stuck up on my book case with a bit of sticky tape. After a morning spent giving notes for favours it seems particularly hilarious that I’m still, at 7 pm at night, fuming over the issue of voice over in film scripts.

Just in case you’ve never heard me say it out loud before, here it is. "Voice over is the refuge of the lazy writer." Or the addition of a spectacularly insecure director or producer who doesn’t trust the very expensive team of artists and craftspeople they’ve hired to express the story in the glorious visual aural literary medium that is film.

I read this same sentiment once in one of my hundred books on screenwriting and I do so wish I could remember which A-list screenwriter to attribute the quote to, but, I don’t. Which is sad because sometimes I feel like I’m standing alone, screaming it into the teeth of a hurricane force wind with fellow writers and film business folks lined up like pilgrims in front of a pilloried (your word for the day) harlot chucking rotten root vegetables at me chanting the names of successful and highly touted films that use the medium. And I don’t care if that is a dreadful run-on sentence that needs an editor. Get your own blog.

You really think you are Robert Redford and your script the next A River Runs Through It? Okay, maybe you are but if you’re going to get the voice over by me man you better be chucking the Oscar or Golden Globe at me instead of a moldy rutabaga.

You see the great glory of film is when the music, words, acting, visuals, camera movement, casting, costuming all become a greater synthesis – you know the whole becomes greater than the sum of their parts. It is possible. Just layering good acting and nice visuals with a poetic voice over is self-indulgent crap. Sorry too harsh. It is what I call “young man” writing which is actually separate and distinct from “young woman” writing which has its own pitfalls.

Young man writing is self-indulgent and masturbatory while young woman writing tends to innumerable cups of tea and tedious descriptions of the actions of other people not on the screen to trustworthy confidantes. Certainly a place for both voices in the cannon of our craft, but really people. Look at not only what you are writing but how you are writing. Go ahead and chuck the moldy rutabagas if you must but be brave enough to have the tosser taunt me in his own voice.

Note to Self

2011-10-05T21:16:00.000-07:00

When MacGuyvering eyeglasses back together with black masking tape, ensure that you do not spend 15 minutes trying to attach the left arm to the right side of the glasses. "But Carolynne, surely you realize that is not black masking tape in the photo?" Yes, yes my friends I do. That is regular masking tape and it appears in this photo of the repaired spectacles because the black masking tape gave out completely as I tried to maneuver the glasses into position in order to take this wonderful photo to share with you all.

So here is my wonderful photo to accompany a story that is representative of my month so far. I will now leave you to go stir the pot of beans on the stove which is representative of my attempt to loose 20 pounds between now and the Canadian Tenors concert 72 days from now where, if I succeed my Mom will pick up the tab for the tickets. Taken together, the cheaply repaired glasses, beans and desire to get someone else to pay for my Canadian Tenors habit, these things are representative of my attempts to save up enough money to finance the filming of my award winning short film script, The Lobby.

Current funds assembled to date total 100 dollars and the refund on 11 empty liquor bottles recently discovered under the sink - 5 Absolut vodka, 2 Bombay Sapphire gin and 4 wine bottles(2 red, 2 white), for those of you who enjoy excessive detail I will post the wine brand names upon request - which have been there since I decided that booze was too expensive sometime last June. Oh, and of course the tea light holder full of nickels which are no longer accepted by Vancouver parking meters.

After the bean stirring I should return a phonecall, but it is too late already because glasses repair took 7.5 times longer than budgeted. Instead I'll be practicing the guitar till bedtime which is representative of ...um, my desire to practice the guitar until bedtime.

Sleep well. Don't forget to vote for Georgia Murray on Cover Me Canada and like all her vids on YouTube many times and like them as often as the button will let you hit it. Which is representative of my wanting the dreams of a terrific artist and lovely person to come true. Won't you sleep better knowing you had a little part in that?

Fandom in the Cocoverse

2011-10-02T20:19:00.000-07:00

Synchronicity. I was going to erase that word and start these musing anew and then realized that I didn’t want to. After all I did experience it about an hour ago while driving in the car and listening to a radio station to which I rarely listen. Cory Hart’s “Sunglasses at Night” was playing and I cranked it up and listened with an intensity never before witnessed between myself and that particular pop classic. All to say that my girl Georgia Murray is taking the stage in Toronto in mere moments real-time to cover the song for tonight’s CBC show Cover Me Canada. Now perhaps Mr. Hart’s song still receives daily air play here in Vancouver - who am I to know such things - but somehow doubt it, good tune that it is notwithstanding.

I don’t know about the specific space-time continuum that you inhabit, but here in the Cocoverse music seems to carry with it a greater preponderance of synchronous moments than any other single media or entity. Perhaps because it is so intermeshed with our processes of emotion and memory at a neurological level. Or perhaps that is just part of it’s magic.

I’m a fairly recent addition to Ms. Murray’s bandwagon, having had the extreme pleasure of seeing and hearing her perform live here in Vancouver not more than six weeks ago. She was awesome live and the CBC production team has yet to capture the full range of that awesomeness on their show, in my humble lay person’s opinion.

It is no small challenge to do sound for a live broadcast for not only a disparate group of bands but also having only 90 seconds to get the mix right. I don’t envy them their task but perhaps in future, not doing a 100% live performance with such (relatively) inexperienced bands would significantly elevate the quality of the sound on the show. I’m afraid that the general public is so used to polished perfection that many can’t pick out the moments that are gems from the nerves and miscues. In truth all eight bands really have something great and raw going on and a couple of the bands have superb chops.

I offer as evidence the YouTube videos of Ms. Murray - last week’s official version from the show - which was good - and the acoustic version she and the band laid down only a few hours later in their hotel room which was all kinds of amazing. Without strangers on the sound mixing board and the over-caffeinated lighting technician strobing crazily, in the acoustic version of Alanis Morrisette’s “You Oughta Know” Ms. Murray and crew kicked that song’s ass from Tofino to Cape Spear and back .

As a writer and neophyte guitar player I’m avidly participating in Georgia’s journey to musical stardom for a number of reasons. One is that I get a huge buzz from “discovering” talent on the way up and watching them ride the wave. Sometimes, as we have all borne witness, the talent and genius and celebrity ends up with the artist smashed on the rocks. But sometimes, and in this case I’m willing to bet on it, the fifteen year overnight sensation can enjoy each and every moment in the spotlight and ride out the dry spots sure to come with the same joy in the music that has sustained them thus far.

For me too part of the attraction is that I am an artist that performs best in my own milieu when I find others to inspire me. And I’m not taking about famous dead geniuses or celebrities whom I may admire but have never met.

I seek out the everyday artists in my everyday little life. It is shocking how many you can find if you only look -- the accounting clerk who is genius with the knitting needles; the sister who can take a pot of dirt and a few scraggly plants and compose a living tone poem; the roommate who taught me to brew the perfect cup of coffee; the graphic designer become award winning children’s book author; the colleague entering her first ballroom dance competition; the executive assistant become novelist and yoga teacher; the 10 year old boy who would not stay in the green room during the opera performance become a tenor known round the world; the guitar teacher become film composer; the Dean become choir master; the under 30 actor become film exec -- and today Georgia Murray, reluctant reality TV contestant. Tonight she sings for you and she sings for herself, but in the Cocoverse, most of all, she sings for me

September Flash Blog

2011-09-21T08:48:00.000-07:00

Seriously, this is a Flash Blog because who in September has time to write anything longer? For someone who has no children and is not currently registered in any classes back to school has been inexplicably fraught this year. Maybe because I work at a school. Oh and I do have my guitar lessons, that makes me a student of something I suppose. So all I've got for you today is one of the essential questions of the Cocoverse, which from time to time we are all called upon to ponder. How is it that I have two working opposable thumbs - opposable is your word for the week which the spell checker on this blog site doesn't like very much and yet it is spelled correctly. Any way, back to the question of the day - How is it that I have two opposable thumbs and a good blodge of higher education on my resume and yet can't figure out how to operate the new fangled lid on the take-out coffee cup? Serves me right for not remembering my travel mug I guess.
Here's hoping you all have a more successful morning than I in terms of imbibing your wake-the-hell-up beverage of choice.

Goodby Early Adopter, Hello Later Learner

2011-08-30T08:53:00.000-07:00

Another birthday in the books and ruminating on the passage of time, as per usual at this time of year. And I'm looking at my old iPhone - without the 3S or 3G whatever that means - and my aging MacAir - the lack of a built in disc drive is really starting to bug me - upgrades are in order, but truthfully I can't be bothered. And my head hurts at the idea that i need to migrate my on-line social life from Facebook to Google+ and I feel guilty for not tweeting and blogging regularly and so I started to play the new Sims on-line game to relax until I had this huge Ah HAH moment...

...as my Sim was cleaning her fake toilet and heating up food in her microwave - something I highly object to in the real world btw and then she headed to her fake computer to write a fake blog post and then the fake guitar where in order to learn life points and simoleaons she had to practice a Flamenco piece.

Imagine if you will, the now, the entire movement of my cosmos screeching to a halt as I look over at my real guitar with my real flamenco music on the stand and I realize the real flower pots on the real balcony need attention more than the fake flowers on the computer screen. What am I doing! I have a life to live and here I am playing at a shadow version of it? Albeit my Sim looks better in skinny jeans and a corset top than I do, but come on! So I powered down the computer and picked up up the real guitar. Tonight I will make my favorite 2.5 hour Baja Beans and clean my real toilet. Then the only thing I'll touch the computer for is to research gluten and egg free recipes so that I can have my real friends over for a real dinner.

So there. It takes me awile to learn things sometime but I got there in the end. If I'm going to have a fake life it is going to have aliens and superpowers and hot guys with six pack abs who sing to me all day and make me sing all night!

Sing from your heart

2011-08-27T23:53:00.000-07:00

I have just watched a bunch of wonderful music videos of amazing BC talent and I am so proud, but...

Okay beautiful young people, lean in and listen well, for I was once one of you and pissed it away with self doubt and pretensions - lose ‘em! The pretensions I mean. Look it up if you don’t know the word. KISS, and not the rock band your parents knew and loved. Keep it simple schmoooes. Trim the beard precisely, forget the feathers unless you can prove First Nations heritage, and a short tight mini skirt as you sit on a bale of hay in the middle of a field is just not the thing chica!

Please be the you are and not the you that you think you should be. I know that is a tall order when in your twenties, I do. Everyone around you is in full court press trying to make you into what they want you to be. But take a deep breath, and ask someone older, in the biz, whom you admire, their opinion before adding tambourines or back-combing your hair or assigning your creative future to your current boyfriend.

Sing from your heart not your ego, and surround yourself with images that mean something to you. Don’t worry about giving us a narrative and god knows you should punt your producer’s narrative, unless he is paying you big bales of cash for the privilege, which I very much doubt. Seriously, I bet if you asked Jan Arden or Sarah McLachlan for 1/2 an hour of advice they’d be thrilled to give it.

Okay, that’s my outburst for the month. Please just know that you are beautiful and genius. After that, it’s just hard work. Don’t forget that either. Push yourselves. It is at the edges of our comfort zone that real magic happens.

6 minutes in my head

2011-08-05T18:18:00.000-07:00

Here's a six minute writing exercise from my Writing Maestro Deb Norton who blogs at partwild.wordpress.com

You have six minutes to answer the prompt - If I dig deeper...

Here's where I went.

If I dig deeper I wonder if I’ll strike gold or open up a cess pit? Which will it be? A little of both mayhap or neither. Maybe I’ll just uncover deep dark rich earth that goes on and on underneath my little spade. The kind of earth that must be paired with the word rich. Rich earth ready and willing to receive the seeds of dreams. Ready earth rich with secrets and spells. Earth ready and rich, able to cherish and feed and nurture and infuse the life that turns a dream into a story. If I dig deeper.

Oh, to be in Paris, or at Comic Con, whatever

2011-07-22T20:40:00.000-07:00

Alright. So what is a middle-aged girl with a head cold to do on an unseasonably cool summer night. I know! Write a blog post! Strangely the sun is threatening to shine tomorrow maybe if I sit out on the balcony I can get it to burn the sore throat away. But no, no complaining for me tonight, not moi. It has been an interesting sort of week.

Two people I like a lot are both in France this week, one in Paris and the other lolling about near a pool by a chateau somewhere in the Gers, almost dead centre of the country. Another of those I adore is in San Diego at Comic Con and I am kicking myself a bit that I couldn’t work out how to be there too. I’m thinking of him especially tonight as Ron James is saluting the his home town of Lethbridge. I love me my Ron James he is one funny and brilliant comic poet. I wonder how our American neighbours would take him though, he is so very Canadian in all the funniest ways.

What else this week of note? Oh, yah, I got to be a hero tonight me with the jumper cables for a couple of my hotter guy neighbours best of all one of them walked right into one of my favourite cheeky lines of all time, “Wow, I guess it really does pay to be prepared,” says he. I get to smile and wink and fire back with, “Yes, well, you know though I’ve never been a Boy Scout, I’ve had a few.” That caught them by surprise. I was rewarded by two slightly choked barks of laughter and one of their girlfriends from the shadows saying, “Hah! I’ve had a few, that’s funny.” I told her to feel free to steal it anytime she likes. Then I had to beat a hasty retreat telling them to leave the jumper cables under the car when they finished. Always leave ‘em laughing and then make yourself scarce before you can screw it up. For those of you who, sadly still haven’t gotten the joke - Boy Scout motto “Be Prepared” - get it?

Mind you I sort of hacked in the direction of one of the boys so I’m hoping he doesn’t catch my lurggy and remember me that way.

What else, hmm, not too much. Wait that’s a big fib. I had my self-esteem handed back to me on a silver platter this week. Can’t tell you how or why yet. Suffice it to say that I have awesome friends and a few of them got to share my relief as I received a big compliment from an important stranger.

Other then that. Still going to bed early, indeed signing off pretty much now as 6 AM comes early, even on a Saturday. But that early writing hour is proving to be very important to my health, and my page count.

Love you all, thanks for dropping by. I now have to tackle a writing assignment from the Artist’s Way - pretending to be my eight year old self writing me a letter at my current age. You can bet I won’t be running spell check.

Night’n’G’Bless.

A Blog About Nothing

2011-07-18T13:16:00.000-07:00

It seems that I find myself with a little space of time and the inclination to blog, though I’m not certain what to blog about. The thing of it is, I find myself once again on a reading fast - this time for only a week - and thus need some mechanism to take a bit of a brain break from my day job. Eating lunch only took eleven minutes and I didn’t bring my guitar today nor do I have an inclination to walk in the rain so blogging it is. Though I could try and work on an actual script or story or hey, even play a game on my iPhone but no. Why am I looking for a justification for blogging? Can it be that often it seems to me that so many blog about so little?

Well at least you were forewarned about this blog from its title. I suppose I could tell you why I am once again without reading or TV or movies for a week given that I recently did a month without fiction and it turned out to be unproductive writing wise in that I spent my reading time watching DIY TV and House Hunters International. Love to be on that show some day. Or better yet, Fantasy Homes by the Sea, that’s the program to be on for sure.

This time I am working through the Artist’s Way and it is turn off the fiction week in order to make yourself face some of the things in your life that you’ve been avoiding facing. This week is all about finding integrity. I have been working through this course in creativity for the first time in about twenty years and am daily surprised by how much I’m getting out of it the second time around. Just doing the Morning Pages (3 pages or 750 words of free association) daily has affected a great sea change.

I am doing more creative writing on a daily basis. Gone seems to be the great plans for huge uninterrupted writing sessions. I write whenever I have a little space to write. Still early days yet so time will have to tell if this shift in creative activity will result in more finished product but I have high hopes and those hopes seem to have a good basis in reality.

The other thing of note is that I’m feeling, in general, a lot better about myself than I have been of late. It’s been a bit of a rocky year on the self-esteem front. This is another positive turn of events that I am claiming is all to do with the Morning Pages. Something about getting the day’s whining out on paper before 7 AM seems to help keep it out of the rest of the day.

Another Saturday Night

2011-02-26T23:46:00.000-08:00

Now that I've checked up on the recent posts of all 82 of my Facebook friends...I know, hardly an epic number, bu I have this weird thing about accepting people that I actually know or like or have met on more than a single occasion. Call me crazy.

Just in the event that you might be interested on what I might be up to on a Saturday night, I am here to tell you. Other than checking everybody's latest on facebook, I have also been working on new songs on the guitar. Waltzing Matilda (don't ask), Pachbel's Canon (because at some point it must be learned, may as well be now) and Asturias (which my sometime substitute guitar teacher calls the "Stairway to Heaven" of classical guitar).

Baby Steps

2011-01-21T18:33:00.000-08:00

I believe I learned a lesson today in the area of not kidding myself.

As some of you know I've been doing well using the Slow Carb approach as outlined by Tim Ferris in his book "The 4 Hour Body". Today is day nineteen and Friday after work is time to measure before enjoying the Hello Weekend! dinner of grass fed beef steak with a side of spinach and pinto beans (livened up with a clove of garlic, tablespoon butter and a few hits of hot sauce) all to be washed down with a lovely glass of red wine.

The problem arose at the day's end when, in anticipating my commute home I decided to stop and the liquor store and grocery store to pick tomorrow's cheat foods. All day Saturday is my planned Go Crazy Diet Day. All well and good. I tell my self that I've been so successful that I won't be tempted to cheat tonight, even though the goods are sitting there, because I am so happy and proud of my progress. I also reminded myself that one less trip in the car would reduce my carbon footprint. After all, I managed to do this task on the Friday night the first week and restrain myself. Well mostly, I did enjoy one Martini.

It wasn't until I was circling the parking lot having no luck finding a space that I realized that I was lying to myself. I was hungry since I skipped the second mini lunch that I'm supposed to eat around 3:30-4 and I recognized that as I was parking and running the grocery list in my head that I was fully planned to begin my cheat day tonight! I was envisioning the potato chips, icing the vodka and unwrapping the chocolate bar.

And so. I didn't park. I came straight home and cooked my correct meal for the moment which I am about to sit down and enjoy. Yeah me. One day of not kidding myself.

Blown up while eating cheese

2010-07-28T16:30:00.000-07:00

http://bit.ly/14OazU
is the link to my latest writer laureate blog post all about Hemmingway and my big fat gob and the weird itchy feeling I get at the base of my neck when I'm about to learn something hard about myself.

CSSC blog post

2010-07-23T10:08:00.001-07:00

http://www.screenplay-contest.com/

The latest blather on my life as an emerging screenwriter.

Missing me lovelies?

2010-07-06T21:42:00.001-07:00

Then please to check out my Writer's Wednesday post on the CSSC blog...

www.shortisbetter.wordpress.com

hugs,
C

In praise of public holidays

2010-07-03T21:02:00.000-07:00

Oh what a gift that middle of the week day off is for the development of good writerly habits! I had a great day, a little excercise, writing, guitar, housework, reading, writing and a rerun of Glee on TV that I hadn’t seen. Except for the food, a great day. I was so focused on moving the Pomodoro’s along on Rain Girls that I didn’t want to break for grocery shopping so it was an eat whatever is in the fridge day which wasn’t really a success. Nothing was “good” and the berries were moldy and the yogurt had gone over. All in all a sign that I need to clean out the fridge and maybe even do a little simple meal planning with an eye to very fast and simple meals. I’m going to try the 30 minute philosophy as it fits in so well with the 25 minute Pomodoros.

In the ongoing battle to master my own mind an interesting twist. I’ve been re-reading Stephen Pressfield’s War of Art which seems to be an even greater revelation than the first time I read it. What I did yesterday, which was different than usual, was I actually heeded his advice about over coming your resistance to doing your work is a daily battle, so best to just sit down early and get it over with. This time I listened and pushed back all the “should dos” until I’d done one full set of Pomodoro’s on Rain Girls. The shocking thing is not that I did 2 hours focused work on it, but that at the end of the break time I not only was happy to get back at it, but I got scads done during the break. And not just done, but done without a lot of obvious mental effort.

The Friday Friday Song

2010-06-25T12:37:00.000-07:00

For about a year now I have, every Friday, sung a little ditty that I call
"The Friday, Friday Song". I generally declaim it quite loudly and off key two or three times a day while in the office. This may be one of the reasons I've developed a certain reputation here for being a bit of an eccentric. That is actually super huge when you consider that my day job is at a university where eccentric is pretty much the norm. In fact I think we are largely fruit and nuts with just enough normal people cake to hold us all together. But I digress. Again. Sigh. Well it is after all FRIDAY!

So while the Friday Friday song is my principal claim to fame in the realm of song writing, and is now requested by some of my peers, I don't think my Canadian Tenors will be recording it anytime soon. Chief among it's charms you see is that it must be sung somewhat off key. Or at the very least with at least one vocal break on any one of the top notes. The lyrics go like this.
"It's Friday! Singing the Friday Friday song. It's not very good but it's not very long. Friday, Friday FRIDAY!" There is, of course a big crescendo up to the last Friday accompanied by a wiggle and a jiggle and a throwing of one's arms heavenward.

I'm not sure why I had the urge to share that with you today. Perhaps because I've been thinking a bit on the various forms of writing in which I'm engaged on a regular basis. Neither poetry nor song are forms with which I have experience not aptitude and yet both inform my writing quite strongly. I search, often and always, to find the right poetic phrase that brings a scene description or a character speech alive. Something about the poetic form being a kind of shorthand for a visual, visceral chunk of information. Constructing a phrase that not only captures the attention, but tugs at memory by making you experience not just the words but the visual and emotion image. And song. I often look at the structure of stories and scripts as if they are pieces of music. Some are tone poems, some cantatas, some studies, some concertos. But they all have rhythm and tempo and crescendos and timbre.

All that to say that even though these forms are things over which I have no mastery, it is still very important that I keep writing things like the Friday Friday song. I may never write a book of poems nor an album of songs, but I will continue to think about them and include them in my writing practice as key components of great writing.

Nuttier than a fruitcake.

2010-06-14T19:22:00.000-07:00

I’ve christened this hour of the day Blogtime, for at least this week. It is the hour post workout pre-shower where I cool down and enjoy the puddle of endorphins generated by that most miraculous of events – the workout. I can’t quite believe that I’ve kept up with them but there it is, today clocked in #96 of the year. Reached a big tipping point recently whereat I discovered that regardless of how grumpy and tired and disinclined to workout I was upon arrival at home, I found that if I gave into the grumps and played couch barnacle, that I felt worse about my day. I don’t ever want to feel worse about my day. I keep thinking back to what Apollo Ono said about coming back for these last Olympic games – something to the effect that before he closes his eyes to sleep every night he asks himself the question – did I do everything I could today to reach my goal?

On one hand that is a lot of pressure to put on yourself every day which is likely one of the reasons so few of us are Olympians. But in the larger scheme of things I have often pondered the elements of a perfect day for me and it is shockingly easy to achieve. A little of this, a little of that, little work, little play, little self-care, little love, little plain old goofing off.

Today started late last night. Both Hoosie and the Producer are enjoying the Banff World TV Festival 2010 and I heard from both of them. The Producer has a sci-fi producer he is going to hook me up with who is looking for writers, so if it works out I guess I’ll have to give him a finders fee. Hoosie texted me late and we did a long string till I told him to just call me, my thumbs were getting tired and I need my thumb strength for writing, not texting. We had a weird and wonderful Pajama Game conversation but somehow I think I was playing the Rock Hudson role. Hmmmm. So totally screwed my sleep hygiene of course since after hanging up I couldn’t get to sleep. I really can’t talk to anyone or email them for like an hour and a half before sleep, sensitive delicate thing that I am. The brain won’t turn off – I just keep thinking about the person and the conversation. Need better filters I guess.

Did get out of bed before noon, did do laundry, did groceries, did the gym, did the reading did a tiny bit of housework, lots of guitar and so far 3 pomodoros of writing on Conflict of Interest. More writing planned tonight with the World Cup as energy booster playing low in the background. So the writing the part where I realize that I really might be crazier than even I think I am. I was trying to decide what project to work on and the mental conversation went something like this.

“You should work on Rain Girls.” “Yeah but I’m in the mood to work on Conflict.” “Fine, then email the Cossack and see if he’ll buy you a pity drink over the two of you not being in Banff and then pitch him the story.” “Ah, no, I’m sure he’s busy and I don’t want to full out pitch it till I have something to show.” “Pretty sure two days work will get it showable.” “You know you’re right, I’ll do a set of pomodoros on Rain Girls – that’ll kick it along without getting close to the worry of finishing it.” “Worry of finishing it? Frack and golly bejesus, we aren’t here again are we? Okay I guess we are. You want to work on the script that has the least amount of interest and therefore the least amount of internal pressure. ARRRRGGHH!” “Seriously, what I am going to do with this fear of finishing thing you’ve decided you have.” “Help me figure out a way to believe I’m over it? Hey you manage to trick yourself through a workout nearly every day – figure out how you’re doing that and apply it.” “Hmmm. Pretty good advice from someone certifiable.” “Thanks. I try.”

I’m afraid.

2010-06-13T21:54:00.000-07:00

So there it is. After a long stretch of much silence and occasional random blog ramblings in a vain attempt to assuage your concerns (assuage, your word of the day) the reason I’ve not been writing. I’m afraid. You’re right to be concerned. I have been.

And somewhere I picked up this idea that I am blogging to entertain and enlighten you all about the trials and tribulations of creation. If I’m not doing that, then there is nothing to post. I forgot that the core reason I’m exploring the trials and tribulations of the aforesaid creative struggle is to put a pin in it for myself and if you get any spill over benefit super.

So the timer is set for one pomodoro (www.pomodorotechnique.com) and I will post what ever wanders out of my brain and onto the page. For you see I am preparing for a week of perfection. I have promised myself that every morning I will rise with joy and determination and I will live each day perfectly. For me that means 9-10 hours sleep – good coffee, guitar, exercise, reading, writing, good wine and interacting with someone I like. That is a perfect day. You can interpret the word “interacting” in any way that you’d like.

I’m finding my way back. Sometimes I just overwhelmed by all the stories charging around in my head and then I get frustrated at how long it takes for me to get the ideas on the page and then disappointed that I’m letting myself and others down and so the spiral continues. It’s alright though, I’m not complaining or asking for sympathy, it is just the way it is and I am on the ramp with the sack of manure on my shoulder trudging back up the spiral.

I fell down. Now I’m back on my feet. View is nicer from here. Can see the horizon and the tree-line and on a clear night the second star on the right and straight on till morning.

Part of me will be in Banff all week. Smiling, laughing, telling stories, listening to hopes and dreams and visions, pitchin’, dealin’, seducing, being seduced. Part of me stays here. In my head with you and Moosie, who has promised to keep the Drill Sgt. Critic shut in her cupboard while I finish a script or two. He may only be a miniature stuffed moose sporting a Canadian Tenors t-shirt but he is fierce in the defence of loved ones.

I’m still afraid – that I’m not smart enough, talented enough, passionate enough, prepared enough. That doesn’t let me off the hook though, does it? Fortune favours the brave they say. And if you aren’t a bit afraid, it’s not really brave, now is it?

Practice. Patience. Perseverance. Passion. Playfulness.

So I said "I'm back" but am I really?

2010-06-05T21:40:00.000-07:00

I was so in the mood to blog earlier tonight. Lots of exercise (workout #90) and post Canadian Tenors PBS special endorphins going crazy. And so proud. So proud of my boy Fraser Walters hosting down in the Seattle studio. So of course I have no right to take any credit for his success other than the fact I did keep the Asst. Conductor on the Magic Flute from strangling him. So I guess I'm allowed to be a bit proud.

Strangely I then read one of my blog posts from long ago about playing the guitar "two hands dancing" I have to admit. The writing was brilliant and now I'm kinda in awe of my earlier self and completely feeling that the current self can't possibly be capable of such eloquence. Hmm. That's a bit hinky-poo when you are jealous of yourself as a writer, don't you think?

Eeek. As if I didn't have enough ISSUES. Nice to be back though. I took a bit of a detour into writing what I'm supposed to instead of what I feel. It as okay I guess. Truth to tell it all flows better if i do this and that at the same time. Wrote some good shit for my day job today. Hey if the Dean comes back with zero comments on 1500 words, it is a fine day of writing my friends.

Instead of a moldy rutabaga

2010-06-05T21:39:00.000-07:00

Really I crack myself up sometimes. I mean seriously, who am I to have such strong opinions about writing and story. Me with my one and only option cheque for 1$ stuck up on my book case with a bit of sticky tape. After a morning spent giving notes for favours it seems particularly hilarious that I’m still, at 7 pm at night, fuming over the issue of voice over in film scripts.

Just in case you’ve never heard me say it out loud before, here it is. Voiceover is the refuge of the lazy writer. Or the addition of a spectacularly insecure director or producer who doesn’t trust the very expensive team of artists and craftspeople they’ve hired to express the story in the glorious visual aural literary medium that is film.

I read this same sentiment once in one of my hundred books on screenwriting and I do so wish I could remember which A-list screenwriter to attribute the quote to, but, I don’t. Which is sad because sometimes I feel like I’m standing alone, screaming it into the teeth of a hurricane force wind with fellow writers and film business folks lined up like pilgrims in front of a pilloried (your word for the day) harlot chucking rotten root vegetables at me chanting the names of successful and highly touted films that use the medium. And I don’t care if that is a dreadful run-on sentence that needs an editor. Get your own blog.

You really think you are Robert Redford and your script the next A River Runs Through It? Okay, maybe you are but if you’re going to get the voice over by me man you better be chucking the Oscar or Golden Globe at me instead of a moldy rutabaga.

You see the great glory of film is when the music, words, acting, visuals, camera movement, casting, costuming all become a greater synthesis – you know the whole becomes greater than the sum of their parts. It is possible. Just layering good acting and nice visuals with a poetic voice over is self-indulgent crap. Sorry too harsh. It is what I call “young man” writing which is actually separate and distinct from “young woman” writing which has its own pitfalls.

Young man writing is self-indulgent and masturbatory while young woman writing tends to innumerable cups of tea and tedious descriptions of the actions of other people not on the screen to trustworthy confidantes. Certainly a place for both voices in the cannon of our craft, but really people. Look at not only what you are writing but how you are writing. Go ahead and chuck the moldy rutabagas if you must but be brave enough to have the tosser taunt me in his own voice.

seriously?

2010-06-03T22:03:00.000-07:00

Okay I just lost a very funny and heart wrenching literate post about how I'm back now and guitar and the amazing job Fraser Walters did hosting the Canadian Tenors PBS special and what the hell I've been distracted with and now its gone. Including a very amusing anecdote about my contribution to the Canadian Tenors' success being that I kept the Asst. Conductor on The Magic Flute from strangling him.

So now it is bedtime and I really have to stay true to that as I've a river of writing to do tomorrow and sleep is my only balm.

I apoligize, next time I will return to my safer practice of writing and editing these posts in word and stop going commando with raw posts.

Luv u all

Corporate jets, ham & cheese and a dead swallow

2010-05-29T11:53:00.001-07:00

Corporate jets, ham & cheese and a dead swallow

I’m back with my coffee flavored water at my side, one more piece of clothing on (dressing today will be a progressive thing). In the interval I have examined my fabulous hair do, wrecked by last night’s rain and the slightly smaller triple bags under my eyes. Consumed allergy meds and checked the time. Yes I think I can manage the 1:30 session which is here at the hotel. Fingers crossed.

Who’d a thought that flying direct from a big city like Vancouver to a provincial capital like Regina would involve a small plane? Not me that is for sure. Smallest plane I’ve ever been on. Plane from Vancouver to Kelowna was twice the size. Not a prop plane, but as the flight attendant described it, an extended corporate jet. Is true. The same model jet Bombardier sells as a corporate jet, they extended slightly in length and that was the CRAModel? Jet I was on. - 26 seats. Cabin height at centre only 6’2”. It was however, fast. And since no-one was beside me, comfortable.

My big city girlness though always gets a big shock at small airports. When YVR is your home airport I think it can be understood that Regina International is a shock. I thought Kelowna was small. Nope. The Shuttle Driver and husband of one of the Yorkton Film Fest’s principal organizer was on hand and as warm and friendly as all the great clichés about prairie hospitality.

Now see, we have stumbled up against one of my personal blog rules, which is not to name individuals by their names unless they are already public figures to some degree. Which for the purposes of the Yorkton Short Film Festival experience on my blog might mean that some of the great people whom I’ve met will not be properly credited so to speak and so my blog posting won’t serve to enhance their names or reputations. Which is not that great in that it would be nice to help some of them in some small way. On the other hand I feel pretty strongly that they deserve a certain amount of privacy and my practice of nicknaming folks means they, and those that were there understand who they are, but the wider world and far reaches of my network don’t. It also gives me the freedom to say what I need to when I need to. Thus the decision is taken. I will continue to allude to individuals by nicknames and descriptors.

Okay, now with that out of the way. I will say that the grilled cheese sandwich at the airport reminded me of the weird importance of fresh bread to Saskatchewanians. Not that they have some kind of crazier artesian varieties or special secret recipe, but bread is always present big and bold and it is always fresh. As a kid I noticed that when my grandparents came to visit that suddenly at every meal fresh bread and butter appeared on the table for every meal. The presence of my grandpa, a wheat farmer, made it de rigueur, regardless of what else was on the table.

Running out of time. Will share Canadian Short Screenplay Competition (CSSC) pre-awards jitters later.

My fingers smell like lobster and cordite

2010-05-29T11:03:00.000-07:00

Hey, I’m not saying this is gonna be a pretty post. Feevty-feevty at best.

First I am going to apologize for the long silence of the blog. Things have been going on in my head that were not possible for me to share in the fully conscious literary form which is what I hope this blog sort of is. A literary expression of the mish-mash of stuff that happens in my head that then needs a good sort before it can become words and stories on a page.

One of the most important things that I’m trying to do is get comfortable with being comfortable. Even now I realize I am typing this in my Yorkton hotel room sitting on a chair that is all skewed and twisted so I can reach the keyboard, thereby ensuring that my body is skewed and twisted in facing the keyboard. Not even close to comfy. So hold on a sec while I re-orient and get a granola bar. I slept thru breakfast.

Why did I sleep thru breakfast. Well, yes partly because I had so much fun but partly because either lobster or beer are no longer my friends, allergy wise. By the time I limped and wheezed my way back to my room I was in bad shape. My muscles and joints were screaming I was wheezing, my nose was running and it dawned on my that I was having an allergic reaction. Sure enough a puff on the puffer and two Nyquil liqugels and a vast improvement. Anyway enough about the boring allergy crap. I thought I was dealing with a head cold, but it could more truly be spring allergies out of control. I did also stand out in a field of grass in Saskatchewan in spring time. Me who is wickedly allergic to GRASS. Probably no grass pollen out there eh? Sigh.

I am drinking hotel coffee and eating granola bars for breakfast because my eyes are still so swollen that I can’t bear to be seen in public. Showing up looking up at a panel looking like the survivor of a domestic knock down drag out is not how I want to be remembered. So hitting the caffeine with both puffy eye roller and internally until some semblance of normal. Hopefully by 1:30 as I would like to make an appearance at least at one session.

Okay posting now and so desperate will make the decaf coffee and comeback and give you part II or the prequel, since it will be back tracking the timeline for Yorkton Film Fest 2010 to the flight and drive to get here.

Zounds what a week!

2010-05-15T19:08:00.000-07:00

Okay I just felt it had been way too long since I used the word "zounds" in a sentence so what better way to start a blog post than with an archaic swear word that is a contraction for "Christ's wounds". Got an interesting email from a family member which suggested how life would be if we treated our Bible like our cell phone - you know, take it with you every where, use it in an emergency, consult it for directions, etc. Not all that helpful in that you're starting with the assumption that everyone has a bible. Though come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that must be a free app for my iPhone. The best part of all though was the end which told me the best part of all was that the bill had already been paid (note to self, pay cell phone bill) by Jesus. Yep, paid my cosmic cell phone bill by dying on the cross, during which time he was, according to the author of this email, thinking of me. I'm not sure I'm going to comment any further on this. Somehow just sharing it seems sufficient unto the day. Except to say that a little help paying the REAL cell phone bill would not be amiss, since I incurred crazy roaming charges in California last month and only myself to blame for not buying a "package" in advance.

Resistance put on a new dress this week and sashayed around my life, blocking the writing for the most part. It came in the form of squandering time and emotional energy trying to find funding for making The Lobby. I got all caught up in plotting and planning and drafting cover letters and adjusting budgets because it suddenly came apparent to me that I needed to make this film, like now, and that by doing so, I'd save the planet and launch my career into the stratosphere.

Needless to say upon closer examination of this assertion I realized I was distracting myself from making the very minor doable changes to the Rain Girls outline and sending it off. Also doing my taxes where I stand to get a whoopping great refund but actually have to finish doing them. So I bailed on the roadtrip and will try and Pomodoro my way through and get monkey off my back. Girl who is lucky and prosperous and needs to live that way, in joy and all expectation of every good thing.

Now for the fun part

2010-05-08T12:27:00.000-07:00

Okay peeps. Heavy lifting is done. Rain Girls pilot script outline is out for first round of judgment. Time is not, however my friend so I must plow ahead with cranking out the full script even before plot feedback. So far the feedback I have is that one person likes the title (I thought she was being sarcastic, but apparently not) and the other doesn't like the teaser, doesn't think it is enough to get him back in his chair after commercial. Great. One last frightened peek at my email in box for feedback and then four pomodoro's of dialogue work, so the traditionally weepy grief of a creative milestone will have to save itself for the next round.

I did weep a bit on Hoosie's virtual shoulder last night. Which reminds me I need to let him know that such behavior will be a regular occurrence every single time I hit a writing milestone. I know it is batshit crazy but there it is I hate finishing things so maybe the way to get over that is not to wallow and pick nits but to get on to something new immediately.

We'll see, I'll let you know after a set of Pomodoros.

I finished something.

2010-05-06T23:15:00.000-07:00

11:03:57 May 6, 2010 Vancouver BC. Typed Fade Out at the end of a 16 page outline for the Rain Girls Pilot script.

Too tired to pop the champagne. Oh well there is always breakfast. but not tomorrow must write world changing prose tomorrow. But one glorious day of nothing but clean clear UBC work before I have to face tomorrow night's Skype note session. For I also hit the send button on getting the outline out to readers both gentle and not for feedback. Still need to send to a few more folks but seriously 12 hours of typing and my fingers are burning. Ibuprofen and cold gel. will email you others tomorrow.

That was some kinda tough writing kids. of the be careful what you wish for cause then you have to deliver. You sure I can't make a living with witty tweets? I'm good at witty tweets.

nite an'g'bless

FINISH

2010-05-05T23:12:00.001-07:00

Okay. rough day. I give you that. Intestinal turpitude. Enough said. That is your word for the day TURPITUDE. Look it up.

Did do the gym. Hey that is non-negotiable on a Wednesday, right? Unless a limb is broken or blood issuing from and unpredicted orifice one must work out on a Wednesday.

I even wrote a bit. Not much, but a bit. I could have finished if I'd been diligent. But given that I am 90% done the I DON'T WANT TO FINISH monster takes over. He is very hairy and likes to dance around my head shaking maracas while shouting loudly and hoarsely that we are almost done. Not quite, but almost. So I have to distract him by waxing my legs and writing this blog so he'll look the other way long enough for me to finish.

I have my alarm set for 3 am - wish me luck. Proof is on the page kids. Is it weird that I am looking forward to going to work tomorrow. Because there I have to deliver what is expected. Here I have to deliver what is unexpected. Suddenly my day job is less stressful than my life. Hmmmm.

The sword is in the stone and act 4 still in my head

2010-05-05T05:14:00.000-07:00

Wow. Ever noticed how bright and white the word processor page is at 4:30 a.m. Now I know I should have just rolled over and gone back to sleep, but instead here I am typing with my eyes closed I might add because I thought I had something profound to say about writing. Okay that’s better. Turned off the big monitor and now am typing in the dark with my eyes closed. Look out people. Talk about filters off. Who know what may come marching up out of my subconscious and through my fingers? I could also take an hour to spell check this piece after I finish it too.

Okay something profound about writing . Yes. That is why I am up in at a time that is not even the middle of the night, but a really don’t go their time of night sharing my trite little insights.

It was something about when the universe dishes out a lesson in humility you’d better listen because the universe isn’t kidding. Hmmmm sounded a lot more poetic 10 minute ago. Huh. Well I was supposed to write last night and didn’t. I went to the gym drank wine and watched Glee. Which was awesome and made me happy by the way. And I watched a preview of the Canadian Tenors PBS special on the internet which also made me happy. And my nieces sent a super cute photo of the two of them trying to pull the sword from the stone in Disney land . A time honored family tradition that they pursued just for me so that made me feel special. Hoosie called me on my use of Whatever though and bad me texted back before realizing it was 3 am in TO where he is currently at. Oh well not like he hasn’t texted me awake before with a chirpy script note. Still now i have to send a sorry for texting you in the middle of the night text. Next to your cell phone butt dialing the last person you spoke with when you are getting into a cab after a party, one of the dumbest annoying things you can do to someone.

Good thing they have those little raised bumps on the keyboard cause I’m still typing with my eyesd closed. And of course, nope, the profound writing insight is gone.

Though I think it had something to do with the fact that the first three acts of Rain Girls pilot are solid and only the last act to go and I know what happens mostly so the fact that I didn’t move my fingers over the keyboard doesn’t actually mean that I didn’t write. However I am wondering why the vast majority of my pilot script takes place in parking lots. Whose idea was that ? I am starting act four and they are sitting in the van in the third parking lot of the pilot . When did my story become about parking lots? Not that you won’t be surprised by what happens in the parking lots, because you will but still. It is making me wonder what has ever happened to me in parking lots that has made me condense them into this story. Hmmm Lets see. Never set out for a swim team field trip from one. Though yes a few rowing trips in college. Never been abducted by aliens from one though have made out with a few in one and never sat staring at neon motel room sign alongside the high school janitor in one. Have been dumped in. Did kiss my first boy in one I behind the school. Do find myself sitting in the car staring at the rain in moments of stress in one I suppose.

Any way I hope my readers will be gentle on me with the whole parking lot motif. Come to think of it I made the Empress put a parking lot scene into her feature script too for the big climactic fight scene. Parking lots are good for fight scenes. I bet you’ve had a fight in a parking lot, haven’t you? Or maybe more than one? I thought so.

Alright. Back to bed since promised major writer insight does not seem to be quite as on the tip of my brain as I thought. I'll try again tomorrow. Sorry I mean later. It is tomorrow. Did I mention Glee was awesome? So was the Canadian Tenors DVD PBS concert preview. David Foster and Sarah McLachlan are in it too. I pre-ordered the DVD. Not that I have DVD player.

cold pizza and sleeping in

2010-05-01T08:21:00.000-07:00

so I just had a piece of cold pizza it is 8:17 am and I'm going back to bed. I was up during Lost Hour writing on Rain Girls so figure I only clocked about 4 actual hours of shut eye.

crazy crazy deadline of doom now so the next ten days will see a lot of interesting behavior in the Cocoverse. please do not be alarmed and no need to adjust your set. this is however a test of the emergency broadcast system in case in need someone to drive by with a case of Red Bull and a bucket of chicken.

for now I'm earplugs in and back to bed to dream of what the science is behind the girls getting their superpower. i can just hear Hoosie saying "Meh, science schmience, if it works who cares?" Well, I care. If I didn't I wouldn't be me and as long ago and far away as it was i still have earned the right to put B.Sc. after my name. issh that sounded whiny and petulant and I have ear plugs in so it must really have been.

okay, catch u later. i will blog as i can for those interested in how to write a TV pilot script in 10 days. fortunately not quite from a standing start. draft 15 page outline is done.

I think the Lynx guy is going to win it

2010-05-01T08:08:00.000-07:00

Oh well, after a week of pushing the limits of my witty tweeting ability in an effort to win my pass to Banff 2010 TV Festival I think the guy with the personal grudge against the Lynx is gonna take the big prize. Not that I didn't have some fine moments. Really though it was an interesting writing competition/social media thing where the rule is simple - between this time and this time tweet about why you want to go to the upcoming Banff TV fest. Best tweet wins. The part i didn't expect is that since you can read everyone's entries that this interaction and commentary on other peoples posts starts to happen. It was actually kinda cool. And you had to choose whether or not you were up to engaging in the banter because as soon as you do, you can't really walk away clean until you are clearly on top or times up. It also told me of all the people who tweeted an entry, there are now two on my list to meet should we all get to Banff and honestly both are canadidates for my writer's room. Which, though I love you all, is going to be wicked hard for any one to get into since I'll only want to hire people who are funnier and sharper then me, not that a bunch of you aren't but most of you aren't in that very particular writer's room kinda way. Lookit me talking like I know how to build a writer's room. Well I will have to some day so in the same way that a future hydro engineer starts out with a bucket and a shovel in the backyard sand box, this is me figuring out how to build my future writer's room.

From this last crossing of swords I'll be looking up Lynx guy and the girl who bet on him who somehow managed to add in laser guns and ninja stars. It was fun people, thanks for the writing lesson.

The thing about Tuesdays…

2010-04-27T23:23:00.000-07:00

Strangely I almost always stay up too late on Tuesday because, like the six year-old I truly am, I’m having too much fun to go to bed. I even have a timer set right now because I can tell this could turn into a 3,000 word post any time. Except it really can’t. I have fields and commitments tomorrow. A sentence that will only truly make sense to those raised to be dyed in the wool Catholic.

I haven’t blogged lately, not because I don’t love you, not because I don’t want to, but because the fever to write has been burning very hot. Writing for work, writing for Rain Girls, and, God help me yet another short screenplay idea that is yammering away somewhere behind my right ear. So noisy in my head these days.

So please forgive me. Forgive me, if when I am talking with you I start twitching and staring at the ceiling. I’m just writing. Forgive me if you ask me one question and I answer an entirely different one. Forgive me if I don’t blog for a few days or a week because it is not lack of something to say, but rather because I’m hacking through such a dense thicket of too much to say it is all I can do to stay on the trail. And I must do that. Stay on the trail. At least most of the time, otherwise I can’t wash and dress myself, go to work, be a thoughtful and contributing co-worker and stay off the street, out of prison and away from the psych ward and the knife drawer.

I know how to do this. It is a wonderful, scary, magical thick and spicy hot time in my head and I do know how to steer a safe course, I do. But be gentle with me if I ignore what you need and heed not what you say. You are important to me, but I need to safely run this stretch of rapids in the way that I know.

By day I did my best to listen, support and communicate to the greater good that is the fabulous university at which I’m privileged to work. All these super smart people trying to make the world a better place. It is awesome in the truest sense.

On guitar I played a Spanish dance by Albeniz, Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, a Waltz by Calatuyud, Sonando by Zenamon and hacked away at a lullaby Ninna-Nanna by Carlo Domeniconi. Next week I’ll be sight reading a Led Zepplin ballad. I’m not sure I knew Led Zepplin wrote ballads but it is a masterful demonstration of Legato according to my Maestro – for whom I must chose an new title as he informs me that in Mexico the Maestro is the head brick layer – I know a few opera conductors who’d choke on their Cinzano if they heard that!

I also made chicken fricassee with tarragon, outlined a new short film Conflict of Interest, and made it into the thick of the third act of the Rain Girls pilot. Apparently the Misthra-el are blue and hairless and quite androgynous. Yes, it was a surprise to me too. I can hardly wait to meet the Elkinn-el. Now I must go tweet about the Banff International Television Festival 2010 (#Banff2010) as I am vying for a free pass to the delightful high altitude madness.
In case you are interested. The timer went off 19 minutes ago. G’night’n’g’bless.

Another 5 minute Blog

2010-04-23T11:43:00.000-07:00

Hi guys! It is all good in the Cocoverse today. Still riding the wave of having a short script (The Conductor's Escort) make the top 25 of the Canadian Short Screenplay Competition (CSSC) two years running. Hmmm. Maybe I should submit more stuff to more competitions. Oh yah, have to FINISH things first. Well did actually submit The Lobby to the HotShots competition which would provide all the cash and services needed to actually make the darn thing. Other than than, contemplating whether or not to shoot some skeet and eat some lobster at the Yorkton Film Fest gala, but I can't decide if it should be a budget priority. The winner of this years CSSC will be announced there, but I guess I don't need to get serious about a decision until the top 13 list comes out next week. In the meantime I'm going to go back to trying to FINISH something -that's my five minutes- peace out.

2010-04-19T21:21:00.001-07:00

My little corner of the sky

2010-04-15T19:30:00.000-07:00

You know the kind of day that I’m talking about. The kind of day when, from the moment your little toes hit the laminate in the early a.m. nothing quite fits. Like you are a complete stranger waking up in a body and life that can’t possibly really be yours? Can it? Really?

You stare at the clothes you’ve selected to wear and don’t remember buying them or when you last wore them. Your body seems to be so incredibly plastic that from one moment to the next a roll of flesh shifts 3 inches up and your shoes don’t fit and the exact same pair of pants that was, just yesterday, tight on the thighs and loose on the waist, is now tight on the waist and loose on the thighs?

A voice is speaking - apparently issuing from your throat, your body, but you are hearing it through some weird echo chamber. What did you just say? Why are you telling that story that is stupid. You are being boring and offensesive. This person you are talking to is just wishing you’d shut up and walk away. Jeepers YOU wish you’d just shut up and walk away. Seriously did every word out of you mouth today not sound completely contrived and wrong? The words from your fingers were great, even good, as was the music you coaxed from the guitar. In person though, like a movie shot out of focus and out of synch, what the frack? – who am I ?

Happens sometimes, days like this. Usually after a day where I’ve caught a glimpse of my little corner of the sky – I feel brilliant. I shimmer in the light – gorgeous. Then an awkward view of the Buddha belly in the mirror, a stretch that results in popping noises so loud your office worker, from behind her headphones, looks startled.

My little corner of the sky. For you Glee geeks that is from the Broadway Musical “Pippin” the lyric goes something like this. “Rivers belong where they can ramble. Eagles belong where they can fly. I’ve got to be where my spirit can run free. Gotta find my corner of the sky.”

That’s what I’m gonna go work on right now. I am a writer of story, a spinner of tales. With that talent I am going to build my own castle, slay my own dragons, rescue one (or six) prince(s)and bring in a bumper crop, then a nice late night glass of brandy on a turret top and a long deep gaze into the stars above before the prince(s) calls me into the warmth and embrace of bed and love and dreams.

Monday thoughts are random thoughts.

2010-04-12T20:37:00.000-07:00

They have to be I think. Because Monday is a day to be small. While it is a day that looms large in our modern sensibility, it is best faced with small ambition and low expectation. If you do so, Mondays can be a highly accomplished days. If you don’t, there can be tears.

Something about not achieving all you wished for in your private life on the weekend in combination with having to face down all the things that need to accomplished in the upcoming week at your day job. I think that is what makes us feel small. Monday surely makes me feel small. And by that I don’t mean thinner or lighter. Less significant. Yes, that’s it. Trivial. I feel trivial. And by that I don’t mean funny.

All that being said. It is a great day for writing what one must as opposed to what one wants. All the drama and magic and passion and stardust that is seething just below my skin may not successfully come forth on a Monday. I may try, even cutting a bloody wound deep. But on this day above all others, it clots over quickly and I find myself checking on how many US stamps I have in the drawer and wondering if I should pluck my eyebrows. Then I get excited about editing the annual report or making tasty factoids out of dry scientific data – Monday’s make me feel useful above all other days, that’s for sure.

It is a good day to take out the recycling and to do an extra load of laundry. It is not a good day to pick a fight or bake a soufflé or declare undying love. Not on a Monday. Monday’s are not big enough for such endeavors.

Mondays can be a bit subversive though, if you let them. Mondays can be great days for dreaming crazy music and planning deeds of daring and delight. But Shhhh. We must not speak of them aloud. Not on a Monday. Tuesday we may plot. Wednesday we may plan. Thursday we assemble the team. Friday we storm the castle. Saturday we exercise our passions and Sunday we repent. It is ever thus and has ever been, world without end.

And now I must away to my Monday duties. Reading scripts, composing emails, flossing my teeth, loading up the laundry basket, playing a few scales and wondering. Wondering what the people I love are thinking and feeling this Monday night. A single friend in Ottawa, a cluster in the Netherlands, a sprinkle in Northern California and a brand new shiny star in the south. A big hug in Toronto and another up the Sunshine Coast. A constellation across the prairies, a treasure chest from the lower mainland and even one or two angels down Dixie way.

Lucky, lucky girl.

A blog in 5 minutes.

2010-04-11T23:15:00.000-07:00

What kind of self-absorption does it take to be a writer? I takes a bunch of it to be sure. Wondering as I finally watched Julie/Julia all the way through. Her crisis when her husband declares himself fed up with her self-absorption. Of course these moments of trusted friends, family and lovers abandoning us at pivotal moments in our creation of something very much larger than ourselves is neither new nor unique. Sometimes they come back to us and sometimes they don’t. But I think the act of creation of a thing of size draws from all in our lives, through us. It is easy for them to interpret it as selfishness as everything gets swept up into the vortex. But I wonder if it really is. After all we are on this path through the belief and encouragement and positive feedback of others. Did they really think it wasn’t going to hurt?

The Guitar Lesson

2010-04-06T19:30:00.000-07:00

Me: "People suck."
Guitar Teacher: "Yes they do.(pause) Want to play some guitar?"
Me: " Yes I do."

So we did.

The Space Between

2010-04-06T17:41:00.000-07:00

It is Tuesday. Which means it is Guitar Day, one of my two favorite days of the week. But it is the in between time. Usually I kick a lot of creative writing into this space between the day job and the guitar lesson, but today I’m feeling bloggy. I keep checking the time every 5 minutes like a kid waiting for the last bell to ring before summer vacation. I really need my guitar class tonight. Given that I am prone to such things guitar is turning into a true obsession. I played for hours each day this past weekend and as I type this the ache in my fingers confirms that we are tipping over into madness. Last night I played until my fingers cramped. Think I might need to dig out the extra strength Ibuprofen before class.

I am in love with guitar. Last night I was really, really upset about something late at night, too late to call anyone who loves me on the phone so I played as I cried and then my tears dried and I played some more. I love it because it is so hard and so beautiful because music makes sense and no sense all at the same time. Too much guitar though, I’d already played 2 hours that day. See, I just checked the time again – it is 7 minutes after the last time I looked.

Okay back from Ibuprofen break and a wee peek at prices of high-end Flamenco Guitars. Yikes! How bout an Archangel Blanca whose price is not listed but the next couple down the shelf are in the 10Gs range. I’ve been coveting a 3G Larrivee hitherto. Well, since at the moment I can only play part of one Flamenco piece I guess we likely won’t have to worry about that for a while. Still I have played a friends Flamenco guitar in the past and liked the lighter action and bright sound, also slightly smaller for my hands.

Wow what a geek. I am blogging about guitars. When did I turn into a teenaged boy? Yippee, I get to pack up now since I want to be at the store early to check out some Flamenco sheet music.

Things that I am thinking.

2010-04-05T12:27:00.000-07:00

Historically Easter has never been my favorite holiday. Historically, massive amounts of time in very depressing church services. Historically, ham and scalloped potatoes for dinner, neither on my list of favorite foods. Historically, massive deadlines and crazy overtime writing up proposals. Historically, given my trials and tribulations with my weight since puberty very skimpy on the chocolate egg side of things. And dressing in bright prints sunny colors – that has been me when? Oh, yah. When playing a character on stage. Usually one with not much going on between the ears.

I am a fan of the hot crossed bun though, yes I am.

Strangely this was one of my best ever. Much writing. Much reading. Much going to the gym. Crazy good guitar. Great family time. No depressing church services and struggle with the whole resurrection thing. Do I believe in it? Yes. I guess I really do. More fool I, the scientist in me says.

Funny though, how I haven’t seen the family more or less since Christmas and yet no one commented on my weight loss which is not minor. I did get one nice hair comment. While I recognize I have a long way to go, buff wise, it did bother me a bit. No matter. The Omen has been refereeing 80 games of B-ball this year. He is looking trimmer and fitter and happier than I’ve seen him in many a long year. And Mouse is as thin and fit as she was at 18 – gorgeous. Mom too looking fit and while rightly having a hard time following the cacophony of conversation. Hey peeps, think I have a commanding voice? I come by it honestly, let me tell you.

Weird and fun talking good Scotch with my oldest nephew. He’s not tried my current fav – Oban. He was also profoundly skeptical about my assertion that anything aged over 15-16 years is pure marketing. It was not until I invoked a higher power – our Genius Cousin – that he began to consider my case might have merit.

I am thinking many more things, but chief among them is my day of writing tomorrow. I am really looking forward to it. Oh, jeepers, need to remember to read that script for Hoosie too. Okay its looking like a full pot of coffee day tomorrow, better cut the mix with some decaf.

This was a profoundly pedestrian post. I did plan on sharing a bunch more thoughts but then got bored with myself and decided to wander off and read my "Your Brain on Music" book. Which is about music and neuroscience. Cool huh? I also watched Elvis Costello's "Spectacle" TV show 'cause Bono and The Edge were on. And you are going to either groan or lol but who did I spot in the studio audience but Remigio Pereira Canadian Tenor and one of my personal guitar gods. Well, I laughed, not sure why it's funny but it is.

Color me frustrated.

2010-04-02T19:58:00.000-07:00

I’ve been kicking it hard for almost 10 hours trying to bang out the pilot outline for Rain Girls. Definitely one of those occasions when quality of work is not directly measured by quantity of words. That is 10 Pomodoros worth of focused effort (www.pomodorotechnique.com) and at nearly 8 p.m. time for a dinner break. I seem to be trying to write the perfect five pages but keep finding that I need to write out much more in order to figure out what is happening and then go back and summarize for the outline. Other wise the story starts to get away from me and the wrong points end up in the outline beats. So it is more like I’m writing out a super detailed treatment then testing it against the loglines then summarizing. Argggh. Act one nearly killed me because I have this huge chaotic scene in the school parking lot that intros all the main characters and hints at the inter personal alliances and conflicts of all the main characters as well as element of the A,B and C story lines.

So the good news is that I know what happens through to the end of the fourth Act. So I’ve decided to stop being such a Nazi with myself and just describe everything I see and hear in my minds eye, everything I know about the plot and the points where the characters conflict and just try and get it all out of me as fast as I can. Then tomorrow I will have to go back and sort it all out. Yes, I know, isn’t that what I should of done in the first place? Yes, it is. Thanks for pointing that out. Really helps at the end of a long day of fingers banging on keys.

So I will eat something then lock the Editor Nazi up in her cell and sit down for 5 more Pomodoros tonight and just write the whole thing as fast as I can. Think the fingers might need a hot soak and some Advil after that, but it must be done. Wish me well.

Things I am Reading

2010-03-30T23:33:00.000-07:00

I am re-reading "The Geography of Bliss" by Eric Wiener for book club - it is my pick and i have to lead the discussion so therefore I feel obligated to re-read and remind myself why I am subjecting the E-litteratii to it. Interesting every single time any of us goes to spell the name of our book club the - E-litre-atti it gets a new treatment.

I am reading "This is your Brian on Music" by Daniel J. Levitin - given to me to read by my guitar teacher, surely one of the Nephilim - that's your word for the day, so look it up! For his genius and his patience. Still ever and always the highlight of my week the time I spend with him, and not in a creepy "I have a crush on him" kinda way, not that I don't or couldn't or whatever. The music is the thing people. And if you know me at all you know that a man with mastery of words, music or movement pretty much has my pure and unadulterated hero worship. Also men who are good at fishing and take out the garbage and recycling without being asked. But I digress. Because i can and because it is what I do and because it is Tuesday. Because of guitar the happiest day of the week next to Friday. I really should go to bed.

I am also reading "Anathem" by Neal Stephenson and dipping into "Writing the TV Drama Series" by Pamela Douglas. And finishing up the very racy "Venus and Adonis" by Bill Shakespeare.

Now are you wondering why I never married and never answer my phone? Didn't think so.

Sight Reading Sucks

2010-03-29T22:03:00.000-07:00

I had to untwist the guitar strap tonight. It is at moments like that which force me to stop my hell bent for leather stampede to self-destruction and untwist. I wonder where that comes from “hell bent for leather”. No matter. This eve finds me in a bad, bad, bad mood. The kind of mood where it really should be illegal for me to write a blog post. The kind of mood which my heirs of the next century will find a treasure trove of files under “blog” with the screaming after title “NOT POSTED”.

Have I mentioned how much I hate sight reading music? Closely followed by the tick of the metronome? I tell ya, if that metronome function hadn’t been on my iPhone but rather on a real metronome – that fracking thing would’ve been thru the window days ago. Yah. I know sight reading is good for me in the same way that broccoli is good for me. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, and I don’t. So be warned I just sight read 4 pieces of music badly and feel like the stupidest piece of dog doo in the neighbourhood. Have I improved after a week of this scratching a fork along the inside of my thigh? Not in the slightest. I also still hate broccoli after nearly 40 years of choking it down so go figure.

And yes, thank you I know what I should be doing right now and what I should be writing and yet I’m not. I am sitting here wearing glasses smeared with what? That have just been freshly masking taped together and so I suddenly find myself facing that what shall I do? New glasses or new contact lenses? Both needed and now with the glasses held together with masking tape – just not a very impressive look. Thus a component of my cranky. Money for one, not for both. I must chose style over function – look at me on the horns of a dilemma. I also don’t know where that comes from, but boy it works for me.

By the way, who knew that spell check recognizes a correct way to spell “crankiness”?

Now, as I try and figure out what to do next. What I can do that will make me happy and shift this black mood? All choices don’t appeal. I don’t want to eat or drink or sleep or bathe or clean up or play guitar or read or watch TV or write or listen to music. And did I mention the guy across the hall flooded his place and the restoration dudes are running noisy fans at a quarter of ten? The thing I do want to do is not PG thirteen and not available to me tonight anyway, since I have to save my cash for new glasses.

Alright. I’m going to brush my teeth, drink some water and browse crazy expensive jewelry web sites. Followed by a search for a very high-end men’s white dress shirt that might fit me – but must have French cuffs.Why? Is a topic for another blog. Then lights out but not until I list 50 things I feel grateful for. Sort of letting me off easy because between the immediate family (10) book club (5) work peeps (8) sisters of the pen (17) flash forward peeps (4) and biz peeps (4) I think I’m there, oh and how could I forget my former co-worker/client posse – (15) okay getting silly now.

Opps. Was that a little smile trying to take over the corners of my mouth? I believe it was.

Who bought the nitrate free turkey dogs?

2010-03-27T00:00:00.000-07:00

So I come home from a long challenging week at work. I put my judgmental brain on auto pilot, change into work out clothes, grab a clean towel, iPhone and headset and am off to the gym. Now realize I am pooped. Going from being as sick as I was back to full throttle when nobody had done nothing on my stuff since I left for vacation is enough to put you on the sick list again. Nevertheless, I sucked it up buttercup (yeah me!) and gave a good solid week of work to both the day job and the dream job. So how I got myself to the gym was by promising I could order pizza post workout. I have a workout full of the usual hi’s (look at me! I am killing this) and lo’s (crap am I going to make it past 15 min?) and then realize upon return that if I want guilty indulgence there is that 6 pack of KD I bought (for the first time since college) and I’m pretty sure if you combine that with the hot dogs in the freezer and a large martini, you will feel sufficiently decadent unto the day.

Thing is, I’d inadvertently bought the whole wheat pasta white cheddar version, to which I had already decided to add the cauliflower left over from the book club veggie tray, because everyone knows the best way to get me to eat vegetables is to add butter or cheese. So off I go wooo- hooo but the time I stir it all together with a clove of organic garlic, 2T of low-fat organic milk, one T of unsalted butter, 1.5 cups cauliflower, 1 cup of baby spinach I’m thinking okay at least the hotdogs are a Friday night indulgence till I catch sight of the packaging waiting for the bin – turkey dogs – nitrate free. WTF?

So I determine to EAT the WHOLE Thing. Which I don't. So what? Now my night of indulgence turns into a healthy portion controlled menu? Hmmmffff.

Sight Reading Music

2010-03-25T22:01:00.000-07:00

Did i mention that I hate it and that my Maestro is off my bus for making me do it? not really. He is actually a patient Angel. But sight reading is to playing the guitar as walking by the angry dog is to getting to the doughnut shop. It makes me feel stupid, incompetent and incapable. And i really don't need any extra help feeling those three things.

Not to mention the first song I opened the book to was in 3/2 time. I been reading music since I was 6 years old, nobody ever asked me to play nothing in 3/2 time!!! My metronome just doesn't do that fraction. And hey, isn't there a moratorium on having to do fractions? Like people over 35 just don't have'ta do 'em anymore? If not there bloody well should be.

What happened to the pickles at book club

2010-03-25T13:33:00.000-07:00

Lesson learned. When Book Club turns into Wine Club mid-week, Thursday turns into an achievable goals day.

Pretty sure I’m not going to be able to put together cogent thoughts here today people. It is it is lunch hour and I should be writing script but after staring at the blinking cursor and feeling the eyelids droop I figured I’d switch to blogging as it can still be considered writing practice but if the story ends up being about cheese no-one really minds. Mind you an episode where my human/alien hybrid discovers the joy of cheese could be a lot of fun. Okay I will pop open my episodes list and make a note, hold on a sec.

Right, where was I – ah yes cheese. We had cheese at book club which was quite well received by all assembled. Perhaps the selection was too fine and that is why the wine went down a little more easily than usual. Or maybe it is my own personal decadent influence, as the peeps rarely indulge like that at book club. They often don’t even at wine club. Could be the influence of the purple velvet couch. Hmmm. It is a couch pretty damn high on the decadence scale.

Sure nice to have a place where your friends feel like hanging out though I must say. The concrete walls turned out to be important as it happened. Hey and our newest member celebrated her first anniversary with the E-litteratti and earned her blog nickname – Alien PM. I could explain, but frankly I’m too tired for one, and I’m not sure I exactly remember for two.

Several funny moments – first and foremost Po announcing that she liked the book we were ranting about (a previous disaster – current book is excellent) And hey, why is it that books we really like get 20 minutes of nodding agreement, and books we are split on keep on coming back to haunt and irritate and inspire Duder to fabulous fresh new rants. She is really the only person who’s rants are truly art since even if it is a topic on which you’ve heard numerous previous rants from her, she always comes up with a fresh new rant twist.

But back to Po announcing that she liked the accursed book but of course probably because she is the only member of the group who isn’t a writer. Which was super material for much mirth since Po was the only one in the room who is actually a PUBLISHED AUTHOR http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/35/search?sc=Paola+Opal&sf=Author
That is comedy folks. Powering thru the highlights were curing Squish’s plantar faceitis, Alien PM’s quite helpful advice on coping with annoying in-laws, Duder’s adventure in real-estate and watching the Fry/Laurie YouTube sketch “Your name, sir.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNoS2BU6bbQ

Though I am never doing a vegetable plate again (seriously need a nap, just had to spell-check “vegetable”) Alien PM ate 3 pieces of broccoli and one cherry tomato and now I have enough vegetables to make stir fry for 12 vegans. Must go back to the day job but will finish with the fate of the pickles.

First no one ate any, second when I went to put them away I spilled all the cold pickle juice over my bare feet so had to wash my feet before bed. Didn’t do a good job though, my right pinkie toe is sticking to my shoe. Hey Alien PM, maybe a cure for someone’s foot odor issue?

Are you kidding me?

2010-03-22T21:20:00.000-07:00

So what is the deal with new guitar strings. Do they seriously have to be tuned halfway thru a song? Are you kidding me? I put them on when? I’ve re-tuned how many times?

And what is with my incredibly well developed avoidance of success thing. Though I can report 9 pages on the Rain Girls pilot and 7 pages on episode 6.
How long did it take to write 10 thank you cards and send 7 follow up emails for PitchMarket 2010? Two Weeks? Are you kidding me?

By the way, anyone looking for a new technology – I have successfully bonded sockeye salmon skin to metal and absolutely no clue how to separate them. I seem to have created an entirely new substance. Perhaps useful for shoring up wormholes.

Wondering if I can get away with Glade plug-ins and blindfolds for book club on Wednesday.

And I’m cranky because now they’ve been on Oprah and everyone is a Canadian Tenor’s fan what do they need me for?

OOOOhhhh. Where’d that little toad come from? Though they did make nice comments about fans flying from afar and bringing treats. I guess that’s me, as long as I send chocolate and don’t show up on anyone’s doorstep I’m going to say that makes me a good fan not a stalker fan. The CTs incandescent success is a good thing, right? To do with them making the world happy. Which I want for them and they want for them. Hah! I have fan jealously. That is just silly. So.

Okay, moving on to the next pothole of the day. Now the reminder to breathe. I did get the acknowledgement that though the three videos I prepared fell short of everyone’s expectations, my hard work and effort was noted. Thanks. At least no-one complained about the font.

Are you kidding me? Last night as I was approaching the realization that there was nothing on TV that I was remotely interested in watching, I caught myself wishing I could catch that next episode of that series about the drug-addicted, wheelchair-bound sorceress. You’ve seen the promo’s surely of “Shadows Gather” with the next episode being after a long dark night of the soul the hot Cop shows up to make her and her almost-but-not-quite-jail-bait-live-in-boy-toy French toast for breakfast. Then the flash of realization that it's not a TV series Carolynne – it is the next chapter of your novel that you haven’t quite written yet. Really? Seriously? I actually had a moment of pining for the next chapter of one of MY stories. Good sign. It’s a good sign, right?

Thinking of the Shy One and our conversation about never feeling good enough. Never being able to receive love or praise or affection of any kind because you have this deep rooted feeling that if someone actually likes you it is because they are mistaken about who you really are and misguided about the quality of what you do. At some point they will come to their senses and walk away.

I was well and truly shocked when the Cossack admitted not having read my scripts yet. I actually looked and him and thought, “Then what are you sitting here for?” Yes. The concept that an attractive successful smart man just liked me for my company and not what I could do for them was kind of cataclysmic. And sad. And maybe misguided. Perhaps he is only interested in whether or not I can advance his career. But I hope it is only because I make him laugh. That’s what I hope.

Sometimes you just want cake.

2010-03-21T00:02:00.000-07:00

I’m thinking about scars tonight. Childhood scars, last week’s scars, other people’s scars.

When I was little. Maybe six, no must have been at least seven? I was playing on the front lawn of our house in Richmond so I was certainly no more than eight. It was a long summer twilight and I could hear the sprinklers click and swish in the neighbour’s yards. I’d been helping Dad cut the grass, but he’d gone inside and I was alone, sitting cross-legged on the lawn. The damp new-mown grass tickling my legs where my shorts left off. As the blue deepened above I switched from using the edge clippers for their intended purpose to lifting them high and stabbing them deep into the earth. A powerful feeling reaching as high as I could, my hands not really big enough to master the smooth turned wood of the handles and then stabbing them deep into the turf. Such a satisfying feeling that shudder through the handles and the tremulous moment of resistance before the fibrous roots agree to surrender to the sharp heavy blades. The blades require a real effort to extract and so I do. And do again. Noticing that the mosquitoes are rising and a chill falling – I really should get inside. But once more with the blades, I’m grooving on my dominance of the blade and the earth and a rare moment alone too probably, before someone wonders where I am, what I’m doing.

Arms raised high. Blades glinting high thick and sharp and Whooom! I stab downward, through my right calf. What have I done? Shock I suppose is what happened next. Clippers withdrawn and flung aside. I was to be chastised for that in a couple of days for leaving them out to rust. The river of blood started down my leg and all I could think was I was going to be in such trouble for getting blood on my sock. I ran to the basement door. Far from the closest, but I all could think was to get to the bathroom and stop the blood from getting everywhere or I’d really catch hell. How I managed to stop the bleeding and bandage it myself I still have no idea. I must have been a half hour in the downstairs bath with the first aid kit and my blood-stained sock soaking in the sink. Mom always said cold water was the thing for blood stains. I remembered. Given the size of the scar I must have managed to get a good three inches of blade in the leg. I certainly should have had stitches, and such luck that the wound didn’t infect so by the time the Saturday night bath rolled around a band-aid and a one inch scab, albeit a heavy one didn’t even raise a parental eyebrow.

It seems that life this last 10 days has been such a bittersweet brew. All the salty and slick and crunchy and tough bits blended together like a really bad tasting smoothie that is good for you. But sometimes you just want cake. A small piece will do, really. But cake nonetheless.

Lucky, Lucky, Lucky Girl

2010-03-08T20:16:00.000-08:00

Thing is about not “winning” the pitch competition is that it gave me this fantastic opportunity to feel the love of the people all around me friends and strangers too. Seriously, what do I need with a bunch of free software I already own and free books I already own and passes to film festivals I’m already going to, not to mention bragging rights which all in all may be 20K in prizes but isn’t a patch on the billion dollars of love and friendship and hope and faith I received from you all.

There is a lesson too in that Smart Pig, who did win (sorry doll, just trying out a new nickname for you! It might not stick) HATES pitching with the fury of a thousand suns, while I, who actually kinda enjoy it, didn’t even place. That is something to think over for sure.

Apologies I am still so tired that the words keep slipping thru my fingers, and an amazing dinner and glass of cabernet –god do they make good wine in this state – has caused the powerful made-of-woven-titanium-and-magic-fairy-dust word net that I usually am able to cast forth to be made instead with some used dental floss and tangled computer cords. See, I just had to sound out the word com-pu-ter in order to type it.

Just can’t go to bed though with out sending out big teary inappropriately crushing hugs to all of you who seem to have tapped into an endless spring of being kind and passionately supportive of me and my dreams. I hope that when they come true that you can all share the joy with me as powerfully as you’ve shared the challenges.

Smart Pig compares us writers to flying fish. Fish who somehow think they should be birds, but at some point after soaring thru the air too long, we must dive again, alone into the deep cold hidden deeps and be what we are and do what we do, until the next fit of “I can be a bird!” hits us and we leap forth to join you all in the skies for a bit. It is a fun time though, isn’t it? We are all wet and salty and sparkle like jewels in the sun, and we sing to you for a little while before the light and the attention and the demands and the heat all become too too, too much and we must fall again, fold our wings and immerse ourselves in the cool deep wet dark to mend.

Special hearts to Delicous, Pixie and the Empress for their endless toil to make the event such a success for so many. And to all the kind strangers who overcame their writerly reserve to introduce themselves and tell me how wonderfully they thought I did and how amazing my story is. And the Welsh Maid showing up to plunk 35$ down just to watch the back of my head for 20 minutes, that is love. Most of all to the Producer who survived a late night champagne drunken butt-dialed cell phone call, not to mention his unflagging use of the word “brilliant” with connection to myself. As for the Princess and the Cossack? I truly think they were more disappointed for me than I was for myself. So I ordered a bottle of champagne. It seemed to cheer them up a bit. I certainly felt the bubbles were called for because it was a day and a night when, from near and far I felt truly, deeply and incandescently loved and valued. It was a great day.

Inhale, exhale, repeat.

2010-03-06T22:11:00.000-08:00

Okay. Got a place to stay in LA. Leaned the erstwhile mentor is logging 15 hour days and won't be in LA when I am.

PitchMarket Forum today totally worthwhile. Learned new things and got to catch up with some of my writer peeps. Continually astonishing to me how great it is not to be the writer in the lonely garrett all the time, and how talking with them inspires me to put butt in chair and write!

Loving you and leaving you now. Was good and went to gym and lite on food and booze tonight. Have a Huge pitching day tomorrow!

Such a groovy life! Such a lucky girl!

Oh, boy.

2010-03-05T21:52:00.000-08:00

Really must blog. Must blog now. Trouble is I actually have too much to say. In that I am keeping a close eye on the clock and approaching bedtime. Big weekend. PitchMarket Forum all day tomorrow so must get up early and workout first before I go. Hah! Hands up everyone who thinks that is actually going to happen. But hey, I realize as I type this that the reason I have announced to the world and committed it to pixels is because now I have to be accountable. Pretty much one of the only benefits of a guilt ridden Catholic upbringing. If I say I'm going to do something, my magnificent mother lode of pride laced guilt comes thru.

This, by the way is a rare blog for me. Typed directly into the blog window instead of being crafted in word, saved to the hard drive and proofed. Come to think of it, it feels kinda dangerous, like going commando. Who really knows what might happen?

So tomorrow at PitchMarket 2010 Vancouver is all about the workshops and panels, though I do get to see the Cossack and hey any day that I get to receive a kiss and a hug from a Ten is a good, good day. I'm not actually sure what I'm more excited about - the learning stuff about the biz of writing or getting to flirt my face off with the Cossack. Mind you I'll have to meet his 23 year old lingerie model girlfriend on Sunday in all likelyhood, but hey, the way my love life is going these days a smile and a hug from a hot guy is like getting to third base.

Oh, third base ... Baseball season! It suddenly seems to be upon me which bodes well for the guitar practice. Hmmm, for the writing. Yah. Actually me participating in life instead of watching it does bode well for the writing.

Finally found my Rain Girls one sheets after ripping the apartment to even greater shreds to find them. You know its bad when you order pizza for dinner because instead of cooking you need to spend the time running the dishwasher. Speaking of which, I'm gonna sign off now and do another load.

Weirdest thing about this past year for me, as a writer, most surprising anyway, is how important the people that I've met have become to me. A whole panoply of smart, lovely new friends. Super strange for someone who wasn't looking for them and frankly didn't think she needed them. Hey nobody really needs more than Book Club, and a couple work pals, do they? Apparently so. I am as excited about seeing friends this weekend as about the "career" opportunities. And you know what? Career, shcmear - stories are life, my life. Ain't I lucky?

So that is me, going commando. How'd I do?

Another Saturday Night

2010-02-27T22:43:00.000-08:00

So I’ve been doing it again. Last few days. Thinking around things instead of at them then thru them. Not writing much because I’m afraid that instead of writing what I want I’ll write what I need. Might be better writing, but it hurts more and commands a smaller paycheck.

It is another Saturday night. “Date Night” as one of my friends likes to call it. The night she claims that all plans with girlfriends are instantly cancelable if you get a last minute offer from a guy. Another Saturday night and instead of experiencing love I’m hanging around my over-priced studio apartment trying to write about it.

Mind you given my powers of imagination and legendary memory perhaps writing about it for me is superior to experiencing it in the flesh for many. Still, I just watched a romantic comedy with two charming leads witch left me cold at the end because it still all came down to him loving her because she was fucking gorgeous even though she was a bitchy, neurotic control freak. So there you go beautiful ladies, lesson is that even if your personality sucks ass you’ll still get the guy.

Sorry, just feeling kind of weird today so if you stick with reading this post please do be prepared for anything. I’ve decided to try and write my way out of this mood since exercise, guitar playing, tasty dinner, mindless TV and a martini have done little to distract from the thought that I’m missing something.

It’s like I’m roaming around this big mansion in my head, opening and closing doors. Looking for something. Here picking up a book, reading a couple pages and putting it down. There staring out the window, or rather at the window watching the rain drops skip and slither down the glass. In the kitchen rummaging thru the refrigerator only to end up with a lunch of some stale crackers and brie of questionable vintage. Oh well, at least the last scrap of apricot jam and a couple forgotten slices of proscuttio made it momentarily festive.

The trouble is, the thing that I am looking for is a thought. There is something out there that I should be thinking about and I’m avoiding it. Maybe it is the self-evaluation for my job that I have to do before Monday. Maybe I just don’t have the courage to self evaluate right now. What I really want is a neck rub and someone to take out the garbage and recycling.

Maybe it is early onset of the Olympic hangover. The energy in this city has been truly nutty and mostly euphoric for weeks now and the crash of closing night is just around the corner. Strangely the performers among us are most likely to cope. Closing night blues are a very real phenom they have to deal with all the time. For those of us Vancouverites bumped out of the hum-drum of our safe and prosperous every day, the come down is going to be hard. I wonder how many jobs will be quit in a huff or relationships collapse or if the incidence of bar brawls with increase?

There we go, that would be a bit of my latent Catholicism life-is-a-vale-of-tears thing coming out. Or my bipolar experience. I expect a crash after the high. Maybe though that is just me and something that doesn’t actually happen so much to normal people.

Since I can’t seem to find the big thought that is escaping me maybe I’ll just stick with the small things of the day. Listening to two new Canadians of diverse ethnic origin sharing joyful thoughts in heavily accented English about tomorrow’s gold medal hockey game. It may not be my sport of choice but is certainly is something that helps people identify themselves as Canadian. It made me smile. It is after all is said and done and its many flaws tallied, still the very best country in the world. I feel deeply and profoundly blessed to be Canadian. Lucky, lucky girl.

And my gym? What’s to complain about that? Though as is usual on days when my head refused to stay attached to my shoulders, me actually getting there was pretty touch and go. But go I did. Hey, it is right in my building and it’s just been reno’d! They even put in a proper spongy floor so the noise of the big boys dropping weights doesn’t rattle your fillings loose.

Just so you know, I’m totally not complaining about anything. I have useful work. Safety, security, prosperity and some where in every single day I have love and joy and surprise. Okay well maybe I am complaining lack of neck rub, but if that is seriously the biggest lack in my life then I am maybe not the poster child for perfection, but a serious runner-up. Okay, maybe fifth place.

And look at that. Still lots of time for a hot bath and a bit of reading before bed in the big freshly sheeted chocolate schmoorr bed of healing and good dreams.

Until tomorrow my friends, sleep well and dream of angels.

Fear of Success, there you are my old friend

2010-02-23T23:48:00.000-08:00

... peaking round the corner. Saying Hey! in order to win this TV Pitch competition at PitchMarket 2010 Vancouver you have to beat two people who are sort of friends. Okay not really, bosum buddy friends, but guys I like alot. Jeepers. And so very many opportunities between now and then to share my love all over the place while neglecting my preparations.

Nope. Friends and family give me a 14 day by please. I can do this. I really can.

Ah, Resistance ...

2010-02-22T22:45:00.000-08:00

... did you really think you fooled me? Alright. I can understand why. But you haven't you know not really. While you parade the bright and shiny accomplishments of friends, family, and, lately, Olympians. I am still here. Still dreaming. Still working away. Knowing that I'm only a head fake away from beating you to the basket.

It is so very easy to get caught up in other people's stuff. Yet so crucial to push for one's own. That horrifying B word - BALANCE.

More Random Thoughts

2010-02-22T20:15:00.000-08:00

“There are so many great things to do with the human mouth, why waste them on talking?” Not sure what writer of “How I Met Your Mother” to credit for that, but great, great! Right up there with my own response to the question, “Do you smoke?” my answer? “No, I have better things to do with my mouth.”

So excited by the NBC news coverage of the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games and the child-like joy of the journalists and broadcasters to discover the magnificence of Vancouver and the far north of the Pacific Northwest. What, did you think we were kidding? We live in heaven. Thanks for joining us.

Hallelujah and Me - Via Leonard Cohen

2010-02-21T23:25:00.000-08:00

What is the deal with this song? First of all, how could I have been Canadian for my entire life and not have been aware of this song until I heard the Canadian Tenors version of the song not quite a year ago. Then it starts to get weird.

I announce to my guitar teacher that, “I must learn this song.” And HE’D never heard I before. And he is a real deal composer and serious been around the block guitar player. That was last August. So we’ve been working on the song on and off ever since.

Last guitar lesson, he wants to get serious about working on the song. I have the somewhat predictable Fminor block witch means nothing at all to you who’ve not attempted mastery of the guitar. It isn’t’ the easiest song for a beginner suffice it to say.

Weirdly, though his inspiration to push on the song came from KD Lang’s performance of the piece at the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony. The last major composing project my teacher worked on was with someone who had produced more than half of KD Lang’s recordings. So that gave him a push, not to mention that I had been torturing the piece for six month in lessons.

Even weirder. I was feeling melancholy watching the 2010 Olympic Games Opening Ceremonies as I was just beginning to realize that the Canadian Tenors, had most likely performed the non-televised pre-show. So I’m sitting on my couch playing “Hallelujah” and suddenly KD Lang arises on top a big white drum and starts givin’ er.

It was strange. And quite frankly, unpleasant. Nothing against KD’s performance which was as dig down deep and heartfelt as it comes. But I wasn’t my boys version and, truth to tell, it wasn’t my version. I don’t mean that to be prideful. Especially since I discover that Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah is one of the most covered songs. Reason for that has nothing to do with Leonard Cohen’s celeb. Sorry Leonard. It has to do with the brilliance of the song as a piece of music and poetry.

It’s a great song, no doubt. But why is so suddenly mine? And why does it seem to spring up on me everywhere? That I don’t know. It appears in the movie The Watchman and tonight, as I was channel surfing in the movie St. Ralph. Which really hit me in the head and heart hard as I’d been practicing the blessed thing all day.

Seriously I have played and practiced this song nearly every day for months. I can't go to sleep at night till I've heard it.

So what is it with me and this song?

Hydrogen Hydroxide Please

2010-02-15T17:39:00.000-08:00

Okay, note to self. Hydrate better when working at home. I went to the gym with much less HOH in the tank than usual and thought I was gonna throw up at the end there a minute. Definitely one of those workouts where the endorphin train never got out of the station. Ooofff.

Alright, now, as I was such a good girl and telecommuted properly today, I missed the men’s downhill quals(my very favorite event) so now must navigate a minefield of info to try and find a channel playing the finals without tipping me as to the outcome.

Then I will work on my Rain Girls beat sheet and seriously get that script moving along. Kind of a relief not to have to work on the rom com for a few weeks. A high-school love triangle a kidnapping and assorted alien skullduggery is much more what the post-v-day-blues require for the snapping out of a totally useless and indeed harmful self-pity.

But first will pound some serious hydrogen hydroxide.

7 chances for love

2010-02-14T23:22:00.000-08:00

So. Tonight this just about turned into a big rant about Valentine's day and love and all kinds of horrifying stats spewed out by National Geographic channel.

Instead I stopped. Saved the rant into the "not posted" folder and reconsidered.

I have a new toothbrush. It makes me hopeful it is a Crest spin brush and sounds oddly like a didgeridoo, but boy after you use it you sure know your teeth and gums have been well loved.

One of the stats the NG threw out tonight was that we would each experience love an average of seven times. Good news for me, that's for sure. I am certain it has been once, confident that it has been 4 ... Hah! and if you asked me about today. Like this very single day? I would confirm that there are at least three lovely men I would go out of my way for and at least 3 more waiting in the wings. So that was seven at one time, right?

I didn't write today. Other than this. I was afraid. I was afraid to face the day. I was afraid to face love. When I write, love comes to me, whether I will it or no. So I spent the day sorting receipts, cheering atheletes, reading the book club book, going to the gym. Anything and everything to not write.

Writing you see, is the only place that I experience love as opposed to observing it. So for today, I will say goodnight. Tomorrow, I will write.

Canadian Tenors – Breaking Big

2010-02-11T18:25:00.000-08:00

Now I do recognize that some of you might be thinking this is now the Canadian Tenor’s blog 24/7. However it is not. It is about the art and craft of writing as seen through the lens of me. Thus, it is a reflection of what is going on in my head and what in my life influences my art. I love it when I get to use the word “thus” – it brings such a pomposity and gravitas to an otherwise mild-mannered sentence.

This week the boys are more than usually present in my life, thoughts and even geographically. Do you know that the boyfriend of one of my co-workers called her from BC Place yesterday to specifically NOT tell her that four famous people just walked by him and one of them said “Hi” to him. Of course, he couldn’t tell her who they were, so she went ahead and guessed. Since she’d been at the dress rehearsal for the Olympic Opening Ceremony on Monday and had watched the four stand-ins for these famous folks, she was fully equipped to shout out “It’s the Canadian Tenors”. Worst kept secret in town kids. After the phone call she raced to tell me. What delighted me the most was not that I got to know what they were up to, since I sorta already guessed, but her excitement at sharing the news and the fact that her boyfriend called them “famous people”. Yah, I guess they are kinda. And after appearing on Oprah yesterday and the Olympics tomorrow, the whole world is gonna know them as famous people. Mind you, the world really should know them by now since they’ve been to 5 continents in the past year. Rats. Now getting tickets to their shows really is going to be impossible.

The Canadian Tenors are breaking big. If I had a dime for every person who told me, with a slightly dazed expression on their face, that “Gee, they really are great.” or “I don’t usually like that type of thing but they are good.” Or “I’m surprised how much I liked them.” “The harmonies are amazing.” “What great voices.” Well if I had a dime for all that I’d have enough to pay for my next concert ticket. Me? I’m not surprised. Me? I’m smug. That’s me Ms. Smuggie SmugFace. I TOLD you they were amazing.

I had the privilege of experiencing the Canadian Tenors be amazing once again last Monday night at a Surry Arts Centre performance that was sold out months in advance. And I use the word “experience” because “seeing and hearing” is a woefully inadequate phrase. I went all by my lonesome and it was anything but. That crowd was happy to see those guys and those guys were glad to be home. A joyful musical mutual love fest ensued. The ovation after their rendition of “The Prayer” was so enthusiastic it brought out a mock apology, “Gee sorry you guys didn’t like that one.” Yah, we liked it alright. And that silence you heard from the crowd after Fraser Walters finished singing his solo “Homeward Bound” was so thick and liquid I forgot to breathe for a minute. I suspect I was not the only one.

Though all in all I’m a little ticked after the fact cause they got me feeling all happy and generous. What happened then as I’m sitting in my little intermission glow is that the CDs for sale in the lobby sold out and the women sitting next to me were crestfallen. So I go and give them the copy of “The Perfect Gift” I brought to get signed. Or I actually tried to give it to them. What’s up with that goofy impulse to give strangers something I spent my hard earned cash on and give up adding to my collection of signed copies, a signed copy for every concert. I was on a roll. Stupid endorphins.

Of course they wouldn’t accept the gift and tried to pay me, but I insisted that I hadn’t paid 20 bucks for it (true, cheaper on-line http://bit.ly/b8jpLQ ) and had no change (a lie, I’m such a liar). So in a flash of inspiration I said, donate the 20 to Voices for Bulembu, the boys charity, the web address is in the liner notes of the CD (http://www.voicesforbulembu.com/ ). So much for inspiration, she forced the 20 on me and asked me to donate to the charity for her as she didn’t have a computer. Cripes. So now I’m out a CD and a souvenir and I have to go to all the trouble of donating the money to charity and I told a lie. Stupid, stupid endorphins. Maybe I should stick with exercise and chocolate. And wine. Wine is good.

But I won’t. The Canadian Tenors are breaking big and I’m going to enjoy my reign as Ms Smuggie IToldYouSo Smugface too much to give them up now. So I guess I’ll just have to shut up and suffer through the fact that they made me an “Instrument of Peace”, just for a few seconds mind you and just 20 bucks worth. Damn signed CD collection just collects dust anyways.

Punked by Oprah and Celine Dion - The Canadian Tenors

2010-02-11T00:34:00.000-08:00

Okay I watched the Oprah show about an hour ago and I am still laughing. The Canadian Tenors. Wow did you guys get got. I'm thinking your pal David Foster had somewhat to do with all that. Seriously you guys got Punked by Oprah and Celine Dion! Gonna live that down? Not any time soon.

Okay I just made an inadvertent quacking sort of snorting noise cause I'm trying not to laugh out loud. Which is stupid because I live alone in a top floor of a concrete building with 16 ft ceiling heights and I'm still worried about waking the neighbours with my mirth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tubL9EaiztM

Celine totally surprises them. Remi doesn't miss a note. She brings in a completely new vocal line and it is please play it again time. Yup. So great. So go away because I'm going to play it again and revel in a gorgeous moment for some young men who give us all so much and make me so proud. Like I had anything at all to do with it! Hah! I crack myself up. Anyway and much more importantly.

The Canadian Tenors are a hot ticket and doing a bunch of Olympic stuff but they will be back in Vancouver Sept 19th for a concert Voices for Bulembu, likely at the Chan Centre at UBC. It is their goal to be able to educate and support 2,000 AIDS orphans in Swaziland by 2020. Their last concert there raised a million dollars. Don't you want to be part of that kind of love? I do.

http://www.voicesforbulembu.com/

To see what happened last year. Check back here for the latest in venue and ticket info and I'll see you in September. Bring your love of music and your heart. Neither will be disappointed.

Did you ever notice …

2010-02-09T22:24:00.000-08:00

… of things you don’t like there is always too much. Like dirty laundry and dishes and bad TV. Then there are the things of which you never have enough: sleep, free time & hugs are just a few.

So I think I’ll call it early and retire to the dark chocolate bed with the slab of marshmallow mattress and have me some sugar plum dreams. Not that I like sugar. Nor plums all that much either to be truthful. Something maple syrupy would really be much nicer. Ohhhh, I know maple syrup fudge. Yeah, there you go. I can dream about it without guilt cause I am woman who went to gym, cooked a healthy meal, played guitar, wrote and talked with people I love. Now that is some kinda good day.

But bed early. Too late to sleep last night as I didn’t want to give up the last fragrant wisps of beauty. And I think, besides the maple fudge, I’ll also dream of being loved. And of being valued. Maybe I’ll replay all of my office friends passing thru my office today to ask about how the Canadian Tenors concert was. And their true joy in listening to my silly, excessively detailed account of the event. But true, you know, because they love me. So they not only tolerate my silly, they embrace and encourage it. It makes them happy somehow to see me clap my hands like a five-year old and wax rhapsodic about the music and performance and the deep peace and joy the boys always sprinkle, and my concerns over their tiredness and crazy schedule.

See, I don’t want to go to bed tonight either as with the dawn comes the obligation to be present in the world. But sleep I must, for as in this, as in so much else, the Bard is correct.

“Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care. The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath. Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourishier in life's feast.” William Shakespeare

So I may not get roses or kisses this Valentine's Day (bah humbug). But there are those who laugh at my jokes and ask for my advice and who love me for all kinds of silly ephemeral reasons. So I am profoundly grateful for them. And, maybe if I keep up the new 30 workout time I can have a couple pieces of maple fudge. Or a couple peanut butter daisies. MMmmmmm.

I don't want to go to bed - post Canadian Tenors

2010-02-09T02:11:00.000-08:00

Cause then it will be tomorrow.

I don't want tomorrow. Today was really nice. People valued me today. People loved me a bit too, I think. Nice, because I love them, so it was a lovely win-win.

But if I go to bed, and I should it is really, really late. My Canadian Tenors will have to fade back to a reality type situation. Never my favorite arrangement, don't you know. But I am going to bed to sleep and dream all the dreams that live within me.

For my boys. No. I am not sick of you seeing you Remi. Are you sick of seeing me? Maybe. Silly. Is one sick of a fine wine? An exquisite painting? Even the tiniest of variations in your performance gives me joy.

I can see you guys are tired and need a rest. JEFFREY please schedule in a rest. Our boys need a rest. All of us who love them will still be here after they rest and return to us refreshed. See? the joy of not having a fan base driven by teenage hormones. We will long for your return and reward your re-appearance with joy.

I could expand upon my argument, but instead have decided to leave it there and really go to bed. The Canadian Tenors: you bring me joy. I just feel better about life and the world after seeing you. So I do apoligize. I know that it is long and it is tiring. But you do bring joy and hope. I heard a woman joke with her friends that she felt so uplifted and refreshed that maybe she could skip church on Sunday See, spreading that happy is your purpose and I am here to remind you of it in any way that I can.

Okay 2:10, and an early corporate morn tomorrow. For all of you that tune in regularly - I love you too.

An Extra Gold Star Please!

2010-02-05T20:12:00.000-08:00

So first attempt to workout may have been thwarted (how often do you get to use that word in a sentence?) But your girl refrained from the siren song of the Friday Martini, returned to the gym 30 minutes later and achieved a fine workout.

Now, briefly the second thing and then the loooong awaited martini.

My body feels weird. Now I know you all want me to say that it feels weird in a good way. But that wouldn't entirely be the truth. You see when you finally start paying attention and pushing the ole' bod. It really does'nt like it very much. So if you think it's been all sweetness and light and endorphins? No. Just no. Hardest thing I have ever done and tears from the pain and the despair always a blink or two away. This week the ankles are rebelling. And yesterday sucked wildly as I felt more than usually like a gorgon and despite 5 weeks of workout success and probably close to 20 pounds I felt hideously ugly and a useless lump of ogre dung. Today was better, not that it required much of a climb.

Today the reflection in the mirror and the fit of the clothes and the acuity of the mental function asserted the positive forward progress. And I did get to think "Jeepers, this much change in 5 weeks! What will 10 be like or 20 or 50?" We will see.

Terrorized and waiting for a machine

2010-02-05T18:00:00.000-08:00

The big challenge of this very particular now is that I went down to the gym and for the first time in 5 weeks both elliptical trainers are occupied. Since I detest the bike and my joints are not yet ready for a work out on the treadmill of anywhere near the intensity I can get going on the elliptical, I came back upstairs. Dangerous choice because now I’m thinking about having a Friday night martini and skipping the workout. But not really. It became very evident to me today upon exiting the shower that my body has changed a lot in the last 23 workouts and I’ll be damned if having to wait 20 minutes for the machine is going to keep me from workout 24.

Two things are very much on my mind about that. First I am more then a little overwhelmed by the support everyone is showing. And quite honestly terrified. I don’t want to disappoint anyone and frankly am wishing I’d kept my mouth shut and tackled this incognito. Cause keeping my mouth shut is something I do soooo well. Quit laughing. Yet I wonder too if I’d have kept at it without friends and family past and present crawling out of the wood work and piping in with their words of support. I now even have friends checking my wall regularly to make sure that I’m still posting Year of Buff updates. Alright. Wish me luck. I am going downstairs again and hoping to get a machine. Put it out there to the universe that I do, okay? I'll get to the second thing AFTER I workout.

And now I lay me down to sleep

2010-02-02T22:46:00.000-08:00

I’m pretty certain that this post will be both brief and a bit dull. Though I did hear the Angels singing tonight while working out. Look out people, whole new obsession is born. Endorphins. Say after me, Endorphins.

I am tired. I am still battling the allergy thing. I did lots of good work. I wrote at lunch and the hour before guitar class. I thought too many thoughts today (as I am wont) but it was a great day. I played my show off piece for my guitar teacher tonight. For the first time I played GOOOD. It actually sounded really good. He was pleasantly surprised. I live to pleasantly surprise him. Harder then you might think as it involves, daily, me overcoming the resistance to the thought that I am not much of a musician. I can however dance. That I can do. So I set the fingers free to dance the steps and the sound comes out okay. Huh. Guess all that obsessive knitting and typing over the years has finally come in handy in a completely unexpected way.

Missed sharing Tuesday night yam fries with Sweet Potato though. Hope she is well and having fun on the island.

Talked with Hoosie way too late into the night but we just can't seem to shut up. Next time I'm setting the egg timer.

I almost tripped and fell I was in such a hurry to change and get to the gym. I get so stiff that I stagger to the water cooler all day, my eyes swell from some weird office allergen, but I am working out and I am writing and I am dreaming of glorious things, and beautiful men. And universe? At last count you owe me 22 memorable, juicy, amazing kisses from some really, really hot guys. That was the deal and you will pay.

I am so Fracking lucky

2010-02-01T20:20:00.001-08:00

Check out a post on the CityCinderellas blog of one of my new friends - she does make me laugh - do watch all the way...

http://bit.ly/buEoSH

The Perfect Man - A summary to date - 1-5

2010-01-31T18:21:00.000-08:00

1) He must have world-class take my breath away intelligence.
In short he needs to know lots of stuff that I don’t. Good luck with that mere mortal boys.
Ref. Skyhammer, Pablito, Frenchiepants, Hoosie, The Analyst, Angel Boy

2) He must laugh at my jokes.
More than that he must motivate me to tell even greater jokes.
His laughter. I relish it, I crave it. It is a new addiction with no calories and only side effects are sore cheek muscles from smiling and sore abs from laughing.
Ref. Hoosie, Pablito, Angel Boy

3) He must enjoy to give and receive frequent massages.
The memory of just how good he was at the art of massage. And he loved doing it too. Mind you it was part of his training in physical education and if memory serves one of the few classes he actually bothered to attend. This is really just a euphemism for the idea that he really, really has to like touching me. But you knew that.
Ref. The Fiancée, The Analyst, The Baritone

4) He must embrace his sense of silly.
A man who can giggle without then turning around and leaping on the table in the presence of a mouse? Someone who would be happy to eat cinnamon toast and tea every morning for a week, simply because you announced that it was “cinnamon toast and tea” week. Makes me feel cinnamon toasty just thinking about it.
Ref. Skyhammer, Hoosie, Pablito, Frenchiepants, The Cossack, The Analyst, The Skateboarder, Angel Boy

5) He must make me feel brilliant.
Because he IS brilliant in some way and then when he gets that very considered look and says to me “You’re brilliant” – I actually believe him. More than that, he has to not mind that I just might, in some ways be more brilliant than he, and instead of finding that frightening, finds it exciting.
Ref. Skyhammer, Hoosie, Singer, The Jester

Just say NO to chain emails.

2010-01-26T01:47:00.001-08:00

I don’t know how to be any more definite or explicit than that kids. DO NOT send them to me. I will delete them. They are not a harmless bit of fun. They are BLACK MAGIC. And I’m not exaggerating or kidding even a little. These things that promise a wish come true or something wonderful will happen if only you fulfill its terms of emotional blackmail are just that. Black. Mail. As soon as you begin to realize what you have opened and are reading hit the delete button and say a prayer for the poor misguided loved one that sent it to you.

If you think I am a Strong Woman or one of the Greatest Women in Your Life or Gift from Heaven whatever title or twist of phrase these things suck you in with. Know what? Frack off. I don’t care to have someone else’s thirteenth hand expression of my magnificence or of your affection for me. Send me a fracking email telling me you love me or think of me or I just crossed you mind in an idle moment and you are just wishing me the best. Now that would be a wish come true or a blessing or an unexpected nice surprise.

I do believe in magic. The universe fair crackles with its power if only you care to narrow your eyes and look sideways to see the fairy lights sparkle along the horizon at dawn or dusk. It also contains evil and part of my definition of that is being forced into evoking that magic on behalf of some faceless nameless spawn of a demon email that gets handed to me by a clueless friend all in the name of “fun” or a chain prayer for the betterment of all humankind, or fulfillment of my dearest wish. But watch out - you don’t meet the demon’s terms and at the best nothing will happen, at the worst, well, suffice it to say that the variations on “have a bad day” are infinite.

Do not threaten me or mine with harm. Don’t. For my wrath is mighty and my reach through space and time is infinite.

I do believe that people love me and want to connect with me and share their experience of the magic of ordinary days. Chain emails are not the way to do it. Though if what you are after is having me say a prayer for the sake of your immortal soul, well then mission accomplished. But I would have said one any way, even if you just sent me an email to say “Hi, I’m thinking of you. No need to email back, just wanted to let you know I’m thinking nice thoughts. Be well. Love.”

That’s what it’s all about, or so I’ve been told. Love. So next time you get one of these noxious frauds in your in box. Why don’t you delete it and instead send a couple lines of “just thinking about you” to ten friends. There. That’s my wish. Now go outside, turn around three times counter clockwise and spit. Only way it will come true.

I wonder if I do believe?

2010-01-25T17:18:00.001-08:00

In romantic love I mean. I mean as a thing to be desired and striven for celebrated and cherished. I mean I do believe it exists; I've seen evidence of it enough with my own eyes if not with my own heart. But I did have one of those crystalline morning thoughts on my drive to work this AM - maybe I don't really believe in it after all. I was listening to the Canadian Tenors sing about love and I cetainly do enjoy listening to handsome young men sing about such things. But I was struck and not the first time by how obsessed we are in art and music about the topic, in particular given kind of the lack of its expression in real life from day to day.

I've been in a bit of a pause with writing on my rom com, but not because I don't know what comes next, cause I do, but because I'm reluctant to make myself go there emotionally. All the rollicking set up has been done and now the stakes keep getting higher and higher for my co-protagonists. They are about to really put their respective hearts out there for to be stomped on a bit, well alot, before I can bring it on home to happily-ever-after. Which means that I have to join them in both the hopeful heart soaring butterflies in stomach bit and in the getting squished and kicked to the curb bit. Now, you might wonder what that might matter given that it is, after all, fiction. But you know what? It does matter and will be doubly hard as I have written the gosh darn thing with co-protagonists which means that they both need to go thru their own individual hell in different ways before they can come out the other side. Sigh. Now I know why good writers get paid so well. It isn't just for the 10,000 hours to mastering the words and form. Its the honesty and the hope and the hurt. I'll get there and I'll give it to you. But it will cost me.

At the end of it all though, when the orchestra swells and the rose petals fall, we'll all be all the better for it. So maybe I don't believe in romantic love. Not for me, not yet. But I sure want to.

Random Lunch Hour Thoughts

2010-01-20T19:55:00.000-08:00

Well, so here we are again. Hump day. Can’t believe its only Wednesday. If memory serves, somewhere around here is the most depressed day of the year, statistically speaking. Yep, that was this past Monday. The third Monday of January. Gotta say I was a rough and rainy one, that’s for sure. Hauling it out of bed was truly a Herculean effort. That then makes this the longest week of the year. I’ve had three people say to me within the last 24 hours “I can’t believe its only…” Yep. It’s only.

Today comparatively is superb. Though I feel like I’m getting a head cold. So that is fascinating too, that I am more energetic than I’ve been in weeks, and happier, and yet sneezy, runny nose, sore throat thing coming along at the same time.

Still riding the endorphin rush from guitar lesson last night. The hour post guitar is the happiest of my week I think. I really feel good about myself and my life afterward. Which is really superb and yet kinda annoying because then I stay up too late for a Tuesday because I’m having too much fun to go to bed. And of course the endorphin rush doubled cause I went to the gym as soon as I got home. So who’s the big squishy butted writer now, hey? Well. I still am of course but I rode the guitar endorphins wave right downstairs to the gym and then caught another one by actually working out. Very different behavior for me. And even though I am a bit short on sleep and scratchy throated today I am walking without a limp for the first time in three weeks. Can it be that the working out is finally starting to pay some dividends? Please, please say that its so.

Thinking a lot about time today. And sorry do love all of you married women types with kids but if one more of you tells me that I’m “lucky” that I have time to write or “lucky” I have time to learn the guitar I just might haul off and pop you in the nose. Thing is kids we all have several things that are absolutely the same for you and me. We both have 24 hours in a day and we both have to live with the choices that we have made. You chose to be a wife and mother. I did not. You have to live with your choice and I have to live with mine. “Luck” has nothing to do with it. And I should point out the hundreds of thousands of women – wives and mothers – that have written gagillions of words. Somehow they make the choice to find the time. Their kids too seem to grow up with a fairly normal blend of function/dysfunction as those of you who choose not to find the time to write. Or go to the gym or play guitar. You know what? Be an example to your kid and do those things if that is what you want. Let them learn along with you or learn that Mummy is an individual and her needs are just as important as yours. I think maybe they will be better men and women for understanding that.

This rant inspired by the fact that I am trying to fully comprehend how MY needs have not been met so I use food to cope instead. For example, I need to telecommute during the Olympics as the stress of commuting will be horrific. Not to mention that the type of work I do will actually move faster if I do it at home with less distraction. But I procrastinated over “asking” if that would be okay, because it is really important to me, only to find out that it was decided at a meeting I wasn’t at, that it was assumed already that I would be. So I stressed MYSELF out over asking to have my needs met, oddly in order to do a better job. I dunno, is it really that Catholic guilt thing that it has to hurt in order to serve others. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I will get twice the quality work done in half the time, plus preserving my health and sanity and I was AFRAID to ask. Sorry for shouting at you.

One last thought on the time thing. Yah, I have it and maybe you don’t. But don’t ever forget what you do have that I don’t. You have love. Wanna trade?

Hi I'm back.

2010-01-18T22:32:00.000-08:00

Sorry. Been thru a rough January patch. All done now I think. Thanks partly to my friends who can't seem to stop telling me how terrific I am. So at the risk of insulting them I think I had better start believing it a little bit more.

Sure, been having a tough week as a person and a writer. It happens. What needs to happen is less judgement on every moment and more effort to achieve small victories. Success it appears from all I can tell, from an accumulation of small successes. I can hear Mel Gibson in my head from "The Patriot" - "Aim small, miss small." Of course he was encouraging his ten year old to blow the head off a red coat, so maybe I better find a more fitting analogy.

But, not tonight. Running out of gas and thus will try and be funnier, more insightful and prolific anon.

Better today.

2010-01-13T20:02:00.000-08:00

See the joy of the creative personality? The fact is I shoveled a ton of story yesterday despite my late night fit of pique.

Thing is. Just because I’m all happy joy joy sunshine girl today doesn’t mean that yesterday wasn’t deeply ugly. It was. And I share that with full realization that it doesn’t make me look very attractive or heroic. It is truly the double edge of the creative sword and if you think you’ve escaped it? You’re either deluding yourself or you are a crap writer. And I’m afraid I have to stand by that, even if I hurts your feelings.

Not that there isn’t a place of joy and harmony for writers. But you don’t get a free pass. Sorry. As my guru of writing says in her book “Inside Story” (and I paraphase, Dara forgive me) if you as a writer can’t get down and dirty with your theme and your own experience. We can tell. Happy for your privacy and our comfort, we don’t know what about your writing is true. So. Delve deep, be honest with yourself. If you honestly explore the question before you from your own experience? Heaven awaits. Or so I’ve been told.

It goes hard today.

2010-01-12T23:29:00.000-08:00

A simple loving question from a friend in an email “How goes the writing?”

Today my darlings it goes hard. I did it though. An hour at lunch and an hour and a half post work pre guitar lesson. But it was hard. It was work. It was also good but still a long way from done. I got to the place where the wrong guy asks the girl to get married and she says yes. Wow is that a crappy example of art imitating life.

And oh yah. Wrote for the man all day as well. And I am damn lucky to have that job and need to give it my best each and every moment that I’m there.

Discouraged today. Despite so much praise and support from so many fantastic people I still can’t manage to put together a decent living from my talent.

I got another bridesmaid email. I am so fucking tired of being a bridesmaid the next person who asks is likely to get a takeout chopstick between the eyes. I’m tired of "almost" and "maybe" and "if you only…"

And please don’t comment on this one. Don’t send positive emails or your love. I already know how lucky I am to have all of you so let’s just take that as read.

But if any of you were here I would surely take a big long hug. But no conversation, okay? I am tired of words.

Yes. It goes hard today.

Just a random type What?

2010-01-08T21:16:00.000-08:00

So, someone tell me what's the deal with the facial hair? Movember is over boys. I'm pretty sure. I'm just askin'. I met yet another lovely young lad on the wrong side of thirty who was really cute, but what's with all the scruff? Is is a fashion trend thing? A phase that all men must try their beards on? cause you know, I'm all for that self-expression nonsense but I do get tired of the heavy scruff. It hides your lovely faces.

It makes me work too hard to see your hotness. Know what? I need all the help I can get right now in terms of seeing what is right in front of me. Just way too much going on in the big giant noggin. Please don't make it harder with all the excess fur trimming.

Now, fair enough, you could come right back at me with why am I hiding MY hotness under an extra set of radial tires round the central body mass. But I am working on it, really I am.

In interests of both of us contributing to the beauty of the universe, how bout clearing off some cheek space so that when I give you the double diva cheek kiss my lips actually touch some flesh and I promise to keep going to the gym in an effort to improve what assaults your eyeline from my direction. Whaddya say?

I'm not sayin' I don't appreciate the rasp of 2 days unshaven because we've been having too much fun in bed, cause I do. But more than that really hurts and more than that is just a bit...nope.

Feeling the Burn

2010-01-07T19:15:00.000-08:00

I am eating dinner out of my desk drawer again. That can’t be a good sign. Not quite as bad as it sounds, I make dinner, put it on a plate and open the desk drawer and balance the plate on the open drawer. I have a roll of paper towel and a box of tissues for accidents… Okay fine. It is as bad as it sounds.

On the plus side I have been to the gym 5 times in the last 8 days. And today was the first day I thought I actually might survive severe lactic acid poisoning. A sentence which makes no sense at all if you aren’t an athlete, and even less sense if you are a scientist because the latest is that the pain isn’t from lactic acid build up in the muscles – it’s from micro tears. Nice huh?

Now I need to bang my head against the keyboard for who knows how long tonight as I am the finalist in a big contract job writing a funny game for a big company. So. I must be funny. I must be funny almost right now. I must be funny and not think about whether I can get a leave from my day job or manage both at the same time or, or, or. Haven’t got the job offer yet Schmooopie.

Good day thou despite a rocky start self-esteem wise. Don’t know why entirely but was very crabby needy writer chick from time I hung up with Hoosie last night until further blows to writing ego this AM. Crawled out the abyss eventually. Wrote something good for work. And something funny for me and got an email from the Cossack. Yessiree. For those of you new to my adventures, or those of you who have forgotten this is one of the hottest guys that I’ve made laugh in years. Like smokin’. And if he only loves me for my funny? What the hell, it’s more than nothin’, ain’t it?

Top Ten Reasons to Register TODAY for Pitch Market 2010 Vancouver

2010-01-06T15:13:00.000-08:00

Register NOW: http://ftxevents.com/Pages/registrationPM.html

10) Vancouver is the World’s #1 Place to Visit: Okay, so I made this one up, but here’s my logic. Vancouver has topped the UN’s best cities in the world in which to live chart a whole bunch of times. And technically, in order to visit a place you need to be alive. So logically if Vancouver is the best place in the world to live, it is also the best place in the world to visit. See how I made that work?

9) There Will Be Cherry Blossoms: Come on, Pitch Market 2010 is March 6 & 7th, it is Vancouver, it will be spring. Vancouver has a greater density of flowering cherry trees than any other city in the world. There will be cherry blossoms. I promise. A link to prove the aforementioned fact? You probably need the practice researching on the net more than I do, so you go right ahead and find it for me, ‘kay?

8) Value for Your Dollar: Pitch Market 2010 Vancouver is way cheaper than quitting your job and moving to LA. Really it is. I did the math. Math is one of the things I know how to do. ‘Cause once you get there and buy your futon and get a gig as a waiter or office temp, you’ll still need money for extra asthma meds and a map to the star’s homes. And bail money, since you’ll probably get arrested while trying to shove a script under Mc G’s front door. But then they’d probably just deport you. Which hey, would be free ticket home, so try and coordinate that with Canadian Thanksgiving and you can visit the folks.

7) TV Pitch Competition: This year’s Pitch Market 2010 Vancouver features a TV pitch competition. If you register by Jan 15 you can enter. The top ten will be selected to pitch live to a panel of real live TV people, and by that I mean people that really actually work creating TV. Not TV repair, or TV dinners, real TV. Of course, you would have to beat me out for one of the top spots. And even if you made the cut you’d still have to beat me to the first place prize package. Good luck with that.

6) #1 Rated Script Consultant Dara Marks: Author of my very favorite screenwriting book EVER “Inside Story”, Dara Marks will be there. Did I say it was the best book on screenwriting ever? Yes, I guess I did. Too bad, I’m going to say it again. “Inside Story” by top-rated Hollywood script consultant Dara Marks is the best book on screenwriting ever, and she will be at Pitch Market 2010 Vancouver. And no, she didn’t give me a free copy to say that. I bought my copy with money hard-earned at my office temp job, thank you very much.

5) Smart, Funny, Talented People: This is another promise, along with the cherry blossoms that I will personally guarantee. Thick on the ground will be smart, funny and talented people. How do I know this? Cause I know the names of a bunch of people who are going to be at Pitch Market 2010. In fact I know some of them personally. If you want to know some of them personally too, then you have to buy pass and come play with us. Writers, producers, development execs, broadcasters, and agents all in the same sandbox, what fun! But honestly the real reason I will splash out a personal guarantee on this one is that I’m going to be there. Smart? Funny? Talented? Yes, yes I am. Modest? Good with internal combustion engines?Not so much.

4) You Get to Talk About Yourself All Day: Cool huh? It’s all about you baby – you and your dreams, your stories, your art. You get to talk about yourself and your crazy ideas all day to people who, unlike your family and fellow office temps, really want to listen! Of course I would actually recommend listening from time to time as well, you’ll be amazed and fascinated by what you hear. I might almost add this to my personal guarantee list, but I won’t. After all, I can’t be held responsible for the battery life of your hearing aid or whether or not you understand that a writer’s most crucial skill is not mastery of vocabulary, grammar or hyperbole – it’s listening.

3) People Will Be Needing Stories: Okay so here is a super duper reasons to register for Pitch Market 2010, like, right now. There are already a great group of decision makers confirmed, but the groovy weird thing is that the earlier all the passes are sold the more decision makers will be clamouring to come cause they can see that there is a multitude of folks serious about selling their ideas! It’s like a cause and effect thing. Not quite as splashy as my earlier logic thing (see reason #10) – but way more important in terms of the whole she-bang – to sell your pitch!

2) Careful You Might Learn Something: Saturday’s schedule for Pitch Market 2010 is jam packed with opportunities to seriously elevate your knowledge of the entertainverse. Pitch Lab, Career Accelerator and Master Series Classes have something on the go for every level, even for someone as fabulous and accomplished as yours truly. I recently attended a workshop that I didn’t really think I needed and found out that I’m a better writer than I knew and have so much more to learn than I could have imagined. Next to listening kids, that is a writer’s other big must – learn!

1) You Could Get Offered Money: Of course you ain’t gonna get the first prize in the TV pitch competition, that one is all mine pal. But this one doesn’t really need a lot of explaining, does it? You have stories to sell, there will be people at Pitch Market 2010 who buy stories…Okay, then? ‘Nuff said. Register for Pitch Market 2010 Vancouver today and I’ll see you at the Fairmount Hotel Vancouver March 6 and 7. Come say hello - I’ll be the one autographing souvenir one-sheets after my TV pitch competition win.

Register NOW: http://ftxevents.com/Pages/registrationPM.html

My Perfect Man Part III The Hoosie List Part I

2010-01-05T18:33:00.000-08:00

He must laugh at my jokes.
More than that he must motivate me to tell even greater jokes.

Hoosie laughs at all my jokes and I do mean alllllll my jokes. He can deal with me all me for 7.5 hours and still be laughing at my jokes. I amuse him. And he is so continually surprised and delighted by my hyperbole that watching his reaction to my most outrageous of comments is a singular pleasure that I suspect will never be repeated. I relish it, I crave it. It is a new addiction with no calories and only side effects of sore cheek muscles from smiling and sore abs from laughing.

There will be more from Hoosie, but right now I must attend to things like eating and showering and playing guitar. Not however all at the same time.

Okay Universe, Here’s the Deal

2010-01-05T18:29:00.001-08:00

I went to the gym AGAIN today. I got off my big white flabby voluminous writer's ass and went to the gym. Again. Another 20 magnificent minutes logged on the old elliptical thank you very much. For those of you keeping score, (and I sure am, I have a spreadsheet) that is 4 times in 6 days. But seriously, here’s the deal.

In addition to all the wonderful health and beauty benefits that my gym time is going to send me, not to mention the increase in income (It is a well documented fact that people who lose weight and get in shape get raises and more job opportunities), there is just one little extra thing you’re going to be throwing my way.

For every gym trip I earn the right to a big juicy kiss from a really hot guy. That’s right. My gym trips are my account with the universe and for every one I deposit I’m getting a big juicy kiss from a really hot guy. Hey, or guys, I could go with that too. And you know what Universe? I’ll even let you pick ‘em out for me – I trust you to choose well. I won’t even be demanding about when they arrive or if they come one at a time or in big bunches. But come they will. That’s the deal.

The Perfect Man List Part II

2010-01-02T11:17:00.000-08:00

Hello Lactic Acid my Old Friend.

Yeah, I’ve missed you. And yet here you are again delivering your message of intra-muscular love with all the intensity of youthful passion. Ow. Just because I know you’ll all be so fascinated by the process of a computer bound writer daring to step away from the keyboard and resurrect her once significant athletic prowess. Ow. For the record though all 656 or 850 muscles in this human body are speaking loudly. And hey, how can it be the 21st century and we still can’t figure out how many muscles are in the human body? What’s that about? Can academics really NEVER agree? Lock yourselves in a room kids and duke it out. The world needs a definitive answer to this burning question.

Whoooosh. I had to use the word “burning’ didn’t I? But I digress, now there’s a surprise. Yes my knees ache a bit as do the biceps and the hands but the winner in the “how loud can muscles scream” competition today are the Latissimus Dorsi and Trapezius along with the associated Thoracolumbar Fascia. In short, I need a back rub. The Ibuprofen and the hot bath can only do so much. I need a man’s strong hands to get back there and do some serious work.

Fine, a thought which leads me back to the serious work of the day the Qualities of My Perfect Man list Part II.

He must enjoy to give and receive frequent massages.
Though there have been a few aspirants over the years the crown still belongs to The Fiancée. Who it should be pointed out was seriously in doubt of making this list at all until the tide of Lactic Acid and the concomitment memory of just how good he was at the art of massage. And he loved doing it too. Mind you it was part of his training in physical education and if memory serves one of the few classes he actually bothered to attend.

So there you go, he has to be able to play this body like a piano. Which, come to think of it maybe should be a separate line-item. I’m going to go away now and soak my hands in hot water and think about that a bit.

When the Past Becomes Present.

2009-12-31T14:24:00.001-08:00

I spent more than two and a half hours last night talking to the Runner. I hadn’t had a real conversation with him for nearly twenty years but he sent me a Christmas Card and I thought Hmm - in guy speak (a language in which I am fluent) a Christmas card after never getting one before is an invitation to be closer friends. So I called him a few days ago to say thank you and he called me back last night. It was a lovely conversation, sometimes quite hard in spots, and yet surprisingly easy all in all. A kind of trust there that you can’t buy and a sweet nostalgic tenderness that you can’t fake.

You’ll laugh when I tell you that he hadn’t read this blog and therefore had no idea that I just wrote about him a few days ago. Serendipity? I talk about him out loud for the first time in years and then the card and the call? I was even brave enough to read the bit I wrote about him over the phone. Hey? Look it me and my courage, eh?

Not that we hadn’t seen each other, we are sort of related so always on each other’s radar a bit. We’ve seen each other about once a year or so at some family thing and said the hey, how are ya’s. But all very superficial kinda stuff. This conversation was very different. It was the who have you turned into conversation and where are we really going anyway with our lives conversation.

We talked up and down the last twenty years and pretty much each and every family member thru triumph and tragedy. We talked a lot about family and who we thought we were. We talked about Mastery – me of the word and him of the flesh. He is one of those people that has maintained a high level of fitness his whole life long which is the envy of all who know him, including me. We talked too much about my younger sister, which made me a bit jealous, and about neither of us having kids, which made us both a bit sad.

In summary we talked about love. The family kind and the friend kind and the marital kind and the self kind and the of life kind. It was a good conversation. I hope we have another one soon.

Am I really going to sleep late EVERY day?

2009-12-30T12:06:00.000-08:00

Apparently the answer to that is “yes”. Eleven hours of mostly unconsciousness. With, I think three bathroom trips and a glass of milk, but can’t be sure. Shocking, I guess I needed it. Been thinking soooo many thoughts. Funny though you would think I would have written more of them down. Problem now is that I can’t decide what to write this blog about since I have too many potential hilarious topics lined up in the queue. Not really a queue exactly, more a mossy down spout clogged with leaves.

In a pretty good mood today after my Rip Van Winkling and so I should be, gonna be another perfect one with writing and reading and guitar and a friend and even some heavy housework with loud music (only time I ever crank it).

Hmmm, maybe the topic should be sleep and its importance to a writer’s process. But then that will get me thinking about naps and I haven’t even had one cup of coffee yet, let along breakfast and it is almost noon.

I am also relaxed and happy cause I got a nice email from Hoosie giving me absolution for not getting the feature treatment of the rom com to him yet. I am working on it and it is going well, just never ever goes as fast as you think it will. Unlike blog writing which, while it may offer up reportage of real events, is usually just a scene or two stitched together with the prose of the writer’s internal monologue. Screenwriting demands a different approach since you are both making stuff up and building a structure an listening to the characters and trying to ensure that where you are going is properly built on where you’ve been so you don’t lose anyone especially yourself. So that is my excuse for why fifteen minutes of blog writing produces, well this, and fifteen minutes of screen writing can some time produce no more than, “Elliot: Good morning. Ernesto: It’s not morning. Elliot: Well it is still a beautiful day. Ernesto: That is a matter of opinion.”

Now this is me realizing that I’ve broken the cardinal rule of character naming by having two guys with names that start with E, a rule that should only be broken for a comic reason for which currently I have none. So Ernesto needs a new name. Jorge? Orlando? Giancarlo? Nestor? Luigi? Luigi? Really you think? Hmmm.

I think I'm wearing Hoosie's Socks

2009-12-23T10:11:00.000-08:00

It's not really as much of a creepy stalker thing as it sounds, but I'll get to that in a minute. First we have to get through the speaking of the dream.

If you've been following the current events in my head, you'll know that I spent some time last evening ruminating on the qualities of my Perfect Man. Cause it's research don't you know. The co-protagonist of the rom-com that I'm writing is on the hunt for her perfect guy. I've decided though, that a straight up check list of qualities is too dull. If I am concocting my own virtual Frankenstein's Love Monster, I need to be much more engaged in the process than just getting down 1) sense of humour 2) kind eyes, etc. Thus a bunch of guys from my past and present will form the big amorphous lump of qualities from which I will select specific items that appeal and apply. For the record, these are not just past boyfriends, these are just guys I know that have something about them that I like. And if you don't spot yourself on the list, you are quite welcome to remind me why you should be included. I like white roses, Veve Cliquot and diamonds of pretty much any kind. And hand massages - did I mention that before? Between the writing and guitar playing, I need a good hand massage from time to time.

After posting my first batch of qualities I was about to move on to Hoosie's list, but since his listing will be a long one, for many reasons, not the least of which is that I'm writing this bloody script for him so he is in my head a lot. And when I say a lot, I mean almost a creepy a lot so maybe I'm entitled to the damn socks people. Anyhoo, I digress. I decide to wait until tonight to launch into the Hoosie list as it will be a key part of the character development of Elliot, who is meant to be portrayed on screen by the aforementioned Hoosie. Thus I decide to play a bit of guitar and go to bed. Which I did. As I was drifting off, still sorting thru the boys in my head - realizing that most, though not all would be from the My Boys list, who are a select and secret group of guys for whom I would do a Favour - but that is for another post. And so while thinking these thoughts the great ocean that is sleep rises up and gently carries me away.

The dream starts as one of those weird office dreams that is every office you've every been in and yet none of them at the same time it was meant to be my current office at the university I think and I was supposed to be making a short ten minute film about our operations problem was everyone started running around and talking all at the same time about all the things that I absolutely must capture on film and a bunch of folks start roaring around with hand held video cameras and now the whole thing is a big giant Busby Berkley musical number with a big group of graduate students in robes doing an elaborate step dance number I'm chasing around shouting instructions to the very few co-workers I recognize take a left turn down the hall to the accounting offices only to discover that I've walked into an Office version of a Fellini orgy scene and when I tut and shake my head because these people are supposed to be helping me make a movie not getting each other off behind the assistant accountants filing cabinet one of them shocked and embarrassed by my scrutiny asks what I'm doing and i say what am i doing what are you guys doing if you are going to do that one of you should at least have a video camera so we can recoup some money out of this fiasco i shove a video camera into his hand and take off for the main bull pen area shouting instructions to the clueless production assistants trailing in my wake the dancing students have now broken into little gangs of break dancers and I shout for them all to get over by the big giant purple curtain which i pause to note is a very particular pascal purple used by the catholic church to cover statues and crucifixes during lent i can't remember why so the dancers scurry to form a kick line and i move into the kitchen which is much smaller and quieter but messy and we need to shoot in here so I put some hot water and soap in the sink to wash the stack of dirty mugs and my boyfriend is standing right beside me...

... calmly and happily asks what he can do to help and i say you could wash and then i put my hand in the water and it is hot and nice and eases the ache in my hand a bit definitely too much guitar and typing going on and then i say or dry and he says no he'll wash and i say you don't have to and he says no i want to and i say you do and he says yes and he puts his arm around my waist and pulls me into him a bit and kisses my forehead softly just above my left eyebrow and says sure it will give us a chance to spend some time together just breathing each other in then he does breathe in and hold me a moment steps back just enough for me to see his face his hands holding me loosely by the elbows he is about 6 foot one inch tall and his face is young and sweet and his long thick straight blond hair is a bit too long and hangs in his eyes and his body is lean and cut it recalls a cross between a skateboarder named rabbit i dated in my mid-twenties and Brad Pitt circa Thelma an Louise he smiles at me and deep dimples wink and his eyes twinkle but his eyes are not blue they are dark dark green like forest pools almost black around the edges and the color of new growth and sunlight near the pupils he smells of ocean and fresh sweat and grass hot in the sun and he smiles at me and i say good answer and he kisses me and tastes of berries and the kiss deepens and the alarm goes off.

So I get up and write this. Now I have to go to work. Sigh.

My Perfect Man Wish List. Part I

2009-12-22T22:14:00.000-08:00

So the men referenced here, by in large, are referenced by nickname so as to afford them all a modicum of privacy. In case you are asking. Don’t. If you don’t know who I am referring to, then you don’t’ get to know. Deal with it. They are also not in anyway listed in chronological order, nor in order of IMPORTANCE, though of course since they all appear on my list they are, always and ever, cherished.

Skyhammer.
From my acquaintance with Skyhammer, my Perfect Man needs to have that world-class, take-my-breath-away intelligence. In short, he needs to know lots of stuff I don’t. Good luck with that mere mortal boys.
He also needs Skyhammer’s sense of silly. A man who can giggle without then turning around and leaping on the table in the presence of a mouse? That is valuable indeed ladies.

Someone who would be happy to eat cinnamon toast and tea every morning for a week, simply because you announced that it was “cinnamon toast and tea” week.
The way he makes me feel brilliant. Because he IS brilliant when he gets a very considered look and says to me “You’re brilliant” – I actually believe him. Makes me feel cinnamon toasty.

Gosh, so many great men to get to, but I’m not done with Skyhammer. He can Tango. Never seen him Tango. Never Tangoed with me, but when he describes his love of Tango – I believe him.

Last and not in anyway least – he knows the pointy end of the sword from the edge, and the tang and the hilt and pommel and the cross guard and the fuller and the grip and the scabbard. Not to mention his understanding of the bow and the arrow and the shaft and fletching and nock and draw and nevermind – you get my point. If there is a Dragon around this is one guy I would like to be around to slay him for me.

The Cossacks
There are two. Who have never met each other by the way. One an old friend, one of new acquaintance. Big. Blond. Tall. Light of eye and quick of laugh.

Strangely the thing they have in common was they look surprised to see me and always seem to be surprised at how happy they are to see me. Does that make any sense? I like their sense of confidence in their bodies. Tall, strong and fit and they know it. And they know what to do with it. Comfortable in their own skins in a way few men of my acquaintance are. At the same time, no real sense of arrogance over their beauty or physical prowess. They don’t poster, because they don’t need to, they just are. Their ability to be in the moment.

The Runner
Not that he was technically my first kiss, but he was actually my first French kiss. Side by side on a schoolyard swing set, on a cold fall night. What we need from him is the taste of raspberries. He tasted of raspberries. And I kissed him longer and more diligently than perhaps anyone since – that is one of those glorious things about teenage necking sessions, isn’t it? You kiss for hours and days and months. Be honest, making out has never really been as much fun since, has it? Kissing and kissing and kissing and kissing. He always tasted of raspberries. Day after day, regardless of food and drink, he tasted of raspberries. I wonder if he still does?

Blue Paper Blues

2009-12-22T18:46:00.001-08:00

Okay, so when staring at the screen fails, out must come the pen and the pushing it across the paper making squiggly marks - blue on blue in this case- which can later be translated by the readers’ eyes and brain into some semblance of meaning. So while it may transcribe this fairly faithfully later to the computer, for now it is just me; a girl and a not quite blank page. It is a scrap page in fact. On of those strange sized blue pages packed between each and every copy of the annual report. 500 copies of the report, 532 pieces of pristine blue paper. Couldn’t just recycle it. must use it up some how. It has become dumping ground for my random thoughts. Day job thoughts and night job thoughts and personal thoughts. Have decided to get serious about my perfect man list but think it will be so Gone With The Wind in length it will be in installments.

I’d rather say in my cocoon thanks

2009-12-17T20:24:00.001-08:00

Hey. Yah. It is a bit cramped. Certainly dusty. So what if I know the landscape of every freaking inch down to the last micron. It is mine God damn it and no one has dominion in here but me. Not that I have the slightest clue how to be good ruler of the universe. But I am safe and I am warm. Mostly. And when the cold winter wind blows I put on a Canadian Tenors CD and let myself pretend that out there, somewhere my True Love awaits. Hmmm, there is a song there I think. Never mind. Not creating now. Ranting now.

I mean seriously suddenly I am thinking about romantic love all day every frackin’ day and I am getting really cranky about it. The thing I avoid most is now the frackin’ desktop on my computer. Seriously I haven’t even had a “real” boyfriend since I was in my late twenties. Cause I’m pretty sure you can’t count the married men or the dudes stepping out on their live-in girlfriends, or the gay couple and if any of you guys are reading this. Shame on all of us. But I’m thinking I paid the penance for us now twice over. Enough.

You may wonder whether I gave up on Love or whether it gave up on me. Tough call. Depends on where you sit I think. From where I sit, it gave up on me. Since, at the height of my physical attractiveness and personal joy I was sucked under the riptide of my first and only “Kill or Die for” love. Yes. I would have killed or died for him. I wonder if his wife would have? No matter, it was all so tragic and accidental. I have superior worship from afar skills. Really top notch. Still do as a matter of fact. But when the object of your adoration turns around one day and pulls you into his arms. There is no defence for that. No defence. Only oceans of tears and eight years of therapy.

Fast forward. Today. Me. Tricked into writing a romantic comedy. Okay, not actually tricked. But it sounds good and is truer than you can know. Hey? It’s going to be brilliant and successful beyond all your wildest dreams. But for the four of five of you that actually read this blog? Please be prepared to squeeze me tight on opening night because it will have come out of the darkest places of my despair, and there is still a chance that I will dissolve into a dew before all is said and done. Love, bah humbug.

So fine. I can’t fit back into my cocoon anymore because my new wings are all sticky and awkward and won’t fold up small enough. But I am going to go wash the tears off my face and get a big glass of ice with just a little water. I’ll play the guitar for awhile and go to bed early. Teresa and Elliot and their quest for True Love will be waiting tomorrow. Right now? I’m taking the rest of the night off.

The blog with no title

2009-12-14T21:50:00.000-08:00

The snow has turned to rain. I can hear it on the skylight.

As I type, the fingertips of my left hand are reminding me how much I’ve been practicing my new Christmas tune. My brain is reminding me how much I suck at it and I better be prepared to amuse my guitar teacher tomorrow, cause amaze him with my musical talent, probably not so much.

Funny isn’t it? In about seven minutes I turned a barely started crocheted scarf into a drawstring bag for my video camera. Really. I timed it. And yet mastering the first eight bars of a song I ALREADY KNOW on the guitar is like… Fine. We all know that of all my multitude of gifts, a knack for melody, not so much. Ironic to many since I actually have the vocal capacity to stun millions, but memory for melody? Pitch? Sigh. I can actually tell I’m off key, but the ability to do something about it?

Often when I’m practicing the guitar I feel like there are two people present. The meat suit, trying to move the fingers and hit the notes and a ghostly ethereal self that loses patience with the plodding flesh and decamps for God knows where. Where the angels are singing perhaps. Lucky me. I do know what that sounds like.

Interesting tonight. There is not a thing on television or written in a book that is more interesting and consuming than what I am thinking right now. Good. That is as it should be. I am going to go away now and kick some story butt. Because. I can.

But seriously I could use to be well kissed somewhere around now.

Never Send a Writer to do a Programmer’s Job

2009-12-12T11:06:00.001-08:00

So okay, Skyhammer, you have to take the blame for manifesting this one. The string of lights that did fall down in the middle of the night scaring the shit out of me were the icicles Po and I hung, not any of the numerous strings hung by the team you spearheaded with Duder and Fast Mike. But since Duder and I helped and we are both writers and you guys are both programmers…Oh, never mind, cancels out I suppose. But that is just the math and my head hurts a bit today. Wonder why.

Did just find three tiny cheese puffs hidden under a couple baguette slices thou. Num. Breakfast. Hah, The Puffs made yet another convert last night. Mandolin Mike was truly skeptical I think. Informed me he wasn’t really a cheese puff kinda guy. Yah. He fell hard and fast like all the rest do. Good man wasn’t too proud to admit it immediately though. Thanks to Squish and Skyhammer for helping me with the heavy lifting on that, you either need some serious guns to do a double batch of choux pastry or a tag team of friends that respond well to my bleating, “Beat it! Beat it hard!” The Mikes were standing bye for the hand off, but Skyhammer pulled it across the finish line, the last great spate of beating motivated by Squish and I screaming cheers in his ears, no doubt. Oh, can’t forget Po’s cubing of the cheese either. Exactly what is it that you did Coco? I supervised of course.

Alright, need some scrambled eggs with the leftover chorizo and some serious coffee. Not fresh-roasted Jamaican Blue Mountain, like Mandolin Mike is no doubt enjoying as I write this. Can’t imagine having the patience to roast my own coffee beans. Hmm. Okay back with some musing on writing from last night that will be infused with caffeine, not red wine. Cripes as I type that I can hear one of the writing Nazi’s in my head whining that coffee is to red wine as caffeine is to alcohol. Shut up. I had too much of one last night and not enough of the other yet today, so if you don’t want me to unleash my supernatural freak collection into your damp little interrogation room, you will SHUT UP! And I will eat scrambled eggs and chorizo, with a little Guinness cheese grated over top.

Why is finishing so hard?

2009-12-09T21:05:00.001-08:00

Okay.
So I am in fact in bad, bad, bad mood.
For absolutely no reason I might add.
I had a great day. Work worked, laundry done, nap, guitar, waxing poetic about the perfect man.
But I do have to finish something. Why oh why oh why does this have to be like walking over glass every time? I don’t even want to try and finish. What I want is to have another drink and play Vampire Wars until Glee is on TV.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Because it isn’t what I really want. What I really want is to have this movie outline finished. But no, not the least of it. I want it to be finished in grand and pleasing fashion. However ya big schmoop, it can’t even be a bad outline if it ISN’T FINISHED!
Resistance. The knot of phlegm in my head that must be expelled each and every day in order to get writing done.
If you pray, please pray for me.
Cripes, now my glasses are dirty and I must arise and clean them. And get a glass of ice water. Heavy on the ice. And wash my face since I’ve been crying and it feels all sticky.
Then I have to resume the position, tell my self again that writing is joyful, god damn it. And finish.

Just a thought or two before sleep.

2009-12-08T21:55:00.000-08:00

This girl is going to bed early. The subconscious needs to process a rather full day, week, month…yah, year.

I’m a bit stuck with my feature film outline. I know what happens on page 45 and 60 but am drawing a blank on how to get everyone there. So I do what I do when I’m stuck. Any creative thing I can think of that might walk me sideways into a solution. So the Canadian Tenors are giving me “What Child is This?” my all time favorite carol, and I am going to turn them off shortly and pick up the guitar and try and figure it out.

My guitar teacher is back. Oh, how I missed him. I shook his hand and told him so too. He composed the music for the Sci-Fi Fantasy mini-series “Alice” airing this week already on Showtime. So he took a bit of a break from teaching my slow-to-learn magnificence and made some cash-o-la. Now he is back, I did miss him. I proclaimed him of Angel blood in previous blog and seeing him again and playing music with him, I stand by my earlier assertion. Huh. I think he was a bit surprised at being happy to see me too. But you know, I am a bit of an acquired taste, but once you acquire me…

My lullaby is playing now, Hallelujah which really is my cue to shut down, turn off and pick up the guitar. So I will kiss you all good night and tackle my story problem tomorrow. Damned Romantic Comedy. I got tricked into writing it and now look at me, asking everyone I know how to recognize True Love. I’m starting to think it really is true, what Dara Marks says about the connection of writer to theme. It is a question or thought seen very personally thru the lens of the writer. Which would be me. Who doesn’t really believe in Romantic Love other than as a sort of temporary glandular condition. Sigh. Okay. Tomorrow I promise to spend my blog time composing the ideal man. Jeepers. I could hardly type that sentence and if you could see my face you would be laughing at the sneer.

Did I already say G’night and G’bless? O well, I guess I have now. Until tomorrow.

Lost Hour, Nanaimo – 4:31am Sunday December 6, 2009

2009-12-07T20:38:00.000-08:00

Lost Hour came late today. Makes sense in that we didn’t shut it down till 1am. And then after a half dozen 5$ martini’s between us in the hotel bar after the Canadian Tenor’s show. Such a great day today, ah, yesterday. So many laughs large and small. Lots of talk, music, wine and joy. Hard to get the pen moving now though in that it is so much easier to sink into a dreamy reverie. I do want to write down one thing about the day though. Before Moosie (my new stuffed moose wearing a mini Canadian Tenors t-shirt – Yah, I see your eyes rolling, but you can’t really ever take the teenage girl out of the middle-aged woman you know.) and I return to the land of Nod.

Lil’ Dude asked me today, in and amongst about a billion other assorted questions, what did I think was more important? Memories or Dreams? Tough call, ay? Given that memories form part of the fabric of who we are and give context to our dreams. I’m going to side with dreams as I strive to live joyfully in every moment and I can’t live backward, so faith and hope in my dreams pulls me forward and, quite honestly, keeps me alive. Then again, all of my writing is memory and dream intertwined, so closely knit as for there to be nothing to choose between them.

So maybe I don’t have an answer to that question at all Lil’Dude. I’ll just put it in the big box of things-to-think-about and take it out and mull it over from time to time. To turn it over in my fingers and feel the cool slick hardness on one side, the gritty powdery bit underneath, the squishy bit round an edge. All the while I breathe in the scent of cheese puffs and lavender, stale beer and creosote, basil and sweet spicy boy.

Moosie says G’night and G’bless.

Caught Between a Rock and a Harp Place. The Canadian Tenors Christmas Concert.

2009-12-06T22:59:00.000-08:00

Nope. Not at typo. There really was a harp on stage I was really caught out. I was vastly embarrassed to find myself in the very front row of the Canadian Tenors and Vancouver Island Symphony Christmas Concert last night. No! I thought I was in row 4, close enough to enjoy all the action and catch the best sound. But instead, they took the first several rows of seats out to accommodate the orchestra. What I thought was row 4 or 5 was row 1. And when I say row 1, I say 2 feet away from the toes of the boy’s shoes. No, two feet is an exaggeration. It was maybe 1 horizontal foot and 3 vertical. I was mortified.

Not that it is about me people cause it surely isn’t and it was a sold out house and the boys are nothing if not professional. But. Gotta be a little bit like having your third grade teacher breathing down your neck during your doctoral exam. Jeepers. I actually contemplated trying to trade seats with someone further back. Lil Dude said I was overreacting and reminded me that the guys are professionals. And they already knew I was there as we ran into them on the ferry. Where I told them we were in row 4.

Okay, of course they are professionals, but jeepers, I don’t want to be the one to prove that Angel Boy can handle distraction. Cause, not proud of it, but I am a distracting person. All thru I keep thinking okay, good, I got a little smile and a nod but they are doing great and sending it out into the house and so maybe not so distracting as I thought. Then - post performance he tells me that he was aware he was of me sitting, like right there, and all the things it stirred up in his mind about his past and stuff. Rats. I was hoping my fears were all ego. Oh well. Next time I'll try and sit further back.

Hey, maybe we all learned something new from the unusual juxtaposition of past and present. I am a fan, after all, so don't expect an unbiased review. Though come to think of it all reviews are biased, aren't they, otherwise they wouldn't be reviews, they'd be summaries. But I digress, I do plan some vacation time and creative renewal around the expense of seeing these guys for three reasons.

First, they are brilliant musicians and the music makes me feel better about myself and the universe I inhabit. I just does. And given my natural penchant for melancholy, I need that.

Second, their mastery inspires the pursuit of my own. I strive to be as good at what I do as they are. Transforming people’s mood, perceptions, beliefs and maybe actions? Sounds like the goal of an artist’s life to me.

Three, I met one of these artists when he was a child, a pivotal place in his life where he found himself elevated first and foremost beyond his peers into the rarified and highly demanding life of professional opera. It was also a pivotal place for me. It was the same time I started writing. I remember him from then. He remembers me. We are connected in a strange and entirely inexplicable way. We give context to each other's artistic experience. Okay, that sounds a bit pompous, and is probably punctuated incorrectly, but I still think it's true.

Einstein says time and space are illusion and certainly there are moments when I am watching Angel Boy sing when I can’t tell if he is ten, thirty or sixty. But ever and always, he reminds me of what happens when talent, hard work and a positive mind-set meld.

So okay. Not about me. About the Canadian Tenors - Fraser, Vic, Remi and Clifton. About their music. Which was truly sensational.

Not only do the Canadian Tenors rock, but they attract some fine-ass musicians to the party. The Vancouver Island Symphony was spot on. On guitar, bass and drums were other fine, fine musicians who may never forgive me for not remembering their names, but I will try to make up with extra chocolate just for them next time I attend a performance. Hard to judge the sound levels from my strange seating placement but hey the group’s manager consulted me on my opinion after the show. And didn’t that do lots for my ego despite not really being able to give him accurate data. It is very important to know that they question, and listen, and strive for perfection. Hey Jeff! Happy to attend future performances as your ears!

Mark Camilleri, the pianist and musical director doesn’t play the piano so much as he dances it. If ever you have the chance to see them live, don’t limit your attention to the eye candy down front, check out the piano player doing his thing. Dancing with the piano. You may have seen and heard a great pianist command his instrument, but I guaran-fracking- tee you that you have never beheld the like of this young man dancing his piano.

“The Perfect Gift” the Canadian Tenors’ Christmas release is so worth buying I don’t even know how to begin to describe it. I own one and have five on order. By the way Clifton, I got hugs and I got smiles, and I even got kisses. But when you saw me you actually capped your pen and hugged me instead of signing my CD. Shameful professional practice. But I forgive you. I will most certainly give you an opportunity to make it up to me. And I repeat, an unbiased review this ain’t.

Further, I could be detailed and glowing about each stand-out performance of the night. And perhaps I should since they all delivered moments worthy of mention.

Yeah, that’s me cold and impartial reviewer. Yet, hah! If you know me at all, you know I wouldn’t and couldn’t cite them without the musical and artistic excellence that is there. Because I can’t. I won’t. I’m funny that way. Cut my perception of artistic excellence on Dame Margo Fonteyn and Mikhail Baryshnikov and the Kirov ballet and Kiri Te Kanawa and Antonio Pappano and Judith Forst and David Pittsinger and Richard Margison. All of whom, with one exception I have met. Don’t know who they are? That’s what Google was invented for kids. My fatal flaw is attraction to genius. Why is it fatal and why a flaw? For another post.

Suffice it to say, for me, stand out moments musically and performance wise at the Canadian Tenors December 5, 2009 performance at the Port Theatre, Nanaimo, BC Canada –

Because we Believe – I’m a sucker for the lyrics, kinda my theme song

Adagio – brilliant music, brilliantly interpreted

Instrument of Peace – extraordinary arrangement of timeless hope and untouchable beauty

Clifton Murray taking his space with humour and humility as an equal with his peers, his solo of Wintersong was just lovely. Warm, wistful, a bit sexy, well, a lot sexy, and achingly sweet, bye and bye. Gosh, I look forward to hearing you in future.

Victor Micallef – Yep. I stood up for his solo. Had too. Unwritten rule in our highly critical and unforgiving world. When someone delivers all – you get off your butt, even if you stand-alone., not that I did actually stand alone. Now I don’t leap to my feet with the herd. Always been a bit ornery and stubbornly butt-in-chair about that. It's a big butt, takes a lot to motivate it to move. O Sole Mio. A purple piece, a chestnut as it were in the halls of opera, but with...

Mark Camelleri at the piano and Victor at the microphone--I can truly say that the Neapolitan Sun shone upon us all at that moment. And I understood in a wholly new way, the relationship between composer, singer and accompanist. This alchemy, this magic – a perfect moment of live musical performance. Joins my Pantheon. The whole of which, if you are oh, so lucky, some day I will reveal. (and laughing at my apparent opera expertise. I think that was the song, but hey I am an opera fan, NOT an opera buff, and with no program and only my middle-aged memory to rely on…)

Remigio Pereira – Now, you may not know it, but Remi is a Guitar God. Fine, don’t believe it at your peril. Just remember you heard it from me first. Fine you may have heard it before, whatever, it's my blog. Took me 6 months to master the way he plays Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah on guitar. When I see him pick up the guitar on stage it makes me extra happy over and above the extra happy I already feel at being in the audience in the first place. In fact when the lovely handsomeness of Fraser Walters got in the way of me examining a flamenco strumming pattern, I was highly put out.

Last in this list, but never least in my heart, Fraser Walters and a song that I have never heard before “Mary Did You Know”. Not an easy song. Not a tried and true universally loved song. But oh my. When Fraser sings it is never just pretty, though it is often sweetly so, it is never just perfectly pitched, though it is always so - the little burr in his voice tonight elevated the depth of the question. The man can phrase a song like no one alive.

Together, as I stood in line to have my CD signed (the stuffed Moose with the Canadian Tenors t-shirt in my purse and out of embarrassment’s way) I listened to the favorite songs and moments of the crowd. I wonder if most critics ever avail themselves of the overheard lobby and bathroom comments? In the end who cares what they said and it’s my blog and no-one is paying me for anything!

Highlights for me:

Because we Believe

Instrument of Peace

O Holy Night

Silent Night

Wintersong

O Sole Mio

Mary Did you Know

O Viens Emmanuel (nice Remi!)

And not fair to mention their rendition of Hallelujah which, bye the bye is my bedtime song. And I will forgive them not doing What Child is This, my all time favorite Christmas song, since it is on the CD “The Perfect Gift”.

And no, i didn't quite describe every song in the program as a HIGHLIGHT. Well, fine, almost.

So no. I am not am impartial critic, how could I be? But I am a writer to whom truth is important. This is my truth. The concert was a cherished memory. The Canadian Tenors “The Perfect Gift” – a great holiday CD. Take a chance, download them from iTunes, buy “The Perfect Gift” for your parents and be astonished and captivated by their sound for yourself.