20 Pages!

So I was thinking, oh man, oh man, I have really messed up! I’ve lost 20 pages of my feature screenplay. Twenty pages!! PANIC!!! I searched and searched, and pleaded with my computer to show me my pages. Please computer don’t take my 20 pages.

Maybe I deleted them (wouldn’t be the first time). So I clicked on the bright red “Recover My Files” panic button icon, and crossed my fingers. Please special red icon button, please find my pages. I waited for it to miraculously save my 20 pages. I waited for hours. Finally…

No pages!! PANIC!!! Tears, Sailor Cursing, Gnashing of Teeth, Fists of Fury!!

Disgusted with myself and hearing that damn negative voice yelling in my head “LOSER,” I opened up a folder to work on another screenplay and … voila, there they were - my sweet, wonderful, greatly missed 20 pages. ~sigh~

I know 20 pages isn’t such a big deal to a lot of folks, especially those who write for a living or can produce 20 pages in a mere hour or less, but these pages were not just words grouped together to make sentences. These were pages, that I ignored my children so I could write them. Pages, that kept me up late and got me up early.

Pages that are proof that I'm participating in a creative process that is an integral part of who I am. Creativeness formulated into words. My written words. My 20 pages.

I am not Manic

There are folks who are manic and get lots of things done. Their houses are tidy, they exercise regularly, their bills are paid and they do crossword puzzles. Let me rephrase that, they FINISH crossword puzzles. They prepare meals in advance - days in advance and they desks are never out of order.

I envy manic people - I am not a manic person. Sometimes I have episodes of mania, but I usually end up with lots of unfinished projects. Like when I got all manic-y and wanted to turn the back yard into an oasis of solitude and calm, but ended up with a garage full of potting soil, yard lighting fixtures, and dead plants.

Lesson I have learned - Episodes of mania is not the same as being manic.
If I was full on manic, the bills would be paid, a crossword would be finished and I would have a beautiful back yard to sit in and enjoy right now because the weather has just turned cooler and I want to sit outside now!

Radiation Certificate

Done and Done! Such a sense of relief. Sure, the cancer word will always hang over my head, and anytime I feel a lump anywhere, I know the first thought I’ll have is omg has it come back? But my prognosis is solid gold, and with the radiation treatments finished, I won’t have the thought of it in my face everyday. And like all life altering emotions, it will ebb and fade or become something else entirely. So this chapter is behind me and I am the wiser for it. Which is great. I could use all the wisdom I can scrounge up. But surprisingly, I am also less patient for it. I want to be “there” now. There, being everywhere and everything. Out of the past, into the future, and enjoying the heck out of the NOW. This is such an exciting time.

Reminders

The reminder on my phone chimed - “Screenplay - 20 more pages?” What? Already? But I only wrote 6 pages... I got side tracked and wrote a cute little short... I had about five pages of a script to memorize for my acting class (and o.k., I have been really tired from this radiation stuff, but I promised myself I wouldn’t use that as an excuse, so it doesn’t count!). So I did not write 20 pages, but I did do a lot of writing, and actor-y stuff. That should count right? For once, yes it does. It counts for a lot. No more blame or feeling guilty. It isn’t worth it anymore and truthfully it never has been. Blame and guilt are persistent negative voices that just get in the way. I’ll get it written, I’ll direct the short, I’ll get those lines memorized and do my best in class and I’ll kick this cancer’s ass. And all in good time.

Baby Blocks to Acting

After all these years, I’m back to the basics. The basic building blocks of acting - back to Meisner. I don’t remember if my very first college acting class was a meisner class, or my professor just never called it that, but they are the same. And now my current Meisner class, is stripping away all those years of technique. This is a good thing, a very good thing. For too long, I have avoided the places an actor needs to be able to access. Being too much in one’s head, never makes for good acting. Not in the long run.

So yes, it’s all good. But damn, it’s so painful to go back.

pretty good if you ask me

Moving right a long. Yes indeed.

A weekend full of working on really fun and enjoyable things (no laundry and dishes here!) I worked some more on a feature screenplay I’m thrilled about, cleaned up a short that I may direct in the next few months, found out that there really is footage I was hoping for on the last project (yea!!), have a great kid working on after effects on the last project (thank you kat!!), got to work with my scene partner for this meisner acting class I’m taking and … and… what else… oh ya, grabbed a cup of coffee and got some good chatting time in with previously mentioned friend, and …and well, you get the idea - Pretty darn good weekend if you ask me.

lovely day

A delightful day. Yes indeed. Coffee this morning with an old friend, got in got out with radiation stuff in a jiffy, walked around a bit with my mom and then had a girls lunch with awesome friends. O.K. maybe the birds that sat in the branches overhead during our lunch gave us a little too much excitement. (For me these days, bird poop splatting down when you least expect it, is mighty big excitement).
I love my friends.
Such a lovely day!!

Julie and Julia *****

I know this isn’t a film critic blog, I’ll leave that for those of you who have better formed ideas, but I enjoyed Julie and Julia a lot. More specifically, I enjoyed watching the talents of Meryl Streep A LOT. I’m not going to nit pick the film, but I will say that Meryl Streep is once again, fantastic. Perfection! I can only imagine (and that will be the closest I ever get), to what it must be like to be in a scene with her. Could you imagine how awesome it would be as an actor, to be on set and see how she works? I love to watch really good actors work. It’s an enriching experience. It’s learning, learning, learning. Even though, I’m sitting here in my pj’s, drinking my coffee, hoping that in the next 5 years I will be in my own feature film, and thinking of my upcoming acting class, I hope that in some parallel universe, I could meet Ms. Streep and if not be in a itty bitty scene with her, at the least get to sit on set and watch her genius at work.

Julie and Julia

Yea! I'm going to see the film Julie and Julia on Friday. Stop snickering, I know everyone else has seen it, but I've been a little preoccupied (ah hem!), but at least I'm seeing it at the theater instead of waiting until it comes out on DVD.
So anyway, I was watching the trailer for it and the character Julie is talking to her hubby about starting a blog and she says she's going to do it because "I have thoughts too!"
Damn, talk about spot on!

Writing and Un-Writing

This is how I can spend a week not moving forward on my screenplay.
Monday - I'm in a flurry of prose and lay down 10 pages of dialogue for a bar scene. I own it Man!
Tuesday - I reread bar scene and GAH! Real people don't sound like that! So time to rework it. It's now only 7 pages, but it's more concise and to the point. Wednesday - Reread scene again, arrgh. It doesn't make any f**king sense at all. Edit edit. Edit. Now only 4 pages.
Thursday - Reread and wonder, what the Hell am I doing? My wonderful dialogue has nothing to do with the story.
Friday - Zero pages, start over.
~sigh~