Success!

May. 2nd, 2013 10:31 am
kungfuwaynewho: (mst3k torgo)
HOMG, what a couple of days.  Saturday I was at 20 pages and ended up cutting and pasting, revising, revamping quite a bit from some weird interstitial like 1.5 draft I had worked on in the fall, and ended the day with 70 pages, and was like, I can totally do this!  Sunday I was full of ennui and wrote like 2 pages.

More minutiae that no one cares about. )



Tonight I drink!

Ack!

Apr. 25th, 2013 10:20 am
kungfuwaynewho: (ad ahh)
Ugh, I've been so bad about posting and reading my flist in the past few months, which is to say, I basically have been doing neither.  I haven't been posting because I pretty much have nothing to post about - I work, and then I work, and then I write, and sometimes I do laundry and clean house.  I occasionally eat.  And it's not like I had been slacking off all year to find myself with my back against the wall come screenplay submission season; I have been writing steadily and consistently since September on the two scripts I'm submitting this year.  But this always happens anyway, and it's a particularly bad one this year.

I am really, really happy with the script I wrote this year, though.  Definitely the most polished first draft I've ever put together.  One of those where once I got the idea, the main plot was just there, ready to go.  There was some work on details and the nuts and bolts of scene building, but I didn't have to futz about with "oh how should this end" and "all right, I have a story, now what's the character arc and theme?"  So that was exciting.

I'm trying to get a revision done on a script I wrote last year; I didn't finish it in time for the first two competitions, and I'm very doubtful I'll get it done for Nicholl on May 1 (considering I'm on page 21, ahahaha).  But I should definitely have it done for AFF on June 1, and considering that's always been the competition I've done best at, that's what I'm primarily worried about.

So I'm going to start trying as best I can to catch up on like a three month backlog of flist; if you find a cascade of comments from me, that's why.  (And if you don't, that doesn't necessarily mean I didn't read, but just that I may have become overwhelmed in trying to comment on everything.)  I missssssss you guys, though.  I've felt very isolated lately, because obviously I haven't been really able to go out and do stuff with IRL friends, either.  Once a week I've been going out to eat with some friends from my writer's group, and that's kinda been my social lifeline.

(Sadly, one thing I've really, really missed is having the time to write fanfic.  I have all these stories in my head, but no time to write them down.  As soon as I'm past June 1, I'm definitely going to set aside a certain amount of time a week to write just for myself, just for fun, because whhaaaa.)

To add something of substance to this post: the first clip from the new season of Arrested Development!  I'm so excited I can hardly stand it.

Eep.

Feb. 9th, 2013 02:15 pm
kungfuwaynewho: (dwight sad)
Well, surgery ended costing about twice as much as I was expecting.  Goodbye supplemental income for the next three-four months.  Sorry, home improvements we were going to do this spring, guess it'll be summer instead.

I'm glad I spent so much money this morning going out and about.  Sigh.

On the bright side, instead of just saying I want to be a little more frugal, I'm going to actually have to be!
kungfuwaynewho: (brangelina premiere)

Surgery's all done with and everything went splendidly!

Even though I'm sure most of you have been through surgery, in-patient or out, or at least are relatively familiar with hospitals and how they work, I am going to type up my experiences yesterday ANYWAY, because I FEEL LIKE IT, so THERE.


The most exciting surgery story EVER. )


kungfuwaynewho: (cate nose)
We get quite a few elderly patrons at the library, who come on a very regular schedule.  I always enjoy talking to them.  One married couple came in, and the husband was paying his wife's fines (aw) while bitching good-naturedly at her about it (hee).  He handed me a $10 bill and said, "Hope this is okay."

"Well, of course it is," I answered, a bit confused.

"I mean, I hope it doesn't set off the alarms.  I made that."

I laughed.  "My grandpa does the same thing," I said.

"What?"

"Makes jokes like that.  When we go shopping, he's always pulling out money and saying, 'Here you go, fresh off the press this morning.'" 

The elderly man stares at me, and I'm wondering if I've misinterpreted something.  "Who's your grandpa?" he barks.  "What's his name?"

"Um.  George P----."

He slaps his hand down on the counter.  "WELL GODDAMN, I WENT TO SCHOOL WITH HIM.  QUINDARO ELEMENTARY, GEORGE AND FRANK AND EDDIE.  GODDAMN."  (Frank and Eddie are my Grandpa's brothers, older and younger respectively.)  And then he and his wife go on to talk to me for a solid five minutes about growing up, and losing touch with people they'd gone to school with when WWII started, and how is George by the way, and so on. 

And it was just so neat, that here once a week for two years I've been helping someone who went to elementary school with my Grandpa way back in the early 1930s. 

Of course, I told my Grandpa about it, and told him the guy's name, and he was like, "Hmm...  I guess that sounds familiar..."  And then he told me a story about the time he was throwing rocks at some kid after school and got paddled, lol.
kungfuwaynewho: (bicycle dad)


I finished about 8pm on the 30th.  What with NaNo, work, and a big freelance project I finished this past weekend, I ended up taking a bit of a computer sabbatical.  (I was starting to have back pain from sitting at a computer for pretty much the entire day for two weeks, heh.)  I'm not even at my act one break point from my outline, so I'm not really sure what the structure of this novel is going to end up being, but I'm just going to keep writing and see where I end up. 

Have started working on a new screenplay idea that I'm very excited about.  Doing some research first because it's a period piece, and I like to let the story itself percolate for a bit before I get started; let my subconscious mind do some of the heavy-lifting.  And then I have two screenplays from last year to revise, and maybe a new TV pilot, if I have the time.  (Hahahaha.) 

Anyway, my life is terribly boring right now.  What with work, second work, and writing, my fandom presence is basically nonexistent these days.  I'm not in any active landcomms anymore, and I haven't written fic in months.  Which means this online social sphere is essentially dead.  This is something I'm very sad about, to be honest, but there's not much to be done about it.  Sometimes I think I'd like to drop the second job, but the money is very useful, especially as it's becoming clear that we're probably going to need to buy a new washing machine.  (Sigh.)  Ah well.
kungfuwaynewho: (tng wesley angst)
I need to have a logline for the producer's book for AFF.  I FUCKING HATE WRITING LOGLINES.  I AM THE WORST AT WRITING LOGLINES.

What is a logline?  "A log line or logline is a brief summary of a television program or film, often providing both a synopsis of the program's plot, and an emotional "hook" to stimulate interest."  For most of the people who will see the book, they won't have read the script, so my logline is my one shot to get them interested in the script.

Here was my first attempt:

The people of the village have always lived in terror, cowering under the shadow of the mountain above them, and the dark Count who rules from the castle there – until the day a young woman decides that enough is enough, and journeys to the castle to end the terror for good.

And I thought that was really boring and sucked.  So I came up with:

An ancient evil lurks in the castle on the mountain.  The villagers cower in terror, but one young mother has had enough, and journeys to the castle to deal with the Count herself.

This felt better, but also...cornier? 

So please, please, help me.  Relevant info: it's a classic vampire movie, the protagonist is a woman, she is a BAMF who just like decides to tell the evil vampire guy "bro leave us alone for real" like to his face.  And it's more about atmospheric horror and unheimlich than it's about gore and such.

I need to turn it in by tomorrow afternoon at the latest; I'd rather have it decided tonight or tomorrow morning and have it over and done with.  So any feedback would be amazing and perfect and I would love you forever and maybe write you fic.  Please and thank you.  :DDDDD

XOXO

Sep. 5th, 2012 01:37 pm
kungfuwaynewho: (tng merry men)
I had to take a bit of an internet sabbatical the last few weeks, for reasons that are pretty boring so I won't elaborate on the details - suffice it to say, I've been busy.  I started checking my flist for the first time in forever and became promptly overwhelmed, so.  I think I'm going to catch up by user/comm rather than try to do everything at once.

Some of you may remember my vampire screenplay The House of Bathory from last year.  Good news!  It made it to the semifinals of Austin Film Festival in both the drama and sci-fi categories.  I was absolutely flabbergasted when I got the call.  That means I was in the top 20-25 in drama and the top 10-12 in sci-fi.  I'm pretty excited.  I am nursing absolutely zero expectations I'll make it to the finals, so I'm just very happy with how it turned out.  I had also been reading scripts as a first-round judge this year for AFF, so my conference and festival badge is free.  So I'll be going down to Austin in October, and I'm very much looking forward to it.  I'm taking on some extra proofing jobs to be able to afford going out to eat and such while I'm down there.  (Last time we ate a lot of stolen hotel breakfast foods for lunch and dinner, and cheap dollar menu fast food stuff.  Which is fine, but I'd like to occasionally travel like a real grown-up.)

So again, eighteen months after the fact, I want to thank all of you who read both drafts of that screenplay, who gave me advice and critiques and sometimes even told me what worked.  I know for a fact that screenplay would not have made it as far as it did without all of your help. ♥
kungfuwaynewho: (ad gob angry)
Dear parents who have chosen not to vaccinate your children:

Thank you. No, really. Thank you for choosing to believe one single study, that has since been discredited and its author stripped of his medical license, over every other medical professional's opinion. Thank you for watching a segment on the Today Show and basing your decisions on that eight-minute stretch. Thank you for reading Jenny McCarthy's book and thinking, "Yeah, she's onto something."

Thank you for dragging your sick children out into public, as well. That's a vital part of this whole equation.

Thank you for all of that, because I probably have whooping cough. WHOOPING COUGH. A disease that was practically non-existent in this country because enough people were vaccinated against it, keeping those who weren't (me, as a baby, because I had a horrific reaction to the shot) safe through herd immunity. Thank you for destroying the entire concept of herd immunity. Thank you for making idiotic decisions that not only threaten the life of your own children, but also the lives of all the people your children come into contact with.

XOXwlejiafo;eiji;eoa

Sorry.  Just had a coughing fit. At least this time I didn't run out of breath or start wheezing or get dizzy or vomit because of it.

Anyway, XOXO. Yeah.
kungfuwaynewho: (ad gob angry)
I was baking last night, I had nothing else for my brain to do, so I had some epic imaginary fights in my head.  To quote the sages at ONTD, I was spilling tea and throwing shade, and it was marvelous.  Sometimes in imaginary fights, the other person bests you at every turn and nothing goes right; last night did not go like that.  I was brilliant and perfect, my stingers perfectly timed, everything escalating into the absolute perfect hissy-fit you never manage to actually have.

Both imaginary fights involved the same person, which I'm assuming is a hint from my subconscious.  Whom in this instance I must picture as James Callis from Bridget Jones's Diary, standing at the side of a boxing match, holding onto the ropes, screaming, "Fight! Fight! Fight!"

I wish.  I really do wish.
kungfuwaynewho: (bsg baltar bored)
Whew, I made it through the month of May.  That was the fifth May since I started doing the annual screenplay contest/festival extravaganza, and I think it may have been the most work and the most stressful.  (The very first May, my last semester in grad school, may still take the cake, though, since I was doing all of that on top of my master's thesis.  That was right before most contests switched to online entries, and I will never forget finding out the post office closed at 4:30 instead of 5:00 like I thought, and having to literally sprint across campus to get my script postmarked on time.  And since it was May in Austin, it was totally like four thousand degrees that afternoon, too.)  I continued to do revisions after getting the thing done at the beginning of the month.  Then finally got my ass in gear to do the revisions on my TV pilot, which ended up entailing a lot more work and rewriting than I had originally guessed. 

So I finished all of that Tuesday the 29th.  The last major deadline was June the 1st.  Instead of just submitting and being done with it, I decided that since I had three days, that was totally enough time to bang out a Game of Thrones spec script.  (It wasn't.)  (I did it anyway.)  Then I got to work the kick-off summer reading weekend immediately following, and got a new project on my second job, and, and, and.  Well.  Let's just say that I'm still really fucking tired, pals. 

I'm finding myself still sort of not feeling the whole internet thing right now, though.  Not sure why.  I think some of it is that I've come to associate the internet with feelings of guilt over not writing and being productive; I'm sure that will sort itself out soon.

Um.  This post is really boring.  Have some icons!

Preview:
kungfuwaynewho: (dexter ghosts)
Busssssssy.  Continuing revision on the zombie screenplay, started revision on the TV pilot - I finished the rough draft on that months ago, but never went back to clean up/rewrite scenes from the first two acts that needed changing after I wrote the rest/etc.  Always do things when the ideas are fresh in your heads, kids!  I'm also pondering writing a Game of Thrones spec in the next week - TV specs always are much faster to hashout, so I think I can do it if I really sit down and write this weekend.  Last year, for instance, I wrote a Fringe spec over three days that turned out pretty good, I think.

But anyway, yeah.  Busy.  Haven't really checked my flist much lately, responded to comments as much as I would like, or done my usual internet things.  However, yesterday I found time to read a scary story over on reddit, and guys.  GUYS.  Like, I am an atheist and a skeptic and all that, but I scare myself so easily with paranormal stuff, it's dumb.  And I knew - I KNEW - while I was reading that I was going to have a fun night, and boy howdy.  This is the first chapter, and warning: there is some very graphic violence and imagery in the first two chapters (like, I read and write a lot of horror and I was taken aback), so if that's not your thing, then avoid.  But if you like scary stuff and creepypasta and the like, then I can't recommend this highly enough. 

'Cause last night?  I was rill scurred for rill.  You never hear more noises in your house than when it's late at night and you're staring bug-eyed into the dark, sheet up to your chin, trying to hear noises.  I eventually got up and turned my computer monitor back on at 3:30am after laying there forever just getting more and more freaked out.  UGH.  So I'm feeling okay now - sorta punchy - but I'm really going to feel it this afternoon, because I got like three hours of sleep.



AND I JUST OPENED UP A TAB TO KEEP READING THIS THING.  I AM THAT DUMB.   (It's so scarrrrrry though.)

(Someone else will end up reading it and be like, bzuh?  This isn't scary at all!)
kungfuwaynewho: (sttos number one)
Howdy, friends.  I'm currently trying to climb out of my Biannual Extreme Aversion to Social Media Curation and Doing Things on the Internet That Are Not Dumb Games.  I'm never really sure why this happens, but the last couple days even the thought of getting on and checking my flist has left me feeling vaguely panicked.  (I think some of it is this one landcomm I'm in, my flist is absolutely flooded with posts to the social comm, and wading through it has become a nightmare.  I'm probably going to bow out of the comm, and that's about 80% of the reason.)

Took a week off from writing, but am planning on both revising my post-apocalypse TV pilot, which will involve rewriting huge chunks of the first half, and doing a revision on the recently-completed zombie screenplay.  If anyone would like to take a look at the zombie screenplay - not as an in-depth beta, just as a quick "does this read through okay to you?" thing - then let me know.  I feel sort of stuck in my own head about it.

And hopefully will get back to work on the novel soon.  I wish I could write for a full-time job.  Why don't we have patrons anymore?

Between work, writing, Avengers, Game of Thrones, and Community, I find I have very little else going on in my life.  Heh. 
kungfuwaynewho: (fine eyes)
Good morning, flist!  Getting ready to leave for work, having just had a delightful breakfast of crumpets and strawberry jam.  I wrote three pages yesterday, bringing me up to a total of 17/58 - so we're looking at around forty pages left.  I would like to knock off half of that at the very least over the next three days, but this weekend's pretty super busy - we're having an open house on Sunday, so tomorrow's going to be...

Delightful!  I'm going to go with delightful.  I will make it delightful.

Fridays are generally a quiet day at work, so I'm hoping to be très productive.  I hope everyone else has a great day!

kungfuwaynewho: (ad gob angry)
Today was pretty much the epitome of them, so I won't bore anyone with the details.  I've spent a lot of time musing on the difficulties of communicating in a 100% text environment, along with the conflicting urges of "apologize again to make things better" and "yell back even louder to be the one who wins."  Will likely just leave it at a stalemate.

LIMS motto: Make the exact same icon as everyone else, and you will succeed.  (Yes, being voted out this early did hurt my feelings for real, and yes, I am bitter about it.)

Also, re: writing 10 pages a day for a solid week?  So far we're at 4 pages over 2 days, so suffice it to say that's probably not going to happen, hee.  It didn't help that I struggled for a solid hour on how to write a single scene and came up with the brilliant solution of "that scene sucks just don't write it." 

Of course, it doesn't help that after working an eight-hour day, I come home to work some more.  Being able to work at home and in my jammies notwithstanding, a second job is still a second job.  I definitely need the money, but boo, today is not the day.

To end on a less woe-emo note, Fiona Apple is playing in Kansas City, MO on July, 17.  My sister has already said she won't go with me, so now I'm trying to find someone else to go.  But if I don't?  Gonna see her by myself, because Fiona is queen.  I'm already pre-excited about the concert. 

Also, I got three compliments on my nails today and one on my hair, so that made me feel marginally better. :)

Now to eat some Easter candy while I make dinner, eat my dinner while I do twenty minutes of internet things, then back to work.
kungfuwaynewho: (ad gob angry)
Does anyone know of a good place to buy bedding that ISN'T comforters?  I don't like big comforters - they're too hot in the summer, and I have an electric blanket so I don't want one in the winter.  I just want something light and pretty to cover my bed with, but I'm having the damnedest time finding anything that isn't Floral Granny Country Barn Chic Quilt Time.

Also why are bed skirts so frakking expensive.  I mean really.

And curtains.  Forty dollars for a single panel?  Come on.
kungfuwaynewho: (black books)
My reaction to Missouri and Duke both losing in the first round:



My reaction to hearing that my queen Fiona is releasing a new album this summer:



My reaction to my alarm going off this morning:

kungfuwaynewho: (ready set van gogh)
Busy, busy, busy. 
Boring blah-blah about working on the house. )

Exactly a week ago I decided to post the prologue of my novel.  My February writing progress was sad - nothing on either script, maybe 500 words on the novel.  Sharing and getting even a single line of feedback is often a great jump-start for me when I find myself stalled.  So I decided to read over it, just for a quick polish - I generally reread any time I share something, even if I've gone over it a thousand times before.  A week later, and I still haven't even read to the end of the prologue, because I keep writing new things, which means I have to change other things, et cetera and so forth, y'all know how the writing process goes.  But soon, mayhap!  Soon.
kungfuwaynewho: (squee)
I survived today!  Today is over!  And I am alive!

So, let me catch you up.  I haven't posted about this particular RL thing much because I didn't want to jinx myself and also because it wasn't that interesting, I think?  But anyway - today my sister and I closed on our new house!  We are now first-time home owners, and it is very exciting.  Now, we won't be moving in for a bit yet - we need to paint, pull up carpets, buy, like, new beds and stuff - but still.  The awful icky part is over.  We also got all of our stuff out of our storage unit and just piled it in the basement to be taken care of later.  I didn't want to pay for another month of storage, and I also just plain hate having my stuff in storage in general.  I always worry about it. 

BUT IT'S DONE.  IT'S FINISHED. 

Seriously, my stress and anxiety level the last, hmm, three months or so as we've been going through this home-buying journey have just been absurd.  The other day I couldn't find my lunch in the freezer here at home and I had to go lay down in my bedroom and have an ugly-cry.

Now the fun part starts.  Of course, I really need to start finding time to work on screenplays.  I'm not going to have anything new to submit to competitions and festivals this year besides the TV pilot if I don't get my ass into gear.

April 2020

S M T W T F S
   12 34
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
2627282930  

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated May. 29th, 2025 12:15 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios