this machine will not communicate

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. ♥

ALL IN CAPS BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE THAT'S HOW I'M LIVING MY LIFE THESE DAYS.  FINISHED MY FRINGE SPEC.  NEED TO BILL AND TED SOME STUFF INTO THE FIRST ACT AND EDIT AND POLISH, BUT IT'S DONE.  WILL SUBMIT EVERYTHING TO AUSTIN FILM FESTIVAL TOMORROW AT THE LATEST AND THEN I WILL BE DONE.

DONE WITH WRITING.  (SCREENWRITING, I SHOULD SAY.)  AT LEAST FOR A LITTLE WHILE.

JSYK, I HAVE NO MORE BRAINS.

EXT. CASTLE - NIGHT
( Pages 96-105 )

A big chunk of pages - I've been struggling with sequence and pacing here.  I'm also running a little longer than I would have liked, though not as bad as I feared.  I'm shooting for 100-110 pages for total length, and I still might just squeak by.  I'll need to do more edits/polishing anyway, though.  Forgive what are no doubt many typos; I caught two while formatting here and surely missed others.

( Pages 72-84 )

First of all, thank you to everyone who pitched in on the title post.  It was just as helpful to see what people didn't respond to as it was to read through everyone's suggestions.  Right now I'm leaning towards "The House of Bathory" (what up, nhpw), but I'm not going to settle on anything definitively just yet.

Took a couple days off the computer, which was good.  Finished a book, watched some Farscape, started on a movie, and wrote some.  Didn't write as much as I wanted, being as how it's the weekend which is my prime writing time, but I was having a hard time focusing on the script for some reason.  I'd be in the middle of a sentence - not a scene, or a beat, but a sentence - and just kinda stare out into space for awhile.  But it's still coming along nicely, and I'm reaching the point where I'll be using more and more scenes from the first draft as opposed to writing them out from scratch.  So that's good.

So sleepy typing these pages up.  Likely many errors.  Please point them out if you see any.

( Pages 17-25 )

Working title for now; obviously the title of one of the most influential and classic vampire movies, but I have to call it something until I can come up with something better.  Suggestions welcome!

Today was a glorious, productive day.  Woke up and it was gorgeous outside, decided to pack a picnic lunch and write at the park.  As so often happens, once I arrived at the park it was twenty degrees colder and super windy, so I ended up eating my lunch huddled over with my jacket all zipped up, then just walked for awhile.  Went up to Starbucks to write, everything was flowing nicely, and they were giving away free pastries!  Came home, wrote some more, cleaned house, KU won the Big 12 tournament, watched last night's Fringe.  Awesome Saturday, just awesome.

( Pages 1-8 )