HAPPY Nigh-HALLOWEEN!!!

It's All Hallow's Eve EVE now! I'm workin' Halloween, so I won't be enjoying it in any wild-n-crazy way, but a bad Halloween is still better than just about any other day of the year! :D

If you're like me and you don't have any super-groovy plans, please allow me to suggest some free entertainment options:

First off, you can't go wrong with some Homestar Runner on All Hallow's Eve!!! If you've tuned into www.homestarrunner.com during Halloweens past you know what I mean. But if not, you simply MUST check it out! Scroll down (within the "Holiday" sections of "Toons") to the very, very bottom and start with "Homestarloween Party" (2002) and then keep going up to the present. (Not certain exactly when the Brothers Chaps post the new episode, so no idea excatly when this year's episode will pop up.)

Next: HULU!!! They have a pretty decent "Huluween" section that includes whole, unedited editions of classics like Atomic Age Vampire and Night of the Living Dead to contemporary entries such as Underworld: Evolution and 28 Days Later to some classics from my youth like The Island of Dr. Moreau (when I was WAY-young) and John Carpenter's The Thing. I almost wish I had absolutely NOTHING to do Halloween night just so I could get bored wnough to watch Hulu.com all night, lol. (That's one part of my personality. Another part of me would rather be at a Halloween party with dear friends, and still another would prefer to be wandering haunted cemeteries with a camera and digital recorder, hee-hee.)

AND... It being Halloween and all, don't forget that Hulu hosts new episodes of Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters International! (That's only 4 eps per show, but that's just under 8 hours of ghost-huntin' GOODNESS!) Which is a useful segue way to my next free Halloween celebration suggestion...

I've just recently discovered Beyond Reality Radio, which is the 3-hour talk radio show about the paranormal hosted by Jason hawes and Grant Wilson, and it's A BLAST to listen to!!! Seriously genius! The above link takes you to their show archives on Planet Paranormal. I dropped 11 episodes into my iPod and am close to halfway through the 9th episode, lol.

But I can't represent the mighty Ghost Hunters (as brilliant and funny as they are) without reminding everyone about my first paranormal love: SPOOKY SOUTHCOAST!!! :D That's a 2-hour radio show that focuses on the paranormal, located in a virtual Hellmouth of every kind of activity imaginable! Plus, the guys -- Tim Weisberg, Matt Costa and Science Advisor Matt Moniz -- are just a blast to listen to! Not to sound gay, but this show sort of broke my paranormal cherry. I've been into the paranormal since I was, like, 10 years old but this show got me reading books again and looking into this current paranormal boom. ACTUALLY... if I'm honest... The reason I finally broke down and checked out GH and GHI is because Spooky Southcoast kept having TAPS members on their show!

And if we're talking podcasts, I can't overlook Paranormal Podcast, which has been producing a ton of eps this month, since it is Halloween month. These episodes are more sort of "bites-sized" in that last around 45 minutes per ep. But with so many episodes out this month alone, and the mind-boggling variety of topics covered promise hours and hours and hours of listening nirvana! :) And if you're not already a Paranormal Podcast listener, then you've got years' worth of episodes to enjoy!

So these are a few inexpernsive suggestions, should you lack stuff to do tomorrow night, there ya go. :)

Of course, if I could enjoy this Halloween in any manner possible, I wish I could you a Halloween party with my Gnomey-Goddess (who would, in my imagination, be dressed in some super-sexy Naughty Nurse costume or Tempting Vampiress or some such)!!! xoxoxo :D

Whatever you do, though, I hope you have a BLAST this Halloween!!! (Have extra fun for me, okay?)

:D

NEW MOON by Stephenie Meyer

Okay, I am SO hooked on the Twilight Saga now!!!

I finished the first book, Twilight and I was so enchanted I had to watch the trailer for the movie (Tish told me there is a movie coming out) just to see if it looked like it would do the source material justice.

IT LOOKS GOOD!!!

So then I launched into the second novel in the series, New Moon...

...and I was less enchanted by that! :(

It starts off fine, but then plunges you into this place you SO don't want to go!

Except...

Okay, I'm not reading the text of the Twilight Saga... I, um... found a way to score the entire series (including Meyer's "adult horror" novel The Host) for free in audiobook form.

Here's my thing: I didn't know if I would enjoy the series, but I definitely wanted to give it a shot, because I dig exploring things Tish is into. And the easiest way to enjoy a novel, for me, is audiobook. You can listen while you're driving, playing videogames, even working! Sometimes you miss a few details, but you get the entire experience: It's like speed reading. (I'm a VERY slow and thorough reader, but I actually do know how to speed read... I just never do it, lol.)

But when you get something super-cool for free, you sometimes get what you pay for. (What I mean by "sometimes" is that, to date, I usually get a great deal MORE than I pay for. But sometimes the quality of the product reflects the fact that you got it free.) (Btw, I didn't steal the audiobooks, just in case my vagueness leads you to wonder, lol. I'm not that guy!) (P.P.S. The Internet is our friend, and it truly, really loves us! *wink, wink*)

This dictum ("you get what you pay for") proved true while listening to Twilight in that the chapters sometimes clipped. The end of one chapter would be missing, as well as the very beginning of another. But the phenomenon was tolerable because I still got the whole story... I just got jerked out of the moment for a sentence or two, then slid right back into the riveting narrative.

New Moon, however, suffers from a more significant problem: Some of the chapters are well out of order, lol!

So I begin New Moon and it's cool because it returns me to the world I've grown to love.

THEN...

Nothing significant happens, but the world I love is shattered into a bazillion pieces and Bella Swan is miserable! (And, therefor, I am miserable!) And there's no acceptable reason why!

The reason is that 2 whole chapters have been skipped, and I just knew that X happened without any real explanation, other than "this is what the author made to happen."

So I drop the book for a day and enjoy a few chapters of Ghosts of Austin, Texas: Who They Are And Where To Find Them -- more research for my screenplay.

And this turns out to be a positive thing for me, because last night was a relaxed night, and I ended up writing several pages on the screnplay because of the free time! :D

But tonight was ALL WORK.

And I am dead-set on experiencing everything Ms. Meyer has written so far, if only to have some fodder for conversation with my Tisha! So I returned to New Moon as I worked.

AND I FELL BACK IN LOVE WITH THE WORLD! :)

I won't go into any specifics, as I have no desire to spoil the experience should you happen to get curious and read the saga yourself. But things progressed and got more interesting, and then...

...the chapters jumped back to the missing 2 chapters from the beginning of the book!

And Stephenie Meyer set everything up, and let everything play out, in such a way that even though you HATE where the story is going, you're still hypnotized by the journey!

What happens at the first of the second book -- the thing you NEVER would believe COULD happen by the end of the first book -- is no longer a function of a sadistic author, but a necessary step in an obviously well-thought-out progression of life events that will evolve Bella into a well-rounded and powerful woman (eventually).

I was in the hands of a master storyteller, but for a day and a half I didn't realize it!

This experience in disjointed narrative has convinced me that Stephenie Meyer is a writer that I can trust! I CAN NOT WAIT to experience the whole of the Twilight Saga!!! Not just the novels written, but the novels to come! And I'm excited to watch the sage unfold on the Big Screen, as the screenwriter and director seem to really have a strong hold on what made the novel such an amazing experience! :D I think the best comparison (this is before the movie has been released, please note) would probably be the translation of the Harry Potter novels to the Big Screen! I honestly believe it may be that kind of experience for fan-boys/fan-girls!

So now I'm on Track 20 of 60, and I'm loving the ride, even though I've leaped backward in story-time once again to fill in some gaps that -- at this point -- I hadn't really missed, lol! But discovering what lead from X to Y is just as entrancing as the events of Y, if not more so! ;P

Um...

It occurs to me that this might all sound like drivel.

If so, I can clear it up thusly: Go buy Twilight and read it. Then buy the rest of the series -- New Moon, Elcipse, Breaking Dawn (because once you've read the first you'll want to read them all) -- and READ THEM!!! :D

Don't simply wait for the movie to come out, GO READ!

If you're a romantic and you have a dark side, you will SO enjoy this journey!!! :D

Or, let me rephrase that: If you've ever experienced what you believe is True Love, experienced what felt like true loss, and you also enjoy more mythic, Gothic stories, you WILL ENJOY THIS JOURNEY! :D

Now, back to the book for me. :)

I LOVE YOU, MY GNOMEY-GODDESS!!! :D xoxoxo

More Marathons...

Heyya!

In case you're curious, my daughter text-ed me about a series called the Twilight Saga by author Stephenie Meyer. She called it a Forbidden Romance series with vampires and werewolves.

Sounds cool!

So I spent much of this morning/today listening to the first 14 chapters of the audiobook version of the first novel: Twilight. I'm diggin' it! :) (Btw: The links I provide contain SPOILERS, so if you click on them, be careful not to ruin anything for yourself.)

And Brian's off tomorrow, so when I woke up we jumped into a marathon of a show My Genius Friend Dave recommended, Torchwood -- a spin-off series from Dr. Who -- and then we wrapped up Season 1 of House.

VERY COOL VIEWING!!! :D

If you want to watch Torchwood for yourself, follow the above link and find the "Videos" button. That's the only online way I know to watch it right now.

If you want a House fix, I don't know of a way to view it online for free, but you can watch the 4 most recent episodes at Hulu.com.

Also, before I started on Twilight last night/this morning I watched Episode 3 of Fringe -- J. J. Abram's latest masterpiece! :)

Finally. I, very irresponsibly, haven't written a single word on my script, lol. But watching shows like Fringe, House and Torchwood do have the benefit of making me think about writing, as they're all written so brilliantly! (That may sound like a cop-out, but it actually is true.)

After hours and hours of being entertained, however, I needed a break. I needed some Quiet Time to let my mind settle a bit.

No idea what I'm gonna do after I post this.

It's late/early enough that I could go to bed, but I'm not really sleepy. I've got some 3-5 episodes of Season 2 of Monk to finish watching. I'm also excited to finish Twilight -- and the other 4 Stephenie Meyer books, for that matter -- as well.

Then, also, my Hulu queue is backed-up and I should probably watch some of those shows, too.

I truly have an embarassment of riches in the Entertinment department. Too bad I don't have, like, another 2 weeks off to enjoy them all, lol.

Still... If I have to have a problem, this isn't a bad problem to have! ;P

Here's hoping YOUR life gives you more fun than you know what to do with!!!

:D

W&R...

I'm in Writing and Research mode right now.

I'm not blogging much because I'm working on a screenplay, and my free time is spent mostly writing and reading and watching TV shows and movies.

Not a bad fuckin' life, I must admit, lol! :P

In fact, it's pretty much the life I imagined having when I was a teen! Except, in my fantasies I was also married to a super model and had millions of dollars in the bank.

BUT...

My Gnomey Goddess is DEFINITELY super-model HOT... I just need to work on that bank account thang, lol. ;)

Btw, my poor Sweety...! In addition to her normal family drama, she's had to endure some torture from the dentist's office! Disregard the 30-year-old stereotypes about Brits and their dental hygiene: They have dentists, too, and their dentists are -- apparently -- just as masochistic as ours. :( She called me a couple of days ago and related her rather harrowing dealings with this misanthrope, lol. (I jest: I'm sure he's a lovely man, but he made my baby hurt, so I have a grudge against him!)

Usually in my blog entries I say "I''ve been up to more of the same" and leave it at that, but I realized that that really doesn't accurately cover it. spend many, MANY hours on the Net, and I could so easily relate what I've been up to by sharing the links with you!

So here's the past couple of days:

I'm researching the paranormal for my current movie, so I'm watching episodes of Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters International at Hulu.com. And naturally, I've been listening to Spooky Southcoast and also Oprah's Spirit Chanel and Jim Harold's Paranormal Podcast and Tim Sheet's The Nightwatch Show. I've learned that the TAPS members have a radio show calle Beyond Reality and I hope to listen to some Beyond Reality soon.

This is just a cross-section of what I've been doing, and when I have more time I may relate in a more entertaining fashion. ;P

PEACE!!!

LOVE TO MY GNOMEY-GODDESS!!! :D

I DID IT!!! I BROKE MY MOVIE'S SPINE!!! :D

I just experienced, like, a half-hour long writer's orgasm! Like, a story-gasam!

A STORGASM!!! :D

Here's why:

Writing (fiction) is about story and character. You could say Story, Character and World, because I believe that a strong factor in why we watch movies and TV shows over and over again is because we enjoy hanging out in that fictitious world that the storyteller has created. Take Seasons 5 and 6 of Buffy for example: Those weren't the best stories that they told then, but we still liked hanging with the Scooby Gang.

But the world doesn't exist without the characters there. Imagine 2-minute shots of the empty halls of Sunnydale High or the quad, or empty shots of the Bronze. After about 35 seconds you'll want someone -- anyone, at that point -- to step into frame (character) and do anything (story).

So for practical purposes, I consider the world part of the characters, because it really reflects upon and is reflected by the characters that live there.

Blah.

So, when you're a novelist you can just set some characters loose in a world and sort of see what they do. I've read some MAGNIFICENT novels where there was very, very little story. But I didn't care! I really enjoyed the characters (and world) and the ideas the writer wanted to get off his/her chest through these characters.

However, in screenwriting -- where structure is god -- the writer falls into the opposite trap. Characters and their world sort of feel stiff and fake, and you really don't care about what happens to these people; you're just waiting to see if the way the movie ends justifies the time you're spending watching this piece of... um, celluloid.

This is the problem I have often suffered from in my writing. The screenplays I've been working on all summer feel like a bunch of "...and then this happened and then this happened and then..." with no real character, nothing that REALLY made you particularly concerned about what happened next.

(I may exaggerate... I'm a bit harsh on my own work, I've been told...)

But a week or two ago this miraculous thing happened...

Three ideas for scripts that I felt really had something fused together to create... something NEW! Two of these ideas, I felt, were my "winning lottery ticket", only when I went to write them they... somehow didn't live up to expectations...

BUT THEN...

For the last week or 2 I've been running around in this rich, textured world, getting to know these people who do interesting things for interesting reasons! They were excellent tour guides, and I've been really enjoying getting to know them and their world!!!

However...

Like getting drunk at a party on Christmas Eve, I had this nagging feeling in the back of my head that there was something else I really should be taking into consideration.

That something else was story. Plot. Screenplay structure.

You can't really structure a screenplay until you know the entire story. I know others will enjoy hanging out with these folks as much as I do, but I have to give people a reason to come in and meet these characters in the first place!

Imagine a friend telling you she has this friend who is just so funny and you have to meet her! You go, "Cool. I can't wait!"

But then nothing happens.

However, if she tells you she and her friend are going out to dinner Wednesday night, do you want to come? then you go, "Yeah! Love to!"

So the story is the reason to hang with these characters, and I would poke around and try to figure out what that story could be (this should be a ridiculously easy process, easier than most writers would lead you to believe -- particularly considering that it's one of my most-developed skills as a screenwriter) but I kept drawing up a blank!

Coming off a weekend (Sun-Tues) without any real advance in cracking this figurative egg, I was determined that I would find this bugger Wednesday, when my "work day" had hours that I could spend pondering the problem.

But nothing.

Thursday rolls around... This is a bugger of a day in the best of circumstances, and this Thursday was actually quite do-able... up until the time my shift was supposed to be over and I discovered there was an issue about my replacement's schedule: I didn't have a scheduled replacement.

Still, I get off work a mere hour late (I though it might be as much as 4 hours late!) and get home, go right to sleep... but that's not unusual after a Thursday shift.

Friday I go to work, and I really hope I'll figure this out. I've had some interesting story ideas on the way to work, and I get a few interesting ideas over the course of my shift...

However...

Now, realize that in my mind, being able to write this screenplay soon means that I'll be able to rewrite it before long. After a rewrite or 2 (or 3 or 7) it will be in shape to send off to Hollywood, where someone will pay me money for it. When paid that money, I won't merely get out of debt and be able to breath a sigh of relief in a time when the American economy is circling the drain, I will then be able to be with the love of my life, and provide for her, and raise babies with her!!! (No pressure there, lol.)

So every once in a while I get these teentsy, tiny little anxiety pangs when I realize that I can't start the real work on my script just yet. Now, I'm largely Buddhist in my philosophy, so when I get those pangs I go to my breath and look around at the life surrounding me and remember to live in this moment, rather than get lost in "what could be", and lose my mind in the ruin that my life could possibly become.

But still...

I would really like to get started, in earnest, on this screenplay as soon as humanly possible.

So tonight (last night, really, Saturday night) I have the lightest shift of my work week. Plenty of time to figure out this Story-thang...

So I set about the problem.

I work it this way, I work it that way... to no avail. I mean, at some points I'm actually talking to my characters out loud (during smoke breaks, when I was alone, and also I was more whispering just in case someone was around that I didn't know about) and my characters really don't know what their story is. THEY'RE CHARACTERS. They can't see the Big Picture. That's God's territory.

As Saturday night wears into Sunday morning, and my shift wears closer and closer to being over -- when I'll begin my weekend and have 3 days to write... IF I have something to write -- I even email a collaborator of mine (on whom one of the characters is loosely based) begging for help.

But here's my experience with collaborators:

They DO NOT give you what you need.

That's no poor reflection on them. It's just that the folks in my life (a) aren't writers, or if they are (b) they write different genres than I do. My buddy Kelly, for instance, is an amazing writer/director, but he's more Drama-oriented. He can give me an idea, but it won't really fit easily into a Horror/Action type of movie.

So I reminded myself that this writing thing is probably one of the aspects of my life that (at least, judging by past experience) is something I have to do alone.

Which means, though, that I already have been given, or have already earned whatever tools I need to solve the problem. (Everything is "spiritual practice" with me; that's just how I experience this life.)

So I look at the problem:

If this is the problem, then this character walks in and fuckin' solves it. No muss, no fuss.

No frickin' STORY, either!!!

Robert McKee very astutely defines Story as the gap between what a character expects to have happen as a result of an action he takes, and the world not responding the way he expects it to.

I think, "I haven't talked to my friend Aaron in a long time, but I don't have his number. I'll just call Tommy at work and get it from him." So I call Tommy, but unbeknownst to me Tommy has just been bawled-out by his boss for not fixing a mistake that Tommy didn't even make or know about, and now Tommy is struggling to fix this problem before he can even get on with his already problem-laiden day! So I call and I'm all, "Hey, Tom-bo, how's it hangi--" but then Tommy explodes at me about interrupting his work day, and not everyone works overnight and he doesn't call me when he knows I'm at work so why am I being such a selfish bitch and calling him when I know he's going to be busy?!!

Now a gap has opened up between what I hope to accomplish and actually accomplishing it.

(By the way, my friend Tommy REALLY IS that mean! He beats me often! And forces me to call him "Lord Tight-buns" as I cry like a little girl and beg him to let me get back to my meditating. It's pretty messy.)

So if I've got a problem that a character can solve easily, THERE IS NO STORY.

BUT THEN IT HIT ME...!!!

Reverse Engineering!

That's part of the beauty of being God: Time has no meaning!

There is always a temptation for the writer to take a situation and move forward through Time/Space with it and see how it plays out. I mean, that's how Life works, right?!

But when you pray for something, for instance, there are a lot of variables that have to fall into place at the exact right time for that to happen; folks have Free Will and stuff, and we're always making erratic decisions at weird times; so for an event to occur by divine intervention, we have to believe that God can move backward and forward through Time/Space AFTER we pray to make all the puzzle pieces fall into place in time for us to go "Wow! Thanks for making that happen, God!"

And the writer, being the Story-God, has that power!!!

(This all didn't really go through my head at the moment; I'm just adding this as a bit of a dramatic flourish.)

So I realize that if a character can solve the problem that easily, there might be something that happens to PREVENT the character from understanding the TRUE NATURE of the problem!!! :D

It's like the Logical Hemisphere of my brain (be that Left or Right, I really can't remember)
took the problem and said "Well here's what your problem really is. What you need is this." And my Creative Hemisphere goes "Oh, that's EASY! You just need this!" And then my Logical Hemisphere goes "Hey, that's a story beat you got there, let me write that down!" And then my Creative Hemisphere goes "And if that happens, then this would happen right after that." And my Logical Hemisphere goes, " Hey! That's ANOTHER story beat! I'll just... No wait! That's TWO story beats! I'll just write those down..." And as that's going on, my Creative Hemisphere is going, "And then THIS would happen, and then this, and then this..." and my Logical Hemisphere is typing as fast as it can, catching and categorizing all this story until...

I DID IT!!! :D

I fuckin' broke the spine of this screenplay!!! :D

Btw, "spine" is also called, in screenwriting jargon, the "throughline" which is the single line of story that runs through a movie like a roller-coaster rail: Stay on-track and the audience gets one hell of a ride; go off the track and everyone's fucked. (Including the track designer.)

So why does this excite me so much I feel the need to blog about it?

Because having an interesting world filled with interesting characters doesn't allow me to write pages. If I were a novelist, I could do that. But for a screenwriter, I need that throughline, that spine, before I can figure out what goes on Page 1. (In a screenplay, you actually have to grab the reader with the first line, then peak their interest AGAIN before they turn the first page!!! It's not dissimilar to being a songwriter in some ways.) Then I need to be able to structure the most interesting points of the story along a page-by-page layout to ensure that a Reader (a studio executive, development executive, producer, director, actor, anyone in the industry) feels fulfilled by the experience of reading my screenplay and wants to pay me money to shoot it.

Also, as I sort of stated above, I've had a few ideas that I knew had the characters/worlds that people would pay to see. And I've written some screenplays that I knew would keep the pages turning in an excited, breathless pace.

Now, however... with THIS movie...

I believe I have the balance RIGHT. :)

And that is one storgasmic feeling, my friend!!! :D

WOO-HOO!!!

I'm blogging from home! :D

You know what's cool about having the Internet at home?

WIKIPEDIA!

In the last email my Gnomey Goddess sent she said that she was on her way to the Granadas -- or so I thought -- and I was able to look it up, see that it was in South America, then reread her email and see that she was actually on her way to her granddad's, lol. ;P

Still...

It's really cool to have that power again. :)

It Is BEGUN!!! :D

The second series of Dirk Gently on BBC Radio 4, The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul, began Thursday!!!

I have been waiting for this... well... FOR A YEAR now! And I'm SO VERY EXCITED! The first episode shows a great deal of promise! It appears that Dirk Maggs has made some bold choices with this series, including linking it to the Hitchhiker's Guide universe! I can't wait to see how Tea-time unfolds, and then, of course, what Maggs does with The Salmon of Doubt.

This is a good time to be a Douglas Adams fan! :)

I am writing this on Friday, October 3rd, 2008. If you're reading it before Thursday, October 9th, 2008 you should be able to listen to the first episode on the BBC Radio 4 Dirk Gently site. Look for the "Listen Again" button.

I also found a new paranormal podcast. It's called NightWatch and it's hosted by this super-cool guy named Todd Sheets. I believe it's a radio show that podcasts its episodes after they've aired. I haven't really done any research on it because I've just been listening to the episodes themselves, lol.

I got turned on to Todd Sheets because he was on a really, really early episode of Spooky Southcoast, and he just seemed way-cool, so I checked it out.

Speaking of Spooky Southcoast... :( I've been listening to some of their first episodes because they haven't given us anything new in a long time. (...grumble grumble...) I don't know if they've been on-air each week and simply failed to post the shows or if they haven't been on-air. (I still don't have Net access at mi casa, so I have to go to the actual websites and get the episodes off there, and the newest episode offered on their site is from August 2nd.)

But the good news is that SSc eps easily bear repeat listening, and even the earliest eps are really, really great! (There was a brief period when the show first started that Matt Moniz wasn't a part of the show! Who knew!)

(Oh, and if you're like me and jonesing for some SSc, track down the "Off the Air" episode! August 19, 2006! You'll thank me later. It's Tim and the Matts just hanging out! VERY cool!!! It's really groovy to get to hear them with their hair down, so to speak.)

Thanks to My Genius Friend Dave, Brian & I have seen the 1st season of Monk and are about to watch Season 2!!! VERY cool! I had seen a single episode (one from Season 4, I believe) and liked it, but watching it from the start is just straight-up genius! That is a great show!

I also hope to catch up on Ghost Whisperer via Netflix. I love Medium and I've had a crush on Jennifer Love Hewit since Trojan War (or maybe it was the first I Know What You Did Last Summer; I can't remember which I saw first), so I'm thinking there's no way I can hate Ghost Whisperer. (With the title, though, I'm guessiing the writing's not going to be quite up to the high quality of Medium, so my expectations should be realistic enough to enjoy the show.)

Okay, I need to get back to work, so peace out! :D

LOVE TO THE GNOMESTRESS!!! xoxoxo