So it's a new year.  I haven't blogged, but I have been writing.  Started work on a new script.  Well, more like collecting ideas for a new script and trying to find the story between the vignettes.

The holidays are such great fodder for funny human interaction. 

I'm hoping to work on a film with my friend in the Spring.  I'm hoping to convince her to let me be the script girl.  

The travel blog returns!

The adventure to my brother's wedding begins.

Due to work, I was unable to leave with the rest of the family, so I am trailing behind by a couple of days.

I am currently sitting in an wifi station at Amsterdam airport.  I've been trying to install some software so that I can continue working on the trip.

The Amsterdam airport is HUGE and the dutyfree stores are at least as huge as any department store.

The flight from Seattle was long. I left at 1:15 p.m. and it was a 9 hour and 20 minute flight.  The good news is that it was an Airbus A300, which is bigger then the DC10, I think. But if nothing else, it was much plusher! There were individual entertainment centers for every seat with on demand music, games and movies. I was able to watch "Hitch", "The Wedding Date" and "Assult on Preceinct 19".  I've been meaning to watch the first two for a while.  From the loglines and tag lines, they sounded very close to script I was writing, but of course in reality they were very different.

I enjoyed Hitch, Wedding Date -- not so much. I thought the lead guy was really awful. Very wooden and unappealing. Well at least to me.

My flight to Dehli leaves in an hour. I hope I get this thing installed by then. It's taking forever!

Guess the bandwidth isn't as big as at work ;-)

So hopefully the next time you hear from me it will be in Delhi.

I am not completely missing the movie making loop.  I spend a lovely sunny Saturday waiting around to be an extra in a very small, very independent film called "The Gamers: Dorkness Rising."  A sequel to "The Gamers," which from what I understand was something of an underground hit at Gaming conventions.
Anyway, my friends and I were extras. The spouse was a woodsmen and the spawn was a villiage child. He got to do a prat fall and was quite realistic if you ask me.  Me? I was a "villiage" woman.  We stood around in a little gaggle and traded Latke recipes.
It was fun and enlightening, but very boring to stand around and wait.  Spouse got called back to be a zombie-ninja and do a little stunt fighting.  Very cool, very boring. over 12 hours on set and waiting waiting waiting.
In other news, lots of cool things to do in Amsterdam. (No, I do not intend to visit the red-light district nor the "smoke" shops.) Museums, gardens, fleamarkets, concerts...
But three weeks of frantic work until then.

I'm getting ready to go on a 3-week trip to India, Haifa, and Amsterdam. So since I am working on new ideas for scripts, I thought I'd keep you up to date on my travel plans.

Why such an odd itinerary you might ask? Ah. My brother is marrying a lovely woman from India, so there we go.

So India is pretty much taken care of. We go and be part of the wedding party. Of course, we'll take some to do tourist stuff. We will visit the Baha'i Temple in Delhi with it's gardens, Agra to see the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort, and a few other sites.  Then we're on to Haifa to visit the Baha'i World Center, then on to Amsterdam.  We didn't really choose Amsterdam except it was the layover, so we thought we'd stay a few days.  See the Van Gogh museum, a few of the Folk Museums, the Anne Frank haus, etc.

Then home again, home again, jiggy jig.

Long flights though.

So. I've been working on a script for about a year now and just found out that a movie, with my title and my idea is being made.  Not that I have any illusions that it was stolen, but it was timely and pretty straightforward an idea.

Coming Soon News
Rob McKittrick will direct The Wingman for New Line Cinema.

Written by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, the romantic comedy centers on a man who, as a "wingman," is uncannily gifted at helping his friends pick up women. When he finally falls in love, it's with the one woman who can resist his powers.

Sigh... So the lesson is DO NOT PROCRASTINATE. 

It looks like tblog has solved the archive problem. My links are back!

Here is your horoscope
for Tuesday, January 18:

It's good to have others in your life. Maybe you're embarrassed at how much you rely on them, but facing things alone would be much worse. Move toward independence with permanent solutions to recurring problems.
----

So true. I get complacent and used to others taking care of me. Then all hell breaks loose.  So, it's time for another reset.  Things have spiraled out of control, but we haven't hit the ground yet.

Too many other projects. Need to reprioritize.

So, there are two movies out that are precariously close to my script: "Hitch" and "Wedding Date."  Hitch has the same theme, only it's more about the suave man failing and more slapstick.

So, is this a missed opportunity or is it proof the timing is right?

Apparently I have failed in blog ettiquette, I was not aware that it was mandatory to include an end of year wrap up of favorites...heh heh

Favorites of 2004

• Song - "1985" by Bowling for Soup


• Movie - "The Incredibles" tied with "Spiderman"


• TV Show - "Stargate:SG-1" tied with "Joan of Arcardia"


• DVD - "Return of the King" extended


• Book - "Down and Dirty Pictures : Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film -- by Peter Biskind"


• Website - no new ones captured my attention this year, but I'll always love http://www.nytimes.com/pages/aponline/index.html" title="http://www.nytimes.com/pages/aponline/index.html" target="_blank"http://www.nytimes.com/pages/...


• Blog - "Film as Prayer" - my friend's day in the life of movie production


• Food - Spicy Chocolate cookies (with cayenne pepper!)


• Drink - Diet Coke with Lime!  goes good with cookies.

So there...my duty is done.  I feel like I'm in the sixth grade again.

:lol:

Okay, that's silly, but I spent the evening sending e-mails to everyone in the tblog board that has lost entries with my solution. It isn't a fix, but like the last little fairy godmother in Sleeping Beauty, I can change a death curse to one for an endless sleep...that is better isn't it?

Okay, so the blog entries aren't lost, but the archive links is the problem. It doesn't work for anything before April 2004 and nothing in 2003.

So, how did I find the lost entries? I clicked on the April 2004 archive link, and got the following URL: (Had to remove the tblog.com part because the posting engine is too helpful.)

/templates/index.php?bid=crystallin&go date=05/01/2004

Then by tweaking the date to 01/01/2004, I was able to find my missing entries for January!

To do this for yourself:

/templates/index.php?bid=[yourblog]&go date=[mm]/01/[yyyy]

Add the URL to tblog and change the [yourblog] to your blog name and godate= variable to the first of the month.

I spent the day volunteering in the production office of a real feature film.  It's filming here in Seattle and my friend is the script coordinator.  Initially she was the pro-tem production coordinator.  You should read her blog,

http://filmasprayer.tblog.com" title="http://filmasprayer.tblog.com" target="_blank"http://filmasprayer.tblog.com...

So, I had a free vacation day, and decided to try out the glamourous world of film production!  I arrive about 9:45 a.m. in the basement production office with the door off the alleyway.

Inside is a huge room with two conference rooms flanking it. Desks and tables float in the middle along with an blue floral couch that hasn't quite found its permanent place. My friend set the whole place up! I can't believe how hard she worked.  Apparently, things are just getting up to speed. I think that many of the crew were there for the first time.

So, what exciting thing did I do all day? --- I made copies! lots and lots of copies. Various forms from other productions that had to be modifed for this production and then made into more copies!  Good thing I'm good with a copier!

Note: If you ever get to work on a production as the copy girl. Read the copier manual. Many copies have cool features that will make your life soooo easy.  For example. Multiple copies on one sheet.   You can set up so that the copier automatically shrinks each page and then plasters them together 2 to a page, 4 to a page or whatever!  Perfect for making sides.

It was fun to over hear little snippets of conversations. The discussion about the lead male's audition, the search for locations, who gets keys to the office, where to park, where to put people up for the production!  Very exciting.  I'll find out if I can say what the production is for.

So I gotta get my scripts done. These opportunities are just zinging by.

So, what have I been up to these last few months. Paying job got in the way and stuff.  So, not a new excuse, huh.

So yet another new leaf! Ha! So many new leafs, I'll have a new tree. Hence the title of this blog.

So, I did several productive thing this month. I entered Scriptapalooza's tv script contest.  You remember that tv spec script from last year? Did a clean up pass and sent it in! 

The group script was also entered contests. Got 5th.  I'm entering it into another contest. See how it does.  I'm also working on getting Wingman ready to enter too! 

Had a big setback. Lost my sd-card with all my scripts.  Sigh... I kept backups of the completed scripts, so, literally all was not lost. I did loose some works in progress and my ideas database. 

So, the lesson is **BACKUP**.

Do it Now.  Go...hurry.

I've been in a stall for the last month. Frustrated by my attempts at rewriting, lack of guild meetings to go to and loss of my online community has been a real roadblock. 

But I think that I am back on track. I read a couple of Screenwriting mags over the weekend: Scr(i)pt and Creative Screenwriting. That helped with the lack of ideas. I reconsidered the storyline of the romccom.

Boy Meets Girl (Cute meet)
Boy and girl are driven apart
Boy and girl overcome obstacles to be together

So I've reconsidered and have begun reoutlining the whole second half of my script. I think it's going to work.

As for the online community. Part of it is that I haven't been getting online as much at night and participating in the script reviews. So, I've got to get back on that.

And I went to a great talk and met Richard Donner and Lauren Shuler-Donner.  Yes, those Donners.  Donners of "Ladyhawke," "Lethal Weapon," "Superman" "Who's Got Mail" "St. Elmos Fire" and most recently "Timeline."  No they didn't work on all those movies together.

Shuler-Donner was speaking of producing, but there was a lot of great info for writers. Though there was one part that reminded me of that Old Steve Martin skit, "Anyone can be a Millionaire and never pay taxes."  It starts with...and first you get a million dollars.    Shuler-Donner said, to be a producer, the easiest way is to sell a script, then sell another script, and then on the third script ask to be the producer or the director.  Yeah, Just got to get past that tricky step one.

She did say that she didn't think that being outside of Hollywood was that big of a detriment for a writer.  One of her earlier movies, the writer lived in Chicago. They talked on the phone and he faxed her his daily pages. With the internet, she said it would be even easier.

I did have a short conversation with Richard Donner about one of the local islands and the ferry system.  Did I talk about my work? No. Did I remember to tell him my name? Did I gush about his work? No.  Such a goob. I really don't know how I am supposed to act or interact. 

It is really all about being prepared to take advantage of an opportunity. One woman gave Donner a copy of her film. Right there.  Wow! That is nerve.  Another person point blank asked for their production company address (Shuler-Donner said they were the Donner's Company and to look them up in the North Hollywood yellow pages.)

Another point she made is that the current screenwriters are referencing other movies and television, rather than literature. When she started it was all about literature.

She had specific things to say about the scripts she's looking for. I have a lot of notes to sort through, but I'll post those when I can translate my handwriting. I should have brought a tape recorder. 

But she did say that no one wants to take a risk anymore. That must be why the studios are remaking things like "Revenge of the Nerds" "Sabrina the Teenage Witch"

Sigh.  Well, write on. And for heaven's sake, remember to introduce yourself when faced with a director or a producer.

It's been hard to find the initiative to write in my blog lately. How do I justify clogging the internet with useless chatter about my foray into screenwriting, when there are really important blogs out there.  Ones that really comment on things that mean something to people.

http://blog.ardemgaz.com/blog/" title="http://blog.ardemgaz.com/blog/" target="_blank"http://blog.ardemgaz.com/blog...

This woman is embedded with a national army unit in Baghdad, she wears a flak jacket to bed. 

There are blogs about people dealing with special needs kids, cancer, all the things that haunt us.

sigh...okay, so it's still just an excuse not to write.

Okay, here's a new one. No one every bothered to warn me that family can be as effective a writer's block as depression, insecurity, etc.

I'm not sure if it is because I didn't want to "reveal" myself as a writer while they were sitting in the sme room watching tv.  - or - if it was because I felt like I had to play host - or - because somehow it didn't seem right to be doing something as selfish as writing while they are doing whatever it is they were doing.

So, parents were here for two weeks, which stretched into three.  Legit reasons. Rental house to prepare for new rentals. Projects that grew and grew and grew. They are all gone now, including brothers.  House is almost ready to rent.  Poor spouse, bugboy and I left to finish it. Enthusiasm waning to nothing.  It has drained all energy from us to do anything.

So, not only did Family act as a writing block for the last month.  They have sapped all energy for this month.

BUT  I did get  review from my real-life editor of my romcom script.  She liked it and had lots of good stuff.  That has rekindled my desire to write, so expect to hear more soon.