Happy End of the Semester!

No trumpets blaring, no big party, not even a high five...just one last trip to the post office to mail off my fifth and last packet of my first graduate semester at Goddard. Grin. [DRAGON picture above by my daughter, Abby, BTW]

And soon to sleep. I was up till midnight last night, writing only till about ten or so, but adrenaline kept me going far beyond my normal bedtime. This morning I was up by five and at only a few minutes after eleven I was at the post office and mailing off my forty pages.

Okay, so I'll confess that after cleaning the main living area in the house (you can't even imagine how dirty this place gets while I'm working, studying, writing, and taking care of my kids!) I did play hooky for the afternoon with my hubby. We drove to a nursery and day dreamed. It's too early to plant yet, so instead we spent about a half hour shooting the shit with the farmer who owns the small farm in Antrim. And then we drove a bit, walked the dog along the river, grilled out, and are now listening to the losing Sox. Oh well. Can't have everything perfect, can we?

So what was in my last packet? Three annotations, a process letter, and thirty pages of my latest outline.

The annotations:

1) Three pages on Cars as a Vehicle for Plot Movement in the novel "Mothers and Daughters" by Carolyn See.

2) Two pages on Taking a Break as an Answer to All Problems in the Film PRIMAL FEAR directed by Gregory Hoblit.

3) Two pages on Fences as the Visual Reminder of the Tenuous Barrier Between What's Remembered and Forgotten in the Film THE FORGOTTEN directed by Joseph Ruben.

The Process Letter was three pages long, and mostly addressed my changes to my outline, as well as the major beats.

The outline is my FOURTH this semester. I have written three forty-plus outlines and thrown every single one of them out. I even wrote 59 pages of script, confident my third outline was finally on track. Tossed those pages, too.

What began as a drama/fantasy has turned into a thriller. My new Protagonist, still "Cat Woods" in my outline, bears a few similarities to my original Cat Woods, but she lost eleven years in age, and gained a deep, dark, haunting, tragic secret that she MUST overcome to begin living her own life. Of course the Antagonist has completely changed, is a brand spanking new character who has EVERYTHING to lose if his secret is discovered. And there are two brand new Pivotal Characters that have not appeared in any of the first three outlines.

It was fun to write. And I can't wait to dive into the script. It was also extremely taxing. So I'm looking forward to reading the comments from my advisor.

I have to say that I have never worked so hard, nor grown so much as a writer. I am incredibly thankful for this opportunity, and will be forever grateful to my advisor for pushing me harder than anyone's ever done before. I have had to dig deeper than I knew I could. And what I found astounded me, and impressed my advisor in my last packet.

What's next? I have a week to complete an end of the semester review. I still have two weeks left in my teaching residency (and my adjunct teaching job) at UNH-Manchester where I am teaching Feature Scriptwriting as part of my Goddard teaching requirement (and introductory short scriptwriting because I teach it almost every semester there). I'll have to write up my notes from that, and have an intern for the summer who will edit my portfolio before I turn it in.

I also have a couple major writing deals heating up. Looks like one will be greenlit in the next few weeks. Dream come true kind of stuff. But I'm signed to a confidentiality agreement, so I'll have to wait till the Producers choose to disclose news of the project.

And since my intern is an established editor (at a local newspaper group) I will rely upon her to help me edit my book proposal--which goes by the name of my blog. It's long overdue, and almost complete. I had one editor interested, though it looks like her company may not be publishing another scriptwriting book for a while. So I'll seek the advice of my agent before I send it out.

I will use my Advisor's notes and the notes from students seeking extra credit and from one of my grad school friends as I start penning the screenplay to my thriller outline that I just completed. That will be a fun project, even though I made myself jump out of my skin as I wrote Act III. I have to move upstairs - the basement office is no place to pen a thriller. Or maybe it's the perfect place....

And of course I'll still be taking care of my kiddos. The three of us jet off to California at the end of June. I'm dropping them off with my family and two days later flying back to New England so I can drive up to Vermont to attend the next Goddard Residency.

Well, that's waaaaaayyyyyy too many details. But, hey, you're the one who's still reading. And a couple people have actually let me know that they WANT to know some of this stuff. (You know who you are: will I see you in Plainfield in June? I hope so! It's fun. You'll love it.)

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers!

Greetings.

No catchy wording or phrasing. Just a quick note to replace the extremely outdated Irish holiday greeting.

And to point you to the Rhode Island Film Festival Website for updates on this year's plans and competitions (see the link in the sidebar: RIIFF/ScriptBiz). In particular - check out all things ScriptBiz. That's my former "baby." While I'm on hiatus from it as I take two years out of my life to attend graduate school (and still teach at UNH and raise my kiddos) the show is still going on. It's very gratifying to see one's hard work continuing on. Hopefully a couple summers from now I can step back in and lend a hand....

For now, I need sleep.

'Night. Thanks for stopping by.

Ahh, sweet Patty's Day to ya, Love

(Above photo: Kylemore Abbey/Lake Connemara, Co. Galway, from the Ireland website, http://www.irlgov.ie/)

I always feel like a fraud celebrating this holiday. I'm Italian. My hubby's part Irish, complete with the saintly middle name, so at least I feel a little less fraud-like. And let's face it, there's something fun about green beer. Well, if you can get past all that green. Maybe I'll just open a Guinness instead.


Oh--here's a Guinness aside for the masses: My father (God rest him) once toured the Guinness Plant when he was in Ireland on business. At the end of the tour he received his two complimentary pints. And oh, sweet sorrow...he didn't like the taste. "Too bitter," he proclaimed. His buddies were thrilled. I still mourn the thought. Obviously. He did bring me back a cool t-shirt, which I've had to hide recently since with teens in the house we can't be glorifying alcoholic beverages. Secretly salute them perhaps, but not openly praise them. Except in blogger world, of course.

Well, for those of you following my Goddard progress, today I posted Packet Three. Hallelujah! No trumpets sounded, no masses applauded, but I felt good walking in the 30+ degrees to the post office (my van's in the shop: brake job...ugh). Felt even better walking back. Like that proverbial weight had been lifted.

Packet Three officially represents "Hump Packet." Three down, two to go. I shouldn't be thinking of it that way, understand. After all, writing is a daily exercise, not a thing we do simply to complete an assignment.

Or is it?

I mean, I write everyday normally. Have since I was a young lass not growing up in Ireland. More like outside Cleveland. Then Oklahoma for a spell. Next spent three winters in one year in the Buffalo area. And landed in western Massachusetts. Since then, my adult journeys have seen me through Connecticut, Vermont, Virginia, and now New Hampshire.

Back on track:

When I write, I usually have some sort of goal in mind. Whether I'm writing purely for spec or for hire, I know where I will submit my pages once they're ready. So isn't that writing to complete an assignment, even if it is self-assigned?

I know...who cares?

So in this packet, for those of you still struggling to find a point to this post, I included:

--18 pages of script (yes--finally script pages!)
--11 pages of outline (I tossed my first outline completely and rewrote it, tossed that and rewrote it, and am reworking the third version now...oy!)
--one Annotation: three pages looking at surprise as a tool of the screenwriter in William Goldman's MARATHON MAN
--one five page paper. Okay this is where I confess that my advisor told me to toss my first five page paper and start from scratch. Also to do more research. The original paper covered some weak premise regarding the Female Version of Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple" (see an earlier post; or preferably, please don't!). In this paper I compared that to the original version and discussed how the Feminist's Movement provided a more powerful setting for the original version--in which Simon packed some serious commentary on the times into his plethora of laughs. Consider that the original play opened in New York in the mid 60's, when the Feminist Movement was extremely active. The Female Version opened nearly twenty years later, after Roe V. Wade and more had already been settled. A little less powerful the message is all I'm saying. Anyway, I hope I proved it in five pages better than I've settled the matter here.
--And a three-page Process Letter to my advisor, in which I asked questions and answered his from my last packet.

So, that's where I'm at today. This weekend I'll write my next annotation on THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES. And I'll continue to revise my outline and pick up on my script pages.

Plus I have a client's script to finish critiquing. And about ten more second draft short scripts to read and critique, written by my Intro Screenwriting students at UNH-Manchester.

Oh, and there's a party to plan, too. On Tuesday the Intro students will be pitching their ideas in a "PitchFiesta Mocktail" event at the university. It's designed to let the students practice pitching as they might at a film festival cocktail party. It's my fifth time throwing the party. Word's getting out. Our RSVPs are on the rise.

Well, off to tend to business. Thanks for stopping in. Leave a note if you feel like it: let me know what you did on this great green day.

Cheers!

Ahh, sweet memories from last year's New Hampshire Writers' Day Conference.

For information on this year's event, scheduled for Saturday, March 25, 2006, surf over to the New Hampshire Writers' Project website: www.nhwritersproject.org.

Maybe I'll see you there....



Had to add the Cold Cuts flyer--on Monday, February 27, at 7 pm, at 229 W. 49th Street, NYC, the staged reading will feature pages from "Keep Your Distance" by playwright Lawrence Goodman, a fellow Goddard-ite and new friend. For more information, surf over to www.tengrandburger.com.

Giggling God

I had to laugh myself when I read how "easy" packet number one came off (blog entry below). Best laid plans....

Not this one. Not because the content is any more difficult, it's simply that this is a rigorous program. Twenty-six hours a week, minimum, is what we've committed to our Goddard full-time, low-residency studies. Unfortunately, squeezing that kind of time into my schedule in the midst of a family crisis that erupted this past week has become a nearly unbearable, unachievable goal.

Yet, it is with the strength, encouragement, and support of my fellow Goddard-ites that I soldier on (thanks guys--I couldn't survive this without you!).

That much I had to share, lest anyone think this program is a cake walk. It's designed to challenge and to stimulate. It's doing both those things and more - helping me to reach the next level in my writing and critical reading abilities. I just have to accept that at times it may be more difficult than at others.

Family comes first. After that Goddard and my own students at UNH. If there's anything left, perhaps I'll take a jog. Or a nap.

Perhaps best laid plans would be best laid to rest. :)

Thanks for stopping in.

Peace,
Dana

Grad School, Take Two

So, packet number one's off. I'm officially on my way to completing the first semester requirements. It wasn't that difficult, really. The hardest part is that I have found that I miss the camaraderie of the residency. But some of that has continued. A couple people and I have stayed in constant communication via e-mail as we write and procrastinate from writing.

What is a packet you non-Goddard-ites may wonder....

Basically our semester is broken into six segments. Segment one is the Residency Requirement. Nine days on campus. Great food (kudos to the chef and his staff!), excellent workshops (the professors are top notch!), and fun times with fellow classmates (let's not reveal just how much fun we had...yet!).

The next five parts are broken down by the five packets we mail off to our advisor every three weeks. Up to forty pages is sent off for critique, analysis, grading, and review. My first packet consisted of the following:

- A five-page Process Letter in which I spent the first four pages talking about the process I went through in studying and writing over the course of my first three weeks at home. I also brought up questions that I have about where I am going in my creative work; things I am seeking specific feed-back on from my advisor. The last page I used as a simple table of contents. I'm guessing it was unnecessary, but it made me feel better to include it. I'm anal about these things; what can I say?

- Two two-page Annotations. These are short critical papers analyzing a detailed item that I picked up on close-read of a novel and of a poem.

- One five-page critical paper. I was pretty critical of the lack of depth Neil Simon used in his female version of "The Odd Couple" play. Sorry, Mr. Simon. No disrespect meant. I simply needed a thesis, and I decided to explore the use of humor not as a method for dealing with the underlying pain, but of skirting the real issues. I think I proved my point. Perhaps someone else may have chosen to prove the opposite.

- One one-page plot line sketch that I used as a teaching tool in my Advanced Screenwriting Class that I am teaching at the University of New Hampshire as part of my teaching requirement.

- And twenty-five pages of Creative Work. Most of those pages are character breakdowns for my protagonist, antagonist, pivotal character, and for two minor pivotal characters in my new feature-length screenplay that I am writing for the program.

While it's off, I have begun working on Packet # 2 requirements. I began my scene cards for my screenplay today. I will type those up into outline fashion (script outline, not academic outline) for submission. I have also started an annotation on the movie "Gypsy" (the original movie from 1962 with Natalie Wood and Karl Malden, not the Bette Midler TV re-make). And, of course, I am still teaching.

And while I am blogging it may have occurred to folks that I am procrastinating from my other duties. In particular, I have about forty more pages of grading ahead of me--as my Advanced Screenwriting students begin their feature length scripts with me in another week or so....

Thanks for stopping in. And, hey, if you think of one, please leave a joke for me. I hardly come up for air these days, and when I do, I find I most need a good laugh. And no, it does not have to mask underlying pain; but if it does, let's simply skirt the issue rather than deal with it.

Cheers,
Dana

I just had to add this one little tid bit: I recently found Metallica's "Garage Inc." and am soooo excited to be loading the songs on my laptop now. I have been looking for this album forever. One of these days I'm going to have to dig out that free iPod that came with my iBook and load this stuff onto it. I wish I understood technology better. Okay, that's enough procrastination for one day....

So this is Grad School...

Well, I'm here. Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. (I would put the handy dandy instant click to the website thing in, but my apple doesn't seem to like blogger dot com, and that option doesn't exist for me unless I return to PC world; guess you'll just have to Google it if you're curious. I know - and yet I can get a photo in...just weird.)

I arrived yesterday afternoon after driving two hours north on I-89, avoiding rocks and slow semis in my rented car. Moved furniture around my room, hung mini white post-holiday lights, reported my phone as dead, only to learn I'd plugged it into the wrong outlet. Met some great people at dinner and a reception last night, but that hasn't made me any less tense.... Anticipation. It's a killer.

Was up and ready to start my day at 4:30. Still almost an hour to go before breakfast. Not that I'm hungry. But waiting this long for my first cup of coffee may kill me by the end of the week.

An actor friend suggested I post blogs about my grad school experience...so here is installment one. I trust installments two through whatever will be more grounded in substance and education.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers!