107 stories to be told...

...and my intro scriptwriting class began by telling twenty.

Today was day two of intro scriptwriting.  We each took a turn telling a tale from our past--all of which left us laughing WITH each other, not at.  Really.  While we learned a bit about each other, we also saw how the simplest idea can lead to a short screenplay, a short story, a play, a poem, an essay, a blog....

One script that we read began with a simple "What if?" twist.  What if my father had taken that job offer with the mob boss in Cleveland upon graduating college?  What would the responsibility of such a commitment do to an honest man?  (For those of you who don't know the laws of the Mafia--had my father taken the job with the mob, since he was not already a member of the family he would have had to kill someone to both prove his loyalty and so the mob would always have control over him.  He couldn't, but when I explore what conditions could make an otherwise honest man agree to such conditions--whala!  A story is born.)

We also read a short excerpt from my PLAYING HOUSE script, a story based on my husband who actually tried to save a woman and her toddler...who wasn't a toddler at all, but was a DOLL.  He was nearly run over by a car for his good deed.  While his story shocked and scared me, it also yielded a poem by me, which I later turned into a dialogueless short screenplay.

So what is your story?  Don't worry about whether or not it might make a great short script, with or without that "What if?" twist--simply entertain us.

Next week: the technical parts of a screenplay--a primer in how to draft the blueprint of a film.

Cheers! 

Pop open the champagne, baby!

If only I weren't too sick to celebrate.  Still, I must sound my barbaric YAWP* over the [barn] roofs of the world, for I have hit FADE OUT again--this time in my latest revision of PLOWING UP A SNAKE.  

Thank you, thank you, thank you to each and every one of you who helped bring the October reading to life and/or who provided helpful comments afterwards.

Next step? Re-read it for continuity and typos...and re-read it again.  Then send it off to yet another producer who has requested this latest copy.  This is it: time for Merle Drown's timeless novel to finally make its way to the big screen.  Wish us luck!

(The barbaric YAWP is, of course, verse originally constructed by Walt Whitman, used here in reverence to his indomitable spirit and undeniable genius.  The photo is one of my crazy angles taken of the enormous barn on my friend Amy's family's place in Madison, NH, last autumn.)

It's coming...

...I promise.

I will soon return to the original intent of this blog: to write about the short script.  And help you through the many steps to writing that perfect and poignant poetry of motion picture writing.

First lesson: to be uploaded next week.  After I teach my first class at UNH-M.  Feel free to play along.

(Image above of a sticker on the back of my ride; I forget the name of the skateboarding company that provided it free with the purchase of my son's skateboard...but suffice it to say I liked it enough to use it both on my car and on my blog.)

Happy New Year!

Apparently 2009 is the Year of the Ox in the Chinese Zodiac.  I've been calling it the "Year of the O" as in President-elect Obama.  It could also be called the "Year of Hope."  Either way, we'll soon be in good hands.  Thanks be to the voters.  And, I have no doubt, a higher power--whatever name you may call Him (or Her).

I teach my first UNH class on Inauguration Day and plan to release my students early so we can each catch the swearing-in ceremony as it is broadcast live.  While the communal lunch and viewing of the Inauguration at my favorite independent cinema (Red River Theatres) has just sold out, the good folks there have sent along word that the Concord Monitor is sponsoring a community viewing of the historical event at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord.

So while I ponder returning home to watch it in the privacy of my living room or of joining others to experience it, I am wondering what you're planning to do for the day?  (Survey to the right, or feel free to comment here.)

A happy new year it is!  With or without today's lovely snow, ice, and freezing-rain event; captured above is evidence of the last icing.  Beautiful.  Magnificent.  And such a pain in the you-know-where.  :)

Countdown to Christmas...

I just submitted my final student's grade for the semester, and only have about a half day's paperwork left to go before I'm officially done with this fall's university chores.

Then onto a grant application that's due January first for an organization I'm volunteering with, and writing press releases for the New Hampshire Film & Television Office's Script Competition for the Stage Reading Series.

Plus, of course, plenty of my own writing to do, and reading and editing to accomplish (yes, Kyle, your latest novel revision is on my to do list; actually, it's on my "can't wait to get to it" list!).

But the presents are wrapped and beneath the tree, as I sit in my newly created living room* listening to Frank Sinatra's holiday album and watching the birds eat the seed I just scattered for them on the stairs outside the sliding glass doors. (*I love shifting furniture around; the latest change has turned my dining room into my living room and vice versa.)

Okay, back to work.  For me.  You too, if it applies.  Happy holidays!

(Photos above taken after last week's ice storm: a marble in a hanging sculpture thingy I once bought, and the gloves are my own garden sculpture design.  Yes, I am that odd.  Thank you for noticing.)

It's beginning to look a lot like brrrrrrrrr...

Can you guess where these icicles once hung?

I know: I should simply post these to my Flickr account since this is no more than a post of photos, but I'm in a hurry.  On my way to a Town Water Resources Subcommittee Meeting.  Seems ironic, eh?

A winter wonderland. Of course that's easy for me to say...now that we have power again.  Spent the first 36+ hours of the storm cooking on the wood stove and helping ourselves to plenty of gravity-fed water.  While we played Scattergories by candlelight and via built-in lights on the bills of our LL Bean baseball caps.  Made some fun memories this storm.  

Cheers!   

How do I procrastinate?

Let me count the ways.

Ever notice that when you have ONE thing you must accomplish, EVERYTHING else on your to-do list suddenly gets done?  And then you blog about it....

And while I have not one revision to show for PLOWING UP A SNAKE today, I did read all my students' essays, grade them and the late papers and quizzes that came in this week, posted the grades, even submitted a final grade for one of my Independent studies, and answered all my e-mail that's been backlogged for a couple weeks today.  I even answered today's mail.  Oh, and I did the laundry.

And now as I place the final touches on my latest essay and on a short story I've been working on, I am peeking at the clock and worrying over the fact that I probably will not get to my screenplay.  At least not today.  

It's not so much the curse of the blank screen or writer's block.  It's just been so long since the reading that I have to pull out all my notes, digest them again, and then plan my attack.  Let's face it: writing's hard work.  Anyone who says otherwise is either lying or one lucky you-know-what.

And yet occasionally writing flows easily for me.  I have a couple new short plays that I'm partial to.  Actually three new ones since the PLOWING reading.  And the short story simply streamed from my consciousness, too.  So why am I whining?  

Okay. I feel better now.  Hope I've helped you too.

Happy weekend!