JoshGD's Xanga

Friday, August 08, 2008

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 02:31:35 GMT

And You Are…

As records go, the time you leave your writing to stagnate for two solid months isn't really one to be proud of.

And yet it isn't a surprise, because life is busy and life is fast and when you have a child just finding the time to sit at a desk after having already sat at a desk all day and then given someone dinner and a bath and put them to bed and then eating yourself is just that much harder.

There are books to read and baths to take, and when Saturday comes life is all about stepping outside and going on little adventures, and not sitting inside, or on the porch, and typing away.

Life is about living your life.

So things have both stagnated and not stagnated.

In the world of stagnation is, sadly, my short film which was shot a year ago, but has not yet been edited. So Previously Engaged (or Previous Engagement, the title has been written both ways) is still kinda-sorta out there.

The director moved to Hollywood, and keeps in touch, while our shot-in-Wisconsin movie remains in Wisconsin, and is being edited. We think.

The Paper Castle - there are updates, and then the updates go away. We hear good news, we hear people like the script, then we hear that they can't make it right now, or don't want to make it right now, or don't have the money to make it right now.

Money's a big one.

Stephen is once again trying to set it up, to make it on his own, and I'm looking at the script again, thinking about what needs to changed, or reversed, to bring it back to smaller and cheaper and yet still very good.

Because we've got to attract actors, y'know?

For one short moment, it appeared that Robot Hero, the very-short that I wrote a long while ago might yet see the light of day, but I couldn't say what happened to that.

And?

And and?

What have I been writing?

Not a lot. I update the story of my child. I continue to pour out words for Fox Valley Geeks.

Sometimes I have to put together a play or two for church. I wrote one a couple of weeks ago, and I could feel the creaks and the cracks in my brain as I made up a little story - something it feels like I haven't done in forever.

I need... something.

There have been boosts, though. One of my previous directors is thinking about making another short film - so I sent her my last short script. The final one in my arsenal.

I've been sending out scripts. Most of the places I used to scour for "Writers Wanted" or "Scripts Wanted" ads on the Internet are dead as dead can be these days. Either no one is looking for scripts any more, or maybe they've all just realized that there aren't a lot of great screenwriters out there in the world, and they stopped looking.

Or maybe I'm looking in the wrong places.

I found out that a friend of mine, who teaches on a college level, has been using Meaningful Touches in her writing courses as an educational tool. To my surprise, it's not a "what not to do" kind of thing. She really likes the film and thinks it works great in an educational way.

But to wake up, and come up with new stories?

I need to fix up The Paper Castle again.

I need to get back to work on my little documentary about my daughter.

I need to finish writing my adoption book.

And I need a nap.

Like I said, I need... something.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 03:33:16 GMT

Give Me a Wubble-You

Stanley Irwin was a good guy.

You don't always get to say that about people, and you certainly don't always gets to say that about teachers.

Teaching is hard - I know this, because I've done it, and if you don't love the act of teaching, it can grind you down, doing it day in and day out.

And then, of course, there's the adage that those you can't do, teach.

That wasn't the case with Stanley.

I feel strange calling him Stanley, because for four straight years he was Dr. Irwin to me. To some, he was a voice teacher, but I knew him mostly through the choirs of DePauw University.

He was the conductor.

And he was good at it.

Trying to explain why he was good at it is tough if you never sat in front of him and watched him herd the cats that made up DePauw's largest choir. A bunch of students, some faculty. I think there might have even been a local citizen or two. And there were more than 100 of us.

Describing it that way makes us sound like a rag-tag bunch who would be lucky to put together a semi-decent sound.

And yet, semester after semester, with only a couple of hours a week, Stanley pointed us all the same direction, said, "This way!" and we went there. And we sounded good. Good enough that a bunch of us sang on the main stage at Carnegie hall when I graduated, ten years ago.

It sounds a little like something out of the Bad News Bears, and maybe it was, a little.

But that wasn't what made Stanley great. What made Stanley great was his voice.

It's hard to describe a voice in words. But here's an attempt - think of a strong bass-baritone voice. Get one in your mind. Think of deep male voice you think of, when you think of opera.

Then add control. Not the loud-singing-yowling sound you think of, when you think of opera. But the kind of voice that could blow you to the back of a theater, pulled back to the softest whisper. Think of it dripping with emotion. Think of closing your eyes, and hearing someone sing, and letting the emotion of a voice pull you along without body language.

And that was Stanley.

I say that was Stanley, because Stanley passed away a few days ago. Victim of a car accident.

To say he died too young doesn't even begin.

To say that the halls of DePauw University, where he taught, will feel the loss in the coming years, doesn't even begin.

To say that the world lost a good man doesn't even begin.

I said that Stanley Irwin was a nice guy, and that's true. He was fun, and funny (Give Me a Wubble-You was a Stanley-ism, one that he used as he warmed us up - say it out loud and you'll smile), which is why when he said, "This way!" we followed him. He knew when to push, and when not to push, and yet those are not the stories I want to tell.

Stanley Irwin was a nice guy to me, personally, and for that I want to take a minute to thank him.

The first time he was a nice guy to me, well, it was a strange little story. I was taking a composition course, and twice a semester we had to convince someone to perform our work.

I learned quickly that the best way to get someone to play what you wrote is to get them involved in a process. So I asked a buddy of mine to write me some silly Spanish lyrics (he had done a full four years of Spanish in high school) and then sing them.

So he wrote the lyrics to a little tune we called Juan's Gato.

I set the lyrics to music a few days later, and then gave the song back to my buddy - who took the song to Stanley Irwin.

Now, Stanley could have run the song once or twice with my friend, let him rehearse it a couple of times with the pianist, and forgotten about it.

But he didn't. He took the silly lyrics, and the melody and chords I put together, and he treated them like they were any other art song. And when my friend performed the song, it brought the house down. The song worked because Stanley and my buddy took it just that seriously.

That isn't the end of the story.

The end of story comes in the middle of a random hallway of DePauw University. I could make up a story about what I was doing, but it was probably just one of the many random comings and goings that happens in college - you go to one building, you go to class, you go to another.

And here came Stanley.

Stanley was a big guy, and hard to miss.

He stopped me in the hallway. And he said, "I just wanted to tell you, I really like your song."

Here's a man who didn't have to take my song, or me, seriously. He didn't have to stop me and tell me that he liked what I had done. He wasn't grading me on my work, or offering suggestions, or doing anything else but, you know, being a man who had travelled the world over as a performer, saying he liked my work.

Like I said, a nice guy.

The other moment of his niceness was smaller, and it came at the end of my senior year.

DePauw had three major choirs, and while they all had names, the names aren't important. Suffice to say, there was the huge choir, the choir a step down in size and the step up in talent... and the tiny choir, the one who was another step or two up on the talent scale.

College will play havoc with how you feel about your talent. I was a good singer, probably the best at my high school, but most of the folks at DePauw blew me away.

And yet, my senior year, Stanley invited me to join that pinnacle of choirs.

I had to turn him down, sadly, because I was getting ready to start teaching and I knew I couldn't dedicate the time the choir would need of me.

I'm still not sure why he asked me to join. Maybe he knew I would take it seriously. Or maybe he really thought I had that kind of talent.

Or maybe he wanted to give me a chance to show what I could do.

Stanley did that for other people as well, but those stories are not mine to tell. I told my stories.

Stanley sang his.

And now, the world is a little quieter, without his full voice ringing out in it.

Grandma Patterson

Wed, 21 May 2008 04:11:39 GMT

When my Grandma Patterson died, it was both a shock and not a shock at the same time.

My grandmother was ninety years old when she died, and she didn’t die of anything mysterious or surprising. It was just old age. And yet, no one saw it coming, because she was so healthy when it happened.

Most people who make it to ninety do it on a plethora of medications, and with a variety of aches, pains, surgeries, and hospital visits.

My grandmother was on no medications, and her biggest problems medically were the fact that she was slowing down in her old age, and that her eyes just weren’t what they used to be. She had problems seeing when it started to get dark.

And that was it.

She went the way I think we all hope to. Fit and happy and with all her faculties intact. From what we can tell, she sat down in her easy chair and just didn’t get up again.

I’ve lived a charmed life on the grandparents front. I know people my age (31, as I write this) whose grandparents are long deceased, and who have even lost a parent by now. But I’ve lived most of my life with my grandparents watching over me, still sending me cards on my birthday, still giving me and my family gifts at Christmas.

Death always leaves us with some regrets, and I have two, and both of them are downstairs.

On the dining room table there’s a Mother’s Day card we got for her that is, and will stay, unsent. Life got in the way, and I’m sad that she won’t get it.

Also downstairs is a photo of one of her many, many great-grandchildren. When we had photos of my daughter taken not all that long ago, we set aside four, one for each of the great-grandparents.

We meant to get a frame for the photo, and to get it to her. And we didn’t. And now I’m at a loss as to what we should do with it.

Ultimately, I don’t know that those things matter. These are the things that matter:

***

Last summer, my extended family threw an adoption shower for Kara and myself and Mihret. It was a pretty large gathering, because we’re a big group of people.

Grandma and I sat on a bench while the younger kids ran around, playing whatever games kids play when they’ve got a few rubber balls sitting available, and plenty of energy.

We talked about this and that, and Grandma remarked that it was the first time she’d seen some of her grandkids in a while. A lot of us live in central Wisconsin, but some of us have flown the coop – and finding the time and the money to visit isn’t always easy.

My Grandma looked at me. “It’s the first time I’ve seen some of ‘em since Grandpa died,” she said. And as she looked over at the kids running back and forth, my eyed glassed over a bit.

Somewhere inside me, I really realized that Grandma wasn’t going to be around forever, even if it sometimes felt like she would be.

I wonder now if she knew, even then, that “not going to be around forever” was going to be such a short stretch of time.

***

At every major gathering, my Grandma used to make oyster crackers. Or rather, she doctored them up with various herbs and spices, and I would inevitably grab a small plate and fill it with garlic-y goodness.

Over the years, Grandma realized how much I loved those crackers. When each family gathering was over, she would find me and give me the rest of the bag she had made.

And when I was away at college, she gave the bag to my parents, so they could send the crackers to me.

As the years wore on, I discovered that one of my cousins also loved the crackers, and so we started taking turns taking them at the end of each family gathering.

When Grandma discovered we were doing this, she started making an extra bag, just to make sure that both of us got some at the end of every family get-together. She did that right up until last Christmas.

She also gave me a copy of the recipe a few years ago – actually handed me the recipe card right out of her old recipe card box. I’ve made them a few times over the years, but they were never quite as good as Grandma’s.

***

Two Christmases ago, Grandma surprised all the grandkids. We were all pulled into her bedroom at the same time, and she gave a speech that I hope is captured on video somewhere.

Or maybe it’s better if it’s not, because videotape couldn’t ever really capture what we all felt that night.

With all seventeen of us crowded into her room, Grandma announced that she wanted us all to get our inheritance right then and there. She wanted to give it to us while she was still alive, she claimed, so that she didn’t have to hunt down all our Social Security numbers and put down amounts in her will.

We all got a check for the exact same amount that night.

Kara and I used the money to fly to Ethiopia to bring Mihret home.

***

My Grandma is tied to Mihret in another way, as well – they both have late January birthdays.

I have struggled for years in an attempt to remember my Grandparent’s birthdays, but I’m awful about it. I can remember Kara’s birthday, and mine, and Mihret’s quite easily.

On a good day, I can tell you my brother’s and my parent’s.

Anyone outside that circle, though? I count on the kindness of my mother to remind me when to call or send a card to my grandparents.

Last Christmas at the big gathering o’ Patterson family, my mom pulled me aside and told me the semi-secret plan.

We were going to hold a double-birthday gathering. The family had picked a Sunday, and we were all going to show up at The Old Country Buffet and celebrate the birth of my Grandma, who would be 90, and the birth of my daughter, who would be one.

There would be food, and balloons, and some gifts.

And so it happened.

That same night, I took the picture you see at the top of this entry – the four generations picture.

***

The four generations picture is special in a number of ways.

It’s the only picture I have of my Grandma holding Mihret.

Outside of my wedding photos, I’m pretty sure it’s the only time my mother, my wife, and my grandmother have appeared in a photo together.

And there’s something else – it is, almost certainly, the only photo of four Patterson women who became part of the family not because they were born into it, but because someone loved them enough that they wanted them to be part of it.

There’s Mihret, with her arms in the air. She became part of the family because Kara and I wanted a child so badly that we were willing to work through multiple adoption agencies, to fill out mountains of paperwork, and to put piles of money together and send them to wherever they need to go just to find her and bring her home.

There’s Kara, who I met in college and fell in love with and who, on the day I graduated, I asked to marry me.

There’s my mother, Diane, who met my dad when she was in high school, who she married before she finished college, and through whom she finally got her first batch of brothers and sisters after years of being an only child.

And there’s Grandma, who married my Grandpa. They’re both not here anymore.

They’re together again.

***

There are other stories I could tell. About how she made an afghan for every grandchild, and how we each got one when we graduated high school.

About how, every year, every grandchild got an ornament for Christmas. There must be a half-dozen grand pianos on my tree, each one given to me by her.

About how it was so important for her to have a clean lawn that she would pick up errant birdseed from the bird feeder.

About the time her kids decided to rib her about her always-clean home, by collecting pine needles from their various real trees and sneaking into her house and putting them under her fake Christmas tree.

About how I got an Easter card from her every year, with a few dollars in it, when I was in college.

About how she never missed a birthday card, ever, except for the one time she accidentally put my card in my (female) cousin’s envelope, and my (female) cousin’s card in my envelope. (I still have that card, somewhere.)

About how, when we decided to prank my uncle, and hold his 40^th birthday party on his 39^th birthday, she went along with it. When my uncle insisted he was 39, my Grandma looked him square in the eye, and said, “No, you’re 40.”

About how, that same day, my uncle mooned (or perhaps just made as if to moon) my aunt, and Grandma, who we feared would be offended, nice Catholic lady that she was, said, “Eh, I’ve seen it before.”

My Grandma lived long, and saw much, and loved many.

And she was loved by many.

And we’ll miss her.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Thu, 15 May 2008 04:14:29 GMT

Getting It On Paper

A lot of the time, it feels like things are always the same from day to day. We work, we come home, we play with the baby.

We eat, we go to bed, we get up, we go to work.

And yet, things happen to us, and we try to remember what they were, even a day later. Relatives come to visit, we spend time with friends, all is filled with fun and happiness and wasn't that a good time?

But a week later, or two weeks later, we think only of routine again.

And then something big changes.

For me, it was work. I don't talk about my job here, and I'm not going to start now. Business is business, and in the event that I ever become a well-known (or even known) entity, I suspect the time will come that I'll close down this journal and just stick "Mission Accomplished" across the top of it.

One of the things in my life that never really seemed to change was my job. I worked at the same business for almost ten years. I drove there every day from my parent's house, and then I got married, and drove there every day from my apartment, and then I got a house, and I drove from my house to that office every day.

And then something changed.

I got a new job.

I got a job writing for a company everyone knows, and most of the world uses, and I will never, ever talk about it here, except to say that I'm happy.

My need to write other things hasn't vanished over the last few months, but I've felt is lessen, as the time taken up by being a father has grown and changed me, somewhat.

There have been other things, as well. Back in the day, there were ten or twenty different places that posted names of folks looking for scripts, and I'd stroll through them all the time, looking for folks who might be looking for the kind of stuff I do.

Today, only one site remains, and there's something there that relates to me maybe, maybe, once a week. And even then, so many of them are a "no pay" deal, and I'm too old, and, I have to say, too talented to keep on going down that road.

So what becomes of my words?

Well.

First, after quite some time, I got a call to write another article for the Post-Crescent. And here's that:

http://www.postcrescent.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080508/GPG0506/80507037

I also recently got a note from a former co-worker of mine. He and a few of his friends are looking to put together a video game, and they want me to write the story for it.

Have I done that kind of thing before? No. But do I think I could?

Well, it's writing, and it's storytelling, and that's what I do. So, yeah.

And there's more. The Paper Castle and The Paper Boat are still out there, still being reworked, and I'll probably be taking another pass at Castle, nipping and tucking and fixing and generally seeing what we shall see.

There are fewer words now.

They are more words in the future.

I'll try to make them count. Or at the very least, count off the years.

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 02:47:24 GMT

Where I Write…

When you’re a parent, it seems that everything that is not you comes first.

Laundry comes first.

Dishes come first.

Etc.

Because if you let it pile up, then it can’t ever go away – or at least not without a huge effort.

When I was just, you know, married, and it was just the two of us, I could let a pot sit for a day or two if I had to. But now I can’t, because if I do, there will be more dishes tomorrow, and I won’t have the time to deal with those and to deal with these.

So sometimes, things sit.

I haven’t touched a screenplay since my last entry.

I don’t even find out whether or not Stephen and I won something in the screenplay competition we placed in until this Friday.

Stephen, however, continues to pound the pavement, and well, and maybe there will be news.

In the meantime, Meaningful Touches continues to find YouTube love. And I think that I still have a story in an upcoming short story anthology, but things have been quiet in that area as well.

But I do write. Just not as much.

I do write five days a week here:

http://www.postcrescent.com/includes/newspaper/blogs/fvgeek/

And Kara and myself (though only myself so far) are talking about our daughter here:

http://pattersonsofethiopia.blogspot.com/

So yeah, I’m doing some writing.

And I may be doing more soon.

More news, right after these dishes.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 04:47:17 GMT

Blink and One…

People say that time flies when you’re having fun, and that’s true – but more than that, time just goes and goes and goes and doesn’t really care whether you’re having a good time or not.

Since getting home, the baby has gotten five colds and an ear infection. This is par for the course for a kid in day care. So sometimes she doesn’t sleep great, and coughs herself awake, and her mother or myself ends up awake from one to three AM.

So I get sleep where I can, and the writing suffers.

And yet, things happen around me.

For example, I just found out that The Paper Castle – the short film – was featured on a news segment about The Wildwood Film Festival a few years ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4OX1nIH5Tw

Unexpected and pleasant.

And thanks to a couple of surprise links from people I don’t know, Meaningful Touches has found a new life on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments&v=U2BdTO0wSMQ

And thanks to Stephen Unger working his tail off, The Paper Castle and The Paper Boat continue to go out into the world.

The Paper Boat just hit the top ten at Cinequest – a contest that I hadn’t even heard of until I found out we were in the top ten:

http://www.cinequest.org/index.php

And as a bonus, people continue to look at and like The Paper Castle.

As for what I’m writing these days – not a lot. I did some work on the adoption book, and when I can find the time, the story comes out. I’ll get it all out one day.

I haven’t touched a screenplay in forever, though I’ve been looking over both the Paper screenplays here and there.

And probably will be again, at this rate.

I’m writing plays for church again, as well. We changed our lesson format a bit, and new plays are needed. So at least those muscles get flexed.

I need to write.

I will write.

My kid turns one on Monday. She’s amazing. She’s also tiring. She slows me down.

I’m okay with that.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 18:16:06 GMT

Busy...

I'm writing, but not much - mostly I'm being a father to my little girl.

And writing a book about how she became a part of my life.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 05:09:37 GMT

Scratch…

Recently, I ran across the blog of an old acquaintance who, like me, wants to get into the whole movie thing, and dove headfirst into their collection of thoughts.

Now – understand something, if you will. I like this person. I can’t say they’re my bestest buddy or anything, but I like ‘em.

And as I was reading this person’s thoughts, which were, essentially, “I wanna make movies. I really do. That’s all I wanna do, and all the other things I do are just getting in the way of what I wanna do…” I found myself thinking – well, that’s hard to say.

I’ve felt, lately, sort of locked in place.

By which I mean this:

There are several grades of screenwriter ranging from “some dude with a computer” up to “the guys who make millions of dollars writing the movies everyone sees,” but, in general, there are really only three major levels.

There are the people who make their own movies. Maybe they get them into one or two film festivals. Maybe they don’t even make it that far. But, ultimately, the only people that know they make movies are their family and friends.

Then there’s the next level, which I think I’ve reached. I’ve had some movies made. I’ve gotten paid for my writing, on more than one occasion. I am, on some level, a professional.

But it’s not what I DO, y’know?

In many ways, I’m a lucky guy. My movies came out well. I’ve placed in some screenwriting competitions, both on my own and with a partner.

And my movies have been seen, and won awards, all over the world.

But still, I’ve been having a real problem lately with putting words to screen (as opposed to pen to paper – try to keep up, now).

Part of it is the lack of time that comes from being a dad.

But the major part of it is the frustration that comes from knowing just how long I’ve been at it.

I think it would be more fun if I’d had more success, or less success. If I had never had anything of mine made, I think that on some level I would assume that if I got better, if I improved, if, if, if, something would change and that next one would be the big sale.

Or the medium-sized sale, anyway.

Or, if I had the big sale, I think some part of me knows that the second one would be just a little easier. That someone, somewhere would want to hear what I had to say, would consider seeing what I could do on a project.

There would be meetings, and phone calls, and some sort of excitement.

Instead, well.

Here’s what the instead is.

I’ve done nothing with the whole adoption book idea. I want to, truly, but certain parts of it are still hard to think about.

I haven’t done any script work lately, either. I keep thinking I want to open up Ghost’s Story and finish it, just to have it finished, just to say that I really finally did it, but the motivation just isn’t there.

The Paper Boat is out to a few producers who wanted to read it. I suppose it’s possible that one of them will want to try put the project together, and get it into the world, but that kind of hoping is always, always, always something you can’t really do much about, one way or the other.

Stephen, on the other hand, is making yet another push with Castle. He’s currently putting together, among other things, financial specs for the feature. Once again, I don’t know what will come of it.

As if that weren’t enough, once again, the WGA is making noises about going on strike, in which case all WGA signatory producers won’t be buying anything.

That happens at the end of the month. Which means, of course, that November 1^st is some sort of drop-dead date, after which we’ll have to wait for the WGA to get their act together if we’re even going to think about making a movie.

I’m short on motivation.

On the other hand, I’ve got a great family.

So I guess the words will have to come later.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 03:27:00 GMT

Answering the Phone…

To get the opportunity, and to just blank out – it’s up there with, you know, going onstage and forgetting your lines.

I never had those dreams, by the way – I never dreamed that, like, I got up on stage and forgot my lines.

Instead, I dream that I go onstage, and I never learned my lines. Also, there are songs, which I don’t know.

A quick true story: When I was in high school, I was friends, kinda, with a girl. I won’t name her, though I seriously, seriously doubt she will ever discover I used this story. Also, come to think of it, I doubt she remembers me, and more importantly, I can think of exactly one person who might remember that I used to spend time with this girl.

So much for quick.

Back in the day, I was a big choir geek. I suppose in many ways I still am, but this is actually in relation to the solo-ensemble time of year.

For those who were not in any form of music in high school, here’s how solo-ensemble worked. Somewhere around January, you would be given a list of songs you could learn (the “solo” aspect of the name) and you would learn one, and then sing it for a judge, who would rate you.

If you got a first, you might go to state. I never went to state. Somehow, I still decided to get a music education degree, and no one tried to stop me. This is only now hitting me as being really strange. (For the record, I got a third, a second, a first, and a second.)

Again, so much for quick.

So in this story, the girl was a sophomore, and I was a freshman. I had learned my solo, pretty well I thought (see the “third” above, so see what the judge thought…) and the girl had… sorta… learned her song.

Or rather, I kinda-sorta thought she had learned her song, and she thought her problem was remembering the words. So I tried to help her, by having her recite the words to me while I held her songbook.

This was happening on the day she was supposed to sing the song, by the way.

It was pretty clear to me that she didn’t know the words. But we had three hours, and so we went over the words again and again and again and again, until she seemed to get them in the right order by 80% of the time.

And then, it was showtime, and I discovered – that she also didn’t know the melody of the song.

Plus, she managed to slip into that 20% “can’t remember the melody” thing, as well.

And so, she mumbled her way through the song, as quietly as possible, as though no one else was in the room. The judge didn’t stop her, or even make a mention that something was wrong. He let her go through the whole song… and then, he called her over to his table.

He said, “I have to confess, I couldn’t really hear you. I’ll have to give you a fourth place, unless you want to sing the song again.”

At that moment, I wanted her to sing it again. To belt it out. To at least get the words, the words I’d spent three hours helping her with, out into the air. And maybe part of the melody. Perhaps it would all come together, the way things sometimes do, and she’s get a third. Or a second.

Instead, she meekly took the fourth.

There’s no real postscript to that story – eventually, we stopped hanging out the tiny amount that we had been hanging out. But that was unrelated to the story.

I guess maybe contests have been on my mind. The Paper Boat went nowhere in the Nicholl, and also went nowhere in Austin.

But – The Paper Boat is a top 10 finalist at Vision Fest in NYC and was a finalist at the 21st Century Screenplay Contest 2007.

The final tally for Vision Fest will happen on September 22^nd.

High on the good times, I started working at setting up a project involving… well, I’m not talking about it now, for various reasons.

Suffice to say, I was given a go-ahead of sorts.

And now I’m failing to go ahead. Frankly, I’ve been both exhausted (because of the kid) and sick (because of a cold the kid brought home) and both have killed my ambition.

But I’ll make it work.

I will not just sick back and take that fourth.

But hopefully I won’t get a third, either.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 20:29:25 GMT

The Other Side…

Sitting here, preparing to type, I’m realizing that there isn’t a whole lot to tell here.

I realize that I’ve been blogging in this space now for coming up on six years, and I’ve always been careful to stick to my writing career. I talk a bit about my home life, not at all about my work (though if you have the free time, yes, you can figure out where I work and what I do, but who cares?) and sometimes I talk about me, personally, but even that’s mostly silly flotsam.

So I’m a little bit stuck for an entry today, though I really think I should write one.

Things that have changed since I last wrote in this space:

I had my eighth wedding anniversary. So now I’ve been married for eight years instead of seven.

I’ve now been married longer than I was in high school and college combined.

Up next on the life chart – I’m a father.

I realize that it’s a very dad thing to say something like “I have the cutest baby in the world,” or “I have the smartest baby in the world,” but seriously.

And I mean this, not just as a dad.

Cutest baby in the world.

I have seen, held, and played with cute babies, and this one is, I think, roughly 57% cuter than any other baby I’ve ever seen. It’s a little scary.

As for the smartness quotient, well, in short, she’s less of a lump-like thing, which so many babies her age are. She has a personality. She has obvious though processes.

She also has a lot of drool, but that’s unrelated.

And yeah, I’ve got dad stories and stuff, but I’ll bust those out later, when I’m desperate for screenplay material, and I decide to write a story about a father and his kid, who was adopted from Ethiopia.

I’m kidding, I think – I am, however, considering taking the 200-odd photos and 3 ½ hours of video I’ve got and making some sort of short documentary out of ‘em – and putting it into Wildwood, and maybe Madison.

It will probably look a little like this:

http://tinyurl.com/2gfht7

We shall see.

And yeah, in other news, my fourth film is all shot, folks. I got a call at 10 PM on Saturday, August 11^th, telling me that the last of the footage had been shot that day.

So, you know, some sort of movie will come out of it. Hopefully a good one.

And we keep on sending The Paper Castle and The Paper Boat out to contests, and producers, and everything is, y’know, out there.

And what am I writing now?

Well, Kara and I are still working on the adoption blog, which didn’t really happen because we didn’t have much in the way of computer access in Ethiopia.

I need to talk to an editor about it, but it’s looking like I’ll be writing a column for the family magazine soon, covering various issues of adoption. Which I now know something about.

There’s more I could say, but I must away and go be a father for a while. There will be updates. There will be more writing.

But for today, I’m just a dad. I’m down with it.