One Smaller Lung

Re: Praxis
How great is serendipity? My friend Stephen called last night and I told him about our plans to submit the screenplay of Knock Knock to Praxis and he made me call a guy who I have known of for decades but never really known. He is a fine guy and he ran Praxis for over ten years. And Stephen was a juror, so I learned many things. Michel told me things to put into our application letter and he said we'd be competing with between 70 and 100 scripts. Stephen said a lot of the scripts are duds. And since Stephen saw  Knock Knock, his assurance that my story is stronger than many scripts he has read was reassuring.

Re: Health
Well that is over. After all the words, it was not really more than a lung biopsy. But it was a doctor I was not expecting and I was thrown by some issues, but once the sedation hit. It was over. I got a good dose of some medication that begins with "M" that makes you forget everything. Awesome!

Experiential Learning

Scene view of Mockingbird script.
Click to enlarge.

There's nothing like it. (Read the post title.) I've been doing it all my life. I built a theatre armed with only confidence and an honours English degree. I founded a photography gallery that continues to do well (critically) armed with nothing but a short lifetime (at the time) of looking at images. The first book I wrote became an official best seller and my first play got me a commission to write a second that is soon to be produced. All good eh?

I love learning by doing new things. Everything above, I undertook with naive confidence as I have undertaken the script of Mockingbird. Today I had a very encouraging conversation with the former head of Praxis, the producers of the scriptwriting competition to whom Warren and I are submitting our script.

My fabulous schedule: Wake up at 5:00; at work by 5:30.  Focused work until anywhere between noon and 2:00. Lunch and a break or a walk. Warren arrives at 3:00 and stays until 6:00. Dinner. The two more hours of work. Saturday and Sunday, I am going to rehearsal with Warren so that when he is not needed, we can work.

Best thing about today: Movie scripts are 110 pages long or less. It seems to be a rule of thumb. I am on page 52. I think our script will likely be 85 - 90 pages and that seems good to me because we have a narrator that has a heavy load of dialogue and the voice of a narrator creates far less length than dialogue…. short, for us, is okay.

Place Your Bets...

Friend, Beth, (wisely) cautions me to be prepared for rejection at Praxis.

Warren expresses concerns about how much time we have to work on the script.

I tell Warren, who is busy with rehearsals and other projects, that we can ignore Praxis and I mean it. I do not want to push this project, but Warren wants to go for it.

I am glad he wants to go ahead because his conviction in Mockingbird got me to invest hundreds of hours to get this far. But to continue to work this hard would be easier and more rewarding were we to get objective and experienced encouragement for the script and Praxis seems like a perfect opportunity.

Meanwhile… Wednesday I have to eat light, Thursday is surgery, Kim is reading draft #2 of HoMe and I await word from Toronto about a revision/re-write of Artist Survival Skills.

FUCKING PINCH ME!!!

Warren was here for a couple of hours yesterday. We sat down to work and he pulled out his stack of yellow file cards. He had one for each scene in the screenplay; each bore a title and purpose and he had re-arranged my order of the scenes.

It was truly humbling to see so profoundly talented a man so engrossed by my story and so incredibly invested in it. He knows what we are doing and how to do it better than I do. He sees the structure of the story and knows the language of film.

We had a great session that will serve for a model for future sessions and we will meet regularly—perhaps twice a week—to move through my first draft to our first draft BECAUSE God sent me a message last night. Here are God’s words:

Canadian screenwriters are invited to apply to the WFF Praxis Screenwriters Lab, an intense five day workship presented by the Whistler Film Festival and Praxis Centre for Screenwriters.The program will be held from December 1 to 5, 2014 during the Whistler Film Festival + Summit.

Designed to advance Canadian creative talent, the WFF Praxis Screenwriters Lab focuses on strengthening feature length scripts by facilitating feedback and mentorship from veteran screenwriters and story editors.

Up to 8 screenwriters will be invited to participate in the 2014 Screenwriters Lab.

The benefits:

·      Writers receive targeted feedback on the screenplay with the guidance of a carefully selected Creative Advisor

·      Writers participate in individual and group meetings with the Producer-in-Residence

·      Writers receive an industry pass to the Whistler Film Festival, having the opportunity to network and connect with other industry professionals

·      Writers leave the workshop having charted a course for a rewrite and further development
Warren was here for a couple of hours yesterday. We sat down to work and he pulled out his stack of yellow file cards. He had one for each scene in the screenplay; each bore a title and purpose and he had re-arranged my order 

And how do I know it was God speaking?  The Praxis deadline is June 30th.

UBC Botanical Garden

Today, dear, dear friends Lydia and David and their daughter, Martha (whom I have known all her life) went to the UBC Botanical Garden. It was stunning in every way and perfect weather. They arrived yesterday. Martha lives in Richmond, Virginia and L&D live in Kennewick Washington. We have a long fabulous history together.

Fabulous Flame

The Flame, as we were about to start.

The fabulous, the most wonderful Deborah Williams who started The Flame and is its host.

Last night was my sixth time telling a story at The Flame, a storytelling forum I just love. And being a stunning day, I walked from home to the Cottage Bistro where the event is held. (Excellent War Wonton Soup!)

That meant walking Main Street, from Science World to 30^th. It was the second day in a row I had done the same walk because Main Street is by far the most interesting street in the city. There are lots of funky (and clean) restaurants and scores of boutiques in which you meet the charming and unique owners.

My friends Dianne and DR came to watch and so I asked Dianne (who is about to retire and is the former film commissioner for British Columbia) to read and comment on my screenplay and give me any feedback that might occur to her.

There’s been fewer posts because I am almost finished draft two of play #2: HoMe.

And, I found a great new person to do my renovations. It is a wonderful experience to be working with someone I trust and who is true to his word. I have complete faith in James and my new kitchen cabinets are already underway.

Cooking with Words and Spices

(Clockwise) Saffron Rice, Butter Chicken, Palak Paneer, Veggie Korma.

I met my friends John and Kay in 1972 when I started teaching in 1970. I quit teaching in 1972 and have seen Kay once since. John married Bunny and we have been intimates since meeting. This past weekend we all had dinner at my place (with little notice) after I got a surprise call from Kay who came to Vancouver to visit her brother.

My plan was to buy dinner because I am so focused on writing. (See below.) But I finished the draft of my screenplay and so I decided to cook Indian food. I used recipes from Madhur Jaffrey but the korma was not at all to my liking, so I rescued it with a spice (+ sugar) intervention. The butter chicken was perfect. But the palak paneer was amazing—even I think so. It was nothing like the paneer I get in restaurants, there were big chunks of tomato in it. Jaffrey's recipe is very hot, so next time I will reduce the jalapeño, but it was fabulous. The rice is basmati, with cinnamon, a lot of cardamom, cumin, star anise, and lots of saffron and orange rind. I love it too.

"HoMe," "Cap Café" and "Mockingbird" with Beth's book.

Above is a photo of  heaven—three scripts in the works. And that green book is friend Beth's faboo memoir of her crush on Beatle Paul and her excruciating year in Paris as a young girl. It is a great read. Her blog is here if you want to reach her to get a book.

Bliss is finishing the first draft of your screenplay on Friday and getting an email on Saturday from the artistic director of the theatre producing your play with notes about your script. I took the weekend off, but yesterday I loved diving back into my play to address the AD's awesome notes.

This is new, writing creatively and writing dialogue. It is a form of writing to which I aspired but felt incapable of producing. So to have Warren and Kim keen for my new love is really thrilling.

Every day I walk for usually three hours. My pattern: Up very early and writing by 5:00 am. Writing undisturbed to anywhere between noon (if I have a lunch date) and 2:00. Then a big walk, then rest, dinner and maybe some review of the morning's work.

When I am writing, the walks fly by because my mind is fully engaged with ideas or conundrums in the writing. Were it not for the walking, the writing would be far, far less successful in its structure. When I sit at my desk, I work on the details; when I walk, I am thinking about the bigger — the arc of the story. So a pen and paper is always in my backpack.

Cheers.