My characters piss me off...

Sometimes. Not always. And I know how this sounds...and maybe I am psychotic...but at least it's a fun psychosis and not something dangerous. I hope.

Anyway, Adam was messin' with me. First he sent all these little notes about changes he wants made to The Alice '65, then he did a walkabout on me when I tried to get going on it. But tonight, I worked it through the first act of the script.

We're not talking major changes -- shifting the location of one scene, cutting some language, adding in some of Adam's reticence earlier, things like that -- but they help. So far it's not so much a new draft as another polish. I'm also getting rid of some too-easy jokes that seem rather juvenile.

Everybody else is sitting, waiting their turns, politely. Adam's just being a daftie.

Of course, as Adam shifts so does everyone else, in response. The biggest is with Orisi and his "I'm important and you're not" speech. It's shorter, terser and (I hope) funnier. But you never know.

The humor throughout this script has never been the laugh-out-loud kind. I can sort of get away with the romantic-comedy moniker, but it's really more like just pleasant in the funny department. Which I like. Romantic comedies rely more on the chemistry of the leads to make them work than the humor.

Great pairs -- Spencer Tracy & Katherine Hepburn; Cary Grant & Irene Dunn; Clark Gable & Claudette Colbert; Cary Grant & Rosalind Russell; Doris Day & Rock Hudson; Tom Hanks & Meg Ryan. (Oops, almost forgot Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck.) It is my fervent dream to add Russell Tovey & Eliza Dushku to that list, with a bit of help from Gertrude.

Who says I don't aim high?

Totally lost...

Adam...where are you? This isn't the time for hide-and-seek or Whack the Mole. If you changed your mind about the ideas you sent me for A65, say so. Silence is not golden, right now.

Unintended helpfulness

I'm reading a book on writing comedy, by Sol Saks, that is proving to be less about making people laugh and more about telling a good story. His rules --

Be brief, simple, clear, bold, relevant, recognizable, controversial, unpredictable, original, and salable.

Do NOT:

Be courteous, reverent, or obedient; honor thy mother, father or any predecessor; have a false straight line; go past the punch line; explain; apologize; be innocuous; conform; be tentative; or be untimely.

His seven deadly sins of writing?

Timidity
Deference
Obscurity
Pomposity
Blandness
Bad Timing
Imitation

The book is 30 years old and dated as regards what he considers funny...more smile-worthy...but it's reminding me of how I'm guilty of doing some of the no-nos and not doing the yes-yeses. My books have been controversial, unpredictable and bold, no question...but salable? Only barely. So, I read to write in writing to be read.

Hopefully it will keep me from drifting off into stupidville...but you never know.

Deadwood completed

All the nonsense I had to finish from the last 3 weeks is done and gone...and I've got a nice little headache from it. But I feel good. My checkbook is balanced. My credit cards are in order. I'm set up to do a couple of jobs in NYC and Washington DC, next week. I'm going to Seattle for the book fair, next month. Looks more and more like I'll be doing Hong Kong, again, but not Toronto, and will be in NYC the second week of December.

Oh...and Return to Darian's Point is in the Top 100 for Table Read My Screenplay, which is set in London, this year. I won't find out if I got it till I'm on the road...and Jesus God, how I'd love to win this one; it means a staged reading of my script by British actors before an audience. Oh, I so want to go to that. I'd even pay my own way...which I think I'd have to do.

I wonder if my Jet Blue points will work going to Heathrow? And how likely do you think it is that maybe Zac Efron would read as Perry? I get giggly just thinking about it. Yeah, totally a dream.

What's funny is, this came just 20 minutes after I learned RDP didn't even make the first cut at The Austin Film Festival. Man...it wins The Indie Gathering, does well in TRMS, and gets dissed totally in Austin. Not that I'm surprised, really. When Blood Angel was a Quarterfinalist in 2007 I went to the festival and read some of the winning scripts...and they were awful. Maybe I should be grateful; I don't know of a single winning script from Austin that's ever been produced.

And that's my sharky-snark for the day...

Dead days work wonders...

It took me a while to get going, this morning. I had a ton of laundry to do and my whole system was out of whack...but I still managed to get back into The Vanishing of Owen Taylor and begin streamlining it. I really need to go through and make a list of all the characters, locations and time-frames; I realized I accidentally added 15 months to the whole situation between Jake and Tone from RIHC6.

Not cool...but that's what's so great about taking time off from your writing -- it gives you space to get a clearer view of what's happening.

I guess it was good that I didn't have much opportunity to really focus on OT while I was in LA. And since The Alice '65 is now knocking at my door (and people want to read it) I'm going to take a bit more time before I dive completely into Jake and Tone's world; I had the printout and was making notes as I cleaned my clothes.

For A65, I just need to do a polish to work in the ideas I had for Adam and Casey, then get it off, but I can only do that on my desktop; I don't want to buy a new version of Final Draft since I'm pulling back from scripts...but I can use the program to do plays, and The Cowboy King of Texas wants me to do that. Dammit. I can't think about this, now; I'll think about it, tomorrow.

My flight home was actually quite nice. We were in a 737-800 which has 8 emergency exit doors instead of 6, 2 of which only have two seats beside them and an extra space next to the door. I grabbed one of those and, since the plane wasn't full, no one sat beside me. That gave me three seat-back trays to work with...and I used 'em all. Totally fun.

So I guess now I have to take back some of my attitude about Southwest...

Headed home...

I'm at LAX using the okay Wifi after finally finding a power source at Southwest's Terminal One. Man, it so shows how much better Jet Blue's Terminal 5 is. There, you can have all sorts of meals, have them delivered to your gate, find power sources all over the place, free WiFi without having to jump through hoops, and even free music in the main lobby, at times. And in the planes you get videos with your assigned seat, with some interesting information...and their prices are not that much more.

Southwest...there's a tiny food court, a couple more separate restaurants with limited seating, even the MacDonald's is closed down and it all feels very crowded. You have to watch a video or answer a question before you have access to free Wifi, and then you only get it for 45 minutes at a time...when it'll let you in. And it's still the cattle car line where if you don't pay the extra $12.50 for Early Bird Checkin, you wind up in B or C boarding group and sitting in a center seat.

My next trip to LA will probably be on Jet Blue...even if it means going into Burbank.

I had a nice meal with Kasey Sixt, the last real friend I've ever made. She just completed a promotional video for Edwards University and does all sorts of thing to keep herself going. She's one of those people who have to schedule in time to sleep. She once almost got my gothic horror script, Darian's Point, made through a company in Canada...and almost sold it to a Hollywood Producer...only it didn't work out. But those were the closest I've come to getting something actually produced.

The production credits I do have as a writer are for rewrites I did for other people's work. Not my preference. Anyway, she the second friend of mine to suggest making DP into a book...something I'd been thinking about, in general.

I wonder if I'm being told something, here?

Uncertain direction...

I was having dinner with some friends, last night, and told them a bit about Carli's Kills. My oldest and best friend, Karl Armstrong, who's an assistant editor at Paramount, popped up with the idea that Carli would make a great series of books, a la Jack Reacher. And that got Carli's attention...did it ever.

She knows I've considered using Jake Blaine in a series of gay mysteries. I even have a basic plot worked out for the next one -- Jake is asked by the Danish Government to investigate a soldier's death, because the Americans who handled it labeled it a suicide, and indications are that it was not.

That's as far as I've gotten, really, because I have so many other things I want to focus on...but Carli's got her mind going on the possibilities, and she already likes the notion of a woman being just as hard and strong and driven as a man. The positive thing is, this may take her away from the screenplay idea for a while and let me finish OT in peace.

Not that my other characters will let me. Today I got a nudge from Eric Smiley, the lead in Delay En Route. He's thinking of setting the script in 1982, when the G7 was having a summit in France.

And Cal wants me to make The Cowboy King of Texas into a play. NOW! And Adam's got ideas for The Alice '65 to make it better.

Jeez...I really need a long vacation away from everybody, even those in my own mind.

Finally...

Okay...I finally made my pilgrimage to Point Dume. I try to come out here every time I'm in LA to walk in the sand and let the Pacific mess up my pants. I don't know why I keeping doing it; I just know if I don't I feel incomplete. Maybe it's because I want to remind the muse or the fates or god or whatever that this is where they lied to me...or let me lie to myself; I'm not sure which.

This begins 15 years ago, because this is where I'd come to call a friend of mine who was dying of cancer. He was deteriorating fast, so I described the ocean's waves to him...and the rocks and floating gulls and the elegant breeze and the colors of the sky and the vivid silence. He was too weak to hold the phone to his ear so his son was doing it for him, but he heard me. He whispered so. He died two days later, and I swore I'd go all out to get my career in film going.

There was already talk of a Project Greenlight 2, so as soon as the rules were laid down, I arranged to shoot a scene to submit for consideration. I got some good actors, called in come favors, shot plenty of footage to work with, knew exactly what I needed to do, and I'd even taken into account some possible problems so had worked out a way around them. So after everything was transferred to an external hard drive, I drove out here to, in effect, say thanks...and show I was keeping my promise.

It was night, and the drive to Point Dume's parking lot was chained off, so I walked the mile to it. No moon, but a billion stars overheard and the incessant rumble of black waves rushing onto the sand. I got to the rocks and held the hard drive aloft, and I saw a couple of shooting stars. I whooped.

I also came out here to make the promo-video for the project I wanted to shoot, and stood on a moss-covered stone to plead my case. But that was during the day and much easier to do.

It was the next morning that the lies began to reveal themselves. To start with, the video had crap sound, but no problem -- I'd recorded the actors reading their lines onto a DAT tape. Only that tape vanished. Completely. I never got good sound for it. So even though the editing went exactly as I expected, my scene sucked.

Not that it would have mattered. I'd chosen the worst scene possible to present -- 4 guys getting ready to go on a hunting trip. No one liked the characters and I didn't even make the first cut, thanks to the negative reactions. Good sound would have been moot.

Then it turned out Project Greenlight was just an excuse to do some reality TV, that Ben Affleck & Matt Damon never intended to make good movies this way; that's why they kept choosing not only projects that were questionable (A Christian boy convinces a dying Jewish boy that he has to prove he's worthy of heaven; an underage boy falls in love with an older girl and makes it with her, even as she's about to get married) but let directors do such stupid crap, you had to wonder who was in control. And don't get me started on how every one of the winners of PGL had connections to them or their production company.

Here is where I began to back away from film, in steps and stages. Not consciously, at first, but looking back I can see the difference in my attitudes. Here is where I returned to writing books and short stories as well as scripts...and slowly began to lose my dreams about film. I do still dream, sometimes, but it's more from a sense of nostalgia than need.

Because on that night, as my hopes and prayers filled the sky and I thought I'd been given a sign that all would work out...I was just being set up for another fucking. And part of my heart disintegrated, once I finally caught on.

So maybe that is why I go to Point Dume whenever I can -- to remind the fates that I'm still here...and I'll never be there...and ask them if they're proud.

Jake's getting antsy...

He's ready to start having fun with OT, again. Maybe lots of fun. Lot more fun than I planned on. Way more. Dunno what's going on here, but this is the first time he's let me see him laughing. I think he's finally caught on that the whole situation in Palm Springs is too ludicrous to be taken seriously.

Or...maybe he doesn't want to be a tragic muse, after all. Problem is, my grasp of humor is questionable, at best. I can do a sort of wit and jokey dialogue, but actually being funny? The feedback is usually, "Keep your day job."

Of course, there's no way OT will be a comedy. But it never hurts to add a bit of levity. Who was it who said, "Comedy is tragedy taken to its logical extreme"? Did anybody? Have I coined a saying?

All I know for certain is, it wasn't Shakespeare, Milton or Marlowe.

Packing books, again...

I'm dealing with a library that has not been moved, dusted or cleaned in what looks like decades...and it's distressing. We're talking about books from as early as the mid-Eighteenth Century to modern volumes, some of them truly wonderful. But they had a problem with mice/rats and roaches...and the tell-tale signs are everywhere -- from droppings and trails to wheat-paste bindings and acid-free pages eaten away. That's what's so distressing. Many of the books are completely ruined, though parts might be salvageable if rebound.

It hurts me to see books in this condition. I understand why this happened; the owner's been unable to get about for some time now, and it seems no one else had really thought about checking the back rooms, where the worst of this was. But still...

They did bomb the place about a year ago and that appears to have driven most of the critters out, if not all. Now everything is getting packed and the new owners of these books will determine what next to do. I'm just working on one portion of the library, which may be the worst area.

I'm reminded of a library of books on magic and games that we packed up for Heritage Book Shop a few months before the owners announced the store would be liquidating...7 years ago. That man had stacks of books all over his 2-bedroom apartment. 12-15,000 of them piled into a maze that only someone skinny could get through. Wasn't easy for me, in parts.

For that, we used 230 banker's boxes, and it took me and another guy four days to complete the job. It wasn't far from the shop so I rented a small U-Haul cube truck to ferry them over, and hired some guys on a street corner to help carry them down from the apartment and upstairs into the store.

Turned out this man was an obsessive compulsive, who had dozens of bottles of cleansers and bags of soap and toilet paper and paper towels and cans of soup...and we had to clear everything out...but aside from the dust, the place was clean. We gave a lot of stuff away.

That library wound up going to a museum, and I didn't have to buy paper towels for the shop till it closed, nearly a year later.