The Dotted Logline

April 7th was my birthday. Unfortunately, it was also the one year anniversary of the brutal “honor killing” of Du’a Khalil Aswad. An anthology entitled Nothing But Red has been published in her memory, with all proceeds (approximately $4 for each book or download sold) going to Equality Now. The charity is a favorite of Joss Whedon, who wrote a very stirring essay that was the inspiration for this project. The essay is included in the book as the opening piece.

I’m very proud that I was able to contribute to this collection and am honored that my poem was chosen to close the book. I only hope that the proceeds and awareness raised can help prevent such horrific acts from happening in the future. For more information on the anthology, please take a look at the press release. Buy a copy and spread the word.

Purchase Nothing But Red
Nothing But Red on MySpace
Nothing But Red on Facebook

They’re calling it “Deletegate” and “Strikethrough 2007″ on LiveJournal. CNET has already written about what happened, so I’m not going to bother explaining it again here.

I’m disappointed that LiveJournal/Six Apart still hasn’t seen fit to issue a statement to the thousands of upset users who are demanding one. I’m even more disappointed in their abrupt shift in their definition the more vague statements of their Terms of Service in response to the pressure of lost ad revenue. I feel for those who have lost beloved writing and gaming communities that weren’t actually in violation of the ToS. I’m heartbroken for those victims of rape and incest who lost their support group and thus contact with the people who helped them through difficult times.

But what really makes me furious is the attitude of the so-called “Warriors For Innocence” that started this while mess. Numerous people found the personal blog of the founder of the group (“suesviews2″ on Blogspot) and posted comments complaining about their methods on an entry complaining about WFI’s methods and lack of training/credentials. These people were called pedophiles by the blog owners. Especially those who mentioned being a victim of abuse. This comment (posted by one of Sue’s friends rather than Sue herself) especially upset me.

“Your attempts to rationalize LiveJournal and pedophiles as having anything even remotely connected to legitimate writing demonstrates both who and what you are. As for the victims…when, if ever, have the children of these monsters ever “described their own victimization”?”

The vehicle through which you share your writing does not define it’s legitimacy. And the inclusion of an unsavory or illegal topic in your writing does not mean that you support and promote it. Fiction has always had plenty of villains that commit unspeakable crimes. Sadly, so has the real world. There are many who write about darkness in the hopes of understanding it as a means of fighting it, not as an attempt to embrace it. It has a valid place in works of art and literature, professional and otherwise.

I’ve never been a big participant in any fandoms. Most of the time, they annoy the heck out of me. But it’s not all slashers and shippers and wank. Fandom and fanfic are extremely important to some people for reasons that have serious real world relevance. And these people have a right to speak and share, even if I find their interests annoying or even offensive. Of course, I’ve always believed in freedom from speech as well as freedom of speech. But as long as you are responsible in how you choose to speak (because freedom always entails responsibility) and I’m able to make an informed decision to avoid it if I know it will offend or me, I will defend your right to speak.

So call it “Deletegate” or “Strikethrough 2007″ or the Day that LJ Died. Sing a “Hoist The Colors” or Firefly theme parody. Make icons and banners and lolcats. Write a rant or a fic. Or better yet, tell a story that makes people laugh and think and cry and learn and grow. And don’t ever let anyone tell you that your words, your story, your life doesn’t matter.

Playwriting was one of the best workshops I took while working on my MFA at Emerson. It was also the most aggravating. I was focused primarily on screenwriting, which was all tight structure and tighter dialogue and plotting everything out down to the tiniest little detail in advance. Playwriting was all about letting things flow and meander where they wanted in the hopes that they would eventually come together into something beautiful, perhaps even coherent. It was a very organic process. Scary as hell, too.

But my playwriting professor, Betsy Carpenter, must have been doing something right. Her class swept the playwriting fellowship awards at least three years in a row, with the winners (myself included) receiving full productions from the very same theater department that vastly outnumbered us in number of entries. And this was despite a deadline that was increasingly pushed back to cripple the workshop and us sacrificing most of class one week for a “field trip” to the pub next door to watch a few innings of the Red Sox/Yankees game (a trip that was both completely dry and top secret, of course.)

Betsy ended up being my graduate thesis adviser. As my thesis was a screenplay and I was working on it long distance to avoid paying another year’s rent in Boston, I was a little concerned about how things would work out. Betsy was great, in an incredibly odd way, but she was rather unpredictable too, much like playwriting itself. It was a a bit of a scary prospect.

Scarier when I didn’t hear back from from her about my preliminary draft for a few months.

When I did finally hear from her, Betsy told me that the screenplay would certainly pass the thesis defense in its current state, but she thought that I could do better. It was tepid, as she put it.

She had two words of advice. “Watch Brazil.”

So I did. And she was right. Brazil showed me exactly what was wrong with my script and exactly what I needed to do to fix it. In the end, there was very little “defense” needed for my thesis defense.

I was in Boston for two weeks to wrap up all of my thesis business. During that time, Betsy invited me to not only sit in on, but participate in two classes and three readings for her current playwriting workshop. She told me several times how great it was to have me back. It was great to be back.

I just received word from my friend Alex, a classmate and friend from the playwriting workshop, that Betsy Carpenter passed away this morning. She had been undergoing cancer treatment for several years. I don’t think I’d known that.

I hadn’t spoken to her since I finished my thesis. I kept meaning to e-mail her but I was waiting until I had some news to tell her about my play. I wish I had dropped her a note to say hello, to let her know that I did make it out to LA after all, to tell her that I have never gotten better advice crammed into two small words.

I’ve never been one to call myself a geek. To me, geeks are the scary scary people that made working at a comic book shop in college so icky and uncomfortable. Likewise, I tend to think of fangirls as the skanky fourteen year olds that attempt to molest voice actors more than twice their ages at anime conventions and fandoms as being comprised of people who see ship wars as far more essential to preserving our way of life than whatever is going on in the Middle East, wherever that is.

But there’s a disconnect there because I’ve always had plenty of friends I would call geeks who are involved in various fandoms. My dad is a bonafide geek who lent me his copies of Hitchhiker’s Guide and Lord of the Rings when I was a kid, taught me that Logan’s Run was an awesome movie, and explained to me how all of MacGyver’s tricks would have turned out in the real world.

Plus, well, look at me. Most everything I write has some element of speculative fiction to it. As mentioned, I worked in a comic book store. I’ve attended anime and speculative lit conventions. I read comic books and can relate random facts that a normal person shouldn’t know, thanks to my habit in the past year of keeping up with character histories on Wikipedia (did you know that Pietro and Wanda Maximoff had a anthropomorphic cow as a midwife at their birth? I think her name was Bova.) I read (good) fanfiction (on occasion) and used to write (good) fanfiction (that fit reasonably well into canon) that I may eventually resurrect and finish. I successfully completed an AMV that has gotten a very positive response over the years. I watch anime and read manga, the two of which take up over 1/3 of my bookshelf space. I read young adult fantasy. I took two classes in sci-fi lit in college and grad school. I watch several (very good) sci-fi TV shows and animated series based on comic books. I play video games (albeit generally not well.) I write and (sort of) draw a web comic chock full of geeky pop culture references. I wear glasses (though I plan to try contacts again soon.)

I guess part of it is that I’ve never FELT like a geek. I’ve always had so many different interests that I’ve never really become deeply entrenched in any fandom (which is fine with me, as I really do find most fandoms scary.) As far as I can recall, I’ve never had trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality (maybe due to the MacGyver thing) or actors from their characters (“His name Bruce Boxleitner, Mom. Not Scarecrow or Lee Stetson.”) Plus there’s the fact that as a writer myself, I feel that placing the work of any other writer above my own (in terms of personal importance and dedication) is doing myself a pretty big disservice.

But I need to face facts. I’m a geek. I’ve always been a geek. And it isn’t a bad thing, despite the fact that a significant portion of my personal experience with people who embrace the label has been less than pleasant.

I am, however, not a geeky geek. Or a fangirl. And definitely not a shipper.

Brickgirl & Oscar was linked on Whedonesque.com due to the current strip. While most people seemed to dig it, a small number think it’s horribly mean. Quoteth one critic, “It’s even worse that its creator is so proud of it as to post it on the internet.”

Unfortunately, Whedonesque.com has a closed membership. While I’m eligible to request a membership because a work of mine is being discussed, I haven’t heard anything back as of yet, so I figured that for now, I would write up a response here and link it to the comic’s News page:

Brickgirl & Oscar isn’t meant to be taken very seriously (at least at this point.) But since some readers have raised an issue that I feel somewhat strongly about, I’ll give a serious answer.

Yes, Oscar the Brick can be quite mean. Like all good characters, he has his flaws. And, like all good characters, both he and Alice will grow and change over the course of the comic. It’s easy to look at a character who is cruel and take it as a sign that the writer herself approves of such behavior, but as someone who was bullied herself as a child (due to her shape and size and appearance), there’s no way I would write a comic that was no more than a long-running insultfest at a poorly drawn little girl. And if I did, I would probably refrain from referencing Joss Whedon, as that is just a little too close to the type of thing he’s working against in the real world.

It isn’t a coincidence that Oscar quotes Cordelia (Graduation Day Part 2) in the last panel of this week’s strip. Much like Cordelia from BtVS and Angel, Oscar can’t be judged as a person (or brick) based only on his behavior in the first couple of episodes. Unlike Cordelia, however, Oscar is unlikely to fall in love with Broody McBrood or give birth to a glowing Gina Torres.

Plus, I thought the tagline “A webcomic about unlikely friends” indicated that Alice and Oscar might eventually become, you know, unlikely friends.

(And yes, there was a terrible typo in the comic. I woke up at 5:30 AM, upset by a rather Alanis-like use of the word “ironic,” rewrote the third panel, uploaded it while still mostly asleep, and didn’t look at it at all later in the day. In my defense, my regular copy editor didn’t catch it either. I’d fire him, but he’s my dad and he works for free.)

Writing Project Status

Brickgirl & Oscar: Plugging along well. Four strips posted, ten completed, and I don’t even know how many more scripted. Readership is still fairly low, but then again, I haven’t done a lot of promotion. I have gotten a very positive response from readers thus far. I considered increasing to two new strips a week, but going to hold off on that for now, as I don’t want to neglect all my other projects…

Chimera (TV pilot spec): First draft done, working on revisions.

Goodbye Dolly (Feature spec adaptation): First draft done. It’s craptastic, but it’s done.

Untitled Stage Play Project: Minimal progress since I started about 18 months ago, but stuff is still a brewin’ in the ole noggin.

Other writing news: Spoke with Baker’s Plays about Goodbye Dolly (the stage play version) which they’ve had for 19 months now. Seems that last year, they replaced the entire editorial staff, and the consideration for publication process had to be restarted for everything. My play has been cleared by at least one reader, though, and I should hear something back by late summer.

Had a bit of an incident with a literary manager about a month ago, but unfortunatly, it was not really legit.

Job Status

Starting next Wednesday, I’ll be working as a content writer for a search engine optimization firm. It’s not creative, persay, but it is writing. More important, it isn’t taking photos of faucets in a dingy warehouse with no windows in downtown LA where the temperature has been hitting 90 degrees in the afternoons even with two AC units running.

Other Creative Stuff

I will be performing with an as of yet unnamed, possibly all-female improv group in coming months. I’ve always loved improv, but never considered myself to be exceptional at it. Better learn fast… we’re looking at six rehearsals before the first performance.

For those who haven’t seen House, your typical episode goes a lot like this: Patient is admitted with mysterious symptoms which multiply and befuddle as the show progresses. House snarks at everyone, Holmeses out everyone’s dirty personal life issues, and identifies the mystery ailment or ailments right around the last commercial break, just in time to save the patient (except when the ailment is fatal.)

The Ailment of the Week tonight was Celiac Disease, a gluten intolerance that I’m VERY familiar with. My mother has had it since I was three, my dad’s cousin has it, and at least one good friend of mine has it, possibly two. I’m at high risk for developing it someday. Even if the 1 in 130 people ratio I heard is correct, that’s a lot of people. Luckily, the symptoms generally aren’t nearly as dramatic as on House.

Me: My mom has Celiac Disease.

Random Person: What’s that?

Me: Remember that episode of House where the woman had a niacin deficiency that made her go crazy and kill her baby? It was because she was an undiagnosed Celiac and wasn’t on a proper gluten-free diet.

R.P.: …So you’re mom’s insane?

Me: No, but she used to be really thin.

Part of me is glad to see Celiac mentioned in pop culture, as it is very common but often misdiagnosed.  The symptoms vary and, in the past, it seemed like many medical professionals knew little or nothing about it. But the episode did much to further the public’s understanding of the disease itself.

I have a favorite prose piece that I wrote a number of years ago. In a way, it’s one of the most personal pieces I’ve written, drawing loosely on what was probably my most unpleasant year of high school. An unpleasant but very formative year, as that was the year I first became interested in theatre, an interest that in many ways led me to where I am today.

Of all the short stories I’ve written, I’ve always felt this one to be the closest to publication quality. However, it’s a highly experimental story, which made it difficult to find suitable markets to submit to. Although to be honest, I never put a huge amount of effort into the search.

I just found out that the person reflected in that story, the person who inadvertently drew me into theater, someone I had first met back in second grade, passed away almost two years ago. Unfortunately, I can’t say he was a friend. Probably more of a symbol in my life than anything. I doubt he had any idea what an impact he had on me. Quite frankly, he probably wouldn’t have cared very much.

But I think I’m going to start looking for a market for that story again. And this time, I’m REALLY going to look.

Hey, I’m still alive! I know it’s been a while since I posted here, but life in CA has far busier than I anticipated. And let’s face it… hardly anyone reads this thing anyway.

I rather like living in LA, as long as I focus on the fact that I’m surrounded by many creative and talented people and ignore the fact that many of them are floundering in desperation at all of the closed doors, the inability to do what they really want with their lives, the fact that they can’t afford food, etc. Luckily I’m not quite suffering from the third one myself. Currently, I’m working in photography/web design for a plumbing hardware distributor (printing orders for faucets and printing labels to mail said faucets most of the time.) It’s a job. It’ll do for now.

Writing wise… Overloaded on projects as always. Working on a screenplay adaptation of my first stage play Goodbye Dolly (finished a rather pathetic first draft of that, but have some excellent plans for the rewrite), stage play #2 that sat around dormant for a year and is now seeing some action, and what WAS formerly screenplay #2 that in the past few days became TV series pilot #1. Will probably be renamed from Project Changeling (which sounds too much like Project Runway) to Chimera (which no one can say correctly.) There are a smattering of other projects on the backburner, but I’m pretending they don’t exist at the moment, lest I give myself an aneurysm.

Hollywood is interesting. I like my neighborhood… easy to find parking compared to the surrounding areas and the Scientologists have security people standing around at all hours (I THINK that makes me feel safer, though I’m not 100% sure.) Movie tickets are hella expensive; unless it’s a big event, best to go to one of the surrounding cities and pay $8 instead of $15. I’ve been to the Arclight, Gramanns, and El Capitan in Hollywood. The latter was to see Chronicles of Narnia, and as they had all sorts of costumes, props, models, production art, etc on display, that was the ticket I most felt was worth the price.

Other randomness… In & Out Burgers are very good, though the fries caught fire in my microwave. Target is a great place to buy a new microwave. Upright Citizens Brigade has some great shows, and many of them are free. Traffic isn’t as bad as I expected. The price of food is worse than I expected. Drinks are even more expensive than food, so best to do your drinking before you go out. Having a boring job unrelated to what I want to do with my life means I’m still doing better than a lot of people out here. I’ve lost my fear of earthquakes and gained a fear of being trapped in my car for hours, unable to find a parking space.

I enjoy The Onion as much as the next person with a sense of humor, but this story hits a little too close to home. Home meaning my new apartment in Hollywood where I’m still looking though job listings.

Fortunately, I have a nice view of the Hollywood sign from my street.  Should I ever need reassurance, all I have to do is step outside to confirm that it’s still there.