The Dotted Logline

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.

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.

One of the things that reaching the ripe old age of 25 has inspired me to do is track down old friends I’ve lost touch with before we all grow gray and senile. Tonight I spoke with a friend of mine from college, Kathryn. One of the many, many Kathryns I knew in college.

This particular Kathryn has the distinction of always having the coolest jobs and connections. Aside from giving me some great advice about networking and LA, she told me that starting this summer, she will be working on Family Guy (she has previous experience working in animation.) Very very cool job.

Anyway, after I had finished talking to her, I got to thinking about Family Guy, and the fact I’ve been wanting to write a new spec TV script for quite some time (my only one is now about three years old, from Angel, which is no longer on the air, and painfully bad).

So after I borrow the complete series from a friend and catch up on the episodes I haven’t seen, I’m going to write a Family Guy spec script. This will be a big challenge, as I tend to be as inoffensive as possible as a writer. But I also tend to write very very bizarre characters, so it isn’t that much of a stretch. I DO think it will be really damn fun. I already have some… interesting ideas.