It’s time for that screenwriting challenge of the year, ScriptFrenzy, where we write 100 pages of a new movie, TV show, graphic novel, or other script in the month of April.

I’ll be serving as ML (i.e., head honcho, cheerleader, glorious leader) for the Austin area for the second year.

And in honor of this…an embed (here’s the link shoud it break: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFicqklGuB0 )

But back to business. I have so many talented friends, and one of them emailed me last week asking if I would like to be part of a project to create a short film this summer. He wanted to try his hand at directing, and looking around at our circle, we had a videographer, a graphic artist, a working actor, and myriad creative types. “What we don’t have,” he wrote, “is a story.”

Just a little over a year ago, I started writing film scripts. I got involved mainly because I knew nothing about it, had not spent years studying it, and therefore could completely fail at it and not mind a whit. I participated in ScriptFrenzy, adapting one of my novels to the screen as a way of trying to edit it down to the essential story. Turns out it was the perfect method for me. I realized where my story’s turning points were weak. I shored up dialogue. And ended up with a much stronger manuscript that immediately started getting requested again by agents.

But then a funny thing happened. I entered a screenwriting contest, and advanced to the quarters on first try. I wrote another screenplay, and it advanced as well. I joined screenwriting groups, and made some contacts, and upon hearing my story ideas, directors were asking to read my scripts.

This was all very strange to me. I had studied novel writing for over twenty years, and still had not broken into the industry. And here, with amateur knowledge, I was having more success with scripts than all my years of writing combined.

As so often happens in film, far more than in book publishing, things fall through. Special effects aren’t in the budget. Another script has more energy. I didn’t mind. I was having a blast.

And I’ve kept my scriptwriting exactly for that — fun. I am now in charge of ScriptFrenzy in April, and love every minute of it. Since my friend asked for ideas for what to shoot, I’ve come up with several: two four-minute comedies, a five-minute art film (which I am totally going to shoot myself if we don’t do it), and a fourteen-minute psychological thriller.

If art is about feeling that happy creative buzz, about that sensation that you are living in the moment, and taking down your impressions of life to be captured in something more concrete than time, then screenwriting is exactly what I love to do.

I still write novels. And I’m still serious about them. In fact, one is out with agents and one is under heavy revision. And with all these story ideas blossoming in the last few days, some of them might become short stories instead of film scripts.

But I am so inspired to try this new medium. The director and I meet tonight to go over script ideas and decide the level of scene changing, number of actors, special effects, and sound we can accomplish with the equipment we have.

And of course, films like this definitely make me want to stretch a bit, and reach for something lovely and lasting.

A Thousand Words from Ted Chung on Vimeo.

For the past two days, we’ve been snagged in a sea of health care red tape. Only one pediatric neurology group exists in town, so we have to play by their rules. They won’t see her until March, and that’s only if they’re willing to make an appointment, as right now our pediatrician hasn’t jumped through the proper hoops.

Last February, when Elizabeth had a grand mal, followed by a day of dizziness, inability to sit up, stand, or walk, we ended up going back to the hospital when we could have simply done outpatient testing at one-tenth of the cost. But Circus Oz came to see the patients, so if you ask Eliza, she would tell you, “IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT!” Missing school for a week? Not so much.

She’s back at school today despite three episodes that can’t be classified for certain without tests. Her pediatrician thinks they could be halo-vomit-migraine patterns, but they could also be seizures with traditional post-seizure side effects. Meanwhile, Elizabeth goes merrily on her way, choosing between braids or headbands, hoping her heart shirt matches her sparkly jeans, and wishing her math homework wasn’t quite so hard. She has trouble concentrating at times and deals with pains, both real and phantom, most every evening and night. She sleeps in troubled bouts, and if she gets too stressed or deals with too much static in her brain, will simply fall asleep wherever she is (sometimes even on the bottom step of the staircase if climbing them seems too much trouble.)

Specialists are hard to come by, and it seems more would-be doctors are shying away from fields that require too much bureaucracy, or ones where it can be hard to keep the clinic in the black, with all the staff required to keep the forms moving. And at times like this, when we’re unable to treat a second-grader who might embarrass herself in front of her class at any moment by falling down and throwing up, it’s frustrating to feel that the system doesn’t work even for upper middle class families with good health insurance. I can’t imagine how much harder it would be if we were poor, although I guess we’d just park ourselves at the hospital and let the bills fall where they may.

She’ll hop off the bus shortly, thrilled to have seen her friends, bummed that she has to do homework again after two weeks off, and hopefully without any trouble this day. She doesn’t always realize when she’s having illness-related problems, when one day she can add triple digits and laugh about how easy it is, and the next will lie on the floor and cry over seven-plus-eight. That’s the job of those of us around her, to keep her calm and safe and hopefully get answers when answers can be determined, and solutions when solutions can be found.

I’m not sure what we’re owed from our health care system or what we should even expect. Maybe I want too much. But to see a doctor, one who has trained and has as much information as anyone might, seems the most basic of services. So today, that is what I fight for: an appointment. And let the answers fall where they may.

Cynthia Lord. Her book Rules is probably the most re-bought and gifted book of my life. It’s about the sister of a boy with autism, and the voice is so great, the story is so wonderful, and the lessons so keen, that I can’t help but pass it to friends and family touched by autism, including my own niece and nephew.

Sonya Sones. I read What My Mother Doesn’t Know several years ago and now I anxiously await each new title. Sones’ stories are told in verse, and are so funny, so emotional, and so true. You don’t have to be a teenager to be affected by her characters.

Margaret Atwood. Atwood had me at The Handmaid’s Tale decades ago. I own almost all of her books. I got The Year of the Flood for Christmas and can’t wait to tackle it. When I forget how lovely language can be, how intricate a sentence, how delicate a description, I read Atwood.

Annie Dillard. I knew about The Writing Life but had never picked it up until this year. The first chapters resonated with me so much that I immediately began rewriting drafts of some of my novels, searching for words that were better than the ones I had chosen, hoping to elevate each paragraph beyond an idea to be communicated and into prose poetry. I’m reading A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek now, and enjoy so much how she obviously labors over every choice of a word.

Betsy Byars. I read Summer of the Swans as a girl and I still pick it up again and again as an adult to remind myself that just because a story is written for younger readers, doesn’t mean it can’t be languorous and full of meaning. I don’t have to make the book hurtle along if I don’t want to, but the story can move by its tension, not its breakneck pace.

I look forward to the authors and books 2010 will bring!

Cameras and Photo Gadgetry

Point and Shoot Cameras     New this year is a KILLER camera from Canon. If you are not ready for the full blown digital SLR, but want something with more heft and power than a typical point and shoot, try the Canon PowerShot SX20IS. Wow, oh wow, 12 megapixel images and movies in HD! $369.   If you want the pocket-sized camera, I still love the Canon Digital Elph ($149). I own one myself and it’s the best combination of tiny size and good picture. I haven’t seen anything come through my Point and Shoot Camera Basics class that tops this little guy.   When it comes to features, remember that more megapixels are not always better. Unless you’re going to make a billboard, 6 megapixels is plenty. Otherwise you are just buying bigger memory cards, bigger hard drives, and waiting longer to upload. The ridiculous part is that often the camera defaults to a lower megapixel rating so it appears that the card holds more images. So your 12 megapixel camera is actually shooting at 8 or less unless you change this.   Image Stabilization is pretty important on a camera that has more than 3X optical zoon (remember digital zoom is EVIL. It CROPS your pictures. It’s not a zoom at all. Turn it OFF.) Without I.S., a tiny wiggle in your hand (even in just pushing the shutter button) becomes a big movement at the extended end of a zoomed-in lens, causing motion blur.     Digital SLRs   Still, the best is going to be for me, the Canon Digital Rebel XSi ($569). I’m NOT sending you to the pricier 15 megapixel one. The 12 meg one is FINE! Really! The link is for the kit, which I don’t love, as I think the 18mm-55mm lens isn’t enough for what most people will want. Try a 28-135 lens instead.     Photo Gadgets This year when a family member asked for an MP3 player, I discovered this amazing little SanDisk gadget. It plays songs, as well as lets you view photos AND videos. Since our cameras all do little videos now, this is the perfect thing to slip in your purse or pocket. Who needs wallet photos anymore? Just load up your updated pictures into this! And best of all? Only $49.   I freely admit to being a Canon girl. Among the entry-level digital single-lens-reflex cameras, I find them the easiest to use. Nikon buries the menus and makes it difficult to make simple setting changes. But if you love Nikon, definitely the D-series are a good choice ($464 for the D3000).

Private Lessons and Classes

Fancy cameras are no good if you don’t know how to use them! Most people don’t realize that a digital point and shoot camera used in the “automatic ” setting will take WORSE pictures than a point and shoot.   For gift certificates for private lessons bought between now and Christmas, buy one hour of lessons for $65 and we’ll double it for a two-hour session.   Just call or email me and I’ll get you a cute little gift certificate.    This year I got to do so many fun lessons. Dad brought the kids to the park while Mom learned how to photograph them. We set up a little space by a window in another mom’s home where she could take portraits of her baby. I got to teach a jewelry maker how to photograph her work and a knitter how to get images up on Etsy of her products. And boy, did I do a lot of Photoshop lessons. Seems everybody wants to touch up their pictures.   Gift certificates for private lessons are good for a year.   OR! Take one of my classes at UT! I will be teaching both my beginner Point and Shoot Camera Basics and my intermediate Photography Walking Tour of UT (for both Digital SLR and P&S cameras) in March. Search for photography classes at UT Informal Classes. If you want a more in-depth series of classes, look for my friend Carlos Austin’s courses for beginning digital SLR users.

For the kids

The girls’ book on how to make balloon animals is going great! It made it all the way up to #26 for Kid Crafts on Amazon last week. We were thrilled!   Since so many people asked where to get pumps and balloons, we found a company that provides supplies to professional balloon twisters and made a little kit of the book, a pump, and 20 balloons. It’s on special through Christmas for $16.95 and use the code shipfree09 and you won’t pay shipping either!   If you would like the book signed by the little authors, you can let them know the inscription in the shipping instructions.   Check it out at Casey Shay Press.

]]> http://deannaroy.com/2009/12/2009-digital-camera-and-gadget-buying-guide/feed/ 0 http://deannaroy.com/2009/11/why-i-still-read-ms-snark/ http://deannaroy.com/2009/11/why-i-still-read-ms-snark/#comments Mon, 30 Nov 2009 03:46:18 +0000 Deanna http://deannaroy.com/?p=423 Yes, I know Ms. Snark’s blog is dark. It has been for over two years now. If you’re a writer and never discovered her, you should take a look. The archives are full of amazing and helpful information.

But that’s not the main reason why I go.

There are things in writing that are easy to master, if you put your mind to it. We begin to learn the first layer in grade school: spelling, punctuation, grammar, paragraph structure, beginnings, middles, and ends.

The next level most people don’t truly conquer, because they stop writing as soon as they are no longer in the presence of an evil-minded teacher who forces them to. It’s about the story telling: characters, setting, theme, and plot. People who love reading and writing in high school and college begin to see these elements in stories even when not writing a two-paged essay on them. They become eager to apply these concepts to their own work, layering them into their stories with equal attention.

Many literary-minded college courses and even professional workshops stop at this point, although some will move on to smaller pieces of the puzzle: scene structure, dialogue, transitions, pacing, and more poetic word-smithing techniques such as alliteration, consonance, and rhyme–all good pursuits.

I was stuck at this level for decades. I kept taking classes, joined critique groups, and read books. But one additional layer needed attention. And it wasn’t one you could easily come by, because it was large, unwieldy, subjective, and ever changing: writing to the audience.

I think one reason that this is ignored in the literary world is that it sounds like selling out, burnt on the edges in the fire of commercialism.

But when you’ve poured your energy, time, and hope into novels, all written on spec, with the optimism that it will one day be traditionally published, it can be a cold hard dash of reality when the letter come back, often as a quarter-page form, saying your story isn’t competitive in today’s market.

What? How can that be? YOU are part of the market, and you LOVE this. And second, it’s a form letter. It means nothing.

Actually, it’s a form letter because it’s so common. Many of us have great ideas, many of us can string words together that communicate what we want to say. But very few of us can make that message resonate with the readers we are trying to reach.

I see it every day in critique groups or in writers who post their query letters online for review. I’m no expert, and I can still see that they don’t have a handle on their story. Their summaries wander. They can’t write a one-sentence premise about the plot. They know very much what they WANT to do. And this is often worded in their letters in phrases like, “This book reminds us that…” or “Readers of this story will remember what it is like…”

We write sentences like that because we are frustrated  by our own stories, our inability to show the lives of characters who will communicate a message without preachiness or head-smacking. And that last layer of the novel, which is part of every word on the page, is what ultimately causes the novel to fail, either at the query level, because the agent can see the writer isn’t communicating this part, so it’s doubtful the book will be any better, or at the novel level, when an agent has requested the work and stops reading around page 50 because the book just isn’t rising as it should.

Ms. Snark, in her query bashing and crushing responses to reader questions, cut through the literary high-brow and got straight into the issue of does this book work for the reader it was intended to impact? She did this with humor, with biting candor, and intelligent analysis. She made us able to look at our own work more critically, to slip on her stilettos and step back from our emotional attachment to what we’d written and see it from a difficult-to-please point of view.

It’s a debilitating blow to realize you’ve spent a year, or several years, on a novel that doesn’t work. But only when we fail can we figure out what we don’t know. Until you’re querying, putting your tender babies into the world, it’s not easy to know what you’ve done wrong.

But Ms. Snark can educate you ahead of time, before you burn through the agent list, without dealing with the hard reality of rejection in your inbox. Go, and read, and learn from her, not just once, but every year or two. We can’t absorb everything until we’ve moved to the next layer, when all the things we’ve fixed about our work reveals the next set of weaknesses.

It’s not an easy process and there aren’t any short cuts. But reading Ms. Snark can cut a lot of time out of the write-revise-rejection period of your authorly rise to success. And you can laugh along the way with Killer Yapp and hearing that once again, Ms. Snark has read something that makes her want to set her hair on fire.

So, what are you waiting for? Discover her again. I’ll see you there.

________

Once more, I apologize for keeping comments closed. This web site has been around since the dawn of the internet (when it was just me and Al Gore) and therefore is a magnet for foreign-language comment spam, which, loosely translated, all says, “Buy our grossly-inappropriate-for-this-blog leisure toys!” If you want to comment, visit my LiveJournal or friend me on Facebook.

Of course you do. You’re just that old.

Other than being a brilliant use of alliteration, rhythm, and outrageous trademark repetition, the old Tootsie Pop ad justified all the silly questions in our lives. It didn’t matter that the old owl only took three licks and bit into the lollipop (Don’t try THAT at home. You’ll break a tooth. Really.) We could investigate ourselves to find the answer to this timeless question, simultaneously wrapping our happy tongues around pure sugar satisfaction.

So what if we’re suckers.

My question today: how many hours does it take to write 10,000 words? And not 10,000 words of gibberish. Real words. Real dialogue. Real story.

See, I was way behind on NaNoWriMo. As in, well, 10,000 words behind. And I had this marvelous day where my parents had been here and just left. So my house was CLEAN! And I’d killed myself catching up on my work before they arrived. And I’d played LOTS with the kids.

I had no guilt. And no chores. And best of all, no kids! (Off with dad.)

And so I set a goal that was rather obscene. 10,000 words in a day. It seemed pie-in-the-sky, unrealistic. I figured I’d fatigue around 3K, the most I’d ever written in one sitting before.

But I knew I could punch out a thousand per hour. I also knew it was like saying you can type 100 words a minute. Sure, maybe for one minute. Or even five. If pushing, maybe fifteen. But could you sustain this level for a long haul?

The answer: yes.

Caveats: I had an outline. A good one. And on Friday, I found a change of direction in voice that I felt crazy passionate about, the sort of outrageous exuberance that leads to lofty goals. I just didn’t have time to implement it.

Until today.

So yes, I wrote 10,042 words today. If you’re doing NaNoWriMo and you’re behind, take heart. It can be done.

But now my fingers hurt and I’m hungry. And my butt may be permanently shaped like my chair.

I think I deserve a Tootsie Pop. How many licks will it take to get to the center of chewy chocolatey goodness?

The world may never know.

My favorite cereal of all time began disappearing from the shelves in the 80s. But when Wal-Mart first began opening superstores with groceries, they also carried the strawberry and pink-marshmallow sugar-fix. So I could get it when I wanted it, if I was ready to brave the horrors of a big box (not to mention the good People of Wal-Mart.)

But then, a few years ago, I traversed to my nearest discount superstore to discover that only Count Chocula remained in stock (BooBerry never stood a chance, little blue kernels of chemical waste that it is.)

Thankfully, Target and other holiday-centric stores will snap up cartons of the Franken-goodness starting in early October. And so many of my friends know that I love it, they will pick up a box for me when they see it.

So my day starts with a breakfast-of-champions, with 8 grams of whole grain, 13 vitamins and minerals (13, really? I love this cereal), and gee, let’s not look at the sugars.

I’d invite you over for breakfast, but honestly, unless you bring your own pink box emblazoned with a happy cartoon Frankenstein, I’m not sharing.

The fourth-grade class hustled to pack up their bags and sit on the floor around my chair, more motivated than they had been all day.

I hadn’t served as a substitute in ages (although last time had been memorable), but their teacher had taught my daughter, and personally asked for my help. I tucked the pink hair away as best I could and at the last minute tossed my middle grade manuscript Jinnie Wishmaker into my bag.

The students had worked quickly and quietly in order to get a chance to hear a story no one had ever read. I told them I needed help editing my book, because something was wrong with it, and I couldn’t figure out what it was. This happens, I explained, when you edit your own work.

I didn’t really know what to expect when I began reading aloud. The class had been antsy all day. But the idea that they were doing something “for real,” not just as an assignment, really motivated them to finish their work and pile onto the carpet to listen.

I reminded them what was important to the beginning of a novel: a character that interests you enough to read a whole book about. And a story that doesn’t just sit there, but moves forward, and makes you worry about what will happen next.

So they settled in, twenty nine-year-olds curled around backpacks and lunchboxes, more riveted than I ever expected. The opening scene unfurled, a girl and her younger bother plotting to run away rather than to be taken to live with their snobby rich aunt and uncle, characters taken from a page of Roald Dahl, where the grown ups are hyperbolic and the kids represent the voice of reason.

At the end of first chapter, I asked them what they thought.

“Is Jinnie going to be mean the whole time?” a boy asked. “She seems mean.”

“Yeah,” a girl said. “She’s angry.”

I couldn’t believe it. Why hadn’t I seen it? The Jinnie I knew was sensitive and fairly shy, but in this first impression, with just her little brother to tug around, they were right. She was mischaracterized in the opening scene.

The story had been through four critique group grillings, read by five or six other writers, and even several agents had nurtured it though some revisions, and yet still, I hadn’t seen it until now. No one had been able to just say it.

We lined up by the door, my head buzzing. I knew I could fix it. And I couldn’t wait.

One of the boys tapped my arm. “Ms. Roy? Will you be back tomorrow?”

I had no idea. “Not unless your teacher still needs me. Hopefully she’s better.”

“If you come back tomorrow, will you read some more? I want to know what happens.”

Are you kidding? “You can count on it.”

It began at 3 a.m., as all annoying events should.

Plop.

What?

Must’ve been a dream.

Plop.

Nope, my forehead is wet.

Plop.

Oh geez.

I got up to turn on the light. The rain had been relentless for three days.

I peered at the ceiling. You could still make out the trail of the repair job, spackled and repainted, from when carpenter ants invaded, broke through the plaster, and began landing on my bed.

I’d take the rain any day.

But apparently the damage was more extensive than we realized, as at the very end of the old ant trail, water had seeped through the paint, creating a slit that looked like a winking eye, and–

Plop.

I didn’t think I had enough room to move the bed away from the drip. I certainly wasn’t going to fix it or call anyone. It was the middle of the night. I was tired.

I did what any reasonable person would do–went into the bathroom, got a big fat beach towel.

And slept beneath it.