Screenwriting Blogs

This blog needs some serious work. I've got a few friends who are not yet added to the links and I want to start adding some other cool links I've found. I'll start now. And by now I mean soon.

Thanks to a friend and an article in the New York Times, I've discovered two pretty cool screenwriting blogs. (An interesting aside: Screenwriting isn't a recognized word in the blogger spellcheck. Neither is spellcheck.) The first, from a smart lady who worked on Angel, and Firefly, among others, is currently Co-Executive Producer of Battlestar Galactica. Her name is Jane Espenson, and other than the difficulty of getting her name right, she tells you what she had for lunch in each post.
The second is a guy named John August, who has to his name movies such as Go, Big Fish, Charlie's Angels, and an interesting upcoming movie called The Nines. They both seem very interesting and knowledgeable in screenwriting matters. Beyond that, they also take the time to offer helpful advice, which is perhaps the only way people who want to be screenwriters can learn how to be screenwriters without the difficulty of Hollywood reality first.

I've started showing my script to people. It feels pretty good actually. But I only have two (maybe three) copies, so sharing is difficult, especially when many of these people live outside of Chicago. I'm beginning to consider emailing PDF files to those who request it. The problem is both losing control of my work (in the sense that I can't get it back from them) and the difference of reading something on a screen, which in my opinion is without flavor. But economics might force my hand, because each copy runs about...$7? Enough that I don't want to make too many, especially when I'm still finding errors and changes will still be made.

I'm heading home tomorrow. It's been a nice trip but I'm sunburned and have go to back to work so that I can be my own special part of the economy.

Swallowed By The Sea

I'm in North Carolina on vacation. It's nice. There is the sea, and family, and those things are nice.

There's much we haven't spoken of. This is not the place. But it's there, hanging over our heads. And no amount of explaining explains justly, because sometimes there is no justice in things.

I'm looking out at the sea, the endless sea, and I'm amazed at how far it goes. Exactly the same as a hundred thousand years ago, still vast and constantly in motion. Still lapping at our feet, trying to swallow us. Untamed and restless, and I feel lost in the stretch to the horizon. The clouds billow overhead, and they show the different colors of the sun's light. And at night, the moon rises slowly out of the water, bigger than life and yellow, as if it's trapped in an antique painting, slivers of cloud cutting across it. And there's sand beneath my feet, and for a moment I feel like I'm on solid ground.

Beyond our pale bodies, there's no interruption to the ripples of the sea. They only fade when my eyes fail me. There's something comforting there. As if we're looking at something more, the last vestiges of a world we can never understand, hidden deep beneath the white caps. And my eyes fill with water if I look too hard.

There is peace in this place, even if there is not peace where we are right now.