off to BEA

This weekend, I'm off to Book Expo America (BEA), which will be attended by some 25,000 people, features 2,000 exhibitors, and 1,000 authors signing books. Yikes!

I'm supposed to be one of those 1,000 authors, signing copies of Tornado Siren from 11:45 - 12:15 on Saturday. (Come on by!)

I have absolutely no idea what to expect, other than I imagine it'll be pretty overwhelming (and that I doubt anyone will take much notice of me or my book in the midst of the mayhem, but you never know). It'll be fun to hang out with my publishers (Behler Publications) and their new distributor, Blu Sky Media.

The best part is actually that my wife, Tracy, will be there with me. This is a belated birthday trip for me, and the kids are staying with my in-laws, so this is actually a 24-hour vacation for us. She's a librarian, so she gets all sorts of special perks from the Expo. I figure we'll come away with lots of trinkets for the kids and more free books than we can carry. I hope to check out a few publisher booths for some folks that might be good for a few of my other projects.

Screen Life: baby steps

My adventures in screenwriting have been the slowest aspect of my writing life, for quite a while. I secured a manager in LA about 3 1/2 years ago, and we worked together on some of my scripts, but we never got much off the ground. They submitted one of my pieces once or twice, but that was about it. Then they got busy on the production end, and basically got too busy to call or e-mail me back.

At the same time, I got busy writing plays (and having productions) and having a novel published. But I have four spec scripts that I'd love to see get sold and produced, and since I haven't been doing anything with them, nothing's been happening.

My writing account is just about dry, but I got some money for my 40th birthday, and I'd been thinking about putting some of it into writing stuff. Tonight I plunked down $100 for a year's subscription to Script P.I.M.P. (Pipeline Into Motion Pictures), which is web site that offers access to a database of production companies, agents, and managers. It's not a huge database, but it has a number of folks who will look at material from unknowns like me. I used this back in 2004, and that's how I ended up with my previous manager. So I know that it can work. And maybe, since I've put my money down, I'll feel inspired to make a lot more queries now, to make sure I get my money's worth. Spending that much money definitely makes me feel a little queasy (screenwriting has had the worst payback, financially, of any of my writing, so far).

I was especially inspired to do something today, because the news is full of a story about a man with a rare strain of TB who has been quarantined. Elements of the news story are extremely similar to The Carrier, my screenplay that's had the most close calls to-date. To me, it felt like this was really the day to start getting those queries back out there.

I realize that I don't understand the movie biz, and especially how to make it work from Boston. It seems like a place where there are lots of folks interested in lots of different projects, but getting them to follow all the way through to the end is the tricky part.

Maybe this time it'll finally work out. I sent out two queries, through the Script PIMP site tonight. I'm down to $50/query already.

Killing Time

Next year I've got to get in on the big 48-Hour Film Project. I have a couple friends who have participated, and it sounds like much, much too much fun (a lot like May Day Play Day). Teams are given a genre, a line of dialogue, a character, and an item that must appear in the film. Then they have 48 hours to write, film, and edit the film. It's a nationwide competition--some of the winners even were shown in Cannes this year.

My friends Dan Milstein and Bonnie Duncan were on a team that make this short horror film, Killing Time. It's funny (and a little gory). They had to make a horror film, 4-7 minutes, that had the line of dialogue "call me when you get something really good", featured a shoelace, and had a character named Quimby.

May Day Play Day: Open and Shut (and a link to the script)

10:48pm, Saturday. Well, the show has opened and closed. I had no trouble staying awake, thanks to good performances and a Red Bull right before the house opened. All four shows went well. We had a receptive crowd, close to capacity (which is especially impressive considering it's Memorial Day weekend). My show went second, and it held its own with the other plays. My actors did an especially fine job, really bringing in some emotional depth in front of the audience. Moments that I'd been doubting came off very nicely, and the first half of the show really sailed by. I can see where I need to cut at the end, but even so, it was a powerful play, and not one where you'd say, Oh, well, what would you expect, he wrote it in the middle of the night.

This afternoon, I was just so exhausted when I got home. I felt like the play really sucked and how were we going to pull it all together in time. Blah, blah, blah, whine, whine, whine. (Tracy says I was exactly the same the last time I did this event.) The nap this afternoon helped a lot.

I got back to the theatre, mid-way through our tech. Unfortunately, we lost some of the fun sound stuff I'd hope to have at the beginning, just because the CD player wouldn't cooperate. Oh, well. The actors were pretty solid on their lines by the time I got there at 6, and once tech was over they ran it three or four more times.

Here is my cast (photo from last night: Shaun Butler, Kyla Astley, and Mikey DiLoreto).

Kudos to them and my director, Brian Anastas, for working their asses off all day and night (and being completely off book on a 15-page play by 8pm). Thanks to Mike Manship and Colleen Rua for sponsoring the whole event.

I don't usually post my scripts online, but I know folks have been following the growth of this play. So I've posted the script on line: click here to see a pdf of A Bright New Morning. I'm still sleep deprived, but this is pretty much the script did tonight, plus a few small additional cuts.

I definitely learned that I'm not good at cutting down a script on no sleep. Lots of other lessons, too, but for the moment I just need to get some sleep.

May Day Play Day: off to tech

5pm, Saturday. Had a good day of rehearsals today. Met director at 9am, actors at 9:30, worked straight through until 1:30pm. By that time we had the whole thing blocked and had a chance to run it a few times in the space. After being up for almost 36 hours in a row, definitely wished that I was a more brilliant writer. The script is okay, but I was trying to do a lot and didn't succeed at it all. We'll see how it looks at 6pm at the tech. This afternoon the actors were already starting to get off book as well as handle the blocking. What a lot to do in such a short period of time.

I'm just up from a 2 1/2 hour nap and am pretty out of it. Hopefully can snap back to wakefulness by the time I get to the theatre.

May Day Play Day: made the deadline

Okay, well, I got the script off to my director, before the 8am deadline. We'll see he thinks. We're meeting at 9am at the theatre, and then have a few hours of rehearsal. Then, with any luck, I'll be able to get a nap.

I did make a few more changes, but some of my time got sucked up trying to download a sound effect, which then got all screwed up. 6am computer screw ups after being up all night are not fun.

I need something to eat.

May Day Play Day: revisions, A Bright New Morning

5:08 am. I had a little nap, until 4. Since then I've been reading aloud and revising. It's still awfully bitter and dark, but I'm afraid that's just what it is.

I'm a little worried that the language is a little loopy and flat, and likely to get the actors caught in circles. I only have a little while to work my way out of that, and it's not as easy as it sounds (on no sleep, at 5am).

I wonder if the piece is subconsciously drawing inspiration from Laura Harrington's Boston Theatre Marathon piece (which I liked). It's somewhat post-apocalyptic. In some ways it's an odd post-Katrina piece, I suppose. Too soon to say.

I have staging in my mind that should work with what we've got at the theatre, using a ladder and cinder blocks and the umbrellas.

I'm glad to have a title, A Bright New Morning. We'll see how it all goes in rehearsal. I'll look at it for a another hour, I guess, and see what I can do with it.