The Beginning of the End...

...of the semester, that is.

We only have two weeks left of class, and it's winding down quickly..

The other day I sat and thought about how much I've written this semester, and I realized it's been a lot.

My first draft of my feature was 140 pages, and I rewrote basically the entire thing. I cut it down to 122, though, and I know I can cut some more out of it, so I'm right on for page length. I simplified it a lot, and I'm very excited about it.

Then I did a rewrite of my script that was 120 pages, and I had to rewrite a lot of scenes in that, and I cut it down to 104 pages. I'll add a few more in this final rewrite before it's due on the 9th, but that's perfect length for me, too.

So maybe I've done more cutting than writing!

Well, not really, but it seems like it. It's a joint process I guess.

Anyway, I've done all that, plus D1 revisions (which are short, but still...) and I've written a novel on my own. I'm around 1300 words from my 50,000 word NANOWRIMO goal, and I'm very excited. I've never written this much in my life, and I love it. I'm really happy.

This semester's been great. I think I'm coming out of it with a lot of really good stuff.

I love my revision of Beyond the Bookshelf and I can't wait to send out query letters to producers and send the script to contests over Christmas break. I feel really strongly about it, and I feel like I should get the ball rolling soon. Because why not? So wish me luck that someone will at least want to read it.

Fingers crossed.

But yeah, we're really winding down. I'm trying to finish all of my drafts this week, because Mike is coming on Tuesday! So I'll have that whole week that he's here to just hang out.

And then after that, at the very end of the semester, is the D1 screening! I haven't watched any of the edited final products, so I'm really excited to see them. It's going to be super weird! But I'm really happy. It should be a lot of fun.

But anyway, my brain and eyes are fried a little from looking at the computer screen all day. But that's what I'm up to now.

In worse news, it's been nearly one year since I went to London. How did that happen?

Writing!

So, I haven't updated in a while, but I've been pretty busy. Mostly with writing, which totally makes sense, seeing as I'm a writer and all.

But we finished our second intensive week for our features. I've done a whole first draft of my feature, and now I'm working on editing it. I'm really simplifying and tightening up the story, making the characters stronger, and shortening it. I'm working in a science-fiction, dystopian world, so my first draft ended up really being about the world. Now I get to take a bunch of stuff out and have my second draft be what the movie is really about: the characters and the adventure they go on.

I'm really excited for the changes I'm going to make. So that's what I'm working on now.

I'm also working on revising my feature from last semester, Beyond the Bookshelf. I'm really, really stoked to be working with that story again, as I was from the beginning. I'm roughly half-way through the script, and I've edited it down so much and simplified so much and made the characters stronger, and I really, really love it. I'm super excited about finishing it.

My original goal for that script was for it to be around 110 pages, because it's a children/family movie, and it was originally 120 pages. Now, it's at around 108, which is perfect. I'm so excited. But see, that's how much I simplified it. And I'm not even done yet!

I'm also working on my novel for National Novel Writing Month. I'm at more than 18,000 words, and 34 single-spaced pages, which is really amazing to me. It's more prose than I've ever written in my entire life. I tried to write a novel in high school, but never got very far, so it's always been something I've wanted to do. And now I'm doing it.

It was really quite difficult to get into a certain writer's voice right away, because I've gotten so used to writing screenplays. It was also strange, because screenplays are so structured, and novels can really be any possible way, completely free-writing, with no particular structure.

But now I've really gotten the hang of it. I've gotten to an exciting part, and I feel like I'm just cruising along. All of the set-up is done, and now I just have the exciting stuff to deal with. And I've really reached a stride in my writing, and I feel like I've finally gotten my writer's voice back.

Hopefully, when I'm done with the novel, I can edit it and make it great and self-publish it on Amazon. That would be awesome.

But, yeah, a lot of writing. D1s are almost over, and that's been really cool. Teaching's still great. I only have two more lessons to teach. It's quite mad. This semester just blasted by. It's been really amazing and really helpful, though. I've learned loads.

I'm off to the set of my D1 that's filming this week at 1:30. It's a drama, and the house they're filming in is really pretty, and the director is super excited about making it, and I'm just really stoked to see how it turns out.

The Best Kind of Busy

This past week has been my busiest week since D1s. I swear. It still wasn't quite as busy as D1s, and definitely not as labor intensive, but I did so much writing this week!

I've been trying to finish my new feature, as well as outline my feature I'm revising and making my revision plan. It's been busy, but incredibly fun and helpful.

Today, I finished my newest feature! It's 149 pages, so I have to cut around 30, but it's great to have everything down on the page. Finally. I wrote 22 pages today to finish it up. It was marvelous.

I really don't think there's a better feeling than finishing the first draft of a screenplay. It's so great.

But anyway, my semester has finally kicked up and I'm busy nearly every day. It's really, really great because I finally feel like I'm in school again!

I have my first Director's Prep for D1s on Thursday, and then I'll do the final rewrite for that script with our professors' notes, and they'll be filming Sunday. I'm so excited!

We also had all of our students turn in their papers, so that grading party is coming up quick.

Anyway, I'm super busy, but I love every minute of it.

Revisions and D1s!

It's funny to think that all of my posts from a year ago center around making D1s, and here I am, writing about writing them. I'm totally on the opposite side of the spectrum, and it's crazy!

I went to Crew Drills today to watch one of my directors practice his scenes. He's doing my horror script, and he had the lighting set up wonderfully. The light was super contrast-y and his actors did an awesome job. The blocking he chose to have them do was really, really cool.

I stood in the back, watching, having all of my friends ask if I wrote the script and I could say, "Yes!" And I was really proud. Proud of my director for making an awesome movie and proud of myself for making it here. I know the director is really excited, and I think he's going to do an awesome job.

It was really cool to watch them film the words that I wrote. I've had a play produced before, but this was different. This was really someone else's take entirely on something that I wrote, and it was really interesting to see what he did with it.

I'm going to pop in on Crew Drills the rest of the week, too, because I can't help myself.

Director's Prep starts next week. And once again, I'm on the other side of the table! And now, instead of talking about what I'm going to do to shoot it or presenting storyboards, I'm sitting at the table, defending my work and talking about what it all means! And the honest truth is, I might have to think about the answers to some of those things. It's only a 3 page story! Give me a break!

But it should be fun. And really, really cool. I'm excited.

Oh, and I haven't mentioned! All 5 of my scripts are being made! No one's doing repeats. I'm stoked. It's going to be so awesome to see all of my stories up there. And frightening. But I know my directors will make awesome movies.

And that ends that egotistical part of the post.

Yesterday we had our first Revisions class, and our teacher is awesome. She's very cool and very, very knowledgeable.

We're taking one of our old scripts and revising it in this class, perfecting it so it'll be ready to sell to the highest bidder (ahem, Steven Spielberg).

I'm doing my screenplay from the summer, so I printed it out last night and was looking over it, and I still really love it! I'm so excited to get back to those characters and their magical, crazy world. And that's a really good feeling to know that I can spend all summer with a story, put it away for a couple months, and come back to it, and I still really love it. That's how I know I've done something from my heart.

So, our professor is having us work on all of the subplots in our story first. And I have a million characters, so I have 5 subplots. Yikes. That means 5 sub-stories, plus a main story that I have to make sure are all perfect. And if I can pull it off, it'll be legendary. But some subplots need a little work.

But our professor is having us go through the script, write all of the scenes down on index cards, then color code each subplot as it comes up. So, 5 different colors for 5 different subplots. Then, we'll lay the subplot index cards out horizontally by color and see if we can find the arcs and climaxes in each of the subplots. I'm really, really excited to do this.

I've done all of the plotting (haha) and color-coding; now I just have to lay them out and see which parts need work and where the massive missing gaps are.

This is a really cool way to revise, because it's so visual. So I have 50 index cards, and just by looking at it and noticing each separate color, I can sort of tell what subplots need work.

Then, after that's all done, I'll put my story into chapters. Each chapter will be about 8-10 pages of the script, and will end with the character making a choice or a realization that catapults the story into the next chapter.

I know, it all sounds a little confusing, but it's really cool and really fun and I think I'm going to do this process for all of my other scripts, too.

And finally, teaching! It's still fantastic. It's almost mid-term and our students are still great and energetic. We have the mid-term exam next week, and by making it, I've realized how hard it is to come up with wrong multiple choice answers! It takes so much more work! I never thought about that before.

But Brandon and I are making the test, and it's been a lot of fun, actually. We also have two short papers due from each student on Monday, so that's roughly 400 papers Brandon and I have to read...so wish us luck! We're going to go to a Tex-Mex restaurant and have a paper-grading fiesta over lunch. And then probably go back to the house and have the same fiesta over dinner. And after dinner. And all night long until we fall asleep. And again in the morning...

But it should be fun. They're reflective papers, so we get to see what the students are thinking about. And they're about movies, which, as you all know, are my favorite things. So it won't be too bad. Not at all.

So there's that.

And then I just got some notes from one of my note takers, and once again, I'm incredibly thrilled and humbled by the fact that they're learning stuff from me. It's just the absolute, craziest feeling. Still. I just can't get over it. It makes me so, so happy knowing that I can share some of my passion with them. Cheesy, I know. But it's true.

So that's that. The semester is finally heating up and getting busier.

Oh yeah, and our feature class! I almost forgot! I'm about 2/3 of the way through my newest feature, and Steph (my sister) thinks this is going to be the one that makes me famous. So I hope she's right.

Also, I've realized that when I finish this script, it will be the 10th feature I've written! They're not all polished yet, of course, but they will be some day. But that number is a pretty great achievement. And once I perfect them all, I'll have 10 screenplays to show people.

"You don't like that one? Well, I've got 10 more."

And then next semester I'll be writing another. So I'll have 11 total! And hopefully I can get them all polished within a year after I graduate. That's my goal.

Anyway, 10 screenplays. That's somewhere around 1000-1200 pages. That's almost a novel.

And speaking of novels, I'm going to try to do Novel Writing Month next month! It's  a just-for-fun thing where you challenge yourself to write a novel in a month. More on that when it happens.

So, things I've learned since last month when I posted?

Teaching is great.

And writing is still my most favorite thing ever (I know I said movies before, but I lied).

Writing and D1s... GULP

So, we've really dug into fall semester. We still only have one class, Feature Writing, but it's a great class. Our professor, Julianna, is really great and really amazing.

I'm working on writing a dystopian story, an idea I came up with randomly when walking around London in March. I really like it. I'm working on the philosophical ideas I want to express right now, which is really different than usual, because usually I'm focusing on story first, but now, since dystopian stories always express some sort of philosophy on society and people, I'm working on that first. Well, I guess I technically had my story and plot down first, but anyway, right now I'm focusing on the philosophy of my world.

I love making up worlds. I know it makes things more challenging and difficult, but it's great, because I control everything. I can make things work for my characters or totally ruin my characters, because I own the world.

And if I want magic to happen, or something completely insane to happen, it can and it will, because it's not modern life. It's just a cool feeling. It's like ultimate control. So, anyway, I'm working on outlining and coming up with all my ideas for that right now.

We also did a crazy brainstorming game that gave me the most ridiculous story ideas ever. The five other writers and I each wrote 5 actors, 5 main genres, 5 sub-genres, 5 occupations, and 5 locations on index cards and picked them out of a bowl. Then, we flipped the cards over at random and we got the basis for our movie, which we had to make ideas from.

I think my favorite was Marky Mark in a comedy chick-flick that takes place inside the human body, and he's a mortician. It's definitely the craziest pitch I've ever had to come up with. It's really fun, and a great way to brainstorm if you're fresh out of ideas.

So yesterday, Reb sent out the D1 script pool to all the first years. I think I had a minor panic attack. My heart dropped to my feet. Seriously. It made me so nervous. They haven't been assigned their writers yet, but they read all the scripts. Oh boy.

Soon, 5 movies from my script are going to be made. This is the craziest feeling ever.

Teaching!!!

I was lucky enough to get a job as a teacher assistant for this year, here at FSU. I'm teaching Introduction to Film with my friend and fellow writer, Brandon. It's our own class, and we teach more than 200 students. We have specific lessons that we need to teach, but we got to pick the movies we show. 

Today was our first class, and I think it went incredibly well. I talked really fast and went a little too fast through my slides, but I got the hang of it after a while. 

But I can already tell, this is going to be the most rewarding job. The fact that people listen to me and believe what I'm saying, and the idea that I can teach people things they didn't know, are all incredible, incredible things. 

I got this rush when we were finished. I was super nervous before we started, but after, I thought, "I didn't do half bad." And I got this rush that was a really great feeling.

Wednesday, we have our first screening class, and we're showing "Mud" to talk about dramatic structure of screenplays and movies.

It's a FANTASTIC movie, so you should all see it. And hey, if you want to know anything about it, ask me. After all, I'm a teacher now (what?!).

For my own classes, we have another feature writing class with a really great writer, Julianna Baggott, so I'm super excited for that.

I'm on my second-- and final!-- year here at film school, and I just have the slightest feeling that this year is going to be just as amazing as the last. 

I still love everything and everyone, and I'm still as excited as ever.

More to come later!

Writing = Love

Writing is fantastic. If I've never mentioned it before, I'm saying it now. If I have mentioned it before, then I'm mentioning it again for the 100th time.

Here's how it is: when the other five writers and I are together, everyone says, "Hey, Writers." And I know it's incredibly cheesy, but this makes me so happy. Because my whole life, I've wanted to be a writer. And now I am. At least according to everyone around the Film School.

I used to be called, "waitress." "Hey, Waitress!" people would say, and wave to me to come get their checks or refill their coffee or get their heaping piles of breakfast. And I hated it, because I always thought, I have a name. But now I don't care if people call me something other than my name, as long as it's "writer." Lame, I know. But it's true.

It's the most incredible thing, being in film school for screenwriting, because this could be the only time in my life I don't have to do anything but write. I hope it isn't, but you never know. And, I mean, I'll be paying student loans until I'm 85. But there's something great about not having to do anything else besides sit down and write screenplays. It's basically the only thing I've ever wanted to do with my life, and it's fantastic.

So, in this fit of loving my life as a screenwriter (albeit, an unpaid, unsolicited, amateur screenwriter), I wrote my most recent feature in 8 days! We outlined for like 4 weeks, but I got the actual writing done in just over a week. I was so happy and excited, because that's the fastest I've ever written a feature before. Now I know I can do it.

Fast writing. I think that's a pretty marketable skill to have.

My feature is a family/action/fantasy story, and I'm super excited about it. I've probably said it before, but it feels like the script I've always been meant to write. So hopefully other people think it's as good a story as I do. I feel super confident about it, which is strange for me, because usually I don't want anybody reading my stuff. But I want everybody to read this one.

So, yeah, film school is still incredible. And in just a handful of weeks, I'll be a Second Year. And that, my friends, is absolutely insane.

TV and Movies and Heat...Oh My!

So, I'm horrible, and I haven't posted anything in more than a month. So, I apologize for that.

But mostly I've just been doing a TON of writing and outlining, which is great. Well, more outlining than writing, unfortunately. But we're getting into the all writing, all the time part of the semester. So it's going to be amazing.

So, where do I begin catching you up? Well, in TV writing, we were assigned a show to watch. That show is "The Americans," a show from FX about KGB spies in the '80s who have to pretend they're normal Americans and have a family and everything. So, we watched 6 episodes of that, wrote a Show Bible, which is like a 25 page document all about the characters, series paradigms, plots for the first six episodes, normal things the series does, and things the series would never do.

Then, we each pitched our own idea for a spec idea for "The Americans." A spec script for a TV show is a script in the style of the series (i.e. same writing, same sort of story, etc.) that is a sample episode. So we pitched ideas for our own episode of "The Americans," and our great teacher, George, chose one of our three ideas we pitched, and we made beat sheets and outlines and now we're finally writing.

So that has been great. Spec scripts serve as writing samples, so when we're out in the industry, someone might see our spec script and, based on that, hire us to write an episode of their own TV show. You barely ever sell a spec script to be an actual episode of the show the spec script is written for. It just serves to show your capabilities as a writer.

So that's been awesome. TV Writing in general is just fantastic. Our professor, George, is the most amazing person and most fantastic professor ever. He's amazing. He's had so many years of experience writing for TV (around 30 years), and he is the nicest guy. He makes me feel like I'm the best writer in the world. He's so encouraging, and he always likes everything we write. But he also has great ideas and criticisms on how we can make our stories/ideas better.

He's awesome at thinking on his feet, too. We pitched three ideas each, and he instantly had ideas on what would make them better. Like three seconds after we were done, he had a million tips that were amazing and helpful. He's great.

Oh, and we also just started pitching our own original series ideas for TV writing! I'm really excited about one of them, a period drama, and I hope I can do it. For that, we'll write the first part of the pilot episode, the Teaser, which is the short part you see before the opening title/credits. And we'll do the story bible for our own series so that we could go and pitch our idea if we really wanted to. And I might want to! I'm really excited about it!

Feature writing is good, too. We finally finished outlining, and after four outlines, I've finally started writing. For this week, I have to have my first act done. I sat down the other day and wrote, and I ended up writing my entire first act (23 pages) in about two hours. I was so excited to finally have the chance to start writing!

I really love my story. It's an adventure/fantasy/family film, and I feel like I was born to write it. So I'm having an amazing time.

Meanwhile, the weather is hot. I mean super hot. And I take back every word I ever said about liking hot weather, because this is absolutely insane. I hate being inside, but it's too hot to go outside! I go outside to read and come back, 30 minutes later, sweating like I've run a mile. It's mad.

And I miss London like crazy. Like crazy, like crazy. Thinking about it makes my stomach hurt and makes me feel really heartbroken. But I'll be back there.

But anyway, summer is great and writing is great and amazing and I love it. And I feel so lucky to never have to do anything except write. It's really incredible.

How We Do Summer

We just finished our first week of summer semester.

By the way, London was too great for words. If I ever get around to it, I’ll publish my entire paper journal on line so everyone can read about it, because I did manage to write quite a few words about it. But you’ll just have to wait until then.

So, this semester we have TV Writing and Feature writing and later on, at some point, we’ll be writing the scripts for next fall’s D1 short films.

TV writing is great. Our professor has written for Magnum P.I., Different Strokes, Chips, and more. He’s really, really great. He knows so much. This week was a whole class on formatting, which was really helpful. I learned a bunch of techniques I never even thought of using before in my scripts, like intercuts to show certain things and how to write a proper montage and stuff like that.

We also read a lot of pieces from Chandler novels, the hardboiled detective stories from the ‘30s, and wrote adaptations of scenes, where we had to include all kinds of different techniques into our adaptations, like montage, flashback, intercut, subjective point of view, and more. Yesterday, we got to write our own film noir scene, an original. It was so much fun.

I love film noir and have always wanted to write one, so I got a little overzealous and wrote 7 pages when 4 was the maximum, so I did a lot of cutting. But I included every film noir cliché I could: dark alleys, brick walls, rain, a confidential case folder, even frosted glass on the detective’s office door. All the good stuff. And a femme fatale, of course.

I had a blast. I might expand my story into a full length noir. I’d love to. My femme fatale is named Vera Malloy and she’s really rich and has balls and all kinds of fancy events and there’s a secret man named Nolan Greene who we’ve only ever seen so far with a black umbrella obscuring his face. Oh, and a corrupt detective at the NYPD. And it takes place in 1939. Of course.

Our homework for TV class this weekend is to watch a TV show he assigned to us, one episode, and track the times at which the first act ends, the prologue ends, the commercials, start and things like that. I’m really excited to do it. It’s homework, but it’s totally the best kind ever. And the show I got, The Killing, is one that I’ve had in my instant queue for a few years. I hope it’s good!

Feature writing is going really well, too. Our professor for that worked in development for Warner Bros. and Harpo Studios before teaching at FSU. She really knows her stuff. We’ve been trying to figure out what we want to write, so we all sent our ideas to one another and gave awesome feedback. It’s been really a workshop class, which I wished our last one would have been. It’s really helpful, and I’m super excited about my idea. I can’t wait to start writing.

Macbeth!!!

I've seen a lot of good plays here in London. Wicked included, which was amazing and fun and a musical with awesome music and singing and acting. Which is my favorite. But tonight I saw a post-apocalyptic version of Macbeth starring James McAvoy. And that was absolutely insane.

So, let me give you a little background history. Jared and I went four times to wait for day tickets for this play, because all the other tickets were sold out. They only sell 10 day tickets a day. And today, we finally got them.

In this theater, for this show, you had the stage, and then the normal audience, and then more seats where the backstage area would normally be. And we were back there. Most of the time, the actors entered and exited from behind us, marching or running down the aisle between our chunk of seats and the other.

The play started out with a bang. Literally. I didn't know it was starting, and there was this loud crash of thunder, and I jumped, and all these people in rugged, dirty, clothes with sawed-off shotguns and flashlights came up the aisle and onto the stage. It was great. And from there on, I was in awe.

Seriously. I think I watched most of the show with my mouth agape.

The lights were amazing. Lots of strobes and bright lights and some scenes with just flashlights. And the sounds were awesome. Drones and high-pitched things and, at one time, a loud, creepy radio.

I'm totally obsessed with the costumes. There were a lot of olive and brown-colored jeans, ripped-up sweaters, combat boots, and puffy, dirty vests. They were just amazing. The set was great, too. Lots of dirty chairs and dirty, shabby-looking tables and things. And the floors had grates in them.

And the grates were for the rain! Yes, it rained! A few times, rain came from the ceiling! And there was this amazing scene, where Macbeth is standing on the table, imagining Banquo's ghost, crushing plates and getting food all over the floor, and blood squirts down from the ceiling, all over him.

But at the end was the most amazing raining of all. As Macbeth is getting killed, it starts raining blood! And the blood starts pooling around Macbeth on the floor! Just imagine that for a second. It was INSANE!

And here we are, on the topic of Macbeth. James McAvoy was phenomenal. So, so, so, so, so, so good! He pulled off the language, and he knew what he was talking about, and he acted with such great emotion, and his voice sounded like it was straining, and he played crazy so well. And he did stunts, like sword/machete fight and slide down a ladder. And jump up on tables. And eat chemical potions, and hit himself in the chest, and spit all over. And fall. And throw himself backward. And run. A lot.

We had an acting class last night on how to act Shakespeare, and there were so many things we had to remember, just on how to first start reading the script. So, when I looked at James McAvoy and thought of all that, and also how he could remember all those lines, I was just blowing away. I also forgot who he was during the performance. I just thought I was watching Macbeth up there. Which is also a great sign.

The girl who played Lady Macbeth was really great, too. She played crazy super well. All of the acting was good, actually. But James McAvoy blew me away.

Oh, the Witches! I haven't talked about the Witches yet! So the Witches were these three women in freaky, scary gas masks who would come up from trap doors in the stage. It was great!

This show was such a spectacle. So incredibly amazing. And I love theater! And it's just so bittersweet, because I want to see this play again! Right now! But it's not a movie. And I can't rewatch it 17 times. So it kind of sucks. But it was totally and completely worth every second we spent waiting for tickets.

I've never loved Shakespeare so much.

                                                             Here's the poster. So cool!

Plays and Playwrights

This has been an amazing week for us and theater. Monday we saw this incredible play by Simon Stephens called "Port," which, next to "Wicked" is my most favorite play I've seen here. Or ever, actually. It was just incredible. It took place over a 14 year period, and it was about this girl's life. Her mother left her, her grandpa- who was her second home- died, and she had to live with her father who she didn't get along with and take care of her brother.

Anyway, I won't say anymore, because if you ever get the chance to see it, you have to. It's funny in some spots but it's really sad. I was tearing up a lot in the Second Act. Although there were these obnoxious people behind us that kept laughing at the saddest parts, like when the main character was being pushed around and getting stuff thrown at her by her husband. I think it was nervous laughter. That's the downside to live performances, I guess.

So, this play was great. The sets would come up from the ground or the ceiling, and the main actress, who was basically the play and was in every scene (and was so so so amazing!), would walk from one to the other and change her clothes and hair while she walked. It's too much to describe. But it was amazing. And Simon Stephens will be coming in to talk to us this semester! So I'm super excited!

Over the past weekend, we read "Angels in America: Millennium Approaches," which is probably the best play I've ever read. I had read it in my undergrad, so I was super excited to read it again. And my friends and I did a reading as we always do, and it was fantastic. So we spent like two hours in class on Monday discussing that play, which I really, really enjoyed. Read that play. It's incredible. Absolutely and incredibly incredible. 

Tuesday was another great day. Our professor for our Film Analysis class is a pretty well-known playwright here. Her name is Rebecca Lenkiewicz, and we saw one of her plays, a scary adaptation of "The Turn of the Screw." She already gave us each a published script book of that. And then yesterday, she pulls out an analogy of four of her play scripts that was just published. She signed one for each of us, and it's ours to keep, which is incredible! And for our assignment, we have to adapt a scene from one of her plays into a screenplay. She's going to give us her own feedback on it, so that we can actually get practical advice, not hypothetical. So I'm super excited for that! And for my new book of scripts.

Today, our screenwriting professor and head of the department here, Mark, brought in this playwright/screenwriter named James Phillips. He's pretty young, and is sort of this up-and-comer, but actually gets a ton of work, as it seems. He started out as an actor, but directed his first play here when he was 23. Which is unbelievable.

One day he randomly decided to write a script, and it ended up being produced and winning a few awards. And now he gets comissioned to write plays, and he's written TV and short films, and has written a feature he's hoping to get made. In the course of our talk, he mentioned at least three plays he'd just been commissioned to write. He was really interesting, and he was so great to listen to, because he actually likes writing.

He told us some really good advice. One thing he said was to enjoy writing. He said it's so easy not to enjoy writing scripts when it's your living, and the process can make you pretty stressed out. But don't be stressed out. Enjoy it. And if people make you angry or stressed out, walk away. Even if there's money involved. Just leave. He also said don't be afraid. Creative people make mistakes all the time because they're afraid. So don't be.

At one point when he was talking, he mentioned how he can't write without thinking, and he spends months thinking about what he's going to write, years sometimes, before actually starting. Brandon looked at me, and he said that I'm the opposite way. And Mark said, "Stacy can't think without writing." Which I think has to be the most accurate statement anyone has ever said about me.

Seriously. It's so much easier for me to express myself when I'm writing, rather than talking. And I just thought it was great he said that. Because I realized that it's so incredibly true.

This week has made me realize that I really would love to be a playwright if the opportunity came up. Obviously I love movies and TV, but plays are great, too. And it reminded me that when I first applied to this program, I applied because it was writing for the stage and screen. And I guess I had forgotten about the whole stage part until recently. So, I'm really grateful to be taking these classes and writing a play and seeing amazing shows and meeting all these incredible playwrights.

Because you never know. Maybe some day I'll be a big, famous playwright living in London.

Spring!!!!

Tuesday it was spring here in London. And it was amazing.

We haven't had spring in the UP in so long, I had forgotten how amazing it is. But it was 57 degrees, and everyone was out in the park with t-shirts on, and I sat on a park bench between three red British phone booths and wrote my screenplay outline.

Then, Charles, Jared, and I went to play frisbee in a park called Torrington Square, and it was packed with people. And we went the whole time without hitting anybody. It was so beautiful. It was sunny, and flowers were blooming, and it smelled like spring. It was, by far, the most lovely day we've ever had here in London.

I really hope it gets like that again. But, like the UP, there's one day of spring, and then it's 30. But I'll keep my fingers crossed.

I finally bought some rainboots yesterday, after talking about buying them since January. I've been dealing with sopping socks for so long, I finally broke down. So I bought some rainboots, which they call Wellies. Which is the cutest thing ever. My receipt-- advice slip-- said, "Wellies."

So, school is great. We've finally started writing our features and our one act plays, so I'm super excited about that. We had a master acting class Thursday night, and we got to learn acting from a British actress, Emily Bruni. We learned about the 7 stages of stress which are: neutral, California, shock, suspicion, farse, tragedy, and catatonic. We had to see what our body did in every stage, and then we did improv with it. It's hard to explain, but it was really fun.

So, yeah, it's been great. The classes have been really interesting, and I've been writing so much over the past two days!

We're on a mission to get day tickets for "MacBath" starring James McAvoy, so hopefully that will happen next week. We spent three days trying, and no dice. So, fingers crossed for that, too.

Anyway, that's about it for now.

Bye from London!

I Love London Something Fierce.

I know I haven't blogged in a while. I just haven't had time.

And by "a while" I mean forever. And by "haven't had time" I mean I juts haven't. Because I'm too busy. Because I love Europe.

London is INCREDIBLE. Incredible. Seriously. I feel so at home here. I LOVE it. LOVE LOVE LOVE it.

We do so much walking. We walk everywhere. Which is great, because I despise driving. And there's always something going on. We have to choose what to do, which is something I've never had to worry about before.

So, yeah. London is great. So great.

And I've been to Paris, which was beautiful and sparkly.

And I've been to Rome, which was pretty and historic and there were ruins everywhere. It was amazing! Mike came over and we went on a trip there, and we walked like 20 miles a day on the craziest cobblestone I've ever seen. And it was great and fantastic!

But I was so happy to get back to London!

I love it here!

And, oh yeah, I'm in school. So I've been doing a bit of writing. Lots of outlining and planning and character outlining, but some writing  of scenes, too. Which is great. I'm so excited to finally start writing my feature, which is what we'll be doing soon. We're also going to be writing a one act play.

We've been watching a lot of movies, too. We get an allowance to see movies for this one class. It's been good.

Anyway, my classes are great and I'm learning a ton. So, yeah. It's basically been the best thing ever.

I'll try to update more, but I'm a little busy. I'm keeping a journal though, so I can always go back and write that up. Type it. Cause it is written already.

But anyway, yeah. That's me. That's what's happening.

Ciao.

Life in London

So, we've officially been in London for a month, and it's still just as incredible as the first day. But I have gotten so used to it. It's so normal to say, "Oh, the movie is playing in Leicester Square" or "Let's go down to Oxford Street" or "It's past Charing Cross Road."

I'm so used to it here, and I love it. I actually know my way around Central London. Awesome.

We've been doing a ton of writing. Lots of exercises, and outlining our one-act play and our feature. I've had a challenge with the feature, and I've had to switch from my original idea, but I think I'm on to something now. I have a really good plan, I think. I hope.

Last weekend was an amazing one. Thursday we went to see "Wicked," which was so, so incredible. The singing was amazing. The songs are the best, and I haven't stopped listening to them since. The acting was great. We saw the understudy in the role of the Wicked Witch of the West, and she was incredible, so I can't even believe what the normal lead must be like. I'm actually glad we got to see the understudy, because I was just imaging how amazing that must have been for her. How that was probably one of the best nights of her life.

Anyway, "Wicked" was incredible. Great sets, awesome lighting, wires to raise people up in the air. Everything was great.

Friday we went to the London Film Museum, and the walk there took us over this walking bridge with the most beautiful view of Parliament and the London Eye and the Thames. It was just gorgeous, and even more so, because I wasn't expecting it.

The museum was fun. It looked a little sketchy at first, but it turned out to be good. We saw the Batsuit Christian Bale wore, some costumes, the Tardis from Doctor Who, the alien queen from Alien, and more, including some Star Wars stuff.

Sunday was one of the most amazing days ever. We waited in line for wristbands for the BAFTAS red carpet, and we got them. So, then, at noon, we went to the red carpet. We got to be in the second row. The only problem was, we had to wait outside for five hours before any celebrities arrived. And it was possibly the coldest, rainiest, wettest day in London so far. And we were outside.

I would've been fine if I didn't have puddles in my boots. There were actually times when I didn't know if I could wait any longer.

But of course, I did. And it was totally worth it. We saw so many great people: Martin Freeman, Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Helen Mirren, Jennifer Lawrence, Henry Cavill, Daniel Day-Lewis, Tim Burton, Helena Bonham-Carter, Joaquin Phoenix, George Clooney, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Sarah Jessica Parker, Jessica Chastain, Simon Pegg, Saorsie Ronan, Judi Dench, Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Ervine, Samuel L. Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, Thandie Newton, Christoph Waltz, Marion Cotillard, and more.

I was hoping all weekend that I'd see Damian Lewis, since he's British, and is one of my favorite actors. And then, he was there. Only, I didn't see his face. Jared said, "Hey, Damian Lewis!" And I looked, and I just saw his back. And he's much taller than I imagined. But, anyway, today I was looking at BAFTAS pictures and I saw one of him and his wife, who was wearing a light blue dress. And I kicked myself. Because I remember thinking, "Wow, look at that baby blue dress." And I saw her clearly. And it turns out, she was with him. So I probably looked right at him and didn't even realize.

Oh well. It was still fantastic.

Anyway, Friday we leave for Paris for the weekend, and I'm super excited!!

Here's hoping it's better than Belgium!!

Dover and Belgium

Wow...I'm way behind. Sorry. I just feel like I've been super busy.

A few weekends ago, we went to Dover and Ypres, Belgium.

Dover was incredible. We went to Dover Castle, which is this amazing Medieval castle that's shaped exactly like the castles you would imagine. Stone, and turrets, and castle-shaped peaks, and drawbridges.

It was amazing. Everything there was beautiful. The grass was super green. The stairs in the castle were stone and windy. The roof of the castle had incredible views of the ocean and the rest of the castle grounds. Once again, I felt like I'd gone back in time.

We also took a tour of the war tunnels, which were used during WWII. That was really cool, and I learned a lot about the English soldiers during WWII. And I felt like a soldier, marching through those tunnels.

Dover was just excellent. Everything about it was absolutely incredible. I could've spent the whole weekend there. No lie.

And then we got to Belgium.

Ever see that movie In Bruges? Well, I totally know how Colin Farrell felt.

We went to Ypres, a place where tons of people died during WWI. And that's basically all the town is. War and chocolate. It sounds so poetic.

We went to a WWI monument for fallen soldiers, a bunch of WWI cemeteries, and a WWI trench. It was all very interesting, especially the trench, but it was all a little gloomy. At the WWI monument, we laid a wreath and sang the "Star Spangled Banner," so that was pretty neat.

But it was freezing cold and all we were learning about was death and then we had free time to go to the WWI museum and walk around town, and there was nothing to do.

So, my impression of Ypres was that they are obsessed with war and sweet things. And cherries! They had cherry beer called Mystic, which was absolutely incredible and tasted nothing like beer. And on my Belgian waffle, I had cherries and ice cream. So, like I was saying, sweets and war.

I think my friend, Jared, said it best: I went to Belgium, and all I got was a cavity.

Well said. But at least I can say I've been to Belgium. And at least I have an impression of it.

Plague!!

So, a plague has hit us writers here in London. The flu started going around slowly, and now all of us have gotten it but Sonia, who's still holding out on being healthy. She'll beat it, I'm sure.

The only thing that really sucks about being sick here are-- well, being sick-- and that you have to walk everywhere. It's okay, though. I think we'll all be fine soon. I hope.

I want us to all get better so we can do stuff together again! I miss it!

Anyway, we had Intro to Theatre class at the Victoria and Albert museum today. It was really cool. They had this theatre exhibit and they had costumes and headdresses and signs and all sorts of cool stuff. They had Mick Jagger's jumpsuit, one of Chris Martin's costumes, an Elton John one, and more. They also had models of stage plays and a place where you could dress up in some of the costumes. It was really, really cool. And it was free, which makes it even better!

Then we had half an hour where we had to pick something in the museum and sit by it and write about it, using it for inspiration. It was really relaxing. I feel so European here! So artistic!

Classes are going well. It always seems like I haven't been to class in forever, because we have 4 day weekends every week! Which is a good thing!

Things have been going well, and they'll be even better when we're all feeling tip-top again. We're going to the Tower of London, Dover, and Ypres, Belgium this weekend! I can't wait! And hopefully to 3 plays this week! Woo hoo! More on those after they actually happen.

One more thing I learned to day: jewelry is spelled "jewellery" here. As if I didn't have a difficult enough time spelling that word before...

Snow!!!

It snowed all weekend here, and apparently the Brits hate it, but I love it!! It makes everything even more beautiful and vivid. We went to Buckingham Palace on Sunday and we walked through all this snow and slush, and past this park where everybody was making snowmen. So on the way back, we stopped and built a snowman. But ours was so bad, people were walking by and taking pictures of it.

So, we built this awful gimpy snowman kid, and then we had a snowball fight. It was so much fun. I felt five years old.

Classes have been going well. We've been doing some group brainstorming in Intro to London Theatre class so that's fun.

Wednesday I think we'll start talking about our features, and I'm actually excited. I've decided I need to stop being afraid to talk about my work. We'll see how that turns out.

Brandon and I worked on our popcorn film for a long time last night and got pretty far. We really know our characters already. I can't wait to start writing!! All the planning we're doing is killing me!! But I'm really excited about it and I think it'll be amazing!! And writing with someone else is extremely fun!!

LONDON SO FAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My blog has now turned into "My London Life" temperarily. But I don't wanna make another blog. So, anyway, you can read about London here, because it is, technically, still part of film school.

Anyway, London is awesome!!!!!! Absolutely incredible!!! And I actually recognize where I am in the city, which is an incredible feat for me.

Anyway, here's a run-down of the past week.

We got here last Thursday, and we walked around a lot. We got groceries, went to orientation, and then went to Leicester Square, a square with tons of "theatres" and "cinemas" and watched the celebrities arrive for the "Django Unchained" premiere. That was awesome. I didn't see very well, but I did see Tarantino up close. So that's cool.

The other female writer, Sonia, and I have our own flat, and all 4 guys are downstairs. Our flat is really nice, and we have 3 red British phone booths right outside our window. And when it snows, the snow looks awesome next to the red color! Colour, actually.

My classes are awesome. We have a lot of writing to do and a lot of watching movies, and they're just incredible. I forgot how much I love writing until now. I realized how incredibly much I've missed it!

So far, we've been to the British Museum, the London Bridge, we've seen Parliament and Big Ben, Westminister Abbey, and Hampton Court.

We went to Hampton Court today, which was Cardinal Wolsey's palace in the time of Henry VIII. It was absolutely, incredibly, beautiful!! It was snowing all day, so everything was covered in snow, and big fluffy flakes were falling. It was great!

Walking around the palace made me feel like I was living in the 1500s. The sound of the floor. The gardens. The snow! Everything! It was like going back in time. It was so, so awesome!

We've also gone to our first play for our class, The 39 Steps, which is a book and a Hitchcock film, so the play was a hilarious murder/spy mystery, and also an homage to Hitchcock. It was amazing. There was a part where the characters were on the run, and the Psycho theme started playing. And the play had 4 actors, and they all (except the main character) played every character, which was I guess like 100 characters or something. If not 100, then a lot!

Umm, what else? We've been taking the Tube. It's awesome. It's the Underground, which is the subway system here. It's really fast and I feel cool cause I'm taking the Tube. I feel like a proper Londoner.

So, yeah, it's been great. And I kind of want to move here! Seriously.

So here's some things I learned: there are these crossings that have black and white striped lights by them, and you just cross. And the cars have to stop for you. And these are called zebra crossings. But Brits say zebra like Debra with a "z." So that's cool.

Some slang I've learned or  words that are called other words are:

Advice- which is a receipt
Lead- a leash. Like "keep your dog on leads."
Spitting- drizzling rain
"Give me a bell"- Which means call me. Cute!
Note- A GBP bill

And that might be it so far. And I love "You're winding me up, aren't you?" Which is like, "you're messing with me!"

Oh, and we have tea breaks in our class. Where we take fifteen or twenty minutes and go get tea. Seriously! I love this place!