The Nines and why you should go see it - now

Update -- **tickets are now sold out for the 7.30 Q&A screening. Obviously my blog worked. You can still get tix for the 10pm show though.

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LA is so weird. Nothing ever seems to sell out here. For example, tomorrow night's special screening of The Nines, with post-movie Q&A from writer John August and wonderful actress Melissa McCarthy (who was Sookie on Gilmore Girls).

It's tomorrow night. I just bought tickets now. They're not sold out**, even though it's showing in Santa Monica, where three-quarters of the aspiring screenwriters in the greater US of A live*.

It's so stupid to only have a movie open in LA and New York in order to see if it's worth putting on wide release across the country. The people who live here can in no way be considered "normal".

Anyway, get out there, Friday night, Nuart Theatre, Santa Monica. Go and learn something people! Or just go and marvel at the all-encompassing wonderfulness that is Ryan Reynolds. I plan to do a bit of both.

OK, back to imagining grisly death scenarios now.

Slacker excuses
Went to see the wonderful Wilco last night. Ahhh, I love that band. I could do without Nels Cline though. (Sorry Nels, I know you're an awwwesome guitarist, but I just don't like your solos.)

*I made this up, but it seems about right.

Bodies in bathtubs and more, oh my!

I'm finally back to work. Yay me!

Since I'm writing Bones, I've been immersed in a world of grisly deaths, rotting corpses, and sterile labs for the last few days. It's fascinating.

It's also horrible. Just when I think I've read about so many unimaginable ways to die that I'm becoming immune to the whole thing, there's an even more stomach-turning case in front of me, and I have to take a little break, just to feel clean again. And these are the ones that actually happened in real life, not just on TV.

The great thing about Bones is that the investigations are always secondary to the characters and their emotions, so the real focus of any episode is on the living. You could probably make a great Bones episode with the most mundane set of human remains in the world.

There is quite a lot of tech talk in a typical Bones episode, though, so I'm taking a crash course in Forensic Anthropology, courtesy of a stack of books from the library. I've only read one so far, the super-useful and fascinating Forensic Detective by Robert Mann. I recommend it to anyone attempting to write a forensics procedural.

Meanwhile, I'm turning over a dozen or so possible murder scenarios in my head, trying to decide which one will work. I think I'll back off from that and do a bit of thinking on the characters, and decide what kind of victim, or type of death will affect one them most deeply.

Slacker Excuses
I've spent an inordinate amount of time on Craig's List, and then subsequently driving around LA, trying to find tickets for last night's Crowded House show at the Greek Theatre, and tonight's Wilco show. How come everyone with decent tickets lives in the West End, while I live in Eagle Rock?

Also, have been very distracted by the wonderful and incomparably hilarious Flight of the Conchords on HBO. Beg, borrow, or steal* a subscription to HBO now if you haven't already seen this show.

*I do not condone stealing, even if HBO is way too expensive.

Lazy lazy lazy lazy lazy lazy Jane

I know you're all waiting in deepest anxiety to see which spec I chose to write next. Bones, Weeds, or my own shiny pilot?

Can you keep a secret?

You can?

OK. I'll tell you.

None of the above. Nada. I've been a lazy good-for-nothing fool, whiling my hours away reading that Harry Potter book (btw, so not a fan, but this one was actually really good - looks like JK is finally learning to master her craft) and going to the gym. I did desperately need to work out, to repair the damage that two weeks as nurse to a collarbone-broken invalid has caused. But still. My writing!

Arrgh. Even though I know exactly what I'm avoiding (I really don't enjoy breaking story all by myself - that kind of thing should be done in a room, with other creative types, and coffee, and candy), I still haven't been able to boot my own backside quite enough to get me going. The other day in step class there was a surfeit of own-backside booting, too.

Anyway. Enough. I'm off to work on my Bones script. There, I've said it.

Just got a few chores to do first, and some real live paying work, and maybe a few blogs to read...

Slacker excuses
Notice the new colors on my blog? Betchya didn't think I could spend a whole galdarn afternoon doing that, did you?

Hence, the poem, by the wonderful Shel Silverstein running around and around in my head:
Lazy lazy lazy lazy lazy lazy Jane. She wants a drink of water so she waits and waits and waits and waits and waits for it to rain.

Um... so... what now then?

I've done it. Oh yes, I have. I've sent out my very first script to be perused, judged, applauded, and acclaimed (or derided and dissed, as the case may be) by complete strangers. It feels kinda, uh, anticlimactic.

I'm trying hard not to think about how much I really really want to be accepted to the Warner Bros. Writers Workshop. I'm relying heavily on the advice of my good friend Terry Rossio who says "Never Wait". I'll try not to, T.

In the interests of never waiting, as soon as I sent off my application, I leaped right into action, updating my professional portfolio. A girl's gotta eat, after all.

So, the question is, what do I work on next? Right now I'm wavering between a Bones, a spec pilot, and a Weeds. Each has its own appeal. Since I already have two character-driven specs, a Bones spec would be a good procedural to add to my samples. But, word on the street is that lots of show runners are only requesting spec pilots these days. The thing is, if I write a pilot, it's gotta be character-driven, since that's really what I'm into the most. I've got a kernel of a good idea, but I think the fear of diving into such a huge project right now is mostly what's keeping me from going down that road. Then, Weeds is just... it's so damn brilliant it would be really fun. Hmmm... I'll keep mulling until tomorrow, when I must decide.

What do all y'all think?

Slacker Excuses
The husband fell off a Moped and smashed his collarbone just a few days before the Warner deadline. Inconsiderate husband! We spent so much of the last week in the hospital, I could write an extremely realistic doctor drama. I've got all the lingo down. By the way, if you ever find yourself getting into an accident, do it close to Huntingdon Hospital in Pasadena. It's, like, super nice, and the staff are really efficient and friendly. So, so, so much better than the hospitals I saw when I was in England. The food still sucked, but c'mon, it's a hospital, not heaven.

Interestingly, I can't find a website for the Huntingdon. Do hospitals have websites? If not, they should get them.

Go McLovin'!

I've been writing my biography.

No, not a novel-length tell-all about the life and times of me. Just a one-pager to submit with my spec to various competitions, workshops, and other places where someone other than my immediate family will be forced to read my script.

I've learned two things from this exercise.

1. As it turns out, on paper, my life-so-far sounds pretty danged exciting.

2. I have no blinkin' idea how to write a decent bio.

Anyone? Anyone?

Slacker Excuses
I'm in the midst of getting Windows to run on my MacBook via Parallels software. You say: "What kind of crazy person would want to do that?" I say: "The kind of crazy person with a paying client who wants document delivery via the dread pirate Visio." Terrible terrible program. Excellent excellent payday.

I actually had to shell out for Windows XP today, but I don't mind giving cash to Microsoft so much now that it will eventually filter down into the Gates Foundation.

PS. Go see Superbad. I think I love Michael Cera. He's almost 20, so that's not so wrong. Right?