Thursday, August 12, 2010

As a Writer

Yesterday I told someone I wanted to be a writer and they responded: You are. It was one of the moments where I could feel a puzzle piece fall into place. Doubting yourself gets you no where. If you want to do something just do it and worry about the other stuff later. My grammar still sucks and I totally write stupid things, but I feel good about my relatability and tone. I know being a writer is hard and I feel guity for not being an English major. But screw it. Right now I'm writing monologues for actors to showcase what they can do. Mostly though I'm writing a couple of pieces and I thought I'd share where I am with each of them.

The first is a vampire/ church action flick, but I've hit a dead point. I don't know how to bring the conflict to a head without it becoming cliche. I figure I can take as much time as I want with this because I don't want it coming out until the vampire madness cools off.

The next is a modern romance about a girl who can't speak and a boy who has to deal with that in their relationship. Right now, it's just a bunch of scenes and it needs to be filled in. I have a lot of cool moments, but they need to be connected.

The next is one woman show set in a graveyard. It stars 7 dead people... 1 live person who visits. Mostly it's a comedy, with tragic moments.... I want it to have an August Osage County. I have the dark comedy beginning and the tragic moment I want, but no in between.

Finally I'm trying to write the beginnings of The Eye of the World adaptation so I can send it off to the producers and maybe get involved in some way. The problem is making myself sit down and do it.

Anyway, not the most profound or interesting blog, but it is what is going on with me...

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

ChaCha continues to educate even after College

I work for ChaCha, here are some useful facts you will need to know if you ever should decide to work for them.

When Albert Einstein died, his final words died with him. The nurse at his side didn't understand German.

St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was not Irish.

The lance ceased to be an official battle weapon in the British Army in 1927. This means that lances and machine guns were used at the same time.

St. John was the only one of the 12 Apostles to die a natural death.

A South African monkey was once awarded a medal and promoted to the rank of corporal during World War I.

Born 4 January 1838, General Tom Thumb's growth slowed at the age of 6 months, at 5 years he was signed to the circus by P.T. Barnum, and at adulthood reached a height of only 1 metre.

The Toltecs, Seventh-century native Mexicans, went into battle with wooden swords so as not to kill their enemies.

China banned the pigtail in 1911 as it was seen as a symbol of feudalism.

An American aircraft in Vietnam shot itself down with one of its own missiles.

The Anglo-Saxons believed Friday to be such an unlucky day that they ritually slaughtered any child unfortunate enough to be born on that day.

The Nobel Prize resulted form a late change in the will of Alfred Nobel, who did not want to be remembered after his death as a propagator of violence - he invented dynamite.

In 1647 the English Parliament abolished Christmas.

Coffee is the second largest item of international commerce in the world. The largest is petrol.

Henry VII was the only British King to be crowned on the field of battle

Richard II died aged 33 in 1400. A hole was left in the side of his tomb so people could touch his royal head, but 376 years later some took advantage of this and stole his jawbone.

The magic word "Abracadabra" was originally intended for the specific purpose of curing hay fever.

Albert Einstein was once offered the Presidency of Israel. He declined saying he had no head for problems.

The British did not release the body of Napoleon Bonaparte to the French until twenty days after his death.

Queen Elizabeth I passed a law which forced everyone except for the rich to wear a flat cap on Sundays.

Julius Caesar wore a laurel wreath to cover the onset of baldness.

It was considered unfashionable for Venetian women, during the Renaissance to have anything but silvery-blonde hair.

Peter the Great had the head of his wife's lover cut off and put into a jar of preserving alcohol, which he then ordered to be placed by her bed.

On 15 April 1912 the SS Titanic sunk on her maiden voyage and over 1,500 people died. Fourteen years earlier a novel was published by Morgan Robertson which seemed to foretell the disaster. The book described a ship the same size as the Titanic which crashes into an iceberg on its maiden voyage on a misty April night. The name of Robertson's fictional ship was the Titan.

The Emperor Caligula once decided to go to war with the Roman God of the sea, Poseidon, and ordered his soldiers to throw their spears into the water at random.

In 1726, at only 7 years old, Charles Sauson inherited the post of official executioner.

The childrens' nursery rhyme 'Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses' actually refers to the Black Death which killed about 30 million people in the fourteenth-century.

During the reign of Elizabeth I, there was a tax put on men's beards.

The great Russian leader, Lenin died 21 January 1924, suffering from a degenerative brain disorder. At the time of his death his brain was a quarter of its normal size.

When shipped to the US, the London bridge ( thought by the new owner to be the more famous Tower Bridge ) was classified by US customs to be a 'large antique'.

Between the two World War's, France was controlled by forty different governments.

It was the custom in Ancient Rome for the men to place their right hand on their testicles when taking an oath. The modern term 'testimony' is derived from this tradition.

More money is spent each year on alcohol and cigarettes than on Life insurance.

In 1911 3 men were hung for the murder of Sir Edmund Berry at Greenbury Hill, their last names were Green, Berry , and Hill.

Lady Astor once told Winston Churchill 'if you were my husband, I would poison your coffee'. His reply …' if you were my wife, I would drink it ! '.

Paul Revere was a dentist.

There are 240 white dots in a Pacman arcade game.

St Nicholas, the original Father Christmas, is the patron saint of thieves, virgins and communist Russia.

Dublin is home of the Fairy Investigation Society.

The two highest IQ's ever recorded (on a standard test) both belong to women.

The Tory Prime Minister, Benjamin Disreali, was born 21 December 1804. He was noted for his oratory and had a number of memorable exchanges in the House with his great rival William Gladstone. Asked what the difference between a calamity and a misfortune was Disreali replied: 'If Gladstone fell into the Thames it would be a misfortune, but if someone pulled him out again, it would be a calamity'.

The Imperial Throne of Japan has been occupied by the same family for the last thirteen hundred years.

In the seventeenth-century a Boston man was sentenced to two hours in the stocks for obscene behaviour, his crime, kissing his wife in a public place on a Sunday.

President Kaunda of Zambia once threatened to resign if his fellow countrymen didn't stop drinking so much alcohol.

A ten-gallon hat holds three-quarters of a gallon.

George Washington grew marijuana in his garden.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Five Reasons why the Bachelorette is BETTER than the Bachelor

I know this topic is a little shocking coming from a College educated woman and a woman who unfriends people who enjoy watching 'Don't Mess with the Zohan' or 'Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen'. Don't get me wrong, I love guilty pleasures, but no one should stoop to that level. I like my 'guilty pleasures' and actually believe that everyone should have at least one thing that they know isn't the most intelligent or high class, but still brings them joy. For instance: Vampires (real vampires, not bull-shit-sparkle teens) and Ru Paul's Drag Race are both ridiculous... yet they crawl into my heart and warm up what is left after I've watched the critically acclaimed and obviously brilliant 'To End All Wars.' Another guilty pleasure would be The Bachelorette. This addition grew out of housemate community building (oh God I so went to Whitworth) and is silly. Yes Diana is right: the story line is cheesy and never works out, but it's so very fun to watch. I have enjoyed the Bachelorette much much much more than I have enjoyed the Bachelor and here's why. Oh, and because these words are long and annoying to type out 80 million times: BT stands for Bachelorette and BR stands for Bachelor.

1. BT has lots of hot men competing and running around shirtless. BR has lots of sluts cat fighting and literally sneaking into the BR's bed. (Vienna you know what you did)

2. BT boys woo the BT with acts of cuteness and sweetness and gallantry. BR girls turn on each other and gossip each other down to the BR.

3. BT drama is interesting to watch. The guys get in fist fights, injure themselves, lie about singing careers or tattoos, etc. BR drama is lame. The girls fight about (I kid you not) holding out on kissing and curling iron borrowing.

4. BT features a cute girl getting attention and having fun while guys chase her. BR features girls being slutty sluts to get the attention of a guy, who started out looking sweet, but who looks more and more like a pimp as the show progresses.

5. BT is has guys being goofy and singing (sometimes badly but even that is funny). BR, again, is mostly scantily clad women showing off fake boobs.

Perhaps it is that I believe women have more to offer, but the slut thing really bugs me. I wish the girls would ditch the bikinis for t-shirts and bring the BR his favorite candy or movie when he's feeling down.

Final Disclaimer: Watch these types of shows at your own risk. I used to mock them, but now I must tune in to see what knd of crazy things are happening. I deticate this to my Holland girls who also got me addicted to DH... damn. Love you all.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010


I love having time to read. Book on tape/ i-pod is changing my life. I look forward to driving just so I can hear where my story is going. Right now I'm listening to Robert Jordan's The Gathering Storm. (only Robert Jordan wrote the outline and was taken from us... so someone else wrote it) I say everyone who likes Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings or good fantasy books should pick up this series. The women are bad ass, there isn't too much scenery description, just enough to spark the imagination. My favorite thing about the series is how much it sucks you into this world Jordan has created. There are all these fun touches from our world that the characters don't get. The characters are actually unique and distingtive. There's power and beauty.
Read it. Seriously though. I hate that books/ movies like Twilight and Valentine's Day make money, but Eye of the World (Jordan's first book of the series) can't be made because it's a "risk." Risk means that its merit isn't based on abs being shown or cheesy teen lines. It's deep. This makes me believe in risks. Take a risk. Read this book series.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Every once and a while I feel like time has sped up and slowed down at the same moment. Like I'll never have enough time to accomplish all that is in my head, while at the same time I feel like what lies in the future is so far off that I'll never get there. Now is one of those moments. Summer is almost over, I'm really jazzed about going back to school and starting classes and seeing friends, but it all seems forever away. At the same time, I'm staring at this list of things I'm supposed to have down by the end of summer (I'm overly ambitious) and hardly any of it has been accomplished. I'm also looking at a stack of books I still want to read and a folder full of plays I wanted to finish.

So my question is this: what do you do when you feel like you have no time and all the time in the world? Obviously I'm digging at something deeper then a Thursday afternoon; as humans we are given so much time to live that we take it for granted. At the same time, we run around trying to get everything done with no hope of doing it. How are we supposed to live?
Someone told me to live like it was my last day. T think this concept is both highly romantic and highly impractical (like almost all truly great things). I need to plan for future and for having to survive another 60 so years, but it's that planning that keeps me from doing, from living in the moment.

This is my first blog. I'm not sure I understand blogging. I like to read most people's thoughts and find other people's blogs to be fascinating. Some people just rant, some people philosophize, some people use it to explain concepts or recount trips to far away places, and some people just critic other people's blogs. I don't know how I'll be or what the future might hold, but here we go.