+ I’ve somehow landed a badass wife that I know can achieve anything that she wants. She has high expectations and will do what it takes to meet them. It’s inspiring to be around.
+ I may have taken a couple slaps to the face these last two weeks, but I am able to quickly recover and move on because of my best friend, who is always there when I need her. She understands me and will show empathy or kick my butt into gear, depending on the situation.
+ The team I have around me is so special. I’m proud to have them in my life.
+ Started in on story-boarding for Breakfast at Gerardo’s.
+ Had coffee with an inspiring woman who loves film even more than I do and who is determined to get her hands dirty. I’m excited at the possibilities of what could come from us working together.
+ Progress was made on the outline of my next feature, Easier Said Than Done.
+ I decided to go ahead and start in on a pretty big rewrite for my feature script, Rosebush. I’m determined to get it into Angela Lansbury’s hands.
+ I got chosen to participate in World Book Night. On April 23, I get to hand out 20 free copies of Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.”
+ An unreleased instrumental and freestyle (from 1997) by the late great J Dilla was unsurfaced yesterday!
+ I got the mop on my head cut! My hairstylist kills it every time.

I’m looking forward to spending the weekend with my wife, great friends, good drinks, the Superbowl (go Patriots) and the SF Giants. Enjoy your weekend!

But, Margin Call? Eh… I don’t know. I need to read the script, because I watched the film and it wasn’t one of my personal favorite stories of the year.

Work has been going really well as of late. I’m setting out to finish things and actually knocking them out. I have three projects I’m juggling right now. In the past, that type of work load would get me overwhelmed and cause me to freak out. I guess I’ve gotten better at laying out my objectives and creating a realistic daily to-do list.

Right now my line-up is as follows:
1. Queen To Be rewrite – Now it’s time to promote
2. ESTD (feature-length script) outline
3. Breakfast at Gerardo’s short film pre-production

Start up the coffee maker! Let’s go!

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My life lately outside of writing:

Aloe Blacc and Exile at 330 Ritch. San Francisco.

Blu at 330 Ritch. San Francisco.

Veggies and hip hop. My kitchen counter.

Mills Hit & Run Event at Marion and Rose's Workshop. Oakland.

My great aunt passed away over the weekend. At the moment my spunky, San Francisco Giants-faithful Aunt Peggy took her last breath, I was just on the other side of the San Francisco Bay, goofing around and laughing with my wife. I went out for a run around beautiful Lake Merritt and returned to find the voice mail from my mom. It always a bit mind blowing when tragedy strikes and you’re out screwing around. What’s up with us not being equipped some internal alarm system?

Preproduction on my next short, Breakfast at Gerardo’s, is underway. This one is going to pose some interesting challenges.

The same day I share that we submitted Sly Sylvester to a handful of additional film festivals, we hear back from one of the first to which we sent the film. Cinequest has unfortunately decided to not feature our short in their 2012 festival.

I took most of the day off yesterday to hang out with my wife, which means I’ve got a relatively packed four days of work ahead. Hope that you all had a great weekend.

Today it’s time to get back at it. I have a hefty amount of work that needs to get done this final week of 2011, including my latest rewrite of Queen To Be. Besides that, I’ve got my new story development work, some freelance projects and notes on a script that a friend has been patiently waiting for.

Also this week I’m going to be putting together my best-of 2011 lists for music and film releases, as well as taking a look at what I accomplished this year and planning out my professional and personal goals for 2012.

If you’re interested in setting writing goals for 2012, be sure to check out Scott Myers series on setting effective and specific objectives over at his site, Go Into The Story.

Hope you all had a great holiday.

- til next time – Kim

By eating lots of pizza and getting paint all over myself.

Well, that just took place in the evening and it would be a tragedy not to point out how awesome the entire day was. I was spoiled. There was a surprise breakfast with my wife and best friend. Hanging out in the sun near the enormous Christmas tree in SF’s Union Square. An awesome new hooded sweater. A handmade wine rack. A beautiful new art piece. Cupcakes. New writing supplies.

And yes, in the evening, I was blessed to have some very special people over and we made pizza and learned how to screenprint. Perhaps not how you would expect someone in their thirties to spend their day. Immature? In my mind, it was perfect. And we did have a bunch of wine with the pizza, so it’s all good.

Despite the “child’s activity” b-day party, I was honest when I answered, “Yes,” after my friend asked me that morning if I felt older. Not older, I guess. Besides getting sore after doing more than three pushups now, I still feel young and vibrant. I think I’m just anxious. I’m looking at where I am professionally at this point in my life and I’m not happy with it. I’m 32 years and three days old now and I’m too old to be living for a dream.

I’ve had enough hoping and wishing. I’m making it happen. I’m going to write script and after script after script, and some of them are going to get produced, damn it. I’m officially going off throughout the rest of December of 2011 and all of 2012.

- til next time – Kim

+ The Roots released their 13th studio album, Undun.
+ I ran a good amount this week.
+ Listened to some old LP’s over dinner with a friend last night.
+ Tomorrow I get to celebrate my birthday with some special people.

I’ve been a bit anxious this week because I’m not getting the things done that are my top priorities. It’s time to reevaluate where I’m putting my efforts versus where they should be aimed.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

I’ve broken Queen To Be into sequences and last week I finished making notes on how to strengthen and improve each sequence, which will hopefully in turn strengthen the entire project. It helps to look at the script in multiple pieces instead of trying to digest the whole shebang at once. Now that I’ve finished with these notes, I’m going to dive into the actual script of each sequence and rewrite it as necessary. I have 26 sequences and my goal is to finish the rewrite by the end of the year.

Four weeks. Twenty-six sequences. I’m going to (somehow) finish seven sequences this week, then six each during the second and third weeks and seven again during the last week of the month.

Today I went to this place called the grocery store. Now that the fridge and cupboards are full, I can actually have something of quality to eat throughout my long working days.

- til next time – Kim

There’s something about sitting down at my desk after a vacation. An anxiety to get back to work. It’s like my batteries are charged and I’m ready to rip through my freelance work, knock out my personal screenwriting lessons and dive into my own scripts.

So after an early morning run, I plopped down in my chair and my fingers were ready to fly.

Yeah… too bad my computer didn’t get the memo.

It’s now 11:30 on the West Coast and I’m finally able to get to work. Supposedly today was the official update-every-piece-of-software-on-my-computer day. Because the processing power on this baby is so lame, it’s unusable whenever anything is updating. I guess the updates are my computer’s version of a morning run.

So now it looks like my computer and I are on the same page. Hopefully I will successfully avoid all of the Cyber Monday emails flooding my inbox.

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My personal screenwriting development last week featured:

* Watching: Moneyball, The Muppets and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1.
* Reading: The Debt & my friend’s absolutely awesome family action/adventure feature script my friend she sent me over to read.

This week I’ll be reading Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and watching two of the 99 flicks I currently have saved on DVR.

With the Sly Sylvester craze starting to slow (speaking of, I just received the printed film stills this week and they look awesome – I’ll show you them soon), I’ve gotten back on my game in terms of reading scripts and watching movies. My goal is to read one script and watch two movies per week. Over the last nine days, I watched Easy Rider (weird), Saturday Night Fever (surprisingly entertaining) and Moneyball (one of my favorite films this year) and read the scripts for Pariah and The Debt.

Some thoughts:

1. After watching Easy Rider, I’ve conclused the drug craze of the 70′s was likely larger than I originally imagined… both because the film is filled with drug references and also because people must have been loaded to like this enough to make this a blockbuster success. My dad may disown me if he ever reads this.
2. John Travolta could move when he was younger. I think my wife and I were doing pelvic thrusts around the living room for 30 minutes after that movie was over.
3. Brad Pitt needs to be nominated for an Oscar for Moneyball. And Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin better be considered for Best Screenplay. Hi-five to Jonah Hill for the work he did as well.
4. After reading the script for Pariah, I’m a little worried it’ll come off as another, “Woe is me, I’m a lesbian and life is terrible because of it.” Feedback so far has been good, so I’m crossing my fingers.
5. I need to rent The Debt… like now.

- til next time – Kim

Amazing timing as we had our Sly Sylvester wrap party that night. I spent the entire time focusing on remaining upright, my brain filled with cotton. I’m sure our cast, crew and supporters thought I was on drugs.

Still, the party seemed to be a success. We showed the completed film, which was nothing short of a terrifying experience. After the first joke didn’t invoke any laughs, I wanted to fall out of my chair and cry. But, as the film went on, the laughs started to come and we received some really positive feedback when it was done. They asked to watch it again, which is obviously a great sign.

On a side note, I’ve found that hosting parties is not only fun, but it’s an effective technique for getting things done around the house. Because we knew people were going to be hanging out on our back deck, we finally hung up the lights that had been abandoned on our garage floor for the last few months. It looks awesome and I never want to come in the house.

My cold eased off on Sunday and I was luckily feeling up for taking a walk with my wife and little sister, watching the Niners improve their record to 8-1 and finishing re-reading Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” for about the 900th time.

This week I’m focused on finishing my latest rewrite of Queen To Be and send it off to a couple folks, reading Dee Rees’ Pariah screenplay and watching a couple of movies.

- til next time – Kim