We’re actually doing something for the Fourth of July!

Despite it POURING on Tuesday, this week was a good one…

+ Got a much needed haircut! Why do I always feel like I can take on the world afterwards?
+ Albeit slow, there is progress being made on both the Super Ted rewrite and the thorough outline of my new script.
+ Kicked the ass of my weekly freelance article quota.
+ Took a quick road trip with my friend so she could purchase a sweet 1960′s record player. I’m juiced for the upcoming listening parties. Speaking of music and this particular friend, she put me onto Bon Iver this week. This morning I spotted a video of Justin Vernon, the lead singer of the group, covering one of my favorite songs, Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” (via Put Me On It). You need to watch it.
+ The Foreign Exchange dropped their acoustic CD/DVD release “Dear Friends: An Evening with The Foreign Exchange.” This alone makes the week awesome.

Hope you all have a great 4th of July!

photo found on "This Isn't Happiness"

I’m thinking about putting up Super Ted and a few of my shorts up on InkTip, a company that serves as a middleman between writers and producers, distributing your logline and script to those who are looking for a project.

It costs $60 to list your script on their site for 6 months, $40 per listing in their magazine issue, and $50 for 4 months of being a part of their preferred e-newsletter.

Although you may be raising one eyebrow towards the idea of doing this (I did too, at first), they’ve had some pretty significant success in getting scripts optioned and sold.

Has anyone had experience, good or bad, with InkTip?

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My Thankful Friday list this week consists of the following:

+ the weather in the Bay Area this week has been in-freaking-credible

+ finished the freelance articles I wanted to complete

+ mailed out some more queries to some selective agents

+ finished reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, and while I agree with a friend of mine that it’s a bit “preachy,” it was a great read

This upcoming three day weekend should be productive and yet hopefully somewhat relaxing.  We’re skipping on camping with some close friends, which bums me out to no end, but are planning to get some quality work in on the house.

Hope you all have a great Labor Day weekend, filled with friends, family, sharing wine and being outside.  Just make sure that it’s labor free.

It’s 6:00 am and I’m anxious to head over to start getting to work.  This weekend’s game plan is to clean and paint.  So, I’ve got paint rollers, paint brushes, stuff for lunch, water/beer, and a boom-box to keep us entertained (oh yes… a boom-box).

Needless to say, I have a lot to be thankful for this week. 

+ I’m thankful for my wife, who I am reminded every day how blessed I am to have her in my life.

+ our real estate agent, who is absolutely incredible.  Not only did she somehow work her magic to get us through this, she had margaritas, flowers, and chips and salsa waiting for us when she handed us over the keys.

+ mailed out some queries this week for Super Ted

Hope you all have a great weekend.

But there’s no way I’m complaining.

The good:  We signed on the house yesterday evening.  It’s ours.  Keys will be in our hands on Friday (along with some margaritas).

The bad:  The quarterfinalists for the 2010 Final Draft, Inc. Big Break Contest were announced yesterday and Super Ted was NOT on the list.

First of all, my sincere congrats to those who made the cut.

Secondly, yesterday was an absolute cluster, but I had about five minutes before stepping in to sign house documents to be hurt regarding Super Ted’s early exits from this season’s contests.  That’s all four of the contests I entered now… Super Ted has been knocked out of all of them.

I don’t know if this house stuff is keeping me focused on something else and helps keep everything in perspective, or if I’m going to collapse once the rush slows down.

Either way, I’ll K.I.M. the Tribe Called Quest way and keep it moving… continue with rewriting Super Ted, querying it, and outlining my new one.

It’s a bit disappointing that what I feel is my best work of date is not being received as well as I had hoped.  Here’s the updated look at Super Ted’s current status in the screenwriting contest world.

Super Ted's Contest Life

Still, I will be spending this week querying the hell out of the script and we’ll see what happens.

In regards to the house, we had a last second snafu that came to our attention on Friday, but it has since been resolved and hopefully we’re still able to sign the final papers on Tuesday.

The Renegade Craft Fair over the weekend was pretty freaking incredible.  I picked up a t-shirt by SEIBEI that I’ve been dying to get my hands on for a bit, and came across an awesome artist by the name of Catia Chien.

This week is a big week…

* buying a house

*querying Super Ted

* getting back to my old workout ways

Better get a jump on it!

photo by Jan von Holleben

Oh hi.

It’s been a little bit since we visited.  There has been a lot going on and blah… blah… blah…

The typical.  Life’s been busy so my blog has been the first to get pushed to the side.  But, hopefully things are starting to calm down.

The folks at Nicholl’s decided that my script, Super Ted, was not one of the 326 to make it on to their quarterfinals.  The news stung for about seven hours, but I feel like I haven’t had an opportunity to really dwell on it.  I’m rewriting it and prepping to send query letters out at the end of this week.

After the news from Nicholl’s, and with Script PIMP giving Super Ted the boot earlier in the month, the contest recap as of now is as follows:

Super Ted's Contest Life

oil painting by Abdi Farah

What are they going to want next?  One of my kidneys?

Buying a house is way too difficult than it needs to be.  Every time we think we’re going to reach a point of smooth sailing, some storm blows in and here come the choppy waters.  There’s going to be SOME big decision to make, most likely one that’s going to cost us money and is associated with paperwork that requires us to sign our names no less than thirty times.

If we make it through this week, we just may get ourselves a house.

I’ve been absolutely slammed, but it feels good to work hard.  I’ve been handling the house stuff and writing more freelance articles than I ever thought I would, all the while still putting in quality rewriting work into Super Ted.  Every night I’m ready to pass out at eight o’clock, but it’s that good-tired feeling, similar to how I feel after a hard run.

Because it’s my goal to have Super Ted ready for the masses at the end of the month, I put together a query letter for the script and submitted it to Write On!’s June Query Letter Contest.  It was just announced this morning that my letter for Super Ted took third, which means while it needs some tweaking, perhaps it has a chance to catch the eye of whoever opens the mail at the production companies I’ll be hitting up.

Here is the announcement of the contest winners over at Write On!

Besides the easy schedule, there are some big things to be thankful for this week.

+ Received helpful notes from Reader Proof and had a good couple of days working on the Super Ted rewrite

+ Watched four movies this week, including the really impressive Cyrus

+ Today my wife and I may find out that we’re finished with the hurdles and will be purchasing our first house

cartoon by Hugh MacLeod

Despite Super Ted making it to the quarterfinals of the 2010 Silver Screenwriting Competition, which will announce semifinalists on August 1st, I’d be a pretty big idiot if I didn’t recognize that I still have a huge amount of work left to do on the script.

After receiving feedback from a workshop I went to some weeks ago, reading through notes from Reader Proof and working some things out with my writing partner on the project, I’ve got a game plan of where I’m going to go next.

The goal is to have the rewrite finished and send queries out by August 1st.  It will be a bit of a challenge, but I believe it’s realistic. Besides, being put under pressure is when I seem to do my best work.

The notes that I received from Marcus at Reader Proof were particularly helpful.  Marcus noted things that worked and didn’t work, while also suggesting ways to improve on the things he felt needed to be strengthened.  He challenged me and also jump-started my brain to start thinking about the project objectively.  Although I may not take all his suggestions, I am going to be incorporating a large amount of them.

Within the “Heavy Proofing” package that I received, Marcus did point what may be considered minor problems, though play a huge role in a reader enjoying a script, such as typos and clarity issues. But, he went much further into the story, addressing both hero and antagonist character concerns.

Marcus’ real strengths, however, come from his understanding of pacing and structure.  He somewhat tore Super Ted apart, but in a constructive way, explaining why things did and didn’t work, and for each of those areas that needed some extra love, he discussed how they could be improved to increase drama.

After taking the notes and going over them with my wife/writing partner on this project, I’m completely amped to get back to work on the script.

Note:  If you’re interested in receiving notes from Marcus and Reader Proof, you can visit his website, here.  I received the “Heavy Proofing” package, which will also give me one free reproofing after I’ve completed my rewrite, plus a free hour phone consultation and unlimited email support. You can order the Heavy Proofing package for $250. “Light Proofing” and “Maximum Proofing” packages are also available. (Reader Proof’s Website, Blog, Twitter)

necklace by Oh Curses Necklaces

Oh, disappointment…

The house stuff is looking like it’ll take a miracle to work out.

Script PIMP announced their twenty finalists and Super Ted was NOT on the list.

But, the biggest bummer of the week?

I had to sit through the entire 99 excruciating minutes of What Happens In Vegas.

However, the weather’s beautiful today, there’s wine in my kitchen, and I have a four day weekend coming up… soooo, life’s not too bad.

Back to work I go.

EDIT:  Woo-hoo!  Super Ted was named today as a quarterfinalist in the Silver Screenwriting Competition.