Grrrr. Then, Ahhhh.

Grrrr.

Starting tomorrow, it will be illegal to reincarnate in Tibet without the permission of the Chinese government.

I would be laughing hysterically right now if I weren’t so pissed off.

The superficial silliness of this new law belies more evil intent by the Chinese government. With this law in place, when HH the Dalai Lama dies and reincarnates, the Chinese government will be able to legally imprison the new Dalai Lama –- if he chooses to reincarnate in his homeland.

This way they’ll be able to do what they did with the last Panchen Lama -– whom they kidnapped and imprisoned when he was six years old in 1995. They then of course named their own Panchen Lama. Who, interestingly, seems to be very complimentary about the Chinese government’s handling of Tibet.

Fucking makes me go fucknuts.

Hey Greg, you have some pull over there. Can you talk to these people please?


Okay, let’s end with good stuff. HHDL would like that.


Today is my son’s second birthday and my father’s 69th birthday. We’re gonna have a kickass pizza-and-waterslide party tomorrow. Wanna come?

Recently, as I write, I’ve been mainly listening to two stations on iTunes radio: Ambient Popsicle from Groovera and Secret Agent on SomaFM. Check ‘em out.

But right now I’m listening to Art Pepper’s The Trip record. Great simple-and-beautiful jazz.

Currently reading Right Livelihoods by Rick Moody. Though it sounds Buddhist, it’s not. It’s a collection of three novellas and the first one is fantastic –- quietly funny and loopy about a retired guy who lives on a posh island and believes he’s uncovered an international plot to take over the island… though he’s not about to let that get in the way of his drinking or his dancing with driftwood sticks on the beach. Love it.

(If I were good at making links, I’d do so to make it easier for you to find these things. But I’m not. Sorry.)

Teen daughter comes home tonight. Baby daughter slept curled on my chest like a walnut half for two hours last night.

Feeling better. Ahhhh...

Thank You, Mr. Booker

This happens just about every time I'm at some gathering where small talk is required.

STRANGER: So what do you do?

ME: In what circumstance?

STRANGER: For a living.

ME: Oh, I'm director of development for an independent television production company.

STRANGER: Cool! So you make TV?

ME: Well, I used to be a producer, so I used to actually make the shows, but now I'm in charge of development.

STRANGER: Cool! How does that work?

ME: I'm sorry, I think my ankles are on fire. Excuse me.

But now, I have a quick and easy summary I can reference to help explain what my professional life is. Thank you, Mr. Charlie Booker, for this helpful primer:

No Lifeguard On Duty

I dove into D Line revisions on Saturday night.

Into the shallow end.

Ouch.

I started at 9. The boy was asleep, the girl was nestled with Mom and Nana as they watched Take The Lead.

It was a perfect set up for me. I had the notes of some trusted readers. I had my own notes as to what I wanted to do, having gone through the entire script several times. I had free time. I had Charles Lloyd’s Hyperion With Higgins playing. It was quiet. Dark.

I started nodding off at the keyboard around 9:30.

Bonk.

Ouch.

Thankfully my son is a wunderkind and pulled me out (though I outweigh him by 165 pounds), performed CPR, expelling all the water from my lungs, and then crawled back into his bed with his stuffed octopus.

But the baby slept pretty well last night, so I’m not particularly exhausted now. Went for a long bike ride yesterday afternoon. That always helps with energy and ideas. Maybe I’ll take the boy out for a run in the jogging stroller after work.

And then… then I dive back in. Trying not to knock myself out this time.


PS: Thanks for all the kind words about the wee one!

PPS: Realized I should do a Dismal update. We have written offers from three distributors/sales agents and a verbal one from a fourth. Once that fourth set of paperwork comes in, we'll go over all of them, hem and haw, decide, question our decision, undecide, argue, have a couple drinks, stare at the wall, then decide and sign. So hopefully in a few weeks I'll be able to announce the distribution deal we went with and you all can start buying multiple copies of this film, or start pestering your local theater owner to run it if the deal includes domestic theatrical...

She's Here

Born Monday at 11:21am. 7 lbs, 14 oz.

Mainly purple for the first few minutes.

Perfectly healthy and wonderfully beautiful.

‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky.

While Greg’s important post at the Web of Lies a few days ago reminds me how depressing the world can be, this wee lass reminds me how fantastic it can be.

Last post I mourn the loss of a young and gifted artist named Ringo. This one I celebrate the arrival of this lovely girl.

A little yin for your yang, people.

Am I happy, or in misery?

As for writing, just before she was born I finished my first pass at full revision notes on the hard copy of the D Line script. Next up is tracing each character’s arc to look for weaknesses, then making the changes to the script itself.

Last night I was soothing the baby girl at 3am when the toddler boy cried out from his room. Went in to check on him, babe in arms, and found he had terrible diarrhea, spilling out onto his PJs, his mattress.

Purple haze all in my mind, don’t know if it’s day or night.

Gonna be like this for a while.

But I’m gonna do my best to finish up this script soon.

Baby’s doing well. Teenage daughter says she might come home from college for the weekend.

Whatever it is that girl -– by which I think Jimi means “those girls, that boy” -- put a spell on me.

Ringo

Mike Wieringo, one of my roommates my freshman year of college, passed away last Sunday, apparently of a heart attack. He was 44 years old.

Mike was a fantastic guy –- wildly talented with his comic book art, very funny in a dry, self-deprecating way… and the only person I’ve ever known to fall asleep standing up at a party. You should see the praise the people in the comic world are writing about him –- Google him, you’ll see how respected he was.

Toward the end of our year together, I screwed up one night and was an inconsiderate roommate –- loud and stupid. Rightfully, Mike got pissed -– and there was some tension as we parted ways.

Over the years I kept up with his career from afar –- seeing his work in some comics (I’m admittedly not a huge comic fan, but I do maintain a subscription to Iron Man, the comic I loved as a kid) and checking in on his website (www.mikewieringo.com) now and again to see his daily blogs and sketches. I kept telling myself I should write to him, to reconnect, but I never did.

I got back in touch with his brother Matt -– another roommate, and another talented artist and hilarious mofo, with an encyclopedic knowledge of film -– a couple years ago… but never did with Mike.

Wherever he is I hope Mike knows I always thought he was cool as shit and that I’m sorry I was an ass.

Last night, thinking of Mike, I wrote to my high school biology teacher to thank her for being such a great teacher and role model -– someone from whose bag of tricks I stole almost every day I taught. This was something I’ve been meaning to do for years.

Totally Boring

Some preliminary progress in terms of the D Line rewrite. But only a little bit, and in fits and starts. Haven’t been able to devote any real, consistent time to it.

But the nursery’s looking good, and we’re ready for the baby, whenever she decides to join us.

At this stage what I’ve been doing is compiling the notes that I got –- the ones I agree with I mean -– and then going through a hard copy of the script and writing my own notes about what I want to change, add, delete, rework. Sometimes my notes are specific, with the action and dialogue I want, and sometimes they’re fairly vague placeholder stuff like “Add scene where Michael fails to help Moses.” And sometimes it’s a mix.

But so far, I haven’t come upon any insurmountable problems, so that feels good.

I need to finish that step, and then I want to go through each of the major characters’ story arcs, tracking just their scenes, to make sure they’re all sound, noting on the hard copy wherever there are problems. Then I’ll dive in and actually make all the changes.

And, judging how things normally go with a newborn, that’ll probably be Fall of ’08.

But I did finally read and write notes on Ryan’s comedy script -– though I still owe Jeff the same on his horror/thriller. Sorry Jeff.

By the way, Ryan had a script he wrote for a short optioned, so that’s very cool. It’s always nice to have validation, so I bet he’s psyched –- even though he’s playing so cool he’s not even blogging about it.

I've been cheating a little. I told myself to focus just on the D Line rewrite, to get through it so I can move on, but I keep finding myself jotting down setups and dialogue for this action-suspense thing I've had in my head for a few months...

Toldja. Totally boring post. But hey, I posted.

Tagalicious

Got tagged by Greg. Wrote a song about it, like to hear it, here it go:

1. My first year trying to be a writer I made about $14,000. And a good chunk of that was for the part-time work I did at a preschool program at a rec center. It’s a tough business, writing. That year, my daughter and I didn’t have enough money to buy good ornaments for the Christmas tree (we lost a box of them, I think in a move, and had to replace them) so we made them. Out of things like milk jugs, toilet paper rolls and Star Wars figures. Those are still my favorite Christmas tree ornaments.


2. This is my dream possession:



Everyone knows that when you have kids you don’t have much money, space or time to buy a lot of things for yourself. This actually works out okay for me, because I’m not that into things. Thankfully, my wife is not shy about telling me when it’s time to buy a new pair of Levis. But this bike, man I’m aching to buy it. Tricked out, it’s only about six grand. That’s not so much, right? Right?


3. I can sleep pretty much anywhere at any time. If I’m tired and there’s nothing else I need to do and nothing else stopping me, I can take a nap anywhere.


4. I have a little bit of an OCD thing in that if I have to mail a bunch of letters, I’ll count them a few times in between putting on the stamps and putting them in the mailbox. This has become much less of an issue in the age of online banking. So thanks, Bank of America. Oh, also, I often do a countdown from 10 when doing a task with a definite ending –- like filling a glass with water –- pacing it so I start with 10 and hit 1 at the end. It’s kinda like I find the 10-beat rhythm of it. Weird, right? I don’t get it myself. I bet only my brother thinks it's cool, but he's a drummer and loves anything about rhythm.


5. Sometimes I think about becoming a physicist or a biologist – can’t decide which.


6. I think it’s shameful that I'm not bilingual. I mean, I can get by in rudimentary French, and I muscled through trips to Mexico, Guatemala and Costa Rica, but it’s terrible how monolingual I am. Arrogant American bastard. I so want and need to learn Spanish. Gotta get on that.


7. I am absolutely and utterly bewildered by this Bush-Cheney administration.


8. I donate to charity often, as requests come up, but for 15 years I’ve also been sending monthly donations to these people: http://www.splcenter.org/. My wife is friends with some of these people: http://www.mvpsacramento.com/ and now we also give monthly donations to them. But still, I don’t do enough for the world. There are so many people out there who have it off so much worse than me -– so much that we’re not even in the same game. I know this, so why don’t I do more? Actually, I should get on that before I go learn Spanish.


9. My junior year of high school, I got third place in the two-mile at the state champion track and field meet. Hey, you take your glory where you can find it. I was determined to win the next year, but then I blew my knee out training for cross country my senior year and so did not compete in track that year. Or ever again. So much for glory. Now I think back to when I could run two miles in less than 10 minutes and I weep. Openly.


10. I am neither smarter than, nor a better writer than, our friend Greg at the Web of Lies and Deceit. (See his tag post.)


Now, in terms of tagging others, I’ll just do Jeff of Gimpdom 149. He's new to the fold and we'll welcome him this way (plus I think most of the others have already been tagged…).

Inspiracion Mexicana

Yesterday at lunch I listened to the Creative Screenwriting podcast of their interview and Q&A with Guillermo Arriaga.

I really love his movies, or the ones I’ve seen at least: Amores Perros, 21 Grams, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Babel. All very complex, very smart, very stylish. I love the way he leaves a lot for the viewer to do, not answering every question, how he interweaves storylines so powerfully, how the characters in his films are fantastically fucked up and authentic.

A few times I’ve been a little confused by some of the connections between his multiple plotlines. Like Chieko, the Japanese girl in Babel. She was absolutely brilliant -– both as a written character and as played by Rinko Kikuchi –- but the connection to the other stories felt a bit forced. Her father gave the Moroccan guy the gun? A little too tangential, compared to the rest?

(Of course, who am I to judge, right? At lease Arriaga has some freaking movies in the theaters…)

But anyway, he’s one of my favorite screenwriters so I was glad to listen to him talk -– he spoke mainly about Babel, but also about his process in general. And to tell you the truth, it sounded a lot like my process. And he's so honest and unapologetic.

In fact, he was downright inspirational.

I decided that I’d go home and plow right into D Line, feeling validated that the way I write, and the type of stories I create, might just work. Especially this script.

I was so pumped up that after I finished dinner, gave the boy a bath and tucked him in bed…

…I put together a bookcase for the boy's room and worked with my wife getting the nursery ready for the baby.

Sorry Guillermo, mi companero, I failed you.

But tonight! Tonight I write!

Right?

(And I'm a jerk, Ryan and Jeff, for not having gotten to your scripts yet. But tonight! Tonight I read! Maybe?)

Confessions

I’ve been a bad writer.

I got helpful notes on D Line and have done zero revisions.

I promised Ryan I’d give him notes on his rom com. Haven’t read it.

Another friend just gave me a script to give notes on. Haven’t even looked at it.

I have four very loose outlines for the next script and I keep waffling as to which one I should jump on first.

I used hung instead of hanged when writing about a death by hanging. (Sorry Emily and any other English teachers out there.)

Please forgive me.

What I need is focus.

You want focus?

Here's focus:



Did you watch this in 2003? One of my favorite moments in cycling. Flying down a mountain, Beloki falls when his tire ruptures, Armstrong avoids him by turning off the road -- and has the presence of mind to keep going through the field, on those wee tires, at that speed... then sees the ditch by the road in time to stop, hop off and carry his bike across... then gets back on -- without causing another crash -- and keeps going to finish the stage.

Now that's focus.

Time To Write

By now I’ve gotten a few sets of notes on D Line and, accordingly, I’ve decided to quit writing forever.

Kidding.

Not all the notes intersect or overlap, but there are a few key areas that everyone seems to agree on. This is good, since they are mainly the things I was having doubts about.

And so far, no one has told me to quit writing forever.

Addressing most of the notes shouldn’t be too difficult -– though finding the time to really focus on and address the notes continues to be a problem. You see all these movies about writers who are blocked and how hard that is -– they spend hours staring at their Underwoods of MacBooks, smoking cigarettes and watching the wind move the leaves in the trees outside the window, waiting, waiting, waiting for inspiration to kick in so they can create.

What a great problem to have: all the time in the world to write, but no ideas.

(Though I’ll pass on the cigarettes. Substitute coffee or something. Or sometimes, a good cigar.)

Anyway, you call that angst? Are you kidding me?

Try getting up at 5:45am, less than six hours after you went to bed, because the wee boy is screaming ‘cause his left eye is crusted shut and that’s just pissing him off to no end. Go to work, not realizing you still have chunks of pineapple on your shoulder, where the lad threw them while you were distracted assuring the wife she’s still beautiful, and even more so, at eight months pregnant. Spend a few hours in meetings discussing the four or five projects that need your attention immediately, then break speed limits to get to a lunch with the guys who want to make more movies, but dammit get back in an hour because those projects at work aren’t gonna develop themselves. As you drive home that night, listen to Miles Davis, because it helps, and try to spend the 20 minutes in the car brainstorming how you’re gonna fix those script problems. But then forget those brainstormed solutions because it’s dinnertime with the family -– chat with the wife, riff on Star Wars quotes with the teen, bathe the toddler. When 10pm rolls around and everyone else is in bed (wife and son) or out with friends (daughter), sit down to write.

And then get some good work done before you pass out.

I think most of the people who read this feel me -- we're all working other jobs while we try to hone our skills and bang out some good scripts. So yea for us!

I’m gonna push on through the D Line revisions, because I’m itching to start on a new script.

Oh, I have ideas all right. Just give me the time.

Lovely Kids

My second daughter, in utero and gorgeous already.





My son, nearly two and a perfect mix of cool and cute.





My first daughter, almost 19 and beautiful in every way.


Overall, I'm one lucky bastard.

(By the way, the last two pics were taken on my phone, so excuse the bad quality.)

Well Said Sir

"I have no interest in explaining, defending, reinterpreting or adding to what is there." --David Chase

And so it's over. Perhaps the most revolutionary show in decades, and second in storytelling only to Six Feet Under, in my opinion... The Sopranos has ended.

Talk about well-earned pay for writers, producers, actors, directors, editors. All of them top notch.

And the ending was exactly fitting. And as Chase says, he needn't tell us why.

Cheers all around.

Dome Dash

We spent five days in central Washington state over the Memorial Day weekend, at the two geodesic domes my in-laws live in. Beautiful, rural, windswept valley. Great weather. Plus geodesic domes.

Spent a lot of uninterrupted time with wife and son (daughter stayed in VA to work, saving for a new car), went for some good runs, drove an electric car… and got a lot of good (and overdue) work done on D Line.

In fact, I feel like it’s at the readable draft stage, so I’ve sent it to a few companeros for feedback.

Dear Companeros,

If you’re reading this, and if you’re reading D Line, please do not be kind. If it stinks, tell me it stinks. Cruel but fair is what I need.

And if it’s brilliant, tell me it’s "kinda okay." Don’t want me getting big in the head or nothin’.

Thanks.

At work, we’re gearing up to pitch a couple new series to Discovery Channel, either tomorrow or Tuesday, depending on when a few people up there are free.

And we’re a few pieces of paperwork away from having a four-part pilot/miniseries, in the hopes of it turning into a full series, on History Channel.

Overall, things are looking pretty good.

What A Candyass

I am.

Really.

There I am complaining about not having time to write. Poor me. Whining to beat any number of bands. Like a nancyboy.

So then Friday night rolls around. Son goes to sleep at 7:30. Wife goes to sleep at 8. Daughter's out with friends.

Perfect time to write. Right? Bang out a lot of those revisions to D Line I’ve been planning. Git ‘er dun.

But nooooo.

Instead, I recall that the Red Sox are playing the Orioles, and since MASN carries all Orioles games, I realize I have a rare opportunity to watch my beloved Sox.

So I do. Instead of writing.

And they lose.

How's that for fitting metaphor?

Busted Ankle, Finish Line In Sight

Okay, this is maddening.

I feel like I’m maybe 10-15 hours away from having a good, solid second draft of D Line.

But I just can’t find the time.

But I need to find the time.

Because I’m close. And I want to send it out into the world for feedback.

I wonder if I can talk my wife into letting me lock myself into a hotel room for a day and a night, have the management take out the TV and phone, leave my cell phone in the car, bring some good food, good coffee and good spirits… and just blast through it.

Prolly shouldn’t try. Wife’s pregnant, son’s been sick, daughter’s home from college. Now’s not the time to shirk the family responsibilities…


By the way, as for a Dismal update, we're negotiating with the foreign distributor/sales agent I mentioned. They've been good about revising to meet our needs. Looks like the deal is a fair one, so the question becomes, If this is a good, standard deal, is this the company we want to go with, or should we look for this deal with someone with bigger guns?

Decisions, Decisions

We have an international distributor who is making an offer on Dismal. At first glance, they appear to be a good company and the offer seems fair, and fairly standard, in the broad strokes we’ve discussed so far.

I like that they limit their titles per year so that they can really push them –- I’d hate to be one of 100 films being repped at a booth in Cannes. They’ve distributed some films that have made some money -– no huge hits, but their model seems to be selling smaller films that don’t take as long to become profitable.

Like ours.

Plus they appear to be decent people. Though we are, to be sure, checking references…

They want to bring Dismal to Cannes… which is great but would mean making a quick decision, since it’s only a couple weeks away. I’m not a big fan of that for obvious reasons.

But it’s not like they’re saying, “Sign now so we can bring it to Cannes or the deal’s off.” So we might just pass on this first film market, to give us more time to check out some other offers and carefully review the terms of the contract.

It’s an exciting position to be in –- someone already wants to buy our film –- but it’s also an awkward one. Everyone agrees a filmmaker shouldn’t jump on the first offer -– be patient, give it time. Fair enough. But what if, on the odd chance, the first offer happens to be the best one? Or as good as any other?

Tricky.

Anyway, they’re gonna draft a contract and we’ll review it with out attorneys and we’ll see what happens. We also have screeners making their way to Lionsgate, Sony, New Line and a few others through some contacts, and several other distributors (both domestic and foreign) have been calling to get more information, so maybe there will be more news soon…

To complicate things further.

But, of course, I’d rather have this kind of complication than the opposite -– not having any offers, ever, and having to face the investors. Now that’s an awkward position.

You Lose, Cho

Haven’t blogged in a while.

First, I was hit with the worst flu I think I’ve ever had. I mean, a week of literally not being able to do much beyond sit up in bed every now and again to make sure I didn’t get bedsores like an old woman with a broken hip.

That was the easy part.

Because then, April 16th rolled around. And my daughter goes to Virginia Tech.

She’s safe, thank anything and everything that can be thanked, but it’s obviously been rough. She’s handling it pretty well, though she’s certainly reeling still. But she’s a person who really has her shit together, so I know she’ll be alright in the end.

As the stories came out, it got more and more difficult for me. As I was telling my family recently, I read about these kids who were killed and I saw that they are all exactly like my daughter. They are her. She is them. The things written about them -- great kids, hard workers, good friends, big futures, smiles that stay with you -- that's my little girl. And she was doing exactly what they were doing, at exactly the same time, just a few buildings away. I try to suppress them, but these thoughts of what-if keep coming and it's horrifying. She was so close.

And then the media (who drove my daughter and her friends to additional tears, by the way, invading their grief in a mad scramble to break some new element of the story) started playing the message of the gunman.

I quickly stopped watching.

Because I will not give that piece of shit what he wants. I will not receive his message. I will not ingest his manifesto. I’m not interested in his story or what drove him. I do not care what his intent was. And I definitely will not accept his reasoning.

So fuck you, Cho. And I mean that sincerely. You are nothing. You don’t win. You don’t matter.

What you did matters, to the people killed and those they left behind and to your own family, for whom I feel great pity. But you, you don’t even get contempt. You’re already out of the picture. No legacy. Nothing.

And, by the way, since this is a writing blog, allow me to note that you were a shitty writer.

Healthy Young Infant For Sale

I spent the whole of Sunday locked in a dark room with five other guys.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that….

See, we spent the day with the sound editors doing the final mix review. I know I’ve posted about this before, but I love sound design and sound editing -– because of its furtive nature. It improves the film experience in a remarkable way -– yet done properly the viewer shouldn’t think about it at all. Love that.

Maybe a few people might bring it up when thinking back on the movie at the bar over a couple beers with other filmsters, but not while they’re watching.

Anyway, it was an excellent day. The editors and composer did a great job and we were mainly unanimous in the notes we had for additional tweaks, which the boys are working on now. Since this is one of the last steps in the process it made it extra-excellent. Excellenter, even.

Composer Len is sending me his score on CD, and maybe I can figure out how to post some of his cues on here for you to listen to -– ‘cause they’re pretty fucking cool.

From here on, we have some spot checking on a few sound tweaks and visual effects, then finishing and dubbing -– and we take Dismal out into the world, looking for distribution.

Our baby, up for sale.

Two Steps Back... But In A Good Way

It’s David, late to the party one more time.

I read all kinds of posts and articles and books and such about the almighty Index Card. I suppose it’s always made sense to me, something that obviously would be helpful in revision. I mean, no duh.

But I’d never really done it before.

Well, I popped my cherry.

Last week, I asked my dear Movie Magic Screenwriter to please print out my latest draft of D Line as index cards. And my dear faithful Movie Magic Screenwriter complied, snappily. How nice.

Friday night I cut out the cards, laid them out on my dining room table, poured a neat glass of Bushmills Black Bush, slipped the iPod earbuds into my ears and took two steps back.

And POW –- perspective.

No wonder all these people were recommending it. It really helps.

Really.

No kidding. It’s not just an OCD, Type-A, control freak thing.

So much easier to isolate the story arcs of individual characters, one at a time, to really trace where they’re going, at what pace, why. So much better to see the overall structure and to spot the holes in logic and plot. So much easier to see how reorganizing scenes would work or not work.

I worked for two nights like this, making notes on the cards of revisions that needed to be made. Then we had a dinner party on Sunday.

So now the cards are back in a pile, secured by a couple of rubber bands, snugly tucked away in my bag.

And now I know why all those people recommend attaching the almighty Index Cards to the inimitable Cork Board.

Dining room table: bad idea.

Yet again, David’s late to the party…

Hey, Is That Where Google Got Its Name?

Been working on developing a pilot for a new history/anthropology show for a few days straight now and my brain’s starting to get googly.

As I’ve posted about before, this is where the creation of a TV show gets difficult: when you need to create a verbal pitch and written documents that quickly and clearly illustrate that it’s not just a cool idea, but a compelling, fresh television show that’s easy to visualize from start to finish -– and will last multiple seasons, constantly building ratings and staying relevant and on-brand, in an increasingly fickle world. Oh, and be producible for essentially no money. And we can start yesterday, if you just sign here.

Which is very wiggly work. It, like any good storytelling, is taking something as ephemeral and formless as an idea and turning it into something that exists without you. And I mean without you. Tricky. Lots of mind-wrangling and idea-surfing. Grinding your skateboard of creativity on the handrail of the staircase connecting thought to reality. (As if that staircase exists, says Buddha, chuckling…)

I don’t know what any of that means. But you can see, after you work on it for a while, your brain gets googly.

Great googly moogly even.

So I’m taking a break. Focus on something else for a moment. Allow a fresh perspective to creep in. Free your mind and all that.

So I’ll spend a couple minutes telling you about a little forum we had last night.

In conjunction with the ONFilm festival sponsored by Old Dominion University, the Hampton Roads Film Office set up a panel of independent filmmakers in the area to talk after a showing of Oscar-nominated shorts at the coolest arthouse theater in the area, the Naro (www.narocinema.com).

There were five of us who spoke and took questions about all aspects of making indy movies. It was great to get together with like-minded folks who are navigating some of the same waters, share ideas, horror stories, failures and successes.

In fact, afterwards I proposed doing so on a regular basis. My wife is in a book club and a women investors club. I have friends who are in writer’s groups. AA seems to help an awful lot of people.

There’s no doubting the importance of community, and this is true in the independent film world, too. While reading the blogs of writers and producers is helpful, think how much better it would be if everyone were in the same room.

Which would be easy to do in LA or New York.

But I think we can pull it off in VA, too.

I’ll let you know if it happens, and if it works.

Back to work, googly or no…