2008: The Year In Review

Okay, tomorrow begins 2009 and I'll post my resolutions tomorrow. But today, let's see what happened to me in 2008.

January- I miss the Sundance Film Festival for the first time in years due to financial issues. (Had plans to make it up in 2009 but that doesn't look good right now). On January 18 I give notice at my job and begin a month long crying streak.

February - Last day of work at Alverson, Taylor, Mortensen and Sanders, just three days shy of my seven year anniversary. Very bittersweet, the most poignant part is knowing that they will all get along without me and forget me very soon, which they all promise not to, but they do as evidenced by the fact that no one has ever called me (although a few have sent emails.) I console myself with tons of marked down Valentine's candy.

March - Plant a garden then head to Alamogordo, New Mexico to work for a government contractor friend at Holloman Air Force base. A one week trip lasts almost a month. Still, I loved living in the mountains, spending time with "My Bill" and Blue Bell ice cream. But it was really hard to be away from my family for so long. "My Bill" is back in Las Vegas and it makes me happy.

April - I return home and then promptly quit the new job, because the "only 10 hours a week and you can work from home" is in reality about 60 hours a week at the office. But I am back with my loving family and only gained one pound eating all that ice cream and green chile cheeseburgers.

May - Get some vicious strain of an obviously terrorist-made cold/flu/sinus infection and am sick for nearly three weeks. Like really sick. Like my mom is going to kick me to the curb if she hears me whine any more. In further proof of her sainthood, she does not kick me to the curb. First table read of "Vegas Schmegas".

June - Film the faux trailer for "Brick Morgan". Write the short film "The Sunday Box" (which is set to film in 2009, starring the wonderful John Baniqued, for a festival release). Watch Pax while Will and Val vacation in Wisconsin, the vacation destination of America.

July - Watch Abbey Schwarze, dog extrodinare of Kelly and Charisma Schwarze. Possible career as dogsitter in the future apparently. Second table read of "Vegas Schmegas", which gives me goose bumps because it's so good.

August - The Graminator falls and breaks her pubic bone. After three weeks of hospitals and rehab facilities, we get her home, but with pneumonia, a massive bed sore and having lost over 8 pounds. With home care, physical therapy and me stuffing food down her gullet, she makes a fairly good recovery, but the lasting impact on her mentally and physically necessitates my becoming her full time nurse/therapist/caregiver. It's a labor of love that has changed my life forever. In other news, we are adopted by a cat who took up residence in my garden. After a month of trying to find her another home, we let her into ours, where she promptly takes charge and becomes the fattest, laziest cat in the world. She only drinks out of a human glass.

September - "Brick Morgan" premieres. Mom celebrates her 60th birthday with a bash attended by her entire family. Much champagne is consumed and The Graminator begins walking again. The highlight of my birthday is getting highlights in my hair. Too Blonde. The economy is in terrible shape, with the stock market going up and down faster than a carousel on crack. In assessing our financial situation, I realize we aren't doing too bad since I'm already unemployed and due to the economy the day-old bread store my mom works at is doing well. My mom is truly the 'bread-winner' of the family, since one of the perks if her job is free bread.

October - The return to comedy for "Shae Denin". It feels good to be back on stage after a long absence. I am asked to be Maid of Honor at Will and Val's wedding. This starts a diet that results in a loss of 8 pounds. I don't gain any back over the holidays. In fact, I lose one more. But January will see the return of the diet and exercise regimen. In politics, the ads get so frequent and so negative that I swear I will turn the television off. (This doesn't actually happen.)

November - The busiest month of the year, with three weeks of filming of "Vegas Schmegas". The shoot is a great success, although supplemental filming will take place in 2009. I debut my role as a dominatrix, and consider it for a new career should the economy fail to recover. I also take part for the first time in National Novel Writing Month, an endeavor to complete a 50,000 word novel in thirty days. I complete the novel by November 30th. In other historic news, Barack Obama is elected the first "black" president of the United States. (I put black in quotes because he is also white but everyone ignores that.)

December - I burn the NaNoWriMo novel, as it is terrible, although possibly not as bad as some published novels I have read over the years. We get a new fridge and washer and begin the process of bringing the house into the 21st century. Christmas is celebrated with friends and family, and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. Which brings us to...

Today. I hope your New Years Eve is safe and fun. And I hope your 2009 is bright and wonderful and the fulfillment of many of your dreams. I know mine will be.

I DID IT!!!!!!!

I did it, I completed NaNoWriMo!!!! I wrote a 50,000 word novel. (52,228 words to be exact.) And CONGRATULATIONS to my writing buddies Dyann, Maura and Noreen who also won NaNoWriMo!!! You guys ROCK!

How is the novel? It's AWFUL. Terrible. Atrocious. Horrible. It's called "A Time to Dream", that's how pathetic it is. What do you expect of a novel written in less than 30 days? But being good wasn't the point, for me, the point was to get done. 1,667 words a day. It seemed really intimidating until I realized that some of my daily posts here are longer than that, and I do those in less than an hour usually. So while the Graminator is napping, I CAN get into a daily writing habit.

This novel is so bad that I'm going to burn it. It's a time to die for "A Time to Dream". Now I don't believe in book burning (that's wrong) but since this one is mine I'm going to burn it in effigy, as a sacrifice to the 'writing gods' to give me the chance to write better ones. How can it be that bad? Well, I think my fellow writers will understand when I say that I used all the right words, I just put them in the wrong order. But again, this challenge wasn't for a good novel, it was for a finished novel. I'm sure Dyann and Maura and Noreen wrote great novels, but with the challenges of the Vegas Schmegas shoot I was really behind, so I wrote total crap. Pure and utter drivel. It was all for word count. No one should ever be forced to read such manure. So today, I release the words back into the universe so that I may use them again and this time put them in the right order.

NaNoWriMo gave me hope that I can write a better novel this time. I actually have three projects planned for December (I'll tell you more as I complete them) and I look forward now to some GOOD writing. Join me as I wave goodbye to my first (and hopefully worst) novel.

Awkward Much?

Okay, I'm at my least favorite part of writing my book...the sex scenes.

Look, I'm not a prude, (far from it, as evidenced by the pictures in my previous post) but it's still really weird for me to write the sex scenes. I feel like I'm intruding on a very personal moment. It makes me feel almost like a voyeur. I know, they are my characters but when they get intimate I feel like I should give them some privacy.

I know I'm not alone in this, Maura wrote about this same thing on her blog and Dyann and I have discussed it as well. One of the big factors for me is that my mom and friends are going to read this (hopefully) and that feels almost like I'm telling them about my sex life. Now I can talk to my family about sex, but it's more of a general thing, I don't get specific in the details. These scenes, however, need to be graphic for the genre I'm writing. I'm blushing just thinking about it and I know everyone is going to think I'm a perv! It's something I have to get over if I want to be a successful romance writer but what will the Graminator think when she reads it?

I wrote a scene for a movie (still a WIP) that involved a serial killer and his victim. It was a graphic scene and when I got done writing it, I was really upset. I'm not a killer so how could I write about one so realistically and graphically? What does that say about me? My mom won't watch shows like "Criminal Minds" with me because she thinks it gives crazy people even more crazy ideas to work with. Is that true? Are writers responsible for the evil in the world? Does Steven King worry about this? Does life imitate art or is it the other way around? Am I the chicken or the egg? Aughhhhh!

So today my challenge is to write a highly erotic scene. I mean all out, balls to the wall (metaphorically speaking.) I can always tone it down later but for today, I'm going to break down my 'inhibitions' and just go for it. Just don't judge, okay Loyal Readers?

I am wayyyyyy behind on NaNoWriMo, having done no writing at all from Thursday to Monday. I'm hoping to catch up, but towards the end it may not be good writing. Oh well, I guess that's what rewrites are for.

Thanks for the encouragement Maura, I'm energized to get some writing done but Shelby is on hold until after NaNo. But I do feel excited to write and I have some irons in the fire. Shelby will be back in the forefront in just a few weeks!

Updates to What is Going on in my World

Obama is the new President-elect (was there ever much doubt?) He has some tough decisions to make to get this county back on track when he takes office. Now he needs to put his money where his mouth is. I hope that he can deliver on his promises because I think this country is really counting on him.

Principal photography began on Vegas Schmegas on Saturday and I think it's looking great so far. The poker scene looked even better than I expected and the cast and crew really came through. Kudos to everyone. Especially Mark for some tricky lighting cues and Kelly for being a great director. Saturday I played a dealer so I got to be more of an actor than crew and it was fun. Everyone is doing such a great job that I feel a little superfluous, but I guess that's how a lot of writers feel on set. (We usually have a really small crew so I do more but we have actual help on this set. Still, I helped move tables and track and dolly and stuff so I'm not completely useless.) Next shoot is on Sunday, and we have two different sketches to film. It will be a good ramping up for the 14th when we have a twelve hour shooting day.

I am behind on my NaNoWriMo project, but I knew I would be since I was out of commission (writing-wise) over the weekend. I also started a new novel, not the WIP I thought I'd use, but I figured I would use the 50,000 word parameters to write my "Harlequin" novel. I have loved Harlequin since I was about eleven years old and I graduated from Little House on the Prairie Books and Nancy Drew novels to the paperback romances that my Grandmother read. The ones she bought were always set in England or Canada and the heroines were always nurses and they spelled things differently like "humour". I was excited when I finally discovered ones set in America. I think that's what this one will be for, the Harlequin American line. It's an idea that kicked around my head so I'm letting it out for NaNoWriMo. I'm going to have to put in a few 'cram' sessions to make the word count by deadline but I can always re-write next month.

And Thanksgiving is coming so I'm trying out a few things in advance to see if I can improve upon the traditional dinner I usually make. I'm not allowed to mess with it much, we MUST have turkey and The Graminator's stuffing and my home made pumpkin pie (with fresh, not canned, pumpkin). I have been reading about 'dry brining' your turkey and I tried it out on a turkey breast last night so I could see how it was before trying it on a whole turkey. I usually inject my turkey with an herb steeped butter mixture but I thought I'd try this instead. My mom told me not to mess with it, that my turkey was already great, but I had to check it out for myself so I bought a turkey breast and dry brined it. The result? The vote was unanimous and I am NOT dry brining the turkey this year, we are sticking with injecting. While the turkey was fine and stayed moist, it didn't have as much flavor as the injected turkey does. Injecting, to me, makes the turkey moist and flavorful and is easier and less time consuming. So while it was a noble experiment, dry brining falls into the "not worth it" category for me. I also made Sunset magazines sourdough artichoke Parmesan stuffing and it was delicious. I won't make it for Thanksgiving (as this could get me killed by my Uncle) but I'd definitely make it for us again. And there is enough left over to make "Bobbies" this week. (Those unfamiliar with the "Bobbie" at Capriotti's sandwich shop, it's turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce on a sub roll and it's delicious!)

I ordered my first iPod. (yes, I have fallen into Apple's clutches, now that I love my Mac I'm trading my Zen for an iPod) it's the iPod Touch and it's supposed to arrive by tomorrow. I've been following it's progress and it's gone from Kunshan, China to Shanghai, China to Anchorage, Alaska to Indianapolis, Indiana so far. My iPod will have seen more of the world than I have. I know it's a luxury, not a necessity, but I decided to put my comedy money towards something I wanted instead of something I needed. I can't wait to play with it!

Okay, that's my world. Hope all is good in yours, Loyal Readers!

I Must Be Crazy

Okay, I know I'm insane, but with encouragement from my fellow writers, Maura and Dyann, I signed up for NaNoWriMo (short for National Novel Writing Month.) The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in thirty days. That's 1,667 words a day. In November. When shooting of Vegas Schmegas will take up no less than six full days just for photography, Thanksgiving will take up at least two days and my nervous breakdown will take at least a week. What was I thinking?

Actually, what I was thinking is that something needs to kick my writing in the butt and maybe this is it. I have been so focused on taking care of The Graminator and day to day life concerns that my writing has suffered and if I want my sabbatical to be a success then I need to actually put the car in drive and go for it. I love my family but I gotta do something.

The only problem with NaNoWriMo is that I already feel behind and I haven't even started yet. We start shooting on November 1st and that's the day NaNoWriMo starts. I guess I'll take a notebook on set with me and try to write between shots. I'm not only producing this weekend but also 1st A.D. and acting (but I'm playing a dealer and I only have one line). Let's just say it's going to be a hectic weekend.

Any and all support is welcome. And donations of Prozac and Valium are greatly appreciated.