WRITING AND WHY I'VE BEEN AWAY

So...

Astute readers of this blog may have noticed I've been...busy. (As in..."unable to perform blogging duties in a manner which is consistent with the conventions of the 2007 blogging conference in Helsinki, Finland. 212.43.b1")

Truth is...I've been writing. Not fun, blogging writing. Writing for pay. Writing to keep my family insured and food on the table. Writing...because, as my agent has reminded me, evidently, that's what I do.

So, I figure, this is a good as time as any to talk about my love/hate relationship with this income producing aspect of my life.

I've been writing for quite a while now. In 1991 I was given my first paycheck for writing something. It was the script "Roll Over Beethoven" for a new show called Animaniacs.

John McCann and I had both been given assignments at the same time. His was "Draculee-Draculaa."

Anyway, after nervously working for about a week and a half, we both dropped off our scripts at Warner Brothers. We decided to celebrate this monumental...and, we thought, one-time event in our lives...by renting the worst 50's sci-fi movie we could find, go back to my house, and eat a box of powdered donuts. I don't remember the movie, but I'm sure John does.

Anyway, half way through the movie, the phone rang. It was Sherri Stoner, the story editor of Animaniacs. She was looking for John. I handed John the phone. Over the next minute and a half I listened as John said, "Oh. Yes. Yes. That's good. Really? That would be fine. Yes. Oh. Yes, I think I could do that."

I had no idea what was going on. Then John handed the phone to me and said Sherri wanted to talk to me. She basically said the same thing she said to John. They wanted to hire me full time to write for the show. I was stunned.

I hung up the phone. John and I looked at each other and did the happiest dance two men eating powered donuts could do. We had jobs. We could now afford real donuts. (However, I have to say that powdered donuts and coffee are still the best.)

Having been writing for quite a while now, I can confidently say the following things...

Writing is lonely, miserable, satisfying, annoying, enjoyable, painful, nerve-wracking, heinous, intolerable, exciting, exhausting, invigorating and virtually everything else that can possibly end in ING.

You would think that by now I would have a handle on it. But since every script is different, the only thing I know going in is this: It's gonna hurt.

I know there will be hours and hours in which the most I come up with is, "He looked sheepishly at the cabinet."

I know I will constantly use the word your when I really mean you're.

I know I will panic that agreeing to write the script was a mistake.

I know I will wander down the hall in hopes that the dogs can give me a good idea.

I know I will rewrite the 1st page at least 100 times, leaving me little more than a day to write the other 31 pages.

I know I will drink too much tea.

I know I will distract myself from the task at hand by looking for things under the bed. I never have a specific thing I'm looking for, I just want to see what's wound up there.

I will lay on the floor and look at my dogs.

I will lay on the floor and look for faces in the ceiling.

I will lay on the floor and do nothing of particular interest.

I will sit in every chair in the house for a brief moment.

I will say, "I should take a walk. It'll help clear my head." But I never do.

I will finish.

Yep, those are all the things I know.

I'M ALIVE!

Gentlepersons,

Today, I did the thing people say they want to do when they don't want to do the thing they really don't want to do.

Follow?

No.

Okay. Here.

"I'd rather have root canal!"

You with me?

That's what I did.

Root canal.

Anyway, I've been writing on a project and am now done. I shall blog tomorrow.

Forgive me, Froynlaven readers.

I need more Advil.

Paul

MORE FROM SANSO

Many unique and special greetings to you all again from the Christmas village I'm hostage in! So much has happened to occur and it needs to be shared with persons identical to YOU!

In my pleadings for things for the movie, many of you have heard! I lick you repeatedly! 

Many things are available to share! Takineko with words typed she can give the needingly required cookers! Yes, and I will take them. She also is having 3 live hams and the 1 fake live ham! She says they are metaphorical. I don't know that breed, but all live hams are a bounty to my needs!

Fenwick Wilnern is having the paintings of the live hams! Thank you and welcome!

Troy has an ax! This will be handy for the scene of the murder when the creature falls and then a small chase goes on for a while! An ax is needed for this!

Keeper has a person! I will value that with my life!

So, we get closer to the reality of the movie. I hope more people let me know what they are having!

And now, for words about the story.

It is called, "Who Will Cry For Wendle?" In it, the boy of Wendle finds he is encamped in an area he never knew existed. (In his mind, or not. We will find out later that it is not what we had imagined.)

As he carries on in this amazing area, many difficulties come to fall upon him. (Which is why I need the living bear with non-biting action.)

From the corner of the areas, though, are where we are given to experience the larger of the difficulties! Oh, much larger!

A man ( the person who I need who Keeper has) will try his best to confusalate Wendle with various treacheries! 

But from another area comes the space ship with the angel who will mediate his conflicts. Or, is this just another trick? Because the angel is also in possession of four live hams. One is immediately struck by a bear and made non-living. (Which is why I need one fake live ham because I don't want to kill a live ham...even though it would be good for eating.)

From there, many other things happen. There are tree people (twigs), falling dangers from the sky (macaroni) and many mystical things.

We are close to making this!

May a Llama provide you with its butter!

Sanso

Sanso Pontapuntaquenia - Guest Blog

Felicitations, as well as words, which, when formed properly in your mouth, make the sound of "hello."

My name is Sanso Pontapuntaquenia. I am a director from Chile. 

Perhaps some of you may know me because I was the director of the Sam Plenty shows. Since that time, however, I run drippingly out of money and have been an elf at a Christmas village in Naptha, Idaho.

It is my hopes and wants to leave this elf job and return to Hollywood to make more films. I have saved much monies for this to come to be a realism. The owner of the Christmas village, Bill Huldonmuir, says he will give me the rest of my money after the busy summer season. I tell him, okay, but I need to be in Hollywood by July to start my new movie. He says okay to me. But he wants to make sure I am promising to be an elf for June. This is when families on trips come by to see many of us fake elves frolic like elves. (By the way, they are looking for a Santa in case any of you are in need of monies. The other Santa got bit by a deer and they had to amputate him.)

And this, great people, is why I have, with words, asked Paul Rugg to help disperse my message to you for hearing and reading.

I want to start filming my new movie as soon as I return from being a fake elf. I am looking for actors with male and female abilities. I am looking for crew peoples. I also need

1. A camera with motion abilities.

2. Film enough for a movie to be used in the camera with motion abilities.

3. Sound devices.

4. Cords for the hooking up of devices of all sorts.

5. A writer for the idea I have.

6. Cookers of food for feeding many of us.

7. Places to do all of this.

8. Outdoor rain and snow.

9. A tame bear with non-biting action.

10. 9 trained Llamas with clipped hind-ends.

11. Monkeys of various sizes. (Not all have to be living.)

12. Pixie sticks with sand candy inside for the giving out to actors who are doing well.

13. Felt. I would like black, but blue, red and green will be helpful to my needs.

14. Chairs for sitting to have conversations.

15. Un-cooked elbow macaroni for special effects and set building.

16. Monster costumes with nuclear burns because this is important.

17. A lazy cat who can jump in a comical way.

18. A moon man who is important.

19. Cix cups of brown sugar. (Tightly packed.)

20. A person.

21. Space ship which can grow to great sizes because of it's magical abilities.

22. 3 live hams.

23. 1 fake live ham.

24. A large painting of 6 live hams. If this has a puppy in it that would be okay. But no trees.

25. Sticks of many sizes but not too big.

26. A wedding spool.

27. 2 ceremonial cords of uneven lengths.

28. Someone who used to be a mechanic but is no longer because of various difficulties.

29. 5 gallons of white out. (For the macaroni.)

30. Various shapes.

Paul has made with agreement to let me communicate with you in the approaching weeks to let you know of my needs for the movie. I shall be doing more of this!

If you have anything of my needs, please and Paul to know of it.

May a Lamma kiss the small of your back.

Sanso.

Successful Sprinkler Repair!

A big shout out to my buddies in Houston for getting me through my garden sprinkler problems. The gardeners I hired to do the job left without finishing.

But, I knew help was only a satellite relay away!

El Bondigas!

Sam Plenty has a new ally in defending the West from evil.

QUADRAPHONIC SNAKES

I'll explain. Stay with me.

When I was a kid, my father used to love to order things through the mail. All kinds of things. Shoes. Radios. Cheese. I don't think he wanted the stuff so much, it was just fun to get home from work and find a box waiting at the door.

As a young lad, I followed in my father's footsteps and ordered everything I could from the back of 'Boys Life' magazine. I got a real Flying UFO for $2.99. It was a balloon with a plastic base. It didn't look exactly like the picture in the magazine and broke after 15 minutes, but it was still cool. Getting things in the mail was fun.

One day when I got home from school, there was an enormous box by the front door. It was addressed to my father. When my mother called him at work to tell him about the package, he forbid any of us from opening it until he got home. See, opening the box is half the fun. 

We waited for hours for him to come home. When he finally arrived, we all brought the box into the family room. My father poured himself his nightly Scotch, got on the floor with a knife and carefully opened the box. He took his time. It was excruciating.

What came out of the box confused everyone but my father. It was a Quadraphonic Stereo System.

We all looked at him. "A what?"

We were confused for very good reason. My father was strictly a transistor radio guy. We had a 13 inch black and white television with a broken antenna. My father had stuck a wire coat hanger in the antenna opening so we could get 3, fuzzy channels. It had been that way for years. The word stereo had never been uttered in our decidedly low-tech household.

In a stunning move, my father had jumped entire over the stereo and into the newest, high-tech wonder of the age - Quadraphonics. 

Inside the box was a Teledyne Packard Bell Quadraphonic Music System. It had an 8 track and a turntable. It had four speakers. That's the quadraphonic part.

It took a couple of hours to set it up and we all ate a very rushed dinner in order to finish the job. But at last, it was done. 

My father had precisely followed the very specific instructions on speaker placement. Now, it was time to try it out. He read the pamphlet that came with the system to us out loud. Seems the Ruggs were about to be amazed. We were (so the pamphlet boasted) about to experience the greatest achievement in stereo technology. The Quadraphonic system would "put us in the middle of the music!" With the speakers positioned in the four corners of the room, we were about to experience...double stereo. Or something. But whatever it was, we were about to be blown away.

My father quickly grabbed one of our old records and put it on. It was a Johnny Mathis album. It was in mono.

We all stood in the center of the room. Chances Are began playing. We looked at one another. We didn't know what to expect but we all agreed we could hear Johnny singing from every corner of the room. I remember my Mother saying something like, "My goodness. I can hear Johnny over there and there and there and....and there!"

We all tried to convince ourselves that this was amazing. As a child, I was always prone to make things out to be better than they were. I said something like, "It's like Johnny Mathis is all around us!"

My father looked at me. "Yes! No matter where I turn, I can hear him!"

And then, almost immediately, my father scrunched his face. "Maybe I didn't hook it up right."

It was close to midnight. My mother marched us off to bed as my father spent the next 4 hours redoing the wires. All that night I could hear Johnny Mathis singing while my father grunted angrily.

The next morning, my exhausted father said he had figured out the problem. All the records we had were in mono. We needed the new quadraphonic albums. He told my mother to go to the store to get some of those.

After school my mother drove us to JC PENNEY to buy quadraphonic albums. My mother tried to explain to the clerk that we needed one of those new albums for four speakers. He stared at her like she was insane. When she finally said, "Quadra....something or other," he smiled.

He took us to their new Quadraphonic area. It had one album. The album was synthesized snake sounds. We didn't know what that meant, but we bought it and took it home.

When my father got home from work we all ran into the family room, stood in the middle of the room and listened as my father put the album on. Johnny Mathis in mono is far better than quadraphonic snake sounds. But we all tried to pretend we were impressed.

My mother looked at my father and said, "Well...I hear a rattle over there. And...a...some sort of slithering over there. And...there's a hiss behind me. Oh, that's amazing."

For the next few months we would drop by JC Penney to see what new Quadraphonic albums they had. Whatever it was, we bought it. We'd all stand in the middle of the room and listen.

And while we never blew our minds, we blew a lot of my dad's money.

He would have loved the iPhone.