Can't talk now...I'm writing my latest screenplay

Tomorrow begins Script Frenzy! It is a creative journey to write a feature length screenplay (or stage play) in just 30days. I did it last year and it was so much fun. 100 pages, all formatted for a screenplay (which is very different and hard to get used to). Luckily, I also get some cool screenplay writing software.

Doing this last year really changed me. I rediscovered my love of writing. I almost moved to go to screenwriting school! I even entered (and placed!) in some screenwriting contests. You would be so surprised at the stuff that comes pouring out when you are under a deadline and are not editing your work(that is part of the fun...you just write a draft, and then edit it later...no one even reads it). Every scene that jumps into my head goes on the page, with all the cuts coming later. Re-reading last years, some of the scenes I was most unsure of are the ones that I ended up liking the most. Plus, I enjoy making my soundtrack as I go, then making a copy of it and listening to it often. For almost every scene I write, there is a song that goes along with it. You begin to see your life in a whole new light for this month. Everything becomes a potential scene, a possible conflict for your characters, a great conversation to fill the gap between scene 15 and 16.

Everyone has a story to tell, whether we choose to write it in screenplay form, journal form, short story, photographs, blog or novel. Everyone. You begin to understand your life better and make connections that you didn't see as you tell your story. Your story is begging to be told, to be remembered, to be made sense of.

We have all been trained to believe that you have to be a 'good writer' to tell a good story. That is crap. As long as you write, you are a writer. I used to be afraid to write becuase I was afraid of what people would think if/when they read it. I was pretty sure that I wasn't Wendell Berry or Harper Lee, so I assumed my stories weren't as important. Ha! I now know better.
So I challenge you to write. Whatever, whenever, wherever, just write. Heck, why not even join me and write a screenplay this month? It is so freeing.

Besides, do you know how cool you sound saying that you are "writing your latest screenplay"? Pretty damn cool. Watching movies and scouring record stores and the internet for obscure songs become research, not a time waster.

So, this month I will have a notebook and/or laptop in front of me. I will be drinking copious amounts of coffee and keeping strange hours. Don't be alarmed if I quickly start jotting things down as we talk, or ask you the name of the band who had that 'one song that year that went like this...". It will all make sense when Searchlight buys the rights. Who knows, you may see someone who is startlingly similar to you...

Craft a Day

That is what I am calling this week. This year is my 'crafty christmas', where I attempt to handmake as many of my Christmas gifts as I can. In order to this, I need to get in gear! I must make a craft each day to have everything done. No matter the fact that I am moving soon, I will just have to do a smaller craft. I do not want Dec 24 to show up and me having to stay up all night surrounded by fabric and glue and needles. And beer. That could get dangerous.

wish me luck.

(Props to Carrie for all the crafty ideas that she has given me. they are beautiful and amazing!).

You don't know where you are going until you know where you come from

This week has been really good to me. On Sunday night, I made a decision that was sort of big to me. It may not seem it to anyone else...but it is. I decided to go with my dream of making money from selling my screenprinted things (mainly T shirts, but I have big plans for other things). This was something I took up as a hobby a few months ago, and loved it. Even better, I am quite good at it. It is going to be hard, and I don't know what the hell I am doing, but that is not stopping me. ANYWAY...along the way, I also realized that perhaps I could sew some things too. You see where this is going...I opened my mind to creative possibilities and it was madness! I can make adorable stuffed creatures! Aprons! Bags! I felt so at peace and pleased. Somehow (probably Jesus) I started wondering about why I love this so much and why the idea of being 'crafty' makes me feel comfortable and peaceful.
It opened a window to my past. A connection to all of the women in my family. They are all crafters and creators. I recall summers spent making doll clothes and pillows at my Abuela's house. Painting little plastic boxes and Tote bags, embellishing pillows for my mothers bed. Doing this while my Abuelito did woodcrafts for us to paint. These are some of my fondest, safest memories of childhood. My maternal grandmother has always been crafty, but in a completely different way. She can pass any 'junk' pile on the street and see potential. So much so that she started her own flea market in New Orleans at age 70! and she is single! Even my parents were crafters. All of the curtains in our houses growing up were made from sheets, and I had a love affair with puff paints that is probably unrivaled. My father built the bookshelves that I use today.
Seeing this has cleared the way for me to see other connections. Such as my love for hospitality. Both of my parents grew up in houses with parties and family dinners. I remember watching my mother organizing elaboratly themed parties, and my father planning block parties (going so far as to get a permit to close down the streets for the kids). Other ways as well; my grandmother was very proper, and this is probably why I love using cloth napkins and won't use paper in my home (even just for a sandwich!).
It is really amazing what seeing all of this has done for me and my little soul. It has been redemptive at a time when I feel alone in my family. I feel less lonely, more connected. As though I know a little bit more of my story. I am so thankful that God opened my eyes to these things. The timing was perfect, I was feeling orphaned. Although that feeling remains, this softens that sting. I have never like traditions or history, but I think that was fear mixed with trepidation. I did not want to have anything in common with my parents. Now I am thanking God for these parts of me, and seeing the beauty in my family and in my messy life. I am hoping to take all of this and pass it along, more beautifully and tenderly. Make it my own, while keeping the heart of it.
When I sit down at my sewing maching, or take out another napkin, I can feel the women in my family cheering me on. I feel pride in continuing this tradition of making beauty from ordinary. It is peaceful and humbling. And indescribably redemptive.