Weekend round-up

I missed last week, and this one is late. My apologies for all of you who wait every week with baited breath to see just how I spend the Saturdays of my life.

This weekend, I was kind of a bad-ass. I mean, in my own little way.

Friday, I tried to script. Didn't go so well, so I slept instead. Don't worry, the bad-assy-ness is coming up...

Saturday I went and scripted in the morning. I actually wrote this time. Then CJ and I went to Brookside, AL for the Brookside Greenway Festival. CJ was treated like a celebrity...which meant that I was as well. (She used to report on that small town and made them feel important and cared about, which is a beautiful gift that she has. They see her as a female Ricky Bragg around those parts!). We heard about the history and then...went on a canoe ride (see what a bad ass I am?!). We canoed the mile easily, and decided toward the end that we didn't want it to be over, so we should probably turn around and go against the stream. We also planned a canoe trip for May 10 (more on that later), and another one with one of the owners (I told you they love her) for after a big rain. A 10 mile trip. I can't wait.
Then we milled around a bit, and decided to get out of the rain and go to O'Henry's. I love this place. I didn't realize how much I love it until this weekend. It has the coolest vibe (and Fred from Lasers edge still has his own drink named after him there, which I totally dug), and is comfortable and welcoming. After some coffee, it was on to the bike shop, where I shopped and my friend flirted. I bought a rack and headlight and taillight (finally! no more prayerful rides home at night on Montevallo road). Went home, rested and showered...then went back to OHenry's for more scripting with another friend.
Sunday, I got up and had coffee and french toast. Sat on the stoop a while, then decided to go for a quick little bike ride. An hour later I returned home, dehydrated, covered in mud and exhausted, but thrilled. I had, in the span of the hour, become a biker. I biked hills, I flipped off rude drivers, I carried my bike over a stream, I dashed in and around puddles, I rode over rocks and grass. In short, I was a bad ass.
On to church, after a quick shower. yes, that's right-church. The place I had been avoiding since Scott's death (and honestly for some time before that). It was time. And you know what...it felt like coming home. The place had changed and I didn't feel totally at home, but I was loved and knew that one day it would fit better. again. It was very hopeful. Plus, I really, really missed the music. Also met with a building guy about the garden I am going to make on the rooftop patio. I am very excited and hopeful about that. Now I need to get a proposal together, some volunteers, a long term plan...yikes. Oh, and some plants. I think it is going to be a healing, life-giving thing for me.
Then I went home and went to bed. Slept like a baby.
Today I biked for my first time across a busy intersection (on 31) back to the bike shop to have my rack and water bottle put on. I am ready. You may never see me in my Mini again...

Well, off to bed. Or to script. Probably bed...

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...