The View Up Here

Yes, Spring really is on its way. Yesterday, in the parking lot of Wegman's, I could hear the joy of little green roots under the earth, their tiny voices welling up even through the blacktop. Despite the chill and damp of melting snow, I could feel a difference in the air. Something...promising, coming, anticipating. I suppose my few moments of communing with the thaw-in-progress could also have been powered by the fact that I finished the first draft of On The Other Side yesterday . 87 pages of screenplay. Done. Now for revisions, of course, but I already have notes from my writing group, so I know what I need to do from this point. I just need the space to do it. I'm also bolstered by the fact that I just nabbed a free lance writing assignment at Cornell University, which is a wonderful addition to my portfolio as well as my bank account. Ah, the life of a free lance writer, eh? I really want to nail this assignment so that others will follow in the near future. All in all...

It's Monday, so that means...nothing, really. It's just another day at Saltonstall. Got here at a decent hour this morning and was all set up by 10:00. I'm even doing my laundry here so that I don't have to take time out to get to a laundr-o-mat. Shifting focus from Black Doves to my screenplay On The Other Side. I have a writing group meeting a week from now, so I have to get a bunch of new pages cranked out. Just found out over the weekend that I do, in fact, have my part-time tutoring job this semester. I am very disappointed that the college chose to close the full-time tutoring position. I had applied for it; it would've made my financial life a whole lot easier. That's the way the rice cake crumbles, I suppose. Perhaps there is bigger and better on the horizon...I can only hope.

It's that time of year for me to hunker down in one of the beautiful studios at Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts and focus on the many projects that are tagging along like a bunch of tin cans hanging off the bumper. 1. Space: 1999 Black Doves novel (first draft) 2. On The Other Side screenplay (first draft) 3. Arapata'an screenplay (revisions) 4. Documentary film about life as and EFL teacher in S. Korea On Day 3. Day 2 was home sick. I pushed myself to get out and up the hill here today. I feel better just for having made it. Worked on Black Doves all morning, just had lunch, and about to dive back in. Qapla!

In three days and change, I'll be on a plane to S. Korea to teach at Hanyang University and finish editing my film, Korea DreamBus! Meantime, I've been hacking away at Black Doves , the Space: 1999 novel, and have started a new screenplay, On The Other Side (the paranormal comedy we've all been waiting for). I've also reconnected with a manager who might be interested in my work; we'll see. Revisions for Arapata'an are going to have to wait. I got some good notes to go over and figure out what to do next. That one just needs a breather. I've been at it for too long and have completely lost my perspective. Hopefully when I get back from Korea in late July, I'll be able to get back to it and straighten out the problems of structure in Act II. I've also been told I need to read The Sequence Approach , by Paul Gulino. My Act IIs always get cloudy, so I need some other way to attack them. I'm very excited to be teaching screenwriting in Korea. Th...