The Tomorrow People

This is from my www.badcb.blogspot.ca:

Dec. 3 The Tomorrow People: I feel like being creative and writing my script, but I have writer’s block.  I will write about other TV shows to get myself to be creative.  I saw the pilot of The Tomorrow People on Oct. 10, 2013. 

It starts off with Stephen Jameson (Robbie Amell.  He is the cousin to Stephen Amell, the star of the TV show Arrow.)   Stephen does a voice over about how he goes to high school and takes medicine.  He has a single mom who’s a nurse and a little brother.  He ties himself up to a bed.  

John (Luke Mitchell) sneaks into a hospital/ psych ward.  A woman, Cara (Peyton List) tells him where to go.  A guard follows him.  John disappears in a flash after taking the file.  3 agents follow him to a subway station and there is fight scene as John fights off two guys.  I like that part.

John gets on a train and another agent is there and he fights him.  John then flashes in and out.  The file is about Stephen.

Stephen wakes up between a black man and a white woman.  The black man is his neighbor and he brings Stephen back to his house.  Lol.  

Mom (to neighbor): He has a sleeping disorder.

His little brother Luca is there.

Stephen had encountered a bully earlier and took his drug.  This time Stephen puts Fastlax into his pills so the bully would take it.  Introduce Stephen’s African- American friend Astrid (Madeline Mantock).  He’s hearing a woman’s voice in his head.  The bully takes drugs of Fastlax.

Stephen has a flashback of his dad.  Stephen hears a voice telling him to go to a subway station and to get on a train.  John takes Stephen and transports him.  It leads to an underground lair with Cara.

Cara: We are the Tomorrow People.  I’m telepathic, transporting, and telekinetic. 

John: You’re not sleepwalking, you’re teleporting.  This is an abandoned subway station, 100 feet below.

I then notice the producer Julie Plec’s name.  She produced other TV shows I watch like The Vampire Diaries and Kyle XY.

An Asian guy Russell (Aaron Yoo) comes and tells about a group called Ultra and is hunting us.  The government knows about them and wants to hunt and use them.

There was a homeless guy on the subway train and tells cop about the transport fight.  Dr. Jedikiah Price  (Mark Pellegrino.  He looked familiar and until a few hrs later I remember where I saw him from.  He played a bad guy on Being Human season 1.)  He talks to this African-American agent who fought John.

Dr. Price puts the gun down.  The agent can’t shoot.

Dr. Price: You can’t kill, you are unable to kill.

Dr. Price shoots and kills him.   

Cut back to the lair.

John: You inherited your powers.  Your dad was our leader.

Stephen: My deadbeat dad left my mom and 2 kids.

John: Your dad was our leader and he left to give you a normal life.

They show his dad on a videotape: “I want to say I’m sorry.”

Stephen leaves because it’s too much to take.

Stephen tries out his telekinetic powers and tells his friend Astrid about it.  She tells him he’s off his meds.

Astrid: Wasn’t your dad schizophrenic?  I stuck by you for a whole year.

The bully beats Stephen up for the drug switch up.  Stephen telekinetically pushes bully away.

Dr. Price: There are 7 people, and I think he’s the one.

Cut back to school.  

Mom: The bully is in ER and is crazy because he took your meds.

Stephen walks home and a black SUV follows him.  He telepaths to Carla that he’s in danger.  He runs and
is kidnapped.  Carla sees it.

 The Tomorrow People have a computer named Tim and it talks.  He shows the security video of Stephen being kidnapped and he finds the car.

Dr. Price has Stephen tied up.

Dr. Price: I’m an evolutionary biologist.  I found a 17 yr old who stole $7 million from the Federal Reserve, and another 16 yr old who got into the White House.

Carla and Russell enter the office building.

Dr. Price is going to put a needle in Stephen to fix him.

Dr. Price: Your dad is dead.

Security guard comes in.

It turns out their powers don’t work in the building.

Carla, Russell, and John fight agents.

Stephen concentrates and able to teleport himself out of the chair.  His friends find him.

Dr. Price shoots at them and Stephen stops the bullet and also able to teleport them out.

John and Carla kiss.

Stephen watches the rest of the video of his father.  Robbie Amell is a good actor as he has tears in his eyes as he watches this.

Stephen goes home and Dr. Price is there.

Mom: Your dad has a brother and this is Jed.  They had a fall out.

Dr. Price shows picture of them: I was born human, and he wasn’t.  I became a geneticist to help him.

He then shows a video of his dad in a ski mask, and he enters a car and it blows up.

Stephen talks to Carla.

Stephen: How come you didn’t tell me Jed is my uncle?

Carla: You are not like him.  They are my family.  I won’t let anyone hurt them.

Stephen: I have to find out who my dad is, whether he is a hero or not.

Stephen throws away his pills.  He then joins Ultra.

My opinion: I thought the pilot was average.  I didn’t watch it after this pilot.

Here are the comparisons:

Teen sci-fi show: It seemed like a boring sci-fi TV show like Smallville.  

Complicated families: It reminded me of complicated family relations like on Once Upon a Time, The Vampire Diaries, and Heroes.  Well family is interesting.

A secret government agency hunting people down: X-men, Heroes.

After Earth: I was thinking about how this movie got all these bad reviews.  I saw the trailer on Youtube and it looks good.  I haven’t seen the movie, so I can’t say if it’s good or not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZIt20emgLY

Machete Kills: I did read a review about how this movie is supposed to be bad on purpose.  On imdb.com it says a 6/10.  Mediocre or average.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2002718/?ref_=nv_sr_1

writer interview (part 2)/ Screenwriting Goldmine

This was on my www.badcb.blogspot.ca:



Dec. 27 Writer interview (part 2): I have written an interview where I imagine a host is interviewing me about my writing.  It’s mainly professional.

http://badcb.blogspot.ca/2013/01/writer-interview-contract-lesson-bobbi.html

I remember watching Tyra Banks talk show and sometimes she does kind of sound like a psychologist talking to a guest you know like the teen pregnancy episodes.  Here’s the episode:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_huMNaUQ8Q

Well here’s part 2 of my writer interview.  It’s going to get personal.

Blogging

Host: Why do you blog?

Tracy: Because I want to produce my script The Vertex Fighter and get it produced to be a TV movie.

Host: How long have you had these blogs?

Tracy: Tracy’s Blog has been here since Jan. 2008, so 6 yrs.  My The Vertex Fighter has been here since Jun. 2011, so 2 and a half yrs.

Host: Do you have any followers?

Tracy: No, but I do keep track of my page views.  In Tracy’s Blog, I get 100-200 page views a day.  In The Vertex Fighter blog, I get 0-20 page views a day.  My Fighter blog is about writing, TV, and movies.  That post is usually on Tracy’s blog too.  On Tracy’s blog there are lots of topics like jobs and news.

Host: Do you intend to get a book published?

Tracy: I would like to get from blog to book, but I haven’t figured it out.  I have thought of turning my script into a fictional book and then self-publish it on Amazon.  But I don’t want to write a fictional book.

I’m brainstorming, because The Book of Awesome writer Neil Pasricha made a book that is compiled of his blog posts.  I could, but how would I make it?

Tracy’s Blog: Business edition: All the job, career articles and tips, job interviews, job experiences that I went through.

Tracy’s Blog: Writer’s edition: All the TV and movie reviews, synopsis’s, writer/ author interviews, articles, and tips.

Tracy’s Blog: Jokes edition: Daily Silly jokes, comedy comparisons.

Host: What if you never become famous?  Your blog never becomes a book?  You don’t win any awards?  
Then what?

Tracy: Then I’m going to keep blogging.

Script

Host: So are you getting any closer to getting your script produced?

Tracy: I was so busy working, especially in the first half of the year Jan.-Jun. 2013, that I haven’t been pitching my script much.  I only had one producer read it and he rejected it.

Host: So what now?

Tracy: I don’t feel motivated to pitch my script.  I’ve been writing scripts since I was 14 yrs old.  So from 14-22 yrs old, I’ve been writing scripts for 8 yrs.  I had to graduate out of high school and Professional Writing in college, and then I started pitching my script.  I was 22 yrs old when I started pitching it.  In 2008-2009, I was constantly looking for production companies and pitching to them.

In 2010, I was laid off so I only pitched for 4 months of that year.  In 2011, I was working and looking for an office job all the time.  In 2012, I did the same, but I worked more temporary jobs that year.

In 2012, I applied to get jobs at TV production companies, but that only lasted a month.  There are some in Edmonton.  I did apply to them back in 2008 and got one interview.  

I was just going through my notes of all the places I pitched to and when.  There isn’t a lot that I did this year.  I did join the Edmonton Film Makers Group in Meetup and read some member’s scripts when I joined the Edmonton Screenwriter’s Group.

Host: This sounds like you lost steam.

Tracy: Yeah.

Host: So have you thought of finding ways to motivate yourself to getting your script produced?

Tracy: Yeah.  There is the route of typing up inspirational quotes.  Or maybe I should go into the direction of blog-to-book, if I can find a way with that.

Maybe I need to make myself more creative like watch something to inspire me.  I did watch the movie In Time and it did make me think on how to write my script.

Or I need to put up some articles about Canadian TV shows being produced in Canada.  It’s gotten too hard getting this script produced.  I gave 100% effort in 2008-2010 in pitching.  I’ve tried to get an agent, but couldn’t.   

Dec. 29 Screenwriting Goldmine: I unsubscribed to them yesterday.  It turns out I’ve been subscribing to them since 2007.  They asked why I unsubscribed and I said that it’s in the UK and I’m in Canada.  Here are some interesting excerpts from them:

ONLY ONE IN FOURTEEN UK FILMS MAKES A PROFIT

News that only around 7% of British films make a box-office profit

is dispiriting. (That said, some might be astonished that that many

actually do...)

Of the 613 British films produced or co-produced in the UK from

2003-2010, only 3.1% of those with budgets under £500,000 made a

profit. 

The bigger the budget, the more likely the profit, suggests

ScreenDaily's Michael Rosser who was reporting on statistics

released by the British Film Institute at the Screen Film Summit

http://www.screendaily.com/news/only-7-of-uk-films-make-profit/5064187.article

A POSITIVE UPDATE ON UK WOMEN SCREENWRITERS

While statistics can be used to say anything, let's not overlook

some more BFI data for the period 2010-12. It says that "a high

percentage of the most successful and profitable independent

British films had a female screenwriter and/or director attached."

The news points out that women are underrepresented in writing and directing

roles in the film industry. 

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/bfi-press-release-bfi-research-women-filmmakers-2013-11-25.pdf

"For all UK independent films released between 2010 and 2012, just

11.4% of the directors and 16.1% of the writers were women.

However, for the top 20 UK independent films over the same period,

18.2% of the directors and 37% of the writers were female. And for

profitable UK independent films, 30% of the writers were female."

Commenting on the data, BFIO CEO said: "Women are creating stories

and characters that resonate with audiences in the UK and around

the world, and it's encouraging, and absolutely no surprise, to see

films from women writers in particular really making an impact. 

"Frustratingly, overall the numbers of women in writing and

directing roles remains low and there is still much work to do to

ensure female voices can come through."

Philosophy dressed up in capes and Spandex

This is on my blog www.badcb.blogspot.ca:

Dec. 24: Here is the counter argument to Jay Stone’s article “Hollywood hooked on a teenage fantasy” about all these superhero movies.  On the same Edmonton Journal page, Katherine Monk has an article about the importance of superhero movies.

http://badcb.blogspot.ca/2013/12/book-hollywood-hooked-on-teenage-fantasy.html

Philosophy dressed up in capes and Spandex

Comic-book adventures dissect life on an extra-large scale

Katherine Monk, Postmedia News

Published: Friday, May 04 2012

Snooki. Paris. Kim. We live in a culture that currently celebrates ordinary, untalented mortals who flex their muscles and have emotional meltdowns - for no good reason other than empty entertainment.
No wonder I crave super-heroes. At least they "live large" in a way that attempts genuine meaning.
Superheroes ponder the heavy questions, from the dimensions of responsibility that go along with great powers, to the mental exhaustion of saving the planet.

While Paris Hilton and the Kardashians are contemplating the dollar value of amateur porn, Spider-Man, Batman and Wonder Woman are hard at work trying to ennoble the impoverished soul of man.
Forever trapped in the time-less battle between good and evil, superheroes allow mere moviegoing mortals a chance to dissect the human condition on an extra-large scale.

Just as every new comic-book villain gives us an exaggerated look at our own flaws, every superhero offers a chance at redemption.

So what if a short man with a waddle and a goofy laugh wants to freeze the oceans, or erase every metropolis with a laser beam? So what if he blackmails the leaders of the western world to hand over the contents of Fort Knox to impress his fluffy white kitty, or his impossibly long-legged girlfriend?
When we see Penguin or any other masked marauder attempting to undo the past two millennia of civilization, we can see our own petty in-securities through a funhouse mirror. The same is true for all the good things about us: Superheroes animate the human ability to love, and to sacrifice ourselves for the common good.

Before the age of secularism ushered in the modern Super-man with the pen and ink of Jerry Siegel and Canadian artist Joe Shuster with the publication of Action Comics #1 in 1938, we had scripture to guide us through the moral labyrinth of actions.

The fun part of superheroes is that they're like gods, only with human sensibilities.
Whether it's Hulk's bad temper or Spider-Man's latent selfloathing, the superhero isn't one-dimensional and goodygoody dull. They are like us - only gifted with talents we could only dream of.
The Spandex set is essentially the modern version of pagan deities: larger-than-life immortals who fight with each other, struggle with the same ego needs as us, but eventually transcend all things petty to become shining examples of the human potential.

One hundred years before the comic-book Superman redefined our relationship with the cosmos, there was another embodiment of the Superman who accomplished very much the same thing. Friedrich Nietzsche's Superman, or "Übermensch," sought to release man from the chains of blind belief in a higher power. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche killed the old god because he felt it was limiting the human capacity for creation. Nietzsche believed humans were too beautiful and too gifted to be eclipsed by an inanimate monolith of omnipotence, so he destroyed the old belief system to let us live in the bright light of human truth, where we could take charge of our own destiny.

These ideas were not lost on Siegel or Shuster, who took certain Nietzschean ideas and translated them into what appeared to be non-threatening, two-dimensional kids' stuff.
Yet, nearly a century later, these heathen concepts have sunk into the sedimentary layers of our society - where they are now played out on the big screen every summer.

Whether it's watching Thor argue about the worth of humanity with his brother Loki, or Superman's big decision to abandon superheroism for human love, the superhero movie allows us to explore the most profound questions in metaphysics through a candy-coloured lens of fun.

Every time you walk out of a superhero movie, chances are good you appreciate being human a little bit more.

It's not superpowers that make the superhero. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Unlimited power defines the villain, while the human capacity to love, to show compassion, and to embrace our own flaws, are what truly make a hero.

http://www2.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=b53544f1-0198-41af-b281-9286d6f4b3ed

Dec. 27 My opinion: It’s a good article.  I will have to moderate how much superhero movies I watch.  On Showcase, for the past couple of weeks I saw that Iron Man 2, Thor, and The Green Lantern were playing.  I thought about it and I wasn’t really interested in watching it.

Blog to book: I was reading the Globe and Mail on Dec. 7, 2013.  It mentioned Maddie on Things by Theron Humprey.  It’s a website at first where Theron takes pictures of his dog standing on things like a skateboard.

Here’s the website:

http://maddieonthings.com/

http://www.amazon.ca/Maddie-Things-Serious-Project-Physics/dp/1452115567

Meetup: There is an Edmonton Film Makers Group.  There is also an Edmonton Film Makers Group #2.  I then get an email saying #2 is closing down unless someone wants to become the new Organizer.  Well no one did and it closed down.

Sex comedy: You know it’s interesting.  I like the TV show The Sausage Factory about 4 teenage guys and they have these sex jokes.  However, I don’t like sex comedy movies like:

American Pie (saw on TV.)
American Wedding (saw for free, got a movie pass.)
Van Wilder (went to a friend’s house and saw it.)
Road Trip (saw it on a band trip on the bus).
Sorority Boys (saw it on TV.)

Intentionally bad writing: I was thinking about those Syfy TV movies and how they are often intentionally bad like Dinoshark.  Just watching the trailer you can tell it’s terrible.  The TV show MADtv does bad writing to make the sketch fun to watch.  I wrote about this before, about the 1970s sex ed tape with Avril Lavigne guest- starring in it.  There is all this misinformation about sex, but you do laugh at this line.  

I’m forewarning you right now that you will be offended by it.  The dad says: “Don’t you know birth control is the woman’s responsibility?”

Film Festivals: There is the Toronto International Film Festival or TIFF.  There is the Edmonton International Film Festival.  I didn’t go to the Edmonton one.

Syd Field: On Nov. 23, 2013, I cut out this Edmonton Journal article about the “Author literally wrote the book on screenplays.”  He lived from 1935-2013.  His book is called: “Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting has been required reading in Hollywood since it was published in 1979.  It has been translated into 23 languages and used in universities around the world.”

book/ Hollywood hooked on a teenage fantasy

This is on my www.badcb.blogspot.ca:



Dec. 11 Book: I have thought of writing the Rain script or The Vertex Fighter script into a book form, and then self-publish.  It will then gain more attention and it could then be produced into a TV movie.  However, I don’t want to write a fictional book.

Dec. 16: I sent “Self-publishing rewrites rules/ Allie Brosh.”  Then my friend Sherry told me I should write the Rain script into a book and then self-publish.  That’s uncanny.  I was thinking the same thing and then I emailed her back the above paragraph.

http://www.badcb.blogspot.ca/2013/12/self-publishing-rewrites-rules-allie.html

Rain script: Today is my day off.  I did do productive things like look for a job, read the newspaper, and pick up a prescription.  I decided to look at my notes again because I did take a break from it.  I read some of it and then I got frustrated with it because I’m stuck.

I decided I might as well print some of what I typed up.  I always write my script on scrap computer paper to save paper.  I decided to print it on my scrap paper for the same reason.  My notes are scattered so when it’s typed up and printed, I can read it clearly.

Comparisons:

A character steps on a bomb and can’t move or it will detonate: I found this in my notes.  It was done on Flashpoint ep “Coming to You Live.”   A character Young does step on the bomb and he was stuck there.  Then he decides to step off it and then it kills him.  It was a powerful ending.  

It was done on Rookie Blue where Dov Epstein enters a drug lair and steps on a bomb.  Bomb squad comes, and she puts the weight of Dov to replace his weight so he can step off it.

It was done on Castle’s ep “Still.”  Beckett steps on a bomb and the others have to solve the case.

A drug that makes you really smart: It was done on the TV show Invisible Man where Agent Hobbs was injected with this drug that makes him really smart, but then later proves to be fatal.

It was done in the movie Limitless where a man takes this drug, becomes really smart and really rich by using his smarts.

Reading scripts: A producer I have in contact with has sent me some scripts to read before, and I write my review of it.  I joined a couple of Meetup groups and I read the other members scripts.  I have read one full-length script and a 30 page outline.  I thought both are really good from un-produced writers.  One script was drama and the other was action.

I then sent my notes to them about my take on it.  I say things like I like the dialogue, or the plot twist.  This script reminds me of these other movies and they appreciated my feedback.  

Left/ right brain: Throwing out old notes is good for my left and right brain.  My left brain likes that I’m cleaning my room and recycling.  My right brain is being more creative.

Hollywood hooked on a teenage fantasy

Superhero fetish stretching out into a future of endless sequels

Jay Stone, Postmedia News

Published: Friday, May 04 2012

The versatile British actor Tom Wilkinson was talking recently about his new movie, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It's a film about a group of seniors: a rare film that's actually aimed at the over-50 crowd.
"There are a lot of people over the age of 50 who really like going to the cinema and don't want to watch X-Men or Clash of the Titans," Wilkinson said. "And why should they? God. There is a big market for films that are slightly old-fashioned, in the way they used to make films in the '70s."
Later, though, he amended his view: "A good X-Men movie. - A good movie is a good movie is a good movie," he said.

Amen to that. As Duke Ellington once said about music, there are two kinds: good and bad. But even given all that, the Hollywood love affair with the X-Men and their ilk - with the genre of the superhero film - is getting out of hand.

The latest one, The Avengers, opens this week, and it should be one of the good ones, with a fine cast that includes Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo and Jeremy Renner, and an innovative director in Joss Weldon. It's been getting strong reviews. It is probably a lot of fun, and if it were being offered up as a surprising change to the summer movie schedule, it would be refreshing. But it's only the latest in a perennial parade of super-hero films, with other high-profile entries like The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises still to come. They are both remountings of franchises that have been reinvented more often than the iPad. Like many super-heroes, Spider-Man - still a Johnny-come-lately to those of us who grew up with Super-man as the king of the super-hero universe, with Batman as a sort of weak-kneed second cousin - is hailed as a metaphor for confused adolescence, or maybe the ambiguities of power. Batman, meanwhile, is another depressed saviour who represents the futility of nobility in a world gone mad.

There have been some wonderful Batman and Spider-Man films, but there have been some lousy ones, too.
It doesn't seem to matter: If you want to talk about the great responsibilities of great power, you have to do it through the eyes of a teenager who can climb up the side of buildings. Hollywood has been taken over by fantasy, and it's almost a novelty to find a story about an everyday adult trying to solve realistic problems without benefit of Spandex or a supercar.

Like the X-Men, with their cast of heroes tormented by their extraordinary powers - the pain of being inflammable becoming a symbol for lonely adolescence in a way that, say, Holden Caulfield never imagined - The Avengers brings together a wide selection of offbeat creatures. Downey Jr.'s Iron Man gets by on the star's charisma, but the character himself is a juvenile trope for the misuse of military power. And do we really need more of The Hulk - even as portrayed by Ruffalo - as an illustration of the destructive effects of anger? It was kind of campy fun back in the 1970s, when Bill Bixby turned into Lou Ferrigno when he lost his temper, but it's a constricted kind of fun. It's the same thing every time, the temper tantrum as character development.

And that's the problem with Hollywood's superhero fetish. There's simply too much of it: indestructible warriors extending back in time (Thor is another of the Avengers) and forward into an endless future of relaunches and remountings and even more obscure comic-book characters. I know I'm mostly alone in this: Millions of fans of these superheroes can't wait to see them on screen, a nostalgic trip back to the time when (I suppose) they all dreamt of being invisible or flying or turning unconquerable. It's a teenage fantasy that has taken over an industry that is more and more turning to familiar, pre-sold ideas - old TV shows, bestselling youth fiction - to fill the seats. A good movie is a good movie is a good movie, but can we please have a few more with ordinary human beings?

http://www2.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=5867c524-9237-458d-8531-31c0001c2898&p=2

Dec. 24 My opinion: Yeah, I have to agree with the above article.  There are all these superhero movies.  The latest ones I saw are The Dark Knight and Iron Man and those were about 5 yrs ago and only when I rented it on dvd.

self-publishing rewrites rules/ Allie Brosh

This is from www.badcb.blogspot.ca: 

Dec. 4 Self-publishing: I cut out this article from the Edmonton Journal because it inspired me:

Self-publishing rewrites rules

Rookie author gets deals after putting her novels online

The Associated Press

Published: Friday, April 19, 2013

After a feverish month of inspiration, Colleen Hoover had finally fulfilled her dream of writing a book.
With family and friends asking to read the emotional tale of first love, the married mother of three young boys living in rural East Texas and working 11-hour days as a social worker decided to digitally self-publish on Amazon, where they could download it for free for a week.
"I had no intentions of ever getting the book published. I was just writing it for fun," said Hoover, who uploaded Slammed a year ago in January.

Soon after, people she didn't know were downloading the book - even after it was only available for a fee. Readers began posting reviews and buzz built on blogs. Missing her characters, she self-published the sequel, Point of Retreat, a month later.
By June, both books hit Amazon's Kindle top 100 bestseller list. By July, both were on The New York Times bestseller list for ebooks. Soon after, they were picked up by Atria Books, a Simon & Schuster imprint. By fall, she had sold the movie rights.

"I wasn't expecting any of this at all. And I'm not saying I don't like it, but it's taken a lot of getting used to," said the 33-year-old Hoover, who quit her job last summer to focus on writing.
Hoover is both a story of self-published success in the digital age and of the popularity of so-called New Adult books, stories featuring characters in their late teens and early 20s.

When Hoover finished her third book, Hopeless, in December, she initially turned down an offer from Atria and decided to digitally self-publish again. By January, that book, too, was a New York Times bestseller and she signed that month with Atria to publish the print version, but kept control of the electronic version.

In February, Atria bought the digital and paperback rights to two upcoming books from Hoover: This Girl, the third instalment in the Slammed series, set for release digitally later this month, and Losing Hope, a companion novel to Hopeless to be published digitally in July.
Even after being able to quit her job, Hoover said it wasn't until a book signing she organized with other indie authors in Chicago in the fall that her popularity began to sink in.

"I remember coming down the stairs and there was this huge line with hundreds of people and someone goes, 'There's Colleen Hoover,' and they all start freaking out," she said. "That was, I think, the first moment that it hit me that this was way bigger than I thought."

http://www2.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/archives/story.html?id=f63cd0e1-1f69-40ad-870b-9e9f47b221eb

Imagination: It’s time to use my imagination.  I met authors at the Chapters store in West Ed mall.  I only go there to go shopping, not to meet an author.  What if I set up a table there like those authors did?
Cut to Tracy sitting at a table.  A guy comes up to her.
Guy: Hi Tracy, I’m a big fan of your blog.  I like your fun emails the best.  Can you autograph my favorite blog post of yours?
Tracy: Yeah, sure.
Tracy autographs the post “The Listener/ Tori Kelly/ self-deprecating and funny.”

http://badcb.blogspot.ca/2013/11/the-listener-tori-kelly-self.html

That is so unrealistic.  Who autographs blog posts?  There are famous bloggers like The Book of Awesome author Neil Pasricha.  He probably autographed the book than a blog post.

Omar Mouallem: As I was writing this blog post, the Edmonton Public Library writer-in- residence/ old classmate of mine emailed me back on my Rain outline.  He was kind of harsh, but he was telling his plain opinion on it.  It did inspire me because he questioned the story.

On Labor Day weekend, he wrote a book in 3 days.  I’m sure I can finish my script.

Book Publishers Association of Alberta: I checked my blog and it turns out I didn’t write about them.  This is what they are: 

“The Book Publishers Association of Alberta (BPAA) is a provincial association of book publishing companies and is one of the strongest communities of regional publishers in North America. The BPAA was founded in 1975 to support the development of strong publishing houses, away from Canada's traditional centres of publishing. Today the BPAA has more than 30 members, many of which are owned and operated in the province of Alberta.

We are a regional affiliate of the Association of Canadian Publishers (ACP).
The BPAA responds to all questions from its members, the public, media and industry, on matters to do with publishing.”
http://www.bookpublishers.ab.ca/

Dec. 6 TV production company: Remember in 2012 I wrote about how I applied to TV production companies?  I did back in 2008 and did one job interview at one and didn’t get hired.  In 2003-2004 I did try to get an internship at TV production companies.  It was when I was upgrading.  One company called back and told me they only hire NAIT’s TV program students.

The thing is I did try that path before, but I wasn’t able to get in.

Dec. 7 Sun Media: I read that they laid off 200 people.  They also sold 74 newspapers to one of their rivals, but the Competition Bureau has to give a confirmation first.

Comparisons: This is a real life comparison.  I was thinking about how publishing companies and staffing agencies are the middle-man.  You don’t need a staffing agency to help you get a job.  You can go straight to the company that is hiring and apply there.

A publishing company is a middle-man because there is self-publishing.  Self-publishing has always been around, but it’s more popular these days because of e-books.

Blogger: I’m a blogger so I’m the writer, editor, and publisher all in one.

Allie Brosh: I read the article “A candid picture of depression” by Zosia Beilski in the Globe and Mail on Nov. 1, 2013.  It’s about mental health, but it also fits into this email because she’s a blogger and cartoonist.  In the article she talks about her depression and not being able to do the simplest things like returning a DVD.  

Her cartoons are “using a simple paint software for Mac.”  

I do like the picture of a unicorn on her “About” page.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.ca/p/about.html

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.ca/

From Zine to Bestseller/ Touch/ Stan Lee

This is from www.badcb.blogspot.ca: 

From Zine to Bestseller: In Aug. 1, 2010, I cut out this article form the Edmonton Journal.  I like this article because it’s about a writer named Jeff Miller who has been writing since he was a teenager and he gets published.  I have been writing TV scripts since I was 14 yrs old, and I had 2 short stories and a poem published in the Canadian Poetry Institute.  Miller is truly successful.  Read the first paragraph of the article:

From zine to bestseller

Julie Fortier, Postmedia News

Published: Sunday, August 01 2010

A few weeks ago, the bestseller's list at one of Ottawa's independent bookstores, Collected Works, looked a little off.

1. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Stieg Larsson.
2. Ghost Pine: All Stories True, Jeff Miller.
3. The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson.
4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson.

"Yeah I know, it's kind of funny how it turned out," Miller said from his current home of Montreal.
Even Miller's publisher, Robbie MacGregor at Invisible Publishing, said he was "a little surprised" the collection of true, hilarious, and at times extremely touching stories Miller has been working on since he was 16 years old in a zine by the same name would be able to edge out the Swedish murder mystery powerhouse of Stieg Larsson.

Ghost Pine was also on the Montreal Gazette's top 10 bestsellers list for three consecutive weeks in May and is on track to have a reprint by early fall.
"We realize he's no Stieg Larsson, but for a Canadian indie title -- and especially a zine anthology -- we think that's pretty decent," MacGregor said.

"Jeff Miller's book, his stories, his style -- they're personal. He's been carving out a space for himself, and readers have been responding."
In his collection, Miller recounts the time he moved to Japan to be with his morose girlfriend only to be dumped the day after arriving, the time he disappointed some "Ottawa Valley crackheads" who forced him to clean out his meagre bank account at an ATM in Ottawa's financial district, the dishevelled tours across Canada as a band roadie and many other tales; some big, some small. Just as the title indicates, all the stories are in fact true, a style he said is rooted in the do-it-yourself zine subculture.

He started writing in his parents' Ottawa home while a high school student in the mid-1990s, when the punk DIY approach to music, as well as publishing, was in full swing. "It was something I could do alone in my room, and at that time in my life I spent a lot of time in my room, like most teenagers do," he said laughing.
Miller said several of his zines are still in print, and he estimates he has sold somewhere around 10,000 copies over the years. Most of his fans are in North America, but he has sent copies as far as Australia and Malaysia.

Stories are not in chronological order, and many take place in Montreal, which he has called home since 1999. He attended Concordia University as an English literature major and is going back for his master's degree in the fall.
Miller is also working on a novel, but he has no plans to stop writing his zine.
"Once you get started on it, it becomes a lifelong obsession. ... There's this production mode that becomes such a nice antidote to going crazy with editing. You get to take out some clip art and get out the glue stick and scissors, bike down to the coffee shop and figure it out."
To purchase a copy of Ghost Pine: All Stories True, go to ghostpine. ghostpine.wordpress.com.

http://www2.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=c543ce67-87f5-482a-ad70-996417bc7dd4

Touch: Back in Jan. 2012, I wrote about the pilot Touch.  Here’s an excerpt:

Jan. 25 Touch: Today I finally saw the pilot to Touch. It's by Tim Kring, the guy who created Heroes. He's really creative and a great writer. On Heroes, it was about a group of people all around the world who had superpowers. They were all connected to one another. If you watch Touch, it's about a group of people who are all connected with one another.

I was very inspired by it. Tim Kring had said in this article I read in 24: "This is really a chance to continue what you would call social-benefit storytelling, the idea of using archetypal narrative to create and promote a positive energy in the world."

http://badcb.blogspot.ca/2012/01/touch.html

My opinion: I didn’t watch this show after the pilot.  I was really busy with work, and I was cutting down on TV.  I didn’t pick up a lot of TV shows.  I went on Wikipedia and the show got cancelled after 2 seasons.

I like that above quote by Kring.  In the 24 article, there is another good quote by him: “As storytellers, we want to reserve the right to say there is some other idea floating above it, something spiritual or supernatural.”

I’m going to put it in my inspirational quotes collection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_%28TV_series%29

Nov. 26 Stan Lee: I cut out this article called “Spider-Man co-creator offers lesson in superhero history” by Russ Bynum.  It was published back in Nov. 2, 2012.  It’s how he got started in the comic book business.  I only copy and pasted a few excerpts from the article.  He’s really nice and paid a visit to the Savannah College of Art and Design to meet the students and see their work.

“Before he scripted the first adventures of Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, a young Stan Lee launched his career in comic books as a lowly sidekick. To hear Lee tell it, the artists he worked for as a teenage assistant in 1940 might as well have dubbed him the Anonymous Eraser-Boy.”

"They gave me a big eraser and I had to go over the pages to make sure the pencil marks didn't show," after artists finished their drawings in black ink, Lee said Wednesday as he revealed this to an awestruck classroom of art students on the Georgia coast. "You guys are actually drawing. I never got past erasing."
"It's not a throne?" Lee quipped as he sat in a plastic chair at the head of a table surrounded by 11 students, each one with broadsheet pages of their works-in-progress, bottles of ink and an iPad.

If Lee himself possessed a superpower, it would be his ability to conquer the generation gap. The young artists he met seem as familiar with Lee as they are with his costumed heroes.
"You see Stan Lee and everyone knows who he is," said art student Dan Glasl. "Every kid has this part of their life where they're this awkward, geeky sort of kid. And Spider-Man is the character every kid can put themselves into."

"We just hoped that a book we were drawing would sell so we could keep our jobs and pay the rent," he said. "We never for one minute thought there would be schools where they teach this."-Stan Lee

http://www2.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=73785f9c-86a2-4b5d-9859-24dde719a9c8

Trigger/ The Book of Awesome

This was on my blog www.badcb.blogspot.ca:

Nov. 17: I’m trying to find some inspiration.

Trigger: I was reading in the Edmonton Journal on Nov. 14, 2013.  It mentioned how the Metro Cinema is playing the movie Trigger that spoofs 80s action movies.  It was made in Edmonton by Edmontonians:

Trigger

Canada 2013, 118 min, Dir: Sam and Ethan Sir

The year is 2034 and the United Empire of Canada is ruled by a ruthless dictator. Hell bent on world domination, President Scragg is all but invincible through the breeding of his genetically engineered Super Soldiers.
As the masses remain oblivious to the Presidents devious plans, no one dares stand in his way... no one but Trigger. The mysterious police officer and his rookie side kick find themselves in the middle of a web of lies and deceit as they fight for the freedom and justice of the entire world.
14+

http://www.metrocinema.org/film_view/4442/

Nov. 22 The Book of Awesome: This could be put into my fun or my writing email, but it’s about what I aspire to be, a published writer.  This is how one writer went from a blog to a book.  I bolded the parts I liked.

Finding life's little moments of happiness

From blog to books, Pasricha nails down what makes each day awesome

Valerie Berenyi, Calgary Herald; Postmedia News

Published: Sunday, May 22 2011

Neil Pasricha's life was ticking along nicely in his 20s.
He'd grown up in a loving immigrant family. He had a good job as a human resources manager at Walmart Canada. He'd married his sweetheart in 2006.
But by 2008, things began to sour. The news everywhere was bad: recession, war, climate change, pirates on the high seas. His wife told him she didn't love him anymore and their marriage fell apart. A close friend battled mental illness and committed suicide.

To pull himself out of a downward spiral, Pasricha started a tiny blog called 1000awesomethings.com. Every weekday he wrote about one small thing that cheered him up: opening and sniffing a new can of tennis balls; wearing underwear warm out of the dryer; when a deadline is extended unexpectedly.

To say his blog caught on is a colossal understatement. People loved his quirky entries about the simple, universal pleasures in life, such as bakery air or when you pay for one item and two fall out of a vending machine. To date his blog has received more than 31 million hits.
He's won three Webby Awards and in 2010 he published a bestseller, The Book of Awesome.
Last month, his second book, The Book of (Even More) Awesome came out with a new collection of small joys: the sound of barely frozen puddles cracking when you step on them; car dancing; seeing cream go into coffee.

Postmedia News caught up with the 31-year-old Torontonian by phone after he got home from his day job as a project manager in human resources at Walmart Canada in Mississauga, Ont.
Q: Where do you get the awesome ideas for your blog and books?
A: When I started my blog, nobody read it, except for my mom. My mom forwarded it to my dad and the traffic doubled.

I'd made a little list with maybe 20 things on it that I thought were awesome: finding money in your own coat pocket, the smell of bakery air, and broccoflower, that strange mutant hybrid of cauliflower and broccoli.
These days, I get at least a couple of hundred submission ideas, comments and e-mails a day. There were a few posts last year where I literally got 5,000 or 6,000 comments. The ideas come from all over the place. I'll say, "That's a good one," and expand it into a full blog post.

I feel like the Pied Piper of happiness. I've thought about changing the website to One Million Awesome Things. It feels like a million awesome things already from all the comments, suggestions and stories from other people sharing their experiences. But I can't write a million because it would take several lifetimes.

Q: What's changed in your life since you began your blog?

A: Not much. I still have the same job: I'm a boring guy working at a cubicle job in the suburbs. I drive an hour through traffic jams. I still have a sink full of dirty dishes. I'm about to eat a frozen burrito for dinner.
On the other hand, a lot has changed because I can't go without a day of seeing and writing down three or four awesome things in my life. It is impossible not to notice the simple pleasures in life. I'm always looking for them, and in a way we all are and we can.

Q: Do you ever get tired of writing awesome entries?
A: Yeah, sure. I never considered myself an optimist or as someone who sees life through rose-coloured glasses. I just started 1000awesome things.com because I was looking for a way to cheer myself up. It was often hard to write. Like everyone, I get pissed when I drop a hammer on my toe or walk into a spider web.

Some were very challenging entries, but I've tried to the find positive in the negative, like the weekend I found out my marriage was ending -I literally cried all weekend. It was such a foreign physical feeling. I was 28 then and I hadn't cried in 10 years.

At the end of crying on Sunday I felt better, in a way. I researched the act of crying and found all these positive things about it: Apparently, it's good for you. It helps straighten out your inner chemistry; it draws people to you who are more likely to hug you. If you go to my blog, post #854 is called crying. It was written on the Monday after all that crying.

Q: Puppy breath and when that social event you didn't want to go to gets cancelled -I love those entries in your new book. What's your favourite awesome thing?

A: It sort of changes by the day. If you'd asked this morning, I'd say, "Oh, rubbing someone's newly shaved head, or seeing old people holding hands. Or, fixing electronics by smacking them."

Q: Are you stunned by the popularity of your blog and books? What accounts for their popularity?
A: I'm so stunned that I'm not even stunned yet. Today we're on the front page of the Huffington Post and next month I'm on the Today Show. It's so surreal. I think it's a sign that so many of us are looking for happiness right now.

It's just as dark now as it was when I started the blog, whether it's the tsunami in Japan, gas prices, another election or the unemployment we don't talk about.

Among all that, it's such a relief to come home and say, today for five minutes, I'm going to remind myself how much fun it is when there's a snow day.

http://www2.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=180f6f29-8016-4e36-b1c2-12a9af16c240

Mental/ Cathi Unsworth/ paid blogging

This is from www.badcb.blogspot.ca:

Nov. 4 Mental: I was looking for something on my blog and I found this June 2009 post:

Mental: Today I was watching the drama Mental about working at a mental hospital. I tuned into the first ep, it was average. Then I checked out the David Carradine ep. Then I watched the one with the kid who was playing a video game in his ep. They were alright. Today I checked out an ep about this actor who has a mental breakdown on Talk Show with Spike Feresten. Both shows are on FOX.

The ep "Roles of Engagement" was a really good ep. I was impressed. The actor admits 20 min. into the ep that he's faking it so he could get publicity for his new movie about being in a mental hospital. Later on, the truth is revealed that when he was 14 he moved to LA. He didn't know his father, and his mother left with her boyfriend. 6 months later, he is alone and he will be out on the street. His friend Rob tells him how to make money like $100 if he sleeps with women.

Then he doesn't want to, but he's desperate. Then he goes and learns that he will be sleeping with men. This guy was a male prostitute. Then he got his big break and became a successful actor. Now he is going to therapy. I was really touched by this ep.

 http://badcb.blogspot.ca/2009/06/charity-michael-jacksons-death-farrah.html

Tom MacMaster: What I was really looking for was this June 2011 post: “Chimpanzee attack/ fake blog/ crazy news”:

Fake blog: I read this in the National Post about a middle- aged guy named Tom MacMaster who's 42, and pretends to be a Syrian lesbian on this blog. He pretends to be Amina Arraf and called the blog "A Gay Girl in Damascus." On BBC radio Good Morning Scotland, MacMaster says he wants the information about what was happening in Syria.

He had regular contact with friends in Syria. The article says people are afraid that he endangered many people in Syria, and people had joined a Facebook group about her being "arrested" though she doesn't exist.

My take on it: At first I was like: "Damn, this guy's famous because of his blog. Or more like infamous now that it's fake." I want to be recognized for my writing. Well that's a pretty interesting character of a lesbian living in a oppressive country like Syria. Nobody likes to get played. This isn't as bad as the writer Stephen Glass who wrote all these fictional stories for the New Republic and made a lot of money off it and furthered his career.

http://badcb.blogspot.ca/2011/06/chimpanzee-attack-fake-blog-crazy-news.html

My 2013 opinion: Now it’s been a couple of years since that happened.  I was going through my envelope of newspaper clippings and found this.  I decided to look in a little bit more and found this article:

He says things like:

"I also had the thing that I like to write, and my own vanity is ... if you want to compliment me, tell you like my writing ... That's how to make me happy."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jun/13/gay-girl-damascus-tom-macmaster

Nov. 8 Reading comparisons: I’m thinking a lot of my friends and readers read my blog like how I read the newspaper.  There are sections I don’t read in the newspaper like: sports, cars, gardening, recipes and wine.  Metro has recipes in their newspaper everyday unlike 24 news.

I’m going to make a guess that none of my friends are interested in reading about feng shui.  Am I right?  If I’m right, then I’m right.  I only mention feng shui a little here and there.  Lol.

Today in the Metro there is this huge coverage about the Canadian Finals Rodeo that I’m not interested in at all, so I skipped it.

Movies and friends: I was thinking about the times I invited my friends to watch movies with me.  I’m not going to make anyone do something they don’t want to do.  I remember in 2003, I asked my friend Leslie if she wants to see the movie League of Extraordinary Gentlemen with me and she said no because she’s not going to watch it for the 3^rd time.  Lol.  She worked at a movie theatre at that time. I saw it by myself.

I remember in 2006 I invited my friend Sonia to watch the scary movie Pulse with me.  She said no because she doesn’t like scary movies. I saw it by myself.

I remember in 2006, my friend Angela came over to my house and I showed her the movie Hard Candy.  It’s a dark movie where a 14 yr old girl tortures a pedophile she met online.  Angela watched the entire movie with me.  It would be totally okay if I showed this movie to her or any of my friends and they all said: “Let’s stop this movie right now.  I don’t want to watch anymore of this torture- porn.” 

I would understand and stop the movie.  I would offer: “Do you want to know the ending since you already saw half of it?”

Nov. 9 Feng shui: I was reading the Edmonton Journal and there was an article called “If a room feels right, thank feng shui” by Marta Gold on Nov. 8, 2013.  Of course, I had to read it.  Lol.  It talked to Kristen Proulx who is a feng shui consultant and co-owner of Henry’s Purveyor of Fine Things.  It’s a nice store that sells home décor.  I’ve been there a few times.  It also talked to feng shui consultant Stephanie Gruss.

Reading it inspired me.  How?  It said to eliminate clutter and I’ve mentioned before most of my clutter is paper from my writing notes and newspaper clippings.  Well since June 2013, I took out my Rain script from my drawer and put it on my bedroom floor so I had to look at it everyday.  I may not exactly write it everyday, but I will have to look at it. 

Now it’s Nov. and I have written a little bit more.  But I’m going to put it back in the drawer because I’m so busy with work.  The restaurant is busy during the holiday season of Nov. 1-Dec. 31.  I want to read the newspaper and write about the articles I read in my blog.

Priorities: As much as I like to say I have finally completed the Rain script, I have to put my priorities together.  Work first.  It’s also winter, so I’m going to be spending more time shoveling snow.  I’m sure a lot of you people who live in apartments are like: “That’s one of the best things about living in apartments, you don’t have to shovel the snow on the walkway or sidewalk, except the balcony.”

Nov. 10 Cathi Unsworth: I was reading in the Edmonton Journal on Nov.8, 2013.  The article was “Meet Britain’s ‘queen of noir’” by Jamie Portman.  She’s a big author, but she works 3 days jobs to make ends meet.  

In the Company of Men: I was reading in the Metro about this old movie.  It’s about 2 managers who wants to get revenge on women.  They decided to find a woman, and make her fall in love with both of them, and then break her heart.  They pick on a deaf temp worker.  I went on imdb.com and then read the entire story of it on Wikipedia.

There was controversy as the movie was misogynistic.  Maybe if it comes on TV, I’ll watch it.

Nov. 16 Paid blogging: Here’s something I haven’t done in awhile, read an article that someone sent me through my blog.  Olivia Lewis sent me this “15 Ways to Make Money as a Mom Blogger.”

1. Review products for Amazon.com.

2. Use Adsense with your product reviews

3. Become an Expert

4. Blog about your life and experiences

5. Blog for others

6. Elance

7. Guru

8. Online spokesperson

9. Sponsored content

10. Craigslist

11. Get local

12. Share your knowledge

13. Use your creativity

14. Online consulting

15. Ask for donations

http://www.nannynewsnetwork.com/blog/15-ways-to-make-money-as-a-mom-blogger/

Afghan Film Project/ Meet the Fokkens/ Crooked Smile

This is from www.badcb.blogspot.ca:



Oct. 30: I found this article in the Edmonton Journal on Feb.8, 2013.  I was looking for inspiration.  It talks about two Afghan boys who are in a movie about two boys who want to become buzkashi players.  It’s like polo players.  It was inspirational to read about two boys who sell maps and dictionaries, are now in a movie.

http://www2.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=78495d55-4728-4578-86e4-5c6dc7c28a3f

A tale with a Hollywood ending

Kabul boys in Oscar-nominated Afghan film to walk red carpet

Kim Gamel, The Associated Press

Published: Friday, February 08

Fawad Mohammadi has spent half his life peddling maps and dictionaries to foreigners on a street in Kabul. Now the 14-year-old Afghan boy is getting ready for the red carpet at the Oscars.
It will also be his first time out of the country and his first time on a plane.
Mohammadi was plucked from the dingy streets of the Afghan capital to be one of the main stars of Buzkashi Boys, a coming-of-age movie filmed entirely in a war zone and nominated in the Best Live Action Short Film category.

The movie is about two young boys who are best friends and dream of becoming professional players of buzkashi, a particularly rough and dangerous game that somewhat resembles polo: Horseback riders wrangle to get a headless goat carcass into a circular goal at one end of the field.

It's also part of an American director's effort to help revive a film industry devastated by decades of civil war and by the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist movement that banned entertainment and burned films and theatres during its five years in power.

Philadelphia native Sam French, who's lived in Afghanistan for about five years, said his 28-minute movie was initially a way to train local film industry workers - the first instalment in his non-profit Afghan Film Project.
"We never dreamed of having the film come this far and get an Oscar nomination," French, 36, said from Los Angeles, where he's preparing for the Feb. 24 Oscars and raising money to fly the two young co-stars in for the ceremony.
The two boys playing the main characters - Moham-madi and Jawanmard Paiz - can barely contain their excitement.

"It will be a great honour for me and for Afghanistan to meet the world's most famous actors," said Mohammadi, whose real-life dream is to become a pilot.
The farthest Mohammadi has ever travelled was to the northern Afghan city of Maz-ar-i-Sharif. Mohammadi's father died a few years ago, leaving him with his mother, five brothers and a sister.
He started selling chewing gum when he was about seven and soon expanded his trade to maps and dictionaries.
In the movie Mohammadi plays the blacksmith's son, Rafi, whose father wants him to follow in his footsteps.

Afghan Film Project: The article mentions this, so I went to the website.  It’s inspirational.  They are a non-profit organization that tells Aghan stories and create the Afghanistan’s film industry.  You can email them and donate to them.

This sounds like a really good organization.  However, I don’t have a story that would fit for this company.  Check out the website, it’s good.

It’s like charity, but it’s film-related.

http://www.afghanfilmproject.com/home

Meet the Fokkens: I found this movie review in the Edmonton Journal on Mar. 22, 2013.  It’s called “Sex workers’ tale bittersweet.”  The movie Meet the Fokkens is a documentary.  It got 4 stars out of 5.  It’s about Louise Fokken and Martine Fokken who are 69 yr old identical twins and work as prostitutes.  Louise’s abusive husband got her into prostitution by beating her up and putting her in the red-light district to make money.  Martine followed out of anger and loyalty.  Martine is still working as one, but Lousie quit because she got arthritis.  When asked if they would ever do it again, they said never.

My opinion: I want to educate and entertain in my writing.  When I write my script, I did want to teach the audience something and make it interesting.  I want to inspire them.  I remember watching a Rookie Blue episode, and I was thinking: “I don’t want to make people cry.  I want to make people feel.”

Nov. 1 Literary editor: I have a lot of clutter, but it’s mainly newspaper clippings.  I usually type them up in my emails /blog, and then I recycle them.  I do keep some articles because they are so good. 

On my Jun. 2, 2012 blog post, I wrote about “Editor’s joke.”  On that post:

http://badcb.blogspot.ca/2012/06/city-market-dateline-laughter.html

I was going through my newspaper articles and I found this from the National Post.  On the Weekend Post edition there is a books section.  Here's a little article from Apr. 30, 2011.

I only typed up a couple of lines.  Here is the entire article:

“Instead the editor, having read 17 things this morning, keeps going, thinking: A run-on sentence in the first line! Oh no, another story with the character waking up hung-over and getting a phone call.  Why must they flash back before anything interesting happens? That isn’t really funny. We don’t publish travel articles. Does no one read the guidelines? This one gets good in the middle, but then the character just sits down and thinks about stuff. Wonderful minor character but the main one is self-pitying. Almost. Good scene. Pretty good. Not quite. Please can’t somebody just dazzle me so I can pick something and stop this?”

I then looked it up on the internet, and it turns out the above paragraph that was published in the National Post is part of a way longer blog post here:

http://www.thereviewreview.net/publishing-tips/what-editors-want-must-read-writers-submitti

I didn’t read it, because I’m not submitting to literary magazines. I will now recycle the article.

Nov. 4 Crooked Smile: I was watching this music video “Crooked Smile” by J. Cole feat. TLC.  I have heard of the song before and I like it because I like TLC.  I then caught the last half of this video on TV.  It was so good.  I had to watch the whole thing on the internet.  I was impressed.  It’s a short film by Sheldon Candis, what it says in the beginning.  It’s a 5:36 sec video.

There is a really good story to it.  J. Cole plays a father and he is a drug dealer.  A white guy is playing a father and he is a DEA agent.  J. Cole is celebrating his 4 yr old daughter’s birthday by having cake and a little party in the backyard with his wife, and father.

The DEA agent is with his other officers and they bust down the house.  The little girl gets accidentally shot.  I really felt something there.  The music turns into an organ music and we see the girl in heaven.  J. Cole is sitting in the cop car, with tears in his eyes.

The ending says “For Aiyana Stanley-Jones.  And please consider your war on drugs.  A message from J. Cole.”  The comments were that it made them cry.

My opinion: I really like this video.  There is a good story, there was emotion and I felt something when watching it.  Great production.  I was going to put this in the fun email, but I think it belongs in the writing email because of the story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzzMOMkjm8A

script writing/ my emails & blog

This is from my www.badcb.blogspot.ca:

Oct. 21: This will be a kind of mental health email.  It’s self-analysis and assessment.  It will also touch on business and writing.  I usually keep business and writing separate, but I want to combine these two together so I can figure out what kind of writing career I can get.  I was at the Grant MacEwan Professional Communications website (previously called Professional Writing.)

Scriptwriting: I’m going to say it.  I have lost motivation and enthusiasm for this.  From the years of 14 yrs old to 22yrs old I was writing scripts while going to school.  I had to finish gr. 9, graduate out of high school, upgrade a year, then a year at NAIT, then 2 years in Professional Writing.

During my last semester in Professional Writing, I started pitching my script The Vertex Fighter.  (Back then it was called The Fighter.)  I worked full-time at the Soup place and did look for an office job.  However, I was mainly putting all my time and effort into looking for TV production companies in Canada, and pitching it to them.  I was also busy rewriting and editing my script.  

I have worked for 8yrs (14-22 yrs old) towards the goal of finishing all my schooling so I can have the Professional Writing diploma on my resume, to pitch my script.

I spent 2008-2009 intensely pitching and working on my script in my spare time.  There’s 2 yrs of constant work.  I kept pitching for 4 months of 2010: The Year of Unemployment.  The other 8 months was where I was constantly looking for a job and applying to places to work at.  The script has to be put in the back burner.

2011: The Year of the Office Job Search is where I was constantly going to lots of job interviews.  I did complete a 43 page script for this TV series.  It took me a month to write it.  It’s not until like maybe a year later, the producer said they weren’t going to produce the script.  That’s fine.

2012: The Year of New Directions.  I did start applying to all the TV production companies in Edmonton to work at.  If anyone remembers, I did do an interview for one in 2008.  I only met a couple of producers to do interviews in 2012.  I got more hours at the restaurant and did some temporary jobs like Telemarketer #1 and Telemarketer #2.

2013: I only sent my script to be read by one producer.  I had to look over my notes.

Obstacles: I know that getting a TV movie script produced was going to be hard.  I didn’t expect instant success that it will be produced.  I knew it was going to be a lot of time and effort of me sitting in front of the computer looking for production companies to pitch to.  It was good if one producer even reads the script.

Oct. 22 Professional Communications: Here is the Grant MacEwan website for this program.  Back when I took it in 2006-2008, there weren’t these 3 majors.  You either take it for 2 yrs to get a diploma or you go in 4 yrs to get a bachelor’s degree.

There wasn’t a Strategic Communications class.  At least not in the first 2 yrs I took it.  There was Technical Communications as an elective.  The only Editing and Publishing was the Proofreading and Copyediting class in 2^nd yr.  That was a required class. 

Overview:

The professional communications stream has three majors, allowing you to choose what you want to do based on what you like to do! Wondering what kind of career tasks would be included in each stream?

Strategic communications

• research, plan and deliver key messages and campaigns to move people to action
• manage complex communications processes in a range of industries, including government, health care, education, private sector and non-profit agencies
• understand and respond to mass communications needs and trends

Technical communications

• research and write for specialized audiences in the sciences, health, education, business and industry
• write instruction manuals, policies, procedures and educational materials, both individually and as part of a team
• use industry standard software

Editing and publishing

• improve communications by checking for correctness, concision and clarity
• edit and manage publications (books and magazines, online and print)
• understand and navigate the publishing process

Careers:
Communications professionals are in high demand and the types of jobs you can do are almost endless. Here’s just a sample:

Strategic communications

• publicist or agent (managing other peoples’ reputations)
• media relations officer (dealing with the media)
• communications consultant (providing communications advice)
• strategic planner (planning what to say, to whom, when and how)
• advertising copy writer (creating copy that makes people want to buy things)
• information service coordinator (writing, managing and producing documents)

Technical communications

• manual writer (telling people how to do things: safety, education, instructions, etc.)
• instructional designer (writing content for courses)
• computer software manual writer (explaining how to get software to do what people want it to)
• policies and procedures writer (writing rules)
• technical descriptions writer (explaining complex ideas simply)

Editing and publishing

• book publisher or editor (creating books from manuscripts)
• magazine publisher or editor (creating magazines from articles and photographs)
• production editor (overseeing the physical production of a book or magazine)
• technical editor (making sure the complex copy is technically correct)
• web content editor (making sure copy going on a website is correct and appropriate)
• news editor – broadcasting (making sure what goes on the news is correct and appropriate)

http://www.macewan.ca/wcm/SchoolsFaculties/FFAC/Programs/BachelorofCommunicationStudies/Majors/ProfessionalCommunication/index.htm#3

Feedback: I would like your guy’s feedback.  What career should I go into?

My emails/ blog: I want to say that I can not give a 100% time and effort into my emails/ blog.  I give my best effort at work because I get paid.  I look for a job and go to job interviews and give it my all.  I’m not a perfectionist.  Some of my writing will be good, or at least good enough.  Writing is subjective.  I can’t please everybody with my emails.  I know and I can guess some of your thoughts on it.  Correct me if I’m wrong:   

“I like reading the business emails because I can learn about careers from her job articles.”

“I don’t like reading the business emails, because they are not as fun and entertaining as the fun jokes email.”

“I don’t like reading the fun email, I rather read the news emails because she can always find interesting news.”

“I don’t like the news emails because it’s too serious and sad.  I rather read her writing emails where she analyzes TV shows and movies.”

The thing is though, is that I write for myself first.