Breaking it down

My year got off to a shitty start. I'll admit it, it blew. It sucked in so many ways, I won't go into the boorish details. I will, admit, however, that I let it happen. I let things slip through my fingers when I should have focused on work and dove right in. Maybe one of these days I'll actually listen to my friends and my own advice.

But I'm back on track. No damage has been done to the career track. Though I was afraid that if I let things continue on the way they were any longer, there would be hell to pay - my ass on a lovely little platter.

Here's how everything is breaking down:

Beyond the Mat. Mine again. After meeting with the other writer, the director decided that the other writer couldn't really bring anything new to the script and that working with me was in his best interest. I made myself a damn good commodity to the project. Not to mention, when you get advice from a professional screenwriter (working on a high profile sequel) that says your writer is doing damn good work and that the script itself is pretty good, too, you tend to listen.

And they're thinking about filming in my hometown. Draft 11 is in the works.

Blood Bond. The script is at Hyde Park, doing what, I don't know. I think it's fermenting on a shelf in their offices. Kirk is in Taiwan. That's all I really know about that subject.

Californio: The Ballad of Joaquin Murrieta. No news yet. After a little trouble getting things in order with the release form they finally received it about a week and half after the script. We're crossing our fingers, waiting to hear something. If worse comes to worse, we're considering trying to get it off the ground ourselves.

Coyotes. The new treatment is about halfway finished, roughly eight pages. I should be getting notes back from Mark at Treasure to see what our next couple of moves are.

When the Sleeper Wakes. A comic book I've been fiddling around with as a collaboration with Mark Andrew Smith, who writes The Amazing Joy Buzzards over at Image Comics. First issue is in the can, working on the second right now, next three issues are in a rough outline form. We'll be finding an artist soon.

Linda. She's a bad ass assassin/bounty hunter; pure pulpy, Hong Kong style fun. Two features in the can, I'm brainstorming a new idea for a comic book. My meeting with Mark Smith put me in the right frame of mind to get this off the ground.

Future Projects. Nick and I will be cooking up some new screenplay projects very soon.

Dvdtown.com reviews are piling up.

Writing needs to be done... and in all honesty I'm looking for more.

It's good to be back.

Boundin' and reboundin'

I woke up ass early to take my friend/producer of Beyond the Mat to the airport. Why I wake up and do these things for people is beyond me, oh wait I have a nice guy complex. Anyhow, she really hasn't been completely up on the porject the last few weeks. Her day job is being an associate producer ona reality TV show - she's pretty kick as at her job. She fights for my work, on getting BTM as tight and as "non-cliche" as possible, hard to do when the directorwas considering working on an Asian version of "The Notebook."

Well, I get a call from the director this morning to inform me (and seek approval to a degree) that I am being replaced as the writer of the film. A swift kick in the nuts. But also something of a relief. I've written 10 drafts, which vary from being page one rewrites to polishes and verything in between. Maybe I've written more, all I know is that I'm so close to the project that I do need a break, to come back with it with a fresh set of eyes.

I'm being replaced by an Asian-American writer. The director said he'd only be comfortable with this if I was. It'll make things easier to sell to Asian investors I suppose. But there's nothing like the feeling I'm having right now of knwoing that someone else is going to be rewriting something I've invested so much time and energy into. I still get credit, I still get paid, I still get to be involved with the production, develop the script, etc. I also get to feel anomsity towards someone I've never even met.

I often work with a co-writer but this is vastly different. My work with Nick is seamless and easy, Californio is my best piece of writing and it saddens me that I can't get him inolved on certain projects (yet) because of race. It's kind of ironic, but the truth of the matter is that we work well together. Very well. I really wish he was the writer that would be handling the rewrite on this but the director really wants an Asian-American writer.


Well, I am off for now. I have to go work on my Latino, Urban themed, music driven film treatment. Hijole.

Update: So, I spoke to the director of Beyond the Mat last night; the business plan/package still hasn't gone out. He' says Tuesday. But on a good note we've been getting a lot of good coverage from various readers. Yay.

I need a new day job.

El Gran Silencio

I handed off the 10th draft of Beyond the Mat to the producers the 2nd week of January. I hustled to get the thing done to meet a deadline they had imposed on the production. This was so they could get the script and business plan out by that weekend. We met on a Sunday, they expected the script on Friday, Saturday at the latest. They got it Weds. morning Jan. 11th. The last I heard the business package was going out this past Monday (the 30th). Nobody tells the writer anything.

There's this great void of uncertainty, waiting, and nail biting agony that I'm trying to push into the back of my mind. I need to focus on these two new projects I have going, they're very promising and could lead to great deals for myself and the production/managment comapny involved. Not to mention the anticipation over Olmos productions reading Californio (they did, however, just request that we sign a release form before anything else - why didn't they ask for that BEFORE we sent the script?). I can't help but feel a little helpless, considering I can really do nothing at this point to influence what will happen. It's something of a great silence, un gran silencio.

Whine, whine, whine. Negativity is a bitch. But I know how fortunate I am to be in this position. Three scripts in various hands, doing various things, that could kick start my career. It's scary, exciting to think about. I know plenty of people who would kill to be in my position. I am every bit a struggling writer and I'm making things happen, or so I hope. I dream. I ain't got much else.

But you know what, life is good.