The TV Script Writers Meetup

It's been a while since I've made any progress with Project Kronosphere, especially after my poor reviews for episode 1, especially as I've focused on my Electric Vehicle enthusiasm.  That's not to say Project Kronosphere is dead; after all, I've drafted a new act breakdown as a new beginning, though I've still a long way to go for the full, Radio rewrite.

But Project Kronosphere wasn't always a Radio program.  Indeed, it's my dream to see Project Kronosphere fully realized as a live-action, hour-long television drama.  But television production is expensive, and radio is relatively easy.  Sure, audio editing and Foley can be time consuming, but actors are often happy to work and some for as little as a box of pizza according to J. Michael Straczynski.  That definitely makes my role as sole producer more accessible, but hardly satisfies my dream.

But thanks to Meetup.com, I've made some great writer friends, some of whom need to be published.  Like Mike Bresner's All I Want for Christmas, a twisted murder mystery set in Santa's workshop.  I met Mike through the Loudoun County Writers Group and though he's not been able to find an agent for his work, in the age of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and various retellings of the Adventures of Peter Pan.  It seems only natural that a story like Mike's should find an audience in our revisionist, modern world!  All I can say for now is keep an eye on Mr. Bresner; I expect we'll be hearing a lot more from him someday soon.

Anyway, the nice thing about Meetup.com is you can find some very interesting groups that may align with your interests, as I've mentioned numerous times in this blog.  So I was quite delighted when someone created the TV Script Writers Meetup I mentioned at the top of this post.

The TV Script Writers is based in Alexandria, VA, which isn't particularly convenient for me but I'll try to make it work.  The organizer, Crystal, couldn't be nicer and I look forward to making her formal acquaintance.  But what I think is most inspiring of her is to make our first meeting not about showcasing our own ideas, but to learn instead from known successes.

Thus, for our first meeting, we will be reviewing Jason Katims pilot episode for Roswell, based on the novels, which is available here.  I've tried to analyse the pilot for Heroes before, so I find this analysis rather inspiring and interesting, especially since I've never seen an episode of the original television series nor read any of the associated original novels.

The basic goal is to mark up the script with a yellow highlighter to highlight what works for you, and a red pen for what you find doesn't.  Since I lack a yellow highlighter, I decided to use a green sharpie, with the unfortunate consequence of my notes bleeding through to the flip side of the page.  I hope that won't cause problems.

At this point, I've read the teaser and first 2 acts for what I assume was cut down to an hour-long drama with about 15 minutes of commercial breaks.  At 1 page = 1 minute, the script would likely more fit into 90 minutes as written with commercials, but I know they must have cut it down quite a bit.  Act 2 seems especially long.

The shining star of the story this far has got to be the character Isabel.  I find me underscoring nearly everything she does and whatever comes out of her mouth.  She really makes the series for me.  What I must say though is missed in this script is an understanding for the target audience.  A teen drama featuring 16 year olds is basically meant for 14 year old adolescents who aspire to the characters on screen.  In and of itself, the characters seem to ring true, but much as they may use 4-letter words in real life, there's no way that's going to appear on U.S. network television.  Heck, it wouldn't even appear on HBO given the young adult target audience.

All in all, though, I'm liking this script and hope to have finished reading it by next Monday's meeting.

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I'm hoping that I'll be writing more this year about the making of Project Kronosphere since I was so quiet in 2010.  As you can see, I've redesigned the page with a new Kronosphere theme.  I wanted to bring you closer to the great, gray-silver ball that can take you anywhere in time and space, coming soon to a speaker, or screen, near you…

A Meetup Group of My Very Own!

Yes, you heard me right! A Meetup Group of my very own to meet and encourage local writers like myself to hone their craft and hopefully become published or produced someday. Well, not that I have much power to produce my own material, never give advice on publishing, but it's my group, and I've got some awesome members and I'm quite content.

So now I have my very own writer's meetup group after over a over a year of searching and nothing left to write. Where as a year ago, I had proudly completed my third script, for Episode 4a, despite adversity and minor imperfections, today I have nothing left to say for my own writing, at least with respect the Project: Kronosphere, has for the time being dried up. But do not fear, my friends, for this is not the end, it is only the beginning, and the moment is being prepared for...

The story of how I got this meetup group is itself an interesting one. As you can see from my previous posts, there's a gap of over a year between my last post in 2009 and my first in 2010. And although I have another draft post for April 2009 that I've yet to complete, there's still quite a bit I've yet to tell y'all.

You see, in January 2010, while scanning the occasional meetup.com spam new group announcements, I read of a new writer's group just around the corner in the town of Reston, Virginia. And what's more, it wasn't restricted to only Women or at an inconvenient time. Don't get me wrong, though, I happen to think Ruth Ghobadi is doing a wonderful job with her group and I would encourage any women who finds the time convenient to join her group of writers A.S.A.P. But, since I'm not a women, and that time's not for me, I could never be bothered.

But then Verge Writers was created, inspiring a whole new set of writers! It all began on Thursday, 11 February 2010. We all gathered at La Madeline, in Reston to meet the inspirational creator of this all new, writer-oriented meetup group. I was nervous. I ate and ate, stuffing my face in nervous anxiety, I even lost the organizer's name card when I was fumbling to get back into my car. It was both exciting and scary. Would they like my piece? Would they enjoy Project: Kronosphere? It was time to find out. Finally, a group that allowed men and was held at a descent hour: Sundays at 16:30.

So I came; I shared; I enjoyed; I engaged; I befriended. Week after week, I gave more of myself, my story, to my new colleagues. And they gave me their opinions. Some of them were positive; some were negative, and some got worse over time. But you've already read about that. I even made new friends with them on a few of the Social Networking sites: Facebook¹ and Twitter. And it's through these contacts that I discovered Susan Diranian's Loudoun County Writers Group, but that's a story for another post.

So I diligently attended each meeting at the group organizer's apartment each week through the month of March. Then came April, and calamity after tragedy canceled meeting after meeting after meeting. Not having the full story from our esteemed organizer, I was not the only writer more than a little frustrated with the inconsistency of our meetup schedule.

If that wasn't bad enough, the organizer for a group I like to call Digital Animation for Fun and Profit was going to have a demonstration of audio recording tricks and techniques she'd picked up in her work with video voice-over production. I was very excited — audio recording is just the skill I need to learn, seeing as Project: Kronosphere is almost certainly going to be a radio series, even if it's never broadcast. Sound is my bread and butter. So I read the meeting description; it says the meetup will take place Tuesday, 13 April 2010 at the Panera Bread in Reston Town Center at 7pm. So I make my way over to the Panera only to find there's no meeting. I check my iPhone and it turns out it's been canceled and moved forward a week.

So a week later, on 20 April 2010, I head on over to the Panera bread again. The meetup was changed to a webinar, to be sure, but the meetup location still said Panera bread. So I arrived at Panera, met another group member and we both scratched our heads: the meetup leader could not be found! Needless to say this made me rather cross. It seemed like very meetup was canceled in April 2010.

As May 2010 rolled on to the scene, the missed Verge Writer's meetups got to be overwhelming and I'd had enough. I decided to counter-program an alternate meetup for the Verge Writers to correspond with ever meeting that was canceled. Every time the organizer scheduled a meetup, I scheduled one around the same time at the Panera Bread — at least one good thing came out of the Digital Animation for Fun and Profit: discovering this great meeting location! This went on for one more week until finally, we were able to attend a meetup that wasn't canceled on Sunday, 16 May 2010, when our esteemed leader announced that she was stepping down as leader and was looking for someone to take over.

So I volunteered.

The next day, I got a letter from meetup.com that was an invitation to take over the Verge Writers group. I clicked the included button and was immediately presented with a bill for $72 for 6 months continued service for the Verge Writers group. I was none too pleased by this. I personally think there's nothing really value-added that Meetup.com is providing over services like Google Groups and Yahoo! and informed my members that once the 6 months continuation expired, I may be moving us to one of these services.

I figure what happened is the original organizer bought the less expensive 3-month service for the Verge Writers group and in April that expired so rather than keep paying for a group she was having trouble attending herself, why not had it off to a more dedicated member. So I don't have any animosity toward this action, just that I think meetup.com is itself quite overpriced. In fact, I'm very proud of our former leader since she's told us she's going to India in August to council victims of the slave trade in that country. I of course wish he well in this and every future endeavor!

The first thing I did when I took over Verge Writer's is to change its name. Verge Writers never settled well with me, because, being fluent in French, I always read this as "Penis Writers". So I felt the name had to change, but to what?

I'm quite fond of alliterations — just like the leader of the Washington Singers and Songwriters Circle. So although it's a bit more Texas that I'd generally like, I chose the name the Reston Writers' Roundup! I even gave it its own sub-domain in the timehorse.com hierarchy. But apart from that, and a few other cosmetic changes, and moving the regular meetings to Tuesdays at 6pm, the group is still pretty much the same, with the same mandate and goals for its members. I've even opened the group up to new members since the the unfortunate purge of 29 March 2010 (29 March has never been a good day for me, but that's a story for another blog).

On Tuesday, 25 May 2010, we had our first meeting at the Panera bread. Most of our regulars were there and it was great seeing everyone once more. Next week, we may even be getting back one of our long lost and greatly missed friends, a victim of the purge.

Of course, nothing's perfect, and there are still some minor problems with the group. There are members who come to a meeting and then disappear or who join the group but never even come out to attend a gathering.

And there's one member who has some beautiful poetry she wrote on Microsoft Works. The thing is, no-one I know has a copy of MS Works, and this means her wonderful piece is pretty much visible by no-one. Fortunately, I found NeoOffice, which can, to some extent, read MS Works files with the .wps extension. So I opened the file in this and exported it to PDF so that I could share this member's work with my fellow enthusiastic writers. When I did this, the author unceremoniously removed the file, claiming it wasn't the right format. I searched quite a bit for find NeoOffice so I could read her file and was quite miffed when she just took the PDF file down. I've continuously tried to extend my hand to this member to work with her to convert the piece to PDF while still preserving the integrity and presentation of her work, only to be rebuffed and ignored. This really bugs me, but there really isn't much I can do. I've thought about kicking this member out of the group, but for now I'll give her the benefit of the doubt.

In any case, that's the story of how I came to own my very own Meetup group! Woo!

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¹My Facebook profile is restricted; only my Facebook friends can see it. To become my Facebook friend, you'll have to request me via e-mail, but I don't want spam so I'm not including that here. Instead, if you really want to friend me, feel free to leave a comment in this blog with a link to your Facebook and I'll be happy to friend you, my dear, sweet reader.

Meetups, Script Writing and Getting Downtown

Well, it's about bloody well time I has a update already, hadn't I?

When I started this entry originally, I was planning to report how I had finished writing Scene 13 of a planned 16 of Episode 04a.  Now that that script is mostly complete, it seems I should focus instead on the beginnings of the production side of my saga.  So, to that effect, I would like to present a continuation of my series of stories revolving around my experiences with various meetups and social gatherings in and around Washington D.C.

When last you heard from me, I was telling you about my adventures in Green Screen at the The DC Podcaster Alliance.  Man, that was fun and informative.  But, there's more.  Since then I've joined a bunch more Meetups including The Washington Screenwriters Meetup, Digital Video, Audio & Animation for Profit and Networking and the newly resurrected Arlington Screenwriters Meetup, each with its own sets of highs, lows and adventurous experiences.  In this post, I shall be discussing my escapades with the first of these, the Washington Screenwriters Meetup.

On Saturday, 17 February 2009, a bit before noon, I drove my car over to the Herndon-Monroe Park & Ride and waited for the Fairfax Country Connector 950 (pdf) to take me to the metro so I could get downtown to my first meeting of the Washington Screenwriters Meetup.  Strangely enough, the WMATA website suggested I take the metro to McPhearson Square and then take the 52 Metrobus down to the 14th Street Borders Books and Music.  This last step I found to be quite silly because by going one more stop to Metro Center, I'd just have to walk 2 blocks East along G Street and another block along 14th to get where I wanted to go.  I actually did try to get off at McPhearson Square that day and walk down 14th Street NW the 5 short blocks necessary but crossing New York Avenue is a pain, so Metro Center is my preferred stop for this destination.  But enough about my commute.

So, I get to the Borders and assume automatically that the meeting will be in the coffee shop of the store which I spot upstairs.  I order a white hot cocoa from the barista and have a seat next to the nearest electrical outlet so as to give my poor, starving iPhone a bit of extra charge so he can get me safely back to the Metro thanks to his clever GPS.  I sit there, drinking my cocoa and observing the people coming and going, scanning an old Project KronoSphere script draft for the pilot, waiting.  I was a half-hour early; apparently, walking is much faster than taking a bus.  Eventually, the meetup sponsor, Matt, shows up.  I don't recognize him per se and there's no way he can know what I look like, but I have a feeling he's the guy and I introduce myself.  We chat for a bit and he mentions a book that spent years on my Wishlist, The Complete Book of Scriptwriting by one Mr. J. Michael Straczynski -- my hero!  You see, I sometimes imagine my serial as a radio drama and nobody can cover experience in writing radio drama like Joe Straczynski in this book.  And indeed, it's the serial nature of the Great Maker's Babylon 5 television series which first inspired me to create my own rich tapestry of people, cultures, worlds, times and space.  But more on this later.

So I return to my lonely, charging iPhone and allow Matt to continue to set up his meetup table.  As more people arrive, I return to the gathering place, my phone now sufficiently charged.  There I meet many interesting, aspiring screenwriters, most of whom dream about the glamour, fame, glory and riches with the aspiration of having a Hollywood blockbuster hit commissioned based on their script.  But, don't get me wrong, we are all writers and none of us want to sell out.  We each have our stories, our children, that we long to see the light of day and each of them are hard-working and very thoughtful individuals.  The only contrast I can draw with my own goals is that I seek not fame or riches, though would never refuse either.  For me, it's all about the story, and as a story, it's not one you could tell in a mere 90 minutes.  That is why I write for television or radio.

Only by limiting myself to television or radio can I achieve a true serial drama, with ups and downs, highs and lows, trauma, tragedy, joy and elation.  As I've said before, my second lowest rung of productional aspirations is radio but it may be that in terms of financial commitment and potential popularity, radio has the best potential to allow my story to be told.  So, I presented my tale as radio and received a number of accolades for my original approach to story telling.  I don't honestly know how well radio can accept the return of the idea of the serial drama after what seems like a half-century of market loss to television, but the lowest of rungs for me was always podcast and even if I was able to produce my show as radio, I would want to see my story released in that digital format.  None the less, I learned a great deal from these discussions and have a page of notes that I may transcribe here at some point for the edification of others.

Anyway, so the meeting progresses and the thing is, Matt, clever individual and documentarian that he is, has pipe-lined 3 of his related meetups each to follow the other in logical succession.  I, of course, came to the first of these, that for the aspiring Screenwriter.  So, as we are discussing the finer aspects of Hollywood screen plays and productions, a series of editors, filmographers and incidental musicians start to trickle in and I am happy to chat further with each of them.  One fellow, Paul, is an accomplished musician.  Another women, whose name I forgot, was an aspiring cinematographer.  Many of the screenwriters, including myself, continue to socialize and meet all the newcomers as topic shift from writing to production.

Then, an hour later the actors start to stream in.  I didn't have a chance to interact with many of the actors and really only spoke to one woman who is an aspiring voice actress.  Her appearance was fortuitous since she may make a great candidate for a demo production of Project KronoSphere as an audio-only presentation, even though I think I believe her vocal register is a bit high for one of my female regular characters.  None the less, I shall keep her and all that I've learned in mind as I progress in my quest to bring Project KronoSphere out of the dark shadows of my mind and under the lights of a studio production.

Finally, as things wound down, I left the Borders and made my way home, wiser, happier, more fulfilled and in eager anticipation of my next scheduled meetup with the Digital Video, Audio and Animation for Profit and Networking at the Fairfax County Public Access studio on Saturday, 14 February 2009.