Lisa Writing Wild

I only have a few minutes. There's something wrong with my beloved laptop. After twenty minutes it freezes and I have to manually shut it down, which I hate doing. This isn't that old, but I didn't get a warantee on it. Every time I turn it on I set a timer for 15 minutes so I can restart it before it freezes again. Anyway...I haven't completely forgotten about the 29 Gifts in 29 Days I was (am) doing. I just forgot a few days then it sort of snowballed into a few weeks. I still do things but I always think I'll remember them to post about (as a writer I should know better than to think I'll remember something). Today I was finally able to tackle a mountain of paperwork I had to work on. You'd think with only one kid it wouldn't be so hard to find time to sit for a few mintues. When my grandma died last March, she had a few bills that needed to be paid. She hardly had any money (like a few hundred) when she died, so as I was advised, I've been ig...

When I was in first grade, I was reading beyond the normal level of a six year old. Because of this I was asked to teach other six year olds to read. I don't remember his name, but the first kid I was to help was a boy. We'd go into the back of the class and sit in a corner on the floor. I was supposed to read to him and have him read back to me. Instead, I tossed the book and tried to kiss him for the entire twenty minutes. I quickly lost my job at a mini-teacher because the boy didn't learn a thing. Well, maybe not a thing ...

There are a few things I knew for sure when I was 12: If someone didn't invent something to control my curly hair in the near future, I'd have to shave my head. My album collection of puffy stickers were NOT lame (no matter what my brother said). Lastly, and most importantly, I was going to be a trapeze artist in the circus. I went through a few career ideas before settling on trapeze artist. First I was going to be a teacher, but I realized I only liked organizing the papers, not dealing with the kids. Then I was going to be a comedian. I'd take joke books out of the library and try to memorize them. Instead, I ended up forcing my mom and brother to sit on the couch while I read the joke book to them, waiting for laughs. Not so funny. I also wanted to be a gymnast but had never had any gymnastics training other than the cartwheels and round-offs I did on my front lawn. So I settled for the next best thing, trapeze artist. I decided to start training right way, a...

The summer I was 17 I had a babysitting job on Seneca Parkway (awesomely huge houses) Monday thru Friday. I worked 6am-6pm, made breakfast, lunch and dinner for two kids and made $100 a week. Ah, the good ol' days. To make the time pass I'd take the kids on numerous walks during the day. One day I was walking down Magee Avenue towards Raines Park. Out of the corner of my eye I saw somebody waving at me from inside a house. I walked closer and saw a very cute guy doing the waving. I had no idea who he was, but it didn't matter. He was hot and he was waving. At me. I waved back frantically. He stopped waving and looked at me strangely. I realized he was cleaning his windows. I quickly walked away and took the long way back to the house. The next day was Saturday and I "had to"go up to Ray's Deli for something...anything. And instead of walking down my street (Electric Avenue), I had to go the total opposite way to walk by the guy's house. As I slooooooww...

When I was twelve my dad's girlfriend (who I hated) had a sixteen year old daughter who I worshiped. I loved going over to his house just to see her. I loved everything about her from her Led Zeppelin posters to the money that was always casually strewn on her floor. (I'd go home and toss some money on my floor too, but I always ended up picking it up. It was money!) Her name was Ann Marie but everyone called her Dee Dee. Just as much as I adored her, she ignored me. If I spent a full eight hours at their house and she just said, "Hey" to me, I was happy. At the time I thought she was this older mature woman. Looking back I realize she was just a teenager who, I'm sure, was very sick of having a twelve year old stare at her. When she wasn't around, which was often (I like to pretend it wasn't because of me), I'd stand in the doorway to her room and just look around. I wanted to be her. I thought she was the coolest. I remember her blasting, "He...

Since our Thanksgiving plans were changed, I decided to stop dwelling on my aching back and instead on the things I'm thankful for this year. Adopting Joey Mike, for everything Our business is busier than ever considering the economy I had two films made, and one in a film festival I've met some wonderful friends though Rochester Movie Makers We decided to home school Joey I've gotten closer with my girlfriends We started preparing to buy a house in the next few months I ate four pieces of chocolate chip banana bread today and didn't throw up Joey's OT and Speech therapist Joey spontaneously saying I love you a lot. The Yankees winning the World Series so my husband isn't grumpy Joey loving ancini de pepe , the one thing I can cook Our cars not breaking down The awesome bookshelf I got at the Hilton garage sale Keeping in touch with long lost friends and family on Facebook Joey's adoption party going just how we always imagined Joey...

Yesterday I went to see my chiroprator again. He's a nice guy but I'm starting to think it's all a crock. This time he charged me $45 for less than a half hour and hardly did anything. He wants me to come back Monday to see how I'm doing. I wanted to say, "Can't you call me at home and ask how I'm doing? It'll save me another $45." I don't feel any better today than I did last Saturday. I'm doing my exercises, alternating hot and cold and walking around a little at a time, but I'm still in a lot of pain. I thought my chiropractor was in his mid-fifties. He looks like one of my dad's cousins. When I asked if yoga or pilates would help strengthen by back when I'm better he said, "When you get to our age we need to exercise to keep flexible." I'm sorry, our age? Does he actually think I'm in my mid-fifties? I couldn't help myself. "Our age?" I asked. He looked at my chart. "Your're a...

This morning our speech therapist told me they set up clinics for the h1n1 shot. I had no idea about this and haven't been following it. I admit I haven't done any research on the shot up until today. We called Joey's old doctor's office at the clinic (he has a new doc since being adopted) and talked to the nurse who we completely trust. She said if he was still in foster care they would have called us come in for the shot. Since he was born three months premature and has a weak immune system, she said he would be susceptible to death if he got the swine flu. We went to Irondequoit Mall and got in line. We were told it would be at least two hours. No sooner were we in line when a security guard came over and said there was a clinic on West Ave. (not a good neighborhood) that was empty. A bunch of people left the line and headed over to West Ave. We got there, filled out the paperwork for Joey and got in line. We realized that all the adults around us were getting it to...

There I was, cranking away at my script, when suddenly I had an idea. An idea that may save my script, but it's a BIG one that will take a lot of work and rewriting. A few days ago I signed up for Pilar Alessandra's rewrite class . I actually thought it was the first draft class, so it was an accident that I signed up for it. I've thought about signing up for her classes before, but it's so expensive I've always decided not to. To attend a class in person it's about $400, but to have the workbook sent to you through email for six weeks is only $100. Still a lot, but turning out to be worth it. Before I received the first part of the workbook, I decided to re watch her DVD that takes you from premise to outline. It's an excellent way for people like me (who struggle with structure) to get everything down. Throughout the DVD she'll tell you what to do, then give ten minutes for you to apply it to your own story (it's filmed in front of a live cla...

It seems like I've been too busy to even blog lately. I'm learning that being a stay-at-home mom most days isn't as easy as people think it is. Sure I'm lucky to not have to go to work most days, but taking care of a 3 1/2 year old is much harder than cleaning three houses in a day. Boy, do I miss the days of napping. Today we went out to Williamson and to lunch with my brother, Charlie. Joey and I had chocolate chip pancakes (with sugar free syrup). They were loaded with chocolate chips. Way too many for someone who doesn't eat sugar. I'm used to the ones I make where there are about ten chips in the entire batter. Even Joey wouldn't eat them. After lunch we went to Charlie's shop where he builds customs kitchens and he showed Joey around. Joey was very impressed with the piles of sawdust scattered around, and we spent quite a bit of time kicking it at each other. Then we went to the Dollar General with my dad because I was looking for a hose for Joey...

I finally made it out of the house after being stuck here for three days with a sicky. I ventured a whole eighth of a mile to Wegmans for bread and muffins. I felt like I hadn't been in public in years. I wanted to ask people what's happened in the past few days. What did I miss? It felt so great to be free for a few minutes that I even bought Mike a fish fry and stuffed clam as a surprise for dinner. I figured he was sick of having jambalaya three days in a row. See how wifely I am when I'm left to be alone for a few mintues? After dinner we decided to go for a walk to tire Joey out. We walked to the townhouses across the street to show Joey a "spooky house." This lady had more Halloween crap in front of her house. As we were standing there I said to Mike, "Can you imagine what the inside of her house looks like? It has to be filled with crap." Just then she came to the door and asked if we wanted to come in and see what she had. Well, of course we di...

Last Sunday the film I co-wrote, Thanksgiving, was shown at the Image Out Film Festival. I honestly wasn't looking forward to going. I've only seen the finished film on my laptop (about fifteen times). But nothing compares to seeing something you wrote up on a big screen. It was shown at the Dryden Theater at the Eastman House. My dad and his wife and Mike were there, plus my girlfriend that I wrote the film with. It brought tears to my eyes to see my name on the screen as a writer. To have a gay audience laugh at gay jokes that I wrote was unforgettable. Unfortunately after ours was a documentary over an hour long about gays, trans genders , etc. It took everything in me to sit through the entire thing. It was all over the place and didn't focus on anything in particular. I hated it, and I feel bad saying that because I realize how much other people loved it. If it had been about twenty minutes it would have been OK . But over an hour...yikes. After we left, Mike real...

I am truly learning the benefits of a deadline. I've never really had one with writing before. But now, with less than three weeks to finish (and start) a screenplay, I'm suddenly very productive. I spent a few hours at the library today and wrote outline for my script. It was going to be a brief summery of the story for my writing friend I'm meeting tomorrow, but it ended up being four pages long. I wish I could have stayed at the library for a few more hours, but I can't abandon the family all weekend. Maybe I can squeeze in some more writing time tonight. I'm at that fun stage where I zone out thinking about my characters, dialogue and scenes. I caught myself going over dialogue and talking out loud as I was walking out of the library. I also don't remember how I got home. I know I left the library, but I was so into "writing" the first scene in my head, I magically appeared home. Plotting while driving can be dangerous.

I think I've finally discovered the trick to not being tired all day (besides giving up sugar). The last two nights I've gone to bed around 9:30 and got up around 7:00 or whenever Joey decided to wake me up. I've felt great the past two days. I even came home from cleaning two big houses yesterday and cleaned our entire place. We are still waiting to hear if we are pre-approved for a house. What was supposed to take "24 hours at the most," is going on two weeks. I had to write up a profit and loss statement and send it to our guy last night. Hopefully this will push the decision to yes from the underwriter. Being self-employed has a ton of perks, but trying to buy a house isn't one of them. Too much paperwork! I have a meeting tonight with my new director about a short comedy I'm writing to be shot in September. It's so hard to write now that Joey doesn't nap anymore. (I'm hiding upstairs in the hallway writing this while he jumps around do...

I was too beat last night from filming all day (then going to a birthday party) to write anything. Today was our last day of filming at the Bamba Bistro. I loved directing much more than I thought I would. I was pretty sure I only wanted to stick to writing the scripts and not anything else. But thanks to the actors and crew I had a blast both days, and can't wait to do it again. Which will be sometime in September (as assistant director) for a film I'm writing now. The best part was my husband was there both days. Today my dad and his wife came to be extras, along with my husband. I was also an extra in the first shot of the restaurant. And one fun fact: on a close up of a phone call the main actor takes from a doctor, I called him from my phone and he programmed his phone to read "Dr. Miles" calling. (Please address me as such in the future) Pictures from the film are on Facebook. Now I have two days worth of a messy house to clean up. The yuckiest part is the...

After a very long day of still feeling crappy with a sinus infection, cleaning three houses, grocery shopping, playing with Joey for hours, putting him to bed, cutting Mike's hair and getting everything organized for tomorrow, I'm finally ready to sit. Tomorrow is the first day of filming on my movie The Drug Dealer. I'm excited and anxious at the same time. Part of me just wants it all to be over and suddenly be Monday. I don't want anything to go wrong like actors not showing up, the restaurant giving us a problem...I'm sure there are a million other things that can happen. Mike worked so hard after work today to make a fantastic meatloaf dinner. Plus he's making a special crock-pot chili for the crew and actors tomorrow. I'm so afraid I'm not going to have enough food for everyone, but Mike says I have too much. I hope so. Hopefully I can persuade my Still Photographer friend to take a bunch of pictures with my camera so I can post them. I think t...

I have a million and one things to do before the filming of my movie this weekend. And here I sit. But I have a good excuse: a butt-kicking sinus infection. One of the worst I've had. My in-laws, God bless them, just picked Joey up and took him to their house to play with his cousins, then out for dinner. They said they'll bring him home around 7:30 (!). It's only 3:00 right now. I have hours to myself to get everything done for Saturday. Or...I can sleep. So, how is a girl who has struggled to get her writing "out there" directing her own movie in two days? This past January my writing friend and I made a pact to take any writing opportunities that came our way. We agreed to pursue any small connection we might have in order to further our careers and make friends in the industry. The first thing I did was answer an ad on Craigslist for a writer in a sketch comedy group. The group only lasted a few months, but out of that I wrote seven decent comedy sketches...