Hemming And... Well Just Hemming

I am making my Halloween costume - first time I've tried one like this and it's fun but I am under the gun now... first Halloween party is in 2 nights and I have only made half of my costume at this point. I went home last night and hemmed the first part for 2 HOURS. Granted, it's a lot of skirt, and I was doing that handy sewing-machine trick where the machine sews the hem then kicks over to tack it to the skirt every inch or so - it's the first time I've tried that and it looks awesome but -- 2 HOURS!!!

The 2nd part of the costume has a hem just as long, and it doesn't even exist yet. Hopefully I'll get some major progress done tomorrow and then I can sew all day on Saturday.

I love Halloween.

Land Of Queries

Started the query process today with three easy ones - all recommended by Shriekfest. Still feel kind of woozy, though. I need to get myself organized. I am also thinking about doing the Artist Way again, thanks to DA. :)

Whirlwind

Vacation is over... and I feel like I could really use a vacation. We:

-took everything out of the kitchen cabinets

-painted kitchen cabinets

-put everything back into the kitchen cabinets

-watched Season 1 of Lost in between coats while waiting for paint to dry (45 min episodes are perfect for this.)

-got sick. Much chicken soup. Got better.

-hike in the beautiful California wilderness somewhere north of here.

-trip to garment district for fabric. Much haggling.

-sewing on ye olde medieval Halloween costume.

-Santa Barbara for wine tasting and an awesome lunch! Bought some wine. Yes, we got a Pinot Noir.

-trip to San Diego to hang with AQF and SPF

-carved some pumpkins with my sister

-got gussied up and spent 1 hour doing my hair into a mass of curls on top of my head. Surprisingly, I didn't then undo the whole thing in a last-minute panic. Much hairspray.

-attended a gallery opening and bought a painting

-went out for an uber-fancy dinner

-made a belt for the costume while JB drove us back to LA

Anyhow, back at work. Still have a lot of stuff to do with regards to screenwriting, organizing, and planning the next steps. Eeep. I have three leads from Shriekfest for production companies looking for horror/thriller scripts. I should probably do something about that. Hmm.

Friday And Giddy Sugar Rush

I feel like I have all sorts of little things going on. I try not to talk so much about my writing on this blog but most of what's going on now revolves around my writing. I recently won best feature screenplay at Shriekfest. That means now I need to step up and do that other part about being a screenwriter. The whole "sell yourself" part. So I've been stumbling through logline and synopsis rewrites and then threw together a clunky query letter which needs rewriting. All of this needs to be polished and it needs to be great, but I feel like I'm dragging my feet on getting it done because I don't want to think about the NEXT step, which involves researching production companies (and possibly agents and managers) who have dabbled in this genre, contacting them, and asking them if they would be interested in reading this script.

Other than that, I'm looking forward to a week of no day job. JB and I are taking some time off. Among the things we MAY attempt to do this week (singly or together):

-start the kitchen cabinet project

-go up the coast to get out of LA

-finish Baulder's Gate: Dark Alliance II (for those of you with more of a life, this is a video game)

-talk through the outline for another screenplay idea

-hey, why the hell not: finish logline, synopsis, query, resume and bio

-run

-songwriting

-painting (various artsy projects - not cabinets)

-sew (Halloween is uncomfortably close and my pattern has not yet arrived. Grr.)

-lunch with friends we haven't seen in too long

-sleep in

-read

-research the polyurethane dress form method, possibly buy how-to kit and plaster bandages and foam

-play fetch with the cat (no really, she loves this)

-grill

-drink margaritas

Or I could scrap all of the above and just buy a floaty thing and spend all week in the pool before the whether gets too cold.

Serenity: A Review

Okay, it's not MY review, and I can't post the content here so you have to go to Orson Scott Card's Website to read it, but it's like reading my feelings about the movie. Except for the parts where he talks about Ender's Game 'cause, you know, I didn't write that book.

To this I will add: I am thinking about getting this shirt.

I'm going again. Anyone want to join me?