Christina Irene's attempt at a BLOG!!!

Apologies to my seven fans for the long lapse of blogging.  I've been living in PA for a few weeks now.  It's wonderful to be back near family.  Amica is very happy, too.  I'll start substitute teaching soon to supplement (right, who am I kidding?) ... provide my income.  I've found a playwright group to join and I've also been reinstated to the local artists' council.  Portia's Contest is ready to submit for publication, which I plan to send out tomorrow.  I'm about to start working on Et Two Be to get it ready as well.  Both are Shakespeare-adaptation plays.  P.C. is just marketable to schools and maybe churches.  Et Two Be is something that would be great for the general public.  Problem is, it's only an hour long, so I plan to write a half-hour or longer companion play for it.  First, I've got to do the polishing of E.T.B.  I'm also seventeen pages into a new screenplay.  It's a two-hour pilot for a sci fi series. 

As for comedy, I did three shows in the end of July / beginning of August.  They all went great, and I'm motivated to put a lot more effort into obtaining more bookings.

And yes, yes, I still need to upload many, many more photos that I've been promising.  I'll have to get around to that.  Right now, my time is all being occupied by helping Grandma, writing, reading (yes, I actually have time to READ), and occasionally indulging in this glorious thing called cable TV.

I'm at the parents' place in Shermans Dale, PA (Harrisburg area) right now.  In a little more than a month, I'll be moving in.  I'm so excited to begin my writing career.  Today, I got my post office box set up (single-digit box number!).  On Wednesday and Thursday, I want to stop in some temp agencies and get signed on and also find out what clearances I need to take care of in order to start back substitute teaching in this area.  I'm keeping my work schedule flexible, and the biggest thing is to not have a "job" where I bring work home with me.  But bills still do have to be paid, and adventures need be financed.

So then it's back to Virginia to teach summer school.  I'm teaching Algebra and Earth Science!  I'm excited!  I rock at math, and I'm not much of a science person, but I do love geology and Earth science.  It'll be fun.

In other news, check the news page!  I will soon achieve some lifetime achievements!

Well, I started this decision months ago and finalized it weeks ago, and since I started telling my kids (students) yesterday, I suppose it's time to post it on the blog for the 7 people who read this thing.  I'm quitting teaching.  It's time for me to pursue my writing full time.  I'm going old-school and moving back in with the parents.  I plan to sub, to temp, whatever to pay the bills and feed the dog while I focus my energy entirely on the production and promotion of my words.

I have faith ... in myself, in my abilities, in that this is what I'm meant to do.  I'm overwhelmed with peace and excitement all at once.

Stay tuned.............

I'm in Pennsylvania right now, at Mom's house.  Last week was a crazy week.  I worked 13 and 14 hour days Monday through Thursday, and then Friday, I worked a half day and drove up here.  Thursday night was my play.  It went wonderfully!  I was hoping it would be 70% as good as the play I wrote and directed last year (also a Shakespeare adaptation), and it was as good or better!  It got a standing ovation.  Go me.  Now I have to tweak the manuscripts of both plays and get them published.

Somehow last week, I managed to get one more polish done on Dig.  It is now under 120 pages and is as streamlined as can be.  I'm very happy with this script.

Last weekend was my birthday, and I traveled to LA to go to my friend, Daniel's wedding.  I finally got to meet Heather, the new Mrs. Daniel, and she's as beautiful and as sweet as I had imagined.  They are a truly lovely couple, and I'm so excited for the happiness that lies ahead of them.  The wedding was beautiful, and it was on an old boat that has a rich history, including being owned by Mae West.  I asked the captain if I could drive it, and he let me!  So in total, I spent probably more than an hour driving this boat, and it involved a lot more than just standing at the wheel and looking good.  It was work!  I loved it!  I certainly solidified my dream of living on a houseboat some day.  But it probably wasn't good of me to be so antisocial.

This blog is dedicated to reader #5.

I'm back from that Germany trip.  That followed the Hawaii trip.  I'm wrapping up my first week back at work, and I'm still recovering from the intercontinental bender.  What a fabulous time I had!  I know I need to get the photos up here.  It'll likely be another month.  For my birthday, I'm going to California and attending a wedding in Venice Beach, and the next week is my play followed by northward Easter travels, and then it's time to wrap up interim grading and other miscellaneous work duties.  Oh, and taxes.  Then I would love to update ALL those empty links on the photos pages AND get more writing online.  I hope to deliver on these intentions.  Meanwhile, I'm tucking a couple wee photos into this blog entry as a teaser.

Okay, so on a complete, unpremeditated whim, I just booked a trip to Germany.  That's right.  Deutschland.  I'm going.  Holy--

I just spent 2 1/2 hours posting my photography portfolio page.  An hour and a half the first time, and then after my computer decided to be downright evil, it took an additional hour to do it all over again.  So now I have another long-overdue update.  Hopefully I'll get more up soon.  We shall see.  There's this thing called the end of a marking period and another thing called a trip to Hawaii.

This website is a LOT of work.  I sure wish more than 3 people looked at it.  Or is it 4?  So I just fixed the new photos page and finished with the pages for my Beaufort trip.  That's the only link that works on that page right now.  I do want to get some stuff up on my writing page soon, too, but I've got to start writing my school's spring play and have it polished and pretty in less than a month, so who knows when I'll get anything done?  I will be spending the rest of today going back over Dig because I'm submitting it into a competition tomorrow.

Today was my first day back to work.  I feel like I've been beaten up.  I really don't do well on a "normal" schedule.  The other contributor to the "beat up" feeling is that I worked out yesterday for the first time since last fall. 

I'm taking a break right now from editing my screenplay.  I finally wrote a feature-length movie.  I started it around Thanksgiving and finished it 2:30 AM this past Saturday morning.  I wrote 40 pages that Friday into Saturday.  It was fantastic.  So now I'm working back through it, and I'm quite happy with what I've done.  It's called Dig, and if I had to give it a genre, I'd say "action/suspense" or "twisted inspirational." 

And in other news, I booked a trip to Hawaii.  That'll be my big spring break trip this year.  I'm doing it stingey-like, so it's just 3 nights in a dive motel and I'm renting a car that probably has three wheels and one cylinder.  But I don't care.  I'm going to go play in lava flows, and I can't wait!

Holy crap it's a different year now.  So, yes, I've neglected my 3 blog readers for a couple weeks.  Sorry about that.  I had to finish up all that work stuff (nearly worked myself into a straight jacket) and then hit the road for the family stuff (not so bad at all).  Then I spent a night in Niagara Falls, which has become disgustingly decayed, and all the while, high-rise casinos are being built.  That led to a snowy drive through Canada, a bag of "all dressed" potato chips (when in a different country, must try cool different stuff) and my New Year's Eve gig.  I headlined at a Ramada Inn in Taylor, MI, which isn't terribly high-profile, but it was a lot of fun, and the show went fantastically.  (Thanks for the gig, Ruben!)  The room was packed, the crowd was fantastic, I tried out some new lines, I got a wee partial standing ovation, and then I did the lawnmower on the dance floor after the show.  So that was how I ended 2008.  I began 2009 by avoiding the turnpike.

(Sorry about all the parentheticals in this one.)

I've spent all week writing exams, grading exams, grading essays, reading my Creative Writing class's semester projects (oh why did I tell them to shoot for 40 pages?), and as much as I love my kids, I can't take it anymore.  So I set myself up for another rough evening tomorrow night, as I ditched work early tonight.  I touched up one of my script projects and emailed it out West.  By the way, that makes two of my projects that arrived in L.A. this week -- what a great feeling.  And then, so, I rewrote my old crusty bio that's been chafing my eyes for years while I wrote much better bios for other people.  It's on the main page; if you didn't pay attention when you got here, check it out now.  It'd be nice if all 3 of you read it.

I believe that's all the blogging I can muster for this evening.  Guten nacht.

I'm up to my navel in essays to grade (given the thickness of paper, that's bad), and I'm taking a little break.  So a few things to ramble on about:

Yes, I know I've still got to do a LOT more with the pages for "writing" and "new photos."  Those are going to be huge projects, especially the photos page, so I'm not even going to bother starting them until I know I have a lot of time.  Right now, the semester is wrapping up, so I'm all about grading things and writing exams.  Then there's Christmas break which will be traveling to see family and friends and a then a show ... and my spare time may all be spent writing a screenplay (ideally!).

But since I mentioned "writing"....  I've decided(/changed my mind about) what I'm going to do for my school's spring play.  Last year, I wrote an adaptation of The Merchant of Venice.  I used modern language intermixed with Shakespeare's original dialogue and changed the setting to my boarding school circa 1970; I called it Portia's Contest.  It came out really well.  So, this year, I'm going back to the original successful formula: adapting Shakespeare.  I plan to write a play based on the concept of "what if Brutus and Hamlet were roommates?" and have the plots of both Julius Caesar and Hamlet play out entirely in this one-hour play.  It'll be a comedy.

Okay.  Just 25 more essays to correct.  Topic: Compare and contrast how Edgar Allan Poe created suspense with how Alfred Hitchcock created suspense.  Yeah, I showed my kids Hitchcock movies.

When I was 7 years old, anyone who asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up heard: "An author and an illustrator!"  Things do change.  I've learned that there is no such thing as a grown-up (just the poor saps who pretend, some who pretend really hard), and while I have an above average ability to draw, it's far from greatness.  But I'm still writing.  And lately, I've been writing a lot.  I've discovered that writing gets me high.  When all the perfect words flow from me in the perfect sequence, like I'm finally solving some ancient theorem no one else could ever figure out, and I feel that that line, that page, or that scene is just brilliant, it's like my soul's singing harmony with Puccini.  It's amazing.  And I know how I thrive now.  I need to appeal to that math part of my brain.  Structure.  Poetry forms.  Scripts.  And more so than ever in my life, even when I was a tween and cranked out some morbid poem at least once a week, I'm hungry to write.  Tonight, I'm writing an exam, and then I'm going to write some recommendation letters for some of my kids (which part I will not complain about, because I love my kids).  I use the word "write" there, but it's not working for me.  These late nights of work kill me.  I'm jonesing.  I'm starving.

But the news is:  Today I mailed a script to Los Angeles.

I do not have narcolepsy. 

I just had my final visit with a sleep specialist ... did the sleep study, etc.  There was briefly a question regarding whether or not I have a borderline form of narcolepsy.  Yet all I have is something called "delayed sleep phase," which basically means my idea of when it's time to sleep is completely different than society's.  Well, I knew that.  But it's actually a diagnosis.  The solution?  Expensive pills that my insurance won't cover.  Doc also says I'm most likely one of those people who need more than 8 hours of sleep a night.  So, hundreds of dollars (or more -- let's wait and see what that sleep study co-pay looks like) to figure out why I'm tired all the time and then to actually FIX the problem, and all I get is this: "Get more sleep!"

I quite often compare the two careers I've had so far: comedy and teaching.  As far as the sleep thing goes, comedy is WAY better!

I hate mornings.

Drat.  It's past my doctor-prescribed bedtime.

I love cooking, but it's pretty much got to be on the stove top.  I'm not a big one for baking.  I love doing stuff with my skillet (Wal-Mart, cheapest one they had, because schoolteachers are just as broke as comedians).  Tonight's creation: a potato and an onion sliced up thrown in with some olive oil and a ton of minced garlic; add on fresh ground pepper, a touch of balsamic vinegar, and a final dash of parmesan cheese.  Sauté.  Lovely.  The only thing hindering my enjoyment is Amica's obnoxious insistence that she get some.  We'll see.

And now, I'm going to try to get some writing done.

December 3, 2008 - 9:12 PM

Firstly, I know I'm a dork for building all this manually.  Secondly, "BLOG!!!" blinks (if you're in the right browser program) because my friend and web/web design/ design expert Daniel Dod told me blinking text is "so 1995."  So is a flippin' blog, isn't it?  In another 15 years, maybe I'll finally get a MySpace page.  Anywho, this almost looks like an entire website tonight, so I'm going to take a break and actually get back to work on this TV show treatment....