Fun Joel made it look so cool that I’m going to do it.
Yup. I’m in. I’m gonna write a screenplay in 14 days. And I’m gonna hold my feet to the fire through blogging.
Who’s with me?
PS — As if I needed a sign that this would be a great day for me, it started out with an email from my NBF, the writer/director of THE BEST MOVIE EVER. So, in the spirit of always always always sharing your bliss, being public about your passion, and squealing with glee like the kid that you are, I encourage all of you to SHARE WITH THE WORLD what it is that makes you happy. You just may get a thank you note from someone who likes knowing that HER passion brought you such joy.
Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!
Man, does that sound like fun!!! But I think I have enough challenges in June with finishing the edit on Cinderella, completing the screenplay we’ll be doing a reading of on July 11th, moving, auditioning for the Ark show I’m directing in August and the 48 Hour Film Project June 23rd. If I can find the time, maybe… I like a challenge!
Very cool. I think a screenplay in 14 is right up your alley. I think there should be a beagle in it …and a scruffy lookin late 30’s-ish dude : )
Also cool that Jessica emailed you!
OMG, Bon. I really should do this, shouldn’t I?
The play that I’m working on right now I keep thinking it really could work as a screenplay.
But I keep on being like, noooo, I don’t want to write a screenplay! I didn’t come to H-wood to write movies, I came to umm…starve. From the looks of things.
Because okay, even if it is a borderline horrible (it’s so cocky that borderline horrible is the worst I could imagine it being, isn’t it), it will totally give me tons and tons of ideas to take back and write THE PLAY…right??
And I know I did not respond to your super great e-mail in modern-poetry style but it isn’t because I don’t love you.
(P.S. are you really going to start coming to Tuesdays!?!? You know I’m like, Queen, right? People save seats for me. Actors who sit next to me get parts. Groupies have been known to get some action if they stick around long enough…okay all these things are between 50-100% true.)
and a kindred spirit who’s also quirky and sarcastic and hundreds of miles away, who you’ve never actually MET, but you know her innermost secrets, and vice versa…
Bill: Yes. This is totally “my” kind of thing. I wrote the first edition of “Self-Management for Actors” in six weeks. I think I can do this. I’m way into it. And I’ll see what I can do to make sure there’s a part for you and a wiener dog of somesort. 😉
When I wrote Jessica back, I had to try REALLY HARD not to gush (and I totally failed). *giggle*
Babes: YES. You really should do this. I thought of you when I signed up. I hoped you might do it with me. Regardless of what comes from it, I think it’s a wonderful writing exercise. And I’d love to not be totally on my own in trying it. 😉 Y’know… misery, company, blah blah blah.
It’s NOT cocky that “borderline horrible” is the baseline for you. In my introduction post over at the 14-Day Screenwriting forums I said something terribly narcissistic about my love of my own work and how I’ve never really liked any of my screenplay attempts even a little bit. I think we HAVE to love what we write to some extent–or else why the hell would we spend so much time and energy writing it? We sell so proportionately little of what we write, even if we do earn a living at writing.
I’m still referred to as “one of my two friends who actually earns money to write” by a dear friend who knows MOSTLY writers. Adam Beechen and I are officially her token “paid writer” friends. 🙂 And we do both like our own stuff. It’s like your own farts, kind of.
Wasn’t my modern poetry style email fun? A little cheap wine can inspire some really cool emails. And some bad ones. Scary, booty-call-like bad ones. Ya gotta hit the SEND button carefully sometimes. 😉
If you are as Queen of Tuesdays as you say you are, I might HAVE to return. I worry that I might cut into your action, though. Y’know, ’cause people would think we were together, since I’d be fawning all over you and acting like a fan-slash-non-sexual-crush-haver. (I seriously picture you as head cheerleader sitting at the cool kids’ table in high school, based on your description of the whole Tuesdays vibe. And I imagine myself as the foreign exchange student who came by for a campus visit a few times two school years ago and who now comes back thinking she knows the deal but everything has changed and Kim and Jen and Shark don’t remember me anymore and Blake and KiKi are like, “Oh, Bon’s back. *yawn* She’s sooooo 2004-Tuesdays.” And then you pat an empty spot next to you on a bench in the cool part of the room–where, of course, you always sit–and I look around like Duckie in “Pretty in Pink,” sure you’re gesturing to someone cooler behind me. Then I tap my Duck Shoes and smile, head over to you, and ask if I may admire you, like I’m cool when I’m really a creamy tub of goo inside.)
Um, so yeah. I might come back to Tuesdays. Especially after I’ve written a screenplay. 😉
Susan: You were another lovely lady I thought of when I signed up for this challenge! I know you’re way too busy to add a 14-Day Screenplay challenge to your plate, but MAN, isn’t this a great use of energy?!? So fun!
I think I’ve decided to make the 14-Day Screenplay (and other, more actor-centered events such as the 48-Hour Film Festival) a part of Monday’s column at Showfax.com. Tapping into the “collective creative energy” during a short-term challenge like this is just soooooo valuable.
Lemmeknow if you decide to do this, anyway. We can meet for tea and decompress every now and then along the way. And even if you don’t do the 14-Day, kick ass on all of the other amazingly creative stuff you have swirling around you. Remember to bask in the wonder that is having SO MUCH happening, creatively. You seriously rock, y’know?
Okay. Let me rephrase that. Is it cocky that my *real* baseline is “mediocre”? Like I just wrote um, 16 or so pages that are “mediocre” (it’s just that, in the mind of a perfectionist, mediocre = borderline horrible).
And I’m under the influence of cheap wine RIGHT NOW (even though I explained to my mom yesterday that after I over-do it aka bo’s party I don’t drink for two weeks and she was like, “THAT’S IT?” (btw I totally told my mom, aka the Sunday School teacher, that I puked in front of strangers and passed out at bo’s party!! she cut the phone conversation short and told me to take care of myself…I was like, “I AM!”)…anyway I had to get these pages underneath me SOMEHOW…
Also – is it bad that I would LOVE to be the female Bukowski? Like, trying to get some fucking writing done while I’m drunk and have slutty guys throwing bottles at each other on my porch because they both think they’re entitled to me?
And I totally think you have your anticipated return to Tuesdays pegged just about 100% correct (at least in my mind).
Just don’t FUCKING CUT INTO MY ACTION.
Because you will be like, that HOT exchange student with the great rack who comes in and sends I, the head cheerleader, whose grammatical inconsistencies are made up for by her permeating coolness, into a tailspin like, OMG I have to make sure the new exchange student loves me because I totally girl crush her but she better fucking not steal my boyfriend or I will fucking kill her.
Oh, and give me the 411 on the 14-day screenplay. I went to the website and found it very non-user friendly.
Okay, seriously, I am so loving you right now!
Can we have a chick date to see “Bukowsical” late night at Sacred Fools on the 9th? We could use it as inspiration for our work on the 14-Day Screenplay challenge, get drunk before we go, and then have a sleepover after to write–inspired–drunken portions of our brilliant (read: non-mediocre) screenplays.
Please say yes. Pleeeeeeeeease?
And I’m going to send you an off-blog tutorial on the 14-Day. 😉 But first, I’m going to pour myself a something.
Ummmm….YESSSSS…
I SAW Bukowsical in the LA Weekly and I was so freaking out at how bad(ly) I wanted to see it but didn’t have anyone to go with.
Unemployment is so the best thing ever. How much do you love that I quit and then I got fired AFTER I quit??? Six months of free checks, baby!!! I deserve.
Okay I seriously think writing might be over for this evening. Maybe a page more…but let’s be honest. It will be borderline mediocre, at best.
So why bother? Better things will come out in my dreaming than in actually writing anything else tonight.
*subliminal hint mode*
I think you need a quirky, sarcastic redhead in your 14-day screenplay
*end mode*
BTW, email me…I have some top model dish for you.
Hey Bon! Honored that I’ve inspired you! Good luck and keep us posted.
I too was excited about Bukowsical. I saw something about ti a while back, but then I think it was postponed or something. So now I have to follow up (though I won’t impose myself on girl’s night out).
Do it! Go, BonBon, Go!!
When do the 14 days begin?
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
A blonde that raises cane ALWAYS puts a spill on things…….
Did you get the package? I sincerely hope that it arrives in one piece, because I sent 3 things in a large envelope…
The DVD is a heartfelt message, not something for the popcorn adventure, more cheese and wine mode… I love you dear
thanks for adding me…
as far as shouting out loud about what thrills me to the bone? my dog cracks me up, and if i think about her too much I get sad knowing we won’t always be together (of course she would rather I go first, then I can’t lecture here anymore about her addiction to porcupines)