[As I post this, it is 5-10-11. This is a post that I put in here as part of my original three reserves at the start of the year. We have both since gone through our reserves. Nathan has built his up again, and I need to. I’ve written two or three posts, but I need to put them into the draft folder as actual reserves. Meanwhile, I figured that since everything eventually got posted, good or not, I might as well post this one up too. So here it is. You’ll note that it was from December, thus it was cold. I know it’s not cold now, but it was then. That is all.]
I just thought I’d give you folks a glimpse at the kind of stuff we write to each other in private, by showing you something that’s not really all that private at all. Nathan and I made it a goal to post to the newsgroup at least four times a week in 2011. I decided to get started early to get in the habit.
Monday 12-13-2010 – Chris
Subject: Electric Blanket
Yeah, I had to bust out the big guns finally this weekend. I put a second
comforter and an electric blanket on my bed.
As far as goals and projects and the like, I’d like to point out that officially
today is the start of the vacation we would be taking if we had been on task all
five of the ten-weeks. I’m guessing we’re probably taking the vacation anyway
though since Nathan is going out of town soon. Nonetheless, I’ve been getting my
blog post reserve built. I just need to move them to the draft folder on the
blog site, but I have my reserve and another half post that I’ll probably finish
at work tonight.
Otherwise, I’m just ready to go to bed right now. You know, the bed that is
covered with the nice electric blanket.
Tuesday 12-14-2010 – Chris
Subject: Electric Blanket 2: Electric Bugaloo
Well, as Nathan already knows, DVDs have to be mailed in to public access now.
The budget cuts just keep coming over there. I’m writing a blog post about my
thoughts on the matter.
Right now, I’m about to take a dose of Ny-Quil in hopes of avoiding catching
strep throat from the little one. [Note: My roommates’ child.] I’m hoping that since I know a couple of people who have it that I’ve already been exposed long before he had it and have already fought it off, but just in case, medicine and sleep.
Wednesday 12-15-2010 – Chris
Subject: Electric Blanket 3: We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Blanket
More of the same. Using the little less than two weeks before the new ten-weeks
starts as wisely as possible to be prepared to go full throttle and all out for
2011. Yea!
On a separate note, I watched the three episodes of Sherlock, which comprised
the first season. It was very good. Better than the crappy movie they did
recently. If you haven’t heard of this, it is Sherlock Holmes set in the modern
day. It could have gone horribly wrong, but they stayed true to the style of
Holmes. The man playing Holmes is named Benedict Cumberbatch. I’m not sure
anyone in all of existence has ever had a more British name. Well, maybe Winston
Churchill.
Wednesday 12-15-2010 – Nathan
Subject: Re: Electric Blanket 3: We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Blanket
1.) I’m on call this week which means… no sleep. Yea!
2.) Benedict Cumberbatch… really???
3.) I am stuck on my version of the Halloween video. I am missing a critical music cue and I can’t find anything that works. I think I am going to have to have Miguel come over to help out. Other than that, it’s done.
4.) I have 3 (which equals 0) in draft now.
5.) I just didn’t have much to say on the subject of Zombieland (it’s a short post).
6.) I am still a ‘go’ with the debt payoff plan for 2011.
7.) I am going to try to put an image with each of my blog posts.
8.) You are still coming over on Thursday?
9.) James wants to come over sometime the week after Christmas. I thought we might try to have a game day (perhaps Wednesday the 29th?). Let me know when you are free that week (probably 11-6ish or so).
10.) Have you thought about how you will keep up with your 6 pages a day? Maybe a combo of blog posts and weekly blogs, and stories?
11.) I am willing to help you with any sort of co-writing. Maybe we could do a script too?
12.) I am kinda wishy washy on the model thing now. I am just not sure. It would be cool and cool to get to go to conventions too. Still thinking about it.
Thursday 12-16-2010 – Chris
Subject: Electric Blanket 4: Blanket Statements
1.) I’m on call this week which means… no sleep. Yea!
I’m sort of on call this week, but it’s not really the same thing, so I won’t pretend to feel your pain.
2.) Benedict Cumberbatch… really???
Really. Almost as British as Basil Rathbone.
3.) I am stuck on my version of the Halloween video. I am missing a critical
music cue and I can’t find anything that works. I think I am going to have to
have Miguel come over to help out. Other than that, it’s done.
You mean “Dance Hall Days” by Wang Chung didn’t work? I’ll look at it if Miguel doesn’t make it by in a reasonable timeframe.
4.) I have 3 (which equals 0) in draft now.
Very nice. I knew you had it in you. I have three at least, but I need to put them into the draft folder to make it official. While I’m here at work tonight (even though I will post this in the morning) I’ll do the edits so I can put them in there tomorrow. I’m going to try to stockpile four more extra and start posting on December 27 when the ten-weeks starts, but you can wait until the start of the year.
5.) I just didn’t have much to say on the subject of Zombieland (it’s a short
post).
I’ll perhaps write my thoughts on the movie into the same post if yours is too short, and maybe Miguel and Loren can write their thoughts out too? Maybe?
6.) I am still a ‘go’ with the debt payoff plan for 2011.
This is good. I think it’ll feel rough at first, but I think you’ll find it very freeing after just a few months, and particularly by the start of 2012.
7.) I am going to try to put an image with each of my blog posts.
Ok. I probably won’t, but who knows, maybe I’ll get into the spirit. Although, I was actually going to suggest that at the first meeting of each new ten-weeks in the coming year that we do a picture shoot. Or anytime we can get someone else who is remotely involved in the show together with us we can do one then instead of at the first meeting of the ten-weeks. Basically, five picture shoots, and if at all possible with others who are involved in parts of ATW.
8.) You are still coming over on Thursday?
I haven’t become sick aside from some allergy/sinus action, so if you’re good with that, then yeah.
9.) James wants to come over sometime the week after Christmas. I thought we
might try to have a game day (perhaps Wednesday the 29th?). Let me know when you
are free that week (probably 11-6ish or so).
Ah yes, James, our new full time star of ATW, so that he can submit the show if need be. Ok, maybe not that extreme. My Wednesday schedule seems pretty set at 10 pm to 6 am, unless the holidays throw it all off, so count me in. Otherwise, I’ll have to look at my schedule that week to let you know what other days might be good.
10.) Have you thought about how you will keep up with your 6 pages a day? Maybe
a combo of blog posts and weekly blogs, and stories?
Yeah, and you have it pretty well right, but for the details. I separated things into seven project categories. I intend to write in 500 word bursts, at 30 minutes per burst counting for 7 items on my To Do List, and on most days I will do work on each of those seven projects, though I do reserve the ability to drop projects or put more work on one project than the other if I feel something is not working out as I’d like. Either way, the 3,500 words will fill up six pages in a Microsoft Word file set Normal-Times New Roman-12 font-Justified margins.
11.) I am willing to help you with any sort of co-writing. Maybe we could do a
script too?
Three of the project categories I spoke of work as rotating projects in the same category. I do want to do some journaling, but since I do a lot of journaling in blogs, vlogs, and weekly columns (oh my!) anyway, I figured that I wouldn’t be devoting 500 words to that everyday. So I did figure that one thing I might do is 500 words on scripts, one or more times a week, depending on how much shooting we’re doing. After posting the “ATW: 24 Minutes” script up to the daily blog, I realized that there is a somewhat un-mined resource there for blog posts. I thought about perhaps posting “Flash ahhhh!” in episodes where one week you write and one week I write, but two things halted that thought. The first was that we stopped posting to the daily blog. The second is that the formatting of the original script is not well formatted for a casual reader. What I thought is if you were interested in doing it, I could go through what we wrote, separate it by who wrote what, and change the Cs, Ms, and Ns to Chrises, Miguels, and Nathans. Then add descriptive elements anywhere that would be necessary for a casual reader that wasn’t necessary for a shooting script. If we did this, we could post the new “episode” each Saturday (for instance, or whatever day seems best) and pick a number of “episodes” before we finish it, or we can just keep it going until it finds itself at a fitting end. We can discuss this at the meeting.
There is a joke in “Introduction.” Yeah, just one joke. I’d have to look, because I think I did the set up in part that you’ve read, but the “punch line” is in a chapter that is just notes right now. It actually hints at a project I would like to do one day that your help would be welcome and even preferred on. That might be something we can get to work on after “Introduction” is done.
The thing is that between “Introduction,” “ATW: 24 Minutes,” “Flash ahhhh!,” and various other things, I like writing non-screen stories in the ATW universe. “ATW: 24 Minutes” I wrote in such a way that it could be shot on our current budget, but clearly “Introduction” and the direction “Flash ahhhh!” was starting to take, are not possible with our current resources, but that makes them all the more fun to write them, because knowing that we can’t shoot them, makes me able to do things we can’t do on the show. I would like to do “Flash ahhhh!” in radio drama style when and if it ever gets done, and it might even be fun one day to tackle an animation project, probably something more like the comic strips at the start of the Season One episodes, rather than full animation. But all this is stuff to discuss as we refine our goals. And I do realize that there is only so much we can do this year, so completing Season Two and shooting Season Three will have priority, but depending on how those projects go, we can see about these other things.
12.) I am kinda wishy washy on the model thing now. I am just not sure. It would
be cool and cool to get to go to conventions too. Still thinking about it.
My thought (based on what I think Dave Ramsey would say) on this is what I said while we were wandering down to play Narc. Set aside $1,000 into an account that you can only touch in real emergencies. Do your goal as planned for paying down your credit cards and part of the debt repayment plan. During this, try to save enough money to order the models with cash. I know you’ll have to pay it with a card, but you’ll have the cash to pay the card off immediately. By the time you have done this, I think you will know whether or not you truly wish to buy and sell the models, and it won’t mess up the debt goal.
Electric Blanket the Porn: Don’t Be a Wet Blanket. Coming Soon…