Bored?

I have two ideas for you.

First, go pre-order the new Lucy B. Parker book Vote For Me! by clicking here

And after you've done that, go to Facebook and "like" me on my fan page by clicking here. That way you can be sure to keep up to date on all any breaking news about my life that might occur. (as if).

TV Development 101

For the last few weeks, whenever someone asks me what I've been working on, my answer is always the same: the TV pilot for Lucy B. Parker, and writing out a neverending stream of checks because I'm in the process of BUYING MY FIRST HOUSE EVER (cue applause and a marching band) and, apparently, when you're a homeowner -- or just a homeowner-to-be-- all you do is spend money.

But back to the pilot...

Although before we do that, let me just say that this is not just any house -- this is A PINK BARN that I am moving into. WITH A POND. AND A SEE-SAW. I can't tell you how much I love this place.

But back to the pilot...

(this may be WHY it's taking me so long to write the pilot...because I keep talking about the barn.)

Anyway, so in talking to people about the pilot, a lot of people ask me "So what exactly happens with that?"...and I decided since enough people seem interested, why not write a blog entry about it? Mostly because it's a little more exciting than reading about the mortgage process.

So this is how it all goes down...

When you set up a project at a network, after jumping around with joy about the fact that maybe you'll make enough money to re-do your bathroom in your new house and/or buy nice patio furniture, the first step in the process is to write a detailed outline of the scenes that will make up the script. The reason for this is because if you're the kind of person who doesn't like writing outlines (ie. me) and likes to say things like "I like to find my way into the story as I'm writing the script" (ie. me), what often happens is you end up with a 150 page script when it's supposed to be 50 because that "finding your way into the story" thing can often take a long time. (ie. me. Except I'm exaggerating about the 150 pages, obviously. It's more like 142.)

So once you're done with the outline and have gone over it 23 times to make sure you got all the typos, you send it to your producer(s) for their feedback. The moment you press "send' you immediately feel sick to your stomach and attempt to figure out how to recall it from cyber space because obviously it's the worst thing ever written...in fact, it may not even be written in english...and you can't believe you actually sent it out. After quelling your anxiety with some sort of carb, you calm down and start working on whatever got pushed aside so you could write this treatment that you didn't even want to write because you like to find your way into the story as you're writing the script.

Finally you hear back from the producer(s), with an email that usually begins "FANTASTIC job...just a few notes..." which, when you print the email out, usually ends up being three or four pages of notes. Including a list of all the typos. After you scrape yourself up from off the floor and recover from the fact that you didn't write something that was perfect the first time out of the gate, you revise the outline per their notes and send it back to them. This process can go on for a while. In my case, it went on for a very, very long while. Partly because when you're writing a pilot, you have to set up the characters and the dynamic between them and the premise of show. In like 49 pages which, when you're not the one writing it, seems relatively easy. But when you are the one writing it? Not so much.

Finally it goes to the network and you repeat the process. Except, this time, when you crumple into the fetal position on the floor after you hear their notes, it takes even longer to get up. But you do, because hopefully you have good producers who remind you that it's called the DEVELOPMENT PROCESS for a reason and who suggest you go eat something sugary and give yourself some time to take everything in before getting back to work.

Then, finally, when the network signs off on the story, you write the script. And because you've taken all this time to outline the scenes, the actual writing of the script comes really easy. Like so easy that you're sure you're doing it wrong...and then, when your first draft is almost 70 pages, you realize you ARE doing it wrong. Or rather, that's a very long first draft which means in the second draft you have to, as Dorothy Parker said, "kill your little darlings" and look at all those lines you think are brilliant and hilarious and start slashing away. Finally, after how many drafts it takes to get it to a place where the pacing is working, and the characters are clear, and there are (minimal) typos, you send it to the producers and go through the process you went through on the outline. The good news is that with each round of notes, the time on the floor and the amount of carbs consumed lessens.

Once you hand the script into the network, a few things can happen...either they love it and have minimal notes, or, in some cases, what becomes clear is that the story you've chosen isn't exactly working so you come up with a new one. (When that's the case, you're allowed a lot more carbs and time in the fetal position on the floor). At any rate, if you're lucky enough to write a script that the network loves, then they decide to shoot the pilot episode. Which means they hire a director, and cast it, and then you do even more work on the script and finally finally finally they shoot it. Then, after that, if it comes out well, and the head honchos like it, then it gets ordered to series.

So right now I'm in the script stage with Lucy. Which has been interesting because a lot of the time stuff that works in books doesn't work for TV. It's been a very educational process (read: many carbs consumed and much time spent on floor).

I will keep you posted.

Geek Charming - The Movie!

Let's not talk about the fact that I haven't blogged since Christmas. That's just unacceptable. I'm hoping what makes it more acceptable is the fact that I've been busy writing--both the pilot for Yours Truly, Lucy B. Parker for Nickelodeon as well as my new YA Fairy Tale retelling based on Snow White. (Obviously I don't have a title yet.)

BUT that's not the big news. The big news is that Disney Channel started shooting Geek Charming this week and I'm really excited about the casting -- Sarah Hyland from Modern Family as Dylan, and her real life BF Matt Prokop from High School Musical 3 as Josh. I have to admit bc I've never seen any of the HSMs (I've also never seen an episode of American Idol, Survivor, or Law & Order SUV or SVU or whatever it's called, either) I didn't know who Matt was, but I LOVE Sarah Hyland so I'm very excited about that.

It will be strange to see it. I said to someone last week that it's like giving your child up for adoption and hoping that her adoptive parents don't feed her cereal for dinner every night. I'm sure it'll be great.

It's funny -this morning I was thinking about when I was writing Geek Charming. It was spring, and I was still living in L.A., and I remember all the coffee shops I'd go to. And then I finished the book in NY. I remember being in the middle of it and being so unsure about it - ie. did the alternating chapters work, etc. - et voila - soon it will be on television.

CRA-ZY.

When I've used my words up...

...which, with all the books I've written over the last 5 years, would be often (I've written 8.5. And a screenplay. But who's counting.), I find that getting away from the computer and taking photos really helps me to re-fill the well.

And now that it's the week between Christmas and New Years, and now that I'm snowed in for the day, I decided to do something that I've always meant to do but have never had the time to do -- organize some of those photos on Flickr.

If you click here, you can see them.

Merry/Happy/Bonne/Feliz etc....

....whatever you celebrate, and whenever you celebrate it, I hope it's a joyful, peaceful time and that the new year brings all good things.

As for me, it's Christmas Eve and I'm curled up on my couch upstate with a cat on either side listening to Patty Griffin and thinking about everything that's transpired this year, and how, yet again, although I like to think I'm psychic and know what's going to happen next or that certain things will NEVER EVER EVER change, I was wrong.

And yet...even as I write that, there are certain things that I'm sure about. Like, say, that I'll NEVER EVER EVER get this Lucy B. pilot outline right for the half-hour sitcom that Nickelodeon is developing based on the book series. Or that I won't get all my writing projects done. And a host of other things.

And yet...if what I said in the second paragraph is right, then I'm probably wrong about those things.

It's been a crazy year. Crazy bad with my mom and her brain aneurysm (she's doing great now, thank God). Crazy good with my new house upstate that I get to escape to on weekends and life I'm creating here with amazing new friends. And as I sit here, I think about how next year will bring a host of other things that I won't be able to plan for. People I will meet who I don't even know exist at the moment.

If I could give everyone reading this a holiday gift, I would take away their ability to worry. I would wish them an entire day spent in the mindset that everything is perfect as it is at the moment; that all is as it's supposed to be...

xoxo

Pretty

Let's not talk about how many months it's been since I've blogged.

Instead, let's watch Katie Makkai's genius spoken word video where she talks about the word "pretty."

Wow.

Home

When I was 21 years old, right after I graduated from college, I moved to Los Angeles because I had wanted to be in the movie business. I had been there a few times before, and it always seemed glamorous, and sunny, and the palm trees didn't hurt, either.

So I got there, and I didn't end up in the movie business - I ended up in the TV business and I had a nice run. But LA never felt like home. Because you have to drive everywhere, it was very isolating, and there was no real sense of community and no downtown where you could walk around and be surrounded by people. I made do, but I always wondered what it would be like to leave. Then I got out of the TV business and I started writing. And because I was writing books instead of screenplays, I realized I really didn't have to stay in LA anymore if I didn't want to. The east coast had always felt like home, and as I got older I felt myself being pulled back there more and more. So I ended up moving to New York City. And the moment I got there, I felt like a duck hitting water. It just fit. And I thought "Ohhhh...so THIS is where I'm supposed to be." The nonstop activity, the nonstop noise, the fact that within a space of a block you can hear a multitude of languages and see a cross section of people from all walks of life.

It was home in a way that nowhere else had ever been.

Then, this summer, I started itching to go on vacation. First I thought I wanted to go to the beach and I looked around for a place to rent for a week on the Cape or in Rhode Island. Nothing. Well, stuff, but you'd have to be Stephenie Meyer to afford them. Then, one night at around 11pm I stumbled across a little farmhouse for rent for the month of July up in Columbia County, NY which is about 2.5 hours from the city. And my eyes widened and I just knew that was supposed to be my house. Lucky for me, the people who were going to rent it backed out at the last minute, so when I drove up that Saturday and pulled up and saw that, yup, I was right, it was indeed my house. At least for the month of July.

Every Friday morning I'd go to Penn Station and get on the Amtrak train and in two hours I was in the country. Instead of jackhammers, I heard frogs. Instead of waiting in long lines at Whole Foods, I stopped at roadside farm stands for just-picked blueberries and peaches. Instead of being slammed up against someone on the 2 train, I was driving down traffic-less country roads with cornfields to my right and mountains to my left.

My first weekend here I said to myself "Ohhh....so THIS is where I'm supposed to be, too."

Which, for a girl who had always yearned to live in the big city was pretty funny. But there's this thing that happens as you get older where, without you even knowing how it happens, you just change. And you like the country. And when you think about what kind of car you'd want to buy if you lived in the country, all you can think of is a station wagon.

A STATION WAGON. And I don't even have kids.

Three weeks later I had found my very own little farmhouse. Up on a hill with views of the Catskills to my left and the Berkshires to the right. The first time my realtor took me there, we couldn't get in because there wasn't a key, but just peeking in the windows, I kind of knew it was mine. And then when we went back again, I definitely knew it was mine.

So I finally had a house in the country of my own. And now I needed a car to get me there.

A few weeks earlier, I had met a really sweet guy named Tom. And when I ran into him one evening, I mentioned that I needed a car and if he had any leads or suggestions, I'd appreciate it. Turns out that people call him the Car Whisperer. So Tom, because he's a really nice person, did some research for me and sent me links to things that might be of interest. Totally went above and beyond and out of his way to help me, a person who was almost a complete stranger. Even if I had never found a car, the fact that he did that meant the world to me. My dad had joked "What you need is a car that was owned by an older person that has really low miles on it." So the other day, at Tom's suggestion, I called a dealership and asked if they had anything in my price range. Turned out they had a '03 Subaru with 36,000 miles. I called Tom to tell him and even though the place was about an hour away, he offered to go with me. The fact that he was willing to give up his afternoon and schlep over across the river with me to Kingston was so nice, I could barely wrap my head around it. And because the whole buying-a-car thing freaks me out, I took him up on his offer.

The car was exactly what I wanted, and I'm picking it up today.

AND it turns out that it was owned by a woman who just turned 83.

But even more important than the car, was the fact that because it took an hour to get there each way, Tom and I got to talk a lot and I realized that my initial impression of "I'd like to be friends with this guy" was right on the money. Which is way more important than a car.

Yesterday I went to my new house and spent two hours there with my landlord as he walked me through and explained everything to me. Like the WASHER AND DRYER which is the thing I've missed more than anything since I left L.A. And as we stood in the kitchen - a real kitchen rather than a tiny kitchenette that's in the living room, which is how I live in Manhattan - I looked out into my backyard - MY BACKYARD! I HAVE A BACKYARD! - and I saw a deer. We locked eyes for a second and then he leapt off and went back into the woods. Apaprently there are a ton of them, and they like to come eat the apples and pears from my apple and pear trees (I HAVE AN APPLE AND PEAR TREE!). Plus, there are otters. Which feels so random to me that I'll have to see it for myself. And rabbits. Lots of rabbits.

This photo is the view to the right of my house. If I can't be inspired to write looking at this, I don't know what will work.

Virginia Woolf talked about the importance of having "a room of one's own".

Now I have a house of my own. With a washer and dryer. And otters. And a station wagon in the driveway.