A couple of awesome observations about Deadwood

I had to take some time away to deal with something for the last week, but I've dealt with it and now I've got my brain on straight enough to post something. I'd like to thank Buffy and Deadwood for helping distract me from the bad shit on my mind.

Although I loved the hell out of it, I haven't watched Deadwood for some time, but I recently listened to a Nerdist podcast with Timothy Olyphant that was absolutely enlightening. He spend about half an hour just talking about Deadwood and working with Milch.

I think most of us can agree that Deadwood was brilliant, and an unfinished work of art. There are so many great story telling lessons to be learned from that show. I want to talk about two of them.

SOILERS to follow for season one.

One is the development of Ian McShane's Swearengen. If you watch the pilot, Swearengen is a complete fucking asshole. He puts his boot on Trixie's neck for shooting a guy who beat her. He has a man killed because his presence is simply an inconvenience. The next couple of episodes, although you see some humanity in him, it's not much.

And then something happened. We saw him start to care about Trixie. We saw him give a shit about the camp. He came around to the idea that Bullock was an OK guy. And then he mercy killed the preacher.

All of these things softened him to the point that despite his consistency as an asshole, he became more likable. At first you might say, but why should he be likable? Cy Tolliver isn't likable and he's a great character. Let a villain be a villain!

That's what you might have said, but you'd be missing one big advantage of making Swearengen more likable, and that is the humor. As the show goes along, and we find ourselves more comfortable with the man, we find it easier to laugh at him. Ian McShane can play his eye rolls and reluctant sympathy for comedy. It works. Notice how even though they are cut from the same cloth, you never laugh at Tolliver. He's an evil piece of shit. You're never comfortable with him enough to laugh at him even if he makes some of the same jokes Swearengen might have made. But Swearengen - that motherfucker is hilarious. Watch the show. He isn't nearly as funny at the beginning of season one as he is by the end.

So the lesson there is, if you want to play your villain for laughs, he can't be pure evil. You can't laugh at a purely evil man. You have to like him at least a little.

The second thing I wanted to point to was the season one finale - which was a fantastic episode all around - and Alma Garret's relationship with her father. There is a lot of subtlety to be had on Deadwood, but probably never so much as in this one scene.

Alma and her father are along in her hotel room discussing whether or not she's going to give him any money. Alma's father touches her on the shoulder, on the temple, brushes her hair back - never anything else. But her reaction tells us she's extremely uncomfortable with his touch. When she suggests she'll only give him money if he goes away and leaves her alone, he simply smiles at Alma's adopted daughter, Sofia, and says he will do no such thing.

Even before Alma grabs Sofia and runs out of the room, we know exactly what he must have done to her. Nobody ever says Alma's father raped her. They don't have to. We know what he did. We see it all from her reaction and from his unstated threats.

You don't always have to spell shit out for your audience. Most people have seen enough stories that they can read the clues you give them, and they enjoy it a lot more when you lead them to the edge of the truth and let them get the rest of the way themselves.

New new idea

Just the other day I realized I hadn't thought up a new idea in quite a while. I'm booked solid on ideas for a while, but I like being ten ideas deep to be comfortable. And it concerned me that I hadn't gotten excited about a new concept for a few months.

Then I got this idea last night for a new spin on an old story that hasn't been touched in feature form for decades. I was watching a thing on History Channel or Discovery or something and there was like this throwaway line and I just went Oh my god! I suddenly realized there was this story just waiting for me. It's so perfect for me it's ridiculous.

The thing is, on the surface the story's a bit of a western, and we all know westerns aren't really selling like hot cakes, but as I started to do preliminary research and put my own spin on it, I realized there are all kinds of neat non-western directions I can take this. So it could be like a western but not a western.

It's a period piece, but you never know. I think I could pull this off. I have to finish what I'm working on now first, then I'm going back to Burnside for a page one rewrite, but that won't take as long as starting from scratch, so I hope to be working on this new western/non-western thing early next year. And then I'll be set.

Those Chilean miners are going to make a killing on film rights

I heard on NPR that the Chilean miners have all agreed to sign a contract that will allow them to live the rest of their lives without working. I think I was supposed to assume that meant through some sort of lawsuit, but my first instinct was to think of movie and book rights.

So that got me thinking - this will obviously be a movie at some point. So it's quiz time. Who should write it? If you were to write it, how would you approach the material? Because you have to admit, it's a hell of a story.

Also, I hope they all make it out of there okay. That's got to have been the most boring, uncomfortable two months anyone ever spent.

You got to have friends

Last night after going around and around with my script outline so many times I completely lost focus. I couldn't figure out whether I was coming or going or whether or not my idea was any good at all or just another generic piece of crap idea.

I emailed a friend of mine, told him about the notes I already got and the ways I was throwing them around, and then we got on chat and he talked me through it. Like deactivating a bomb over the phone.

By the end of the conversation, I not only had a new direction, but I had a new title and new confidence. Once he thought of the title he refused to let me not change it, to the point where he may track me down and shoot me if I don't. In fact, his title suggestion is so good I'm not going to post it here until I'm done with the script. For now it stays The First Hit: Most Generic Title Ever.

The beautiful part was that besides the title, everything was there in my head. I just needed someone to help me find it.

Everybody needs that one friend who knows how to steer you in the right direction when you're wandering in the wilderness.

Floating in a sea of possible angles

I had this idea that was pretty cool so I started writing up an outline, then I read Horrible Bosses, which has a lot of similarities to my script, so I changed the location from work to somewhere else, which necessitated some changes in the overall story as well.

In the process, I created a whole new protagonist. I went from Emma Stone to - well, not Emma Stone anymore, anyway. Someone more wide-eyed and innocent.

I love the concept and the character I've now created, but I've spent two weeks trying to make this work to no great effect. I finally threw up my hands and asked for help, and so far the help has been helpful. Helpful help.

Whenever you ask for help on a story, everybody always has these directions they'd take it based on things they like, so one of the great tricks of taking suggestions on the idea is to know what's just someone's personal preference and what's the true direction you want to take.

And I think that in order to do that, you have to be open to anything. I always go into getting notes of this kind hoping someone will say one thing that will send me off in the right direction, but sometimes it doesn't happen that way. Sometimes what they say is that the idea you had needs a complete revolution and that the one element of your story you KNEW was right, was, in fact, not right at all.

So I've started toying with some of the ideas I've been given today. Part of me says "NO! That's not the story you want to tell!" and the other part of me says "But this might be an even COOLER story!" and another part of me says "You're a fucking hack and nobody wants to read your stupid story anyway!" and then another part of me thinks "Explosions is the answer. More explosions," and then another part of me just stares at my hair in wonderment of how fantastic it looks when I use that expensive conditioner.

At some point I really hope this all clicks into place, but for now I'm just floating, looking for the glue to hold the puzzle together.

Lake Placid 4: Stubby's Revenge

This year my parents moved to a new house back East and brought with them this corgie you see before you. His name is Stubby on account of his short little legs. Yes, he is cute. He is also one dumb motherfucker.

In this little bitty town there is a swamp across the street from a big lake. In this swamp are alligators. My parents have told me many times that in the history of the lake, not once have the alligators crossed the street into the lake. I am skeptical, but trusting. Two days ago my mom and I drove by the swamp and saw four gators out sunning themselves. I thought is was so cool, I decided to ride her bike down the road to get pictures of them.

Stubby doesn't get out of his pen much, so as I began to ride Mom's bike down the driveway he began his adorable and pitiful barking.

He's dumb as a post, but Stubby's a very good dog and he has no problem trotting around off leash. Besides, this is the kind of town where everybody's dog wanders at will so nobody bats an eye if a cute little corgie wanders hither and yon on his own. My parents don't let him out much though, because their neighbor is a horrible bitch and she has it in for him.

So anyway, could you resist that dog? No. Nobody with a heart could. So I said to Stubby, look Stubby. You will run alongside this bike as I go to photograph the gators sunning themselves in the swamp.

Stubby hates swimming. HATES. Freaks completely out when he's walked anywhere near a swamp or a lake or a pool or an ocean. So I wasn't worried about him going anywhere near the swamp and the gators. I brought along an old short rusty chain link leash just in case he gave me trouble.

So I biked on down the road and he trotted along, occasionally stopping to sniff the foliage. He was happy as a pig in shit.

Along the way I saw this alligator:

Yes the swamp is currently a little overrun with algae.

Now that I've gotten my picture of an alligator I decided to double back and head home. Stubby's very furry and has very tiny legs, and at this point his tongue was practically dragging the ground, so I figured if he could talk he'd probably admit defeat and ask if we could go.

I turned around and started biking, stopping periodically and calling Stubby to me when a car went by. He'd sit there and wait, and then start jogging as soon as the car past.

So we went along like this for a while until one car came along and I called him to me, but he didn't come. He ran into some bushes and failed to reappear. I called again. Nothing. I thought I heard a splash, so naturally at this point I'm convinced that Stubby has been gobbled up by an alligator. Great. I killed my mom's dog.

I rushed over and didn't see the dog anywhere. But suddenly there was frantic splashing, and there he was, down in the water, scraping at the embankment with his mud filled paws.

Stubby decided that neon green water was a lovely drink and forgot that he had short-ass legs.

As I leaned over to grab his forelegs and wrestle him back on land, I thought to myself, this is how horror movies start. This is also how stories about rednecks who die saving their dogs start.

I braced one leg on a tree. I did not look for an alligator because I figured seeking out a green lizard in green water would require too much time, time I could be grabbing this goddamn dog. I pulled his forelegs up and used my right hand to push his butt the rest of the way, then I got the fuck out of there before all that splashing got us eaten.

Naturally, Stubby was filthy and now, so was I. I put that short rusty leash on his filthy neck and walked him and the bike back to the lake. I dragged him in to clean him off, at which point he panicked and splashed his way back to the dock. Once on the dock, he immediately rubbed his face in bird poop.

At this point I threw my hands up and he trotted his furry little ass back to the house, not a care in the world.

I just don't buy indistructable heels

I've got a question for you.

Okay so I'm watching Surrogates because.... I don't know why, really. I knew it would be terrible, and it was. Maybe I watched it because I thought I'd fall asleep and I didn't want to miss something I cared about. I didn't fall asleep, though. I watched the whole thing. It was really really bad.

Periodically during the movie the Beefcake and I began naming other movies Bruce Willis was in that were better than this one. "Hi, I'm Bruce Willis. I was in Hudson Hawk." Like that.

Anyway, that's not my question.

So I'm watching this movie and although I don't like the stuff that's happening, I'm following. I buy the world of people using robots to conduct their day-to-day activities, I buy the science of it, I buy a gun that blasts through robots and fries the eyes of the people behind them. Here's what I don't buy. At one point a cop who is a robot jumps over a couple of cars and lands right on her high heel encased feet.

She jumps super high and lands on a tiny little heel and it doesn't break. And at that moment I threw up my hands. That is just ridiculous. I don't care if they're Clarks or Manolos, there is not a heel on Earth that can take that kind of punishment. Maybe if it's made of adamantium.

So here's my question. Why do you think that is? How is it that I, and no doubt many others, can accept the most ludicrous plot points only to get hung up on petty details? We do it all the time. Why?

The End

My ending is driving me nuts. I've written and rewritten Burnside about three times now, but I still don't have the last 5-8 pages.

I thought I knew. With every single project I've ever started, two scenes are completely clear in my head: the opening scene and the closing scene. I rarely change a word of either once I've written them.

This time I knew exactly what my opening scene was to be. It's sort of an homage to the rooftop chase scene in Crouching Tiger, where my character bounces off walls and causes damage in the middle of the night, and that has remained as is from day one.

But that damned ending.

This is the first time I started a project without 100% certainty about the ending. I knew someone had to die because someone always has to die in those films, but I didn't know who. Then I realized my male lead was just like a real person who lived in the era and place where I have set my story, so I made him into my lead. That means my female lead has to die.

But then I couldn't do it. I mean, I did it, but it was terrible. I knew something wasn't right and I knew I needed help. My first set of notes said the death didn't work and it needed a happy ending. I rejected that notion. No happy endings here. Crouching Tiger didn't have a happy ending. Hero didn't. House of Flying Daggers didn't. I can't give my lovers a happy ending; that would be ridiculous. A new ending, sure, but not happy.

But then I went to rewrite the ending and after I deleted it I just sat there. I started thinking too much. Maybe I should have a happy ending. What if they both live? Wait, am I only thinking that because it's the note I got, or is that truly a better idea? Will I be selling out my story if I don't kill my protagonist? Am I losing my edge? Is this the end? Should I move back to Fuquay-Varina?

I got a second set of notes, but this time, instead of writing an ending I wrote three alternate scenarios and asked the note-giver to help me choose. He agreed with the first guy that I shouldn't kill my protagonist. Okay, so maybe letting them both live is okay. This is an American version of those martial arts films, after all; maybe the American way is to live. But does that mean they should live? Do we really need these shiny, happy stories? Can't we have a good tragedy anymore? But should this be a tragedy? It can be bitter sweet, after all. They can live but not be together. Maybe she lives but she's blind now or something. Chinese people dig the blind. Dammit, I don't know.

I don't believe in writer's block, dammit. This is a setback, a minor setback. I will figure this out and then it will be glorious and I will not go back to Fuquay-Varina I will conquer Hollywood.

As soon as I figure out what happens next.

How much can we lie?

Ever since I heard a cool story at Alcatraz I've been working on researching a screenplay I want to write that takes place there. I bought a book on the island about Robert Stroud, the Birdman, the subject of the film Birdman of Alcatraz. I read the book, which was largely a scholarly examination of his life in as accurate detail as possible. Then I watched Birdman of Alcatraz.

In a college French class, I decided for my project I would research the Three Musketeers and see how close the novel came to depicting true events. Eh. Kind of close. Then I watched the Disney movie. That film couldn't have had more contempt for historical accuracy if it made the Musketeers Portuguese aliens living on Orion's belt. I'm not sure anyone involved with that film actually read the book.

The Three Musketeers was a much bigger violation, but Birdman of Alcatraz takes a lot of liberties with the truth in order to make the guy look like a hero. Did you know he was not only gay, but wrote kiddie and incest porn and passed it around to all the prisoners? Of course you can't have a gay would-be pedophile as your star in 1962 so you have to give the man a love story, created from a real relationship he had with a woman he manipulated to his own ends. In the film he seems quietly heroic, but in real life he was an asshole who felt like everybody on earth owed him because his daddy didn't love him.

And because this film made Stroud look like such a great guy unjustly treated by the evil inhuman prison system, people made a big hullaballoo about getting him out of prison. Because of this film, people wrote angry letters and he was very nearly released into our midst - a man who murdered two people and didn't feel the least bit bad about it.

We take liberties with history. Hell, I'm doing it right now in my current script. We have to be able to do it because nobody wants to watch a movie about a murderous pedophile who uses everyone who cares about him and stinks up his cell with bird poop. It's hard to root for that guy. So we change things. They didn't change the story too much in the film; the events are fairly accurate. But they changed the man's entire personality.

So I guess the question is, how much should we change things? Should we be able to change a man's entire character? Should we be able to make the impossible possible? What do you think?

Stories the kids are telling these days

It is once again the end of a semester. When you teach in year-round school you get a lot of ends of the year. This time I have the added bonus of grading papers while I finish the yearbook, but fortunately I have an amazing staff that has its shit completely together so all I have to do is proofread, double check and send in pages. For the first time I won't have to take home work for the vacation.

As for the papers I have to grade, I've finished everything except a set of short stories that was the culminating project for my 11th graders. They wrote some pretty neat stories, and three girls actually teamed up to write different stories about the same characters. I've never seen that before. They came up with a love triangle and each girl wrote a story from the perspective of a different person in the triangle. There are some inconsistencies - how a character dies changes from story to story and not in a way that it was simply a perspective issue - but it was still kind of cool when I realized I was reading about the same characters.

The main problems this time around are 1) way too much passive voice and separation of character from the action and 2) showing not telling.

By "separation of character" I mean that they keep saying things like "His face appeared to be angry" instead of just saying "He looked angry." Of course the better way would be to describe a scene in which we saw the anger, but despite my harping on the subject, a lot of kids still don't get how to do that.

Still, there's some good stuff here. So far I've had two rapes, three suicides, one drug overdose, one molested 9-year-old, a teenage pregnancy and one vampire. And I've only graded six stories.

I saved for last the one girl in my class who is just a fantastic writer. Everything she writes is above and beyond anything I've seen from these kids before. Hell, she's way better than I was at that age, and she admits she's thought about being a writer. Still, she seemed really pleased and surprised that I praised her stuff so much. I hope she writes some best selling novels. Maybe she'll let me option them for a dollar.

Easy research

I like hanging out with new people because when you hang out with new people you learn new things. Everybody's an expert on something.

I've dated a geologist and a rock musician and a welder and an aspiring stunt man and a guy who didn't have any hobbies at all, but for most of those people I was able to learn lots of interesting things. I saw Dante's Peak and a bunch of shitty emo bands I had to pretend I liked and did not weld anything but I zapped myself in the leg with a stun gun and sat around and did nothing.

And now Beefcake has the most interesting hobby so far. I don't have to fake interest like I did with the emo bands.

Beefcake is into a particular type of contest I didn't really know anything about before I met him, but now he's exposing me to it on a regular basis and I am fascinated.

But the coolest thing about this is that NOBODY has mined this area for stories. Before Christmas I looked all over for a movie or book on these contests to give him and I came up with a big goose egg. Actually that's not true. There's one ghost written autobiography nobody's ever heard of and one shitty looking amateur documentary.

The field is wide open, my friends. Wide fucking open.

The problem when you write about contests, though, is avoiding the obvious story cliches: the big come-from-behind victory or the Rocky I-just-proved-I-could ending. Redbelt managed to get around that by being a story about a man whose mission was to avoid the ring entirely. I need to find something like that, something that makes this unlike other movies about a competition.

My plan is to let it come to me. I'm still fixing Not Dead Yet and after that I'll be fixing Fear of Clowns so I have some time before I can start working on this. (I'm putting the vampires away indefinitely because I have a feeling we are about to be inundated with vampire scripts.)

In the meantime, I'm going to go to at least two more contests and visit the players while they train and listen and learn. And I'm hoping something will click and suddenly there it will be: THE STORY.

See, this is how you do it. Write about a topic on which your boyfriend is an expert and the research comes to you.

My tragic fake love life

Lately, instead of watching Bridezillas marathons to procrastinate on writing, I have started playing video games. The Beefcake got me a Wii for Christmas and was impatient to play it so I already got it and bought Zelda and Mariokart and Mortal Kombat.

But today's game was Fable 2 because Beefcake also has an XBox. Let me tell you about my day on Fable.

On Fable you become a hero - in my case a sexy lady in an awesome coat - who travels around saving people and/or killing people and solving a mystery from your childhood. And along the way you can change your clothes and hair and get tattoos and get married and make babies and buy a house and put furniture in it.

I married my first husband when I was still very poor. He was a traveler and I passed him on the street and he said I was hot so we got hitched. Then I took him home to my Gypsy caravan and left him there with $20 a day and a sleeping bag on the floor.

And then three months later when I came home he left me in an angry huff.

So I decided I'd treat my second husband right. Howard was a bookseller who was shy about telling me he thought I was hot with my crossbow and my iron mace and my body tattoo. Yeah, we were different, but I like a man with smarts. He helped me find some dog training books and the attraction was clear. I bought a two story house in town and put a nice new bed in it and we tied the knot.

But even though I bought two condoms from the general store he still wouldn't have sex with me. I bought him flowers and whistled at him and even bought a lute so I could play him some music, but he still wouldn't put out even though he kept giving me health potions and saying he loved me.

So I decided to take him to his favorite place - some lake just outside of town - and see if that got his libido going, because a woman who kills as many wasps as I do needs a little nookie and I gave that man a house and a ring already.

We warp to the lake and he's all excited and he finally opens up, and it turns out old Howie really wants to buy the shop one day and start a family. Where I had been eager for a little shy guy sex, I now thought maybe I should come home to this guy more than I was planning to. Maybe I'd even buy him a nice bookcase for the house.

Then we rounded a corner and ran into some bandits, so I whipped out my mace and mowed them down. And just when I declared victory and collected my magical experience points I turned around and Howie was dead.

If that was a movie I'd be all crying and shit. But that was a video game - a VIDEO GAME. I've seen films that don't have plots that good.

I just thought that was cool and wanted to tell you guys.

My semi annual rant about Stargate Atlantis

Dammit, Stargate Atlantis!

Okay I'll have to be quick because the laptop's going to burn out shortly.

SPOILERS FOR THIS WEEK'S EPISODE


Stargate Atlantis always has fantastic ideas and lackluster follow through.

For example, this week's episode.

What is the one thing Rodney McKay is most afraid of? Being stupid. So this week they took his brain away. Know how I know he got stupid? Because he made video tapes where he sat in a room getting stupider. He talked about being stupid.

RULE NUMBER ONE - SHOW, DON'T TELL.

There's a scene where Rodney talks to John about how Zelenka needed his help figuring something out but Rodney didn't know how to do it and he felt so stupid. Yeah, you know what would have cost exactly the same amount of money to film? Rodney actually failing to fix the device and feeling useless and stupid and frustrated as a result. We could have seen how upset he got when he tried and tried and failed. And our hearts would break.

Instead he just acts more mentally retarded every moment without any outside force. He's not trying to DO anything, he's just getting generally slower.

And in the end he helped solve the problem by temporarily getting his brain back. It was a wasted opportunity. Zelenka is always a reluctant second fiddle to Rodney and they both know it. What if Zelenka decided he was going to figure out how to save him but then he couldn't? I can just see the scene where Zelenka breaks down, apologizing to Rodney over and over for the fact that he's not smart enough to save him.

But nope. They took the less interesting route of throwing the main cast members in a cave with some Ancient technology, the way they always do.

Come on. It was a terrific idea. In fact, that's what keeps me watching the show - all those terrific ideas. But it just seems like week after week what started as the perfect scenario becomes a series of expository scenes that stay on the easy side of story.

I mean, for crying out loud, Rodney used to be in love with Sam, and then she became his boss. And now she's gone and they never even had an episode where it was an issue. And last week when a crazy deadly virus spread throughout the city, new mom Teyla never stopped to worry that her baby would get the virus. That could have been an interesting scene. Just think how crazy a new mother can be in the face of a danger to her baby.

Missed opportunity after missed opportunity.

Dammit.

Kill. Kill. Kill.

At the school cooking class last week they made these awesome nectarines filled with amaretti and baked. I thought I could reverse engineer the recipe and make my own because I'm a pretty good cook.

I think I'm gonna be sick now. Note to self - next time ask the damn cooking teacher for the recipe.

While I was making and then eating my unfortunate stuffed nectarines, I watched this week's Eureka. Whoa.

SPOILERS AHOY

The love triangle has been getting old. This season began with a glimpse of a possible future with Jack and Allison in love and building a family. But that future is not to be, because she's back with her ex Nathan. And in every episode it was becoming kind of a stagnant situation. The only way to push the story forward is for something in that dynamic to change - a new love for Nathan, a new love for Jack, or somebody has to leave. It ain't gonna be Jack.

I can see why they let Nathan go, but I did not see that coming at all. But one of the big challenges is how to let someone like that leave the show. They hinted last year that he might leave and go to another city, but that didn't happen and I'm glad that didn't happen. Because when you're working on a sci fi show where people are constantly getting fried or eaten or obliterated by their own creations, eventually one of the main characters has to get it. You shouldn't waste a good opportunity to kill somebody.

And hell, on a sci fi show you can always make up and excuse to bring them back.

What was great about this particular death is that it genuinely moved me. Nathan pulled a Spock maneuver and was every bit as logical about it. And he went out with a smile. I also liked that these two guys didn't need to say anything - they both understood the score.

When Jack tells Allison what happened, he also needs to say nothing. There's lots of unspoken stuff going on here. I mean, really, considering they were using the oldest sci fi trick in the book - the time loop - they really made it work.

END SPOILERS

Compare that with Smallville. One thing that always bugged me about the first three seasons of Smallville was that nobody important ever died. They kept almost killing Chloe, but after a while that threat was kind of useless because you knew they wouldn't actually kill off one of their leads.

But then they got rid of Pete. Remember how they got rid of Pete? He mumbled something about his mom and moved to another state.

On a sci-fi show. About Superman. He moved away.

Now I know they're pros and they make a crapload more money than me and I would kill to have their jobs, but I can't help but feel like they wasted a perfectly good opportunity to kill off a major character, which would have showed us what they were willing to do and given Clark a new outlook on mortality and his place in the world.

Joss Whedon killed off one of the leads in the middle of the first season of Angel. After that, all bets were off. You knew anybody was game, and it made the suspenseful moments much more powerful.

You really can't be afraid to kill people if you want to make us feel something. Thanks, Eureka, for continuing to be awesome.

An accidental moment

I accidentally stumbled on a brilliant teaching moment today.

I've been teaching my 11th graders the basics of story. Tomorrow they're interviewing a guest speaker so they can learn how to write a biographical article, so I was going over what kind of questions to ask an interviewee.

One of the things kids tend to do is ask really simple questions - Where were you born, how old are you, etc - or really general questions - what's your life like?

So I was trying to show them that you needed to ask the right questions. I asked one of my more obnoxious children, "What's your personality like?"

And he faltered and said, "I'm always happy."

So I said, "Is there a moment in your life that illustrates how you're always happy? A story you could tell that would show us that element of your personality?"

See, I was thinking I'd show how when you ask general questions the interviewee doesn't really know how to answer them.

But the boy threw me a curve ball.

"When my brother died," he said. "I wasn't sad. I didn't cry. I was happy."

We looked at him, silent. His eyes were getting a little red and wet.

"I was happy because he's in a better place."

We stared at him for a minute.

"Wow," I said. "Thank you for sharing that."

Then I turned to the class.

"Do you see the difference? How when he just says he's happy it's not nearly as effective as what he demonstrated when he told us about his brother?"

I got a chorus of emphatic "yesses" including his from all over the room. And for the first time when I had the kids write down the eight questions they plan to ask my guest speaker tomorrow, I had a really good set of lists.

Tales of the Olympics

The other night in the Olympics the men's swim team won a relay over France by like a split second. I had to go to bed so I missed it, but I already knew what happened because every freaking body was talking about it, including Yahoo who had it on their front page so when I went to check my email - there it was.

Okay look, East Coast. We in California, Oregon and Washington have to wait for that shit. And that incredible moment of suspense was robbed of us by your ignorance of our time zone's difficulties. So stop spoiling shit, okay?

Because Olympics is just one cool story after the other. Like that little kid at the opening ceremonies who rescued other kids from the earthquake because he was the hall monitor and "that was his job."

Or the guy from Togo who beat all odds and expectations to win the bronze medal in white water rafting, or the chick with an amputated foot who still managed to make it to the games.

My favorite story ever you may remember. In Sydney there was a guy from Equatorial New Guinea who was not only not an Olympic level swimmer, but he could barely swim at all. He was swimming in his qualifying heat one early morning with a smattering of people in the crowd and the other two unimpressive swimmers jumped the gun so they were disqualified, which meant he had to swim alone.

So the guy started down the lane okay but gradually started to get slower and slower. And as he came to the middle of the lane it was obvious he was hurting. The people in the audience started to cheer him on. He kept swimming against his body's will. The people began to stand, chanting and yelling. He made it to the end of the lane.

He slowly turned his body and started the long swim back. By now the audience was entirely on its feet hollering, excited. He stalled in the middle of the lane and it looked like he wouldn't make it, then he mustered up the energy and pushed his body for one last half a lap. And he made it. And the crowd went wild. It was one of the best things I've ever seen in sports.

Personally I only like watching the sports that come with stories. And I wouldn't be surprised if six months from now we start seeing a bunch of sports script pop up all over town. On the WEST coast.

My imaginary festival

After Diablo Cody did her whole thing at the New Beverly where she got to have her own weeklong festival, old Lazy Eye decided to challenge the rest of us to plan our own imaginary film festival: two movies a night for a week.

I waited patiently to be tagged but nobody is tagging me so I will have to invite myself to the party.

Here's what I like to call Emily's Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Festival:

Monday
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Three Days of the Condor
I never used to watch old movies. I thought they were boring, but then I suddenly discovered they weren't all about well-dressed socialites sitting around drinking tea when I saw Robert Redford on the run. I love Condor's fight scenes and how this is a guy who doesn't really know how to fight so he has to use his survival skills. These aren't clean martial arts battles.

Tuesday
Once Upon a Time in China
Hero
Speaking of clean martial arts battles, I am completely in love with the crazy Chinese flying shit. I waver between House of Flying Daggers and Hero, but I love the way the theme is reflected in every single moment of Hero, right down to the use of color. And Once Upon a Time in China is just badass. The first time I saw that movie I fell totally in love with Jet Li and I will still watch anything he's in, Chinese or American.

Wednesday
Die Hard
Lethal Weapon
Duh. I mean, how can you have an action movie festival without including the two films that sort of defined the genre. These two movies make me cream my pants a little when I watch them on a big screen. I love you, Shane Black!

Thursday
Serenity
Galaxy Quest
Space. The awesomest frontier. I gotta show love for Joss and the beautiful pic that is Serenity. And I probably quote from Galaxy Quest three times a day. It's hands down my favorite comedy of all time.

Friday
Batman Begins
X Men 2: X Men United
I know we're being a little oversaturated with superheroes these days, but I still love both of these films. To me, X Men 2 is exactly what a superhero movie should be - thematic, fun, moving. The whole scene where that military team busts up into the house and Wolverine goes ape shit is just supercool. And Batman is just so dark and gritty and full of the hotness that is Christian Bale.

Saturday
The Matrix
Pitch Black
They don't really have a lot in common other than being futuristic action flicks, but these two are at the top for me in all time greats so I'd want to close my week with them both. The Matrix was just so new and different and wall to wall eye candy. And Pitch Black surprised everyone by being about way more than scary monsters in the dark. It's a shame both films had to have sequels, but I still love them for the way they make those action scenes count.

Love Journals

I keep a journal. Do you keep a journal? I'm not talking about a blog. I'm talking about a little book I update once a week or so with thoughts about boys and stuff. Mostly boys.

In class I sometimes make my kids write journals. Through these pages I learn a lot about the way teenagers think about relationships.

This is a typical girl's journal:

Day one: In ten years I will be married to Anthony and we will have three kids. I'll be a lawyer and I'll live in Beverly Hills and drive a BMW....

Day two: My biggest pet peeve is my ex-boyfriend Anthony. I dumped him yesterday but he keeps calling me...

Day three: My favorite thing in the world right now is my boyfriend Eric. Eric is the best guy ever...

Day four: If I had a million dollars, I'd buy a car.

And this is a typical boy's journal:

Day one: In ten years I'll be traveling around the country banging a different girl every night...

Day two: My biggest pet peeve is girls. They're so stupid...

Day three: My favorite thing in the world is my new girlfriend Sylvia. She's so beautiful. I want to marry her and make a million babies with her.

Day four: Sylvia is the most amazing person ever. If I had a million dollars I would buy her a house and a car. And I would arrest her ex-boyfriend because he keeps coming around. He says she slept with the whole football team but that sounds stupid because she is amazing and she tells me how to be a better person so I love her. If it weren't for her I'd still be hanging out with my bad friends...

So in case you ever want to write about teenage relationships, keep that in mind.

Leave Samurai Jack alone

I'm showing the pilot episode of Samurai Jack today in my 11th grade class. Yes, it is relevant. I'm using it to demonstrate the hero's journey and the whole principal of "show, don't tell" and also I am sleepy and don't have the energy to talk to hyper teenagers right now.

So I'm showing Samurai Jack. And that is why I love my job.

I figured most of the kids had never heard of the show, but the second I pulled it out one kid was like "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! That show's BORING." And that set off other kids who were like "Really? I don't wanna watch something Boooooooriiiiiiiiiing........."

So I told them we'd either watch Samurai Jack or do some worksheets. They opted for the show but I was just bluffing. I don't have any worksheets.

Most of them are now watching intently anyway.

Anyway, I was thinking about how attached people get to things they love. I love this show, so when a kid says it's boring and gets all whiny about it I kind of take it personally.

And just about everybody does that. Whenever someone says your favorite movie sucks, you probably get all mad and defensive. But it's not your movie - it's not like you labored over it for years or anything, but you still get all bent out of shape if somebody doesn't love it. I know I do.

Why do we do that?

Young storytellers

My semesterlong project for my juniors is to teach them to write a short story. In the process of writing the story they learn story structure and literary terms and read essays about technique and write similar essays. And at the end of the semester they each have a shiny new story to bind in construction paper and keep forever and ever.

I've done this once before but I didn't focus too well so the stories weren't quite as good as they could have been. This semester I'm determined to make them awesome.

Now in the years I've been teaching at my school I've seen some pretty slack behavior. They do NOT want to do any work. For every assignment they will find a way to distract you and lollygag until they run out of time and then turn in some little piece of crap paper with a couple of loosely scribbled sentences on it.

Today I gave them a character development sheet I stole from my screenwriting group and gave it to them. They had one class period to create a character and give him or her backstory based on the traits I listed.

And I tell you what - rarely have I seen a class full of teenagers have so much goddamn FUN.

They were yelling out names to each other to see if everybody liked them. They were making people stand up so they could measure them to see what was an appropriate height for a boy. They were reading their descriptions aloud to each other to get pointers. They were checking their spelling, looking up words in the dictionary, asking questions. At one point a girl yelled out "I thought this would be easy but this is HARD!"

It was the most beautiful thing I've seen so far this year.

And at the end of the day, NOT ONE KID failed to do the assignment. That may not sound crazy, but at my school that's a fucking miracle. And now they're going to take those characters and beat them up. It's gonna be awesome.