What have you been up to?

While I've enjoyed posting some of my prose on this blog, it has come to my attention that I haven't told you anything new about what I've been up to in the meantime. A long meantime.

Towards the end of January I had the privilege of joining my family in Arizona for an extended weekend trip to visit my grandparents. It had been about 10 years since we visited them there (they spend most of the year in MN so it's not like I haven't seen them during that time). It was a wonderful experience for me, who is always facing a shortage of family time. We had In N Out, went to a flea market, went hiking and just all around had a good time relaxing and enjoying some rare time together. I also got to see my friend Thomas Finn, who is going to school in Arizona. So that was pretty great too. It was a nice break for me coming off my big rewrite for "Beat" and helped me recharge to dive back into it when I got back to California.

Which is exactly what I did. I've finished 2 more rewrites since I've returned and it keeps getting better. But it wasn't long after I got back that my friend Tim Van De Walker came to visit for two weeks! It was a long visit but Tim is making plans to move to Burbank himself in the next couple months (possibly as early as April 1st) and so it was mostly a functional trip, as opposed to vacation. It is always nice to have Tim around and I am very excited for his impending move.

Not 2 days after I put Tim on a plane back to Minnesota, my mom and sister made their (now) annual pilgrimage to Burbank. It was barely more than a month since I'd seen them in Arizona but it was very good to have them here. As I said before, I am always lacking on family time and this was a wonderful treat anytime of year. My mom makes more money these days than when she was home raising us kids so she seems intent on spoiling me like she never was able to when I was little :)

All in all it's been a good couple of months. No where near enough work still but I've come to terms with it for now and am trying to make the best of it by focusing on writing. I'm on pace to submit my pilot to a contest early next month and I've begun work on a "Modern Family" spec script for contest submission to several contests starting in May. Obviously winning any of those contests would be a huge boon to my career, but I am fully aware that it's more of a crapshoot and not much of a valid career path. But I figure if I have a shot at advancing my career, might as well take that shot, right?

They say that everyone in this town gets their shot at a big break sometime. The problem is that most people aren't ready for it when it comes and miss out. I'm just trying my best to be ready for it, if it ever comes along. If I don't win those contests, I'll still have 2 half hour, single camera comedy scripts (one original and one spec) that will make for a nice pairing if I want to try to get representation. That is also probably a long shot, but no harm in throwing out some lines to see what I can catch.

That more or less sums up the biggest stuff that I've had going on the last two months. I'm nearly finished with "Beat" (good thing too, the contest deadline is in a month) and I'm hoping to start focusing exclusively on my Modern Family spec in the next couple of days. I won't have a terribly long time to work on it and it's the one I'll be submitting to the most contests, so pray for inspiration.

p.s. For those not "down with the lingo", in the TV world, a "spec script" is where you write a script for an existing show to show you can imitate the voice of that show and its characters. It's "on spec" which means you won't be paid for it (and it will never actually be made) but it is an integral part of a writer's portfolio if they want to get into television writing.