Sci-Fy/Country Mashup!!!

Last week I started a new project that I've been mentally formulating for months now.

It's a Vlog - which means there's less writing involved and more talking.  Of course, since it's me, I spend plenty of time adding written captions to the final edited and uploaded video to make it a little more interesting...

It's king of like being able to read my internal monologue while listening to my external one - talk a out going deeper into the rabbit hole!!!

However - in honor of Independence Day - both the holiday and the super fun Sci-Fi film from the late 90's - I'd like to share last week's broadcast of "Sing It Saturday" where I sang my Sci-Fy parody of a Gretchen Wilson song.

Enjoy!

It's not you...

“What have you been up to lately?”

It’s a question I’ve been hearing a lot of.

After years of virtually ceaseless cyber-pimping and e-whoring, I’ve been mostly offline for the past 8 months or so. 

I just – quit.

I quit lots of things.  Improv, blogging, writing, comedy, indie film… I wasn’t sure why. 

I went from, “I just need a couple weeks to get my head straight,” to, “I can’t do this, and I don’t know how to tell people, and now I don’t want to talk to anyone about anything or do anything or see anyone…”

In all fairness, it’s been a few super crazy years since my last ‘time out.’ 

Sometimes, I just need to put MYSELF in a corner...

 

 

And it’s not like society just gives us a hall pass any time we’re having an existential crisis.  I know – how very ‘first world’ of me – right?

But it’s true.  In the last few months, I’ve received several messages that consist mostly of, “Are you okay? What happened to you?  Where are you?”

No.

I haven’t been okay.  I’m not sure what happened to me and – where am I?  Well, my address is Winter Park, Florida, but I have few friends, no job and now that school is over, I can’t think of one good reason outside of my family commitments to stay.

But going back to Daytona isn’t the right answer either.  The easiest answer is to do nothing – change nothing – go back to being the ‘go to girl’ for a bunch of different people and projects – driving all over Central Florida every day and wondering why I’m not a household name while I’m investing all the precious time I have left on this earth in everyone else’s dreams. 

I’m not saying that other people’s work isn’t important or awesome or exciting.  But I somehow forgot the reason I went back to school in the first place – to strengthen my own brand and gain the credentials that would help me put my own projects first. 

So a few weeks ago, still floundering in my cesspool of ‘what next?’ I got a text from a friend in NYC.  He’s got a rental property that needs a tenant.  And I’ve got a life that needs a new direction.

Sure – it’s cold up there, and 13 years of Florida living has made my blood pretty thin.

Sure, there’s part of me that can’t bear the thought of leaving the family of amazing friends and artists who have worked beside me for years creating comedy, music, and more memories than I ever dreamed possible.

There’s part of me that wonders if maybe I should just stay put, curl up, cash in, call it quits and just use my family as an excuse to not seek anything more in my life.  After all, saying you’re sticking it out to help take care of aging family members is certainly noble, and much less selfish sounding than packing whatever shit you can fit into a tiny Chevy Sonic and taking a huge gamble in the middle of the second act.

But I’ve still got more to do.

You wanna know a secret?  I’m scared.  Possibly for the first time in my LIFE. 

Because in spite of my flippant insistence that I’m immortal and that I can still become a master of the universe, I’m staring down the calendars of life and wondering if I still can manage to squeeze it all in. The happy the relationship, the kids I always knew I’d have, the big budget projects, the glitzy award ceremonies, the hit singles, the international trips, the moments of absolute contentment sitting next to someone who loves and appreciates me enjoying some quiet family time and thinking, “yeah – this is what it’s all about.”

C'mon - with my killer genes it would be a crime not to replicate!

 I can still see it all – you know?  It’s like staring into a snow globe separated from this perfect reality only by glass and liquid and a sheen of swirling glitter.

I try to tell myself that time is all-concurrent and that in another plane of this very existence I already have everything that feels so far away from me now.

But I can’t enter that vision until I shatter the glass.  And breaking things gets messy.  So I guess what I’m saying is, I’m sorry I’ve been a mess.  I’m sorry if I inadvertently caused problems by dropping off the face of the earth.  I’m sorry if you took my recent avoidances personally – because in spite of the tired phrase – it’s not you – it’s me.  And now, it’s time for me to get back to me. 

And there is no better back for me than back to NYC.  I always said I’d be back – so I guess now’s as good a time as any to keep that promise. 

I won’t be leaving until September.  But it’s time to break out of the ruts I’ve been stuck in.  And as for the snow globe world – it doesn’t need to be gold as long as it still glitters…

Suspicions Confirmed...

Apparently I’m ‘unbelievably’ hot and pretty much the ‘perfect’ woman for most men…

I don’t know why I do it, but every once in a while, I find myself sticking my toe into the waters of online dating.  It’s a morbid curiosity that most closely resembles the fascination one has with a freshly dead corpse.

This week’s single’s site? LoveArts.com

It’s based out of the UK, which should have deterred me immediately because I’m really only interested in meeting men who live somewhere along the I-4 corridor between Orlando and Daytona Beach.  But I thought, maybe this site that claims to be for “arts lovers” might be the right place for a girl like me.

First of all – not many of the men on the site seem to be involved in the arts.  Big negative.  But apparently that doesn’t deter them from wanting a woman in the arts because I discovered that I’m a 99% match for most of the men who bothered filling out profiles.  Of course, that’s not hard with discriminating criteria such as “From Anywhere in the world,” “Between the ages of 21 and 50,” and “Any star sign.”  Don’t get me wrong.  I didn’t specify a star sign either – primarily due to my penchant to fall helplessly in lust with Capricorn men, who are my astrological opposite…

Sounds about right...

But to see so many men for whom I’m a 99% match simply confirms what I’ve suspected for years – I AM the perfect woman! (Probably mainly because I am a woman and not just another right hand…)

So – I’m filling out my profile and I get to the all important ‘photo upload’ page and I think, Okay, I’m going to put up a few of my recent professional shots.  I mean, I’m supposed to be putting my best face forward – right?  Not so much…

The administrator deleted all my photos – twice.  They sited the reason as: It is a suspected fake photo. Send proof of ID before uploading it again.  

Yep – apparently I’m too hot to be real…

I had to send an email in which I pasted links to my professional web site, my IMDb page and my blog to ‘prove’ this hot piece of a$$ is fully legit.

How many times do I have to tell you I'm PERFECT???

This served as yet another warning sign that there aren’t many ‘artists’ on this page because actors, models, musicians and comics all have professional “glossy studio” photos of themselves as a rule.

So this morning I discovered I had 12 profile views… By one member – a 55-year-old ‘party animal’ in Malaysia…

SoNNY – if you’re reading this, I’m sorry to say – even though I might be the ‘perfect’ woman for you, I just don’t think we’re a match…

Letting Go...

I suffered extensive first world trauma at the age of 15.  I was on a three-week student exchange in Germany when I arrived a few minutes late for a charter bus trip that I was told “under no circumstances” to be late for.

That particular morning I actually was waiting on my German Host ‘sister,’ but I got a rather memorable comeuppance from my teachers who dressed me down in front of ALL the other students in the middle of bus.

I was sure my reputation was ruined forever, but I learned a valuable lesson that day – “Take ownership for your actions and their outcomes.”

(My excuse of, “It really wasn’t my fault this time,” didn’t quite cut it…)

So I’ve built my life around taking responsibility and ownership and seeing through what I start.  But now I have a new handicap.

I don’t always know when to let go.

Correction – I usually KNOW when – I just struggle with the execution...

I’ve always had a hard time uttering the word, “no,” when asked to do something I don’t want to do.  And I’ve rarely been able to say, “I’m done,” with anything more significant than a tasty dinner.

Peas are God's way of punishing mouthy children...

So two days ago, when a person I really didn’t want to deal with called me and literally demanded that I talk to him, I put him off and told him I’d call the next day.

All the next day, I wondered why I’d told him that.  I didn’t want to talk to him.  And I didn’t want to dive back into a project that I’d finally let go of after three years of investing massive amounts of time and money.

I was done. I am done.  I’m okay with that – so why couldn’t I say it to that dipsh*t when he called me?

Those of us who work in collaborative mediums like filmmaking learn to take a great deal of ownership in our work or it won’t get done.  That’s good.

But when you’re having a staring contest with your phone because you’d rather digest and sh*t out your own tongue than make one more promise to pursue a dead avenue, it’s time to get up from the table, scrape what’s left on your plate into the trash and start over new. 

Dignity AND sign language that is...

We deserve a fresh start from time to time.  Without one, we’d go absolutely insane. So this year, I hope to learn to say, “I quit,” with dignity – and screen my calls better...  

Graduation!!!

Over the last two years, I've been on this crazed, hectic journey to keep up with my regular life all while earning a BFA in Creative Writing for Entertainment at Full Sail University.  It's a very new program and one of only three BFA degrees in the country that focuses on writing for entertainment.

Yesterday at 8:30am, I graduated with four classmates who comprise the first ever on-campus section of the class. (Two online classes graduated before us - whatever...)  As the recipient of the Advanced Achiever Award, I was selected to give the graduation speech for my class.

The opening kind of terrified a few of the faculty members - but over all, it went pretty well...

Wow!  I’d like to thank the Academy, my manager and all my home-girls still shaking what their mammas gave them at the Skyway lounge…  Oops!

*Diablo Cody’s Oscar speech from Juno?  What am I doing with that?

 

Oscar on the horizon? You never know! And I've never been above a little 'foreshadowing!'
*Not REALLY the opening to Diablo Cody's Oscar speech!

  

 

…But in case any of you are concerned – don’t worry.  I could never be the ‘next Diablo Cody’ because I could never make a living in adult Entertainment for one very important reason – as my mother, classmates and ALL my teachers can now attest, I have absolutely no idea how to behave like an adult…

Case in point - Right now someone off stage is checking her notes and saying – uh oh… this is NOT the speech Hillary J. Walker submitted Sunday afternoon.

And she is right.

This isn’t the speech.  I wrote a speech - a solid speech. It was kind of cute in the beginning, gave some shout outs to my classmates, and took an inspirational turn into the home stretch where I thanked everyone responsible for my success.  Ta –Da!

But I realized after I turned it in, that I didn’t want to ‘deliver a speech,’ because I’ve spent the last two years of my life at this school learning to be a storyteller.  So the only fair thing for me to do is to tell you a story.

It’s about a deeply flawed protagonist who came here 10 years ago and really really wanted to make movies on the big screen. But after going on the tour, and even reserving a seat in the film production AS program, she just couldn’t figure out how to make it work. And she knew being a set PA wasn’t REALLY her dream.

So she enlisted in the Army National Guard and became a broadcast journalist. Also – not really her dream.

Then one Christmas, just two weeks after her stupid ex-husband drove away in a glistening yellow pick up truck, her ‘not quite dream’ turned into an actual nightmare when she found out she had cancer in her left big toe.

It’s amazing what a big pain in the butt toe-cancer can be.  In fact it almost killed our hero, but she decided she wanted to stick around – not to stick it to her idiot ex (who totally deserved it), or to even find new love and live happily ever after. She fought to live because there were so many stories living inside her head that she still wanted to tell.  There were so many words she’d never write and worlds she’d never create if she just gave up over one freakishly tenacious toe tumor…

In case any of you are wondering, this isn’t some script I’ve been working on for class.  This is my story.

And eventually, as John Cleese so elegantly said in Monty Python’s Holy Grail – "I got bettah…"

But I didn’t know how to get great – Until two years ago when I came back to tour Full Sail with an old friend who was chasing a new dream of her own. And I found out about the shiny new Creative Writing for Entertainment BFA.

That Sunday afternoon, I saw Garry Jones standing right here on this stage daring me to follow my dream – The very dream that kept me alive during the darkest point in my life.

And that moment I knew that someday I wanted to stand on this stage and dare others to follow their dreams too.

I’m not great yet.  But I made it to this stage.  And thanks to family members who’ve shown me more support than I deserve – thanks to teachers who boldly went where no curriculum has ever gone before – thanks to Program Director Noelani Cornell who has discovered that teaching writers entails more ‘cat-herding’ than a Siegfried and Roy show – and of course, thanks to Garry Jones, who dares each one of us to become the stars he believes we all can be – thanks to each of those people – I know how to get ‘great.’

Allison, Brittney, Micah and yes – even especially Garrett, you know how to get there too.  And I promise to help you each remember that, if you promise to remind me from time to time.

Thank you all for being here today to celebrate with me and the rest of Full Sail’s first ever Campus class to graduate from the Creative Writing for Entertainment BFA program.

Congratulations to all my fellow December 2013 grads! Guys - we totally got this!

Dirty Words...

Revision and Editing.

They used to be vulgar words that violated all I held holy.

In high school I considered myself a One-Draft-Wonder.  And compared to most of my classmates, I was.

Yeah – this sounds cocky, but honestly, it all comes down to process.  Some of us just use different methods of getting from A to B.  If I know a cross-town route that has fewer traffic lights, I’ll take it – even if it’s not quite as direct as your route.  I’ll probably get to my destination in the same amount of time as you.  I had to drive a little further, but I didn’t have to stop as many times along the way.

Can you say, "YUCK?" For me - the fewer of these, the better!

In writing, it’s the same.  I’m a ‘revise as I go’ kind of girl.  I’m also an ‘over-writer.’  When it’s time for me to clean up a first draft, it doesn’t typically require a massive overhaul.  It’s about punching up an image, cleaning up superfluous language and making sure I have the right its, theirs and twos. 

My road from ‘envisioning’ to complete ‘first draft’ is one in which I’m constantly smoothing transitions, rereading what I’ve written and solving problems as I go instead of glossing over them.

I realize not everyone has the patience to write this way.  However, it was the process I developed at a very early age, and it’s served me well. (Except for my 9^th grade English class, which I almost failed because our teacher graded us on ‘process’.)

So the other night, when my BFA Revisions and Editing teacher innocently asked if any of us had experienced writing an initial draft that lived up to our original intent, I raised my hand.  And today, after a couple of hours combing through work trying to find a scene that could use ‘considerable revision,’ I’m writing a blog instead of doing my homework.  Are there things that I could improve upon?  Of course!  But are they fully dysfunctional dead-end scenes with no purpose or clear outcome in dire need of painstaking revision?  Not really.

They are bits and pieces that could be decluttered, trimmed or polished. Atoms within cells. Branches within forests. Planet within galaxies – you get the picture.

I understand the value of the exercise.  I just hope she understands the amount of work it took to get it so close to right the first time…

MORE #SocialNetworking Commandments

You may be reading these online fan base building tips going, "Okay - if you're such an expert how come you don't even have 1,000 Twitter Followers yet?"  

Fair question.  

My biggest struggle is obeying my own Commandments - especially number Four.  Oh number Four... you always get me into trouble...

 THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT

Thou Shalt Be Consistent – especially at the beginning.

I follow a number of named celebrities on Twitter who go sometimes weeks, sometimes months without posting a dang thing.  That’s okay.  I’m going to keep following them because I’m interested in what they post when they post again.  You do not have that luxury. Be sure to post a few times a day. A few equals 3 – 5.  Too many and people will delete you for taking up their whole feed.  Too few and they’ll ‘clean’ their contacts and figure since you don’t tweet anymore, they might as well ‘unfollow’ you.  Sure – there are exceptions.  Tonight I must have posted about 8 posts or so in a one hour span coming up with new #OtherStarTrekFilms.  (The most successful was A SpockWork Orange…)  For an hour, I was part of a community of people I didn’t even know, but I was doing something that reinforced my brand and gained several Retweets and about 6 new followers in one hour.  If I hadn’t checked my Twitter tonight, I would have missed that fun game and the opportunity to connect with fellow Trek geeks!  Good thing I was consistent!

I dare you to tell me this mash-up isn't "Highly Logical!"

THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT

Thou Shalt Do Unto Others…

People follow you?  Follow them back – or at least mention them and thank them for Following.  People comment on a Facebook post?  Like it.  See a blog link from one of your followers? Read it/comment/share - repeat! Why would anyone put out content and ask others to participate without doing the same for them? It shows reciprocal appreciation to those who interact with your posts.  I mean, God has been credited with answering the occasional prayer, and even Ron Howard ReTweets fans – so what makes you too good to respond to the feedback your audience is giving?  Got a friend asking you to join a Band page, Modeling Page or Movie page?  Do it!  Then when you invite them to join your page/read your blog/share your video they’ll be more likely to show you the same support you just showed them.