Well, this is a particularly tough transition from the weekend to the work beginning since it’s Daylight Saving Time (three weeks early, no less ) and that means getting up for work an hour earlier. The morning’s going to be rough. I can already tell. I’ve been trying to get myself out of bed earlier so that I can work out in the morning, but it usually ends up with me getting up just long enough to walk across the room to turn off my alarm and then diving back into bed. Alas. I better delay brew some coffee while I’m still up tonight.

Anyway, this weekend has just put me in high spirits in terms of my writing career. Not that anything substantial has happened. I’m still waiting to hear back about my screenplay, by the way. Hopefully it’s good news. I’ll keep you posted. I’m feeling good about my career because I’m out there trying to make stuff happen: setting up meet-and-greets, writing reviews, networking, what have you. For my fellow writers who have to maintain their day job, I think that’s really the key to keep your creative career from stagnating: keep the future full of things to look forward to.

As for me, I’ve just registered for a two-day seminar in LA for getting financing for films. The seminar is aptly called Get Your Film Funded 2008. It looks like it’s going to be chock-full of insight into a part of the industry that I think most writers - if not most everyone - are particularly clueless about. Of course, there’s a pretty hefty registration fee ($250 - early bird discount/$350 - regular admission), so I was a little wary about signing up. But, as I was telling someone on a writing forum I pop by on once in a while, networking with another aspiring filmmaker who gets discovered and takes me along would definitely be worth the price of admission. Also, I was telling one of the VPs at work about it and he offered to chip in half my cost. With that, I really had no excuse not to go. It’s at the end of this month, so I’ll fill you all in with what I learn.

If you decide to go to this thing, drop me a line. I’d love to network with you.

Until then, keep writing.

I hate to harp on this, but I’m not doing a very good job at blogging. And now, I can’t even blame work, since there really isn’t that much to do - comparatively anyway. The fact of the matter is, I just haven’t been inspired to write. Before, I was living hand-to-mouth, spending my paychecks on living expenses almost as soon as I got paid. Ever since Christmas money and tax refunds have rolled in, I’ve been able to get a little ahead and have some petty cash left over for needless expenses like graphics and sound cards from my PC. It’s got me going through this gaming kick and now I’ve gotten myself a little obsessed. Unfortunately, getting back into PC gaming has more drawbacks than time constraints. I’m also being reminded of all the bugginess and hardware incompatibilities I used to have to deal with. What I especially love is how everything is incompatible with Windows Vista! If you have a Sound Blaster Audigy card on you XP rig, you will be charmed and delighted to find that your 5.1 will break on Vista. You’ll have to set your output to 2.1 or you’ll be missing some channels. It’s really weird. You could, of course, upgrade to an X-fi card - like I did - to restore your surround sound.

What really gets to me is that I upgraded to Vista to play one game in particular: Bioshock. I come to find out that Bioshock (BS) crashes to BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) every five minutes on Vista. Sadly, you need Vista to run any game in DirectX 10, which has all the new bells and whistles that we game enthusiasts crave. When I contacted 2K Games about a possible solution, their tech guy advised that I run the game in DirectX 9, totally defeating the purpose of making the game for DirectX 10 and me upgrading. So let’s see, I’ve spent:

• $200 for Vista Ultimate to run DirectX 10
• $250 for 8800 GT video card to play in DirectX 10
• $150 for X-fi sound card to restore my 5.1 in Vista
• $40 for Bioshock

And now I can’t even play the freaking game, because the crashing is so aggravating - even in DirectX 9. I think this is God’s way of telling me I need to focus my time on something more productive.

With that said, a cousin of mine and I have been talking about producing a short film. I can’t discuss the concept yet, but it’s on the funny side. We met with a possible director and I thought the meet went pretty well, but we’re still open to bringing other people on board. Once my cousin gets back from Japan, we’ll have a sitdown with my other director buddy and see how everything jells.

In other news, I recently found out that my friend, The Mormon, works with someone at his restaurant with industry ties. I’ll keep the guy’s identity on the QT for now, but the important part of this story is that he’s willing to read my screenplay and see what he can do with it. This just goes to show that you never know who knows who, so network with everyone. When you’re starting out, there’s less room to be picky with your friends when your writing career is concerned.

More soon.

(Entry redacted for career reasons. If you know me, gimme a call and I’ll give you the scoop.)

Man, I’m beat.

I’m not sure if it’s because I shocked my deltoids tonight or because the marketing and sales department burst out in a fit of sporadic fall cleaning at work today. And if you’re joining the party late, I’m in the marketing department. Somewhere, someone high up (probably even the highest) decided that these two departments needed to be organized today. And I guess that meant vacuuming, dusting and general emptying of trash from drawers. The Executive Vice President was right next to us, digging through the refuse of empty cubicles. She apparently found Chiclets gum in one drawer. My parents used to eat chew that brand back in the 80’s. I didn’t know it was still in production.

Anyway, so here I am. I’m tired. My eyelids are heavy. But I refuse to sleep, probably because I’m masochistic. I think, also, that this is what you need to do if you’re going to get anywhere in the creative industry. Sure, you could be amazingly talented and be discovered with minimal work or you could just get lucky and catch someone’s eye who’s feeling whimsical. Barring those two circumstances, I think your best bet is to maximize your “off-time”: the time after you come home from your day/night job. Depending on what you do, I think it’s all too easy to just come home and veg in front of the TV or on the Internet and let your life pass you by. Thankfully, writing is my relaxation. So while I still haven’t shelled out the cash for satellite TV (all they offer at my complex), I haven’t felt it at all. Moreover, I’ll be able to weather the writers strike better than most who’ll have to deal with reruns.

Anyway, I find that I’m in a unique position now in my career. Before, I had a day job that wasn’t related to writing in the least. That meant spending my off-time looking for a writing job, which prevented me from taking gigs that didn’t pay. Sure, I took a few non-paying gigs here and there to build up my portfolio, but for the most part, I looked for steady, paid writing work. Now that I am a professional writer (God, that sounds so weird in my head), I’m feeling the itch to get back out there in the freelance world just to get some creative stuff going again. More importantly, I want to get my name out there, as well. So, if you’re a fan of those small-time, free, regional magazines out in LA, look for my work.

Follow-up on the whole Scab Writer thing: I was chatting with a literary agent Online last night and she warned me about being blacklisted by the WGA if I did that. She’s not sure about the legality of it all, but I’m sure they could make it very difficult for me to find work after the writers strike blows over. That’s the last thing I want.

One more thing, I’m gonna be in Los Angeles this Sunday around 6:00 p.m. or so at a screenwriters’ seminar. It’s offered through ScriptShark for free to their customers. It’s supposed to go over the business side of screenwriting, like agents, query letters, etc. They’ll probably try to market software and other classes or whatever to me, as well. We’ll see. If you’ve been invited to this shindig too, drop me a line so that we can meet up. I hate going to these things alone.

I lied. Here’s the real last thing: If you use Facebook, add my page!

Well, here we are again, folks! René Garcia has another brand-spanking-new Web site! Yeah, I know. You’re all probably tired of following me from site to site, so luckily, this will more than likely be my final “professional” site. My last site, www.writinginthedark.net, was a little off putting, I found. I’d tell people my domain name and they immediately thought I was some arm-cutting-emo-kid or something. Besides, this is a .com to boot. No more pride-swallowing .net for me!

Anyway, for all the new visitors, this site is meant to do several things: It should showcase my writing and artwork for prospective employers. It should share the writing lifestyle with would-be writers and those who are just curious. Lastly, I hope this site also gives everyone a chance to get to know me. At least a little bit.

I’ll try to keep it upbeat around here and post relevant news items I come across that I feel like bloviating about. Just keep in mind that if we ever meet, I probably won’t be anywhere near the ray of sunshine I’ll most likely come across as here.

With that said, thanks for stopping by and I hope you come by again. For now, forgive the dead links. I’m getting to them.