Wow, that last post has been up for a while! Heck, I’m getting sick of seeing it there myself. Things have just been a little hectic for me. That and I’ve been allowing myself to be distracted by video games. I think I like them so much because they are instantly gratifying, unlike writing, which can take forever before I’m satisfied with the finished product.

Current Projects: Update 3

Unfortunately, I’m still working on my sysnopsis for the Quadrilogy project. I’m trying to keep within three pages, but there’s a lot going on in the script and it’s difficult to be concise without laying down the foundation for the different beats. I should have it done this week. To be honest, I feel kind of bad for the delay. All this time I’ve been bitching about how no one’s going to discover me and here I’m presented with an opportunity to do something about that and I’m dragging my feet. I remember when I first started out writing the screenplay. I’d come home from an 8-hour day job and work another 8 hours on the script. And I was happy to do so! I think it’s because I wasn’t too happy with my job at the time. I was grateful for the work, but it wasn’t the career I wanted, you know? When it comes down to it, being uncomfortable is the ultimate motivator.

No Movement on Joel Silver

On a related note, Joel Silver never contacted me. Someone searching for Joel Silver ended up on my site the other day and browsed through several blog entries and written works, finally ending on my Contact page, but he/she never emailed me. The IP address was located in Los Angeles, but didn’t come from Silver Pictures. I did have someone from Google search for Beowulf, however, and that’s a company I’d love to work for!

Work, Writing, Etc.

Work is going well. They’ve promoted me to a full-fledged copywriter, dropping the superfluous “Jr” from the end of my title, which I feel was long overdue since we didn’t have a copywriter above me. We’re preparing to shoot a couple of product videos and we’ll no doubt need some voice talent. I spent this weekend with my friend Megan and her boyfriend, recording a short demo CD for the Vice President of the company to approve. I know I can’t compete with most professional voiceover artists, but the company would be saving over a grand if they chose me to be the voice of the company. I’ll post the recordings after I get an answer.

Not much going on in the way of writing, which should be obvious since I have updated my blog in two weeks. I am, however, refocusing my efforts and get back into the mindset of working after work on my writing career.

Site Updates

Took out a bunch of ads on the right sidebar. They weren’t converting clicks anyway. I don’t think I have the traffic to make those ads viable just yet. I’ll post more changes soon.

Man, I hate being sick.

I came home on Monday and started sneezing like crazy. That isn’t too out of the ordinary, since I have allergies, but the way I was sneezing definitely struck me as odd. It was a very deep, chest-cleansing sneeze.  Sure, it was odd, but nothing I didn’t think Claritin and a bit of nasal spray couldn’t handle. The following morning wasn’t pretty. My head was stuffy, my nose was runny and my sneezes were still in full force. I stayed home and laid low, but, ever the trooper, I went back to work the following day. This is usually a mistake. If you have the good fortune of working someplace that doesn’t grill you over your sick days, then take advantage of that and stay home and rest when you need it. Typically, you’ll just make yourself sicker and infect those around you. Throughout the day, I could actually feel the cold virus blooming inside me. By closing time, I was shivering even though it was 80 degrees outside. Needless to say, I didn’t go in to work today. I’ve also developed a very solid, phlegmy cough.

I did, however, receive some good news today. The actor I gave my screenplay to got back to me and he really enjoyed the read. His management is setting up a meet with some bigwig directors who’ll remain unnamed for now. Yes, I’m excited, but I’m still keeping calm. These are the first steps on a very long journey and there’s no use in celebrating right now. More truthfully, I have so much faith in my screenplay that people liking it is almost a foregone conclusion in my mind. I hope that doesn’t sound arrogant. I just think I’ve put together a very nice, commercial package. Anyway, I’ll let you know how things go.

As far as my Web site is concerned, I noticed that one of my nav bars would go MIA on certain pages. I’ve fixed that by altering some PHP code, but I’ve also discovered that my sidebar disappears on IE6 when looking at anything other than the home page and a handful of other pages.  I’m telling you, these are the cross-browser hells that make Web development truly suck. I wish everyone would just do me a favor and download Firefox or at least upgrade to IE7.

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.

When I was a kid, I never thought about the delicate balance of work-life and personal-life. I watched my parents go to work in the morning and then they came home when it got dark and we were a family. The end. Even when I started working as a teenager, my day job (or night job, depending on the hours) was just that - something I did during a certain time of day to pay the bills - and it never spilled into any other parts of my life, unless I wanted it to. Now that I’m on my career path, it’s amazing how much my job has devoured my “free time.” For the past couple of weeks, I haven’t had a day off. Moreover, every day was an 11- or 12-hour shift.

Let me just say now that people were not meant to put in these kinds of hours. Anyway, I haven’t had the time to blog, because I’ve been understandably drained whenever I get home. That’s not to say I don’t have things to talk about. On the contrary, I’ve still done my best to get out and about to keep my creative side from drying up. So, now that the hectic-ness of my day job has calmed down, I can spare a few hours writing about what’s going on my life. Look for some gigantic posts in the coming week. Until then, thanks for checking in on the blog. I know that you dedicated are out there lurking (you come up on my Web stats) and I want you to know that I appreciate you.

I’ll catch up with all of you soon.

Just a very, very minor update tonight.

If you’re a dedicated reader, you’ll find that I’ve reverted to my old layout. It’s just temporary, turns out my 3-sidebar layout was breaking horribly in IE6 and readers were having to scroll down to get to the post. I’m going to rebuild everything into a newer layout that will hopefully be cross-browser compatible. Thankfully, Christmas is upon us and that means I’ll be getting some time off work. These 11-hour shifts plus Saturdays are killing me.

On a side note, the cheap monitor I bought about a year ago went on the blink and I had to borrow one of my Father’s old CRTs. This thing is only 17-inches, but the unit is so huge I have to place the monitor six-inches away from my face just to fit the thing on my desk. I remember when I thought LCD flat panels were completely unnecessary. Now I don’t know how I ever lived without one. Anyway, hopefully we’ll have a brand new layout that looks good for everyone by the new year.

And hopefully I’ll have a new monitor by then as well.

PS. Thank you everyone who read my post on The Notebook. It’s amazing what airing that movie on TV can do for traffic.