W2 - Wendy to the Second Power

Since hooking up with goulo and a2na on Friday lunch at Magnolia Cafe -- where I saw Bryan, the screenwriter who was the only other person from Austin at the Hawaii Writers Conference that I identified -- they've been here for a few nights. Lots of activities with and without them this weekend, so it's being a crazily social few days. Whew!

• Had a fun dinner with about 16 folks at Madras Pavillion, which included cow-orkers from Russ's old employer, UD. Including Cow! Also J4, FredS and Clayton. And always good to see martang and Jeffles, plus others from the Russcon days. I ordered what turned out to be 10 little bowls of different vegetarian dishes with mysterious ingredients. Some very tasty! Some so orange that I feared they were made with (despicable!) yams. I got to share most of them when I got full early on, and I was wise to avoid yam-colored foods.
  
• Got my car back early Saturday morning! Finally! And the local insurance adjuster had called me at 4:05 p.m. Friday as I was about to go into a meeting and told me this was the last day for the rent car. I had to point out the North Austin body shop closed at 5:00 p.m. and I was downtown. He grudgingly extended the car for one more day. Then when I got my car, the body shop said they'd had to wait to call me because the adjuster was so late getting there with the check, and they won't release until all funds are paid--!! They'd also told him he was crazy to expect me to pick it up that day, and were concerned about the rental car. All this he knew when he called me trying to psyche me out of that last legal day. What a prince. Still, sure is nice to be driving the Prius again, after a month.
  
• Then took R&A to the Farmers Market at Burger Center Saturday morning, lots of booths with food and drink, and Anna bravely drinks and ingests anything that's remotely vegetarian. There was live music, lots of people with dogs on leashes. I got locally grown green beans and 4 satsumas, which I'd been curious about since they're promoted as citrus you can grow at home.
  
• R&A went off with a UD friend for the afternoon and I was free in time to connect with my progressive women's group for lunch. Many friends I see once a month there to catch up with; others I see more often and they're fun as well.
  
• Then last night, R&A treated me to a dinner and a movie to thank me for hosting them! Now that Russ is vegan, it's harder to find places, and Anna asked that we not do Thai for the 100th time. So I took them to the Asian Center on N.Lamar, and, after a false start at a Vietnamese restaurant that didn't smell or feel right, we went to another of the dozen Asian restaurants there, this one the Korean Grill. They loved the food! All the bowls of vegetables, almost all of them vegetarian, were popular. The owner was a trip, a Korean-American man with a poker face who kept doing crazy teasing. Then killed time at Barnes & Nobles, then on to see the late show of AN EDUCATION. Interesting, well-made movie. Would I give it an A? For me it was B or B+.
  
• This morning, R&A are off brunching with willyumtx and Clayton. I'm about to run errands. This afternoon we'll check out shaevel's house, which I haven't seen for a couple of years. Then they're off for the evening at a board-gaming party and I hope to write some on my novel.

It's fun having them! They move on to another domicile tomorrow, and then leave Austin on Wednesday, not to return for probably another two years...

Not surprisingly, I found years ago that a good place to keep the cats' bathroom necessities was in my guest bath. So the guest tub holds their litterbox, set upon a bed of newspapers, with a plug over the drain just in case grains of stuff filter down.

But goulo and a2na are coming this week! All the way from Poland! For three nights at my house! And they need their own bathroom. Luckily, the guest room is right next to the guest bath. Over the years, several friends have found that handy. Especially since my room and my bathroom are on the other side of the house.

But the cats, they've got to share now. They're very conscientious about their litterbox, and rarely make mistakes. But now that box location has to be moved. So here's what I do 3-4 days before company arrives...

First, the box can't be fresh litter. Of course I scoop it daily! But it has to have a little funk built up to remind the cats where it is...

Because second, the littlerbox comes out of the tub and lives for a day on the floor of the bathroom. Next day, it moves to the hallway. Next day it moves further down the hallway. Final day, it's placed in my home office, in the corner. And all of this is done with copious amounts of newspaper covering the surrounding area.

The process of going back into the tub only takes 1 day. They just need one interim step to transition back to that familar locale.

NOTICE: For LJ readers who don't already know, we're having a group dinner with Russ and Anna this Friday, 7:00 p.m. at the Madras Pavillion, 183 and Burnet. Followed by hanging out at my house if so inclined.

You play you pay! I knew it would be a big hunk of money to go away to Hawaii for two weeks for the HWC and Retreat. And to sting even more, my employer made us use up vacation at the holidays and didn't let us accrue more until April started. So I had 3 days without pay in there too.

I just did my spreadsheet "expense" report for my 2009 tax file, and confirmed what I thought. This was the most expensive thing I've done for my writing career and personal development ever. Well, getting my BFA at the University of Texas cost more, but this was all concentrated into two weeks!

Lodging, food, travel, tours, conference fees. It came up to $4,800. When you add in the hit my paycheck took, it's closer to $6,000.

Wow. But worth it! What a cool opportunity!

And this explains why almost everybody else was a retired doctor or attorney writing the Great American Thriller. Or looking back over their hippie days to write a sexy memoir.

Finally posted some of my 50 or so photos from my trip to Hawaii. It was so colorful and fun! Here's a handful of them...

( Putting them behind the cut... )

While at the HWC, I, along with the ballroomful of attendees on the first day of the conference, was blown away by the opening ceremonies. The Kanaka'ole family (grandmother, daughter, grandson) did an incredible opening chant and dance, then Kaumakaiwa, the grandson, sort of emcee'd the rest of the event. The whole family is composed of scholars, PhDs, experts in Hawaiian myth, and they've taught a Pele-oriented form of hula for the past 400 years. This is during the time when (white male settlers from America made it so) doing so was illegal. They also did a presentation about their chants and songs the following day that I really enjoyed.

Kaumakaiwa ("Lopako") has a very feminine side to him, sort of flamboyant and swishy, but so cute as he talks and giggles. His hulas were also very graceful and feminine even though he's almost six feet tall. Then his soaring songs just tear your heart out with the emotion in them, but his chants are very visceral and guttural. Fascinating! Here he is talking about how/why he writes songs. Here's his record label page with a nice musical clip from him. I talked with him about the Mythic Journeys, Joseph Campell conferences (which, alas, seem no more), which is part of his background too. So I got the handshake when I greeted him, but then after talking, I got the full body hug with the nose rub --!

They also brought in the fabulous guitarist Makana, who's buddies with Lopako, so they sang/played and Welo danced. Makana was ranked one of the top 3 guitarists in the world, and his melodies on the slack string guitar often mimic the rain or the natural environment around him. He was GREAT! He also had percussion and bass guitar, with a well-known female hula dancer who traveled with him. The combination of guitar/strings and unusual percussion was very stirring -- reminded me a LOT of going to a Clandestine performance. That same sublime blending of tones and melody that can often make you weep.

Even the long-time Hawaiian residents were blown away and crying. They told me THIS was the authentic dance and music, and going to a pre-fab luau was nothing like this. Everybody talked about it for days.

Then they brought out the famous Hawaiian slam poet, Kealoha, aka Steven Wong. He had some interesting pieces that he performed somewhat acrobatically. I get bored with slam poetry easily (it seems like meaning and word play is subsumed to rhythm too often) but this guy was a great example of the good stuff. He seemed like a thin, young guy with his long flowing hair too. But reading about him and seeing him close-up later, he's probably in his early to mid-30s, and has a degree in nuclear physics from MIT. Plus he taught surfing for a while and must have some muscles under that too-large t-shirt he wore...

In LAX at the American Airlines gate yesterday, I saw a tall older guy with a mandolin case. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and looked familiar. When we got to Austin and I saw his buddy who'd obviously come to pick him up waiting with him at the baggage carrell, I realized who they were. I went up to the tall guy and...

ME: Excuse me, but are you a Lounge Lizard?
HIM: I'm ashamed to say that I am.
ME: Thought so! I've seen y'all play so many times over the years. But you know how you change out band members kinda regular, so it took me a while to be sure.
HIM: We're playing at the Cactus this weekend. You need to come hear us again. We got some great folks.

It was Tom of Austin Lounge Lizards -- folk music with goofy lyrics. What's not to love?

A long day of traveling yesterday -- got into the hotel's white stretch limo (!!) at 5:00 a.m. Hawaiian time. Lost the 5 hours I'd gained as I flew back to LAX then to Austin. Got onto the Super Shuttle, half the price of the direct taxi, which luckily dropped me off first. That was still getting me to my house at 12:25 a.m. though, Austin time. Then two hours to unpack, go through mail, get set up for the work day.

Then back to work 9:00 a.m. this morning. Very tired but I can handle for one day. However, how deflating to be back in the grind after the past several weeks of planning and going to Hawaii... I feel so low this morning!

More bummer real life stuff: the Austin Film Festival sent me notification CAN'T SAY NO, my comedy script, didn't make it to second round. I'm suprised because I did read scripts this year and it was certainly worthy of the top 10%.

And bummer real life: my novel manuscript I quickly assembled and sent to the Hawaii Writers Conference prose contest didn't even make top 10 finalists there. But it was firmly supernatural mystery, and those people they called to the stage were from the retreat, so I recognized their work from the "first page dread overhead" exercise and no one was genre at all. Well, the closest to genre were the two writers who retold Hawaiian myths, but not really close. The woman who won 1st place had a Korean mother's coming of (mature) age story. Congrats to them all; my manuscript did get some notice from readers, I think.

The Hawaii Writers Conference started early Friday morning, with incredible Hawaiian artists and scholars chanting, singing and dancing. Whoa! Very powerful, and I found that Kaumakaiwa and his family are from the Big Island and their chants and hulas are based on Pele and volcano-creation and lava, so are unusually visceral and powerful...!

Michael Arndt, screenwriter of LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, did an incredible two-part course on movie endings: The Good, the Bad, the Insanely Great. He had clips and a really good analysis of warring value systems on three levels.

Liked hearing from Steve Fischer, a literary and Hollywood agent, and his perspective about what's going on in publishing and the movie biz. Long story short: Hollywood is offering low-ball deals and not honoring the "rates" that writers have worked themselves up to. It's like taking a big cut in salary now. Yeah, greedy.

Also went to lunch with screenwriter Diane Lake (FRIDA) who took me to task about what I had done or finished or promoted since last August in Cape Cod. She's very generously taken me on as a mentee --! I'll report to her, get advice... I had 4 ideas in my head, 2 scripts (from Margaret South's replotting), the supernatural mystery I began to enter the HWC contest, and a novel I'd started 5 years ago that had Hawaiian Kahuna magic in it. That last thing has gotten re-invigorated by being here, and also makes me wonder... So many times I've written a piece of fiction with a key element in it, only to have that element show up in my life powerfully within a few years. Hmmmm. More on that as I ponder! But Diane said to write the supernatural mystery RIGHT NOW because it has such market potential. And not to tell my pitch to too many people because it's so good. Yay! And useful to have one of the four ideas prioritized based on market stuff she knows better than me. Again, yay!

Today, just a final half-day and then I plan to take a tour to the north island side, and see Dole pineapples in the field too. Then back to the mainland and then to Austin by crack of dawn tomorrow.

We said goodbye to our interesting (but not as well bonded as some of the others) screenplay workshop group at the Hawaii Writers Retreat. I learned a lot, and can already tell my two scripts that Margaret South re-plotted for me will need to sit and percolate because I'm not feeling attached to them right now.

But during the closing ceremonies, Jonathan from my group and I both won awards for writing badly. Hah!

They have a "bad first sentence" contest here. He got runner up (2nd place) and I got 3rd place. Here's mine -- which reflects the stuff around me this week:


As ukuleles twanged and steel guitars thrummed, Gertrude sat at the hotel’s craft table stringing a special lei for her beloved, Throckmorton, that would tell, through scent and color, just what he meant to her: red for passion, orange for fiery sunsets, yellow for that poor bird all the Hawaiian royalty plucked for their capes, green for the banana leaves that had wrapped the fish in their engagement dinner entrees, blue for the forever brilliant skies over Honolulu, and a bunch of additional flowers for those other rainbow colors she was too tired to remember now, but Throckie would totally understand.


Tomorrow early starts the Hawaii Writers Conference. Opie (Ron Howard) is coming to town!

I got a lot of good workshopping and structure from Margaret South, who analyzes scripts and novels using her Art of Story system. We've met twice a day on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Today was our one-on-one sessions. I went to her with my need to structure a different love story for my HEAVEN & NELL screenplay. She helped me make some good streamlining decisions, move the conflict around so that my main character is Nell, not Lee the love interest or the town of Enoch. For Hollywood, simple is better, especially for a spec script from a beginner. (Even though I'm not a beginner because I've written 7 feature-length scripts already, but Hollywood will call me one because I don't have a job in the biz yet.)

Other people in the group are also getting good advice. Whether they're taking it or not remains to be seen. Seems like the indicator for how much insight someone will accept is how much testosterone runs through their brain. This stuff is gold, but some of these guys... And I hear from some of the group critiques (which we don't do) in other classes that mini-rebellions are breaking out. Seems to me the issue is that people spend $$ and time to get here, so they're typically mature and opinionated people who can carve 1.5 weeks out of their lives, so they're pretty powerful. And successful. Some seem to expect to show up and have people throw bouquets to them for their every page or thought. Not so!

The daily general sessions are also being interesting. I got insights on ways to pitch from Sam(antha) Horn. Learned about thrillers and plotting from Gary Braver and Karin Slaughter. Got story beginnings from multiple people, including Diane Lake, who J4 and I workshopped with last August in Cape Cod. It is being interesting and fun!

Then today, I also had the morning off so I took a WONDERFUL tour to the misty valley area and saw Queen Emma's summer palace, a Pali lookout point, drove through rainforests and found a hidden waterfall and ancient petroglyph -- just right off the highway! So lovely...! Go here for the photos.