The GABPC was interesting. I attended a panel on the Legal Aspects of Production, A Production Assistant Overview, and a pair of seminars on film editing. Networking was pushed a huge amount, which resulted in me handing out several of my cards, and of course fosteronfilm giving out a slew of his. I also got asked what I did quite frequently, and when I said I was a writer, it was assumed I meant a screenplay writer. I found myself having to explain that no, I was a literary writer. Odd to call myself that, but in the context, it was the best way I had to differentiate. Amusingly, one aspiring film student asked me, after I told her “yes, I’d sold my work” whether I’d gotten “distribution.” Huh. Distribution. Not “where have you been published?” but if I’d gotten distribution. The film world.
As an interesting addendum, I brought my spanky new Cthulu backpack to the conference (acquired in a fit of madness at D*C). It got an amused reception by the GABPC folks, but the majority of the people there who commented upon it didn’t know it was 1. Cthulu and 2. Who this “Cthulu” was. “I haven’t seen that show” or “What movie was that from?” was the usual response. And even after I explained that Cthulu was an elder god type from H.P. Lovecraft’s stories, I still got blank looks. These folks don’t know who Lovecraft is. Guh?
Also attended the Writers Workshop, which was much more up my alley. It was, of course, focused on writing screenplays, but it was very informative. Writing for film is not actually all that similar to non-film writing. On a rudimentary level, they’re similar, but there’s a lot that’s different too. It seems like so much more of a group effort.
We didn’t stick around for the film festival or the closing ceremonies. Waking up early enough to get to the panels was exhausting for both of us. We’re such slackers, I know.
Amusing insight of the weekend: the indie film mantra sounds suspiciously like the small press one. “My films are fresh and new, not a formulaic sell-out that the big houses churn out. What’s that? Hollywood wants me? Where do I sign?” vs “What I write is too risky, unlike the uninspired pap the big presses pump out. What’s that? Harper-Collins wants to publish me? Where do I sign?”
Also, every biz has their own confounding jargon. In the first editing workshop, at the beginning I was verily perplexed as I had no idea what every other word the presenter spoke meant. After a while, the context sunk in and I was able to go with it–a bit like watching Shakespeare on the stage–something clicked after a while and it made sense on a sub-brain level. Hey, I’ve picked up the rudiments of a new, fancy lexicon. I did figure out that while film editing is very different from magazine or fiction editing, it’s still all about the cutting and tightening.
Writing Stuff
Got the contract for “The Bunny of Vengeance and the Bear of Death” for
Fantasy Magazine. And FM is now available from Clarkesworld, both
single issues and
subscriptions. Woo.
New words: 500
After the Writers Workshop at the GABPC, I realized that the reason I was so stymied with my A Harmony of Foxes novel was because I hadn’t worked through some of the basics of my plot. So I went into my outline, did a major overhaul, and am much happier with it. My muse is engaged with it once more. I’m going to have to hack out large chunks which I wrote earlier that don’t work in the new incarnation, but hey, I’m back to work on the novel!
Club 100 For Writers
5
500/day
70
