We’re not knitting here

I’ve been taking Kenpo karate for over four years now. The dojo where I train is a special place. When new students begin, movements are very slow and no one’s getting hit. As the years progress, the “gradient” increases. Gradient can mean both speed and the amount of force you can take. I’m a green belt now, and that is when things get serious. We’re moving at “combat speed” and we’re learning to take real hits. We have several drills where we’re not supposed to make contact, but every once in a while, you take a hit from a fellow student when you weren’t expecting one. When this happens, our Sensei often says:

Who You Know

There’s an often-said phrase that is guaranteed to break the hearts of aspiring writers everywhere. I heard it again recently. Actually, I think it was a Twitter-chat, so I read it. But I could here the pain in the writer’s voice:

“It really is ‘who you know’ isn’t it?”

Shortcuts

I wrote my first few screenplays in college. They sucked. Then I moved back home to Orlando, Florida. Started doing improv, took some acting classes, made a couple short films. Wrote some more screenplays. They were better.

I moved to Los Angeles in 2001 with two solid indie samples. My manager at the time encouraged me to try writing a big studio spec. The resulting script got me my first agent and over thirty general meetings, which led to my first OWA (open writing assignment) for a studio. At the same time, I co-wrote “The Air I Breathe” with director Jieho Lee. It was probably my 15th or 16th feature screenplay, and the first one to get made.

Soft Opening

This is my new blog. I should’ve written up a nice juicy post before figuring out all that domain stuff that probably brought you here. I’ll get to it, but for now, just know that I’ll be posting random musings on my attempts to live a fulfilling, creative life in this bizarre hurricane we call “show business”. I’ll chat about screenwriting, probably more the business side than the craft. I’ll probably also make mistakes along the way. I’m serious here, my cats could probably put together a WordPress site in less time than it took me. I’m not a fast learner, but I do learn. So I ask for your patience as we head into the unknown. Just know that we’re in this together.