if only I could get paid to do this...

I did it - I wrote my first script as part of the scriptfrenzy project. Twenty-thousand words in 30 days. I ended with 20,058 words and a really bad first draft of a screenplay. But first drafts can always be edited into better second drafts. We'll see how I do with that.

My screenplay was inspired by Longfellow's "Evangeline" poem. I read the poem after having read The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl. The same day I read the poem, I also heard Matthew Sweet's "Evangeline" on the radio. That pretty much decided me on a character name.

I now have to do a couple of things: go buy some Matthew Sweet CDs (do you know he's in a cover band with Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles? They're known as Sid and Susie), re-read The Divine Comedy, and go visit Craigie House. Research to improve the next draft, you know.

interview update

It's amazing how rusty you can get at the whole interview thing when you've not done it in six years. Still, I don't think I made too much of a fool of myself.

My train to Philly was thankfully on time, and it was a short cab ride to the hotel where the interview was conducted, so I arrived with plenty of time to spare. I had a yummy seafood salad and mango iced tea, and the two ladies I interviewed with were quite nice. I'm sure I could easily get along with the one I'd be reporting to.

My train home was late, so I hung out in the train station, which was huge and designed and decorated like an old-time train station. There was a huge and beautiful angel statue at one end, a food court, a couple of restaurants, and announcer people who could easily go on to radio work.

I definitely got a better sense of what the job was, and now I'm not so sure I'd want it. The majority of it is medical research and writing, which is fine. I was given a job description awhile ago that indicated quarterly travel to the home office in NY, but the ladies told me it was monthly travel, and the frequency could increase. While traveling to NY by train isn't all that bad, I have a feeling that kind of frequency would get on my nerves after awhile. Apparently, there's also a 3-day sales meeting every January. I've been through those before, not my cup of tea. There are some other aspects of the job that don't really interest me, so right now, the only thing going for it is familiarity with the content and being able to work from home.

Today's interview seems more promising. It was a referral from a former colleague, and when I contacted the company and sent my resume, I got a near-immediate response. Their office is five minutes from where I live, and they're going to be moving into a bigger office suite in the building because they're growing like gangbusters. They're actually having to turn business away because they've got so much coming in, and they've gotten a decent amount of press as well. (Obviously, stability is an issue with me, given what I just came from.) Their work is patient education, helping to lower out-of-pocket costs, alert patients to drugs showing severe side effects, pointing out treatment gaps. They want a health writer to write patient education materials. I like the sound of that.

I interviewed with four people, one of whom looks and sounds remarkably like my uncle in his younger days. I go back tomorrow to interview with one more person, who would be my boss. If the salary is reasonable and they want me, this could be a good prospect.

library girls

Gwen and I had a grand time at the American Library Association meeting in DC today. It's one of the few times where we're not on the clock working a convention but instead are the attendees being catered to about every facet of something we're actually interested in. We think we made back the $25 entrance fee in all the swag we collected in the exhibit hall. We took away a respectable amount of stuff. We saw some people come away with three and four bags full to the brim with stuff - as bad as doctors doing their office supply restocking at medical conventions.

Our lone mistake was being too easily drawn in by the reps manning the booths. I had naively assumed that library reps couldn't be anything like pharma reps, but I was mistaken. We were only pounced on once, at the very beginning of the day, and after that, we kept to the neutral walkways in the very center and the outskirts of the exhibit hall, only venturing into an aisle when we were sure there was a booth we wanted to see, so that we wouldn't waste our time being talked at by reps. We also cleverly went through the exhibitors brochure and circled all the booths we wanted to see, which saved some walking since we could go aisle by aisle, and mercifully, the booths were grouped according to type - tech, public libraries, publishers, audiobooks, etc.

Our favorite section was the graphic novels, which were, poetically, on the fringes of the exhibit hall. We got a preview of a new series called The Plain Janes, as well as some nifty Vertigo/Marvel/comicbook superhero buttons. We felt very comfortable in this section because, as Gwen so rightly put it, "these are our people."

Google had a very cool interactive exhibit that shows you all their different search features, which go way beyond just the plain Google or Google scholar search engines, and we got nifty Google pins too. There were several freedom-of-speech groups, such as the Freedom to Read Foundation and ALA's Banned Books Week (Sept 29-Oct 6). I was given a copy of Bridge to Terabithia, which I've not read since 5th grade, but which is a really good book - I remember my 5th grade teacher crying while she read us the ending (btw, TONS of books given away and sold at this convention), and a couple of posters for upcoming movies (Dark is Rising and Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium, which looks suspiciously similar to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). There were a couple of mystery book booths, Poisoned Pen Press and Sisters in Crime, a pretty brochure about the special collections at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, and a teaser about the Carlyle Letters becoming available online in July through Duke University. Thomas and Jane Carlyle wrote more than 14,000 letters to more than 600 recipients, including George Eliot, Emerson, and Thackeray during the 19th century.

Oddly, there were quite a few jewelry and clothing booths, and we were at a loss to explain how they were related to libraries or reading. However, we did like the purses made out of books. I did pick up a tea mug that says "tea" on one side and "641.3372" on the other side (the Dewey decimal number where you'd find books on tea in a library's collection).

We had lunch at Teaism near the National Archives - we needed a little break from the other 20,000 librarians. We had bento boxes with yummy sticky rice, cucumber and ginger salad, chicken, and sweet potatoes, and minty iced green tea. We need a Teaism closer to home.

I am now more than anxious to find out if TWU will let me into their library science program. They're apparently still processing applications - sigh. We did visit the university booths, although they had a dismal showing. UMD wasn't even there, even though the convention was practically in their backyard, and yet several out-of-state schools showed up. So I at least have some alternative places to apply to if TWU doesn't want me.

The National Book Festival is September 29th, by the way.

interview with the NY company

I have an interview on the 26th in Philadelphia with a company that is based in New York. I will be interviewing with my prospective boss, who is based in North Carolina, and the VP of the company (I don't know where she's based). It's a 2-hour lunch interview. I've never had to travel that far for an interview, nor have I ever done a lunch interview, so it ought to be interesting. Mom says salad is always safe for a lunch interview.

When I am gainfully employed again, my gift to myself will be a new laptop - and a top-of-the-line one at that. I'm going through laptop withdrawal. I had a company laptop for four of the six years I was at my last job, so it feels weird not having one.

I'm also up to 12,562 words in my really-bad-but-fun script, so more than halfway there. Writing a thousand words a day, in any genre or format, seems to be my magic number. It's do-able no matter how busy, bored, tired, or sick I am, and it still requires me to push myself just a little. I would like to get up to 2000 words a day, which I can make myself do for NaNoWriMo month every year, but I can't seem to keep it up beyond that.

next hurdle

I've finally made it to face-to-face-interview stage with one of my job prospects. The telephone interview went well, and they actually liked my writing assessment. Two other companies didn't like the writing assessments I did for them - one said "not enough quotes," one said "not enough graphs," so I was beginning to think I'd gone rusty.

The in-person interview will probably happen at the end of the month, and the recruiter is being very helpful in prepping me for it. The company is based in New York, but I'd get to work from home and would travel to New York once a quarter or so for a day at the office, which by train is a breeze and less stressful than flying.

And if this one doesn't work out, my resume has been put in with a bid for a 5-year government contract with the Library of Congress to do editing and writing, also in a medical capacity. Since this other company, which is based in Ohio, isn't submitting the bid until the end of June and then has to wait to see if they get the job, I'm not obligated to wait with them or even take the job if they get the bid, since I may find something else by mid-summer.

Something of a toss-up - work with the Library of Congress as a government contractor, but have to trek out to DC everyday or work from home writing my heart out about medicine. There's a thinker...

screenplay simmering

I'm up to 8063 words in my screenplay. I think I can easily reach 10,000 words by the 15th. I'm finding screenplay writing far easier than novel writing, probably because I know so little about writing screenplays and therefore have no fear of writing utter drivel.

Paris When It Sizzles is a great film to watch about writing a screenplay, and perfect for this crazy ScriptFrenzy endeavor. It stars William Holden and Audrey Hepburn. He's a procrastinating, alcoholic screenwriter. She's a typist making a comprehensive study of depravity. They're in a hotel suite in Paris, trying to write his screenplay in two days. Some of the scenes cut to the scenes in the screenplay being acted out. There are some cute references to films she did - notably My Fair Lady and Breakfast at Tiffany's. Noel Coward, Tony Curtis, Mel Ferrar, and Marlene Dietrich make cameo appearances. The screenplay they're writing is hokey, but I think that was intentional (I hope it was intentional). And they had to write their screenplay on a typewriter!

And I LOVE the suit she's wearing in the opening scenes.

tea anyone?

I had way too many coffee and tea mugs yesterday morning. I had planned to use some of my sudden free time to purge my collection. I thought I might even do it this weekend. Yesterday morning, I reached up into the cupboard to get a tea mug down for my usual morning cup of tea, and the shelf suddenly went wobbly and most of them came sliding out and crashed onto the counter, into the sink, and onto the floor. So the purge happened in about five seconds without me having any say in it. I spent most of yesterday morning cleaning up broken glass. I've got about a dozen mugs left now.

And check out this really cool travel blog from Yahoo Picks:

Girl Solo in Arabia

In 1325, a young Moroccan named Ibn Battuta left his native Tangiers on a journey to Mecca. Prevented from crossing the Red Sea, he made his way by land instead—and discovered a passion for travel. Eventually, his ever-lengthening trip stretched to 75,000 miles and touched 44 countries across the Islamic world.

Nearly 700 years later, a kindred spirit is tracing his footsteps. Carolyn McIntyre may be a Western woman, but this Arabist, political analyst, and died-in-the-wool explorer shares much in common with Ibn Battuta. Beyond their love of the road, they both relish and admire the culture and people of the Islamic world.
Since starting her trip—and her blog—last year, Carolyn has surveyed tombs in Damascus, lived through robbery and salvation in the Casbah, and investigated "the fine art of qat chewing" in Yemen. Her candid and lively posts provide insight into a region of the world that is much discussed, but often misunderstood.

doesn't this sound like fun?

Of course, I signed up for it immediately: twitterlit

These are my favorites so far:

"After killing the red-haired man, I took myself off to Quinn's for an oyster supper."

"It was like so, but wasn't."

"The answer is that we don't choose our freaks, they choose us."

"Molly Burke was going to die because of a clown."

"In the subway going to work, Vera decides to write about Bigfoot."

"That Thursday evening I was working late, removing the skull of a dead owl."

"I am not entirely content with the degree of whiteness in my life."

"The choice was school or the big stick and seemed easy to make."

"As soon as the 2003 World Taxidermy Championships opened, the heads came rolling in the door."

could stand the weather

My usual walk with the dog happens around 7:30 in the evening. Yesterday evening, we went for our daily stroll just after the last of the rain came through. I was in shorts and a T-shirt and sandals and it was blustery cold and misting, and though I shivered for most of the walk, it felt good nonetheless after being in a stuffy condo all day on top of feverishly heating up due to my time of the month - I have a feeling my menopausal hot flashes are going to be a royal bitch. I saw a leopard-skin coat, soaked and muddy, lying in the field next to the middle school. I could hear the gospel singers belting it out during an evening church service in the high school.

Today, I had two phone interviews in between the rainstorms. The first interview with the NY company went quite well, and I've made it to writing assessment stage. The second interview with the Chicago company didn't go as well, and I suspect they were not impressed with me, which is okay actually, as I wasn't overly impressed with them either. It sounds eerily like the Chicago version of what I just left.

I've been working through a book called Chasing Shakespeares by Sarah Smith, and though I don't particularly like the storyline or this one character called Posy, she really gets on my nerves, all the history and conjecture about who really wrote the plays is juicy reading. And then I came across this quote in the book, when it was really thundering like mad outside - enough to scare the cat and the dog, and I love this quote, and it makes me all the more irritated that TWU still hasn't made up its mind about whether or not I'm fit to partake of their library science master's program:

"I believe God is a librarian. I believe that literature is holy. It is the best part of our souls that we break off and give each other, and God has a special dispensation for it, angels to guard its making and its preservation. If it is important to know who wrote Shakespeare's plays, if it is important to find lost plays or poetry, I believe there will be a record, and by some miracle, someone will find it."

clever me

I've figured out how to set up a scriptwriting template in Word. No buying $300 software for me.

Day 1 went well. I wrote twice my daily word count goal. Oddly enough, to write 20,000 words in 30 days, one needs to write 666 words a day. I'm going for 700 words a day, so as not to jinx it.

I listened to radio plays on BBC 7 online for most of the day to keep me in a dialogue-heavy mood. I wonder why the radio play died out in the US. Besides what Garrison Keillor does on Sundays on NPR, there aren't any stations that I know of that broadcast radio plays. I assume it has to do with the advent of TV, but the Brits have TV too (and far better TV that most of what we've got, in my opinion), and yet the radio play is still alive and well over there, and what a range - modern shows for kids and adults, comedy, drama, fantasy, sci fi, detective stories, dramatic readings of books and famous/classic plays. I begin to think that I may have been a Betty Roberts-type in a former life.

My favorite radio show today was Rigor Mortis - sort of a CSI done funny.

Job update - I've got two phone interviews on Monday, both for medical writing jobs, one in NY, one in Chicago, though I could work from home for either one.