I adore Tegan and Sara. They helped me during some pretty angsty times back in high school…and now. It’s so weird to think that they have been making music for almost TWENTY YEARS. Yeah. Since 1995.
This cover of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” is so sweet and so sad all at once. Give it a whirl.
Aside from writing, there are two things I want to get ‘more into’
So, while not particularly inspired to write this morning, I decided to do just those two things. I recently made a mix that I initially titled “Driving in December,” because it is perfect for driving through LA when it’s just a little more chilly than usual. It’s also is a good accompaniment to a particularly lonely sort of time. I feel like a lot of the times we overlook the loneliness that can come with the holidays. It doesn’t matter if you have a significant other, what your family situation is, etc….there is just always at least ONE moment where you are standing alone in the cold.
Or driving alone in the cold. This is a mix for that time.
(click the photo for the download, y’all)
TRACKLIST
I really love Lykke Li. While this may not be my favorite rendition of “I Follow Rivers” (that goes to Triggerfinger, who I also wrote up) it still is an interesting cover nonetheless. Let me know your thoughts, y’all.
Also, I just want to say, if you are so inclined, feel free to reblog, spread the word, things of that nature. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours, all that jazz.
Someone just asked me on my other (personal/mostly gifs based tumblr) the following:
Is there any advice you would give to an aspiring screenwriter who’s just starting out?
I provided an answer. See da link. SEE IT.
Some inspiring quotes from some inspiring folks on tackling writer’s block.
People should use the word “butt ton” to accurately describe large quantities of things more often. Anyway, watch these Nashville sweethearts cover the xx’s “Fiction,” Kavinsky’s “Nightcall,” and Beach House’s “Wild.” DO IT.
Dudes and dudettes, whoa. I am still processing a horror spec I just read titled “Somnia” by Mike Flanagan & Jeff Howard. (Thanks to Josh Golden for sending it to me, bee tee dubs.)
It. Was. Awesome.
And also terrifying. Not only because it was a horror script, but also because it had some of the main elements of a horror script I am in the process of writing. “Somnia” focuses on a couple who lost their child via drowning. My script is about a teenage girl and the guilt she has after her younger brother drowned under her care. “Somnia” involves horrifying visions of the child drowning over and over. My script involves horrifying visions of the dead child and also involve water.
The entire time I was reading it, I was so excited because it was so great, but I was also like “Shit. Shit. Shit. Do I even bother continuing mine? Will they be too similar?”
This is why I love reading specs on the market. Not because I find something similar to what I’m writing and say, “Well, time to scrap that, onto the next one!” but because it helps me create something different. By no means do I have both scripts up on the screen going page by page to make sure mine is “different” from it, but it makes me more inventive.
It is also reassuring to see something similar in your taste and style being eaten up. Seeing genre scripts that are in the same vein of how I write make it on the Blood List and start making its way around town tells me that “Yes, Maggie, your crazy scripts involving a vision of a recently crucified Jesus Christ or about a girl who is willing to give up her life to give her little brother a second chance via pagan ritual DO have an audience. You aren’t crazy…or at least entirely so.”
Hi my name is Maggie and I am a Twin Peaks fanatic. Like most girls, I am mostly infatuated with the what-could-have-been relationship of Agent Dale Cooper and Audrey, but the entire show is just so weird and freaky and melodramatic and everything you want from a serial about the murder of a small Pacific northwestern town’s Prom Queen.
Woo. Whatta sentence. Anyway, the title sequence is pretty iconic and if you’re a die-hard, you do NOT fast-forward through it. Never. NEVER. This is a cover of that intro song and it is dreamy and wonderful and sorry my sentences are all long and lanky due to conjunctions. Listen to this cover and deal with it.
(click the photo above to listen, dum dum)
Today marked the last day of my first semester with the Young Storytellers Foundation. This is a picture of me and my mentee Johadi before last week’s Big Show. (NOTE AFTER VIEWING IN LARGE BROWSER: A very blurry, but still sweet, photo)
We had a sort of debriefing (see: pizza party!) today with all the mentors and mentees of Santa Monica Boulevard Community Charter school and it was really amazing. We sat down in a circle, shoved our faces with Lil Caesars, and then talked about our favorite parts of the program.
Johadi said that her favorite part was me and I how I helped her really learn about story and conflict. Even though nearly every mentee said that their mentor was their favorite part, I still had some major feels going on. It sounds silly and cliche, but seeing how big of an impact an hour of my time a week made on this girl’s life (and writing skillz) was so freaking rewarding.
I know I’ve plugged it before, but if you live in the LA area and want to have a ton of fun and be silly and help a 4th or 5th grader write a screenplay, PLEASE sign up for Young Storytellers! As a writer, I think it definitely helps as well. I always had to remind Johadi “how does this affect the overall story?” and “is there enough conflict?,” etc. I now ask myself that with every new scene I write. Again, it may sound silly and fundamental, but when a lot of screenplays are just “eh,” it’s because of the lack of fundamentals.
Sometimes I take photos with my kit lens that has a crack in it. Gotta get into photo-ing more often.
