SCRIPT FRENZY

Script Frenzy is a worldwide contest to see who can write a movie script consisting of 100 pages in one month. April is the month set aside to do this. The people who sponsor this contest also have the NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month) contest each November where you commit to write a 50,000 word novel by the end of the month. So if you put this writing goal into perspective, realistically it should be by far easier to write the movie script. I currently have one movie script, "No Angels In Hell", about the Sturgis, South Dakota Motorcycle Rally and it is copyrighted with the Writer’s Guild of America. The McKnight Foundation in Minneapolis gives $25K grants to deserving individuals every year in various writing categories. I have wanted to enter this contest for a number of years now, but there was one little hang up—you need to have 3 copyrighted movie scripts to enter the contest. So every year the contest deadline nears, I tell myself I will write two more scripts by the next year. When I saw the Script Frenzy contest, I knew it was just what I needed to get another script written, so I signed up. This one would be a sequel to "No Angels In Hell", and would take place in Daytona, Florida at the Daytona Biker Rally. April started out as a good month for this writing challenge, even though Easter fell in this month with its traditional Easter church services and Easter dinner. I was on track and only had thirty pages to go on the evening of Apr 29, when I sat down to tackle the last pages. I knew I had all day Saturday to work on it too and felt pleased with my progress, knowing the goal was totally reachable. That was of course until I typed in a couple of pages and my laptop shut down. At first I assumed it must be the battery, but upon further examination of the electrical cord, it became evident it was indeed still plugged in. I tried frantically to power it up for at least an hour, but to no avail. Finally, I decided the battery had to be dead and I would have to take it in to the Geek Squad at Best Buy in the morning. I still felt confident I would reach my goal. Saturday proved to be an extremely disappointing day, especially after hearing the verdict from the Geek Squad that my laptop had died and would not be coming back on ever again. And they meant never. They kindly informed me most laptops only last 3 years and I was extremely lucky mine had lasted 5 years. This, however, did not help my script in the least. Unfortunately when writing scripts you need to use a special program, like Final Draft, which I had on the laptop. Being the trusting person I am, I had forged on writing the script and was waiting to back it up on the jump drive when it was finished. So needless to say it was not backed up. Luckily though, being the paper fanatic I am, I had printed hard copy the night before, so at least I have 1 printed copy. However, there was no way I would even try to attempt retyping the script onto my old desk top into an old version of Final Draft. The deadline came and went and I didn’t make my goal of 100 pages, but I did make it to 70 pages, which in itself is an accomplishment I am extremely proud of. In the next weeks I will get a new laptop and they will pull all the info from the hard drive (hopefully!) and put it back on the new laptop. Hopefully, my script will magically appear on this new laptop and I can forge on to page 100. So just a word to the wise for everyone, ALWAYS, ALWAYS back up your work because you never know what tomorrow will bring in the world of computers!

THE WINTER THAT REFUSED TO END

Anyone who lives in Minnesota will from this time on cherish those winters when it doesn’t snow until the day before Christmas. The winter of 2010-2011 will go down in history as the 3rd or 4th snowiest winter on record, depending on what happens in the upcoming weeks and counting on no snowfall in May. As for the snowiest winter on record, it was in 1983 to 1984 when the Twin Cities received 98.6 inches. It has been over 25 years since we have received these snow levels. Winters can be very stressful, with icy roads and snow, that make driving extremely difficult. Sometimes just getting to work in the morning feels like you are risking your life to get there. Now, if you are retired and don’t have to go anywhere, it’s not so bad because if it snows you can just stay home and wait until it quits. This year you would have been staying home a lot because it seems like it snowed almost every day! When it starts snowing in November and doesn’t quit until almost May 1st, it is a long, long winter. Minnesotans deal well with the snow, especially those who were born and raised here, but this year everyone could be heard complaining they’d had enough. I don’t know how people manage driving in the snow without a 4 wheel drive vehicle, I know I wouldn’t feel safe. Plus when you get a foot of snow, it really helps to have the higher ground clearance so you can get through the snow without getting stuck. Of course, some people really like the snow, like ski resorts, snowmobile dealers, and snow blower manufacturers, which I’m sure did very well financially this past winter. Snow for Christmas is one thing but when we are threatened with possible snow for the last days of April, it is to the point of unbearable. We have had five months of winter and snow! You may ask why we live here. I have already been here in Minnesota, the land of the Winter Arctic Freeze, way to long, and it is time to move on to browner pastures. Yes, I said brown as in the desert, like Arizona. It will be pushing it, but I may have a couple more winters ahead of me and then I’m heading for one of those retirement communities in Arizona. I just can’t take it anymore. And I really mean it this time! No more winters!! No kidding!!!

DIVORCE WARS

Doesn’t anyone stay married anymore? Unfortunately for the institution of marriage, divorce is becoming the norm. People who stay married even past 25 years, are in the minority, and to make it to 35 is rare. Those who make it to 50 years, deserve medals of bravery for having the staying power and courage to withstand the ups and downs of marriage through all those years. Marriage is a tough commitment. You must be able to put up with multitudes of things you do not like. Of course, hopefully there are also many things you do like about the marriage. The problems surface when people CHANGE—or so that is what they say. They usually claim they want different things in their lives, and most of all they want a different person to spend the rest of their lives with. Usually, this only happens to one person and the other person is still quite content with the marriage the way it is. This is when the war starts. And the fighting begins. One person wants to stay and the other wants to leave, and the person who wants to stay tries to do everything they can to change the other person’s mind. If there is another love interest involved, which is usually the reason the one person wants to leave, it is best to give up the fight and let them go because the odds of winning at this point are slim. Letting go is probably the hardest thing you will ever have to do in your life, but when the chances of your partner staying are at about 1%, you must just give it up. When you are in the midst of the divorce wars it is hard to see the wisdom of walking away. Having been there, I know it is true. Sadly, during this time emotions are intense, anger is all consuming and things are said that would’ve been best unsaid. And once they are said, they cannot be taken back. Anyone who has been there, knows how painful it is to let your dreams go, especially the dream of spending your life with that special person who you married. There is no doubt that people who go through divorce experience extreme pain. But, one must not give up, rather focus on the fact there is always tomorrow and new beginnings. Choose to embrace the famous saying, “Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life". There are many survivors of the divorce wars who have gone on to lead much happier lives than they had before. I am proud to be one of the divorce war survivors. Remember, the pain and heartache will all pass with time. So for now, choose your words carefully and don’t say anything you will regret later.

JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR

The play, Jesus Christ Superstar, came out in the 70’s when I was in high school. It was part of the whole hippie movement taking place and was considered somewhat radical for the times. Coming from a highly conservative Lutheran background, and since the church disapproved of this new latest and greatest version of Jesus’ life story, I never went to see it. Through the years it has had its revival periods on the stages of Broadway and in movie versions. But, I still never managed to see it. This year it is at the Chanhassen Dinner Theater, which is a local dinner theater featuring Broadway hits and other local plays. It has been around for a long time and is a big part of the Twin Cities theater world. When I saw the advertising for the play, I was surprised to see Thrivent Financial as its major supporter. Thrivent Financial used to be called Aid Association for Lutherans and they have strong ties to the Lutheran Churches, especially in the Midwest. But, times change and now the Lutheran Churches are endorsing this play. So since Thrivent was offering a special price to its account holders, I decided to make a reservation to see the show. The theater’s dinner tables seat six so unless you have a party of six, you will be seated with strangers. It can be a great way to meet people and we were seated next to two sisters, one who had recently been living in the Twin Cities and her sister who was visiting from Florida. The conversation lent itself to revealing intimate personal information regarding cancer, fighting to live and how we can depend on family. You just never know who will you meet and how they will touch your lives. As for the play, to be perfectly honest, I didn’t even know what the story was really about, except it was about Jesus. If there are any others out there who don’t know, it’s about Jesus’ life but mainly focuses on his last days and ends with his death on the cross. So you may want to know if I liked it. After all the hype I guess I was expecting it to be different and better than it was. Now I know, no one really knows for sure what Jesus looked like, but he was Jewish and they almost always had black hair and olive skin. The actor who played Jesus had sandy blond hair, so I had a hard time visualizing him in the role of Jesus. The way he portrayed Jesus’ demeanor came across as extremely winey, which just didn’t work for me either. Other than that, the rock music was performed extremely well and the costumes were unique almost reminding me of Steam Punk attire. If the point of the play and movie was to have it viewed by the masses, the producers have more than likely achieved that. Unfortunately if the point of the show was to tell the story of Jesus, the Son of God who was the Savior of the World, I think the message came across as the story of Jesus, a Man who was just a Superstar.

WRITING CONTESTS

As a writer, struggling to get that first novel published, we are encouraged to enter writing contests. In the Romance Writer’s world there are numerous writing contests each month. Some are for the best first chapter, love scene, hook, hero, heroine, cowboy, black moment, etc. Most contests you can only submit a certain number of pages ranging from 5-50, so if you do, they better be the best pages you have ever written. Since I have been at this for more years than I care to mention, I can recall the days when entering a contest meant printing multiple copies of the manuscript and paying hefty postage fees to mail them. But times change, and today you enter a contest by electronic submission. One would think this would be a whole lot easier, but that isn’t always the case. There are always guidelines and rules as to how the document should be sent or you will be disqualified. This I found out the hard way a number of years back, shortly after entering the Romance Writers of America’s prestigious Golden Heart contest. When reading books, numbers always appear on the bottom page, so on my manuscript they were on the bottom of the page. Somehow the rule stating page numbers must be placed on the top of the page, was completely missed. So, the entry was disqualified. This was a costly mistake, as the fee to enter was $50 and non-refundable. This particular manuscript was re-entered the following year, since this contest is almost considered mandatory if you are to be considered a serious Romance Writer. Sadly though, it did not win or even final in the contest. That was enough of contest submissions for me for quite awhile. This year I decided to enter my screenplay in the Romancing the Script contest. Never in my wildest dreams, did I think it would end up being such an absolutely frustrating experience. The version of Final Draft I had was old, so about a year ago, I transferred the screenplay to a newer version and submitted it electronically to the Writers Guild of America to be copyrighted. (Screenplays must be copyrighted to be sent out.) For the Romancing the Script contest, the screenplay needed to be in PDF format. Normally, one would think this would not be a problem, but for us non-computer people, it can be a big problem. Never having created a PDF before, I was unaware you needed to purchase a special program to do this. Thank heavens for free trials! The only way to change it to a PDF was to convert it from a Word Doc, so I copy and pasted the screenplay from Final Draft into a Word Doc. Sadly, in the process, it aligned everything to the left margin. And ultimately, when it converted to a PDF, the format was totally wrong. Giving up seemed like a good idea at this point. Fortunately, there are angels out there and the coordinator of this contest totally reformatted my entry so it could be entered in the contest. Without her help, it would not be in the contest. So I beg to differ with whoever thinks computers save us time. For me it would have been far easier to print it out and mail it! The end result was achieved though, so now with a sigh of relief, I will sit back, relax and wait for THE CALL announcing my fabulous romantic suspense screenplay won the Romancing the Script contest!!

SINGLES SEARCHING FOR LOVE-- NORWEGIAN STYLE

Recently, a Norwegian television company, Nordisk Film TV, was in Minneapolis, Seattle and San Francisco holding auditions for a Norwegian version of The Bachelorette/Bachelor. They were taking email entries from American singles of Norwegian descendants who live in these cities and then holding auditions. Once the auditions are over they will choose four singles. These singles will get to choose eight Norwegian singles to meet. Then the fun begins. The Norwegian singles will be flown to the U.S. to go on dates in the single's hometowns and try to find true love. The singles will be voted off one by one. This show should be interesting and I can’t wait to watch it, since it has a different twist with the aspect of using available singles from Norway. Oh, to be younger so I could have auditioned! When I was in high school, I wanted to marry a Norwegian guy, but that didn’t happen. I think part of the problem, even back then, is Norway is a different country. This will be an obstacle for this show also. It is one thing to visit another country and absolutely love it, but to actually move there is another whole thing. Even with our mobile world, one person’s family will miss out on a lot of events in their son or daughter’s lives. This show may be better suited to the Boomer generation’s divorced population who has already raised families and are now free to come and go as they please. Living half the time in each country would be an option for them. It will be a hard decision for these young people to make. I look forward to finding out the results of this show once it airs. A huge factor in favor of relocating to Norway is they have one of the highest standards of living and have been voted the best place in the world to live. The people of Norway have all been able to profit from the country’s vast number of oil rigs off their western coast. It is said though, “If two people are really in love, nothing can keep them apart.” We’ll see if an ocean will…

THE BACHELOR

A recent television hit show is, THE BACHELOR. The reason this show is such a hit is because every woman dreams of finding their Mr. Right. Well, almost everyone. And this show is the perfect way to vicariously live out this fantasy by watching someone else’s opportunity to actually live out their search for Mr. Right. This show has two versions—The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. The Bachelor gives one lucky man the opportunity to find the woman of his dreams, out of about twenty-five women, by interacting with them, going on dream dates and eliminating contestants weekly over a six week span of time. It is a reality show, so it sometimes strays a bit overboard with the extreme drama situations between the women, but of course conflict is what keeps all the television viewers coming back week after week. The goal of the show is to have the Bachelor propose to one of the final two women. As viewers we always have our favorite picked out. Tabloid’s and gossip magazine’s goals are to stir up as much trouble as possible in the final weeks, by printing scandalous articles and plastering the Bachelor and the final women contestants on the covers of their publications. The odds of these marriage proposals ending in actual weddings are quite slim, but a few have made it. The ones who make it to the altar give all the rest of us hope that dreams can come true. So dream on!

ONCE A YEAR

As responsible adults we are to submit our bodies to a yearly exam. Probably most people don’t. And the reason they don’t can range from money to no medical insurance to fear of what may be found to just plain fear of doctors. Generally, women go in more often because they need birth control pill prescriptions refilled and unless you go in for your yearly exam, there will be no refills. The exam itself is an invasion of all the insecurities a woman has ever had about her body. There just isn’t any way to take samples for the dreaded PAP smear without inflicting some degree of pain. And then there is the dreaded mammogram, that all women hate. To get the best x-ray pictures, you must endure this painful process yearly after age forty. Let’s not forget the blood samples taken with long needles that make you cringe just to look at them. Even having your blood pressure taken can hurt a little, but then isn’t that what this appointment is all about—PAIN? These days, test results take only a few days. Most of us tend to not think about it and assume everything will be alright, but yet we all breathe a sigh of relief when the results are favorable. The doctor only calls if it is bad news, so when the doctor leaves a message for you to call him back, the panic sets in. When doctors call at the end of the day and are out of the office the next day, the panic grows to the point that dying from breast cancer or cervical cancer becomes a high possibility of the near future. And it would definitely be a bleak future. It becomes time to take a good look at cemetery plots and all that goes with them. Three days later, a call from the doctor reveals the bad news. It was the thyroid blood test that was abnormal which raised a few questions, requiring another test. This was supposedly good news. Not dying yet, anyway. Just more tests, more pain, more waiting and more uncertainty. Ultimately, in the end, every day we are still alive is a good day!

THE WEDDING

 

Weddings are a wonderful special day in a person’s life.   As we get older, it seems we attend fewer.  Recently my sister’s youngest son took the big step and got married.   These days many young couples pay for their own weddings instead of the parents, which usually results in smaller more quaint weddings.  This wedding was attended by the bride and groom’s families and a few close friends.  The bride was radiant in her wedding dress and the groom was handsome in his tuxedo.  The reception was held at DeGidios in downtown St. Paul.  The restaurant was established in the 1930’s and is still family owned.  Back in the day, the original owners moved in the infamous St. Paul Gangster circles.   It still remains in the old supper club style of the 1950’s.  The restaurant’s menu consisted of old style Italian food and the wedding reception meal included spaghetti, meatballs, sausage, salad and garlic bread, served buffet style.  The food was impressive and I may have to go back there again sometime. And of course, there was a beautiful and delicious wedding cake from Byerlys.  A DJ provided dance music and was hugely successful in filling the dance floor with a dance called the Snowball.  For this dance, everyone on the dance floor had to find a new dance partner, so after doing this multiple times, the dance floor was full and the chairs at the tables empty.  We talked, we ate, we danced, we laughed and all in all it was a day to be remembered!

LAWSUIT DEPOSITION

LAWSUIT DEPOSITION

 

For most people, they tend to be totally unfamiliar with the legal world, myself included.  Oh we know the common laws, but when it comes to lawsuits and courtrooms, we know very little.  After being hit by an inattentive driver, while I was stopped to make a turn, the battle began.  I don’t think we, as law abiding citizens trying to do the right thing, have any idea how many other people refuse to obey the rules.  Probably we think this because we assume the best about everyone.  Unfortunately when people don’t have insurance or a drivers license, it makes the whole accident process much more involved.  If you have ever been in an accident, you know that the day after the accident, you feel like you were literally run over by a truck.  Every muscle in your body aches.  Relief is hard to come by, even with all the wonderful medical discoveries of today.  There is always the usual pain medications to ease the pain,  chiropractors to put everything back in place, massage therapists to loosen the tight and sore muscles, and physical therapists to get us to use those sore and aching body parts.    These things all help to some extent, but they never manage to take it all away or bring your body back to where it was before the accident.   So the only alternative is a lawsuit to hopefully provide money to buy some extent of pain relief.   It seems everything the courts and lawyers do take forever—months and years to be more specific.  Basically courts seem rather scary to most people in the general public, probably because we don’t have much experience interacting with them.   We are afraid we will say the wrong thing from sheer lack of experience in knowing what not to say and what to say.  This results in a deposition being a stressful situation.  Finally, almost two years later, I sat at a deposition with two lawyers, a court reporter and the insurance company’s representative to answer questions about the last two years along with prior incidences they deemed important.  These days it can be difficult to remember what we did just last week, much less two or more years ago, but I did my best and answered to the best of my knowledge.  Now the lawyers will dissect the answers to prepare their cases, each trying to win the lawsuit for their clients.  And so the waiting begins, again.

EVERY PARENT'S WORST NIGHTMARE

Life is so very fragile.  You can be here today and gone tomorrow.  We are all so busy living our lives to the fullest, taking on way to many obligations than we probably should.  Finding balance for work and play and family has become increasingly difficult.  Even with family members, we try to spend time with our parents, our siblings, our children and our spouses or significant others.  But sadly there is only so much time every day and we can only be in one place at a time.  If only the times were different and we could all have super powers so we could be with them all at the same time.  Life has a certain order and we all assume our lives will happen in that order.  Today, most people probably assume they will live to be about eighty years old.  We think we have lots of time, but unfortunately we should all live everyday as if it was our last and with no regrets.  As couples we are told to never go to bed angry and as time goes on I realize how true that is.  It just isn't worth it to spend our time fighting or being angry with anyone we love or anyone who is a part of our lives.  The tragic loss of my eighteen year old nephew has made me take a closer look at life.  We expect the first funerals we will attend will be for our parents not our children.  My sister has just experienced every parent's worst nightmare of losing her child.  I want to live my life with no regrets.  I want my loved ones to know how much I love them.  I want to make my dreams come true today.  I want to live to be at least eighty but now realize I might not.  The reality has set in that any of us can be gone tomorrow.

ONE MORE TIME

In today's world, people don't stay in one place for very long.  My sister lived in the Chicago area for 16 years before making the long awaited move to Florida after her youngest son, Danton, graduated from High School last May.  So the right thing to do in this circumstance was to have a second memorial service in Crystal Lake where Danton had spent practically his whole life.  This was where all his lifelong friends lived.  So only a few days after I finally got back to Minnesota, after being gone for over three weeks,  I packed for another trip.  Only for this one, it was a road trip.  I drove my parents to Chicago so they could attend their grandson's memorial service. It was a small church and the pastor guessed there were over 300 people at the service.  The pews held 180 people and they were full, chairs lined the aisles on both sides, the balcony was full, the entry way was filled and a large room off the sanctuary was filled with peple watching the service on the television they'd set up.  The family sat in the front row as the pastor related events of Danton's life.  I don't think there was a dry eye in the whole church.  Even grown men were wiping tears away.  I think the reality of it all hit when I found myself asking the question, "What if it was one of my children?"  It was then the uncontrollable sobbing started and didn't stop. 

VALENTINE'S DAY 2011

Three days later, I arrived in warm and sunny Naples with a suitcase full of winter clothes.  Although I would never complain about needing to shop for a few summer items.  Jet setting around the country from city to city is one thing, but leaving my newborn granddaughter to attend a funeral, at least fifty years premature, is another thing all together. I entered a house overflowing with love, where now family and friends smiled one minute and broke down crying the next.  There were precious moments of laughter when fond memories of Danton were retold while we sat in the hot tub. A hot tub where Danton sat only days ago.  Then there were other moments filled with anger and resentment towards this unfortunate and untimely accident that stole Danton away,  long before his time.  Why is it that when you are feeling sad and disheartened and would readily welcome a gloomy rainy day, the sun insists on shining brightly day after day after day?  The funeral was on Valentine's Day. Yes, Valentine's Day.  I don't think I will ever spend another Valentine's Day without remembering this particular one filled with great sadness.  The Lutheran Church was filled with over a hundred friends and family members.  Danton was cremated, so there wasn't a body to view, just a beautifully decorated urn portraying a golfer.  It wasn't until the video of Danton's life started that the women cried uncontrollably and even men could be seen wiping away a tear or two.  Thank heavens for Kleenex!  After the funeral and a light luncheon served by the church, we arrived back at their house.  An odd sense of serenity could be seen in Danton's mother, Sonja, and Danton's girlfriend, Kelly, when the urn was set on the table.  At least now they knew where he was. This was the first funeral I have attended for a young person and I guess I never thought about what  happens after the funeral.  Unfortunately, life goes on whether you want it to or not.  You can't help unintentionally waiting for that person to still walk in the door or for a call that will never come.  All you can do is remember this person and continue to keep them alive in your memories by talking about those shared happy moments.  You must go on with the normal everyday things. So since it was Valentine's Day, the twelve of us dined at Danton's favorite local Italian restaurant and the women all left with a long stemmed red rose.

JUST CAN'T BELIEVE IT

Three days after Baby Teagan was born and one Z-Pak (antibiotics for a sinus infection) later, new mother and baby came home. After going through at least one box of kleenex, two days with Roxy and Lola, St. Bernise Mountain dogs, and the second snowstorm, it was a welcome change.  Let me just say for the record that I am not a dog lover, but the three of us survived.  What should've been a momentus and unforgettable day, ended up being one but for a totally different reason.  After receiving three phonecalls minutes apart, that went unanswered because I was holding the new baby, I decided to check my voicemail.  My mother left an urgent message for me to return her call.  The other calls were from my brother and my sister.  My first thought was that my father had a heart attack, so I returned the call immediately. My cell phone service kept cutting out, but on the third try it finally stayed connected.  My mother, unsure if the call would be dropped again, blurted out quickly, "Danton is dead!"  I think I stopped breathing for a minute.  She went on, "He was in a car accident."  I took the positive stance and said, "You mean he's in the hospital."  I was sure she was just assuming the worst.  Her response was, "No, he's dead."  After listening to the few details she had been given, I called my brother who confirmed it.  I then made the dreaded phone call to my sister to have her confirmation that yes, her 18 year old son was killed in a car accident a few hours ealier.  I just can't believe it kept going through my head even though I knew it was true.  It truly is a day I will never forget.

FINALLY DID IT

I have been wanting to start a blog for the last two years.  So why haven't I?  To be perfectly honest, I didn't know how and it seemed terribly scary.  The other reason is that if I didn't even attempt it, I couldn't possibly do it wrong.  I did it finally, but I'm not sure if I did it right.  Unfortunately the motivation to finally make the attempt was prompted by February's emotional roller coaster. I had been eagerly contemplating the birth of my new granddaughter, which in itself should be a very happy occasion.  She was stubborn, which I'm sure doesn't run in our family at all, and was finally forced from her warm cozy haven 11 days after the due date. Teagan was born on February 7, 2011 and was 7 lbs 5 oz, 19 1/2  inches long and had dark hair.  Did I mention that my daughters live in Oklahoma?  I can't even count the number of times they call me to brag about how warm it is down there and how I should really move there.   Let me just say that it never fails that each time I visit they are having an unexpected cold spell or a tornado.  This time I managed to hit two major snowstorms of 6 plus inches.  Now in Minnesota, that is not a problem at all, but in Oklahoma it is a major problem when you only have about 10 snowplows for the whole city and its suburbs.  They actually close down the whole city for 2-3 days.   It's absolutely unbelivable.  They did plow the major roads, but then virtually sat back and waited for the snow to melt.  Of course in Minnesota that would take a long time.