Aaaalmost there...

I've been writing toward a deadline ever since I got back from Hawaii, so the blogging's been nonexistant. Sorry about that! I'm just about done with a script (am submitting it to a fabulous program that I probably won't get into, but what the hell) and breathing a bit easier now that the end is in sight.

Even if I don't get in this writers workshop, I'll at least have another TV spec to show folks. AND I've rediscovered my TV writing chops after many months of novel writing. The two are very different animals, and it took me awhile to get my TV legs (fingers?) again. For a bit there I thought - wow, I suck.

But of course, this in inevitable when you're a writer. It's a nauseating rollercoaster ride of - eesh, I can't write for beans to - Wheee! This rocks and so do I!

I hit the "This rocks" section of the ride over the weekend and never looked back. When something feels good, don't question it too much. Just keep charging ahead.

Writing for TV is fun. You get to suggests worlds of emotion with a single word, to hint at relationships that may never happen, to show what you think of an idea without ever really putting yourself out there and saying it. It's my character's opinion, not mine (necessarily), right? It's just action and dialogue, and you've got to keep it spare. But look how much you can do with just those two tools! Much fun.

Bellows Beach on Independence Day

My favorite place on earth, warm and beautiful and welcoming. This is crowded for Bellows, which has a former Air Force runway as a parking lot. I got in the water for an hour, collected a few more freckles, and caught a bunch of waves, zooming past the kids on their boogie boards. I learned to bodysurf here the summer I turned nine. Still haven't lost the knack.

Kaimana Beach

Went to Kaimana Beach today to get my body into the ocean. Kaimana's the beach at the Diamond Head end of Waikiki where the locals hang out, at the foot of the New Otani hotel. Thanks to my Dad's membership in the local chapter of the Elks, I can park his car in the Elks Lodge parking lot just half a block away, buy a bottle of water at the store in the New Otani, and hit the sand. The place is also sometimes known as Sans Souci, right next to the Natatorium, a now defunct salt water swimming pool and WW II memorial, complete with cannon.

Thanks to the holiday weekend, the place was packed. Southern swells lifted the hordes of keikis (that's children in Hawaiian) off their feet as they splashed the warm green water. In the winter, it's clear and cool. In the summer, now, the ocean here is a cloudy grassy green, warm as a puppy.