OMG’ quite the dapper Dan!!
All posts by marilyn jaye lewis
Not enough coffee in the world
Do you ever reach that point where it seems that there simply is not enough coffee in the world to:
a.) keep you alive; b.) keep you thriving; c.) keep you productive; d.) keep you interested in remaining here on Earth when there is simply too much writing to do and not enough coffee with which to support it’s being done; and/or e.) all of the above?
I am absolutely exhausted. And I say this/type this as I contemplate the terrible dregs of my 3rd cup of coffee on this cloudy, humid Saturday morning in the Hinterlands, knowing that making another cup is not going to make life/my mental condition/my prospects for surviving this day ANY better!
I’m thinking only sleep will do that…
Oddly, though, I slept great last night. Had the AC on and the drapes closed and I slept a full 8 hours… When my bare feet hit the hardwood floor at 8 AM, I felt happy. But as soon as I once again remembered that there is simply too much to do, not enough money, no one to ever talk to… ennui times the power of 10 took over.
Loneliness. One of the drawbacks of living in obscurity in the Hinterlands. In fact, it’s the only drawback.
I really do still love living here, and even while I really don’t drink very much (anymore) (people who know me from my halcyon days will be shocked by this declaration and might hurry to click on the “About Me” page to make doubly-sure they are reading the blog of the correct Marilyn Jaye Lewis… haha) Anyway. I don’t drink much anymore but that does not keep me from missing those city days when the writing for the day was over, the sun was over the yardarm, and wine, or bourbon, or vodka martinis (and cigarettes) with friends at the local dive bar awaited! And we could all commiserate and/or celebrate the fruits of our heady days.
Yes, my friends; the Hinterlands is not full of writers… (Examine that strange sentence for its many questionable verb tenses if you dare!!)
Sandra, the actress in NYC that I write with/for, said: “Let me send you a plane ticket and you can come stay with me in Rhinebeck for a few days!” (Her sig-oh is currently in France.) But it isn’t a question of needing airfare; I can jump in my spiffy Honda Fit and head for the great wide-open, blue skies of Interstate 80 and be in Rhinebeck, NY before sundown. However, I don’t know a soul around here who can take care of my many CATS.
Sandra replied, “Girl, you really gotta start meeting people…”
I do meet people. But oddly enough, all the people who are in my age range are generally settled & married, with grown children, and even have grandchildren! I know nothing of this life. And am not likely to start knowing about it anytime soon.
I meet plenty of people around here that I enjoy, who are way younger than I am, and since I am perennially at age 12, I relate to them just fine, but it is not really reciprocal. Not just because I’m old(er), but because my frame of reference regarding life is vast, inexplicable and often strange. I might as well have spent all of my former years, up to moving to the Hinterlands, on Saturn. (Not just Saturn, but an X-rated, crime-ridden, fame-ridden Saturn, at that.)
It gets, well, discouraging is not the best word for it. Probably disheartening is better.
It gets disheartening. And yet, I have to ignore the tidal wave of disheartenment (yes, I know; not an actual word) because I have too much writing — stupefyingly precise and fantastic writing — to do this summer. (This long lonely summer.) But onward, gang.
Hope your 4th of July festivities are shaping up nicely — if you live State-side, that is. If you don’t, then I hope you just have a great weekend. Thanks for visiting, folks!!
(By the way, the next time I get to NYC and have some time to see a show that doesn’t involve Sandra, I cannot wait to see this one!! I am currently playing this song in my car, over & over & over.) I leave you to it!
Okay, see ya!!
Auspicious moments
The past 24 hours have been just like some sort of dream.
It’s been the most perfect summer weather, ever. In the known history of the world. Sunshine and blue skies, no humidity, cool temperatures at night. Try: 48 degrees when I woke up this morning at 7 o’clock! Sunshine & breezes streaming in through the open windows. Birds singing all over the place. My 1 trillion-thread-count white cotton sheets from Italy felt like nothing less than a cool gift from God. And four happy cats stood on top of me on the bed, eager to have me greet this amazing day.
Before I forget, I want to mention that, last evening, I binged on the Tig Notaro show, One Mississippi (Amazon Prime). I had really, really enjoyed the pilot episode and finally made time to watch the new series (6 half-hour episodes, including the pilot). I really love that show. It’s dark, funny, sad, hopeful, smart, unexpected and has great music. I hope they’re going to go into a second season.
I didn’t do much writing yesterday…
Once I had finished watching One Mississippi, I got hooked into another great show on my watchlist, albeit one for kids (but I loved every minute of it and can’t wait to watch more episodes tonight, yay!): Gortimer Gibbon’s Life On Normal Street.
It’s about 3 best friends who live on Normal Street and the peculiar things that happen there. It’s too fun! (And it was too easy to sit there on the comfy couch and binge-watch it as the sun went down on the Hinterlands and cool breezes came in through the open living room windows and the Newcastle Brown Ales were ice cold…) (Oddly enough, I can’t find Newcastles at my local grocery store so I have to buy them at the all-night gas station in the next town over. Go figure…)
After the binging on Amazon Prime was over, I went to bed and laid there, listening to an old BBC radio drama by candlelight: Agatha Christie’s Murder in Mesopotamia.
Until I eventually fell asleep… and then awoke in the manner mentioned at the beginning of this post!
Even though I have way too much writing to get done before the summer is over, I am having the most perfect life. In fact, a couple of days ago, when I took my morning break and walked in the park, I saw my very first bluebird ever. I’d seen pictures of bluebirds, of course, but I had never actually seen one for real. And on my way to the park, it landed in the grass, right in front of me, and I couldn’t believe my eyes!
The bluebird is symbolic of happiness, in many different cultures both ancient and contemporary, including our own. I thought it was auspicious and perfectly fitting that a bluebird finally found me here in the Hinterlands!
And on that blissful note, I’m calling it a day over here and I’m going to let the evening begin. (Beginning with another Newcastle, as the sun goes over the yardarm…)
Enjoy yourselves wherever you are this evening, gang! Thanks for visiting! See ya!
Life around here for the next couple months!
A brief mid-afternoon conference call with the production company in Los Angeles yesterday revealed that more re-writes than I thought are needed on the Untitled Cleveland Drama (once fondly known as Cleveland’s Burning).
This is actually good news, gang. The brief phone chat showed me just how high they are aiming with this TV pilot (and eventual series). A lot is riding on this single opening episode. They nonchalantly said, “Just take one more pass at it and then we’ll be ready.” (Their confidence in me is staggering.)
The truly great thing about this is that their suggestions are targeted and specific, as to the acts as well as the characters, so half my job is actually done. I know I can make the changes they need and the whole thing is really, really exciting…
However…
Loyal readers of this lofty blog will undoubtedly note that I also need to complete the rewrites on my theatrical version of Tell My Bones: The Helen LaFrance Story by the end of the summer, because this is when Sandra Caldwell (the actress I write with/for in NYC) will be handing out the script, along with the other play we collaborated on, The Guide to Being Fabulous, to potential directors, producers, casting agents, etc.
To quote Sandra’s text to me: “It’s about to be off the chain!” (followed by various and sundry far-flung emojis.) Off the chain, indeed.
Yes, life is exceptionally good right now, gang, but the coming summer months, here in the Hinterlands, are going to be chock-full of coffee (!!), writing, juggling my writing hours and general work, and then, hopefully, a few moments spent staring out at the evening, as the fireflies give way to the stars (with or without the occasional pint of British ale!).
Okay, gang. I hope things are going just as splendidly wherever you are and with whatever projects you’re working on! I’m off to the kitchen for another cup of coffee now, even as I type!
Thanks for visiting, and I leave you with this little ditty to keep your spirits high and your blood pumping!! (PS: I love playing this right when I get out of bed in the morning, singing and clapping along; it makes my cats zoom around the house like crazy! Too funny!) All righty, see ya!
Taking Time Out from My Busy Day to Write!
Ah, yes, this is me in my latest selfie! I won’t even try to explain how I managed to take this picture of myself without appearing to be holding my phone in any way…
Anyway!
Happy, happy Tuesday, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing!!
Work on my one-act play version of Tell My Bones, the play I’m writing about the Kentucky-based painter Helen LaFrance for the NYC-based actress, Sandra Caldwell, continues down its inspiring and happy path!
So, of course, pretty much the very moment I knew I had this 2-month deadline in which to write & complete the play, I finally got the feedback from the production company in Los Angeles regarding my revisions to my TV Pilot/series proposal (once called Cleveland’s Burning, now called the more memorable and illustrative, Untitled Cleveland Drama).
The feedback was truly terrific, gang! I was really just so thrilled. I still need to tweak the ending a bit, to make it more explosive, dramatic, etc. Nothing that involves too much labor — however, I do have to suddenly stop in midstream and switch gears completely. But that is A-Okay with me. I simply couldn’t be happier right now.
On another great note, one of my former writing students contacted me yesterday to tell me that a short-short story of his was selected for an upcoming (and first) short story collection for the James Patterson Masterclass! Wow! I am so crazy-happy for him.
It is so gratifying for me to see a former student stick with it. So many would-be writers who have plenty of skill and talent get bogged down in jobs, family, paying bills, rejection letters, etc., etc. Especially when they’re not living in key publishing/media cities like NYC, LA, or San Francisco. So I am just pleased as punch by his good news.
All righty, gang! The trees, the sky, the birds, the endless green fields, the train whistles early in the morning, the fireflies and the stars at night, and the occasional pints of British ale out on the back patio here in the Hinterlands continue to delight me! Things are going so good, gang. Hope all is well in your corner of the world.
I leave you with something I sing all the time now. Hope it inspires you to make the most of everything (and I mean everything!). Sing it loud and sing it proud! Thanks for visiting, gang! See ya!
Monastery Experience
I thought this was just beautiful.
A spiritual expression of the value of the monastic experience by Hieromonk Alexii Altschul, Igumen of Holy Archangel Michael and All Angels Skete.
R.I.P. Anita Pallenberg
OMG, I know!
It’s been yet another FOREVER since I’ve posted here!
Let’s see. What have I been doing?
I took a quick and lovely road trip in the new Honda Fit recently. It was a lovely day and a perfect drive. (Although I have to say, I do get really tired of always doing everything by myself!)
I bought myself a season ticket to a local summer stock theater company. It’s in the next town over; a quick drive out to a barn, basically, in the middle of trees and fields. I had the best time! (Once again, though, all by myself. One thing about living out here in the Hinterlands — I only have 1 friend and he now has 3 tots under the age of, like, 8 at home — and he’s as old as Methuselah. So I rarely ever get to see him nowadays.)
But back to the theater — The first show was Children of Eden, by Stephen Schwartz. I’m not always a Stephen Schwartz fan. While I absolutely adore Pippin (having seen the original touring version back in 1973 and then going on to memorize the Original Broadway Cast album soon thereafter), I think I am the sole person on planet Earth who does not adore Wicked, and Children of Eden has a similar musical feel to Wicked. Meaning that the singing just goes on and on and on and the melodies just seem to blend into one another. However, even though I didn’t leave the theater humming any semblance of a memorable musical tune, I did enjoy the performance and the people in the show a whole lot and I’m looking forward to the next show, Peter & the Starcatcher.
And on a similar note (i.e. theater) — the reason why I haven’t been able to post here in quite some time:
When last you heard from me, I was re-working my approach to The Tea Cozy Murder Club TV script, and was painfully researching that new approach by tirelessly streaming endless repeats of Midsomer Murders, one of my favorite TV shows of all time. (It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it.)
Meanwhile, I was also doing that never-ending research for the play I’m writing about Caiaphas, In the Days of the Flesh. (Research involving theology, ancient biblical history both Jewish and Christian, and current archeology, so the never-ending-ness of it can get overwhelming.) Anyway, I enjoy every minute of it, but before I could really settle down and put pen to paper on either project, an additional play I’m writing for Sandra Caldwell has suddenly landed smack dab on the center of my plate.
Loyal readers of this lofty blog will no doubt recall that 2 summers ago, I went to New York to work with Sandra on refashioning my TV movie script, Tell My Bones: The Helen LaFrance Story, into a one-act play for Sandra to perform/star in. Well, now that we’ve at long last, really & truly, signed off on the final draft of her one-woman musical (currently titled The Guide to Being Fabulous), she informed me that she needed a finished draft of the Tell My Bones play within 2 months, when she starts performances of Charm Off-Broadway with the MCC Theater.
It’s not like I totally forgot that Tell My Bones even existed. The TV movie script of it is with the production company in LA and I’m awaiting feedback on it. However, the one-act PLAY version of Tell My Bones … well, I did totally forget that it even existed. (Too many half-finished projects on my plate, perhaps??) So, when Sandra said she needed a final draft of Tell My Bones by the end of the summer, all I could think of to say was, “You got it!”
Then I hung up the phone and had to scrounge around, digging up 2-year-old notes for the thing, keeping in mind that I sold my house, stuffed everything imaginable into boxes that went into storage for 6 months and then got shoved willy-nilly here in the basement in the house I’m renting in the Hinterlands…
But blessings and miracles!! I found all the notes and discovered that when I sat down at my desk to tackle it, I was incredibly and effortlessly inspired! And I am so happy with how it’s progressing.
The one-act play version of Tell My Bones will be done by the end of the summer simply because it has to be. Pressure aside, it feels so exciting to be working on it right now, simply because the inspiration is so close, so tangible, so beautiful. As any writer (or any artist) knows, inspiration is not always present when deadlines are. So to have them arriving at the same time and keeping pace with each other –Wow. It just feels so great.
But, on the downside, it leaves me little leftover inspiration for blogging. So yes, my friends; you must suffer. You must pay the price in all this heady inspirational madness going on over here in the Hinterlands!
Okay, on that note… Let’s see. I will leave you with this! Some of that “inspiration” for Tell My Bones. Thanks for visiting, gang! Have a wonderful weekend whatever you wind up doing. See ya!
Such good things!
Only a ten-day absence this time! Pretty good! (Of course, it’s still nothing like the years & years & years where I blogged every single solitary day, including Sundays & holidays! But onward!)
Okay! Remember that great news I couldn’t discuss in my last post? Well, it is now official and so I can share it. And I am so happy about it.
Sandra Caldwell, the actress in New York City that I write with/for, has just landed the leading role in Charm, a play by Philip Dawkins. It will be having its Off-Broadway debut as the fall season opener at Manhattan’s MCC Theater beginning Labor Day weekend.
(I’m planning on attending opening night and I’ve already bought a new dress for the occasion — one of those Calvin Klein floral fit & flare dresses that everyone is wearing these days.) (Although I might change my mind at the last minute, since I am usually a plain black sheath-wearing sort of gal… We’ll see if I ultimately opt once more for living in the past, or taking a bold leap into being like everybody else!)
I’m excited about this show for many reasons. One being that Sandra is my friend and this is her return to the New York stage after a long hiatus. Another reason being that her decision to focus again on stage work was made a couple years ago, wherein she hired me to not only help her with her one-woman musical, but also to be the head writer for her production company, with a focus on theater.
Charm was very well received in Chicago and promises to be a real winner in New York, as well, and it looks additionally promising that the one-woman musical Sandra and I have been working on for several years will get produced and find an off-Broadway stage in New York in the near future.
Even though I was a singer-songwriter for many, many years — in my halcyon days in New York, before switching to full-time fiction writing in the 1990s — theater was always my first love, ever since I was a wee bonnie lassie.
I love all kinds of theater: Jr. High and High School theater; college theater, Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway theater; and even the occasional “go down these dank ancient stairs and enter a clammy, dark, hell-hole abyss theater space” to watch stupifyingly experimental theater where none of the actors even get paid. I love it all.
And even while I’m really excited with the progress I’ve made the last several years with my TV Pilot scripts and TV MOW scripts, theater still excites me, probably even more. So with Sandra’s upcoming success (I know she is going to be superb), will come more and more opportunities to write theater projects for her.
Dare I say that I couldn’t be happier?? (Let us return briefly to the unbridled joy of the American Housewife! If my soul could project onto a screen or perhaps a hologram, it would look like her!)
Well, all righty, gang!!
And in terms of re-writes for my TV Pilot/MOW script, The Tea Cozy Murder Club: A Murder at Parsons Ridge — I have made great progress in re-thinking the story. Not the plot, not the characters, not the setting; but the story itself and how it gets told. I’ve been re-watching tons of old Midsomer Murders episodes and getting delightfully re-inspired. Even though graphically violent & angry police procedurals are all “the rage” now (excuse the pun) (and even the more recent Midsomer Murders have gone more in that direction), the older shows, with their intensely quirky characters interest me a lot more and that’s more in keeping with how I envision the Tea Cozy Murder Club characters. So off we go!
Okay, thanks for visiting, gang. And have a wonderful weekend, whatever you wind up doing! I leave you with this little ditty from Mame, it’s a song that I’ve pretty much lived my life by since childhood, come what may!
See ya!
Better late than never!
I know! How many weeks has it been since I last posted here??? (It’s been so long, that I actually don’t know how many weeks it’s been since I last posted here!)
Yes, it’s all about more & more re-writes over here. Some of the best news ever, though, is that the “final” draft of the one-woman musical I’ve been working on with the NYC-based actress, Sandra Caldwell, is finally complete!! After how many years??? (About 3 or 4.)
I put “final” in quotes because this means it is only the final version of the draft we are willing to send out and let other industry people read. I’m sure it will see other drafts before it finally hits the stage. We are extremely excited about this script/play/musical, and even more-better news is on its way, but I can’t discuss it publicly yet.
Stay tuned to this oft-unposted-to blog for all the current news on that un-discussable topic!! Yay! (Seriously, though, it is GREAT news.)
I think I mentioned (many moons ago, when I last posted here), that I am currently taking the Shonda Rhimes TV Writing Masterclass, while I begin the revisions of my TV pilot, The Tea Cozy Murder Club: A Murder at Parsons Ridge. That’s partly why I haven’t had much free time to post here. The other part is that I also began re-writing my memoirs for upcoming publication by the gang at SomethingDark.eu. Too many things needing my complete attention. But it’s all good! For a change…
And to those of you who are loyal readers of this lofty blog — may I say that I actually remembered to make a copy of the first draft of the Tea Cozy Murder Club script BEFORE I began re-writing it!! You have no idea how smart this makes me feel!
In non-writing but extremely exhausting news, I also finally managed (with the help of friends & family) to clear out my self-storage unit over the past weekend, and so now all 95% of my life that was in storage 30 miles away, is now here with me, packed in a quite unwieldy manner in the basement.
So now I can say that I am 100% completely living in the Hinterlands. And still loving it, gang.
But on that happy note, I have to get back to work here. I have one more hour left of my daily writing time, so I need to get back at it.
Thanks for visiting. I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday wherever it finds you and with whatever you’re doing. (Oh, I also want to go ON RECORD that I firmly support Johnny Depp‘s right to buy 15,000 cotton balls a day. He earned it, folks.)
Okay! See ya!
(Honestly. You can find everything on the Internet!!)
Marilyn's Room 