Tag Archives: re-writing

To cold open or to jump in? That’s the question!

January 31, 2017 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Welcome to this rainy Tuesday in the Hinterlands!

I cannot tell you how much time I have spent on the new opening of the Untitled Cleveland Drama, once known as Cleveland’s Burning. As is customary for me, I seriously belabor the first few images of everything I write, whether it’s fiction or a screenplay. As I have pounded into the heads of my writing students over the years: DON’T give your reader a chance to put it down!!

By this I mean, keep your opening seamless, keep it flowing, don’t allow for a single question in your reader’s mind about what is visually happening. Be exceedingly crafty about your punctuation, as well. Anything that could cause a reader to pause, or to question, or to consider his or her own mind, thus causing a break in the flow, is that dreaded gap wherein the book or script can be set aside for something else, indefinitely.

Because of that, I can’t tell you how much time I’ve spent on the first 60 seconds of my script (also known as page 1). Then, when I felt I finally could sign off on those first 60 seconds, I labored over the next 20 seconds, because now I can’t decide between: the cold open, or jumping into Act One? And since I cannot make up my mind about this, I go back and forth between how I want to craft those next 20 seconds…

In order to still utilize my time efficiently, I set aside my quandary and did some more background research for my character, Caleb Robinson: I watched Stanley Nelson Jr’s documentary, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution. I really liked the film and it gave me some critical dates to work with, historically. [However, it does seem that some ex-Black Panthers weren’t happy with the tone of the film, in particular, how it portrayed the dismantling of the Panthers and Huey Newton’s demise. But there was still a lot of amazing stuff in the film for me to draw on.]

Today, I need to process that from my brain into the script, even though Caleb Robinson won’t become a Black Panther until 1967, and that’s 4 seasons away from the pilot episode. Still, you gotta craft a character from his first scene in order to keep it believable, right?

Well, on that lofty note, I have got to decide, once and for all, if I have a cold open here or am I already into Act One??? I think I will go watch a re-run of Perry Mason and see what hits the page when I’m done doing that!

Thanks for visiting, gang. Have a terrific Tuesday, wherever you are! See ya!

Best TV theme song, EVER!!

Dare to compare!!

January 27, 2017 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Loyal readers of this lofty blog will no doubt be at least a little familiar with my good friend Val from Brooklyn, who pens the Paws for Thought Comics.

The other day, she did a great tribute to the late Mary Tyler Moore. I love the details of this!

First, the actual shot from the opening credits of the Mary Tyler Moore Show:

Next, Val’s Paws for Thought tribute:

Don't you just love the cat's eyes glasses on the cat in the background?? — Don’t you just love the cat’s eyes glasses on the cat in the background??

Okay! As always, life goes on around here. Hard at work on the re-writes for the TV Pilot, once called Cleveland’s Burning, but now called “Untitled Cleveland Drama”. That’s my first attempt at “please give it a new title.” Ha ha.

Do you know how it is when you finally tap into your groove? Kerouac called it “finding your way in” to the piece. Once you find that way in, it’s like it takes on a flow and energy of its own. Hours go by and it simply doesn’t feel like any time has passed because you are so into what you are writing.

That is the longed-for-hoped-for head space of the writer. That’s where I’m at right now. Hopefully that flow will just keep flowing. It’s only 64 pages, after all! Right? So how hard can it be to keep flowing???

[Correct Answer: Don’t ask!! You’ll jinx it!]

All righty, gang. Thanks for visiting me on this snowy Friday in the hinterlands! I hope you have a terrific day, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing out there! See ya!

just saying, “hey!”

January 23, 2017 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

I don’t have much time these days to hang out online because I’m ankle-deep in re-writes over here –on several projects at once (!!).

Still, I wanted to swing by with a couple cute photos of my sweeties — because I always have time to take their picture!

Can you tell these guys (& gals) are related???!!!

Tommy, Weenie, & Huckleberry (& Joel Osteen!)

Life is rough for a cat, here in the hinterlands!

As always, if you click on the photos, they enlarge! And, yes, the cats do indeed get off the bed once in awhile, although you’d never know it from all the photos I take of them sleeping on my bed (which is right next to my desk, so I’m always looking at how cute they are!).

Life is good here. The re-writes on the TV Pilot are going well, but I am still aiming for 110% better… Also, final, final, FINAL re-writes for the one-woman musical I’m working on with the actress in NYC are nearly complete.

I still try to take one day at a time around here, but I also still keep thinking that a year from now, life is going to be really, really different. Not sure, though, in what way.

Hope all is well where all of you are at! Thanks for visiting, gang! See ya’ real soon!

So many great projects, too little time!

December 13, 2016 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

First and foremost: There is more snow falling here in the hinterlands, even as I type!! Yay! It won’t amount to more than 2 inches, so it’s no big deal that later today, I will once again have to drive into town… While it’s falling, it is just so darn pretty. Especially now that most of the neighbors have their Christmas lights up.

I was assured by the director of production at the company that will be developing my TV pilot, Cleveland’s Burning, that we will begin the re-writes and development of the pilot right after the first of the year.

I’m expecting this project to seriously challenge my storytelling abilities and take a lot out of me. In other words, most of my life will likely come to a grinding halt, once I begin working on the revisions. So Val (in Brooklyn) and I decided to spend December getting back to our book, The Miracle Cats and the Case of the Purloined Passport. Since both Fluffy and Bunny, my beloved and recently departed cats, have prime roles in the book, I was having trouble writing it. I couldn’t get past the fact that both my cats had died this year, so unexpectedly. And Val’s Dad died, followed quickly by her Uncle, so things were just emotionally rough for both of us. Well, once we decided we were both ready to tackle the book again, another dear member of Val’s family suddenly passed away, so the book has shifted to the back burner once again.

I thought, okay, I’ll make some progress on my memoirs before January rolls around. But suddenly, out of the blue, after about 14 months of researching Caiaphas, James the Brother of Jesus, and the Talpiot Tomb (in order to write my one-man play about Caiaphas in a seriously modern re-telling of his role in the death of Jesus), I sat down at my desk yesterday morning, and lo & behold, the play started coming out! Astonishing. I was so not expecting that.

My play is titled, In the Days of the Flesh. The title is taken from the Book of Hebrews, in the New Testament, and refers to the days when Jesus walked among men. It took me all day, but I got 2 killer pages done. I can’t imagine it will be finished by January, even though it will only run about 55 pages. Nevertheless, if it’s ready to come, I’m welcoming its arrival with “open laptop!!” — however many pages end up coming before the New Year.

So, on we go! And that said, I want to get back at it! Thanks for visiting, gang, and I leave you with this splendiferous Ode to Today!! See ya!

Wow, A Very Happy Thanksgiving is Underway!

November 24, 2016 marilyn jaye lewis 2 Comments

So much to be thankful for here, gang!

1.) I bit the bullet and decided to get cable again after I moved here because I don’t have an HD television anymore and can’t watch everything on an iPad — and my new cable lineup carries reruns of Perry Mason, one of my all-time favorite shows! Yay!

2.) I discovered an AMC megaplex 3 minutes from my new house and was able to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them this past Tuesday afternoon, without having to drive 40 minutes each way! Yay!

3.) My 50-year-old 10-cup Corning Ware percolator finally bit the dust and I bought this beautiful shiny retro-looking new one yesterday at Sur La Table! (Welcome to the future of coffee while still managing to live in the past!) Yay!

4.) I’m having Thanksgiving dinner today at one of my favorite places — the Buxton Inn in Granville, Ohio, which is now, quite conveniently, only 10 minutes away! (It used to be 30 minutes away, but, as you know, I recently moved to the middle of nowhere!) (Just FYI — in my TV movie script, The Tea Cozy Murder Club: A Murder at Parsons Ridge, the Buxton Inn is renamed the Peabody Inn and Granville is renamed Parsons Ridge.)

And, speaking of my TV movie script…

5. ) The same production company in LA that is interested in developing The Tea Cozy Murder Club, the same company that had also asked to see my TV pilot proposal, Cleveland’s Burning, a couple months back, finally gave me their feedback on that project and guess what, gang? They loved it! This week, we officially signed the contract to begin developing Cleveland’s Burning!! Double, triple YAY!!!

Yes, that’s right. I officially could not be happier.

Oh, and of course I’m thankful for my good health and the rollicking, robust health of each and every single one of my remaining 8 cats, gang! I’m thankful for this great house we’re living in (and now that the old, expensive house is gone, my credit scores are through the roof again! Yay!!) (But, sadly, the new owners of my old house cut down all my trees, my rose bushes, my azaleas, my rhododendron — you name it, they cut it down. I was devastated when I drove by there, but we must move on, gang.) I’m also thankful for this lovely little town I’m living in! And thankful that, after several thousand dollars’ worth of repairs (!!), my beloved 2001 Mercury Sable LS Premium Sedan is in terrific shape once again!! And, well, the list goes on…

Yes, after a truly difficult year, we are winding it up on a very high note. Hope it’s going the same in your neck of the woods! To everyone living state-side, have a lovely Thanksgiving. And to everyone else, have a great day!

Thanks for visiting! See ya. (Click the image; it gets bigger.)

The town I now live in actually looks like this (for the most part)... — The area of Ohio that I now live in actually looks like this for most of the 40-minute drive back to town…

When it rains, it pours!

August 6, 2016 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Yes, I am up to my eyeballs with projects.

First and foremost, I have made a chore chart for everyone who lives here and I’ve posted it prominently in the kitchen! I’m trying to get everyone to take on their fair share of the cleaning duties around here because I do not have enough time to do everything. So I’ve made the kind of chart where you give each person a little colored foil sticky star that indicates how they are doing as far as accomplishing their chores goes. You know, sort of like this:

Then I stick a little star in the “day of the week” column. Gold, of course, means “excellent”. Silver means “showing improvement”. Green means “needs improvement”. Blue means “lacking initiative”. Red means “poor”.

YES, I do realize that everyone who lives here, besides me, is a cat! But that shouldn’t be an excuse for getting a free ride! So far, Fluffy, who, albeit is dying from cancer, has the difficult chore of “sleeping at all times” and she, even in her poor, fragile condition, is the ONLY ONE who consistently gets a gold star. EVERYONE ELSE hovers in the “lacking initiative” and “needs improvement” zones…

When I try to point this out to them, they insist on regarding me blankly. Some even have the audacity to look at me and then glance at the fridge, as if treats might be coming! (Have you ever known “lacking initiative” or “needs improvement” to equal treats?? I have not.)

I am NOT KIDDING about the chore chart, however, it is only an art project I made for myself in order to remember to laugh when I look around at the regrettable state of the house. No one (me) is dusting. No one (me) has washed the kitchen floor in several weeks. No one (me, again, as it turns out) has vacuumed in about 10 days. I’m actually up to my eyeballs in writing projects, so that is a really happy thing. Still, I stress when the housework doesn’t get done.

But, on that merry note — the actress in NYC (the one I’ve been working with on the original one-woman musical) came back from the pitch in Toronto with excellent news. The response to the project was incredibly great, so we are almost to the final draft that will be shopped to theatrical producers, etc. It is so exciting. She’s been working on this musical (she wrote the play and all the songs — it is about her staggeringly unexpected life) for about 5 or 6 years. And I’ve been working with her (editing, advising, tweaking) (not implying any use of meth amphetamines when I say “tweaking”) for about 3 years now. But it is a really great show, gang, and I know it is going to get funded.

Anyway, so that is getting ready to go into high gear, while I am also in the throes of writing The Tea Cozy Murder Club: A Murder at Parsons Ridge, the novel.

Remember how — many, many posts ago — I proposed the idea of writing 5 pages a day on the novel in order to have it done by Labor Day? Yeah, well….

I’m trying. It’s now looking more like late September. (Assuming that on your calendar, “late September” actually means October… hahaha.)

It has been a rough summer, gang. An expensive summer. An “every time I turn around, a week has disappeared, where is the time flying to?” summer. Hence, the chore chart, to remember to keep my sense of humor.

All right. Well, it’s a lovely, sunny, ungodly humid, hot Saturday here, gang! Luckily, the central AC is kicking butt this year!! Yay!! My house stays at an always-comfortable 72 degrees!! I’m going to get crackin’ on the novel. (Okay, I’m going to go down to the kitchen and get another cup of coffee, then get crackin’ on the novel.)

Have a great day, wherever you are and whatever you get crackin’ on in your neck of the woods!! Thanks for visiting. See ya!

Me, getting crackin' on the novel! I know, it looks suspiciously like me "tinkering" in the previous post. Trust me, there are shades of nuance when I'm getting crackin' and when I'm tinkering. — Me, getting crackin’ on the novel! I know, it looks suspiciously like me “tinkering” in the previous post. Trust me, there are shades of nuance when I’m getting crackin’ and when I’m tinkering.

Finally! I really do write!

June 7, 2016 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

The final revisions were made yesterday to my TV movie script, The Tea Cozy Murder Club: A Murder At Parsons Ridge, AND I did the highly implausible: I wrote a logline that the producer said was “excellent”.

That’s a first.

Normally, my loglines suck. I usually marvel in awe at writers who can come up with a decent logline right off the top of their heads — or even right after they tinker with it for several days, laboring slavishly. I thought the one I came up with for Tea Cozy Murder Club was serviceable, at best. I imagined the producer would tinker with it until it was better than serviceable.

When he emailed me back and said it was excellent, I was dumbfounded. (“How can that be?” I wondered. “If I was the one who wrote it?”)

This is the logline (drum roll, please): The members of a small town book club that delights in solving cozy old whodunits suddenly find themselves with a very real not-so-cozy murder to solve.

Yes, you guessed it! The Tea Cozy Murder Club: A Murder At Parsons Ridge is a cozy mystery. (So is The Miracle Cats and the Case of the Purloined Passport — see numerous posts below.) Even though everyone the world over knows me for my super-duper killer award-winning literary erotica, I haven’t written in that genre for nearly 10 years, and I only read it now when I’m hired to edit it. Nowadays, I only read religious tomes (this one is jaw-droppingly awesome and needs to be read by everybody you’ve ever known), or cozy mysteries. (I’m currently reading this one, by Louise Penny.)

So, the great news is that the producer will be taking The Tea Cozy Murder Club to a meeting with a production company in L.A. next week! I will keep you posted on how much they love it.

Yippee-ki-yi-yay!

On the Fluffy front (see post below about how my beloved Fluffy has advanced cancer): she is still with us and that makes it a great day! She is quite frail, though. This morning, at dawn, I scooped her up really gently in my arms and took her over to the screen door so that she could see the beautiful world that was awakening outside. It really was lovely out — and cool! 57 degrees! Fluffy was so alert and entranced by the outside world. The greenery everywhere, the flowers blooming and, most importantly, the happy birds chirping like mad.

I just love Fluffy. I will deal with my grief when I have to. For now, it’s just a perfect day.

Well, okay. On that note…Thanks for visiting, gang! Have a perfect day, too, wherever you are and whatever it finds you doing! See ya!

Whacked-out April

April 25, 2016 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

I’m referring to the month of April being seriously whacky; not to some unknown woman named April who might be whacked-out of her mind somewhere…

Like everyone everywhere, I began the month of April on April 1st — a really lovely spring morning around here. By 8:30 that morning, though, a cable TV repair van ran a red light in the intersection in front of the library that led him directly into the driver’s side of my faithful 19-year-old Camry.

He totaled it.

I prefer to dwell on the fact that I walked away from the crash relatively unscathed, with only a few hours in the ER and 4 and a half days in bed, and will finally get a new car, which I needed anyway.

However, it has not been a fun month. And the release of SomethingDark Issue 3, out of Bristol, England, this month, brought another disturbing thing. While I’m the North American Editor for SomethingDark, this issue is a little late in being released and with its release came the news that writer/colleague/friend/radio host and person I edited in Issue 3, Michael Hemmingson, is dead.

I’m of the opinion that he’s not really dead but is living under an assumed identity with his daughter in some foreign land (i.e., Japan). However, if I must accept that he is really dead, I think he died under seriously questionable circumstances. He “died of a heart attack” in Tijuana, where he coincidentally had lots of drug cartel enemies…

The whole thing was really disturbing news for me, making me wonder where the heck time flies to because Hemmingson has been dead for over two years already and no one told me! However, the issue of SomethingDark is truly worth waiting for, so check it out at the link above. And if you were long ago scheduled to be in Issue 4, the Japan issue, you will be hearing from me directly!

While researching cars online, trying to figure out what I will end up driving one day really soon (more than likely another Camry, even though I was planning on buying a Jeep Commander when I moved back to New York, but now that the move is indefinitely on hold…). Anyway, I came across this fantastic magazine ad from 1967. My father bought this very same car in 1967 — in red!! The lady in the insane hat did not come with the car, nevertheless, it was a seriously COOL car!! I was in the second grade when he bought the red Wildcat and I was astonished the afternoon he drove it up our driveway in Cleveland. Wow. It had a black leather interior. I had almost forgotten all about it!

So I wanted to share that fun news with you, rather than all the other not fun stuff that’s been going on around here.

Other good news… The producer in L.A. loved my Tea Cozy Murder Club: A Murder at Parsons Ridge TV movie script. He only wants some very minor revisions, which I’m working on today. Then we shall see!

Meanwhile, as I await the check from the insurance company, I’m planting flowers in my garden and trying to get this property back to what it once was three and a half years ago…before it was scheduled to be demolished.

Hope things have been just as good wherever YOU are! Thanks for visiting, folks. Here’s hoping May is a little easier. I’ll keep you posted. See ya!

Okay! Progress getting made

March 31, 2016 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Since tomorrow is April 1st, it looks like it’s only been about 2 MONTHS since I last posted anything here (but what a fine and lively post it was! I hope you all listened to that wonderfully fun song! I am still listening to it in my car.) (Not exclusively — I listen to quite a panoply of Frank Sinatra tunes from the 40s & 50s while driving in my 19 (!!!) year-old car…)

Okay. Many updates occurred while I was absent from the blog. Some of them traumatizing — for instance, any and all developers and private real estate investors suddenly and without warning dropped all interest in commercializing my specific block on my street here in Gahanna.

This means that after keeping me in limbo for 3 and 1/2 years, telling me they were tearing my house down and re-zoning my block for commercial use, and hence my reasonably-foreseeable-future plans of moving back to New York — all of it came to a grinding halt.

It has something to do with City Hall, taxes, other residents, unhappy voters. So now I am basically working around the clock to afford all the many, many repairs this poor house needs to make it livable again.

I know that the absolute minute I get it back to being the sweet little dream house it once was, they will knock on my door yet again and tell me they are tearing it down. But you know what? We’ll just have to see what we see. I can’t live in limbo anymore with a house falling down around my ears.

So.

The one-woman musical I’m working on with the actress in New York is basically done. Yay!! I think the premiere will be in Toronto, though, not New York City. I will keep you posted about that. It has something to do with funding from the Canadian Arts Council. But I can tell you, with complete certainty, that it is a GREAT show!! I am so thrilled to be a part of it.

Now she and I have 3 more plays/musicals to write together. I’m guessing that will keep me busy for a huge number of years. (The actress has been working on the above-mentioned one-woman show for maybe 7 years already. Writing, re-writing, workshopping it, performing it — it won an award in Canada already. Then I came on board to help significantly re-write it about 2-3 years ago. These things really do take forever.)

I have also finished writing my TV movie script for The Tea Cozy Murder Club!! It goes off to the producer in L.A. on Friday. He is excited to read it and I am super-duper excited to send it to him! This is an idea I have been developing for about 4 or 5 years. Now, I need to start writing the novels that go along with the TV movies (there is, at the very least, a series of 4.)

The mystery book series I’m writing with my illustrator friend in Brooklyn is still moving forward (The Miracle Cats and the Case of the Purloined Passport). We had to put it on hold, though, momentarily, until I completed the script for my other project because the producer’s assistant emailed me and asked if I was planning to wait on sending it until after the producer retired….

Anyway, so I finally had to stop juggling everything at once, and write one thing at a time. But now we are back to The Miracle Cats. Here’s the latest illustration. It is “Sister Thomasina”:

"Sister THomasina" aka known as Tommy Cakes! — “Sister Thomasina” aka known as Tommy Cakes!

I am also researching and putting notes together for a one-man play I want to write. I will go over more of those details as it goes along. But I’m very excited about it. It is somewhat connected to my ministry, but I won’t say more than that, lest I send you off on a complete tangent that would be wholly inaccurate.

Now that I’m done with school and staring down several years’ worth of paying off student loans… I am now learning Ancient Greek, and re-learning Biblical Hebrew (which I studied as a child, so a lot of that comes back to me). Anyway, learning them both at once is not really so daunting as it might seem because they have similarities. Sort of. Plus, I am strictly doing it on my own time and at my own pace, so it is really invigorating and fun.

I doubt I will ever learn enough Ancient Greek or live long enough to translate the Septuagint on my own, but we can dream, can’t we??? I’m already planning to write my own version of The Jefferson Bible (my minster at church refers to my plans as The Lewis Bible and it may well be that!). And I fully, fully intend to do this and maybe even publish it online! We shall see…

So, that’s it. That’s it. That’s where I’ve been. It is completely, 100% thoroughly safe to say that I am exhausted. But that’s how it goes sometimes.

Right now, it’s a wonderfully rainy spring morning. The birds are singing outside my window and the many, many cats who live here are planted at the screen door, looking out at the beautiful, wet, singing world. I hope it’s just as peaceful and promising where you’re at today, gang. Thanks for visiting! See ya down the road.

Home again, happy, busier than ever!

July 27, 2015 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Howdy, howdy, gang! YES, I am back home and YES, it was a most auspicious trip to New York, and THANK YOU to all of you who sent me birthday greetings last week! Oh, and YES (!!) I had CAKE!

First, I want to regale you with the riot of flowers that are blooming all over my yard this year. These are Roses of Sharon — taking over, as they are wont to do — because I have lived the entire summer not knowing when (or if) I was going to be packing up and moving away… Alas, I am still here, and the yard has become a veritable jungle of blooming madness (and also weeds).

Multiply all these blossoms on the right by the entire yard — back, front, sides– and you get a tiny idea of how crazy it is around here this summer. I went out to water my little herb garden on the kitchen stoop yesterday and discovered hundreds more blossoms blooming where they had never been before. The other garden gate is so overrun that I have to keep the gate open all the time, or the honeysuckle vines will wind all over it and keep it permanently shut.

Well, it could be worse. I do love flowers.

So! The trip to Rhinebeck was a complete success. We hammered out the version of the script that we will use for the staged reading of Tell My Bones: The Helen LaFrance Story. We also made great progress on notes and a synopsis for the one-woman show I am writing for the same actress “about” Pearl Bailey. (I put it in quotes now because it has become apparent that the Pearl Bailey family won’t release any rights whatsoever for outsiders to use her likeness, so we have to tell her story in a different way now, but it will be even better. Yay.)

My most amazing news is that the actress is forming a production company and asked me to be the writer for it, since we already have 4 theater projects we are working on together, and I COULD NOT be more excited! (Even though Tell My Bones is a screenplay, we are also working on a version of it for the stage.)

The downside is that there was a heat wave in Rhinebeck the entire time I was there and the AC wasn’t working right and there were no fans. Not only did I think I was going to perish in the relentless heat and humidity, I was the only person who was being eaten alive by mosquitoes everywhere we went!!

It’s a good thing so much good stuff was happening. It made it easier to just “deal and get over it.”

Now that I’m back home again, the cats couldn’t be happier. They had to have a cat sitter the whole time I was away and since they are all the proverbial “scaredy cats,” it was not a fun time for them. Hopefully, the next trip I make back to Rhinebeck, they will all be coming with me and we will be moving into our new home…I hope. We shall see.

Okay, on this wonderful Monday morning, I leave you with something wildly upbeat. I dare any of you to have a bad day after listening to this oldies gem!!! Thanks for visiting, gang. See ya!