The Write Woman Writes to the Bone (101 Days Left)

Okay, just over 100 days to go until I have my bachelors degree! Then the world will be at my fingertips, or is it I will have the world at my fingertips? I suppose it depends on how you look at it. In reality, I’m hanging onto reality by my fingertips! Do I really need a degree?

See, I’ve run into a little tiny glitch. Appears as if employers require one to post their work history for the last five years, meaning that anything before that is not considered. The only jobs I’ve had in the past five years is my temporary job at the photography studio during Christmas and my substitute teaching position which recently ended since school has released, meaning five months of work. I suppose I could stand at the corner of Walmart with a sign that says, “Give me money!” I saw someone there a couple of weeks ago, pulling a sign, a lawn chair, and a blanket from a new van, and make her way to the curb. I’m sure she has skills. Someone had to make the sign.

The hardest part of unemployment is teaching your kids that hard work pays off. All they see is me pounding away on my keyboard day after day, either completing my online school work, searching for employment, or on occasion I take a break and play a silly game. Of course, it never fails that this is the time they wander by to look. My encouragement is usually limited to, "Hit the ball up to the left and you'll get all of them!"

I’m currently working on four short scripts for ABC’s Talent Showcase. The first is called “Uburro,” a quick and pleasant stab at the Uber taxi service through a brain dead driver who should, through all counts of sensibility, be dead. I called Uber, since I have tons of driving experience, to find out the qualifications and they agree to pay $20/hour, but the driver pays for insurance, car upkeep, and fuel, and Uber's 20% commission, which means by the time it’s all said and done, you’re damned lucky to make minimum wage. You're lucky if your driver doesn't rob you! Meanwhile who the hell knows who you’ll be taking around and what they’ll be doing to the inside of your car? They could be cutting your seats up for all you know, even if you’re nice. I don’t know about you, but the last thing I’d want to do is clean up vomit from my car, or what if they simply won't pay? I wrote about a driver who would take such a position. But as long as you make imperfections work for you, there's no stopping an indefatigable person.

The second story I wrote consists of a young woman leaving a late night convenience store and she leaves her windows down. She’ll just be a second, right? When she returns, her uninvited guest convinces her down a secluded street where he has his way with her—nope, didn’t happen! She has her way with him, but he’s not very happy afterward. Then again, nobody can really be too surprised when things don’t go their way. Oh, but I am pretty surprised—EVERY time.

The third story is about two guys surviving a plane crash on a life boat… for a while. Despite the drama-sounding premise, they are all comedies. I am still brewing up the fourth one. They each contain two-person, equally divided dialogue, which is the basis of the contest. But I haven’t got my fourth one. If you have any ideas to throw my way, feel free! The comedy portion of this isn’t the movies at all, but the fact that I grew up on Stephen King and Anne Rice, and have done a 180 degree turn to dystopian sci-fi works such as Divergent and The Hunger Games.

Wow, now if I could locate a company who hires dependent on script creation, I’d have no problem finding a job!  Ah, it can’t be too hard with two kids who are now out of school, can it? I guess we’ll see. In the meantime, the pizza I created for lunch today practically needs a chainsaw to get through it. My daughter's been complaining about her loose teeth. If all else fails, perhaps I can hold the Tooth Fairy hostage when she swings by. A little unorthodox, but at this point, I'll just do whatever works.

The Write Woman Makes $200,000 Year (287 days remaining in the countdown)

For those concerned citizens who are up all night thinking, “My God, how does a single woman get her vision repaired when she has to drive to the eye doctor winking all the way?” Nothing is impossible—and I didn’t drive to the eye doctor with my broken glasses. I had to do that to pick up some paperwork. I drove to the eye doctor with nothing, which is really stupid, but winking that long gives me a serious headache. But in my defense, I haven’t worked out since my daughter broke them. Apparently she wasn’t quite finished playing Monkey in the Middle. But we can see where quitting the game early can get us, right?

As a final effort to do what I’m good at and something I love, I am continuing to work on my novel/screenplay of Vermillion Beach, however it’s no longer after a beech tree. I figured since the hospital she is in when she goes under the cryonic procedure is on the beach, what the hey! It can be her surname, too. So there you have it!

This morning, while working out and admiring how well my nails are growing and my body is shaping up, I was pleased how my thinking processes are changing. I mean, people who have dishwashers have all the discomfort of having to bend over and get the dishes, usually larger ones, out of the back on the lower rack of the washer. I don’t have that problem because I take my dishwasher everywhere with me—they’re tagged on the ends of my arms. People with windows have to scrub them periodically or they just can’t see, whereas we have no windows—win! When someone’s car is in the garage and the door opener gets jammed, how do they get to work in the morning and how much does it cost to retrieve their vehicle being held hostage? I don’t even have a carport. But with winter coming, a carport might be nice, I guess. But my car won’t be trapped! If my daughter wakes up in the middle of the night with the stomach flu or having bad dreams of the boogie man, I don’t have to get out of bed, I can simply roll over, push her onto the floor and proceed with a good night’s sleep. How many people are begging to trade me places now?

If you’re concerned about why I did this totally insane thing I did to make my daughter run through the house at six-thirty shouting to my son, “Mom makes $200,000 a year, Cameron! Mom makes $200,000 a year -- Woo hoo!” I made little posters written in different script with various colors of marker that state, “I Make $200,000 Per Year!” and hung them all about my house where I will see them. Now some people are probably coming to the conclusion it’s a stupid idea because if I really thought it would work, why wouldn’t I put in my thought process I will win the title of me making $200,000 a year, I can explain that. You see, I’ve heard several times that if one really truly feels as if they own something to the point she can convince herself, it happens. I figure if it doesn’t happen, I’ll drive myself to the point of thinking I am with sheer craziness, and it then it won’t matter anyway. So let me help you see Publisher’s Clearinghouse, or I will be a gazillionaire tomorrow? Because, first of all, I don’t want anyone handing me anything (although if PCH turned up on my doorstep I certainly wouldn’t shoo them away), but I just want to find a way to make my own money. I don’t want a lot of money, but enough to know each month the bills will be paid and we’re having dinner tonight—with meat! I’ll let you know if it works or not, but don’t tell my daughter the news. Just let her think I’m a stingy success.

Speaking of success gone the other way, I have to tell you that every time I saw Bill Cosby, for some reason he reminds me of my father. Granted, my father is white and Bill is black, so it wasn’t that. It also wasn’t money because Bill probably uses his to wipe the mud off his shoes and well, my father planted the seed for my financial future by laughing at the mention of university—need I say more? Finally, I figured it out when I heard Bill Cosby is in court facing charges of drugging women to have them participate sexually with him. THAT’S my father! Now tell me, what must a person think of himself to conclude the only way to have sex is to drug someone and take her without her knowledge? These women can’t even wake up and realize what happened to say, “Wow, if I’d have known it was going to be that good, I would’ve said yes!” How crushing for no one to get in line for the ride, but when it’s over have no recollection of the speeding hills, right?

And thank goodness Utah has a hole in its personal ozone layer. They have what they call Patriarchal Blessings, which is a church appointed fortune teller that sees you when you are of age, acknowledging your future if you live a worthy life. Mine told me at age fifteen that I would become a teacher of some sort. I don’t know if he meant someone to teach my kids well or a substitute teacher (which I’m currently in the running for), or perhaps someone who blogs and informs others. Anyway, I believe what he told me. But the LDS Mormons do NOT think seers should be seen unless they are patriarchs of the church, because they are the devil’s helpers. That seems a bit odd to the average thinker.

But speaking of Utah’s hole, we are finally considering bringing back the death penalty. Great news, right? The lawmakers of Utah say we cannot afford lethal injections, so they will

need to be placed in front of a firing squad instead. Hey, I’m all for that, but if lethal injections cost more than having a bunch of men fire their weapons with only one bullet between them, why not trade out the immediate injection with something like Drain-o. I’ll bet that would kill them if you gave them enough. But when they interviewed the eight men on death row to ask their preference, only three of them wanted it. Excuse me? We’re giving these people a choice in how they will die after taking other lives? I wonder if any of them asked their victims what their choice of demise was—makes you wonder, eh?

Oh and even though I live in Utah, I attend school online through Full Sail University, giving me a whole array of learning materials and experiences. You can imagine, with me being socially retarded without a television set, my dismay to hear of FSU’s campus shooting. (Keep in mind I’m working out at 4:30 a.m. when I hear this news.) Watching the news, it finally dawned on me that it was Florida State University, not even my school. But still, with finals coming up, maybe the guy should have veered away a little more from the drugs and tried to relax with a video game or something. Or maybe he was so exhausted and drugged out he actually thought he was in a video game or some wild movie.

       I’ve gotta ask the movie buffs out there, when you see a second sequel can you tell when the scales are tipping in favor of the writers compared to the favors of the audience? Maybe I should explain a little better what I mean. There are some stories that started off mind-blowing and then stayed there, like HarryPotter. But let me tell you, I am not a Harry Potter fanatic like a lot of people are, just as I’m not a Star Wars or Star Trek nerd, either. (Okay, when I was younger, I was a Trekkie, but that's old news.) But when a series is well written, you’ve gotta respect the job they’ve done and the time put into it, don’t you? On the other hand, The Hunger Games is a great movie set the pace for future movies to catch up to, but Catching Fire? What a huge, huge, and unforgivable let down. The second movie is like the part of a television show

just before a commercial. When it was over, the audience is left sitting in the dark wondering what happens at the end because this certainly wasn’t it. I can’t speak for everyone, so I never try to, but this pathetic reprise does not have the excitement built into it for a line of people waiting overnight on the curbs to be the first to see it. In a daring struggle to regain the audience, the third movie, Mockingjay claims to be the most violent yet and is itching to bring female leading roles out of the miniscule 15% films now hold. I guess if you’re into Saw and other movies with gore, you may be excited. Personally, I like stories. But stories must be fluid because if you lose your audience in the middle of the book, they’re not coming back to read the end. I can’t wait to read the reviews. Hey, maybe I’ll be utterly shocked with them because sometimes change it good.

With contacts and shrinking a little every day, I’m changing myself and so is my outlook. I could make $200,000 a year, don’t you think? Come on now, you don’t have to hold your breath and make a scene about the whole thing.