The Movie in My Mind

I got a lot of work done yesterday on my movie, and I was having enough fun with it that I worked fairly late into the night because details just kept filling in. I've got a pretty good outline/summary of the whole story, with some detailed scenes, and then more details keep filling themselves in along the way. I stayed in bed latish this morning because a couple of scenes were getting more detailed in my head, and I figured I might as well be warm and comfortable while I brainstormed.

I know I say this about a lot of the stuff I write, but I'm loving this story. Working on it is like getting to watch my favorite holiday movie over and over again, but a little bit different every time. I started out saying I was doing this just to have done it, but now I really want to see this produced. I have a few Hollywood contacts, so I suppose I'm a little ahead of your average aspiring screenwriter, but this will be a whole new realm for me. Of course, I have to actually write the script first. The ideas are the fun part. Putting it into words in the right structure and format will be more challenging.

In other news, the ice has started to thaw. We were above freezing for much of the day yesterday, but then got a hard freeze overnight. Today the sun is out, which should help a lot once it warms up. There's still a lot of ice on the roofs, some of it melting (and then refreezing into icicles) and some of it sliding off in huge sheets. Any vehicle that was outside when this hit has sheets of ice on it, which seems to be a road hazard with big trucks when the sheets come flying off on the road. That just happened on the road behind my house that my office window overlooks. A truck stopped and the ice on top didn't. The ballet school is open tonight, but I may or may not venture out, depending on how close it is to freezing and how much has melted.

See the daggers of ice created by yesterday's melting and refreezing. You can also see how thick the ice is on the roof.


I really need to get out tomorrow because I have the last children's choir rehearsal of the year, and they're singing Sunday. I also need to find a gift for one of my teen helpers. One of them was easy because I know what she's a fan of. The other is more of a challenge because he's a boy, and the usual fancy soap/bubble bath type generic token gift doesn't work so well there. The situation reminds me of something Connie Willis has said about character development, that she doesn't bother with all those questionnaires about favorite colors, favorite food, etc., because what really matters is what the person does. I've been with this kid while navigating whitewater rapids and have seen him dealing with a difficult child, so I feel like I know the kind of person he is, but I don't know much about him. I was thinking of just bringing some cookies, but then I don't know where he stands on stuff like gluten, veganism, sugar, etc. And I'm not even sure he'll be there because he kind of stopped coming for a while, so it would be nice if it's not something totally useless if I get stuck with it. So, any suggestions for a token thank-you kind of gift in the $10 range for a teenage boy you don't really know anything about other than that he's very cool under pressure and quite brave while still being fairly compassionate and maybe a little awkward?