Lyric took a ton of time to write a bunch of really nice little messages to Darby.

Overall, it was so sweet.

What was sad was not being on the east coast to be with our own mom's in person. But I did send my mom a couple of Wii games, so I tried to make up for it at least a little.

One thing that stunk was that I didn't get much sleep last night. There were two parties, both of which made sense for me to go to (and I wanted to go to), so I was out late.(didn't get to bed until 2.30) and Ollie was up before 6... so... yeah.

We went to the California Renaissance Faire today. I prefer the Pennsylvania one. While it is smaller, it is also more charmingly designed, the building are permanent, and the surroundings are beautiful. It's also laid out much better, so you can easily get to any area in a fairly short period of time.

Conversely, CA's Faire has temporary, cheaper looking buildings, was set up on what was basically just a large DUSTY field, and was one long serpentine path that didn't even loop.

One the other hand, the CA Faire had an awesome reptile exhibit, more games, less "hmmm that guy is so creepy he could actually be a serial killer" factor, and a much better set up for watching the jousting.

But the PA Faire has an elephant you can ride. But the CA Faire has box turtle races you can bet on.

OK, they're both good. But I like the PA Faire better. And that's that.

Today I was fortunate enough to be able to share notes with the assistant there. It was a great conversation, and I think he enjoyed it as much as I did. Many of my suggestions were very well received. One of the head execs there overheard much of our discussion and stepped in to tell us he thought what we were talking about was great.

Anyway, the most intriguing part of the day came when I was asked to read a magazine article that they have optioned. Yes, that's right, a magazine article. This company paid a large sum of money to the author of a two page magazine article for the right to use her article (which has no story and no characters, but just a general opinion... and yes that opinion is interesting and thought-provoking) as the basis for a feature length film. I love this town. I really do.

I said yes!

Not sure this is BIG break, but it certainly seems like a break of some kind.

Think about the movies you love. I'm sure that immediately, moments come to mind. Indiana Jones - the big ball rolling after him. The light shining through the staff and showing the location of the ark. "Snakes, why does it always have to be snakes." I'd bet that every movie you love has a number of these scenes that made an impact on you.

When I'm writing, these moments keep me going. Sometimes I'll have a great moment, one that I want to see on the screen, and it just gives me this energy to make the story and everything else awesome. It's when I've stumbled across enough of these moments that the story really comes alive for me.

All this to say, I wrote an awesome moment in Tovenray's Curse today. Lyric has just entered this mysterious world. She's been swooped up by a flying Kitty, riden by a boy named Torin. As they fly towards the woods, they are followed by a Spidersus - a flying spider. It's a WW2 dogfight in the air between a flying kitty and a flying spider... who wouldn't want to see that on the screen? It's crazy awesome. The spider is dropping webs on the kitty, constricting the kitty's wings, sending it into a nosedive. Torin is frantically cutting the webs with his sword while Lyric tries to ready a bow and arrow to shoot...

I want to see it on the screen!

After class I asked him what my tell was, in his opinion.

He said... "It's hard to explain exactly, but there is just this... holiness to you."

What in the world?

He continued. "Like you're a preacher delivering a sermon."

You can take the son away from the pastors, but I guess you can't take the pastors away of the boy....

He finished saying that it's not a bad thing at all, and there's definitely an energy and a conviction, but that I should be sure to calibrate because sometimes that energy is appropriate and sometimes it isn't.

It was so nice, one of those unexpected things that you didn't even know to look forward to but was the best thing that happened in a while. We just walked through the surf, got too wet, laughed and talked. For some reason there was an apple, two oranges, and a cantaloupe rolling through the waves. We tried to keep track of each of them each time the waves crashed and receded. It's hard to explain exactly how much (or even why) fun this was.

Anyway, I was thinking that these things that you don't plan but that end up being very memorable need a simple name. Any ideas? Have you had any of these moments lately?

If you don't write the pages, you have nothing.

I've found that there is no "quality" correlation between pages that are hard to write and pages that are easy to write. Sometimes the easy stuff is brilliant, sometimes it needs to be completely re-worked. Same with the difficult stuff.

"Finish it badly" is really just taking the pressure off so that you finish it at all. In reality the chances that it's actually bad are the same as any other time.

It's a discipline. A very difficult discipline to develop, because there are so many aspects of creativity that it's always tempting - especially for me, who loves the thrill of inspiration - to just wait for God to walk into the room and let those magical moments do all the work for you. But those bursts of inspiration are pretty rare. To be a consistent storyteller (or songwriter, or anything creative) you have to develop muscles that force God into the room, even when you don't believe there is a God. Even when you don't believe there is a room.

Yesterday and today, I rewrote the 19 pages I had already written (cutting them down to 14) and then wrote 8 shiny brand new pages, too. Not bad. I'm back into the story. Another crisis averted. These times are actually monumental for me, because as an inspiration junkie in the past... it might have been another six months before I started writing again.

Fortunately, I'm learning to procrastinate while doing other things that I actually really have to do. So I put together most everything bureaucratic for the season of Screenwriting Competitions, which took a tremendous amount of time, while rewriting my screenplays. I worked a lot on my comedy spec for the Office. I read more screenplays and made notes for my internship at Maguire.

And now it's just me and the blank page and I have to move on.

On thing that was quite helpful was that I went on a hike with Lyric and Ollie yesterday and they wanted me to tell them the whole story from start to finish. To see the way they responded to it and liked it encouraged me on the strength of the story. In fact, I told Lyric that my instructor wasn't like it so much so far and she looked at me amazed. "Why, doesn't he like good stories? Who wouldn't like it?"

So that's the audience I need to write for.

It was exhausting, but both scripts are better now...

I'm tired.

And also, reading these made me realize that my scripts can hang with these other scripts. With more rewrites, perhaps, but I can get there.

I feel the same way. It really stinks. Who would do this? So selfish to put us out $700... I really hope it doesn't happen again.

I'm having a hard time getting through the Tovenray story right now for some reason. But I'm 19 pages in, and I think I like what I've written so far, at least for a first draft. I really dig a lot of the story, though.

Is that a good thing? He asked. Does that feel like a step forward or a step back?

And I can honestly say I believe what I answered, which was, "Where I'm coming from, with what I want to do, I think that's an awesome step forward." And he responds. "Good, that's all I wanted to know. Then you're in the right town."