Worked a lot over the last few days on scoring samples for "Through the Trees," a short written and produced by my friend and writing-group colleague Ryan Donovan and directed by my friend and (also) writing-group colleague, Ade Akisanya. They sent me a link to the nearly-complete edit and I've been having a ball creating music I think will enhance the images. I did a similar project for my then-roomate Mike Vogas my junior year at Hope College, except on that occasion the college orchestra recorded my score live and this year it's all synthesizer - all electronic.

       So the most fun was going through the stops in my keyboard. Lo and behold, here's a stop called "movie score." Well, we've got to poke a few keys on that thing and sure enough, it sounds like a movie. It was like, "Yeah, I'm scoring a movie now!" The video looks really good. I feel very lucky to have been script supervisor and if they choose the material I'm sending, I will take immense pride in that as well.

       Had tea with Laurie Scheer on Monday. What a beautiful person to have as a friend and Mentor. The Drake lived up to its reputation as one of Chicago's premier afternoon tea venues - little finger sandwiches, fancy pastries, scones, clotted cream, lemon curd, strawberry preserves - and Blue Jasmine tea. I could get into doing that more regularly.

       In Wednesday’s post I mentioned two epiphanies while at the Madison Writers Conference. Yesterday I talked a little about Ken Miyamoto. Today is for Jane Friedman.

       Not sure why my only contact with this delightful lady was her keynote of the final day? Oversight, I guess. What’s important is that I was there for her Sunday morning presentation, The Future of Authorship. It’s equally important that her epiphany followed Ken’s chronologically.

       Jane mentioned a site called Wattpad  -  home to a high-volume audience for serialized release of stories. If one has just decided to tackle a series of short stories meant to pair with the concepts and storylines of “Andy” (the TV series) then that author surely must look into Wattpad as a possible medium. I have looked into it since and suspect I will start publishing there (if that’s the right terminology?) as soon as I’ve done some legwork on the stories themselves.

       I also looked at Jane’s website, janefriedman.com and it’s obvious why it gets all kinds of awards and recognition. I expect to go there regularly for the treasure trove of information and links.

       I mentioned yesterday that my chat with Ken at the Madison writers conference represented something of an epiphany and maybe that’s worth a little elaboration.

       My goal was to tap Ken’s experience and expertise to answer some questions and suggest the most effective way to proceed with the several projects that are on my plate and related to each other:  ARC (the novel), ARC (the two screenplays based on the novel), “Baby Shoes” (the anthology of filmed shorts), “Andy” (the movie), and “Andy” (the TV series).

       He offered some discouraging words, among them that an unproduced writer out of Evanston, Illinois is really not likely to: 1) be made showrunner [“they’ll get someone experienced to do that and they won’t want you around”], 2) sell a screenplay with a budget north of $100 million, 3) capture the interest of a producer in an odd project like an anthology of shorts.

       So I asked him which impossible mountain I should try scaling first and that’s where the epiphany came in. He said, “That project of the TV series is interesting. Even though selling it as a TV series – selling it cold – probably can’t be done, you should think about writing some of the episodes as short stories.”

       I’ve been thinking about what would be in the “bible” for the “Andy” show and what sort of themes the various episodes might tackle and that fits in so closely with telling short stories. Not sure to what extent it has been done before but from the outside it just seems an eminently logical first step.

       So thank you Ken.

       As a post script, he also said, “You should write the pilot – it’s a good exercise.” I have also been thinking I would need to write the pilot in any case so once again his comment and my inclination lined up. Thanks again.

       Ken’s website is escriptshub.com.  It’s an interesting place and worth more than a few minutes banging around over there to see what he has to offer.

       This past weekend (Fri, April 4 to Sunday, April 6) I went to Madison Wisconsin for the writers conference hosted by Laurie Scheer and the UW Madison Continuing Studies department. I am, as you know a big Laurie Scheer fan and forgive my shameless bragging about her success, but the attendance was well over 300 writers and the collection of presenters, agents and editors was top-notch.

       One goes to this sort of event hoping for helpful information, maybe some inspiration, maybe some motivation. If you're lucky, you get an epiphany - and I got lucky and I got two. Thanks to Ken Miyamoto I clarified a direction for my writing over the next few months and thanks to Jane Friedman I have an exciting new venue through which to promote and share that creative output.

       Someone has been a bad boy and allowed four months to go by without posting on his blog. I expect that to change moving forward and will post tomorrow and the next day on first Ken's insights and then I will share Jane's information as well.