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Visiting this place was different
Terracotta now has a new location and a totally different theme. The miracle of nature is in full effect at this plant cafe because, ya see, itâs full of vegetation.
Shrub, greenery, flora... oh my!
When you enter look to your right and youâll see a wall full of foliage and a wooden chaise lounge sitting at the bottom of it looking like it all belongs in an uptown community garden.
Looking at the hanging plants coming from down from the rafters I noticed one that looked like a large platter, holding two plants, not just one.
If you want to buy a potted plant, a hanging plant or a plant close to resembling an indoor jungle tree stop by here to browse. You can even order a plant like you would a pizza and get it delivered!
Potted vines sat at the top of coffee bar and hung down through lights. A double fountain of rough marble pillars, near the window, reminded me of what they found on the moon in the movie 2001, trickling water down into a rock garden.
What a great place to just be! I thought to myself, sitting there at one of the many small tables with a white marble styled top and one large iron leg resembling more the 1920s than the 2020s.
Off the menu I ordered the Geometry, bean coffee brewed just for me in one of those Chemex brewers.
The barista, who said he was also the owner, talked to me casually about how it was not sacred geometry, but I think with all the plants around this place you can always be reminded of fractals, can ya dig?
What else happened there?
A dog was asleep on a cot, napping under a table of plants for sale, not interested at all in greeting any of the customers. There were just a few patrons who browsed through the store carrying a small metal basket by their side where they could place their succulents to buy and bring home.
Hanging plant supplies, planters, pots, plant holders, plant tables, fabric plant skirts and even plant jars are some of the things you can find here. Postcards, stickers and mugs were sold at the cash register like most stores around here have been prone to do.
BOULDER - Funky, hippy and entrepreneur-y â whatever youâre looking for on your next Vakay Boulder, Colorado has lots of what you want
Disclaimer: This article mentions drugs and alcohol.
Mountains, tundra and more mountains are what you see when you drive into Boulder from DIA, Denver International Airport.
Known as the Flatirons; many a painter, artist and dreamer has viewed them with a creative eye, all in appreciation of beautiful Boulder, Colorado.
Need a quick coffee? We recommend starting your Boulder adventure at The Trident Cafe. Did we forget to mention this cozy coffee place has been here for more than forty years?
Here, you can talk intellectual with the locals or go inside and read your book.
Surf the net on your laptop and drink your tea from The Tridentâs top shelf, an impressive selection of green, black, herbal, peppermint, hibiscus, red berries and more. Enjoy your tea iced during the summer (along with the coffee!) and even get a refill for just a dollar.
Trident has the location, location, location, so just relax, sitting at their outside tables and maybe watch the sun go down later. Hopefully youâll get lucky and experience a summer breeze with light rain. The thunder and lightening crashing along the mountain range. Summers in BOCO on the street of Pearl as we like to call it (itâs really Pearl St.) can be quite magical and even un-predictable if you mindfully allow it to be.
The walking mall is center of the universe in Boulder!
Now, that your thirst is quenched maybe itâs time to get something colder like a Gelato Boy. Thereâs two locations of this tasty gelato shop on either side of Pearl St.âs walking mall and In-between youâll even find a Ben and Jerryâs.
Psychic shopping and new age
Next to Ben and Jerryâs is a peculiar place where youâll walk down the stairs and find a selection of occult, psychic, Buddhist, religious texts, essays and books--The Lighthouse Bookstore. You may spend an hour there wondering if you need to buy some incense or a small Buddha statue to take back to your altar at your mountain home, but thereâs worst problems to have, we think at least!
The Show
By the time the afternoon rolls around the Court House lawn will be bustling with locals and tourists alike because itâs Wednesday and that means live music on the walking mall.
Every year Downtown Boulder brings a slew of local bands belting out their newest or even classic tunes each Wednesday Eve throughout the summer months.
Big Red has restaurants in town
Big Red F has acquired lots of new locations around town as of late, so you should try eating at The Post. Whether Happy Hour or not you will find the hardiest of fare. Thereâs a rumor going around that the staff flew around the country looking for authentic Americana recipes from other states, so you wonât find better fried chicken locally than here! Also try their Howdy Pilsner for a light beer.
Hiking in Boulder is easy
Youâll never believe this, but at the foot of the mountain on Pearl St., is a short trail where you can have fantastic view of the whole city (or hamlet as weâve heard some people like to call Boulder!?). Itâs called The Peoplesâ Crossing and once you climb up the rocks and get to the top you can sit on a bench and take a rest. Soak it all in and take pics on your iPhone. Upload them to all your social media accounts and be sure to share this article, too! The social share button is at the top of this here blog post youâre reading, so click it, sista!
Recreational edibles for reals
On your way to The Peoplesâ Crossing be sure to stop at Verde, a local rec dispensary, cuz weedâs legal here, bra!
Personally, we like the brand called Wyld and they come in 10 mgâs per gummy in a pack of 10, 100 mgs total, which is more than enough for even a space-is-the-place-cannabis-veteran, but be forewarned â edibles are strong like Hercules, so donât blame us if you start to feel funny! This is normal anyway and lots of times a 911 call is not needed.
Disclaimer: Marijuana is real easy to look up on the web on the Google search, so go read a few legit blog posts about it before you ever do it OR just ask your knowledgeable and helpful budtender at your local dispensary any questions you have. They have been trained thoroughly and are way more knowledgeable than all of us here at GoshDarnBlog.com.
Free pool hall games
The dayâs winding down but the fun is not over. Find free pool tables at the Sundown Saloon until 10pm and also visit Press Play, where children are allowed to play arcade games until dusk, when it changes over into a full on club.
But if bars are not your thing tryâŠ
Two museums in town
If youâre bored the Muse Museum and also BMOCA, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art are two places you can go to. They have events, programs and exhibits promoting only the localist of artists for you to learn about. There peruse their paintings, sculpture, mixed media or immersive art.
On a Thursday, Friday or Saturday (or almost any day, really) you will see large crowds and families with children wading in the Boulder Creek.
Near the Boulder Library you will find all types taking advantage of these natural Creekside pools of water. Sometimes you can see green headed ducks having a nice time in there as well.
The park is where it's at!
Wade over to Eben G. Fine Park and walk down the steps that lead directly into the creek waters. Almost right at the the head of the mountain, here you can find hiking trails, green grass to sun tan on and an opportunity to âWim Hoff itâ and do a cold plunge in the creek water. For better health weâve heard three minutes is all you need in the icy cold waters to get a full body effect. Warm yourself up after by jogging down the trail and toweling off in this spacious park.
Nightlife in town is on fire
Thereâs another view thatâs great in this cozy little mountain town and thatâs the nightlife. Thereâs too many places to mention, so just follow your ears to where the techno is blaring out the front doors, but if you need a different scene, bluegrass and bands can be found at places like The Velvet Elk Lounge or try the venue right off Pearl St. called the Boulder Theater. Even the Trident, which we mentioned earlier, has events every night outside in their back patio area.
Need a quieter time?
Boulder attracts lots of Buddhist types and you can find plenty of lectures and talks about new age stuff. For meditation look up The Shambhala Center,Naropa University and even the Unity Church off Folsom St. Otherwise check out the Boulder Psychic Institute for interesting and far out classes.
Boulderâs got lots more than all this going on, but these ideas should keep you busy when you venture onto Pearl St. to see whatâs going down during the hot summer months! What do you like about Boulder?
The other day I was walking down the street and I asked this man for directions to Patagonia. He thumbed and said, "Two blocks that way and you'll see it on your left next in-between the Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream and the new All Birds shoe store!
Just kidding. I didn't do that, but that's likely what someone would say to me instead of go get on a plane and fly to the bottom of South America because that's really where Patagonia is, in case you didn't know it.
The proper pronunciation is pataËÉŁonja and it's a southern region of Chile and Argentina. It's basically the bottom tail of South America.
Maybe now there's good reason to buy Patagonia parkas and jackets on sale at the mall if you plan on going down there on a NatGeo Expedition to see the ice melting in the South Pole.
Ferdinand Magellan made the name stick, patagĂłnes, when he landed there in a boat in the spring of 152o. In his travel logs and his book it's said there were a land of giants there and according to some YouTube conspiracy videos there were giants there, but that's another story. Otherwise, it's said they made this "giant stuff" up to sell books about the voyage.
Also, it's believed the name patagonia came from a book entitled El PrimaleĂłn where a character fights a monster called Patagon.
Video Includes nighttime, Avista Hospital video and after fire video from Independence Rd in Boulder, Colorado. The lights are city lights of what's left of #superior and or #louisville. At the time of this video 360 homes in a subdivision in west of old superior burned down and 200 buildings in old town superior burned down for a total of 560 houses and buildings.
12/30/2021 - The videographer at Avista Hospital discovered black ash when they got in their car and rubbed the side of their face. 12/30/2021 During the fire there were reports of blackouts throughout the high county all the way down to San Luis Valley in Southern Colorado.
10 am 1/1/2022 - An anonymous source who was evacuated told #goshdarnblog their house in rock creek was not burned down but they are not allowed to go in. From Avista Hospital to Safeway parking lot area, Water, Natural Gas, Electricity shut off in case water pipes freeze from cold temperature and snowfall all day into night on New Years Eve in Boulder.
By no means is this blog post a guarantee of anything, but on a personal note I remember how there was a time back in 2001 or so when I walked into a stereo and electronics store and I saw Apple iPods being advertised.
I didnât think much of it, but I should've, because now the spot where that music and stereo store was... there is now a beer and alcohol store because they are out of business.
Things change and when they do they change fast!
Here are some thoughts about what might happen five years from now and the companies that might make those changes happen even quicker than you can say âdisruptive technology.â
Concerts in Video Games
Let's say you're playing Fortnite, by Epic Games, and you get a message from your gamer friend saying you need to head over to a secret location where your favorite DJ in the world is having a rave party! It could happen... wait a minute--it did happen!
Marshamello, a famous DJ/Producer, played to a crowd of avatars on Fortnite and blew them all away, literally, when his song about "flying" sent all the video game virtual people into the air to fly!
https://youtu.be/9s83_VxMC6I
Just think about what would you do with your joystick if this happened to your online character? There were many great fx at his show so if you want to see what it would be like to be in a virtual video game concert click the video above.
In the future will you be able to build your own virtual tropical island and invite people on your favorite video game platform to see you DJ virtually and live in colorful pixels? Sounds doable.
The changing paths of money
People will use crypto instead of Western Union type companies or banks because the fees will be less or non-existent in their cryptocurrency accounts. They will be able to send money across the world without penalty. It could happen that banks adopt the use of crypto currency as well to compete.
How we watch TV and movies
Companies like Netflix and Disney will rule the boob-toob and online streaming (Maybe they already do?). All the famous actors will be on these streaming channels and the movie going public experience will drastically change. Maybe even adopting virtual reality glasses will be a thing when you go to the movies, but people can already do this at home thanks to Facebook bringing Occulus to market, so maybe holograms and "immersive" experiences could be the norm in no time when it comes to this new movie experience.
Autonomous EVs driving the way forward
EVs, electronic vehicles, will be referred to as âtechnologyâ and not as a vehicle.
Amazon will get rid of cashiers by 2021 or at least I read a headline like that not too long ago at (see theverge.com article here).
It will mean getting rid of lots of jobs, but maybe this will get people used to the idea that autonomous cars will be a thing and you will charge your car instead of âfill âer upâ thanks to companies like Uber and Tesla.
Delivery is the new normal
Did you see the headline on YouTube talking about 400 restaurants closing in San Fran? Not to mention the result of covid-19 where it's been said 20% of the economy is bars and restaurants, which are closed or only have delivery available at the time of this writing, but ordering Mickey Dâs at home while playing video games on Twitch, owned by Amazon, and binge-ing TV shows while we âNetflix and chill" sounds okay to most people.
All and every food stuff and consumable will likely have delivery options from the likes of GrubHub, DoorDash and Uber Eats, but donât rule out those robots Dominoâs pizza has running around. Friendly machines wheeling by in crosswalks could be a thing.
Sports betting and marijuana will be legal
Will prostitution be next? Enough said on this.
007 like Security
Better look into securing your online accounts like youâre James Bond or somebody. If you live in New York, you may have heard âsee something, say somethingâ coming over the loud speaker in the subways. But hey, crime is down nowadays thanks to the video recorders on our iPhones and CCTV cameras, which will catch âem in the act, but that doesnât mean crime has ended for good. Internet crime has risen and might just rise more in the coming years. Instead of using just a password to log-in, 2-key, SMS and Google Authenticator for our smart phones could be the norm, but maybe it will just be a personal USB lock for your laptop, a mental wallet, face recognition and fingerprint USB password scanners for everything.
Finally, no more doorknobs.
Now, you can get everything you need in a short code to punch into your door. Maybe your doors will open the same way they do in Star Trek, but the day they made doorknobs make beeping noises is the day--Arrgh! Ever wonder how much it might cost if you get locked out of your code door versus calling a locksmith for an old fashioned key? No keys in cars either just punch those buttons or use that app on your phone to rev it up and start your engine!
What else?
Don't know. Iâm sure I left a lot of things out and it could be because those things have not been imagined... yet!
Did you like this post that explains what might happen in the next 5 years?
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Recently, I got introduced to BAT and Brave through Coinbase.
I watched a video and I earned a little bit of Basic Attention Coin for my account. The videos told me about Brave, a web browser that makes it so there are no ads and it's also private so no one like a big corporation (like Google) or a government (like America, at least according to Edward Snowden) can spy on what you are consuming, buying or doing.
I thought this was "neat" to say the least so I downloaded it and started using it. It is said Brave adopts lots of things that the Chrome browser has and I was already using Chrome.
For performance I have only had one lag so far, which doesn't bother me much because I can go back and forth between Chrome and Brave (not like I would know how to fix a lag anyway!).
Brave is pretty cool. It reminds me of medieval times and shields and knights! It is a lion's head that also looks like the outline of a shield but probably it is just its red mane!
The best part of course is that you can earn BAT coin every time you click an ad Brave wants you to see. A lot of the ads are crypto related. Like did you know you can get a blockchain degree in Portland? WTF?
These BAT coins you earn can then be "tipped out" to creators like me who attach their websites to the network so if you want to tip goshdarnblog.com with BAT, go ahead!
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Want FREE Stock and Crypto? Who doesnât! Read on to Get Free Stock and Crypto at these APPs!
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In this blog post I ranked and reviewed the 6 best.
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All I had to do was watch some videos and learn about BAT, Orchid, XRP, Stellar Lumens, Dai, Chainlink, Ox, EOS, and Tezos and got some crypto in exchange for my time!
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Trai Cartwright is a screenwriter with a 25-year entertainment industry track record. Sheâs worn hats as a Hollywood screenwriting consultant, a story development specialist, and has taught screenwriting and film studies as a university professor.
While working in Hollywood, she worked for 20th Century Fox, HBO, Paramount Pictures, New Line Cinema, Universal Studios and Prelude Pictures.
Currently she teaches at University of Denverâs Professional Creative Writing graduate program, Western State universityâs MFA, and University of Colorado Denverâs Film department.
Also sheâs currently President and Founding Board Member of Women in Film & Media Colorado and is Co-Producer of Hidden Tigers, a docu-series by Red Unicorn Films (http://www.wearehiddentigers.com)
I first met her at NCWC, Norther Colorado Writer Conference, in Fort Collins in 2015 when she did a class on how âitâs never been a better timeâ to write scripts for TV due to the explosion of Netflix and Amazon and other web channels making their own TV programs.
We talked about some of these things and more when I got the chance to interview her for GoshDarnBlog.com so read on and learn more about Trai.
Interview with a Screenwriter
What was the best advice you ever got from a screenwriter or Hollywood person?
One of my earliest mentors was Peter Saphire who pretty much ruined me for all bosses and mentors afterwards because he was so fantastic. One of the very first things he ever told me was this, âWeâre not curing cancer. Try to have some fun!â because everybody ends up taking all of this stuff so seriously, you know? Thereâs millions upon millions of dollars that eventually come into play, but weâre still just making movies, so try not to take it so seriously. Try not take yourself so seriously. Just try to have some fun.
I decided to take to this utterly useless skillset of mine, this storytelling skillset, and become a teacher...
Craftwrite.com is my soul proprietorship. Itâs the company that I run that I started when I got here in Colorado-- so I grew up in Colorado, ran away to New York, Chicago, LA. When I returned there was no film industry, so I decided to take to this utterly useless skillset of mine, this storytelling skillset, and become a teacher and become an editor, so I now work with writers across every medium; screenwriting, TV, fiction, non-fiction, memoir, and sometimes itâs just working one on one on a manuscript, and sometimes itâs staging classes. I teach all over Colorado and Iâve gotta tell ya, Iâve had a really, really, great time with it, but I call the business Craftwrite.
What class did you do today?
This was class #2 of a screenwriting class that Iâm teaching in Fort Collins, so Iâm based in Denver and Iâll teach in the community probably once a year. Sometimes itâs TV. Sometimes itâs web series. Sometimes itâs advance screenwriting. I donât know, Iâve been missing my friends up in Fort Collins where I moved back to when I first got here from LA and I donât know, a bunch of people were interested, so I said alright Iâll make the drive. Iâm happy to do it. Thereâs nine of us and we talked screenplays.
Are you doing a convention in August (2018)?
Yeah, a woman named Julie Cameron who is a big part of the Colorado romance writers and I believe sheâs does some work for Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers as well, so we call it âthe circuit,â the conference circuit, but you end up teaching on behalf of all of these different organizations and I met her years and years ago and she took some of my screenwriting classes and she said, âYou know what Colorado really needs is a screenwriting conference,â so we have four different fiction and non-fiction writing conferences but nothing that attends to screenwriting and Iâve been here long enough to know that thereâs enough demand to populate a conference at this point so I thought like the timingâs good. Letâs go ahead and give this a shot, so weâre going to do one day in August. I believe its august 5th. Itâs a Sunday. In fact weâre just about to sit down next week to figure out whether or not we want to put everybody on the same track or if we want to offer a bunch of different classes so you can kind of program your own thing. We sent out a survey. The response was tremendous, so we think this will be very nicely attended. Weâll probably Skype in a couple of folks from LA to talk about the business out there because the truth of it is all the writing is coming, I should say all the writing thatâs selling, is coming out of Los Angeles. Doesnât mean that you canât get your start somewhere else. Doesnât mean you canât perfect your skill somewhere else, but to pretend like the industry is not based in Colorado would be silly, so we want to get their perspective and hear about the kinds of things we can be doing here to make us more competitive in the overall picture.
...so the hope is that one of the scripts that you wrote, that is marketplace viable, will sell and then theyâll say, âWhat else do you have?â and then you can trot out another five.
How many screenplays have you written in your life?
Completed screenplays probably about 25, drafts within that. Hundreds, hundreds upon hundreds, if not thousands. The general thinking is somewhere around your fifth to seventh screenplay is when youâre good enough to have conversations. Youâre not necessarily good enough to sell, but you are at least earning your space at the table and then after that itâs usually another, oh jeez, another five to seven before youâre actually marketplace competitive. Where your skills are good enough that you deserve to sell and then after that you are building out your portfolio, so the hope is that one of the scripts that you wrote, that is marketplace viable, will sell and then theyâll say, âWhat else do you have?â and then you can trot out another five.
When you option a screenplay whatâs the average amount of money youâll make?
Zero. People donât make money off of options. What they get is opportunity, so in Los Angeles if you are working with real deal production companies there is the possibility that you will earn between five and ten thousand off of an option. A very, very few people actually make that price point⊠Thereâs a whole sort of pyramid that happens as you are making your way into the film industry and into a career. Obviously the very first step is optioning something, but the chances are because youâre a newbie, you have no track record, you are not even remotely appealing to the big dogs, so youâre working with other folks who are like you, theyâre looking for a great story to tell for very little money, so they come to you and they express their passion, express their enthusiasm. You love their plan for how theyâre going to take your script out and go to get it sold and if you have faith in them and you like âem well enough then you go ahead and option it. Now the WGA and all legal contracts require you to make at least a buck off of it, but for the most part and especially in Colorado, nobody makes money off of options. Youâre lucky if you get a couple of hundred bucks, but again the point is is now you have other people who are excited about your work and theyâre going to work on your behalf to try to get it sold. Thatâs whatâs happening with an option.
What software do you use to write a screenplay?
Oh Final Draft, industry standard. Spend the money. Itâs worth it⊠If youâre going to work in this industry you need to pass, which means you need to use the tools, you need to use the terminology, you need to have the craft skillset that everybody else has, so that theyâre not feeling like theyâre having to educate you in knowing how the business works.
Whatâs your favorite movies?
The one that always comes to mind I love Aliens. I love Aliens unreasonably. Itâs half because itâs an impeccably structured movie. When I was coming up there werenât a lot of classes. There were no books. Alright maybe there was Story, but it was incomprehensible. We learned structure the old fashioned way. We watched movies and we broke them down. Eventually, if you were in the business, if you worked in Los Angeles, you would make the kind of contacts where they would start floating you screenplays, those produced and unproduced, so you can start reading what was industry standard at that time and then you would break them down, so Aliens, honestly, it was my training wheels movie. It taught me how to structure a movie. Iâd go back and watch it at least a couple of times a year. Also Michael Biehn is super pretty, so that doesnât hurt anything. There and aliens and yeah, itâs a good fun movie and Jim Cameron structures about as well as anybody in the business.
Whatâs a good book to read on screenwriting?
You know I recently picked up John Truby? The anatomy of Storytelling (The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller). I think it what itâs called. I had done my âsave the catsâ education and, um, I feel like theyâre all having exactly the same conversation. Theyâre all talking about exactly the same things, which is why you kind of read all of them because they all present it in slightly different ways, so if one book is not making a lot of sense to you go and listen to someone else because maybe their voice makes sense to you, but ultimately itâs exactly the same conversation, but John was doing something different in his book and I really appreciated that. He was talking about structure from a perspective of activating the secondary characters, so creating plot, based almost solely on this idea that the other character in the sequence is there to be in opposition to the main character, I mean this is the big takeaway for me, and that was just a new way to kind of look at things, so now if you look at some of the Oscar nominated screenplays in some of theâI canât say itâs a new direction for structure, but it is slightly different. There was a number of movies that came out that all were behaving the same way so Three Billboards outside Ebbings Missouri is a really good example, and darn if I can come up with the other two that Iâve been kind of grouping together in my classes, but they all are kind of doing the same thing. The first half thereâs no plot. Thereâs no plot. You are just hanging out with these people and youâre just sort of experiencing their life with them and youâre getting to know sort of the diagram of how all the characters are interfacing and then somewhere around the false resolution, the halfway point, you know something disastrous happens, and all of the characters end up escalating the dramatic states, but itâs character escalation versus plot escalation, so itâs not that more diamonds got stolen or more bombs got planted its that more characters are being more vocal and aggressive in being in opposition to our lead.
What are you doing in Colorado? I know you have some projects going on.
Yeah, so Colorado does not have a film industry, Evan. I donât know if youâve noticed that. Have you noticed that?
... itâs really important to me that writers do what theyâre supposed to do and the number one thing that theyâre supposed to do is to write a screenplay that an audience would actually want to see,...
Yeah.
Our film industry is none existent. Nobody understands development. Nobody takes development to heart. People are writing screenplays because they want to shoot a movie. They donât really know screenwriting. Theyâre not hiring the people or partnering with the people who are exceptional, you know, who really, really dedicate themselves to the craft! So weâre getting a lot of extremely lackluster, microbudget, by microbudget I mean 50,000 dollars, a 100,000 dollars. Weâre getting just a lot of movies where people are practicing their craft, but theyâre not making things that are marketplace competitive and as a former development executive, as somebody who has been marketplace competitive, itâs really important to me that writers do what theyâre supposed to do and the number one thing that theyâre supposed to do is to write a screenplay that an audience would actually want to see, so I do as much as I possibly can to look for opportunities for writers, but to also create opportunities for writers to escalate their skillset. This looks like lots and lots of things. This looks like the contest that I run out of Women in Film and Media Colorado. So Iâm president of that organization. Itâs the state chapter of a national organization and the very first thing that I did as development chair was create a contest. Itâs not that we gave a lot of money away to the writer who won itâs that we gave producer reads to this person. We gave them a table read, so hearing your script out loud by professional actors changes your understanding of your text. Having conversations with producers or agents who can look at it from their perspective is going to change your understanding of your text and itâs going to elevate your next revision, so thatâs one example of what I do. Obviously I teach a ton of classes. I work one on one a lot. I do a lot of development in Colorado/ The people who have figured out what it is that I do, they come back to me over and over and over again, because I get them down the road, you know, like youâre going to get there on your own, hopefully, but if you bring in somebody who really deeply understands story and more importantly understands story from a production perspective youâre going to have a much more viable product and yes it is a product and the idea of that liability is not just being worthy of somebodyâs 100,000 dollars to shoot but also is it going to get distribution, so getting people into the headset, teaching the business of screenwriting, so that when they do come to their stories, theyâre coming at it understanding that thereâs this whole business apparatus behind it that as writers we are a function of the marketplace. Itâs very fun to write something on our own. You can do that in books if you like, but filmmaking is totally like this team thing, and we gotta be part of the teams, we gotta understand what everybody else downflow is expecting of us, so I teach a lot of classes about that. I teach producers how to produce. Thatâs another thing that my production partner Art Thomas and I do. What else? Just gathering up whatever. Sometimes I meet a producer and theyâre looking for screenplays you know and Iâll point them in certain directions. I help screenwriters find writers groups together just whatever I can to just keep the wheels turning and to keep people feeling optimistic about what it is that they can get done. Writers are so lucky. They can always go home and write. They can always improve their skills. The same cannot be said for most everybody else in the food chain, so I like the idea that we get to go and help each other bolster each other up. We can move faster. We can elevate faster than almost anybody else in the business, so thatâs on the producing side, thatâs on the teaching side and then as a creative Iâve been commissioned to write a screenplay by Main Man Films Art Thomas and I did a bunch of work on that and thatâs now out in the marketplace. Itâs a five to seven million dollar revision thatâs historical. Itâs about Duke Ellington for goodness sakes and weâre being read by some top Hollywood talent because Art knows some people and, ah, again, you know, optioned it for very little money, but thatâs not the point. Art knows folks to kind of build out the team of whoâs going to rally around and get this thing made and then the other big project that Iâm working on, weâre in post on our pilot. This is a docu-series thatâs called Hidden Tigers and probably TV, we might go web series, like we can always go web series, right? Thatâs easy. We wanna take our shot. Weâve got a few people at the networks who are interested in seeing what weâve done with the pilot and what this is about. Thereâs a young woman, a disabled woman named--- who I donât know. She hit a certain age and her life was just not working out the way she hoped it would. She was very concerned about living the rest of her life as a disabled person and what that was going to do and she started looking around and she realized that there were so, so, so many disabled people who were living big dreams that were accomplishing so many amazing things that their disability just had no limitations on them and she decided, You know what? Iâm going to go interview these people! I wanna go model myself after these people! I want to go learn how to be a hidden tiger⊠Weâre finishing up our pilot on that then weâll take the series out to the marketplace here probably in the next couple of months.
If somebodyâs not fun to work with walk away! Life is too short.
Well, Congratulations!
Thank you. Itâs so fun! Oh my gosh it was so fun. Work with good people. Thatâs the other good piece of advice. If somebodyâs not fun to work with walk away! Life is too short.
Anything else you want to plug?
(Laughter) That I wanna plug⊠I think writing classes in general are important for everybody, so even taking fiction classes, even if you only see yourself as a screenwriter, youâre still going to learn a ton about writing. Thereâs a few great writers conferences coming up, so thereâs the Northern Colorado Writerâs Conference. Iâll be there teaching some stuff about TV as well as fiction writing. Iâll be at the Pikeâs Peak Writerâs Conference, shortly after that, thatâs down in Colorado springs and who knows what Iâm teaching there. Itâll be fiction. Itâll be some screenwriting stuff. Iâm starting to cue up my summer fun, yay! I get to go back to Comic Con. I work really hard. To get to teach at Comic Con, so I can go and hang out with my people. Letâs see. The Western State University, Writing the Rockies (2018). This is outstanding, so this is three days. Itâs up in the mountains in Gunnison or as I like to call it Crested Butte Adjacent. Mike Reiss is one of the teachers this year. Heâs considered the show runner of TVâs greatest season of TV ever. It was Simpsonâs I believe season #7 and that was him. That was his work, so heâs the showrunner on The Simpsons. Worked with him last year. Weâve got a new guy coming in named John Bowman, whoâs a TV writer, oh my gosh, dating back into the 90s, like he has touched tons and tons of TV shows, so theyâre putting kind of a new emphasis on TV, but again all writing has lots of things to teach you, so if you want to spend a few days up at a higher altitude learning from some Los Angeles pros, come check that out.
Whatâs your fee for 1 on 1 coaching?
So with the 1 on 1 coaching it really, really depends what the writer needs, so I work with writers in all capacities. Sometimes people bring very nascent story ideas to me and I help them develop it and kind of map it and figure out how to move forward with it. Sometimes they finish the manuscript, heck, sometimes theyâve had that manuscript read by their writers groups⊠so they took it as far as they felt like they could and then they bring me in and Iâll work on that, so it really depends on what you need. I do copy editing, so thereâs a service I do called page notes, where its like 15 to 20 pages of me explaining whatâs working in your manuscript, the things that need to be looked at harder and then I go through literally line by line by line and I do this for screenplays and teleplays as well and I challenge every single line not just on a copy editing level; so is the grammar correct? Is the syntax correct? But also story logic. Are you clear in what it is that youâre saying? Are these the right the adjectives? The right words? Is this consistent of voice? Thatâs another really, really big one in books is whether or not youâve designed the right voice, the right format, to follow the function of what youâre executing. I love, I love working on completed manuscripts⊠It depends on what you need, so I would just direct you to my website and you see all the different things that I offer and you can tell me how I can be of service.
There are those niche "nerd" websites that talk about video games and cosplay, but I find those to be complete nonsense half the time.
When you are looking to learn, to find answers to your problems, you could spend hours before you find one blog post that is worth your time.
If you are as frustrated with the "internets" as I am then maybe you should try something I just recently rediscovered.
Reading books.
I'm not a big book reader even though I write.
Someone at my writers group recently wanted to get rid of two boxes of books and she let me look through her boxes and grab some. I picked up Dennis Lehane (My favorite), Brad Thor, James Patterson and some others, and all of them were NY Times Bestsellers.
Reading could be the quickest way I've ever added meaning to my life.
They say you read to know you're not alone.
Reading NY Times Bestsellers, you can't really go wrong, because people are already buying these like cray and the reason is they are well written and are a great escape.
Iâve read many a blog post to try to find meaning in my life and lots of them give advice like run, join a gym, meditate, volunteerâââsure, all great ideas, and I do all this at certain times, but picking up a book and reading it, in my opinion, is a lot more meaningful than scouring blogs for lifeâs answers.
A book will probably give you those anyway.
One of my favorite books is Moby Dick. Itâs about a âbumâ who signs up to be a whaler when he grows tired of being a landlubber.
It's a "classic" and the book is timeless so if you pick it up and read it you will just forget your problems immediately.
You can even download books from libraries now for free. Did you know this? Yeah, Amazon owns that too, but itâs cool. Itâs called OverDrive.
The sad part is they make you wait for a copy if it's checked out. Not cool. This is the digital age y'all! I don't have any answers.
Sometimes I wake up in the morning (or go to bed at night) certain life has no meaning and it is all chaos and then we die. I'm depressing aren't I?
It's hard to convince myself different when my mind goes along this "track."
It would be better if I read a book before I went to sleep. I usually watch Amazon Prime though as of late.
Anyway, a bookâ-âa bound set of pagesâ-âthat's what a book is. You can use your kindle for it, too of course. Or you can read what someone chiseled in stone or wrote on papyrus leaves or try a modern book instead.
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