“Where Did You Go?”

Barb, the designated clapper.

Last night I jumped in a minivan with seven other people I’ve known for years and we all drove to Greensboro, NC, chitter-chattering happily along the way, for the showing of our 6-minute film, Just One.

Our film was one of 43 being shown this week as part of the Greensboro 48 Hour Film Project, one branch of the now world-wide competition to write, film, edit, score, and turn in a 4-7 minute-long movie in 48 hours (http://www.48hourfilm.com/). The even greater catch is each team has to incorporate an assigned character, prop, line of dialogue, and a genre/theme pulled out of a hat. The event alternatively goes by, “I Had a Way Better Weekend than You.”

Last Friday evening at 7pm, those 43 teams gathered in a long room to eat, drink, be merry, network, socialize, and at last be given their assignments so they could burst out the doors in a stampede-of-rhinoceroses-type-fashion to go complete the task before Sunday night at the same time. Plumb Line Pictures, our group, was assigned the theme of “Birthday/Anniversary.” All of the teams were given…

Character: Don or Donna Hastert, Plumber
Prop: Crayons
Line of Dialogue: “Where did you go?”

In the end, we produced a quaint bromance about a guy who is trying to forget today was his 5-year anniversary with a girl that broke up with him 3 months prior. His friend comes over to help get his mind off things, and in the end a hot plumber shows up to fix his toilet and he considers asking her out. In my completely unbiased opinion, it was one of the few really excellent films shown last night.

The other categories included:

Comedy
Dark Comedy
Detective/Cop
Fantasy
Film de Femme
Horror
Mockumentary
Musical or Western
Period Piece
Romance
Sci Fi
Superhero
Thriller/Suspense

Additionally, there were Wild Card genres. These were for people who didn’t like the genre drawn from the main list of categories and wanted something new:

Adventure Serial
Coming of Age
Drama
Family Film
Heist
Silent Film
Time Travel Movie
War or Anti-War Film

Plumb Line Pictures, the film division of my improv group, the Unintentionals, has been participating in the 48 Hour Film Project for three years independently now; and three years with another team, Neon Kudzu, making it six years total. I’ve now acted in/written/photographed/crewed/lackeyed/propped/scored/etc. three of those six. They haven’t necessarily been the best of films, but in the end, that’s not the point. The point is we have all had a gigantic blast each year and learned a lot about teamwork, time management, storytelling, filmmaking, and countless other things.

And if, by chance, you were thinking the title had something to do with why I fell off the face of the earth AGAIN… you’re wrong. Basically.

On that note, do stay tuned for more frequent blogging!

~Jess

Just Call Me Rip Van Winkle

So, dear readers, perhaps you are wondering what happened to the writer of this blog.  Did she get consumed by a man-eating tiger while on a safari in India?  Did she find El Dorado and promptly get kidnapped and put in some El Doradian dungeon?  Did she fall into a sidewalk chalk picture with Mary Poppins?  Did she get attacked by Twilight fangirls for declaring that Edward and Jacob were both ugly?

No, none of these valiant things occurred; at least, not in real life.  Instead, she was writing a novel.  Again.

Now, here is the lady herself:

Greetings, folks!  It is I, Jess.  I am alive and well.  Like my announcer said in the paragraphs above, I have simply been writing a novel.  You see, November is National Novel Writing Month, which is a challenge to write a 50,000-word novel within the thirty days.  I participated in it last year (you can refer yourself back to my Backstory), and I felt compelled, naturally, to participate this year as well.  The result at the end of four weeks?  51,720 words, 106 pages, of pure gold!  And by gold, I mean… well, not gold.

NaNoWriMo was an interesting experience for me this year, on a number of levels.  You see, last year, I had planned excessively for the novel I wrote.  As in, I had already tried writing it multiple times in the years prior (before I knew about NaNoWriMo); and then, once I signed up for the retreat in Oregon, I basically spent August, September, and October making sure my outlines and character profiles were perfect.  This resulted in me writing a despicably boring book, to me, because I knew everything that was going to happen, and all I had to do was write it out.  No room left for the spontaneity of flying by the ‘pants of my seat’, going with wherever would be exciting to write.

This year, I concluded that it was a horribly bad idea to do that to myself again.  I spent a total of maybe four or five days spread out over several weeks to come up with what I wanted in the novel, and basically left it at that.  The only extra planning I did came in little spurts of ideas that I would quickly jot down in my notebook so I could move on with life.

But as I wrote I still felt like I had planned too much.  I think this is because I felt like I had to stick with something; and that something was the little I had planned.  I ended up beginning the novel with no inciting incident other than, “It was a dark and stormy night, so I decided to go on an adventure.”  Wow, Jess.  Epic storytelling abilities for the win.

What made it harder to write the novel was the fact that during three of NaNoWriMo’s four weeks, I was travelling the country and visiting friends.  This, ladies and gentlemen, was not in the original NaNoWriMo plan; I made the decision to go a week before I peaced out of North Carolina.  And this would have been fine, but for an introvert like me, it is extremely difficult to concentrate and be creative when there is bustle all around, and people you like being with are doing funny and distracting things… and, frankly, you would actually like to visit with them since that is what you came to do in the first place.

After the rough start of the first week, I was basically able to concentrate to some degree or another; and then I finally got into the flow of writing in the third week.  This can be compared to running or swimming a long distance: the first couple of miles or first 500 yards are ridiculous and awful; and then you get in the flow, and you can just keep running or swimming forever, and it feels great.  And, after spending so many days behind on my word count (and even coming down with a killer virus over Thanksgiving weekend), I finished a day early with almost an extra 2,000 words tacked on to the end.

That is certainly not to say it is The Great American Novel.  It is more like The Great and Terrible Solid, Visual Form of Jessica’s Brain for the Month of November 2010.  It is all over the place.  It basically has no point.  It’s dramatic, hilarious, irrelevant, rambling, improbable, nonsensical, and certainly Not Like It Was Supposed to Go.  But you know what?  It doesn’t matter.  What matters is I DID IT.

This is my second time doing NaNoWriMo; technically, my third, since I also tried to do my own NaNoWriMo challenge in June.  I did not make it to 50,000 words either of those times; in November, I made it to 47,000, and in June I made it to 43,000.   So, this is the first time I have ever made it to 50,000 words in the required time.  Needless to say, I feel extremely accomplished.  I danced around the house for the next few days… and now, looking back, I want to dance again.

So, folks, that is what I have been up to in my absence!  What about you?

And what’s next for me?  Well, getting caught up on blogging, first of all.  I have a few “Ask Jess” entries that will be popping up very soon in the future!  Then I’ll tell you about my 2011 plans… how’s that?

Happy Winter, everyone!

~Jess