.
2/20/04--One year anniversary for Paul's site...Yuck, I hate tripod...all those ads have blocked Paul's pages. I'll redesign Paul's site in March. I've updated his site and added the news that Paul's new show is called: Gramercy Park.
2/19/04a villanious plot that Stephen Saunders has going. He's the next villain on '24'. Look for Paul's performance in a good number of upcoming 24 eps, beginning on Tuesday, 2/24, naturally. Ah, and on ER's "Blood Relations" ep 10.15 he puts in an appearance and on ER's "Forgive and Forget" (ep 10.16) things heat up 'tween Lawson and Corday--someone sent some spoilers.
2/5/04 Congratulations out to Paul Blackthorne! In addition to landing the lead on an ABC/Touchstone pilot slated for fall, Paul snagged a recurring role as a surgeon on 'ER' and we'll see him in upcoming episodes of Fox's "24" playing a British secret agent :o) gone rogue. I'll post on this site and on his fan page when he'll be on ER and 24. Stay tuned!
& new fanfiction up. In this mostly dialogue fic, Rae gets testy and Jules makes dual decisions regarding her cancer treatment and the embryos. Rae also gets jealous when she sees Nick with another woman, and Nick discovers some surprising news when a woman from his past tracks him down.
It's not my best fic, not by a long shot, thinly plotted, long and rambly, and, I think it's a Track B to Something Wicked but I've had my plate full writing a lengthy application for transfer into, hopefully, UCLA as a geography major. Utah (Salt Lake) and Buffalo are my two other top choices. Also developing new ideas for patents and writing the claims (it's hard to draw when you're not an artist!). I hope I've gotten to such a point that at least one of my ideas will make it to the finals in the Invent Now, America contest co-sponsored by the USPTO.
I'd like to get a crack at being a television writer. I've been told off, literally fried, by one unnamed chap who posted to a tv writer's message board in response to my message. He typed his flame in response to this statement: "I'm trying to crack the tv writer's market. Are there any good scriptwriting courses that I can take?" Then I got flamed in what came to be a six page (I downloaded the answer into Word) tirade against me, telling me, amongst other things, that I had some nerve logging onto the message board without even had a scriptwriter's course.
In the meantime, while I'm still looking for an agent and that elusive first sale, I want to make some progress towards finishing my bachelor's degree.
UCLA has a very high declination rate for transfer students (over 8,200 were declined). I also have an elementary geography textbook and software project outline in the works for my transfer application. Two additional geography projects round out my application.
By getting as many of my ideas transferred onto pending patent applications as I can hopefully will give my transfer application some bite. Oh, yeah, and today they told me by email what I don't want to hear: November is the only period in which I can send my transfer application for the following fall quarter. Meaning fall of 2005 would be the earliest I can start at UCLA. However, by writing my application now, at least I will have made efficient use of the resources at hand plus I will have plenty of time to modify my personal statement (required for transfer students). So it could be Utah for college (and lots of skiing. One of my inventions is a skiing accessory).
I've been in hibernation after a huge family blowout. Usually when I'm that upset, I can write better and more frequently. It was, after all, a sexual assault that got me started in writing fan fiction for UC: Undercover just over two years ago. In the last few months, I've discovered a lot about how families can take sides, and how families can disintegrate when everyone stands against a family member when her rights are stepped upon.
I learned that I am being blamed for something for which I shouldn't have been blamed. I learned that my father and his wife are extremely hypercritical regarding anything that is going on in my life, especially if my life doesn't meet their standards. And, strangely, I also learned that families can be very critical of someone's decision to return to college, though why for the life of me would anyone object to my obtaining a geography degree?
Why all the objections to my owning certain things? The short answer is: we are all adults with our own agendas. The long answer would take more time to write than I have. My queries into my mother's estate (that one of my older brother's managed) is what started it. I have the right to know just how much money there really was in my mother's estate--and I haven't been getting many answers. Why all the secrecy? Because there's more to it than meets the eye. I've tried to settle with my brother outside of the probate court but to no avail. Missing life insurance benefits, extra money not reported to me or to the probate court...lots of things going on and none of it is good. All of this will be public information, btw.
But out of my family problems has arisen a new character for publication...Kalileah Rivera (no relation to Eirene Rivera, whose story "Diamonds Are Not Forever" I think wants Shane Salerno to treat it). Kalileah is in LA to attend college, she is an older student returning to obtain her degree in anthropology. At college, she uncovers a whopper of a financial scam when she is working for her professor...and someone may end up dead if Kalileah doesn't back off.
12/02/03...six weeks, whew! Tears continues the "Something Wicked" storyline. Tyring to wrap it up but couldn't find a way to deal with Robert Winningham. I think "Tears" gives a bit of a surprise and throws a spanner into the works. I'll have to continue this story but I posted what I have.
for those photographers in the group, the Smithsonian Magazine is sponsoring their first ever photo competition. Deadline is December 31, 2003 . Address to send photos to is: Photo Contest, Smithsonian Magazine, P.O. Box 50383, Washington, D.C. 20091. Entries must be postmarked by 12/31/03. Digital resolution or film originals.
link to photo contest info on Smithsonian Mag's site: Photo Contest
I know it's a bit close to the deadline but I only found the September issue of Smithsonian last week during a dumpster dive for reading material (the apartment complex in which I live has 4,500 units and requires magazines and newspapers to be separated from the rest of the trash.)
On the personal side, I haven't been writing at all these past weeks. Lots of problems with my family and the estate problems.
10/14/03...Part II End of the Line (Track B mystery)...(I merged the files; click on part II)...I am in serious need of pruning shears & a class on "Writing the Thriller". This freshman effort mystery uses some convenient plot devices to keep the story flowing & there are parts where I wonder what I was thinking.
In Part II: Ooops. Sherry failed to pass along the dashing host's invite to Barry's mother, Miranda Silver. The host discovers this fact & he fetches Miranda to the event. Barry's angry mother confronts Sherry @ the charity event & to the amusement of the guests, Harmony plays a well-deserved trick on Sherry. Miranda plans on having Sherry removed as executor of the Barry Brinks Estate. Along with Miranda, the four amateur detectives then discover Sherry managed to swap Barry's will but Rae has an idea that will bring Sherry to justice...and uncover the truth about the murder of Barry Brinks.
10/07/03...End of the Line (Track B mystery). Will Nick stand by Rae when she is forced to reveal a twenty five year old secret that could have adverse repercussions on hers and Nick's reputations? There are secrets buried beneath secrets in End of the Line and Rae's first secret to be revealed is not the most damaging.
Recall day in California is two days away. With legal considerations in mind, the fellas' political campaign transformed into a month-long charity fundraiser, and those same legal considerations cause Nick & Matt to withdraw from the recall race. For reasons of her own, Rae is not happy with that decision; a twenty five year old grudge has been resurrected when Rae's aging adversary sends Rae a mysterious package and the nemesis asks Rae: Mind if I cut in again?
Harmony discovers the name of her strange reaction to alcohol & contemplates that she is of Asian/Irish descent rather than all Irish as she's been led to believe. Nick and Matt have been busy creating secrets of their own: they have set up a surprise for the two ladies at a charity fundraiser somewhere in Los Angeles & the actor hosting the charity event is the actor both ladies have fantasized meeting. But unbeknownst to Rae, her adversary has something decidedly different in mind for the fundraiser and Rae gets the first of several shocks of her life when she arrives at the posh mansion.
For twenty five years ago, Rae was to have posed for a most...unusual sculpture on television for the late fast-rising sculptor/photographer Barry Brinks. But it's not the long-gone sculpture that ends up shocking Rae at the fundraiser and causes her to wonder if Nick will either stand by her or desert her. It's something a bit more...revealing.
And, during the course of the evening, Rae finds herself bothered by the growing possibility that Barry's untimely death wasn't accidental....
fic is to be continued (along with the ending to Something Wicked)...End of the Line is written in a mix of first person (Rae) mixed with third person (Nick; Matt/Harmony's parts). I'm not sure which I like better, the first person or the third person.
9/22/03 Surprised ya last time with the Deuce fic, eh? Deuce surprised me as well as I was intending to create the first fan site for Deuce II & the story just fell out. Now, here's Robert Dalgety, MD in his first adventure fic. The story is a literary casualty of Hurricane Isabel when the power went off Thursday the 17th around 4ish & erased my first draft, along with the saved file on the floppy. The second time around for Dalgety is much better and is closer in writing style to my real-life short fiction.
In On The Other Side Of The Mountain: The Mish has closed--maybe permanently--and Dalgety has taken on at will work. He is also still despondent over Gina's death. Happening upon a chance message at a gourmet grocery store, Dalgety decides to change his life even more & he takes up a new hobby. Months later, he is called to help rescue two men stranded on a mountainside without proper supplies. [The story is not related to other my other Dalgety fics. I took some dramatic liberty; "Into Thin Air", the book referenced in the story, is an account of the May 1996 Everest tragedy and was used as a reference. All mistakes are mine.]
9/10/03 offbeat fic for Deuce Bigalow: Double Crossed. A bit of light crime writing. After receiving a threatening note, London Barrister Mason McDaniels helps Antoine & Deuce track down a gang of young thieves & in the process, the trio solves a puzzling crime.
8/27/03 Wow. 26 days without anything to post...Trying to write too much and not enough focus: a children's book (ideas come & go. sigh.), a few geography papers, fanfic & short stories. Dalgety gets an adventure storyline in early September.
Meanwhile, in Two Heads Are Better Than One, a Track B story, Rae tries to track down the giver of a ritzy hotel weekend getaway package that she, Nick, Matt & Harmony receive. While at the hotel, the fellas find themselves in sudden public demand when a surprise announcement is made to the California media hounds. Two Heads is not one of my better fics; I'm stretched too thin & I know I need an editor. I'm quite sure the verb tense changes in the last third of the story. But I do rather like the idea behind the story, so I let it flow.
8/01/03...A Something
Wicked fic. In Turning
Point, a mixup between the chemo drugs vincristine and methotrexate
causes Harmony & two of her campers to become alarmed and brings
Matt & Nick to the rescue. Rae is finally handed some
good news & she's elated at the prospect of working with Amanda Sotheby
again. Rae's depression is becoming obvious to the staffers at UMC &
some have concerns about her medical judgment & when the vincristine
scare occurs, there's an emergency meeting of docs. Afterward, Nick
persuades Rae to get some counseling.
