OK, I need help with something.

One of my current projects is organizing a local storytelling show here in Eugene. The existing ones are not the kind of storytelling I am looking for, and I need a place to practice telling stories on stage. I would go up to Portland, but it is a good 2 and 1/2 hour drive, if I had a car, which I don't, and a good 3 hour train ride or bus ride. Besides being cost prohibitive ($30 per ride up and back via train, $50 for ride up and back via Greyhound), most of the shows are on weekdays. 3 hours up and back, plus the time there for the show means I would have to take time off of work and not get home until about time to get up and get ready for work the next day. As I am the only person in the IT department right now, I would need my brain to be coherent for work.

So my question to you is...what do you think a good title would be for this show? Most shows have a good title to go with it. At this point, I am counting it as a one off unless I can find enough interest, but I would like to turn it into a monthly or bi-monthly thing.

I am so bad at thinking up good titles. I tend to get esoteric and convoluted with the meanings and it turns into something people read and go WTF?

This is going to be a truthful anecdotal storytelling show, kind of like the Moth or Risk! or The Back Fence.

Some of my current ideas:

No sh!t, there I Was
Rockingchair Tales
Audio Hallucinations
Audial Petroglyphs
The Front Porch Swing
Clay Jars
Quilt stories (or The Crazy Quilt)

What do you think? Do you have any better ideas?

HELP!! Please??

Still here, still kickin and still working. I have decided I want to re-record my story and a few more. I will post them when I have them done.

I have decided to try to organize a monthly Eugene story slamm. If you are in Eugene and want to help send me an email.

I am so excited about the progress of my webseries. I spent a bunch of time this afternoon recording and practicing my voice directing skills. I hope it worked out well and my actor does not hate me now. My previous forays into directing weren't really successful. Mainly because they were in high school and the students refused to recognize that director did actually mean I got to make decisions on what they did on stage. They also decided to randomly switch roles without telling me or asking me. And didn't understand and got upset when I said no. I was just being a bitch.

But I digress. I love doing this. It is SO fun!! I also found some sale Van Aken clay. That is supposed to be a great clay for doing claymation stop motion animation. I haven't had the courage to break it out yet. But at least I will get to practice with it. Maybe I will try to animate it.

I saw Frankenweenie last night. I need to see it again. I was really excited for this movie, and I think in my zeal to learn everything I can about stop motion and the movies coming out this year I spoiled it a little. I listen to a podcast called Scriptnotes Podcast with John August and Craig Mazin. John August was the writer for Frankenweenie, so of course when the movie first came out he talked about it on his podcast. This was awesome, but also a curse. I did it to myself, I know. I could have waited. But as I knew some stuff abut the writing process and production process I was paying more attention to that than just enjoying the movie. I was busy comparing techniques with Aardman for Pirates! and Laika for Paranorman. Very different and interesting and valid styles and techniques. Also, there was an inside joke that I am not sure you would understand. If you haven't seen it yet I don't think this will spoil it for you. It is about biffy gnomes. Biffies, if you don't know, are portapotties. If you have seen the movie you may get it, if you haven't I am not going to spoil it for you. If you have seen it and still don't get the correlation I will be glad to explain it to you. It made that movie that much more enjoyable for me.

My point is though that the more I learn about the process of writing and production, the more I watch movies and analyze it with writing process and production in mind. Has it totally spoiled watching movies for me? I hope not. I am hoping that I can learn to control it and turn it off and on at will. I also found myself watching the trailers and seeing the exact same storyline in different contexts for every movie. My friend was all excited about the new movies. I, on the other hand, was like "They are all the same movie. Why would I want to spend my money on them?" Is that a downside to learning more about how to make movies? I don't know. Am I maybe too cynical for my own good? Maybe. Or maybe I am better able to discern better. Or maybe it is just that studios are so desperate to make a movie that makes money they are afraid to deviate from the formula.  I don't know.

Has learning about movie making ruined movie going for you?

So, I spent the last few hours writing up a story, reading it over and over, editing it, reading it over and over again, then finally recording it and editing it with an intro and outro. I put it up on Soundclick, but it won't let me embed just individual songs, so I probably won't go with them for the long haul.

But for tonight, here is my version of the story Death Comes in Fly Form. Feel free to comment and critique.

Well, thank goodness that is over. I hate having bouts with malaise. It only took 4 days. Sheesh. So now I am sitting at a cafe waiting for a pot of tea, and doing some serious writing. I am inspired, but want to wait until I get my tea to start writing so I thought I would post and get the creative process going. I have several projects going at once, and all have been stalled for the last few days. I have another meeting with Kevin Allison on Sunday. I need to have my first story refined a bit and another story ready to tell. I have lots of ideas. I have not actually writen any of those ideas down in any type of coherant story. I also need to finish writing the rest of the episodes for the web series. I am not happy with the Pinnacle iPad video as it is, so I am considering just starting over. I may just keep it as it is, imperfections and all. I don't know. I also have several craft projects on the line.

So, my goals for tonight...write up a few storytelling stories and decide which i like best. I really need to get over my embarasment at talking to myself when I practice a story out loud. I feel ridiculous when I don't have someone else to react to it. Maybe as incentive I will get a story or two recordable and post them here. The audio versions of them, I mean. I have a Souldclick account. I don't know. That would give me incentive. Ok, I won't promise audio version, but I will make that a goal. that would give me the push I need to keep working on them. And trying to get a good audio copy will keep me from gettin distracted by other projects.

Ok...off to write, drink tea and then work on audio. Hopefully results later.

Blah. Bleh bleh blah. There isn't a lot to write about right now. It has been over a week, so I thought I would post something. I am experiencing a high level of blahs and irritability. I have been making myself work on stuff, but my heart hasn't been in it. At work everyone and everything has been annoying the crap out of me. And it has nothing to do with them. They aren't being annoying. I am being bitchy. I am sitting here in the library now trying to figure out something to do that will help me work this crap out of my system. In a way it is good. I am having to practice making mself be creative when I just don't feel like it. Everything I have written is shitty. That is ok...at least I have something. It is easier to fix shitty than to start something from nothing. my hope is that when I get over this crap I will be able to look at it and it will spark something creative that will be much better than what I got. the video is plodding a long as well. I work on it a few minutes, see how crappy it is and give up. I didn't pay a whole lot of attention while shooting. I just shot to get it done. And it is obvious. It will take a bit of finessing, and I am not in a mood for finessing.

I am not coming up with any ideas. I have no idea how to get myself into a better mood. I want to go home and sleep. It is 3pm in the afternoon. That is not a good sign. I think I am going to try heading over to High Street and get some ice cream brownie. Usually sugar doesn't help. But it couldn't hurt. Maybe sitting outside, eating something yummy and writing will make me more inspired.

What helps to kick you out of the irritable blahs?

Well, I had my first one-on-one session with Kevin Allison tonight. I was so nervous. He was very sweet, very kind, and gave me some valid feedback that I needed. I got some confirmation that I do know how to tell a story, even if I need to work on elements of it. That was gratifying. At this point we are looking more at the story than the performance. I feel that the more comfortable I get telling stories the better my performance will be. But this goal just skipped from anonymous attempt to real - to achievable. I just need to get my confidence and learn what to leave in and what to leave out. After tonight, I am going to research what storytelling opportunities there are in Portland and see if I can bribe someone to drive me up there from time to time.

I am very impressed with how present he was. It would be very easy for someone as busy as he is to just fluff it off. You know, not really listen, not really have any constructive feedback, just what he generally tells everyone. He really did try to assess my story and help me. I feel my money was well spent.

I am still working on the video in the Pinnacle app. It is taking way longer than I had hoped. I have about half the spidgetts done now. I was sick last night and today, so the rest aren't done, but I have been working on it. I probably won't work on it again for the next few days. I wanted to have it done by now. But whatever, I guess.

I have one person committed to doing voiceover for the web series. That is good. I am still looking, so if you are interested send me a message via the contact form.

OK, I need to lay down again.

I have been working on this video all week. I still don't have all the pictures moved into the timeline. This is tedious. Well, usually stop motion is. I have to import each picture, one at a time, and sometimes instead of dragging it, the app decides to send me to another folder. As there are no visible numbers on the pictures, and it doesn't save the markers, I have to figure out what picture I was on when it decided to crap out on me. This is the frustrating bit. I have not yet figured out what it is that makes it do this. I must admit I walked away a couple of times. I am now about 2/3 through adding pictures, then I get to actually work on finesses it all into a coherent video. I worked for 4 hours last night, and didn't get very far, so this part may take way longer than I anticipated. I shall continue soldiering on, and maybe by the end of the weekend I will have a video for you.

I have also been working on polishing my stories for storytelling. I have my first class on Monday, and I am very, very nervous. Just to get used to people hearing my stories, when one of my friends said he needed stories for his new blog I submitted one. If you want to read it, it is at Broken Treasures . It really didn't get much editing, and his spell check actually changed some of the words so they don't make sense. but otherwise that is mostly what I am going with. Feel free to read it and comment back here. I would love to know if it is too rambly, disjointed, whiney, etc.

Ok, back to the grindstone. I may go get tea and work somewhere else.

EDIT: I am finding that the app is now seriously lagging. Thinking maybe 1165 photos are too much for this app to process. SIGH SO I am starting over, and going to see if I can do this in spidgettes, like I did with the Douglas Adams video and still have something continuous and flowy. I am concerned with it becoming jerky and hard to watch. With the Douglas Adams audio I did the segments where the scene changes were so you'd expect a little bit of flow interruption. Cross fingers. And damn duplicating work.