"Hey King, what's your first order of business?"
"Let the Wild Mucus Start!"



My friend, Erin, has been very nice to allow myself and Ren to stay with her. But she has been very UN-nice to get me sick! Her lab results will come at the end of this week and then I'll actually find out what I have - be it H1N1/Swine Flu or otherwise. Luckily, my immune system is doing what it does best - no mercy disease cage match! Like a tank crossing over the iron curtain!

Bah, health insurance! Who needs it?

Current word count: Holding steady at 866.

Fun to draw the characters. A man with a chess head is funny to me.

National Novel Writing Month has officially started, and for once, I'm actually going to try my hand in it.

Basically the idea is to just write. WRITE. It's all about quantity so you really shouldn't use an idea that you'd be disappointed with it coming out crappy. Why purposely write a crappy book? Because it's inherently going to be - 50,000 words in a month? It forces creativity out of you (hopefully) and doesn't tolerate editing or second-guessing to get in the way.


Current word count: 511/50,000

My entry is called "Chessland" and assumes that not only is there a war-torn country on the corner of Europe and Asia where another race of people (Chessmen) wage bloody battle, but also that American-born Chessmen co-exist with humans.

The story will be told from all different points of view (to prevent getting stuck on plot), and I'll try the best I can to post my progress:

CHAPTER ONE

Once a pawn a time...


When my great-grandparents first came to this county, they were met with the same terrible racial tension that was true with many minority groups around the turn of the century. But the American dream was alive and that was always the goal. “Do unto others,” Grampa O’Dwyer would tell my father, in his newly baptized voice, “they just don’t understand, but in the end, all races will find common ground.” Of course he was right, and it seems almost obvious for someone to say it today, but I admire how much guts it took for him to hold true to those ideals when almost every place of employment had that dreaded sign in their window: “Chessmen Need Not Apply.”

It's not too late to jump in! http://www.nanowrimo.org

In a car. Outside a Days Inn. Stealing their internet. Uploading the completed second cut of NQOS to a "Secure Online Screener" for Slamdance. Deadline is midnight PST. Progress bar is not-existent. Ren tells me it's uploading fine since she can read the squiggly internet usage line graph data in the soul of her computer.

This is the stuff they don't teach you in film school.

This news is a long time coming! Love Conquers Paul is an independent feature film written and directed by my good friend Colin Bannon that I ended up working on for over a year.

That's right, over a year. In the interest of making the film the best it could be, Colin and I edited this thing in all possible ways. I lived at his house in New York for a few months, then he came to live at my apartment for a few months after that. Drumming up support from wherever we could - but really, that was Colin, he's a pro at it.

I originally came on board as 2nd AC on set, and ended up being offered the editing position (not to say I didn't blatantly lobby for it), and then even further ended up out-right producing the thing and cut my teeth doing major special effects work.

So, Love Conquers Paul has a very special place in my heart - which is why it gives me such great joy to finally talk about its DVD release!


(early draft of the release poster)

On February 8th of next year (just in time for Valentine's Day!) you'll be able to pick this bad boy up in stores across America! And the cherry on top of the cake?



One day I randomly did this illustration in graphite and airbrush paint and somehow, Colin liked it enough that we started using it for early promotion, and then SOMEHOW, E1 Entertainment (the Distribution House) liked it enough for it to be the cover! So yea, I'm thrilled.

Extra points goes to that heart that they added. It reminds me of a old Charlie Brown storm cloud squiggle, which accents the theme of the movie perfectly. It's a heart. But it's not really a heart. Fun!

Congratulations to the whole cast and crew - the bulk of which goes to Colin Bannon! Next week he joins the crew of Natalie, Queen of Scots (it was his idea to make it in the first place), so I'll buy him a drink!