Writing by the Light of My Fireplace

Well, not really. Especially since my apartment doesn't have a fireplace and the temperature will be in the hundreds today. But it's a nice image anyway.

But, that's about all I've been doing is writing. Industry-wise anyway. I have been doing a few normal things like shopping for clothes, getting new glasses, and getting my teeth fixed, but nobody wants to read about how many cavities I have or the new bifocals I am trying to get used to.

I have been meeting with my new mentor at ABC/Disney, Fernando A. Torres who is helping me get my script "The Outsiders" in shape to pitch to the ABC development executives at the end of August. Development executives are the people who make decisions about what new pilots to buy with the goal of turning them into a series. The best of all worlds would be that "The Outsiders" is picked up as a TV series. The more likely outcome is that it will be a terrific writing sample I can use to get a staff writing job on a show.

When I'm not working on "The Outsiders," I am writing my feature film, "Hip-Hop Zombies," a very tongue-in-cheek horror flick that is a cross between Napoleon Dynamite, Michael Jackson's Thriller, and Airplane. I'm hoping to have it completed in the next few months and my involvement with it will probably be as a writer/producer.

Also, during the last few weeks I have been busy with the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. They're the people who give out the Emmy Awards. I have been a member of the TV Academy for nine years and have voted in the Emmys every year. It is a great honor that I don't take lightly. I especially enjoy judging on the Blue Ribbon panel that narrows the top vote-getters to the final five who receive the nomination. It is a terrific feeling sitting with other industry professionals to judge our fellow performers' work and its measure of excellence which is the standard of the Academy of Television Arts and Science. In the next few weeks I'll be viewing performances in two categories by the five nominees to vote for the ones I'd consider Emmy worthy.

Thought you might be interested to see a picture of me a few years back with my horse Teardrop. Actually she was not my horse, but my dad made deal with her owner who kept her on our property, that if I fed her and cleaned up after her, I could ride her and treat her like she was my own. And since the owner rarely came to see her, I was the only owner she ever knew. (trivia: I named an episode of "Without A Trace" I wrote as a spec script after her). I was just reminiscing with my sister last night about how we were blessed with terrific childhoods that I think back on often.