The first, rough pass of my new pilot is complete. And, as expected, it’s a little long, even by cable script standards. It presently sits at 65 robust pages but I’m sure I can get it down to a respectable 62(ish) by week’s end. Normally, I just send it my writing partner’s way and have him do his pass, but I’m considering breaking with tradition and sending it to a few other trusted critics as well. I’ll get their input and address the notes after which I’ll send the script to my agent who will, in turn, set it up somewhere. We’ll do five seasons of the series, endlessly discuss the possibility of a movie that will never come to fruition, then I’ll retire early to divide time between my Tokyo food trips and running my school for wayward pugs and french bulldogs. Sounds like a plan, no?
It’s been a while. Let’s get caught up on all the news you need to know:
Hey, look at what hit the shelves earlier this week. And the rest:
It’s the Rich Horton-edited superhero-themed anthology featuring stories from Kelly Link, Peter S. Beagle, and yours truly. “Downfall”, which made it’s debut in the Masked anthology, edited by my buddy Lou Anders, finds second life in this collection. Order it here: Superheroes. Early reviews are promising: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/superheroes-once-more-feeling/
If alien truly are out there, why haven’t they made contact yet? Well, here’s why: 5 Insane Theories About Why We Haven’t Discovered Alien Life I’m going with a variation of #3: We’re just not all that interesting.
Montana TV station issues bogus emergency zombie alert (VIDEO) | The Lookout – Yahoo! News Canada
People actually took it seriously? Well, you would too if you read this article: 5 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Apocalypse Could Actually Happen
Nielsen Ratings To Add TV Watching Via Broadband Everyone else welcomes Nielsen to the 21st century.
No! Not Nintendo Cereal System! http://www.buzzfeed.com/h2/shfke/briangalindo/25-cereals-from-the-80s-you-will-never-eat-again
Ooh, look what’s back:
about that “zombie alert” i wouldn’t be surprised if people did take it seriously. there are people with a zombie attack plan in place & a bug out bag ready in case they have to get out of town if there’s an un-dead infestation. both could, i suppose, double for any actual emergency.
good thing that happened in montana where the population is sparse & probably not that many people saw it . if that that happened in new york city or los angeles & hundreds or thousands saw that, there might have been a fairly serious panic going on.
that is if the ones who did see it, take that sort of thing (zombies) seriously.
Editing work is difficult. But it is great when you have friends who can be critical of it (in a good way). LOVE the Game of Thrones preview. There be DRAGONS!!! As far as the alien thing goes, I like explanation #2. We’re just babies, aren’t we? And the zombie thing, people are just that stupid aren’t they, which might lead to the point of explanation #3 of why aliens are not interested in us. Not that we are not interesting, we’d downright ignorant.
Great to hear your script is going so well, and I completely approve of your retirement plan. Still, it would be great to have that movie, though. 😉
Went on a nice hike this afternoon along the Fundy Trail by the Bay of Fundy. Some pics!
Nice view along the coast:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v98/gforce2002/959BDB30-97B2-4C4E-A9A8-137A80FFD60D-1534-00000578555D046E_zpsc33e6b1f.jpg
The only things by here within the last few days were a deer, a bunny and… a weasel maybe?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v98/gforce2002/FF671CCF-2E75-41BB-A8D8-8C5C3B053A57-1534-0000057849CBD43D_zps1bdddbc9.jpg
No nicer break when you’re out snowshoeing than hot chocolate and cookies!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v98/gforce2002/3E6A75DB-99B3-4074-A626-79A8E7411EC6-1534-00000578361E628B_zps46790b4c.jpg
Not actually part of the tree, this is actually a parasitic plant that is growing on an existing and already environmentally stressed spruce. It basically sucks the life out of the tree:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v98/gforce2002/8CAC6C92-3AB6-4044-A3A8-E036EC641AD8-1534-000005782B8CDFB1_zpsb338f964.jpg
Looking out over the coast. Not really caring for the filter effect that I used there.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v98/gforce2002/0BD18366-7525-4A40-96D4-8E429A19D7B5-1534-0000057823DBEF9D_zps1b47f5a7.jpg
Fishing boats at the nearby town of St. Martins. When the tide comes up, they’ll be refloated.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v98/gforce2002/D54F7C5F-6869-4BB6-93E2-876855D5101E-1534-00000577F9A47AE6_zpsa2a92b57.jpg
@Gforce Lovely pictures. Don’t get too close to the parasite plant. You know what happened on Stargate.
@Janet Sending good thoughts your way. They’ve come a long way with tonsillectomies from the time I had mine out in 1976-ish. I was in the hospital for 1-2 days then. Now they can perform them in doctors’ offices (at least here). Lots of nice cold things for her throat. Ice cream for every meal!
I’ve got mine! 🙂
In the past months, my life has turned around due to discovering most of my joint pain and other symptoms were due to food intolerances. I’d already moved through to acceptance that my quality of life was permanently diminished, until climbing blood pressure finished me. Brain fog, fatigue, receding gums, no air could pass through my nose (and I wasn’t risking a surgery), joint pain — it added up to me struggling to even accomplish the bare minimum.
It was a combination of looking into what you said about Jelly and Cushings earlier and noticing my comic on a tee was fitting differently at the waist even though I wasn’t gaining weight that let me crack the code on what was wrong. Everything was either from inflammation or from chronically elevated cortisol from the inflammation. After doing nothing but eliminating certain foods, the brain fog’s gone, my blood pressure is normal, my leg strength is back, my waist is rapidly shrinking, my gums are healthy, I can breathe through my nose, the fatigue is gone. So if I wax a little sentimental about diets here and there, I’m not just being a hippie, I’m being a grateful hippie.
Joe thank you for the constant updates on your future projects very exiting cant wait for dark matter the series.
@ DP – I’d love to share notes. Your situation sounds soooo much like mine. I had the brain fog, the pain (more muscular than joint), and the waist/weight issues, but also problems sleeping and low energy. I cut out gluten back in October and noticed immediate improvement. However, though I think I’m being careful, some issues have returned (mostly the brain fog and focus issues). Now, that could be my age or something, but I’m wondering if I have another food issue I’m unaware of. I’ve been tested for lactose and fructose intolerance, and I’m okay in that regard. So wondering if I should start eliminating other things, trial and error, as it were. Ugh, I dread the thought of it, though.
das
Congratulations Joe on getting your story Downfall published in another anthology! That is an awesome honor.
@ gforce – Beautiful pictures! Hot chocolate and cookies? My kind of guy… 😛
@ DP – What foods did you eliminate?
of those 25 cereals from the 1980s, i think i had the ghostbusters, smurfs & donkey kong ones. i’ve only recall a little fore than half of them & most of those weren’t in any story near me. ah, the joys of living in podunk.
@ gforce – Thanks for sharing the pics! Lovely! (Esp. the hot chockie 🙂 ). I’ve always wanted to go to the Bay of Fundy, just to see the tide changes. It must be something to see as it happens.
das
I think the scientific reasons for a real zombie apocalypse author’s grasp on science is about as good as my grasp of calculus. No real grasp at all.
G’day
Congratulations on “Downfall” making into another anthology.
My daughter, Kris, maybe having her tonsils out tomorrow (depending on the times in the operating theater) we are a little nervous. Hope she goes in and everything goes according to plan.
That 5 seasons and movie line, you clearly were indirectly talking about SGA Joe lol
I agree anyway, sucks the movie never happened, would of been great too.
gforce: I loved your pictures! It’s so beautiful.
DP: I’m glad you’re feeling better.
Das: I hope you can find out what is causing your problems. I made the best salad last week. Olives (black/green), cucumbers, mint, feta, tomatoes and topped with a lemon/olive oil. Yum!
Mr. M.: I enjoyed the links. Strange though but I don’t remember any of those cereals. Yay on Neilson ratings but too late for some really great shows.
G’day all!
Martin better get to work…the series will be catching up to the books by season four….
Editing is a bitch, but necessary. It’s good that you not only have Paul, but others who can give an honest critique. I hope you do get that deal. I also hope that when you do, the show runs for as long as you feel happy writing for it!
Thanks for the clip of Game of Thrones third season. I’ve only caught season 1 here and eagerly await the next! Now…if your show is anything as powerful as that, you definitely have a winner!
@Ponytail – I eliminated gluten first. That took care of the brain fog in a day. It took care of the joint pain in five days. Going paleo, eliminating grains and legumes and sugar, handled the rest. That sounds like a lot to eliminate, but my refrigerator only holds so much so I’m not hurting much more for variety than not being able to get out shopping often was already causing.
@Das – The fringes I’ve been hanging out in don’t believe in the testing because it misses intolerances often enough that you’d still need a trial to be sure. When eliminating the more notorious culprits doesn’t help, the GAPS diet will bring you down to the safest foods until there’s enough healing that you can then start adding foods until you find the culprit.
I actually had an increase in fatigue after eliminating gluten. I would have intense sugar crashes. It makes sense that if I had glucose intolerance from the high cortisol that suddenly reducing the cortisol might leave me vulnerable to the excessive insulin. I reduced sugar, but still had the crashes from grains, so those went, too. I was already so close to paleo at that point and I was still fatigued and still had that feeling I’d always had that I was missing nutrients. I’ve had great lifestyle excuses for that feeling, but I didn’t then, so I succumbed to the paleo diet community’s anti-nutrient theory of lectins in foods making the whole diet less nutritious and eliminated the rest of the foods to bring me mostly into line with the paleo diet. That finally handled the remaining fatigue.
Think of the brain fog as physical swelling from an allergic reaction. The gluten fog feels similar to migraine after-effects because of that. Finding the cause of it might need to include looking for non-food causes of allergies, too. You could get brain fog from a sugar crash, but that one fluctuates more than the kind of fog you already recognize.
Brain fog isn’t ADD, it’s mud you have to slosh through that makes everything harder. You may still need a medication, high-dose Vitamin D supplement, magnesium citrate supplement, and Omega-3’s to recover executive brain function. If you have anxiety, I’d suggest it’s worth the extreme fatigue side effect of adjusting to guanfacine.
I gave up on exercise, not that I had enough good days to attempt it much. It increases cortisol and I’m getting my strength back without it. I’ll pick it up again when I’m sure it’ll do more good than harm.
I’m cutting back on coffee because of the cortisol effects. It’s way easier to do when I’m not using it to cut through the fog.
Dread…I get that, but it’s a catch 22. Diet changes were overwhelming because of the effects my previous diet. I’m on the other side of that and I make eating right my number one priority because other priorities aren’t getting done without it. I’ll fast before I sabotage my day, which I haven’t had to do, but I’m resolved to ignore what we were told about not letting hunger increase our distraction. From this side of the river, I’m not tempted because the consequences are so clear (until I start forgetting how it used to be).
Joe, you’ll have to add the Rich Horton-edited book Super Heroes to your “Stuff I’ve Worked On…” list on the right.
Joe five seasons, plus two seasons more only because the network execs dont want you enjoy your retire plus a spin off. Then the spin off end with a mythical cliffhanger and no movies of course. I feel some dejavu…
About the Fermat paradox i think option 2 have more odds, but still we can not certify that there is intelligent life in extended form on earth.
@gforce nice pics.
Thanks for the comments on the pics! They were just with my iPhone, which always seem to come out really variable in quality. @Das – the Bay of Fundy is pretty amazing. You can go SCUBA diving in the morning and then walk out along the same rocks that were 30 ft underwater in the afternoon!
The only one of those cereals I remember is the Pac-Man, which for my health’s sake is probably just as well.
That GoT promo was amazing. Can’t wait for season 3!