OLD YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

I've been watching quite a few people chat about New Year's resolutions over on Facebook. Some people are proud that their only resolution will be to make no New Year's resolutions. Many seem to assume that New Year's resolutions are synonymous with diet and exercise. And many others think it's a waste of time because who keeps New Year's resolutions, anyway?

I do.

Not always, of course, but if you've been around for a while, you know that this blog was the result of a New Year's resolution. And I've kept many, many other resolutions: The resolution to cook "real" food for my family. To make a reading list and actually read my way through it. And more.

Here's the secret to a successful New Year's resolution: Instead of resolving to do something you *don't* want to do, instead, resolve to do something you *do* want to do, something you've been meaning to do, something you'd like to find time for. Then (and possibly only then) will you see the power of a good New Year's resolution made manifest.

I try to get my resolutions lined up by the end of January, but this year I am way ahead of the game. I'm ready to state my resolutions now.... But it seems just wrong to do it before New Year's Day, so first, let's look at the state of last year's resolutions.

Resolution #1: Knowing that we were about to move into a house that just begs to be used for entertaining, I resolved to entertain on a weekly basis (on average). By "entertain," I didn't just mean throwing parties, but was including in that all sorts of playdates, meetings... just basically people coming over.

Well, we have been here for 39 weeks, and as of New Year's Day, we will have opened our doors to folks 44 times. So let's check that one off!

Resolution #2: Urged by Cory, I resolved to get myself onto Facebook. I think we can safely say that resolution was successful. (So successful that it has affected my blogging here somewhat negatively at times... but that's another issue.)

Resolution #3: I resolved to pray for the forgiveness of a couple of specific people who had caused real damage to me and my family over the last few years. This one felt very difficult while I was in the process, but now that it's more or less over, it feels as if it was very easy indeed (sort of like childbirth). I think I can truly say I have put those episodes and people, and my own attitudes toward them, in the past. And I'm both glad and sad about it.

So 2009 was, as far as resolutions go, a pretty good year....

2010 is just around the corner.

'TWAS THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS

I don't know what came over me this morning.... My house really isn't quite this bad... and hope yours isn't either!

'TWAS THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS

‘Twas the day after Christmas, and all through the house

All the fam’ly was sleeping, yes, even my spouse.

The stockings were tossed by the chimney with flair

Some turned inside out, to make sure nothing’s there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

Nintendo DSes tucked under their heads;

And I in my bathrobe, MacBook on my lap,

Was happy to know there were no gifts to wrap.

When out from the kitchen there rose such a clatter,

I sprang from the couch to see what was the matter.

I waded my way ‘cross a floor filled with trash

To a kitchen heaped high from our Christmas Eve bash.

The sun through the window, it gave quite a glow:

(Los Angeles Christmas: We never have snow),

It shone on the remains of the Christmas day cheer,

The leftover cheese ball, the dregs of the beer.

The un-put-away brownies as hard as a fossil,

And o’er on the stove, it shone down on the wassail.

I blinked as the sun blasted straight to my eye

And just in time glimpsed a brown streak passing by.

Four-footed and furry and dragging a ham,

Dodging around me and trying to scram.

And as he ran off with a peppermint cluster

I knew in a moment, it was my dog Buster.

More rapid than eagles he streaked ‘cross the floor

Buster grabbed what he wanted, and came back for more:

More cheesecake, more truffles, more bagels and lox,

More chocolate chip cookies, more scotch on the rocks.

He smashed and he scrambled, bumped into the wall,

Then dashed away, dashed away, dashed away all.

“I should have cleaned up when the guests said good-bye,”

I moaned to myself with a pretty big sigh.

After two days of feasting, the kitchen looked grubby

I scrounged in the sink, tried to dig up the scrubby--

I searched quite in vain for a halfway clean towel

When out from the living room came quite a howl.

I set down the saucepan all caked thick with goo,

The glaze for the ham which had now turned to glue.

I skipped to the living room, limber of foot

And inched past the fireplace, dripping with soot.

Unraveling ribbons clung fast to my shin

As I looked round the post-Christmas scene with chagrin.

A mountain of presents all covered the floor

They looked so appealing when bought at the store.

Now gift wrap was ripped and the tissue was crumpled,

The new shoes abandoned, the new tank tops rumpled.

I picked my way round all the presents caloric,

The baskets of chocolate to make me euphoric,

Strange foods so exotic that no one would try it

(And don’t my friends know, New Year’s Day starts the diet?)

And just then I heard from the top of the spruce

The pitiful cry of a dog on the loose

I lifted my eyes from amidst the debris --

Old Buster had climbed to the top of the tree.

The angel crashed down as the Christmas tree swayed,

The ornaments flew in a sparkling cascade--

The puppy leapt on me, I felt his claws rip,

And then right behind, the tree started to tip--

The lights all exploded as down the tree crashed--

The pine needles shredded, the presents were smashed--

And I said as I landed on top of the pup,

“Happy Christmas to all-- Someone else can clean up!”

A (DOWNSIZED) MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

I am so sorry I haven't been blogging. Part of it is, I'm afraid, the lure of Facebook. Part of it is the season, though this year hasn't been as busy as some. Part of it is that I'm doing some writing, and the more I'm writing other things, the less I'm writing on my blog.

But here I am, back again, just in time to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

Christmas feels very different this year. Not just at our house, but all around. We were at a party recently where a friend who has had her "keeping up with the Joneses" episodes was exclaiming about how great it was to downsize her Christmas, how she wasn't sending cards at all, how she wasn't sending gifts to family out of town. It left me wondering if downsizing is the new "keeping up with the Joneses."

We are downsizing, too. Fewer gifts under the tree, and most cost under $10. And where we used to give gifts to all and sundry, just a very few are leaving the house this year. (And we will receive just a few in exchange.)

No big Christmas party for 200 people this year. And our friends who usually host a Christmas Eve gathering have moved to a tiny house and can't do it this year. Fewer parties overall, in fact, this year.

I slashed my Christmas card list (in part as of a result of changing schools) from about 250 to just over 150. Instead of staging a photo shoot for the Christmas card, I just grabbed a snapshot at our church's Christmas tea.

We didn't go to our usual Christmas tree lot in Orange County. We did still do the cut-your-own thing, at a closer lot, but we got a lesser tree this year. And no decorations on the house. (Though that is perhaps because of a son who doesn't understand why that should be his job.)

But Christmas is still happening. No, we're not having the huge 200-person open house, but we are taking over the Christmas Eve tradition of our friends, and having folks over between the 5:00 and 10:00 services at Bel Air. Ham and cream cheese-mashed potatoes and sweet potato/pecan casserole with a Grand Marnier sauce and macadamia nut-encrusted Brie and chocolate silk pie and strawberry fool.... And two dozen wonderful friends.

We'll still do our Christmas morning tradition of everyone getting what they want for breakfast. This year, thankfully, the kids have moved past their all-chocolate breakfast desires (though Sabrina is still having chocolate chip pancakes). And Cory agreed to settle for frozen yogurt when we couldn't find pomegranate ice cream anywhere.

But one little difference... My mom always wanted lox and bagels for Christmas breakfast. Sometimes I joined her, sometimes I didn't. But I think now, in her honor, my Christmas breakfast will always be lox and bagels.

We will still open one present on Christmas Eve, per our tradition, and we will open the rest Christmas morning, one at a time, even if it takes less time than usual. A dear family friend is joining us for Christmas Day, so maybe that's a new tradition.

We will still watch "White Christmas" (probably tonight), and Lee will marvel at the work of God that is Vera Ellen. We will still bake and decorate a birthday cake for Jesus and light the candles on Christmas Eve. (This year Jesus is downsizing, too -- He wants brownies as his birthday cake. I have this on good authority from Sabrina, who has that special connection to know what He wants every year. Thank God He didn't want a carrot cake this year again!)

So, all in all, a downsized Christmas isn't that bad. We have no idea what the New Year will bring, only that it will be really good or really scary, with not much in between. But for now, it's Christmas.

Every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small,
Was singing! Without any presents at all!
He HADN'T stopped Christmas from coming!
IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!
And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?
It came without ribbons! It came without tags!
"It came without packages, boxes or bags!"
And he puzzled three hours, `till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store.
"Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!"

Merry Christmas, all!

APPARENTLY BATMAN IS FOREVER...

It's been a loooong time since we were involved in the world of Batman... but it seems that world never leaves you.

I was recently interviewed by Ben Yip, a USC film school student who's a huge Batman fan. It was quite the blast to the past thinking all the way back to those days, but fun.

Here's the interview, if you're interested.... (And that poster of Nicole Kidman as Chase Meridian? Lee has had that in his office ever since we did the movie. I wonder why...)

HOW DOES A WRITER GET PAID?

I was approached for advice and information recently by an aspiring writer visiting Hollywood to get the lay of the land. He particularly wanted to know how "writers' fees," as he put it, work out here.

I don't normally post about industry business dealings here, but I spent a good amount of thought on the answers to his questions, and wondered if they might be helpful to others as well.

So here are Andrew's questions... and my answers. (Anyone with more Business Affairs experience than I is more than welcome to correct me!)

Question #1: How does a writer determine the fee s/he charges before taking on certain writing jobs?

My answer:

Before I can answer this, you have to realize that there are two kinds of writing jobs: WGA and non-WGA.

WGA-covered jobs are jobs in which the writer writes for a WGA signatory; i.e., a company which has signed a contract with the WGA. A non-WGA writer can, and most cases must, become a WGA writer upon accepting one of these jobs. And WGA-covered jobs must abide by the rules, including payment rules, set forth in the WGA's Minimum Basic Agreement.

Here's the MBA.

If it's a WGA job, the minimum to be paid is based on the length of the finished product (on screen, not number of pages) and on the market for which it's intended. And, if it's a WGA job, pension and health benefits must also be paid by the producer (upping his total cost), and, if/when the piece is made and marketed, residuals must be paid (eventually) for all uses *other* than the primary intended use. (E.g., if it's a theatrical motion picture, there are no residuals paid for the theatrical run, but residuals are paid for all after-market run.)

If it's a non-WGA job, there are no rules. A non-WGA writer can use the MBA as a starting place to try to get a fair deal, but is at the mercy of whatever deal he can strike. It is very rare for a non-WGA company to be willing to pay WGA rates.

Now, beyond this, writers have what are known as their quotes. Your "quote" is either (a) the highest price you were ever paid to do a certain task (e.g., "a draft and a set" -- or a first draft with a set of revisions), or (b) the price you were most recently paid to do that task. The anticipation is that you will be paid the same amount or a bit more for the next job. However, in this economy, writers are being forced to cut their quotes drastically -- usually 50% or more.

If you have never been paid to write, you have no quote, and have negotiate in a vacuum.

Question #2: If the writer doesn't have a track record of producing substantial box office results, should s/he just write at the minimum award wage [sic], or, on the opposite end of the scale, do writers often charge a percentage of the film's budget?

My answer:

I don't know what "minimum award wage" means. If you are referring to WGA minimum, it's usually called writing for scale.

A writer's track record at the box office only affects his quote tangentially -- i.e., after a hit, his agent/manager can demand a big bump up in his quote. But given that a writer has probably written several projects since he wrote the one that produced the big box office, his quote is somewhat independent.

The only time writers charge a percentage of the film's budget is when the producer has no money to pay them to write, and offers them what amounts to a production bonus under another name. Whatever they choose to call it, it's really a production bonus because the budget will not be finally determined until the show is in pre-production.

What this means is that the writer is essentially writing on spec. Sure, maybe the producer will pay anywhere from $500 to $5000 to hold the option on the project, but when these "percentage of the budget" deals are made, the writer is not being fairly compensated for his services. What the writer has to decide then is whether it is to his advantage to write on spec for this particular producer, as opposed to writing the same project on spec for himself.

Question #3: Do all contracts differ in the sense of what can be expected in return for the writer -- royalties, etc., or just a fee up front before shooting begins?

My answer:

Again, we run into the difference between WGA and non-WGA contracts. All WGA contracts start at essentially the same place in terms of "after-market" income -- and they are called residuals, not royalties (there's a technical legal difference; ask a tax attorney, not me).

Writers are guaranteed certain residuals for certain forms of aftermarket use (pay TV, network TV, DVD, etc.). Writers are also guaranteed, depending on the credit they receive, a small percentage of net profits. These are called "monkey points," and it is extraordinarily rare for a writer to ever see them. (I wrote a movie that cost under $100 million to make; it has made over a billion dollars in all markets; it is not yet in profits, officially, and we have seen no points.)

Note that all these aftermarket returns *only* apply to writers who receive on-screen credit on a produced movie. If you work on a movie and are not credited, all you get is what you were paid up front.

In addition, a writer can negotiate for production bonuses. There are all types: first writer bonus, last writer bonus, bonuses tied to the size of the budget or the salary of the lead actor, etc. These are up to the writer's agent/manager to negotiate.

Bonuses are often offered flamboyantly in the non-WGA world because they're all the producers have to offer. E.g., "I can only pay you $5000 to write the movie, but if it gets made, you'll get a million bucks!" While it's nice to have big bonuses in your contract, most scripts never become movies, so the "bonuses" are usually ego-flattering but meaningless.

One other thing: You mention a "fee up front." Writers are paid separately for each draft they write (except for "free rewrites," which are currently a huge plague the WGA is wishing it could eradicate). Each payment comes in 2 parts: 50% upon commencement of the draft, 50% upon delivery. A writers' contract will specify payment for each draft to be written, and drafts come in two types: Required and optional.

Traditionally, a producer would contract to pay for and receive two drafts on a screenplay, with an option to keep the writer on board for several possible drafts (rewrites and/or polishes) after the 2nd draft. The payment for each of those optional drafts is specified in advance in the contract. The option to keep the writer on board is always the producer's, never the writer's.

Nowadays, however, many (if not most) producers are actually making what are called "trick deals" or "one-draft deals" where only the first draft is required, and the second is optional. These are nasty deals, never to the writer's benefit.

There are (rare) times when a "normal" 2-draft deal goes south and the producer abandons the project (or the writer) after the first draft -- in this case, the producer must pay for the 2nd draft even though the writer never writes it; this is called a "pay-or-play" deal, and it is increasingly rare (though I have enjoyed "pay-or-play" a couple of times)... If a writer walks away from a 2-draft deal after the first draft (something I've also done), then the writer and producer typically agree to forego the 2nd draft payments.

And some bonus advice:

I am speaking mostly of how things are done in the WGA-covered world, of course, because that is my world. In the non-WGA world, there are three basic rules to remember:

(a) The writer generally gets taken advantage of. Sometimes very badly. (And if you are writing in the Christian-parallel-universe world of entertainment, do not expect that people deal more fairly and honestly there. If anything, writers are taken advantage of more badly in that world than in the mainstream studio world.)

(b) Credit is as important to negotiate as money. Again, writers are at the mercy of producers who will take credit for themselves, give it to investors, etc. Lock in your credit as much as you can. (In the WGA world, credit is determined by arbitration per the MBA, which I hope you have downloaded and read by now).

(c) Never never never negotiate your own deal. Never even discuss compensation with a producer. If you don't have an agent or manager, get an attorney who will handle the negotiations.

....Hope this is helpful, even if some fans of this blog are all now saying, "...Huh?"

HARRY VS. DUMBLEDORE ON 'THE HOGSHEAD'

It may seem a bit redundant or circular to link to a blog that links back to this blog....

Nevertheless, I'm honored that Travis Prinzi et al. of The Hogs Head saw fit to link to my "Is Dumbledore the Hero of Harry Potter?" post. If you found it remotely interesting, you should definitely click over here to catch the comments.

And besides, if you're a Harry fan, you should be reading The Hogs Head anyway!

Thanks for the repost!

2009: A YEAR OF THANKSGIVING

Some holidays deserve to be taken more seriously than others.  Yes, Groundhog Day, of course.  But also Thanksgiving.

Back in the dark ages (aka 1992), I started keeping a monthly list of things I was thankful for.  At the beginning of every month, I would sit down, number a page from 1 to 50, and start listing my way through the previous month.

Some months it was hard to come up with 50 things.  Some months it was easy.  Often, paradoxically, the months I had a lot of obvious things to be thankful for, I ended up skipping the exercise.

But over the years, I have seen the value of sitting down and saying "For this I am thankful" 50 times.  And at Thanksgiving, I like to pull randomly from the year's lists and post here.  

This year, I confess to missing a few months.  I missed January, when I was so very sick.  I missed April, when we moved.  And I missed September, right after my mom's death.  More months than I have missed in many, many years.  But that doesn't mean I wasn't thankful.

As we hit the end of this year, I have absolutely no idea what the next year holds.  I have little idea what the next week holds.  But I am thankful for what has gone before...

Isn't Thanksgiving actually a pretty cool idea for a holiday?  

Here is my utterly random gleaning from my Thanksgiving list from December 2008 through November 2009.  During that time, I was thankful for....

1.  Making our Advent wreath with Sabrina.

2.  The kids' orthodontia being almost completely covered by insurance.

3.  Cory's headmaster helping guide us through his high school applications

4.  Lee claiming that he doesn't really steal the blankets during the night, it's all caused by the rotation of the earth.

5.  Having Thanksgiving dinner with our friends Greg and Kathy

6.  Going skiing at Big Bear after Christmas.

7.  Watching girls who hadn't seen Cory in about a year going crazy ("OMG! OMG!") when they recognized him at a school interview.

8.  Reading Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" with the family

9.  Enough money for Christmas gifts.

10.  My New Year's resolutions

11.  Watching President Obama's inauguration with Sabrina

12.  Our friend Jack joining us for part of President's Day weekend skiing in Big Bear

13.  Sabrina's improvement on her volleyball team

14.  My mom's new medications keeping her calmer

15.  Our manager Jon

16.  Cory and Sabrina getting to go to winter camp

17.  Feeling like things are starting to turn around for us

18.  Seeing Susan Boyle's audition on "Britain's Got Talent"

19.  Finding Sabrina's new duvet and the bookcases we needed at Ikea

20.  Cory and Sabrina getting accepted at Harvard-Westlake

21.  My high school friend David coming to see Cory perform in "Fiddler on the Roof"

22.  Adam Lambert's performances on "American Idol"

23.  Relevé Studios, where the kids were taking music lessons

24.  Having Cory's best friend join us for Mother's Day when his mom was working

25.  My students at USC finishing their semester really well

26.  Sabrina feeling pity for rather than anger at a friend who rejected her

27.  The good-bye party for our friends Kitty and John, moving to Australia

28.  Getting really smart notes from the studio on our script

29.  Being able to entertain at our new home

30.  How beautiful Sabrina looked at her grade school graduation

31.  Reading by the pool during our week in Newport Beach

32.  Cory's great birthday party at ComedySportz

33.  Weather staying cool and cloudy into the summer

34.  Our friend Melissa D'Arabian winning "Next Food Network Star"

35.  Cory coming up with the idea of doing "Thriller" (aka "Filler") for the Family Camp Talent Show

36.  Cory starting piano lessons

37.  Getting paid by the studio quickly

38.  Lee coming up for an awesome story for a comic book we were asked to adapt

39.  Family Camp

40.  Cory and Sabrina's youth groups mobilizing to bring us dinner for a couple of weeks after my mom's death

41.  Our friend Tom bringing us an amazing dinner

42.  Listening to my MFA students' thesis ideas

43.  Listening to Dallas Willard speak at Bel Air

44.  Other HW students telling me what a good actor Cory is

45.  My students friending me on Facebook

46.  Great new idea from our producers for the next draft of our script

47.  Getting to teach my Collaboration class again next semester

48.  Sabrina's awesome "Cooking and Karaoke" birthday party (and borrowing a karaoke machine for the party!)

49.  Watching "The Amazing Race" with the family

50.  Getting 14,000 hits [at the time] on YouTube on the "church history" video I made for Mark Brewer....

...Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

IS DUMBLEDORE THE HERO OF HARRY POTTER?

It's been much too long since I've posted anything here about Harry Potter.  Thankfully, an email from blog reader Mark in Atlanta jogged me in that direction.

Mark sent me the link to this article from The Torch Online which questions whether Harry is really the hero of the Harry Potter stories.  The article proposes that really, Dumbledore is the hero and Harry is just his hands and feet.

The article works hard to make its point, but ultimately, I think it turns into one of those English essays we all wrote at one point or another arguing a point that really can't be sustained, just because no one has made that point before.

Harry, imho, is definitely the hero of the series.  Dumbledore is a fairly classic mentor figure, a more involved mentor than, say, Obi-Wan Kenobi.  And Harry certainly couldn't succeed as hero without Dumbledore.  But Harry is the hero.

Why?  Here are some reasons -- some drawn from the books, some from the meta-context in which the books exist....

1)  Harry is the person the villain is after.  Yes, Voldemort would also like to destroy Dumbledore, but his animosity and focus is all directed at Harry from a time even before the books began.  Harry is The Boy Who Lived, and he is the one Voldemort wants to kill.   Harry is The Chosen One.  He is identified explicitly as the hero repeatedly throughout the story.

2)  Harry is the person who undergoes the classic Hero's Journey.  In fact, he undergoes it over and over -- One could easily chart Harry's Hero's Journey through each of the books, plus the overall arc of his journey across all 7 books.  He is the reluctant hero, traveling from an ordinary world (the Dursleys) to a special world (Hogwarts), encountering various tests along the way, aligning himself with allies and against enemies, and supported by a defined mentor.  He faces ordeals of increasing danger, goes through a death and resurrection in every book, coming through these ordeals more empowered to face the villain one-on-one.  Dumbledore may be in the background at all times, may be manipulating events toward a desired conclusion, but the only time he faces Voldemort is at the very end of the Battle at the Ministry in Order of the Phoenix -- and even then, he's only there because Harry needs help.  Most of the time, Dumbledore just sits in his office...  And.... continuing in the Hero's Journey...

3)  Harry defeats Voldemort.  Harry does it.  Not Dumbledore.  Back to that battle in the Ministry:  If Dumbledore could have destroyed Voldemort, there was the time.  He didn't do it.  

Yes, Dumbledore was crucial to the campaign.  Yes, he trained Harry, supported him, aided him, led the way at times.   Yes, Harry couldn't have done it without Dumbledore.  But Harry was the one who did what Dumbledore could not do.

Putting the distraction of the Hallows aside (as the hero must put aside all things that distract him from his goal) and looking at the Horcruxes:  The ultimate goal of destroying Voldemort starts to become clear in Half-Blood Prince and crystallizes in Deathly Hallows:  Destroy the Horcruxes and you destroy Voldemort.  But if the hero is the one who accomplishes the ultimate goal, then Dumbledore falls short.  He collects a lot of information on the Horcruxes, sure, but that only makes him a magical research assistant.  He destroys the Ring, but fails to destroy the Locket and in fact dies in the attempt.  Harry is the one who has to go forward and actually perform the destruction (and in some cases, the discovery) of the Horcruxes.

And Harry is the one who faces Voldemort in the Great Hall and defeats him.  Not Dumbledore.  

4)  Dumbledore falls prey to temptation that Harry overcomes.  I'm talking, of course, about the Hallows.  Perhaps Dumbledore could have destroyed Voldemort back in the days of the original Order of the Phoenix.  But his decades-long quest after the Hallows pulled him off course.  Ultimately, the Hallows are no more than a distraction.  Harry realizes this for himself as he debates Hallows vs. Horcruxes while burying Dobby.  Dumbledore fell prey to the temptation.  Harry overcame it.  Harry made the true hero's choice which his mentor had failed to make.

5)  Harry is the one who learns and grows.  Dumbledore, we realize, mostly regrets past choices and tries to compensate for his mistakes.  Harry starts off as a kid whose primary role in life is to be the victim of a bully and ends up as the person who saves an entire world.  

6)  Dumbledore dies.  Now, sometimes a hero can die in face-to-face confrontation with the villain, can die so that his people can live.  But Dumbledore dies through his own failure, dies because he underestimated a teenager (from one point of view), dies because he underestimated the power of one of Voldemort's Horcruxes (from a deeper point of view).  Harry has to destroy all the other Horcruxes (well, Neville, who also could have been The Chosen One, the answer to the prophecy, gets the privilege of destroying one without Harry present), and he survives -- something Dumbledore failed to do.

Classically, of course, the mentor often has to die so that the hero can go forward alone.  Dumbledore's death only cements his status as mentor, not as hero.

....And a couple of other reasons Harry must be the hero, drawn from outside the content of the books themselves, but I think significant:

7)  Harry is the title character.  I'd love to read the story of the original Order of the Phoenix, in which Dumbledore may very well have been the hero.  But this is not that story.

8) The Harry Potter books are children's books.  Thus, the hero will be a child.  Not an adult.  

....So, interesting as the premise of the Torch Online article may have been, I think it just doesn't hold up.  Harry is the hero.

Dumbledore, of course, may have been the hero of another, closely related story.  Perhaps it would be better to say that he had his chance to be a hero, and didn't live up to the demands of being a hero.... Perhaps, given what we learn in Deathly Hallows, we would end up calling him a tragic hero...  That's a story, as I said above, that I would love to read.  But I think that story probably would not be a children's book.

But Harry Potter is the hero of Harry Potter.

Your thoughts?

ANIMAL FARM: THE VIDEO

I wasn't that surprised when Cory started making little movies.  By last school year, he pretty much made a movie every time he had a big class project looming in front of him (resulting in such classics as "Newton's Laws of Motion" and "U.N. Peacekeeping Forces").

So I don't know why I was surprised when Sabrina announced that she needed to do a "creative" project for English class about George Orwell's Animal Farm, and she was going to make a movie.

It only had to be 30 seconds long, and she already knew what she wanted to do, so it seemed okay to me.  I booted up Final Cut and got her started... and she ran with it from there.  All I had to do was show her how to do a specific task once (e.g., how to insert a "flash" transition), and she caught on right away and sped through the whole thing.

Which means, apparently, that we now have four filmmakers, of various sorts, in the family.  I'm fine with that.

So here is Sabrina's epic video....

"BURN IT DOWN"

As a writer, I have a great love for my characters.  I coddle them, I admit it.  I give them character flaws, sure, but sometimes I don't want them to be too flawed.  And when I have goodies to hand out, I like to spread them around.  A fight scene, you say?  Well, let's let everyone have a piece of the action!  And if they should fall in love, well, yeah, the course of true love never did run smooth, somebody said that once, but can't I just pick the rocks out of the path for them?

I am wrong, of course.  My characters are not my children.  And every script I write, I have to remind myself of this, remind myself that everything that can go wrong, must go wrong.  Or, as screenwriter John August just said (on his blog which every single writer out there should be reading regularly):

"Burn it down."

We're in the middle of developing two new stories.  First pass for one of them, about the third pass for the other.  And in both cases, this is the advice we need to hear.  We need to be ruthless about making things rough -- very rough -- for our characters, even those we truly love.  (Let me just say parenthetically that God seems to have no problem about burning things down in my own life, so how can I be squeamish about doing the same for my characters.)

With all due respect to the late Blake Snyder and his famous "Save the cat" mantra (which has always seemed a tad manipulative to me, though I understand and sort of agree with the basic concept)... "Burn it down" is a much better dictum to sticky onto your computer or pin onto your cork board.  If you're a writer, go click on that link and start reading. 

I'm about to dive back into the plots of two very different adventures.  And I guarantee things are about to get much, much worse for everyone involved.

BUILDING A KINDERGARTEN... AND A COMMUNITY

A funny thing happened over on another part of the Internet this week.  And I'm just glad I was there to see it

A few years ago, a friend of mine proclaimed rather authoritatively that real relationships had to be face to face.  No real relationships could be fostered on the Internet without a face-to-face component.  His prime example, and it was a good one, was the match.com or eharmony.com relationships that need to "go live" to become real.

He made a good case for the need for personal, real interaction.  He argued well that community must involve living, breathing beings in proximity to each other, loving each other in person, meeting each other's needs in person.  But I wasn't convinced.  I have too many relationships that I consider "real" that began and have pretty much their entire existence on the Internet.  I'm thinking of you, Regina, and of you, Scott, and of you, John... and many more.

This week, my friend was definitively proven wrong.

Over on the blog Stuff Christians Like, the blog writer, Jon, issued a challenge to his readers this Monday:  He challenged them to become a real community, not just a bunch of people reading a blog, by pitching in to build a kindergarten in Vietnam.  (Click here to read the whole story.)  His hope was to raise $30,000 by the end of December.

They raised the entire amount in 18 hours.

Hundreds of people jumped in to donate.  Many donations were only $5, because that's all the giver could afford (and for some of them, even that much hurt).  Many were much larger.

So now the goal is $30,000, to build a second kindergarten -- and the donations are almost at $50K already.

It has been an amazing thing to watch, an amazing thing to read the comments.  It made me cry.  Not so much for the kids in Vietnam who will now have a school to go to, but for the realization that sometimes, when we're just sitting around clicking away on our computers, sometimes there is so much more going on than that.  For the realization that community comes in many forms, sometimes in forms that couldn't possibly have existed only a few years ago.  For the realization that there's so little I can do about so many needs in the world, but if my "little" is combined with the "little" of hundreds of other like-minded people, maybe something bigger can happen.

Real community is possible on the Internet, apparently.  And sometimes it can do great things.

THIS IS IT -- MOVIE THOUGHTS

With an actual free Saturday morning, we decided to go see This Is It.  Or, to give it its proper title, Michael Jackson's This Is It.  

(Which made me wonder:  Is the use of MJ's name because "This Is It" is already registered as a title -- a rather banal one?  Or is it because Michael just had to put his name on everything, and his people decided to keep that going even after his death?....  I decided on the former, because otherwise it would probably be "Michael Jackson The King of Pop's This Is It.")

The movie was, of course, cobbled together from backstage and rehearsal footage taped before MJ's death in June.  The result is something in between a documentary and an electronic press kit.

Parts of it were magical -- "The Way You Make Me Feel," in particular, with its dancers spread across a scaffolded cityscape.  Parts of it were fascinating -- the little snippets of Michael working with the musicians.  Parts of it were a bit sad -- the fact that no one said no to Michael during the entire movie.

"This Is It" doesn't give any real insights into the "real" Michael Jackson -- something that I have to believe Michael would never have allowed.  What it gives us is a front row seat, not at the final show, where all the rough spots would have been worked out, but at the final dress rehearsal, where the effects are in place and the performers are (mostly) playing up to full energy.

It also tells us that Michael was not a sick or dying man.  I don't know where he stored up the energy in that incredibly skinny body, but he was dancing at a fully professional level, impressive indeed for a 50-year-old.  And he was fully engaged in his work.  

Ultimately, the movie leaves us with the music.  The growl of the bass line opening "Beat It."  The "Billie Jean" riff that commands us onto the dance floor....  

And it leaves us with the memories.  For me, one of the best moments of the movie was the section devoted to "Thriller" -- not the 3D movie they were shooting to update/replace the original John Landis video (though that was pretty cool).  But watching MJ walk through the Thriller dance -- not putting full energy into it, but just marking the steps, as if he'd done it a thousand times before... And then turning to look at Cory watching the movie, grinning... because of course he learned the Thriller dance for Family Camp this summer (knowledge which came in useful recently on a wedding reception dance floor!)....

Music and memories.  More than enough reason to go see This Is It on the big screen.  And if you end up snapping your fingers, no one will mind.

FOUR PAWS FROM HEAVEN -- THE WEBSITE

Our good friend Marion Wells has been writing devotionals for dog and cat lovers for a few years now, but she's finally got her website up here.  (And props to Andrea for creating the site!)  

If you're a dog or cat lover, you'll want to take a look!  (No dogs in our family due to allergies, but we donated a story about one of our cats to Marion's cat book!)

Check it out!

A HALLOWEEN TO REMEMBER

I'm not a big fan of Halloween. Especially of what Halloween has become, with so much over-the-top horror and even torture on display all over. I've described myself as the Halloween Grinch. But this year, unexpectedly, was a lovely Halloween.

In part, that was because my kids came up with their own costumes, and the costumes were cheap and easy. After the years of agonizing over what would considered cool at school, the searches at (often horrific) costume and Halloween stores and on eBay, and even (long ago) the meltdown when suddenly SpongeBob became unacceptable on Halloween morning as we were trying to get out the door to the school Halloween parade... well, let's just say that "easy" has long been my favorite word to describe a Halloween costume.

This year, Sabrina announced she was going to wear a Snuggie and carry a remote control and a bag of popcorn, and go as a couch potato. (Personally, I think that was her ploy to get a Snuggie!) And Cory took a white t-shirt, wrote "Bless you" on it, donned a pair of sunglasses, and went as a blessing in disguise.

$17 for both costumes, and virtually no work required on my part. What's not to love?!

But that's not what made Halloween special this year. Halloween was lovely this year because we went to a memorial service.

Okay, that sounds odd. And I thought it was odd when I first learned of the date. But this was a memorial service held for a woman who especially loved Halloween, and her children chose that date on purpose.

Jean, who died the day of my own mom's funeral, was sort of a mom-away-from-mom to both Lee and me... and to many hundreds of others. We met her long after her own children were up and out of the house, and knowing her changed the direction of our lives.

I moved up to L.A. to go to school at UCLA. It was a discombobulating move for me in many ways, and I ended up feeling a little grouchy about church. But when I learned of a group for people in their 20s that met in an actual home, rather than at a church, that seemed like something I could do.

The home it met in that of Jean and her husband Ted. They hosted not only this young adult group, but also the Bel Air Pres college group, both of which met weekly. That meant they had easily 100 people tromping through their house every week. I'm sure we broke things. We must have destroyed their carpets and probably their upholstery as well. But every week, there was Jean, beaming as she welcomed us in. Looking around her house now, I can't believe we all fit inside. We crammed into every inch of the living room, and filled the entry hall and stairway as well (there was a mirror strategically placed just so people in one room could see people in the other).

It was in that living room that I met Lee.

And I wasn't the only one. Over the nine years that group met, there were 42 marriages of people who had met in Jean's living room. 84 people whose lives changed radically, and well over 100 kids born, because a retired housewife decided to open her front door. How do I know the number? Jean kept a list. Our friends Dell and Molly were the first couple on the list. Lee and I were around #18 or so.

Why so many marriages? Maybe we were just at the age, and it's so hard to meet someone decent in L.A., and here was a safe, welcoming environment in which to do so. Maybe it was because we weren't a singles group, so people didn't come on the prowl. Maybe it was a little nudging from Jean, who often pulled me into the kitchen to ask if a particular guy liked a particular girl, and were they dating? Maybe it was just because we were so very crammed together.

We didn't realize then what it meant for Jean and Ted to be so welcoming. Didn't know what it meant to give up a couple of nights of your life every single weekend just so you could be there to open the door. Or to give up a couple of weekends a year to take a yacht-load of young people to Catalina or the Channel Islands. To make sure you had cookies and juice always available. We took it all for granted.

Fast-forward to the present day. When Lee and I moved into our current home, which is bigger than we need and nicer than we deserve, we decided we needed to follow Jean's example and just throw open the doors, pretty much to anyone who might need it. So we've hosted the high schoolers from Bel Air (they're coming again this Wednesday), and the middle schoolers, and committee meetings, and various parties (bon voyage, baby shower, etc.), and more. And things have gotten broken (most notably the pool filter). And I'm sure our carpets will eventually get thrashed.

And maybe I gave myself just a bit of a pat on the back for being so nice. Just like Jean.

Until her memorial service on Halloween. Jean's daughter asked me to speak about those days, and about our decision to emulate Jean in opening up our doors. I was honored. And I figured someone else might be there to speak about the college group she had hosted. And yes, there was.

But we were far from the only ones. No, we were just part of a long line of people asked to speak. Each person brought out a new area of Jean's involvement, many I had never known about. Girl Scouts. Bible study groups. Family Camp. International students. Native Americans. Everyone telling essentially the same story about a woman who never "did" anything that anyone would pay attention to (in the "What do you do?" sense), but who affected thousands of people's lives in warm, wonderful, and important ways.

The reception in Jean's backyard, all decked out for Halloween, was lovely. Some people donned costumes in her honor, and everyone had a memory of some barbecue or party they'd experienced there. And suddenly Halloween seemed absolutely appropriate as a way to honor Jean. Because Halloween is, of course, also All Saints' Eve... and Jean was certainly a saint. And it's the night before the Day of the Dead... also appropriate.

So I did have a happy Halloween. My kids had fun, and I came away from it realizing how much more I can do for other people... and more inspired than ever to be just like Jean.

Happy November, everyone!

JOHN AUGUST ON "MAKING CHRISTIAN MOVIES"

Screenwriter John August (Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and more) has a terrific blog devoted to screenwriting, in which he spends a lot of time answering questions of the "How do I write such-and-such?" or "How does the business really work?" variety. He's patient, knowledgeable, and smart.

A recent question surprised me: "What about the Christian movie marketplace?" Given the sequesterization (a nicer word than "ghettoization") of the Christian movie marketplace, it was a bit surprising to see it asked and answered in a very mainstream screenwriting forum. I admit, I steeled myself as I started to read the response and the comments (let's face it, there are a lot of unkind things that could justifiably be said about "Christian" filmmaking).

What I read warmed my heart. August gave a thoughtful, respectful and smart answer to the question, setting the also-respectful tone of the comments. I appreciated the tone even more because August makes no secret of his being gay, and in a post-Proposition 8 world, it would have been easy and understandable if he had responded with a fair amount of snark toward the questioner. (Would that I found such civility and thoughtfulness on many purportedly Christian sites.)

For those of you out there in that very marketplace, the post is well worth reading, and you can find it here.

WHEN DESK LAMPS GO BAD

I'll never look at a Pixar film the same way again.  This is fun.

INSANITY HITS THE ROAD

I didn't plan to spend Tuesday driving 500 miles in a bout of what can only be called insanity.  I planned to spend it writing, reading my students' work, and working out birthday party details.  But somehow I ended up on the road.

Apparently, Cory was supposed to be at school at 6:45 a.m. to leave for his class retreat -- canoeing on the Colorado River.  But somehow I didn't get that message.

Technically I did get it, I suppose.  But the packet with all the retreat info arrived two or three days after my mom's death, and to this moment, I have no idea what I did with it.  Weeks later, when Cory told me his permission slips were late, I had to have him bring home new ones.  Somehow they didn't come home with the time-we're-leaving info.  

And when Cory heard kids talking about 6:45 a.m., it didn't register on him that they were talking about the retreat.  And when we talked to the 7th grade dean about Sabrina's retreat, and were told everything started at 7:45 a.m., somehow it didn't occur to me to ask if 9th grade was the same.  And when everyone else showed up at 6:45, no one bothered to take roll and make sure everyone was there, in part because so many kids were sick this week, the powers-that-be pretty much assumed that if you weren't there, you were sick.

So when Cory called from school in an utter panic (I've never heard him so panicked) at 7:50 a.m., saying "Mom, I missed the bus!"... well, there wasn't any point in trying to assign blame.  I slipped up in little ways, he slipped in little ways... All I could do was see how to fix it.

Within 10 minutes, I knew where the bus was, knew the exit number of the rest stop they would be at, and I was on the road.  Yes, it was a long way -- the rest stop was almost to Palm Springs.  And yes, by the time I got to school to grab Cory, we were an hour and a half behind the bus.  But we had been told the bus would be at the rest stop for an hour, and we were going to take a different conglomeration of freeways, and maybe we could catch up.  We had the number of the school dean on the bus, we had an empty carpool lane ahead of us, and we had my iPhone to give us minute-by-minute traffic reports.  We could do this.

The 101 freeway was jammed, so we threaded our way through the Valley to the 134.  From that point on, we had clear sailing.  The 134 to the 210 to the 57 to the 10.  And as a bonus, a lesson for soon-to-be-driving Cory on the configuration of certain L.A. freeways.

When the bus got to the rest stop, we were 68 exits behind.  A long way.  But if they were really going to be there for an hour....

Oops.  Nope.  They were going to be there for 20 minutes.  Maybe they could hold the bus for an extra 10 minutes.  But no more than that.  Maybe the person I spoke to at school misspoke.  Maybe they said the bus would be there "in" an hour, not "for" an hour and I misheard.  It didn't matter.

At this point, we were committed.  (Or, you may be thinking, we should have been committed.)  What was another 68 exits, anyway?  Down the carpool lane we sped, driving perhaps just a tad faster than the posted limits, grateful that the day's rainstorm had not yet arrived.

When the bus left the rest stop, we were only 28 exits behind.  That's the point where we probably should have turned around.  But Cory was so happy, so relieved, to be on the way.  And this was the last school retreat he would ever go on.  And he had been so responsible about getting ready for it (in every way but one, we must note).  And the dean on the bus was willing to text us the directions to the camp.

So we kept driving.

Miles and miles of desert.  Rainstorms were threatening back in L.A., but out here it was bright, sunny and fresh (I guess that's why it's the desert).  "Why does anyone live here?" we wondered, driving through fields and fields of hay.  We braked for a covey of quail running across the road.  We looked for roadrunners, but didn't see any.  We laughed at the "Do not pick up hitchhikers" sign attached to the "State Prison" sign.  We marveled at the "Elevation Sea Level" sign, and the giant wind farms.  We kept driving.

We caught up with the bus on a dusty gravel road two miles out of camp.  Cory was absolutely jubilant.  He had his feet on the ground before most of the kids on the bus.  We decided, during those last few miles, that this was our own Amazing Race, and this was what it must feel like to come in last, but to feel a sense of achievement from making it to the end of the race at all... then to be told that you're in a non-elimination round and you get to continue in the race.

Also during those last few miles, Cory told me how much trouble some of his friends would have gotten in for not knowing the time the bus left, and how he didn't know any other moms who would have made the trip.  He thanked me profusely, abundantly.  He told me how awesome I was.  Oh yeah.

I checked in with the dean (who called me Mario Andretti).  I saw that Cory connected with his best friend and canoe partner for the trip.  I watched the kids cluster around him, asking "Why did you drive to camp?" and I thought, this is just like Harry and Ron flying the car to Hogwarts.  The dean high-fived me and told me to stop at an Indian casino to relax and have a martini on the way back.

And then I hit the road again.  

No Indian casino for me, though I did splurge on a Diet Coke at McD's, just around the time I was slapping my face to stay alert.  (Who knew you could drive over 130 miles in California before finding a McDonalds?)  The rain hit in Claremont, a sudden cloudburst that slammed on brakes as far as the eye could see.

I got home around 6:30.  4 1/2 hours out, 5 1/2 hours back.  

It was a completely insane thing to do.  I should have just let Cory eat the consequences of his mistakes.  But they were my mistakes, too.  And it would have broken his heart to miss the retreat.  Which would have broken my heart.  So, insane or not, I took 10 hours to make a 527 mile drive I really didn't intend to make.  I came home not knowing if I was the worst mom in the world or the best mom in the world.

But my teenager called me awesome.  I can live with that.

DOING THE SLIDEWALK...BACKWARDS

I love those slidewalks they have at the airport.  You're walking, you're walking, pulling your rollaboard suitcase behind you, done with security, headed for the terminal.  And you hit the slidewalk.  The temptation is to step to the right, stop walking, and let its smooth comfort carry you unthinkingly ahead.  

But I prefer to step to the left.  I like to walk on the slidewalk.  I love the out-of-synch feeling of power that comes from taking normal steps, yet being carried forward at ultra-high-speed (well, ultra-high for walking).  It's like having my own tiny superpower for 10 seconds.

Lately I feel as if I'm walking on a slidewalk every day.  But backwards.  Going the wrong way.  Against the slidewalk.

As you probably know from reading this blog, I came home from Family Camp in mid-August, and my mom died the next day.  I started to fall behind at that moment, and I haven't caught up yet.

I have a lot to do.  I have to break stories and go out on meetings.  I have to do paperwork and organization and emailing for the committee I co-chair at my kids' school.  I have to cook dinner.  I have to get my kids to and from school and rehearsals and fencing practice and church groups and bar mitzvahs and birthday parties.  I have to get the gifts for those bar mitzvahs and parties.  I have to do the laundry, do the dishes, swiffer the floor.  I have to read my students' work, plan my class lectures, comment on my students' work, start thinking about next semester's classes.  I have to read the work of my friends in my writers' group.  I have to answer my email and update my Facebook status.  I have to fill out endless paperwork about my mom's death, then fill it out again when they lose it or send me the wrong forms.  I have to clean out my mom's condo to get it ready to rent or sell.  I have to return my mom's wheelchair.  I have to finish captioning my "Church History" video, and keep track of the comments on YouTube (6500+views!) and elsewhere.  I have to nudge my kids to check their school email, to make sure the homework really is done, to clean their rooms.  I have to unpack all those boxes still stacked in the garage and see if I can finally find those missing tablecloths, scripts, sweaters.  I have to set that orthodontist appointment, set that meeting, set that coffee date with the guy from out of town who wants to know how the biz works.  I have to plan Sabrina's birthday party, plan the odd schedule for the kids' retreat week, plan how to split our time between two kids on Back-to-School Day.  I have to somehow find time to spend with the people I love, make those dinner dates and lunch dates we've been saying we'd make for two or three months.  I have to pay the bills.

It's a lot, true.  But it's not too much.  Plenty of people do all that and work the kind of job where you're chained to a desk or a cash register or a counter.  And I've handled much more than this before.  

I'm making a valiant effort.  I've trashed all the computer games on my computer, so they don't call to me.  I rarely answer the phone when I'm in the middle of something else.  But somehow I'm reaching the end of each day and realizing that, usually, only half of my to-do list got done.  And if more than half got done, it was the few really important things (writing) that didn't happen.

The slidewalk is time.  And it's working against me.  Even if I run on it, it's still faster than I am, still pushing itself into the past as I struggle to make it into the future with everything intact.  And if I stop running or even walking... well, that's what I did for three weeks when my mom died, and look where it got me.

I'd like for the slidewalk to slow down.  Or, better yet, switch direction.  But the best I can hope for is that, somehow, it jams to a halt, so I can continue forward at a normal pace.  Slow, yes, but slow sounds pretty good right now.

All of which to say... I'm sorry I haven't been posting here very much.  But don't worry.  It's on my list.  I'll get to it.  Promise.