The Misadventures of Katie Valentine

Here it all is, in a blur.  I am pleased. 

Booked an appointment, Tacoma local even!  with a make up artist/special effects person who is familiar with the writer I'm working with.  Not certain if he's covered this section of the work but I can describe in detail what is needed.  I also have preliminary footage loaded.  Now is the moment where I admit a clutch of anxiety over quality as I am not a DP and I shot it myself.  But that is what we have and these are the budgets and sometimes it is glue and sequins and other times, I am sure it is diamonds.

But not in this economy.  And I'm fine with that.  Stories cannot wait for diamonds.  

This month is insane.  There is no call for it- there is no reason why it should not be so.  I have a book trailer- then a short film- and of course I'm doing the local 72 hour film festival and I even had a writer (I especially love this writer) commit to write the script for it.  This is wild fun as she's usually paid for this sort of thing but wants to do it for the sheer lark of it.  I am excited and nervous to work with her, and nervous as these things fall apart easily.  I am not sure why I want to do it except that I do and that's all the thought I put into it.  Clever, yes?

Second short film is strictly non-pro, shot just with me and the actor and to get some energy out.  Film is a lengthy process and it involves so many people.  I can languish waiting for everything to come together on the larger projects and I don't have the patience to wait. So lately we've done these series of mini shorts- very goofy and in most cases using exactly what we had on hand, as a means of just using the equipment and editing suite.  Even so, I find it very hard to upload. I came up as an executive in the LA system where everyone is so specialized and my specialty was story.  Story story story.  Not even screenwriting but story and development.  Now I am learning everything all at once, some of it badly, some of it less badly.  It pains me that I can't get what is in my head on screen. I keep saying the mini shorts must be flawed, I must let them be flawed.  But to say it doesn't drive me mad is a lie.  The truth is anyone can make something look beautiful with the right people working on a project.  The real challenge is to tell a good story while making it look beautiful.  Right now I'm trying to just practice telling stories while letting it not look beautiful. 

I'm also deep in development with synbod.
I am not sure how much I am allowed to say.  I will simply say it has been a wonderful process and I am learning a great deal.  Writers.  World building.  It is like playing the best kind of "let's pretend" except that it involves budgets and spreadsheets.  To say I enjoy it would be like saying I have a habit of breathing. I secretly think I want to grow up to be a line producer.  Isn't that awful?

Lastly...and this is the one that is closest to my heart, so deep in I cannot begin to describe it... I am near finished on the screenplay - and by near finished I mean it is done except for one bit- for my Tacoma piece.  It is a wild mix of all the elements I love and I am ready to begin looking for still photographers. I want to costume and dress the character and run a shoot so I have a concept image I can use when pitching the project along with the screenplay.  One thing I know after going through roughly 10 million (okay that number might be a bit high but it felt like it) pitch meetings in my LA career is how difficult fantasy is to pitch.  Everyone's imagination is so fluid. If you're pitching someone who knows the genre, you're up against too broad of a base of knowledge and you have no idea what they're illustrating in their head.  Someone who doesn't know gets stuck somewhere between Legend and Labyrinth.  This is neither.  So I need a costumer, make up artist, special effects, and photographer to shoot the lead character.  For this piece to work I will need a very talented DP and I want specific images to guide them into the world.  I've been wandering ModelMayhem.  There is no label for producers to join so I will join as model, though my portfolio is so outdated I'm a bit shy about posting a single picture.  It wasn't that I ever even had a great career as a model - I was in a few ads and one book in my time.   I do miss playing dress up.  Isn't that silly?  Oh hush now, I have to stop talking. I have to get to work and fix that last bit on the screenplay.

At night I cannot sleep.  The images are too vibrant.

Commence me driving everyone around me mad by talking too fast, drinking too much coffee, and losing my car keys as I am adept at doing when distracted.



 

 

I am so cold. My bed is populated by children and cats. I somehow managed to make off with my younger niece and my son and now there is precious little room in my bed unless I sleep in some sort of S shape around snoring, sweating little bodies. They have beds, oh yes, but like all small humans their instinct is to sleep close to the source of fire and weapons.

This particular source of apparent adulthood is uploading youtube videos. A while back I reconciled myself to the truth that I am not a strong shooter. I think the shots I want and how I edit are just fine for where I am, but the shooting makes me unhappy. Rather than shove the camera in the back of a drawer, I have started torturing myself with it. I hate not knowing. I also hate being dreadful at first but I'd rather be dreadful at first than not- know.

The result is my homemade jam films. They're these simple little "Weekly or whenever I feel like it" projects that I put together. The focus has been whatever willing actors I have on hand (typically children and a random teenager I call my sister) and whatever I get from the footage I get. Well I made a film for the youngest child, and the oldest one wanted one too. But while the youngest preferred a piece about her "baba" (a scrap of blanket she has endowed with life and personality through the sheer force of adoration) the older child, a slip of a girl, was intent on something darker.

So in the end we have her, a butcher knife and a quantity of blood. Oh and a live snake.

I'm happy enough I'm doing these though I always cringe as they go up. Writing? Yes. Acting, yes? DP...no.

But one is not master of all things. I am a storyteller. I leave it to my betters to perfect the picture. I am not all things, nor do I desire to be.

There are some things that you can talk about, face to face, over a bright kitchen table but writing it down in words is just too painful. robin_hobb always says, "Writing it down makes it important." And my usually snappy response to this is "Well filming it makes it real."

But sometimes all you need to do is say something, and the words are strong enough to make it real. To bring home a death without a body, to marry someone.

Or to give someone a guide to find their way. I don't have a bird for a hat. I frequently wish that I did. But I did have to take this photograph to show you. Hat is by Etsy seller Lizarietz.

I think it would be so stimulating, being my hat. But then again, if I had a talking hat it most likely would get me kicked out of movie theatres.

Let me confess here...what else do I do but confess? The day I spent writing. I have done all the notes, organized everything and I was armed and ready. I went with the boy to my mother's, where I wrote all day and he played with the dogs and bothered my sister and mother to play games with him. I quite happily descended into that bright and curious place, that writing place, where I am certain, the world I control, the places I can travel and explore at will. Then it ended, not any time soon, but a shocking five hours later. I came out with a vague sense of being uncomfortable in my skin. It has been a terribly long time since I wrote like that. So often of late I've assumed a producer role- a role I quite like, or an assistant role- again something I quite like- and at all times, the role of mother- which I like as well but it is hands down the most challenging. But today, those hours were for me and I was very, deeply grateful to have them.

But this happened. The restlessness that is always just beneath my skin is awake now. I usually have to run it out- I must tell you that going to the gym is little more than a deep relief for me these days. Some part of me broke loose when I became a mother and I was set upon with the ceaseless restless motion that children possess. How he sleeps! WIth such deep trust...the happy little warm animal body, all his guard instincts anchored fast in the safety of his bed. Me? I pace restlessly. I have a huge archive project on the horizon. But it is more than that. It is the sharp feeling of not having enough hours to do it all. The idea of relaxation is odd to me- how does one escape what lives inside your head? Today may have been the first time in a while I could sit down and put it on the page but I write in my head near constantly. I am sometimes too preoccupied with that sort of thing and I lose important daily details- I am chronically late with my library books for example. The librarians are always happy to see me and my checkbook. Tonight it is more- just wanting to put more down on paper but knowing it it not ready yet. Putting it down closes down the direction it can go and I need to think about a few other things. But I've done the rest...I've paced the house and eyed the coffeepot and thought of just not sleeping. I went on line and watched Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog and loved it. I've caught up on all episodes of Heroes and I am not going to touch Deadwood as I need to draw it out a bit more, not drink so much of it all at once. I'm not up for reading, no, that is more sitting still and I cannot. What I'd like most to do is go on a long, hard run in the cold night air.

But what you'd like to do in the moment is not always the best idea. I'm going to go lay down and pretend. Perhaps something will come of that. I don't know why I must move through extremes.

But I suppose I must. The general rule is to not let them dominate me.

Signing off, K.


PS Any idea why the formatting does that?  I'm simply typing it in rich text. It is as if the computer wishes to annoy me.  

I've tried to write this several times. Summary.  A pox on Hondas that refuse to run and formatting when the lady is weary. My head aches.  It is time to felt flowers and make tiny stitches.  To soak up Deadwood.  And to drink red wine and wear one's best going out dress while one does it. 

The cat appreciates my wardrobe. I won't let her down by dressing down just for Deadwood. 

 

 

 

I believe in reading in all directions, as much as possible. I think prejudging a book before you've tried it is a bit silly.I want to try living every life possible. Books are the one place in my life where I have this indulgence.

Or something resembling song. I find myself halfway the distance in waking today. Where is that, that sense of morning? I set it aside somewhere, shoved it back under the soft covers, behind a book or two, lost in the ever growing population of pillows on my bed. My bed was originally meant to be a refuge, a retreat, a quiet, out of the way spot in my new little place but it has blossomed into its own country, filled with featherbeds and a cat with impossibly soft fur, only offset by her hard, insistent little claws.

So I rise, driven by no need but my son's need who declares, like a cat in Mirrormask, "Hungry," as if that explains everything in the entire world. At three years of age, I believe it does. I rise and perform the rituals of food and coffee making, wishing that I had a fire to make it feel more authentic. Somehow something has been lost without a good fire. The house I grew up in had a wood burning stove as the sole source of heat. Somehow it makes it less a morning to turn a knob to provide heat than bring in frozen logs. That was so long ago. I wonder why our childhood counts for one and a half in time rather than just like the rest. I live in dog years, sometimes a year can feel like many.

The garden comes in fits and spurts. My wardrobe has exploded all over the back bedroom and, oddly enough, is making no effort to pack itself back in. I go to the upstairs kitchen to make coffee only to find that the coffee filters are not where they are supposed to be. I wonder if in some fit of oddly minded organization someone has filed them and if they are under C for Coffee or F for filter. One can never tell in this household.

My mind is a blur of weekend images and times before that- I think I must learn to tango, I must find a way to move my body to this song. I slipped the CD in my vast handbag, standing in my mother-stance, heavy child slumped over my shoulder but in my car, in the dark and driving through the city, singing along to what is possibly the best tango ever I realize I am ever tiger, ever bright and that I am done with the time of closed doors, battened down hatches.

From the spark to the morning fire,

Katie Valentine

My mind is a thousand places. I will never say the lady does not like her work...I am passionate about what I do and very fortunate to do what I do. Which, if you are to ask directly, would be an entire paragraph. I think Daily Variety a "multi-hyphenate" a term I always find vaguely endearing and simultaneously annoying because really, who is not a multi-hyphenate professionally?  

So I won't say I was avoiding work, just avoiding certain kinds of work when I decided to go through the trap door (yes, really) into one of the many attic spaces at robin_hobb 's city domicile.  Back behind a stunning amount of Christmas boxes I found four of my own.  One included some childhood stuffed animals, all with fantastical monikers another held (shudder) a box of my personal journals from age seven onward with the instructions written in sharpie on the outside "Burn when I'm gone" and a box of clothing.  The clothes are from my personal wardrobe era of 1999 and included outfits that I deemed appropriate for the twilight days of the Twentieth Century.  Please understand I take my garb quite seriously and enjoy marking the end of certain eras.  Apparently in the late nineties I had quite a passion for vintage beaded sweaters in cream (how many did I feel I needed?  Let us not discuss in public forums) 1940's housedresses and my ever present, wardrobe staples: very high heels and fishnet tights.  I was hoping to find some of my old, wonderful, cheap wigs and falls up there but alas, I suspect those have taken a journey that had an ill ending and I shall never find them again.  It is a pity as I've developed this unfortunate, expensive habit of dying my hair.  So I was happily ensconced in the attic, listening through the muffled layers of someone looking for me, doubtlessly something to do with a tangled fax line or some sort of editor's email when I found this photograph of me as a blonde.  When I lived and worked in Los Angeles, my manager was very invested in the idea of me as "the girl next door." I could never quite get over that sort of description, it was purely relational to whatever it was that was next door and frankly the entire concept of this ordinary girl next door had almost nothing to do with me.

But I think the look is interesting and I present it to you now, in the name of not doing certain kinds of work.

Dark.  The pink streaks are natural.  So is the dark, actually.   I've actually had pink in my hair for three years now and it might be time to change it.

"


Blonde.


I am now in the basement, typing at my LJ and I hear someone's voice upstairs requesting I do something.  So with that bit of vanity, I leave you.

The girl both high and low,

Katie Valentine

 There is something in me that loves a budget, something in me that demands fairness from my commerce.  It is an instinctual feeling that says if you get it for more than it it is worth, you've endangered your survival.

That's not to say I'm perfect.  I've strained my budget, ripped holes in it, and even recently, messed up my checkbook to the point that I was squeaking by at the end of the month doing all I could to silence the unwashed hordes of my credit cards yelling at me from my wallet.   That is not to say that at some points I do not weaken, cave, give in.  But it is not a regular habit.

I don't shop at Costco, I don't hunt bargains.  But every single thing I buy must be at a fair price or I refuse to buy it, even if I need it.  I think that certain things should cost a certain amount- count in labor, materials and fair profit.  If it exceeds that, well, no, I won't buy it.   I buy carefully and consistently.   In subsistence economies, stability came from constant gathering of resources and careful management of them.  I like to think of it in this sense.  Occasionally I will see the big game and feel the need to expend more energy (a resource I guard carefully) to procure whatever it is that shows its value. 

I used to dread balancing my checkbook.  It wasn't a pretty picture . And doing what I do- my income can change, or disappear, or boom.  But even when it booms, I know that isn't a salary, it is a one time payment that may be followed by additional work...or it may not.  Because of that, I've had to gather consistently and manage resources carefully.  Meaning, I could not use credit cards as I did not know consistently when my paycheck would end.  Or what I'd find next.  I tried using them and got myself in trouble then got out.  

This year I think I finally reached some sort of balance.  So that is about twelve years of learning.  But I'm there.  For some of us, teetering on the edge, the recession/depression/economic reboot isn't about being sucked down.  It is about watching others around us suddenly understand what we have had to do all along. I am so deeply relieved to hear other friends say, "That's not in our budget this month," or to notice they no longer invite me out to eat but have dinner in their home or that when I arrive, the heat is turned down to a level that requires a sweater.  I don't wish economic stress on anyone, far from it, but the re-establishment of empathy and respect for management of resources is welcome.  For years I'd had friends say about me, "She doesn't like to travel," because I would not go on vacation.  It wasn't that I didn't like to travel- I have traveled quite a bit for work- it is that I do not feel safe over extending my resources. I could choose a career in the arts...or I could go on vacation and travel and be able to buy a house or a car or even something on payment plan.  I chose the first and it is a pretty important vow you have to take.  You have to keep your end of the bargain to survive which is: gather constantly.  Regulate your resources. 

Then, when you see the big game come into the picture, you'll have the strength to go for it.

I hope we all come out of this wiser, better prepared.  Better consumers.  And better businessmakers for those of us on that end, too.

 The house smells sweet.

My project, currently titled, "sleep at night" is progressing nicely.  Though this morning slammed into my gut with a caraccident's worth of anxiety. The cat reposes in the unmade bed, shameless in her occupation of the warm spot, while I sit here, hands in the cold living room. I have successfully talked myself out of eating frosting for breakfast.  

Happy Valentine's Day.

I think I've celebrated all week.  My breath smells of pink candy hearts.  I love lace and heart shaped things.  I see no reason to lounge about bemoaning the lack of romantic entanglement.  I can find romance.  I see it everywhere.  

My hands are cold and the house is cold and there is much work to be done.  My job, it appears, is not to lounge on the sofa in overpriced pajamas mulling over Joss Whedon's Dollhouse, but is to get up and work.  I stare longingly at the coffee pot but despite its excellent design it does not have the ability to read my mind and make more coffee.  If it were a truly clever coffeepot, and not to distress the coffeepot by suggesting it is sharp minded but perhaps not quite clever, it would discern these things.  I have budgets to go over, spreadsheets to consume and a child who just walked by, headed the back patio with the broom saying casually, "I am just going out to fly."

I should supervise that.  

May you have as many paperhearts and chocolates as you need today....

The girl from the disordered domicile,

K.