Do You Know The Way To San Jose?

It's 7am and I'm chilling at the San Jose Airport. Last night, I spoke at San Jose State, and had a great time. The students were enthusiastic and it was a great lecture to start the year with. I rarely speak in Cali, even though I live here, so the short commute from my sofa to their podium was delightful. I had to take an early flight because there's an explanatory meeting for this Kevin Smith class. Can't miss that.

Each week, I'm responsible for ten observation articles, and I think I'm going to always research during the week, and turn them in on Saturdays. I've quickly learned that everything that I think is a good observation, doesn't necessarily resonate with me a couple of hours later. Better to give them good information than filler.

According to my editor, they need a title for my fiction manuscript by the end of the weekend. Nothing is rolling off the brain right now, but I need to give it the college try. If I pick a title that I hate, I'll hate it for eternity. Maybe I should choose something Latin or German, just to be different. Yeah, maybe not.

Next week is the official start of PITCHING for 434s. I'm going to have to write a pitch for one teacher because I'm flying out for another lecture.

Participated in our annual "Inside Baseball" session with the 1st year students. This is when Hal and Richard give them the official scoop about the department, and generously I might add, allow the students to give the young'un the real scoop on what to do, how to do it, and where to go. The first years were full of the same questions we were, everything sounding like pig latin to them. A lot were worried about how many classes to take, and a surprising number of critical studies course questions. Funny, but I really wasn't worried about those classes. And even more surprising, considering these are screenwriting students, not a lot of writing questions. But it's probably for the better. We'd only scare them. lol

Honestly, I feel it's best to let them bask in the whole "I'm in the UCLA Film School fool!" feeling, and then let the reality of the work set in later. There's sort of a transition that happens when the work becomes more and more part of your life, and the whole prestige thing begins to fade a bit. Not that you're not proud to be in the film school, but you're more interested in writing a good script, finishing a good scene, or getting rid of that damned on the nose dialogue. Let the relatives brag on you, you've got work to do.

Did I mention that I had lunch with Ted Frank, the exec from NBC? And did I mention that it was the single most informative, outstanding, lunch I've ever had? The man has wisdom and I'm thunderstruck that he's been generous enough to impart it to me. I have big time goals, particularly in television, and he really helped craft my year long plan to achieve them. I knew I had to write a spec script at some point in time, but he gave me some good advice on the type of spec to write and when to have it done. Soooo, since I'm going to be chock full of project until December, I'm not going to try to write anything that's not on the agenda right now. It would be unrealistic and poorly done. But I am going to watch and record episodes of two dramas I'd like to spec. One will by Grey's Anatomy, and the other a procedural like Law and Order. I know those shows like the back of my hand, so I know the voices, plot, etc. If I can have them done by March, life will be good.

Alright, it looks like we're going to board in a few minutes, and my Southwest "B" boarding pass is my ticket to a middle seat. So I'll holla at ya later.