Hawaii, High-Five, Oh!

“Sixes and the One Eyed King” happenings continue to delight me.

The film brought home another audience favorite award from the Miami Underground Film Festival. I suppose “Golden Coconuts” are a fair trade for a pair of mouse ears from Disneyworld, at least for now.

Speaking of coconuts, I plan to enjoy Hawaii for the first time in May as I attend the Big Island Film Festival. I’m pretty excited to be going with the director, Ray Nomoto Robison and a couple of cast members, Tamara Barrus and Scott Ford.

I won’t be able to attend the Phoenix Film Festival in Arizona in April. We were added later and aren’t in competition, but it’s a delight to be included. I’m glad whenever we can get “Sixes and the One Eyed King” in front of audiences. It would be fun to go, as they’ve got an interesting line-up of films. I look forward to hearing about it when Ray returns.

Meanwhile, I’ve managed to solve my character problem with “The Unintended Mongrel.” I’d let my subconscious take over writing during a session, and it seemed to take me off on an unrelated tangent. However, I spent some time thinking about what I’d written and realized that I could use it later and tie it to a different motivation. I’m glad I don’t have to throw away everything I’d written. Although it wasn’t appropriate where and how I’d written it, the idea is solid. I’ve learned to give up some annoyance with rewriting, which used to seem like a terrible waste of time. The best way is not always the most efficient way when it comes to creativity. On a positive note, I did some more screenplay work while I was pondering the book.

Related to my novel, I recently watched Carrie Fisher’s DVD commentary for “Postcards from the Edge.” I savored her book and was glad to go back and watch the movie with her thoughts about adapting it. One thing that struck me was her concern about how her film version mother was portrayed and that people would assume things were true about her own mother because they were in the story. I worry about that at times with “The Unintended Mongrel.” Some of my book is inspired by things I‘ve lived, and I doubt I could be writing it without all of my experiences as a single woman. However, some of it isn’t reflective of myself or people I know, at all. Some of it doesn’t necessarily even reflect my personal world view. They’re simply a presentation of ideas, of observations and of potential viewpoints. I worry that people will make too close an association or wrong assumptions about me because of what I’m writing or that people may try to guess if they inspired characters or situations. Some have, but not in totality. A snatched moment, quirk or situation doesn’t equal the entire picture of a person or a complete representation of my opinion. I’ve been tempted to write for image to downplay any potential conflicts, but I don’t think that would be true to the story and certainly wouldn‘t represent the most that I have to offer as a writer. One thing I’ve repeatedly reminded myself as I’ve worked on this is that this book is about telling this story the way I want to tell it, about enjoying the writing and the exploration of ideas, regardless of the potential for selling it or the opinions of others. Maybe that will come when and if I get an agent or a publishing contract. It was nice to hear my worries expressed by a writer I enjoy.