LONELYPOND PRESENTS

Interview with Chinese animation entrepreneur Hao Janing (My Own Swordsman).

Luke Johnson on the qualities that encourage entrepreneurs to strive and thrive.

And an article on how to become a British spy (for your eyes only).

ToonBoom just announced they are releasing Studio 5, which includes stop motion capability. Sounds exciting and like it would be fun to play with, but unless the birthday hippo (ask my Mom about the hippo, it’s her idea) e-mails me a license key, I won’t be getting it for awhile.

So Michelle’s birthday list right now (and no this isn’t the one that includes world peace, marriage for all and an influenza cure because those are ever goals not acquisition goals).

Jabberwocky and LONELY POND MONSTER (looking for love) in film festivals.

Publisher for In The Bleak December and/or agent for me, my art and my idea factory.

Room in the budget to renew my FT subscription

Original Laugh-out-loud Cats art

And after all those, well then maybe Studio 5…The dragon doodles from last night were done in Studio Express, the first animation program I tried out…I have yet to learn to use it effectively because FlipBoom is too much fun and too easy. But there are some projects on my might do list that could use a more sophisticated program and the stop motion feature interests me greatly.

I have been reading Nicola Griffith’s blog with some frequency recently, partly in gratitude for her getting me back to reading and the library and partly because we seem to dislike the same books. A recent answer about where she gets her characters’ names reminded me of interviewing Tamora Pierce. How to come up with names and characters is one of the things Pierce gets asked most often in Q + A sessions.

So this got me thinking about creativity and characters and how they take over whatever you’re working on and everything you’re thinking about…even when I’m directing a play as it seems exposure to weeks of The Miser aka L’Avare (and the impending interruption of my Financial Times subscription — newspaper vs. car payment, car wins) is making me grumpy about money and cynical about marriage (and I’m almost sentimental usually) — nearly every character is suggesting writing widowhood/widower status after three months or so into the wedding contract. So there’s the draft of a post titled “WHY THE ECONOMY HAS ALWAYS SUCKED FOR ARTISTS” sitting in a folder, but I really do prefer not to dwell on that sort of thing as I am happy with the active choices I’ve made to direct the plays I choose, film the movies I want and follow the characters that come to me (as well as have time for tea with Gayle when her insane work and sleep schedule allows). So instead of that rant, I’m channelling my energy into other posts (this and the previous and the haiku).

Back to characters, the flow of creativity and naming after that much briefer rant:

Jane and Sally at one point just took over In The Bleak December…I remember a couple of frustrating nights where Sally just insisted on behaving like herself and it was nothing at all like I had planned. That was extremely educational. Sally was inspired by an actual person so I kept her first name; Jane just seemed to go along with it. And Jane’s last name is lifted from a cool science fiction adventurer type I used to try to fit into something — Mycroft Holloway (first name after Sherlock Holmes smarter brother but the character was a girl). I find the naming process very exciting as I take time with the names and discovering the personalities that they connect to…

In the mystery I was recently working on — before the Muse that is comedy took over again — I have a completed first draft with a cool collection of four different narrators. Rereading it led me to the conclusion that the narrator I started with had to be excised and a character who only popped in a couple of times but brought so much energy with him needed to take over a third of the book and drive the sequel. Before the draft really took off, I had to sit down and connect a bunch of family and sibling dots.

I do family trees as a tool…I remember one of the grand fantasy narratives I wrote as a teenager involved complicated and intense family trees for both the human and horse characters.

For LONELY POND MONSTER (looking for love)…the process started with me being a preparation fiend and wanting to shoot a short before the big Shakespeare tangented project we were all excited about…so one friend said, “well, the place I’m staying at has a pond and we can film there” which turned into me ripping out a story about a Lonely Pond Monster who wanted to make friends by joining in activities and a Spinning Girl who was trying to fit in by changing her wardrobe…and there would be no dialogue because as it was my first movie and much as I love our sound and sound effects guru, he often has the same effect on me that tequila used to (there’s the book Jill Shaffer and I were going to write where each chapter started with “and then I took another shot of tequila” complete with the real time authors’ experience of the same — my poetry phases are always interesting) so I decided silent film with music, let’s emphasize my skill with directing physical comedy. And then LONELY POND MONSTER (looking for love) turned into two of my favorite weekends, a really cool story and a love for the process of movie making. And the Shakespeare tangent movie– well, that’s a story for daylight hours.

So basically, imagining characters, naming them and following them where they lead is one the best and craziest adventures there can be so enjoy it. They’ll thank you for it.

And now, I’m going to read part of a novel for at least six minutes. Good night all; dream well.

Just clicked the MyToons link on my bookmark bar and was greeted by MyToons is closed. That BITES. Like a 1000 fleas. Apparently, trouble’s been brewing since January.

So much for building a following there…have to find another space to host. Not a big fan of Aniboom — too many + popular bloody stickmen and the FlipBoomed Blink Kitty Loves on youTube always have scenes left out…had been having a where should I put another Blink Kitty Love site conversation today as their webpage isn’t getting traffic; guess I’ll have to think harder.

And now there’s a bunch of dead end Google links…

See title.

Note:
Uploading Blink Kitty Love episodes to Vimeo to cheer myself up a bit. Not really helping. Time to get reaquainted with Aniboom.

Today, April 1st, instead of pranking, bloggers are raising money for food banks across the country. More information at

Yes, I seem to work on the weekends…yes, I still read the Financial Times and I get my actual fun political news from @anamariecox — Twitter suits her. FT news: James Altucher is on a diet and rather grim about everyone else’s lack of willpower (which allows him to recommend gastric bypass related stocks); Peter Aspden is cracking the list of my favorite columnists as well as causing me to want to investigate the Manchester International Festival to see if I’ve done anything that suits…there was a cool article about bloggers/people meeting up and tossing ideas around but I cannot remember what the phrase describing it was so I can’t search for it…I still stop in the middle of a Sarah Hemming review/profile, look up at the byline and say yep, guessed it right.

Sonny With A Chance was hysterical — so very funny, so packed with physical comedy and yes, Demi Lovato does well but Tiffany Thornton is a find. So here’s hoping they continue the silliness — yes, yes, I know launch food with a catapult and I’m a happy critic, yes, yes, low brow…but wait until you see the food fight in Taming of The Shrew.

Crush Night on Nick kind of fun; David Archuletta seems like a nice guy. Good to see Max take the True Jackson spotlight but story a little forced.

Started writing today whether or not I find the darn misplaced manuscript and GOOD NEWS, Withoutabox has offered Roll With It an imdb title page so Gullible and Twitchy are preparing to launch themselves into the spotlight — now there’s an idea for an animation; I’ll let you know when it’s up.

Trying to work some Twitter/Creative Commons music synergy with @AdamSinger at The Future Buzz and get the Gullible and Twitchy skateboarding video together.

Oh, and although we usually don’t deal in rumors, and never in the dating and/or cat fight type, blogs are mention Vanessa Hudgens auditioning for a role in the Twilight sequel. Now, that might get me to see it. She handled the action in Thunderbirds well, looks exotic enough to pass for native American and could use an opportunity to show off her range, which I believe she has. Next up for her though, BandSlam.

And that’s it for this Monday. Off to lunch and etc., then a play reading meeting(theatre sabbatical officially over as of Saturday when I sat in the theatre and considered Miser set options), then The Big Bang Theory and reading the FT Weekend while Gayle watches Top Gear. It’s a good Monday night; try it sometime. And now I have a lunch date. Cheers.