Death and song…and love…and everything else

A gathering happened today at the Manx Pub on Elgin (I named my cat Manx after that pub).  It was to celebrate the life of John Lavery.  I didn’t know him well, certainly not as well as others in the room.  I still miss him.

We had the opportunity to hear him play two songs…they were beautiful – in words and in spirit.  It was hard to hear his voice, his song – but he was there today.  In the room with us.  You could feel it.

Music has a way of healing and haunting.  It did both for me today.

Then, I came home and resurrected a CD that I have not listened to in a very long time.

untogether by Lori Yates.  I wore it out when I first got it.

One song in particular.  Healing and haunting me at the same time.  Damn music.

 

I loved you like a river

I made myself very clear

Look for me at the shoreline

I’m standing right here

Don’t dismiss it now you don’t need to

–  Sweetest Times

 

Toronto Screenwriting Conference & WGC Awards…

I’m heading there this weekend to TSC 2011.  Then, Monday night, I’m going to the Writers Guild of Canada Screenwriting Awards.  Lots going on here, lots left to do.  I feel behind.  Will I ever get caught up?  Taking my work on the road with me.  Going to Kingston tomorrow night to visit with a friend then heading to Toronto on Friday.  Looking forward to the train ride.  Been a long time since I’ve done that.

Got some good workouts in this week too.  Getting stronger and faster.  My trainer set out a new routine for me for the month of April.  I bought a scale (something I thought I would never do) since I only check in once a month now.  It will keep me accountable.  Also going to work on a meal plan too.

As I said, lots going on here.

Who you are, and who you aren’t…

I saw Tim Burton on Strombo last night.  He said that he has spent his entire adult life trying to become human.  I liked him instantly, and I’ve been a fan of his movies, but to be honest, I haven’t seen many of his latest ones.

He moved to his grandmother’s house at the age of 10.  From an very early age, his difference was obviously out there and he had the familial support for his artist endeavours.  Now, he also lives in a separate house from his wife, Helena Bonham Carter, connected by a walkway.  Best of both worlds, I imagine.  He also lives no where near LA, and prefers it that way.  He has managed to be a huge success, despite everything that could have went sideways along the way.

James Hillman talks about this “perfect storm” phenomenon in many of his books, most notably in two – The Soul’s Code and The Force of Character.  What are the things that happened to you, in your early years, that make you who you are later in life.  Are there interests that are more dominant, but we get beaten out of us.  Burton mentioned this too, noting that most kids are creative, but it gets lost along the way.  Mostly, these things get lost because we think we need to do other things, but what we really need to do is create art.

We can always learn new things, but our interests from childhood, if you take a hard look, often tell alot about a person.  I recently came to this realization when I remembered that I once loved to design doll clothes.  I wasn’t content with what came in packages.  And, I wanted to make up new things.  I also knew that I could because I could knit and crochet from a very young age and I was encouraged to be creative.  And, because my mom always had needles and yarn around, it was a fairly inexpensive thing to do that I could get lost in, much like when I wrote my short stories.  This has carried over to my adult life whereby I rarely buy a Hallowe’en costume.  I would rather buy the materials and create something myself, something no one else will have.

I guess you could say, I like being unique, and I’m not afraid to step into or out of the river.

Back to the beginning….Burton has a new show in Toronto that I would love to see, and I might just try to get down there….to the TIFF Lightbox.

115lbs for a new PR for the sumo deadlift…

…on Saturday, and then I stalled.  My brain shut me down.  It’s happened before.  It will happen again.  It’s like my back became unhinged and I shutdown.  It’s a protection mechanism, I know, and it’s a warning sign.  Still I managed to get the bar up once with 115lbs.  That’s a 20lb improvement over where I was just two weeks ago.  I can’t be too sad about that. Work my way back up again slowly.  I lost my focus.  It’s in the legs and when I try to lift with my arms, it all goes to hell.  Learning….all the time.

As for the rest of the PT session on Saturday, my legs and arms are in moderate amounts of discomfort today.  I know I did something, like the 100 squats and the hold and hang for the chinups.  Those are coming along.

On a side note, I went to see The Social Network last night with a friend.  At the root of it, the way it’s written, it’s a love story – boy meets girl, boy makes a mistake and loses girl, boy is upset and rebels, boy tries to get girl back (in the meantime, making a shitload of money).  I find it amazing that the most socially inept and brilliant person, could understand the human condition so well, that he designed something that would fuel the needs of so many to be the “rockstar” among their group of friends.  I find socially awkward people, who also happen to be gifted or slightly evil, very fascinating.  All of the “success” books would tell you that you need to be charismatic to be successful, or at least be good at influencing people to follow you.  In some cases, you need to be the total opposite.  You need to be so self involved and so confident in your own direction that it takes precedence above all else.  There’s another school that says you need to be observing and open to new ideas all the time.  I think that is almost more important these days than being charismatic.  You never know where the next great thing will spring up.

I’m reading: Crafty TV Writing.  What a great book.  Learning so much about TV writing.

Friday afternoon Brad Special…get it while it’s hot…. :)

Yeah, so – where do I begin.  25 minutes outside, blazing sun….I was teamed up with another victim to pull that blessed tired across the parking lot.  Twice.  Fun times.  Then tire flips (where my partner did most of the work….still not so great at those), then some dips, some pushups, some leg raises, two lengths of Farmer’s Walks (with TWO kettlebells)…am I forgetting anything?  Probably.  And that was just the outside part.

I have to say, that I do enjoy it though…despite the griping…it’s fun to challenge yourself.

Inside – 25 minutes – the goal was to do 100 each of: overhead presses and bicep curls with a weight that you could reasonably lift 15 times.  Then grip strength drill for 5 minutes.  Then 100 Hindu squats (I told Brad he was evil).  You’d think I’d be getting good at these by now….for goodness sakes….I managed 50 each of the press and bicep curls with 15lb weights, a whopping 40 seconds of grip strength (2×20 seconds each) and 60 Hindu squats.

I honestly felt ready to puke nearing the end.

At one point, one of the other victims said “Who signed me up for this?”  I giggled.

On another note, I sent out a short script today to a competition!  Will hear back by August 25th-27th if it’s selected to go to the next round.

Linchpinning is like strength training…

I went to a pretty cool event on Monday night (in lieu of strength class).  Met a bunch of people, who like me, are following Seth Godin’s work (see the link to his blog on the right).  It was a Linchpin Meetup event.  Great bunch of guys.  My friend Cheryl came too, otherwise I would have been the only woman there.

As part of the meetup, the community is producing a Linchpin magazine, both print and online.  Sales of the magazine will go to support a charity called Seeducation.  More about Seeducation:

Seeducation will provide young talents who do not fit into traditional education systems with the opportunity to take part in a FREE 1 – Year course (CORE Programme) which will focus on development through creativity and practical involvement in real-life projects, with the help of mentors, trainers and experts in their respective fields.

They may not publish all submissions in the magazine, so here’s mine anyhow:

I met a whole gaggle of great new people on Monday night.  It was wonderful to talk to the like-minds and to hear everyone’s story.  There were many similarities between us and I look forward to meeting up with them again.  I was especially interested in hearing about Seth, as one of our members went to the launch of Linchpin in New York.  It sounded like a pretty cool experience.

Coming away from the event, and as I reflected upon the evening, I came to the realization that “linchpinning” is alot like strength training (another one of my interests!):

1.  You can always use a good coach.
2.  You have to have faith that you can do what you set your goal to be.
3.  The more you practice, the better you get at it and the faster you grow.
4.  You will no doubt change because of what you are doing.

That’s all from me.  I look forward to being part of this community for a long time to come!

Paul Graham has some good ideas….

Check out Paul Graham’s essays.  He is a smart dude.  I especially like:

The Anatomy of Determination

After Credentials

Disconnection Distraction

Lies We Tell Kids

There are a ton more….equally brilliant.

The Art of Leadership Pitch

So, I put my pitch out to Scott Abel and Thomas Moore earlier tonight….keeping my fingers crossed.  Now to think about two other guest speakers for “Heart” and “Mind”.  I was hoping for “Heart”, someone who has experience working on “relationships, someone who can speak to that aspect of life.  As for “Mind”, I was hoping for someone creative.

The Buried Life & one year of Personal Training….

I’m coming up to my one year anniversary of PT sessions soon, working with Brad, making slow progress towards some pretty lofty goals in my personal training regime.  I’ve asked him to provide me some feedback on how he thinks I’m doing.  One of the things I’ve learned this year while on my leadership journey is to ask for feedback without taking it as criticism.  It is what it is.  Take it, use it, drop it, move on.  It is someone else’s opinion of the situation.  It can make a difference, or make no sense.  Whatever someone tells you, listen.

Something else I was looking at today – the website for the new MTV show, The Buried Life.  It looks like it’s going to be a pretty cool show.  Four guys ask the simple question: What do you want to do before you die?  So, in light of that, I started my “100 wishes” Wishlist…..

Here’s the first 20 or so…in no particular order (other than to number them):

1. write an Oscar winning movie
2. win the Nicholl Fellowship (Oscar award)
3. do an Amazon adventure
4. get married
5. have children
6. write a book
7. own a property in Ireland and live there part time
8. produce a leadership seminar
9. go dog sledding
10. visit Newfoundland
11. take the train across Canada
12. visit my sponsor child, Yennifer
13. write full time
14. create a clothing line
15. become a personal trainer
16. meet Stephen King
17. shadow Bryan Murray
18. live in an old house
19. take my mom on a trip somewhere
20. hang out in LA for a month
21. take singing lessons
22. take acting lessons
23. volunteer overseas

So, what do you want to do before you die?

(p.s. I’m currently working on a screenplay adaptation of my friend rob mclennan’s novel – “white“….who knows where that will go!)

(p.s.s. A big hooray for my friend Kim who became a mom (to Delaney) for the first time today – one of the things on her list!)

Scott Abel

So, along with Thomas Moore and Henry Rollins, I emailed Scott Abel the other day.  You can check out his site and his blog (his blog is great).  He emailed me back RIGHT AWAY and was interested in participating in the leadership seminar I’m devising: The Art of Leadership: Body, Heart, Mind & Soul….I have a few more hours of work to polish my proposal and then I’m going to send it off to him.  Thomas Moore is already interested too.  This will turn into a really cool series….I’m very excited.