Hi friends,
I hope you had a wonderful weekend! Here are some reminders that whatever you did or didn’t get done, however much you rested -- YES!
First I want to say, RIP Lance Reddick. I followed him across genres from The Wire to Fringe and loved seeing him in John Wick. I hope he passed in peace. Did you have a favorite role or on screen moment of his?
I may or may not put a letter out next week because I’ll be in Austin over the weekend for a wedding. Any Austin recs? If I don’t publish next week, I’d like to fire up the chat and get in the habit of using it on weeks I don’t put out a letter. I’d love to see you all there! To join the chat, you have to download the substack app and from there you can chat within the app. Is it weird to ask for people to talk to you?? I mean, I’ve been doing it my whole life, why stop now?!
What I Wrote
There’s a lot going on and also a whole lot of nothing happening for me writing-wise, so I thought I’d share my current slate of what I’m working on. I shared it last fall so you can see how it’s changed. All of the titles are code names.
STUDIO FEATURE
Description: Feature I’m writing
Status: Received great notes from producers last week. Revising for studio delivery end of week or early next
Paid
PITCH W/ FANCY TALENT
Description: Development. TV series based on a novel I developed with 2 showrunner friends and a really fancy force-of-nature actress attached to star and produce.
Status: This is the one we pitched and received 4 offers on and are waiting to see where we end up! Should know soon.
Paid, once the deal closes. Was unpaid development.
BLESSINGS
Description: Development. My original TV pitch
Status: Still just working on the pitch when I have time. Still so excited about this idea.
Unpaid development, but it belongs to me. Will become paid if/when I sell it.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
Description: Development. OWA I pitched, with fancy NFL talent producing.
Status: In January I brought it to a showrunner to come on to supervise me. He’s in! But now he has to work out his deal with the other entities involved. Once that’s settled, we’ll get back to work on it and pitch it. It’s been a few months, but to be honest it’s nice to have a break while I focus on the feature.
Unpaid, OWA (does not belong to me). Will become paid when if/when we sell it.
3 Projects that have been dormant that I want to resurrect and finish this year
ALWAYS THE APPRENTICE
Description: This is a novel (series) I started writing a couple years ago and have been too busy to focus on. But I really want to get back into it. I love the character and the story so much!
Status: Waiting for me to give it the time of day.
Unpaid, but it belongs to me. Will become paid when if/when I sell it. First, must write the dang thing.
ETERNITY
Description: Development. An Original TV pitch idea I started 4 years ago and put down to focus on several other things. I came across it recently, remembered how much work I’d already done on it and how much I loved the idea when I was kicking it around, and want to resurrect it.
Status: Awaiting time of day
Unpaid, but it belongs to me. Will become paid when if/when I sell it.
GIRLS RULE
Description: Development. This is a project I’ve been cowriting in various forms with my BFF for over a decade. It’s had a few lives so far -- a TV pilot sample, a short film.
Status: It still has a lot of relevancy, and we are still quite obsessed with it, and we still haven’t seen anyone else make anything like it, so we’re trying to figure out what we want to write/the best medium for our idea. Is it still a TV idea? Do we write a pitch (we wrote a pilot ages ago, but because we’re not a writing team, it was complicated to write with another person back then… but maybe less so now that we’re both more established), a feature, a version for the stage? We’ll see!
Unpaid, but it belongs to us. Will become paid when if/when we sell it.
What I Watched
Triangle of Sadness
Shadow and Bone S2, Eps 1-3 (it’s back, baby!)
The Witcher: Blood Origin Ep 1
Black Girl
Heat
The Last of the Mohicans
Triangle of Sadness - Great ending. Dolly de Leon, her performance, just… yes.
The Last of the Mohicans - Fucking gets me every time. The slow mo at the end, that I for the first time processed as slow motion, still so emotional. I thought about how fast Alice’s last moment actually would have been, how fast Magua’s plea to her would have lasted. How impulsive and chaotic it actually would have been at real speed and how that chaos has its own emotional honesty and intensity derived from their experiences. But the slow motion is just so earned. And the sitting in the emotions, of a movie that I think we should just categorize as a Romance with some action set pieces, feels so right, artistically. I haven’t rewatched in a few years and I was a little worried I’d find flaws. I mean, sure, they’re there, but they didn’t disrupt my watch. If anything I just felt the atrocity of it all much more. Colonialism is not just a thing that happened and now we’ve moved on. They’re fucked in the movie-past and they know it and what do you know, here we are 250 years later. Still fucked. I love this movie so much, hahahahaha.
What I Wore
More importantly what Partner and his mini me wore on Partner's 40th. I love creating matching outfits for me and L.O. so I decided to apply that fervor and gift the joy of matching a baby to someone else. The shopping was fun. I had to secretly go through Partner’s wardrobe to figure out what to replicate. This was easy because partner is a minimalist and there are only about 2 of every piece of clothing with him on this trip (2 t shirts, 2 pair shorts, 2 pair pants, etc). I went with green cargo shorts, grey long sleeve, grey socks and all birds. I searched ThredUp and Mercari and eBay for each item and filtered out baby size 12-18mo. Expanded when need be. Searched non-used when need be. I ended up finding everything used except the baby cargo shorts. I spent the week giggling to myself thinking about the final product, giggling out loud when things arrived in the mail, and giggling with everyone else when I laid out partner’s clothes the morning of his birthday, he got dressed, I went and dressed mon bebe, and then walked her out to her papa and he saw what I’d been up to. 🤦🏽♀️🤣
Wondering if I can get my dad, who I think looks a little like Billy crystal, to recreate this lewk. Surely every man around their age has this sweater right??
What I Bought
Finally indulging myself by buying a used Lognchamp Le Pliage tote. Justifications since I recently bought a tote that I love for work and don’t need a second: 1) It’s used! 2) It’s the kid’s “diaper bag.” A diaper bag, I have learned through experience, is not only a bag that holds diapers. It is basically your purse that you share with your kid.
What I Li(n)ked
OMG I thought the pleats/Issy Miyake find from last week was random and casual but it’s a THING!
OK I want this but not just for downhill and with a name better than “brotherhood.”
Time for new leggings (I especially want ones that last a while). But, am confronted with the eternal question: pockets or no pockets?!
This is an interesting read on reading to me because the way she/the women she quotes, and I suspect the voracious readers reading this newsletter feel about reading — how effortless and second nature, how un-work, it is— is how I feel about watching things. And maybe why it’s so frustrating for me that I have so many barriers to watching and that it never feels brainy or revered to watch a lot in the same way that it can feel, and be met with envious praise, to read a lot. Being caught with a book in my hand, Partner would leave me be. Being caught watching something would lead to an interruption, scoffs later with unarticulated but implied disappointment about how I use my time. There are so many days that all I want to do is turn on the TV and watch something. Honestly, every day is me working towards finally being able to watch. I spend a lot of time trying to earn my watch time. I’m realizing how unhealthy this is — feeling like a thing I want must be earned or de-prioritized. I should work on de-stigmatizing watching. I think I’ve talked about this before…And i love her list of things she doesn’t do. The transparency is so helpful. Def makes me feel better about not reading and about not doing other stuff like not cooking. I love the idea that we do what we love and that trying to make time for other things is such an uphill battle and not a recipe for joy. The radial self-acceptance of it all is 👩🏽🍳😘
What I Can’t Stop Thinking About
Or should think about more: book bans. Anti-gay legislation. Banks collapsing, (maybe who cares re: banks. There are other options besides Wall St. for fuck’s sake.)
Also, thinking about everyone I get to see when I’m back in LA in 2 weeks after being away for 5 MONTHS! But also How TF to see everyone when I’m back? Scheduling is so hard for me. It is triggering because of my assistant days and it feels like work. And as my therapist pointed out, I tend to overextend myself and be over-considerate, which serves no one. In this pandemic, I have forgotten how to leave my house. Post-becoming una madre, I have struggled to form routines to accomplish once beloved and socially-normal daily tasks such as showering and brushing my teeth twice a day. As a former over-achiever, I hate being the forgetful one who doesn’t follow up or follow through on tiny promises. My instinct is to make a list and start checking people off as I see them, but as part of my New Year’s resolution I stopped making these types of list because the list-making didn’t help and made me feel bad for not checking things off quikly enough (lol RIP our bullet journal phase. What a beautiful delusion that was). I used to have a running list of people to hang out with that I would keep, but it never got shorter. I have been meaning to hang out with some people for a decade hahaha. (Granted they are people I see under other circumstances like writers group, but our dogs still haven’t met!!) . When all things are said and done, the only healthy option is clear: I need to have a party.
Have a great week and happy writing/being/whatever-ing. See y’all in the chat and beyond that, I’ll see you next letter,
K.
RIP bullet journal phase 😂😭
Loved the article about reading! As someone with a separate IG account just for books I get major FOMO of those who read 30+ books a year! I’m like ya’ll - how? Loved her POV.