R.I.P. Cap'n Lou, New Beginning for the Familiar, that other thing I do in the shower...

I'd like to start by saying thank you to Heke and Zoe for their feedback regarding the new setup around here. I was hoping for a bit more of a response to such a jarring change, but I guess it's one of those things that felt like a bigger deal to me. Still, thanks girls. I really appreciate you weighing in.

More than a few people know I'm a wrestling fan -- I've posted about it here once or twice, and I feel like it's only fair to pause and mention the passing of Captain Lou Albano. Albano's career in wrestling was just slightly before my time [or at the very least, before the time I got interested], and even for the little crossover there might have been, I was a southern wrestling fan, high on Ric Flair and WCW and guys with shin covers that looked like cowboy boots. So a lot of my exposure to the Captain was through Saturday morning cartoons, where he portrayed the live action Super Mario, and on MTV, most famously in replays of a certain Cyndi Lauper music video.

Still, Captain Lou was a rad guy, and definitely a pop culture icon [and I love those] who deserves some high praise and fond remembrance. So that's why when my friend John told me this funny but still sort of touching story about meeting him, I told him he should post it over on his site, the Bathroom Monologues, and if he did I would [quoting] "link the shit out of it." As a man of my word, and because I do think this is a really sweet story, I encourage everyone to check out "The Time I Met Captain Lou Albano." And yes, John's Bathroom Monologues are usually fiction, but this one is quite true, and as good of a remembrance of the man as most I've heard lately.

As for writing, I've been doing some work on "The Familiar" this week, specifically trying to take all the stuff out that doesn't fit with the overall tone, and sort of make the things that do work better. In this case, all that really means is working out a new outline, and replacing some of the characters with some that are a bit more down to to earth. A lot of the decisions/questions/changes I've been grappling with are old ones -- stuff that's been on my mind since not long after I finished it the script the first time. Naturally, the solution came to me in the shower, while I was washing my hair, dreading but resigned to the fact that I was about to spend another night torturing myself over the same handful of problems when, like a flash, the answer hit me, and I got to feel very, very stupid for not seeing it before.

I can't go into it as much as I'd like [since I'm still working on it], but this is all a good reminder that no matter how daunting something seems, sometimes the simplest solution is really the best. Sometimes, that subplot you're trying to thread/force through your story is actually a much better place to start everything.

Still a lot left to do, of course. The whole script needs a re-write and a polish, and the new stuff that I need to write is a mixed bag. I feel like I have most of my new characters down, but since most of the scenes will be exposition scenes, where this or that is getting explained, I'm already worried about them coming off as dry, boring, or far-fetched. My hope is the better the job I do with it, the easier it'll be to fix the last, big problem with "Familiar" -- namely the ending, which either needs changed, or what I have needs to be made to work. I'm leaning more towards the latter, but given how things have been coming together lately, I've been trying to think outside of the box and consider some alternatives.

Not that this will mean anything to anyone who hasn't at least read a draft of "The Familiar" but I figured I passed it around enough anyone reading this probably has.

Oh, and did I mention my friend John wrote this really great thing about the time he met Captain Lou Albano? I'm really glad someone talked him into posting it.

Cheers.