When
last weekend I published my “Change of Life” essay, I ended with the thought
that my next piece of big news might be coming in as soon as five days. The five days is now up and I’ve got the
news. The number 13 has had traditional
superstitious roots as being unlucky but, this afternoon at least, it has
proven for me to be very lucky.
Yes, the number 13 was lucky for me
this week. It might now be an
interesting goal to keep the good vibes going by trying to write “Furious” in
the next 13 weeks. A nice spring project,
it will put us just before Memorial Day.
It took 23 years to complete Ash Wednesday. 13 weeks to do my follow up will be a very
nice challenge indeed. Stay tuned.
As has
been frequently attested to in the mythology surrounding the whole “Friday the
13th” phenomenon, 13 has been a number that less enlightened people
have feared since ancient times. As
ancient as Hammurabi’s Code, the number 13 was believed so evil that the great
king ruled that the 13th statute regarding commerce be omitted. Also in ancient times, the Mayan calendar’s
13th Baktun is the one predicting global disaster in the year 2012
(remember that fun little bit of hysteria, ignoring of course the inconvenient truth
that in the many centuries that had since elapsed, the calendar had been
changed so many times that it was no longer possible to determine what the
Mayans meant by 2012.) But most scholars
place the origins of the superstition with Christ at the Last Supper,
surrounded by the twelve apostles. Of
course, the fact is there were 13 apostles, Judas being the 13th. To this day, many of our tall buildings
deliberately make the 12th story a double floor so that the
elevators can skip directly to 14. Go
figure.
But at least for me, and at least
for this week, the number 13 has proven lucky, not once but twice. If we can operate on the godly assumption
that one’s health is the greatest blessing, then it was on this past Monday the
13th that I had my second follow-up with the bone surgeon, Dr.
Brenda Sanford, who gave me a glowing report.
Very pleased with how much motion I’ve already attained with my left
hand and arm (though I do deserve some credit for it as I’ve been dogged in my
determination to do the exercises and use the arm as much as possible) but the
fact that a week ago I could only bring my left hand within about a foot of my
mouth (thus still couldn’t feed myself), on Monday, with great effort and some
pain, I was able to touch my lips and my forehead. So I got an A for my performance (really an
A-, she dinged me for being so proud of my progress) and I’m under instructions
to keep it up, which I have been.
Tonight I actually did succeed in
eating my entire dinner with my left hand and I can now without too much
difficulty touch my mouth, my forehead and my right shoulder. The next appointment is a week from this
Monday at which time she will take the first x-ray since the surgery. If she sees the kind of healing she’s hoping
to see and if I have progressed as much with my movement as I have been, she
MIGHT be giving me a pass to start some limited driving. I hope so.
I desperately want to go to the grocery store and the cat is way overdue
for the vet. Fortunately, the weather
has been most cooperative. I think it
may even be safe for me to start taking some short walks to the Rite Aid for
some basic supplies.
The original prognosis that I would
not be able to drive until the first of March is looking pretty accurate which
means we’re likely still looking at the first of April before I’m sufficiently
recovered to engage in most normal activities again. But as for all activities, I think it’s going
to take a tad longer than that. If I can
just get back in the car, even for short trips, that will make a huge
difference.
One thing that has also been lucky
for me due to this accident is that I have for years been fearful of driving in
the snow, something that had never bothered me in my life before but started
terribly bothering me a couple years ago.
Well, no more. The fact is inside
a nice sturdy car, even if you do slide in the snow, you have the vehicle to
protect you. The nice thing about winter
is that, even though driving can be somewhat white knuckle at times, at least
everyone is forced to drive very slowly so even if you do get crunched, it will
almost certainly be minor and not at all very unlikely to result in
injury.
After slipping on the ice and being
subjected to the tremendous anxiety of walking around for two weeks with an
untreated broken bone and the severe fear of having another fall while in my
incredibly fragile and vulnerable state, being a normal healthy person driving
on slippery roads in a safe, sturdy car seems like nothing now. Maybe I’ll feel differently next winter but
right now I feel blessed that I have survived this winter (so far) and, once back
in top shape, will no longer have trepidations about winter driving. This is also not to mention the fact that I’ve
been advised by my mechanic that a good set of snow tires will give me many
times more control over the road (even in my front-wheel drive vehicle) and
make me feel much safer, maybe making an investment in AWD unnecessary.
*******************************
So the 13th of February
turned out to be a lucky day for me, saints be praised. And now if I can venture into more secular
territory, the number 13 proved very lucky again today. February 17th has always been the
day on which the finalists for the WeScreenplay contest would be
announced. I did not have high hopes –
after all, how long could my luck hold out?
I did not have high hopes because the finalist judge did not give me a
particularly high grade – ranking me only in the top 32 percent, whereas the
quarter-finals judge put me in the top 6 percent and the semi-finals judge in
the top 1 percent. I did not have high
hopes because for both the quarter finals and the semi-finals, I always got a
personal email from the contest congratulating me for making the cut. That’s what I was hoping to find in my inbox
this morning and there was none. When
this afternoon I did receive the general announcement that they send everyone
on their mailing list, I did not have high hopes at all. Checking the list of the finalists, I did not
see Ash Wednesday there at the top of the list as it had always been before,
given that they listed the winners in alphabetical order.
I don’t know what made me scroll
down the list rather than just exiting the web site and assuming I was
out. Perhaps it was because there were
just 26 scripts listed so it would be easy enough to scan the titles. And so I did and that’s how I found my
screenplay – the 13th title on the list.
Now I understood. The finalist judge ranked me only in the top
one-third because it was not the top one-third of the thousand that they
started with but of the fifty that made the semi-finals cut. Since one-half of the fifty were destined to
make the finals, being in the top one-third was more than sufficient. I also realized then that Ash Wednesday was
not at the top of the list because it was not alphabetical but rather a list by
rank. Of the 1,000 screenplays that had
been in competition, mine has now been judged as the 13th best of
the lot. For March 17th, they
are now going to narrow the list to the top 6 screenplays of which the top
three will be sent to agencies and the others will receive cash awards.
So everything now rests with the last
judge who will determine the six winners.
I now need to rank in the top 23 percent of the finalists in order to
win one of the coveted “winner” spots, in the top 11 percent to win the grand
prize of having Ash Wednesday sent to an agent.
13 out of 1,000 ain’t bad. That’s
the top 1.3 percent. But if I make the
top 3, that’s the top ½ of 1 percent! I
can’t believe any agent would have a bar so high that the top ½ of 1 percent
would not be good enough for them to sign.
But then this is Hollywood. You
just never know. However, things are
looking better all the time.
So I am now that much more
motivated to get cracking on the next screenplay. My rationale is that an agent will certainly
be much more interested in seeing a second script rather than a novelized
version of this one. So though I do plan
to novelize Ash Wednesday soon, I am first going to write my gun script, titled
“Furious,” a character study of a meek and mild man afraid of the world and who
finds false courage when he starts packing, only to find his new found
confidence and security turning south rather quickly. It’s going to be “Death Wish” in reverse, a
film I’ve always wanted to remake since the original novel was about vigilantism
making the problem worse rather than better.
Of course, the producer did not see things that way and so took a
different angle very much promoting vigilantism as a solution. It was of course much more profitable but not
nearly as artful. I think I can take that
original theme and make it work, present the subject matter in such a balanced way
that regardless of how one stands on the gun issue, there will be much to
relate to, and in a way that will be both commercial and artistic. Stay tuned.
I am hoping that “Furious” will be an even better script than “Ash
Wednesday.”
In the previous post, I also stated
that my success at WeScreenplay has given me the courage to submit the script
to one of the most prestigious competitions in the industry, the Austin Film
Festival Screenplay Competition, in which they expect there will be about
10,000 scripts submitted. This week also
I received information about another highly reputable contest, the Page
International Screenplay Competition. In
fact the deadline was just a few minutes ago and I submitted. It’s a little more expensive than the others
but I’m investing in the fact that these judges are, according to the top
script magazines, top notch and give critiques that are far superior to the
less expensive contests. For my money I
will be receiving two extensive critiques from two separate judges. Of course, both Austin and Page also offer as
their top prizes representation and/or management and, for some winners, even a
production deal.
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