Science Fatigue

I have mentioned my screenplay before (many, many times), and tonight I’m going to mention it again. This is what I have been working on for the last few weeks.

It’s a great experience. I’m working with a producer in LA and collaborating, which I’ve never done before. So far it has been absolutely great. Collaborations can be wonderful but they can also be a nightmare; get two conflicting personalities, or one partner who doesn’t want to work, or conflicting ideas and inflexible people, and it’s a recipe for disaster. So it is really lucky that we’ve done so well.

It’s not done, but we’re really getting close. We have another draft or two to go—polishes, really, more than major rewrites. It is getting exciting. We turned it in to two competitions for grants, leading to my current stress. (My bedroom is a disaster. I did laundry on Saturday and still it sits, unfolded, in the bag. On my floor.) I have never outright won a competition before, but I’ve gotten to be a quarterfinalist, semifinalist, and an actual finalist. Anil, my producer, has actually won grants. I am hoping some of his awards karma rubs off onto me.

Meanwhile, the book blog tour continues. It has been wonderful. I will list the links to the various reviews shortly (not tonight; tonight is going to be short) so you can see for yourself how I’ve been all over the internet. Pretty wild. And it’s all been pretty heartening. It is true that not everyone loves it, but…not everything can be loved by everyone. (I always go back to the slapping down that The Lovely Bones received by the New York Review of Books. Horrible, awful, mean review, of a book that spent about a year as #1 on the bestseller lists and redefined the way I wrote fiction.) And enough people have, in fact, loved it that I am feeling pretty good. It’s really amazing to meet people all around the country and have them say that you’ve touched their lives in a small way. This is the best part of the whole experience.

More to come. Soon.