Shoots, Truths and Finding Footing

Everyone has recovered from their colds -- including Magic the office cat. Onward to the blog!

 

There are two truths to any film shoot – no matter how small. The first is that the more hats one wears, the less time one sits. I was on my feet for five full hours to shoot two segments that will be under five minutes in length. The other truth is that filmmaking prohibits going to the bathroom. I wasn't sure if this truth would hold up on such a small shoot. After all, I had no Assistant Directors, P.A.s or caterers around to stop me from reaching the restroom with dozens of questions. There were no questions to answer, but there were dozens of things to do at any given moment. Thus, I could no longer blame not being allowed in the bathroom on a pervasive conspiracy amongst my crew. The third truth is  not a part of the filmmaking process but my own issue --  I would pay for all those physical shenanigans. I spent Friday curled up on one end of sofa in a state that I hadn't seen in over a year. No worries. I was almost back to what I consider normal by Saturday. On a side note, Robert Rodriguez may enjoy being a one man crew, but I believe that if you can pay for a full crew, get the danged crew!

Why did I go through this hair-brained scheme and endure such physical stress? There are a number of reasons that don't sound too crazy. The primary reason is that I'm learning to shoot films on my own, so that I don't have to depend on hiring anyone other that production assistants to help me shoot The Secret Cancer. I realized that if I had a cinematographer shoot footage in Los Angeles, I'd have to have the same person travel with me wherever I went. Otherwise, the footage wouldn't have the same look from city to city. I was also getting hung up on even getting started waiting for crew to be available on a consistent basis. Jon was certain that I could easily pick up what I needed to learn. All I would need to do is practice. He suggested I shoot simple things that I could control easily and that I could shoot fairly often.

At that point, I was looking for a clever way to promote my yaoi titles that didn't involve paying for ads. I was also interested in doing video responses to recipes by my favorite Youtube chefs. I could shoot cooking videos easily. I've been doing those since the fall of last year. It's been neat to have a video dialogue with some talented chefs that I admire. I've also found an innovative way of promoting some of my titles. The foods that appear in manga and anime are real Japanese dishes. Cooking and eating are often central to character relationships. Everyone who has read my work knows that food plays a big part of character interaction. It was a natural to have a food based video promotion. The first videos for Cook Like a Uke (oo-kay) featured my hands and a voice over announcer. And they aren't doing badly as far as number of views goes. I've even made some book sales from what is a very modest effort is a thrill. But yaoi readers like pretty men. There were calls for actual ukes cooking food.

I'm a filmmaker in Los Angeles which is not lacking in pretty men looking to act. I realized I could move my film school training to the next level with actors in front of the camera to light and frame properly. I could not only promote my own titles, but I could also promote manga I edited for the Digital Manga Guild. It happens that a meal cooked in gratitude moved the main relationship in the book toward romance.

As I said a blog or two ago, I did a casting breakdown and signed a four actor pool. I knew that I could probably only handle shooting one or two segments at a clip. I'm hoping to do a few shoots and get as many segments in the can that I can before I'm forced to move on to the upcoming projects. I also expect these very talented young men to move onto bigger things fairly quickly. I must make hay while the sun shines. For the first shoot, I picked a beef curry dish to promote the manga, Again Tomorrow*. The actor I chose to play Yuusei (upper left), the handsome leading man with amnesia was Donal Thoms-Cappello (below right) who is great looking and resembled the manga character. The other was the next dish I'd been planning to film anyway, Tonjiru or Pork Miso soup. The actor playing Misaki who made the dish for a tutor that would later become his lover in Junjour Romantica was Ryohie Watanabe. This actor is actually Japanese and has more than a passing familiarity making that dish. A third actor, Kevin Chambers (He's left in the apron being geeky. He's also about to eat that whole bowl of stew.), agreed to come by for a photo shoot. While here, he read the lines from the voice over announcer who is the antagonist in the videos. That was helpful for the guys on camera, and really kind to me. And I was most lucky to have make-up maven, Cat Elrod, in the house. Aside from being highly skilled at her job, she is always a delight to have on set. She even helped me do the dishes!

All in all, things went rather well. Jon did what set decorating there was before he went to work. I had weeks to clean and organize the apartment. Incidentally, this shoot finally pushed me to change the apartment from being a place where a sick person was recovering back to an apartment. I find I really like not being surrounded by pill bottles. But I digress. There was food prep for each dish, photographing ingredients and the actors, running the sound and shooting the video and selecting wardrobe. The whole five hours went by in a blur. I hope I seemed competent during the whole ordeal. I did manage to get everything on my shot lists. The sound for each segment was recorded properly. It's not all done perfectly. There will be challenges in post, but they are minor enough that I'm certain I can make the required adjustments on my own. The performances were very good. I think the yaoi readers will get what they were hoping for. The Yuusei character was flirty and really funny. The Misaki character was shy and sweet. Above all, the food was really good. Each dish was consumed immediately after I took the last shot of it plated up. What was really wonderful to hear for this amateur chef was that, for Ryohei, the food turned out like real Japanese cooking he would get at home. In this case, I had the sense to listen to him when he adjusted the recipes I was using while cooking on camera. A great chef knows when to get out of the way! I admit that I'm really jazzed that this went off well.

That said, this shoot also drove home that I can't handle running all over a really big sound stage or location for days on end during a feature. I'm going to have to be rigid about what I will be doing on these projects. But I am pleased to know that I will be able to have some role. That wasn't really clear until this past Friday. Yeah, I'm jazzed.

Now, it's back to juggling the scripts and manga and video editing and cooking. A lot of wonderful things are on the horizon.

Stay tuned.

*Again Tomorrow - Ashita Kara Mouichido © Nabako Kamo. All rights reserved. Original Japanese edition published in 2010 by Taiyoh Tosho Publishing Co., Ltd.

Blog Delayed Due to a Cat

This will be a micro-blog. Aside from the insane cooking I do for any given major holiday, Jon brought home the cold going around the office. He believes that Magic,  the black office cats is responsible. The cat was sneezing on his keyboard just before Jon caught the cold. I don't think it works that way. In any case, I've got the full blown, miserable cold symptoms and Jon to take care of. I also have some hard deadlines I have to meet. Thus, I can't wrestle with the blog this week. There's enough going on for a big, rollicking blog next week.

Stay tuned.

Weather Woes, Pioneering Trends and Finding Faces

Okay, I'm almost at the point where I end my own moratorium on making fun of LA weather folk. Today makes more than a dozen times that the forecast missed a rainstorm. There are excuses, of course, that involve head scratching terminology. These are unacceptable in the face of advertising that hysterically touts the finely tuned technical accuracy of one forecaster's instruments over another. Why is it important? It's only rain. I'm in Los Angeles where a rainstorm has the same impact on drivers as black ice does in parts of the country that have real weather issues. One has to a lot more time for all but the shortest of trips. And those trips involve walking. I've been here for nearly two decades, and the motorist vs rain dynamic still befuddles me. Get your acts together, Doppler-gangers, or feel the wrath of my derision!

Strangely, I did two blogs mid-week because I didn't want to write a huge blog last week. I was tired. But many of my readers did not click on the links to the other blogs. I thought they were clearly marked, but that doesn't seem to be the case from the notes I received. No matter. Since one of the blogs harkens back to the first one I did here, six years ago, I'll include it in this blog. The other covers my first casting session in years and my progress in learning how to be a one man crew on the documentary, so that one is in here as well.

Hold onto your hats!

  There are times when I must admit that I go beyond being crestfallen about the pace toward my career goals and drift toward being a touch homicidal. Worry not, my gentle readers are not guilty of anything that would cause such violent feelings from me. However, these people who occasionally infuriate me do inhabit my orbit and have known me for at least a decade. And it's not like I keep my various pursuits a secret. Still, I have well meaning souls coming to me with great excitement and telling me things like 'I just saw something called a book trailer. You should make those to promote your books.' I have four of them online at this moment. This is the latest one I did for the Demonspawn books. Ultimately, I didn't start yelling over this advice, because I haven't pushed the book trailers as far and wide as some of my other marketing efforts.

The latest observation and advice is all about 50 Shades of Gray and its author EL James. I've had a number of people writing me about how this author went from writing fanfiction to writing successful fiction that sprung from the fan works and have a bdsm emphasis. Perhaps, they suggested, I should be doing something like that, too? EXCUSE ME??? In my earliest blogs (SIX years ago), I talk about my creds as a romance fan  and that of a fanfiction writer in the creation of my first book. Geez! What does it take? Okay, I'll grant that I tend to write in niche markets. And perhaps I don't toot my own horn a lot. But I was in a feature film documentary (Trekkies) talking about writing bdsm fanfiction while wearing a corset !!

Okay, that blog was a long time ago. And it was very brief. Maybe I didn't make myself clear. Back in 2005, I was very much in the throes of an obsession with Legolas Greenleaf of he Lord of the Rings (LOTR) trilogy. Legolas was everything I adore in any given yaoi character – lithe but very strong and incredibly beautiful while absolutely masculine. I had seen the films almost often enough to recite them, but wanted to do more. At that time I was reading LOTR fanfiction. Most of it was awful. There was some very good stories, but they were still not satisfying. For a long time, I toyed with writing my own fanfiction. I would be entering another fan arena where I was not very well known. Those who knew me would be expecting a certain bent to my fiction – humor mixed with bdsm. I didn't really want to write that sort of thing for my Legolas inspired fiction. Beyond that, I had sold a feature film. I could no longer justify taking the time away from professional creative endeavors in favor of writing fiction for its own sake.

Thus, The Gift of Surrender was born. I created a realm called the Hanyanoor (a Finnish word for The Known Lands). On the Eastern end of that realm was a prosperous kingdom where the King was weakening with each day. He could not really function must past noon on any given day. The kingdom is at peace with its neighbors, but anyone of them could exploit the king's state to overrun it. Princess Sarianna, the sole heir to the throne is persuaded to marry to strengthen the throne. Though she agreed, Sarianna knows nothing of men and is terrified that marriage would be the end of her personal freedom and the right to have any say in the running of her own kingdom. The prospects do not look good.

Sarianna rode long and hard every day following the departure of her first suitor. She rode until her horse was exhausted. She drove the sentries mad keeping up with her. There was no help for it. Riding was the only way the Princess could blot the previous fortnight out of her memory. The thunder of the hooves and the howl of the wind kept his voice out of her head. The jarring, breathless rides made her forget the feel of his hands on her skin. The problem was that the rides ended throwing Sarianna into a spiral of anger and despair. She was a thundercloud when she was not on her horse. For days on end, the Princess said nothing that wasn’t absolutely necessary.

On the fourth day, when Sarianna stormed from the stables, she found Neuvoja waiting instead of Hanna. While she didn’t want another silent, tense bath with her chambermaid, the Princess really did not want to talk to her advisor.

“I cannot hear any words about my demeanor right now, Neuvoja,” she muttered. “Please go. We shall speak in the morning.”

“Princess, I come with news,” the advisor replied. “A messenger from Ritvala arrived with news that King Magnus is journeying here with his three sons.”

Sarianna found her legs had no strength. She sank onto the nearest chair. “Three? When will they arrive?”

“Two days hence at the most,” he replied.

The Princess sighed heavily. “Tell me of these sons of Ritvala.”

“They are accomplished warriors all and said to have their father’s fine looks and bearing,” Neuvoja replied. “The youngest one was born of the Suurimetsa.”

“The Forest People?” Sarianna asked. “I thought no one from the Hanyanoore ever had contact with them.”

“King Magnus did and took one as a hostage bride,” the advisor replied.

“I am to meet three warriors whose father has taken a bride and made her bear him a son,” Sarianna muttered.

“Ritvala would be a good alliance for Arinpera,” Neuvoja said.

“But you still think Rowsdower would have been a better one,” the Princess pointed out.

“I am sorry, Princess,” he said quietly. “I was thinking that they are close to our borders, and the Queen is an ally of your father’s. Perhaps among the three princes there could be a suitable match.”

“Please, say no more of it. I must find a way to do what is required,” she said quietly.

“All the kind words and advice cannot change the fact that I must face these… suitors… alone.”

“Princess…”

“Have their chambers been made ready?”

“Yes, Highness. All is ready for their arrival.”

“Thank you, my dear teacher. Please, send Hanna to me.”

“Princess, it breaks our hearts to see you in such a state.”

“It is the way of things. You had your trials to test your knowledge. Warriors must tax their bodies to prepare for battle,” she said. “There is little being asked of me by comparison. We can talk further in the morning. I grow weary.”

There was much more he wanted to say. Sarianna knew this. But she could not talk about what had happened to anyone. If she talked about it, she would dwell on it. If she dwelled on it, she would never be able to face those brothers.

Neuvoja relented. “Very well. Sleep well, Princess.”

“I will try.”

Meanwhile, Prince Nikulainen or Niku, is not any happier with this situation. He had thought he'd get to choose a mate for love as he was third in line for the throne at best. He and his mother were, as far as he knew, considered hostages at worst. Despite the songs sung by many travelers about Princess Sarianna's beauty, he was loathe to compete against his older brothers for the hand of a woman he'd never met. But his mother told him that things were never what they seemed between them and King Magnus, and Niku always wanted to please his father. Still, he never expected his life to be upended in one instant.

“Highness, help me close the stable! We are under attack!” He shouted.

Sarianna quickly closed the heavy wooden window shutters as Minos closed the great main doors to the stables. Sentries arrived as they finished. The Princess knew they were startled and upset to find her so far from the main building. It could have been far worse. She could have been out riding.

“Don’t try to get me back,” Sarianna called out to them. “There is too much open area. As far as strangers know, I am a stable girl. Go!”

The men took positions nearby to defend the back entrance and the King’s horses. Sarianna didn’t expect an attack there. It was nearly inaccessible to those who were not very familiar with the roads. And the terrain was such that no heavy weaponry could get through. Still, Minos picked up a short sword and gave Sarianna a large hunting knife. They anxiously looked though narrow slats in the door toward the main gate straining to hear what was happening.

The noise was not coming from that far gate. The walls near the back entrance were being scaled. Whizzing arrows viciously struck down the sentries on those walls. The battle was engaged before anyone from that gate could sound an alarm.

“This is madness,” Sarianna hissed. “Who would attack in such a manner?”

“Assassins,” Minos replied with quiet certainty. “I feel it in these old bones. They know you are here or would be nearby.”

“What are we to do? No one has sounded the alarm from this gate!”

“This building will hold. If they try to burn it, help will arrive,” he said.

The Princess looked at him balefully. “Burn?”

“Worry not, Princess. I do not think it will come to that,” he said.

Suddenly, black-clad men with bows and swords dropped down from the wall where the Sentries had fallen. There were ten of them with more on the wall. The guards near the stables were soon overwhelmed with fighting them, leaving the Princess completely vulnerable.

Just as suddenly, the assassins on the wall were falling with arrows in their chests. Sarianna saw a flash of someone running along the wall shooting arrows with incredible speed. Swift footsteps were heard crossing the stable roof. Then, the figure was in the middle of the battle in front of them with a sword drawn. He was very tall with long, pale golden hair. That was all she could see, for he moved so quickly dispatching the assassins two at a time. Her own guards had fallen, but were not dead. This stranger kept killing blows from them. He took up the horn of alarm and sounded it when his last combatant had fallen.

“He is here to help!” Sarianna exclaimed, moving to the door.

“Nay, Princess,” Minos whispered urgently. “It may be a ruse.”

“He has sounded the alarm. I shall meet him before others arrive,” she stated. Minos opened the door, but kept his sword and stood close to her.

Sarianna stepped out of the stable as the young man turned toward the movement. In the light of the sunset, he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. He had a tall, lithe body, but he was muscled where Rowsdower had been soft. He had large, expressive dark eyes, fine high cheekbones, a firm jaw and a well-formed mouth. He was masculine indeed, despite the long, thick fall of pale gold hair. Yet, he was very beautiful. The man gazed at her for a long moment, and then he sank gracefully onto one knee.

“I am your servant, Princess,” he said in a quiet, rich voice.

“She is my stable girl. The Princess is not here!” Minos exclaimed.

“Do not fear me, milady,” he said softly.

Sarianna found she did not. “What is your name, sir?”

“I am Nikulainen, son of King Magnus and Lady Reija of Ritvala,” he replied.

She found she liked listening to him. She found it would be hard not to look at him. Her breathing became more difficult. Her cheeks colored, but her gaze never wavered. “I am Princess Sarianna, and I owe you a great debt.”

He smiled then, and her breath quietly caught.

“Nay, Princess. ‘Tis my honor to serve.”

Don't worry, these aren't big spoilers in this epic romance. There are intrigues upon intrigues and betrayals that are painfully close to the couple. And of course there is humor. The book is far from a comedy, but it clearly has a sense of humor. And, of course, there is a twist to the romance. Though Sarianna falls in love with Niku in an instant, she fears his physical power and that of his father. He eases those fears by surrendering his physical power to her. Thus, I still get my D/s twist in there. You'll just have to read the book to see how.

Meanwhile, there is a very tasty excerpt HERE. Warning! Explicit Erotic Content!

The Gift of Surrender is available on all Ebook formats at Smashwords.com HERE .

For Paperback or Kindle, go to Amazon.com HERE.

Casting Sessions

I've been very pleased with the support I've received for Cook Like a Uke. One of the few criticisms – aside from the criticisms based on foreign Japan-o-files thinking that yaoi is something that the Japanese found offensive – is that there aren't actual Ukes cooking the food. I gave that some thought, and realized that this was a fair criticism. And there were things I could do about it. I am a filmmaker, after all. And I live in the land of hot actor boys. Thus, I've decided to use the itsy-bitsy marketing budget I have for the yaoi titles to do some shoots with actors cooking like a uke.And I had a logo done for some new aprons!

I had a casting call last week. It's the first one I've had in a number of years, and I worried that the low budget would limit the choices for the parts. I needed actors who were hot, had a presence on camera AND had credible cooking skills who were willing to work on such a modest budget. I was not very hopeful. Thus, I was very pleasantly surprised when I found four such actors to fill the roles of the various kinds of ukes. At lest, they looked good in their photos and had some very nice reels. But there is more to casting this sort of part than those basic requirements. I had to meet with them to see if they actually looked as good in person (I've been unpleasantly surprised during casting sessions when actors turned out to be a lot older than the photos and reels they post or they've had a few years of hard, hard living since their last head shot and reel was shot). Then, I had to find out if they were truly credible in the kitchen. There are many stories from beleaguered directors about actors who claim they can roller blade or ride a motorcycle only to end up in the hospital and markedly set back en entire film or TV shoot. I didn't want to have an actor or me in the ER from a knife wound, nor did I want my kitchen or me set on fire.

The last thing I had could only gauge in a a face to face meeting is how comfortable the actors would be with the subject matter. That meant, explaining what yaoi is and why it has a rabid, mostly female audience. I basically gave them the history I wrote in a blog last November, Kitchen Supplies, Bromances and Other PicturePostcards. Just scroll down the middle of the blog for the Bromance part. Later, I sent links to episodes to Junjou Romantica and Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi that relate to cooking food.It was funny explaining all of this if the passers by were any indication. Ah well, it wasn't the weirdest casting meeting I've ever had.

The four actors chosen fit the requirements for the roles, and they embraced the spirit of the webseries. I have four different types of guys who will cover some of the various types of ukes, or, in some cases, the very serious, buttoned down Semes who are cooking for ukes. The plan is to make dishes from yaoi anime and manga (this includes a dish from Nabako Kamo's Again Tomorrow that I worked on with a team of localizers for the Digital Manga Guild). The first shoot is scheduled for April 2^nd. I'll post behind the scenes photos of the shoot that day. The first video from that shoot are slated to be posted on April 6^th. The actors who will appear during the run of the series are:

Ryohei Watanabe

Ryohei Watanabe, a Japanese actor/dancer/director who has been in the US for five years. He is an avid cook who has his own recipes for many of the dishes on the schedule. You can find out more about him at ryoheiwatanabe.com.

Kyle  Valle

Kyle Valle, an actor who is also an avid anime fan and foodie who is a talented, self taught cook.

Donal Thoms-Cappello

Donal Thoms-Cappello, an actor/comedian who is a trained cook.

Edward Swingler

Edward Swingler, and actor/dancer/cinematographer who loves to cook.










As you can see, they are very easy on the eyes. I can't wait to see what they will bring to this fun and irreverent little series.

 

The shoot was delayed since I wrote until after Easter. I have all sorts of meetings that cropped up for that day.

Stay tuned!

Mid -week Senanigans, Casting Cuties and Chasing Elves

As promised, Here is the mid-week blog about my other shenanigans. I'm going to lob you at my other blog sites. As I've said earlier, I have to keep my branding in mind when I do these blogs. This fuels the search engine traffic which really does fuel the old book sales.

On the Romantica at Sypress site, you'll find quite a rant about how taxing it is to be told that I should be following current trends that I have been following already for a number of years. That leads into how I came to write my first romance and start this very blog. It's a rabid but insightful rant. I've re-released the book on smashwords. For those who've never read it (naughty, naughty), there is a full explanation of how it came to spring from an obsession over Legolas from Lord of the Rings. There is also some naughty, naughty excerpts to spur you to buy the book! That link is HERE. While you visit, take a moment or two or thirty to read the fabulous and fun blogs of Marguerite Lliteras and sample her fun and naughty book The Intern.

On the Yaoi at Sypress site, I chronicle how my simple little cooking videos to promote the yaoi books, Cook Like a Uke  have involved into an actual shoot with some very, very cute actors. I mean, they are adorable. Of course, there is a tale to tell about the casting session and how amusing that all was. I had to put on my producer suit and actually wear make-up for the meetings with these guys. And, while I was out, I ran into Gary Dourdan from CSI while awaiting my first actor. I was at the preferred place for go-see meetings, a coffee shop in Marina del Rey. Ladies (and some guys), he really is that cute in person.  and he winked at me! I had the presence of mind to not respond with a girly teehee. You'll have to read the rest on the sybpressyaoi site HERE.

New Fangled vs Old Fashioned and a Tired Brain

This is a short one due to brain overload. I'll be putting out mini blogs during the week with more information.

I really do appreciate advances in technology, despite ample evidence to the contrary. I still write my fiction in longhand. Heck, I write actual letters to people. However, I cannot imagine writing fiction or scripts on a typewriter. I don't like thinking about using a typewriter or a business letter. Between services like Skype and shared file interfaces have allowed me to work with people in Japan on manga and short stories. And I completely get why the most rudimentary cell phone is valuable in keeping safe in a deserted area. One doesn't need to leave the car to seek out the lone pay phone on a desolate street to call for help. One just needs to keep that battery charged. And I completely get that the social networks are a must for both established and independent artists to build and audience and hawk their wares. Digital Manga expects their localizing teams to keep a blog and a twitter account to generate buzz for their titles.

But I'm still the same person who avoids having a walkie talkie on film set. My cell phone is barely smart at all. I only upgraded from one that only made phone calls, because of the trip to San Francisco. Airlines update by e-mail or an app, and I could use social networks to send one message to many people that we arrived safely. A reasonably smart phone is also handy in medical situations for getting word out or requesting help from a bunch of folks at a clip. My attitude has changed enough that I no longer call people who text me to yell at them. I can't believe how much info I can carry on a phone to transmit to others for work. I got the smarter phone reluctantly and use it sparingly. My Twitter account happened as an accident of sorts. When I signed my blog up for some kind of cross promotion, the process also set up a Twitter account. I wasn't going to use it at all until I discovered that my favorite chefs hung out there, and they were willing to answer questions from fans and retweet their efforts to their followers. I later found it to be valuable in driving my book sales.

But this week, I have to confess that all this accessibility grew trying. There are currently four ways to engage me in a direct dialog online and two ways to communicate with me by phone. A couple of times in the past week, I swear that all five ways of reaching me were on fire. It always seemed to happen when I was trying to solve a nettlesome problem with editing. Two days this week, the multi-tasking began at 10 am and I was still at it in some fashion when Jon was walking in the door at 6pm! I hadn't even made dinner. It's difficult to cut off the online access, because I need it to do the editing. There have been long days when I've spent hours going back and forth with our manga typesetter. Was my brain ever tired by the end of those days. I could do nothing in the evening beyond staring at the TV. I don't even think I could engage enough to watch a program. I don't know how these young-ungs handle all that hardware and all those conversations at once. I'm not sure that I'll ever get used to it. As for electronic tablets, I have no use for one yet. I can see highly useful applications on a set, but not right now. I can't justify the expense. While I have embraced some of the high tech of this century and continue to be amazed by what it can accomplish, I'm not a complete techie yet. I don't know if I ever will be. I will always like hand writing stories (and letters). I will always love reading an actual book.

Though I was terribly busy this week, I was mostly housebound. I didn't do my usual walking every day. I seemed to have injured my back at some point and needed the rest. I couldn't even cook the way I usually do. It was frustrating, and no doubt lessened my patience with the various difficulties I had this past week. I was out on Saturday and walked almost five miles. I plan to slowly get back on track. The really vexing thing is that I don't know exactly how I hurt my back in the first place. Still, I cleared a bunch of stuff off my plate writing-wise. I'll soon be able to focus on some really big projects that I need and very much want to focus on.

Updates

There is a lot going on with my titles and on the web series front. I did a casting session for the first time in years. It was a lot of fun. I'll put out a couple of blogs about the goings on tomorrow. I have a pot roast to attend to, and my brain is still a little tired from all that multi-tasking.

Stay tuned.

Banned in Boston (and elswhere), Slanguage and Updates

 A book of mine was banned this week. It was only banned for 24 hours, but it was banned in Boston and everywhere else Amazon.com services. It was a sudden kerfuffle with Digital Manga Publishing over explicit content that was quickly resolved after a whole lot of hell was raised from all quarters of the manga community. This comes on the heels of Paypal demanding that certain erotic content be pulled from Smashwords.com. This, too, was reversed when the policy ignited a fire storm of protest. I am not a fan of rape, incest or bestiality as content. However, the wording of the policy would have affected classic literature like Lolita or any shape shifting fantasy that involved werewolves. It was also loudly pointed out that Paypal had no problems accepting money from Craigslist and other sites that sell porn and facilitate prostitution. Likewise, Amazon is in a glass house where content is concerned selling everything to 'inflatable friends' to toys that even I've never heard of before. I'm not going to link them here. Just search the site for any sort of kink, and there is a book, DVD and/or product that caters to it. I always thought I'd be banned or stoned by Trek fans because of The Secret Logs of Mistress Janeway, not for a sweetly sexy and funny collection like Again Tomorrow [Now available on Amazon Kindle at  http://amzn.com/B007FN03L6;
On Barnes and Noble Nook at:  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/again-tomorrow-nabako-kamo/1109212837 and And On EManga at: http://www.emanga.com/books/Again_Tomorrow]  that was legally published in another country and properly licensed here. I'm glad that the issue is resolved for DMP. I'm really glad that I didn't have to battle to keep my books widely distributed. It would be hard for Sylvia Beach to champion banned authors in an era where one or two companies control so much of either online payment processing or actual content distribution.

Manga Editing – What DO You Do?

The book banning brings up the question of what does this company do and what do I do for it. I know my gentle and curious readers. Digital Manga Publishing is a US distributor of manga, light novels and soon literature from Japan. The Digital Manga Guild is a group of translators, editors and typesetters who work in teams called localizer to convert Japanese title into English. My team consists of LW Hubbard, an ex-pat professional translator who lives in Japan, Hentai Tenshi, an independent music producer who lives in the LA area and little ol' me. Our team works under the name Haven's Blade. I thought that we would be working largely independently of each other save for proofing the final pages. It has been far more collaborative, and it calls on skills and knowledge that are far beyond the manga stories on the pages. There needs to be a broad knowledge of past and current Japanese culture and pop culture. We've had instances where we've had to figure out what to call a product mentioned that is a parody of a wildly popular snack food in Japan. In the last week, we've come across popular TV shows and a catching hit song that had to be factored into the translations. Then we had to figure out what would be a stateside equivalent for those things while not making them too American. The author or mangaka http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangaka has to recognize the work. That was why I was listening to the RubberDucky Song earlier this week. What's been more challenging is making the dialogue sound natural and realistic when the characters are 20-something guys. Though the audience is certainly not 20-something guys, the characters have to sound as real as their Japanese counterparts. Since none of us are members of this demographic, that takes a bit of effort and all three of our brains. Among this weeks puzzlers was whether or not young punks would use the term German aphrodisiac and what could be used in its place. I couldn't find any reason for the substance coming from Germany, and I really looked hard. 

The other thing we had to be really careful of was trying to be too current with the slang. The readership has a really wide range in age, and dialog that is too set in a particular time gets dated and looks sill in just a few years. The slang has to be something that has passed into the general lexicon of speech. My rule of thumb is whether or not the Hubs uses the slang. He is so square, he's a cube (that's his description of himself). If he uses it, the term has been around for some time and is likely to stay in use. Overall, the team is aiming at a loose, informal way for the characters to speak that reads as natural to anyone that may pick up the book. I'll talk about the joys of sound FX translation and proof reading on another day. This is just a taste to show that our work is challenging but above board despite the occasional banning. It's also cool to work with some really interesting people that I wouldn't have known otherwise. We all enjoy sharing creative energy and solving each new and often amusing puzzle.

Updates

I do apologize for being such a tease about what's going on in the background. I don't mean to be. I'm torn between wanting to convey a reason for my very upbeat demeanor and just keeping mum until I can spill the beans. I can say that the schedule for these projects is holding firm, so that they day for announcements is coming as promised. Also, I have been taking notes, so I will have detailed blogs about every aspect of the mayhem that is coming.

Stay tuned.

Waiting Game and Simple Pleasures

It was approximately two years ago that I spent nearly 21 hours tangling with the ER at LA County USC Hospital or, as it is really known, General Hospital. I still recall that grueling day and night and day again. I still really hate anything airing on the CW network. I still lament not having THS TV. It's a free premium channel that shows some epically bad action films from the 70s. The film that Craig is ranting about over the phone on any given day typically is airing on that channel. Alas, it is on every cable and satellite provider but mine. Most of all, I remain amazed at how many people that facility treats on any given day and how good that care can be. In my case, it was excellent. The only problem is one that is unavoidable. There is a lot of waiting involved in being seen at General Hospital. To quote the always profanely elegant Nadia G of the Cooking channel's Bitchin' Kitchen, 'when you're a broke-ass, you wait in a lot of lines.' Now, I must amend that a little. The wait times at the ER are considerably shorter than that 21 hours. After my visit, there was a big news expose about that. The county cracked down and the time got way shorter on average. My last trip to that ER ha me in and out in four hours! Thankfully, I haven't had to visit an ER in well over a year.

Waiting Game

This week, I had a two part wait. The first part was at the oncology clinic. Then, I had to wait around an hour and a half before going to wait at the primary care clinic. In between the clinics, I had to climb up then down then up these stairs to the left. There is another set of stairs beyond those to reach the building where my clinics are. It was a grueling experience to put it mildly. The Popeye's Fried Chicken  helped a little – but not very much. The time that I have waiting in the clinic or inching along the 10 west freeway to and from the hospital has been an opportunity to read. I don't think I've read this many books since Grad School. I've read most of Anthony Bourdain's bibliography, including his delightful fiction and an amazing book on Typhoid Mary. I've read all sorts of food fiction and non-fiction. I've also read enough literature, literary history and lit criticism to teach a course (though I really don't want to). I've tried to study Japanese, but that requires a book, a notebook and far too much room than I have on the express bus or the clinic waiting room. Reading is also less stressful while I'm waiting.

Simple Pleasures

The current book I'm obsessed with is The Table Comes First by Adam Gopnik. It is a history of the restaurant and the cookbook as well as the history of the kitchen table primarily in French culture. This all sounds like the height of food nerdom, but Gopnik's gift as a writer is to make any topic very personal and accessible. His writing is always amusing and engaging. He wrote one of my favorite books ever, Paris to the Moon. It was a touching memoir about how he came to be a columnist in France and what his life was like there. But it was about so much more than that as this book is about so much more than food. Though Gopnik proclaims that this book is not a cookbook, his incredibly sensual descriptions of preparing and eating food have caused me to make a couple of the meals he detailed. One description involves a revolution in the way I make scrambled eggs. Yes, scrambled eggs. Gopnik is correct when he says that simple cooking is never really simple. He has made me look at myself as a cook in a new way that's rather exciting. Beyond that, I'm enthralled with his wonderfully elegant way of connecting with the reader. It made the waiting almost joyful! Of course, I recommend it and Paris to the Moon as highly as possible.

Fits and Starts

This week was a throwback to earlier days in my illness. I'm not ill, mid you. But my physical challenges were more pronounced last week. I can say that the acupuncture is having a positive impact on the pain. And I am getting more and more miles in with each walk. The throwback was the fatigue. I went from being able to write or edit until right before going to sleep near midnight to being unable to focus on anything but rudimentary TV shows after dinner around six pm. There were a couple of days when I didn't do anything at all. I think I'd having a period of adjustment to new meds. Strangely, I did manage to accomplish many things on my list. The editing proceeded in a timely fashion. I uploaded corrected versions of two titles. And I uploaded a new video in my Yaoi cooking webseries, Cook Like a Uke. Any one interested in learning about an almost basic Japanese breakfast (almost because I substituted sausage patties cut into cute shapes for natto beans and grilled horse mackerel. The reasons for this and for the technical glitches make for a comedic blog. You can find that and a link to the video HERE.

Updates

I cover all that I'm allowed to publicly talk about in the paragraph above. More news is hopefully coming soon as I am bursting with surprises.

Stay tuned.

Plans, Pin Cushions, Publishing and Updates

I'm not sure where last week went. It got gobbled up though I can't seem to remember how. It was all a blur. There was a lot that I wanted to get done as I recall. Only some of it was accomplished. My reach exceeded my grasp on a few of those goals. Trying to edit and post three videos in a weeks was not realistic, especially when I had to do re-shoots on one of them. I've been doing cooking videos as exercises to learn how to light a set, shoot, edit and do minor post production FX. Now, an exercise is sort of boring to produce and even more boring to watch. I had to make it interesting for me to make. And to attract views, I tied it to an aspect of anime I found interesting – food. The food that appears in anime and manga are accurate depictions of Japanese dishes. Since my characters are food obsessed, I decided to do videos themed around dishes that appear either in my favorite anime or are cooked by my characters. You can check out the videos on DraggonTV's youtubechannel.

Middling to Poorly Laid Plans

Last week, I was to post my long overdue video on the perfect breakfast to the typical crazy male leads I follow or write. However, I also wanted to do a video response to one that Ochikeron, one of my favorite youtube chefs, put up just before the Super Bowl. She did Kara Age fried chicken, a nugget style chicken that is marinated in garlic, ginger, soy sauce and sake before deep frying. I have an oven fired Buffalo chicken that I liked to make for the Super Bowl and other occasions. I figured that my recipe would taste even better by first marinating it in soy sauce, sake, ginger and garlic. So I did a video of my KaraAge Buffalo Wings. Of course, it took longer than I planed, and involved re-shooting that I hadn't planned. By the end of the week, I had no energy to finish the video I had originally planned to upload. Hopefully, I'll get that done tomorrow.

The other monkey wrench in my plans was a complication in editing the current manga I'm working on. Bousou Kareshi or Wild Boyfriend is jammed packed with action. The panels on the pages are jam packed with dialog bubbles, caption boxes, FX sounds and character asides. On top of translating the Japanese and smoothing out the translation in editing, we had to figure out how to label every element so the letterer knows where to put everything. All three of us had to re-do the first 50 pages on the script while moving forward with new pages. That really through my schedule off as far as creative output, because the work was so slow going. We managed to develop and efficient by the end of the week. I'm all caught up on that. I'm way behind on everything else. The delay was worth the trouble, I believe. I learned a lot in going over those pages. For those waiting for book related corrections, I'll get to those this week, for sure!

Pins and Needles

Now that I have been declared cancer free in the latest round of tests [YAY!!!], it was time to really address the body I have post treatment. The yoga and walking have kept me mobile, but it didn't help with the pain caused by the damage chemo left me with. Every manner of medication comes with side effects that are way scarier than the pain. I decided to try acupuncture. A friend of mine had starting having treatments to manage her arthritis pain. There is a very reasonably priced and highly praised clinic nearby, so I thought I would give it a shot. I don't think I've ever met a group of mellower or softly spoken people. It was fascinating. The first treatment only involved my knees and some points to help me relax and sleep. I have to say that my knees to feel markedly better, and I have been sleeping a full eight hours a night since the treatment. I haven't slept like that in well over a year. I can't wait to see what happens when they treat my chronically painful back. I'm far more optimistic about the new normal of my body than I was even a few weeks ago.

Updates

The countdown continues to the launch of our projects and leeway to talk about them. So far, the dates are holding firm. We haven't gotten carried away with excitement yet, but I must confess to making all sorts of preliminary lists for when I do. Meanwhile, the fancy dancing of adaptation continues. We've had a few missteps which is to be expected, but the work continues at a reasonably good pace. There is also a pitch in the works of a project that is closest to our hearts. That is coming up in a week or two. Good thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

I'm a Published Editor!

As reported in recent blogs, I've been working for the Digital Manga Guild as an editor. Well, here is the first tile I've edited. It's called Again Tomorrow. Here's the synopsis [Warning!! This is some serious yaoi]:

Shunya’s office is buzzing with wild rumors. Vice President Yuusei Saotome, son of the President and heir to the company, is missing! Most believe he ran off to escape an arranged marriage that would benefit his father’s company. Only Shunya knows that the VP has amnesia and is staying with him in his apartment. The Yuu that Shunya knows is not the coldly handsome VP who barely noticed his underlings. This Yuu is easygoing and likes to cook for Shunya. Yuu even seems to want Shunya in his arms as much as Shunya wants to be there. For a while, Shunya lives in a dream with Yuu. But doubts nag at his conscience. What if Yuu has another love who is searching for him? What will happen when his memory returns? Would Shunya be forgotten or hated by Yuu?
Translated by Vincent Ho; Edited by D.L. Warner; Lettered by Hentai Tenshi

You can buy it on Amazon Kindle at  http://amzn.com/B007FN03L6
On Barnes and Noble Nook at:  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/again-tomorrow-nabako-kamo/1109212837
And On EManga at: http://www.emanga.com/books/Again_Tomorrow


Read my spoiler free blog about it! Go to:  http://www.sybpressyaoi.com/2012/02/secret-side-of-seme.html

For all the rest, stay tuned!

Lent and Craig, Souffles and Updates

Craig turned a hose on JJ Abrams  recently. Apparently, the man walked across Craig's yard en route to a writer who lives in the same building. Craig gave him a hard stare in response to the startled sound Abrams made. It could be that Craig has grown tired of finding either A-listers or large Macaw parrots in his yard. We never did find out why Jack Nicholson was in there. Craig had been in too much of a hurry to hose him at the time. He always regretted that. When I asked why he hosed Abrams, Craig said it was in part for wasting Karl Urban in Star Trek but mostly for Super 8. Strangely, that wasn't why he called on Wednesday. He was making sure I was properly ashed for the holy day. Despite his carefully constructed persona of a remorseless heathen, Craig is fairly religious. He was not very impressed with my pledge for Lent. I go meatless on Fridays and sometimes more days a week. I responded that he has no idea how much I like bacon. This is a hardship. I almost blew the pledge on Ash Wednesday because I was on automatic pilot making breakfast. I managed not to blow it. And since it was also National Margarita Day (who decides these things?), a good time was had by all.

Meatless Dilemmas

I do a lot of prep for my meatless days during Lent. I soak and cook all different kinds of beans. I make mushroom and vegetable stocks for soups. I've become really picky about soups. I really prefer a homemade stock. It's the snacks that make meat free days difficult. Sandwiches are just too easy. Especially the Jambon et fromage on a baguette (ham and cheese). I can make a tray of mini sandwiches That will tide Jon and I over until dinner. I have to think to remember to replace the filling with fig jam and soft cheese. I try hard to make dishes that Jon and I both would eat. And he doesn't eat a particular dish, I try to find ways of making it so that it could be frozen for later. I really enjoy savory souffles, but my hubs does not. Most recipes call for servings of four or more. I had a recipe for chocolate souffles that c45+0an be frozen and baked later, but I had had no luck finding a cheese souffle recipe that could be done ,the same way. Then, one day I was up at 4am watching Sara's Secrets on the Cooking Channel. She made a twice baked goat cheese souffle. I figured that if it could be baked twice, maybe it could be frozen in between. I even wrote Ms. Moulton to ask her. She told me to try and let her know how it worked. It worked beautifully! And she praised me for the discovery, to boot! Jon is convinced that I will write a cookbook someday. He's also certain that I will be making him bento box lunches at some point. Both are probably true.

Juggling Genres

So far, I'm successfully switching my brain back and fourth between scripts and manga and business proposals. I even have a schedule for when I work on what to keep things moving forward in some fashion and have time for cooking and other shiny objects that get my attention like Mannix turning up on Murder She Wrote. That's been distracting me for at least twenty minutes. At any rate, I find I need significant breaks between projects to shift fully from one into the other. My brain gets really tired when I try to take on too much too quickly. On fun benefit about editing manga that I didn't expect was the impact on my learning Japanese. My team was trying to figure out what a sound effect was. It was written in thin, tiny characters. I wrote them out to figure out what it was. Then, I realized it was the name of the leading man. Jon read it and confirmed. “When did you start writing in Japanese,” he asked. I replied, “Just now!” I had been practicing the characters of one form of writing, but had yet to really write words. It's very exciting.

Updates

There still isn't anything that I can discuss freely. As far as I know, it should be only a few more weeks of secrecy.

Stay tuned.

Brevity, Fancy Dancing and Updates

This has been a strange and really challenging week creatively. I'm really weary mentally, and there is still a lot to do. I think there will be a lot to do for quite some time to come. This is in no way a complaint. The work is exciting and fun for the most part. Even the not fun parts of the past week's work will lead to something really exciting. It was just that every task was daunting in some way. I was slowed down by the constraints that came with every task. I was also dealing with a difficulty physically that I have not seen in quite some time. It's not anything to worry about. The legacy of chemo can be a new 'normal' life that comes with occasional obstacles. This was such a week. I'm hoping to make up for the sleep I lost coping with those difficulties. But that's no fun to blog about. Let's begin with the challenges.

Distillation

I have found that authors and screenwriters who ask me for advice generally have a hard time distilling their work down to a short synopsis. The best high concept pitch ever, according to Hollywood lore, was for the ill-fated Cop Rock. It was just two words – MTV Cops. Brevity is an asset in both industries. Yes, I believe that this is true for any sort of publishing. With all the diversions vying for the attention of readers, it behooves a writer to distill their work down to a tantalizing concept that can be tweeted easily (140 characters – not words – or less). This skill is useful not just because producers and publishers have short attention spans. I have found that if a writer cannot distill their story down to it's simplest explanation, they usually don't have a good handle on the plot. One of the reasons Sybaritic Press remains largely dormant toward outside submissions is that I don't have the patience to read rambling query letters and equally rambling novels.

I learned to distill plots when I was a film and TV critic in college. And I've had a lot of practice over the years writing script pitches or blurbs for books. Still, the constraints placed on me for writing pieces over the past two weeks has made the tasks much more daunting than usual. For example, I had to turn my complicated romantic comedy into a two sentence summary that explains the film completely has some 'zing' in it. Zing, he says. Next, I had to do short bios on all the partners involved. Let see, how do I take decades of work experience in divergent fields and explain how that experience applies to a film project in a convincing and very brief paragraph. That was for our partners. For Jon and I, it was a matter of morphing our bizarre work histories into short paragraphs that showed we were an asset to the production. That was a long afternoon. Speaking of constraints, I had to write a cover blurb for the manga I've been editing. For that I had to describe the plots in the book in an enticing manner without giving even the tiniest whiff of a spoiler to avid fans. Avid fan geeks have hyper sensitive thresholds when it comes to spoilers. I spent a whole lot of time writing and re-writing that as well. All of that effort yielded less than two pages of actual text.

Blog Monsters

Goodness knows I enjoy writing this blog. It has kept me connected to friends and family during difficult times, and it has spread my writing and general quirkiness all over the internet. I started this blog to promote my writing. It soon drifted to my crazy life in LA and to observations on pop culture. And I was happy with that. However, to successfully market books and build a brand, I needed something much more specific that could be easily found on a search engine. Thus, Yaoi at Sybpress  and Romantica at Sybpress were created to talk about and promote yaoi and romantic erotica respectively. So, this means writing separate blogs for these sites with some regularity. Fine. The new books have been selling rather well, and these sites are visited quite often by my readers and by new readers. Then, I realize that Digital Manga, the company for which I edit manga, wants its guild teams to promote their books among their fellow fans via twitter and blogs. I had no problem with that. I figured it would draw more readers to the yaoi blog. Then, I find out that the company would prefer the teams have blogs and twitter accounts under the name of the guild team and tagged in such a way that a search for Digital Manga would bring it up.. That's completely understandable and absolutely reasonable. Setting up these social media accounts is relatively easy when there is a team working at work. The difficulty came with actually writing the first blog for the manga, Again Tomorrow. I had to entice and titillate without revealing plot twists or or character spoilers. I had to be conversational but mindful that I am representing a company. And I had to not promote my own work. I have never been so nervous and tentative about a blog before. For those interested, the result is HERE. 

Geez, I just realized I'm blogging about blogging. Time to move on.

Fancy Dancing

On occasion, Jon and I have helped other filmmakers shape a pitch and a business plan for investors. I've even been paid to do budgets and schedules for film business plans. These are really easy, because they don't involve re-writing the script. The one time we were given a script to re-write, we were told to strip to the idea and start over. That script came out reading like a Deb and Jon script. Recently, we took on adapting a story into a pitch from TV. The story was not written for the camera. It was created for another form of media. Yes, I know this is terribly vague, but it is as specific as I can be. The creator has decades long experience and a large, avid following. The fans for this particular title numbers in the hundreds of thousands, and they are passionate about it. This adaptation is a daunting challenge. We've gone through weeks of pouring over the original works and asking questions of the author. The idea is to make the new material fit into the original seamlessly. I've had the treatment for the pilot a week, but have only written a a handful of lines. It's an intimidating proposition, dancing in someone else's shoes. But with the editing of the first manga out of the way, I can really focus on writing the additional material. At least, that's my plan for the upcoming week.

Updates

I've been giving them during this whole blog. Haven't you noticed?

Stay tuned.