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There I am. Staring at my computer screen. Trying to figure out how to go back into my story and "fix it", but was there really anything wrong? Who knows? I wasn't stuck, but I was in contemplation mode. Thinking and thinking about what to do when in reality I was doing nothing at all, which was far worse. So I said, "Screw it" and kept writing. Anything I need to fix, I'll do it in the rewrite. Plot holes? I'll deal with it in the rewrite. I'm not calling this writer's block. I don't really get writer's block. It's just me getting in my own head. For me, this is a regular occurrence. I know others have similar issues with their writing. We all are our worst enemies. We doubt ourselves. We talk ourselves out of the right things to do. We stop writing because we feel lost. But we're not lost. We're figuring it out. Writing is how we do that. Keep writing. #writing #amwriting #AdamParker #writersblock

Gary Vaynerchuk is at the forefront of getting it done. And he has no problem telling others how to do it as well. He's direct. He's vulgar, which I love. And he's honest. A lot of what he says makes sense. Here's a sample idea. Do you need to audit your circle of friends? #GaryVee #GaryVaynerchuk #selfaudit

Just give the character Hobbs his own movie. #F8 #FastandFurious #Hobbs #movies

Writing is a lonely business. You can talk about story with your friends over lunch. You can watch movies with your significant other and fall in love with the dialogue. You can exchange emails with a script reader about your latest draft. You can retweet other writers on Twitter. You can like Facebook posts about how hard it is to write and commiserate with your Facebook friend. But at the end of the day, it's just you and the computer. (Or typewriter, you masochists) All your friends have gone away. Your email is quiet. Your twitter is boring. You are so alone. So, very, very alone. I feel your pain. But you don't write for your friends. You don't write for your teachers and your peers. You write for you. Soldier on. #writing #filmmaking #scriptwriting #indiefilm

Envelope-gate (I don't like it anymore than you do) was all the talk of this year's Academy Awards ceremony. By now, everyone knows the movie "Moonlight" won Best Picture, but not before losing to "La La Land" who was mistakenly announced as the winner by presenters Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty. Mistakes happen. Unfortunately, the fail-safes to quickly correct these types of errors his where this controversial ending found its roots. There are two identical envelopes on either side of the stage, because it's unclear which side some presenters will enter from. Once the presenters grab their envelope, the other one is set aside and the next award's envelope is placed on stage awaiting the next presenter. This is done by the Price Waterhouse accounting firm. Two accountants. One on each side of the stage to make sure the right envelopes are put in the right hands. On this particular night, this didn't happen. The duplicate envelope for Best Actress was left out, while the accountant in charge of handling that side of the stage was too busy taking photos backstage and posting them to Twitter. (See to the left) Never mind that the two accountants in charge are never supposed to be on the same side of the stage during the show, yet...they were. Of course, social media blew up with people reacting to the night's events. Both the Academy and Price Waterhouse issued statements. While the Academy's statement came 24-hours after the event, Price Waterhouse's was immediate. Almost right after the broadcast of the show. And to Price Waterhouse's credit, they took full responsibility for the error. They didn't make excuses. Their message was simple and honest. Mistakes were made. We're going to find out how and fix them. They even released a second statement on the Monday night as well revealing more background on the incident, showing their investigation is in progress. Now, I'm a proponent of the use of social media during work hours. Everyone works for a brand and your strongest attribute to promoting that brand is your smartphone. The accountant posting to Twitter during the ceremony is promoting the ceremony, even if he was clearly doing it for his own personal ego boost. But there is a line. No one can say for sure if the accountant posting photos to Twitter was the reason for the mishap, but it's terrible optics when people look back to find out what went wrong. While this crisis was caused by human error, the facts are that we live in a social media world and offline becomes online quick. Response to a crisis needs to be swift online. Price Waterhouse was on top of that. The Academy, not so much. While it wasn't the Academy's error, it is their show and the pinnacle of the year in movies. It's the Oscars! 24 hours is too long for the Academy to respond when an incident on the show caused this much turmoil. After the 24 hour period, the investigation was quick. they discovered all of the facts and discipline was handed out to the parties involved. And you can be sure, next's years awards show will be as by the book as it has ever been.

I was going to be an actor. Then I opted for director, but soon I realized I liked writing better. I just related to the concept of writing much more. I fell in love with dialogue. The way people spoke or didn't speak (a concept lost on many writers) always fascinated me. Still does. Through all of it, one thing remained constant. Doubt. Doubt in my abilities. Doubt in my writing. Doubt in my decision making. Doubt in everything. I still battle it. I doubt a lot of what I do in my writing and probably in my life. It's an ongoing battle that I'm sure is not one I fight alone. The only thing worse than doubt is regret. So my focus is simple. Just do the work. Find a goal and work for it. Once it's done. Find another goal and work for that. Put in the work. Don't take shortcuts. Ask for help. Do the work. Do the work. Do the f***ing work.

I had this myth built up in my head that if I was going to research a story, it involved me sitting in front of the computer scouring information about my topic. Maybe some trips to the library would be in the cards. And while it's sometimes that, research also involves a lot of sitting and staring into space. (My view below) It involves thinking about the story and working it out in my head. I'm working on a story now. Nothing written yet with the exception of notes and loose outlines. I'm doing this while I attend graduate school, write the 2nd Adam Parker story, work my day-job and a few other things so as you can imagine I've got loads of time on my hands. (I need that plot to Multiplicity right about now.) The story is set aboard a train in the Spring of 1944 and involves a lot of noir, adventure elements. Well, I hope it does. And even though I know my players, I don't know some of the plot points or action beats. This is where the sitting and staring into space phase of the research process kicks in. I used to think it was me stalling or wasting time. But now, I know. It's all research. In fact, this blog post is actually me stalling before getting to work on Adam Parker. So, if you'll excuse me... #writing #research #Multiplicity

It's difficult, at times, to predict the future of the digital world. Advancements in technology are often unpredictable and when people look forward into the future, they're seeing it through the eyes of what they know to be, rather than what will become. When social media first became the norm on-line, communities thrived on shareable content. People connected across the globe. The evolution of social media, in terms of brands and companies, has taken several steps away from this ideal. A recent assignment in my graduate class about trying to find a brand that behaved like a telephone (fostering conversations) or a megaphone (lecturing to its audience) uncovered an all-too familiar outcome. There are a lot of megaphones out there. A majority of brands are talking to their audience and not with them. While the idea of community management is gaining acceptance as a much-needed business practice, there are brands that are failing at the execution either by underestimating its importance, ignoring common social media practices or simple incompetence. Today, community managers are tasked with building a brand's audience, developing loyalty and creating influencers. The Paint Brush Today, community managers paint with a large brush. In the future, the brush will get smaller. The scope of community management will increase, bringing in a larger workforce designed to build brand loyalty, create brand influencers and strengthen the community as a whole. Social media is rife with your likes, dislikes, favorites, sites you visit the most, sites you rarely visit, etc. Everything you do is cataloged and brands know where to find it. Personas will become more precise. Brands will know that Charlie has three dogs and prefers Alpo dog food, so the Alpo brand will become fast friends with Charlie in hopes of securing a life-long brand loyalist and a brand influencer. Branded People Community management will be about people, with their own personal accounts and still associated with their brands, reaching out and building their brand's community with authentic interactions. The audience will no longer be talking with Kellogg, but rather Dan Abbot from Gary, Indiana who's favorite cereal is Frosted Flakes and loves playing pick-up basketball with his friends. Kellogg sponsors their rec-league team, even buying them all uniforms. Share their team photo for a 20% off coupon on your next Kellogg purchase. People first, but branded. Quid Pro Quo Since we'll now have personal accounts, as well as branded accounts, pushing the conversation on social media, they'll be a lot of give and take in the relationships between brands and people. A consumer, Veronica, may issue a complaint, via Twitter, on a Mattel action figure item. Once the issue is resolved by Mattel and their community managers, they may ask Veronica for a review of their work. Maybe a post on Twitter saying how Mattel helped her with the problem. She obliges. But perhaps Veronica owns her own cafe in her hometown and she'd love it if Mattel gave her a shout-out as well. Maybe someone from Mattel lives in Veronica's hometown. They can take a selfie there. Post it to the account. Hashtag it. Mattel obliges. And on and on we go. Countless examples of this will become the norm. Once personal accounts becomes mixed with branded accounts, interactions will become frequent and soon people and brands will champion each other. Good Bots; Bad Bots Bots are here. More bots are coming. It's inevitable. Brands will incorporate these bots as they see fit, but I'm an optimist. While I like the idea of bots and the ease it provides to the customer service section of social media, it still doesn't replace the human element. Community managers will have to navigate through the bot revolution to figure out when bots work for the consumer or when they alienate the consumer. At the end of the day, people want to talk with people. Yes, sometimes we don't know we're talking with bots on-line, but inevitably we find out. If Gloria received great service from Macy's on-line, but then found out it was a bot all along. Doesn't that cheapen her experience? We shall see. The four items I listed could very well not come into play at all. I could be completely wrong about all of it! That's the trouble with the future, as I stated. You just don't know. But it's also the beauty of the future. You. Just. Don't. Know. The optimist in me gets excited about that prospect. #communitymanagement #ICM526 #gradschool #socialmedia

One of the many writing traps, I seem to find myself in at times is that of believability. Often times, I'm writing a character's motivation and the voice inside of my head is going: "Really? Would he really do that?" It stalls me at times. Eventually, I can get around it by rationalizing to myself any reasons for the choices I'm making on the page. Sometimes they fail. That's what the rewrites are for. but these attacks on my writing happen at the very beginning at times, while I'm attempting to map out a story. For example, I'm working on a story that is essentially a noir-adventure aboard a train in the early 1940s. I know the key players, but I'm struggling with how and why certain actions need to take place. Am I making these decisions because I want it to happen or because my characters would make these decisions? I'm even questioning the ultimate motivation for the villain. It's all very confusing and messy and, I'm sure, not entirely rare of a problem for a writer. Just a problem I'm dealing with right now. My only defense is my rationalizing skills and the ever-present and necessary: Suspension of Disbelief. "The willingness to suspend one's critical faculties and believe the unbelievable; sacrifice of realism and logic for the sake of enjoyment." - Thank you, Dictionary.com Onward into the struggling abyss of story creation I go.

It's fantastic. I can listen to it over and over again. And the movie ain't half-bad either. Not the theatrical release. You want the director's cut. Find the director's cut and enjoy. #1941 #soundtrack #movies

Write the $cript. $hoot the movie. $ubmit movie to festivals. Attend festival$. Network at partie$. Sell the movie. Repeat. While the above is a formula to getting your story seen by others, the percentage of storytellers that have found success with that idea is significantly less now than it was 30 years ago. If you persist with that formula above, you'll be broke or your parents will be broke. The hard truth is that the indie filmmaker world is made for those with money. Those aspiring indie filmmakers who have been blessed with good fortune have the luxury of not working to make ends meet. They can afford to throw money around on projects because they have that safety net of their bank accounts. And good for them! I won't ever take that away from someone. The truth is that they simply can afford a misstep. Middle-income filmmakers often times cannot afford to make a wrong turn and throw away money. The results are career ending. If I had the opportunity to be bank-rolled by someone, I would've jumped at that chance. I can feel you shaking your heads. Are there exceptions? Absolutely. But if you're going to keep lying to yourself about the facts, then you will soon become a statistic. I'm not advocating for you to quit. Tell your story! But understand that you don't need to follow the pattern set above. You hear it all the time in marketing. Build your brand. Develop your audience. Produce content. Stop thinking of yourself as only a storyteller, only a writer, only a director, etc. You are a brand! You have an open window to the world with You Tube, Vimeo, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, etc, etc, etc. You don't have to drop money on festivals that guarantee you the world in networking contacts, but forget to tell you about the massive amounts of coin you have to spend in order to attend the festivals, get a hotel room, pay for drinks, pay for food, attend random parties in hopes of meeting the right person at the right time. (Yes, "La La Land", it's so magical when it happens.) But you don't NEED to do that! The way we tell stories is changing. Hollywood is slowly dragging its feet, because it doesn't know how to control the narrative. Stop looking to the "way it's always been done" and do it another way. A better way. A more cost-effective, smart-business way to promote the brand that is you. #brands #indiefilm #festivals #storytelling

But who is Max Flemming? Recently, my script "Max Flemming Saves the Day", a kids mystery adventure, became a quarterfinalist for Screencraft's latest Family Screenplay Contest. If you scroll down the list of scripts, to the "M" area you'll see Max. I swear! :) Max has a long way to go before winning anything, but still, it's always nice to see one of my scripts get some recognition. I wrote Max for a producer who ultimately decided to fire me and do something else. Yay! A wonderful experience. Imagine combining Indiana Jones and Encyclopedia Brown and you'll have Max Flemming. Check out a excerpt here. #MaxFlemming #script #family #writing