Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,800 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 47 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

It’s a dark tale of wolves in sheep’s clothing.  Things aren’t always what they seem. People aren’t always who they seem, so take a closer look at your next door neighbor, or even your best friend, lol.

In Sylvia’s beginning, it’s very much a versus battle of sorts, “Predator vs. Predator”, but soon enough, the pedophile realizes that he’s bit off more than he can chew, and it quickly turns to “predator becomes prey”.

I’m having a lot of fun developing the World of Sylvia, the great characters and their clashing agenda’s, Sylvia’s bizarre powers and the mechanics behind those bizarre powers.

It’s all coming together nicely.

So far:

Logline & Synopsis: DONE

Main Characters: DONE

Act Breakdown: DONE

Plot Characters: DONE

Sequence Breakdown: DONE

Supporting Characters: IN PROGRESS

After the supports are done, Scene Breakdowns are next, which I’ve amassed great pool of scenes to pull from to get things going. Then, it’ll be a matter of filling in the gaps to tell a solid and compelling story.

With it’s natural potential for some great suspense and action sequences/scenes, I’ve taken my time fleshing out the psychological aspects of Sylvia’s story. There’s a broad mix of characters all with their own goals to achieve and reasons/motivations that drive them.

As with “Things People Do”, you’ll see the dark side in some characters and you’ll also see the “why” behind their darkness, but you’ll also see how their darkness brings out the darkness in those around them, as well as the light in some others.

When the smoke clears, the story will have been like one big therapy session for most of the characters laced with cold case detectives, a secret government agency, and a dark cabin in the woods.

So far, I’m on schedule to have a first draft done by April and out to Beta’Readers in May.

Progress is good.

Share an entry from your Project Journal. How are you coming along with your progress?

In terms of basic overall development of a project, like any good process, each step has a purpose and influences the development of the next step.

When I start a project, there are a couple of folders or categories that I always set up which I feel cover most, if not all, of the elements one would need to create the World of the story.

I use: Races, Organizations, Locations, World, Items, Weapons, Vehicles, Sciences, Technology, Soundtrack.

As I develop elements for the story, I store them in the categories, and when I feel that I’m nearing the end of developing a project, I’ll scan through each category to see if there is anything that may need development that I may have overlooked. The categories are good reminders as to what needs to be created for a story.

In terms of each step influencing the development of the next, I have created a flow chart to better illustrate the flow of my process.

Basically, Character Development influences Story Development influences World Development. This is my process for both Scripts and Novels. I Just substitute Sequences for Chapters and Screenplay for Manuscript.

Obviously, I’m a big time plotter, but what is the flow of your writing process?

I’ve submitted Things People Do into two of three screenwriting competitions I’m taking a swing at before year’s end. It’s a small step, but a step nonetheless.

At least the script is out there now, in some way, and I feel like I’m doing something with the material even though it’ll be months before I hear anything that. That is IF I hear anything. I know the odds are stacked against me , but aren’t’ they always?

If nothing comes of the competitions, I plan to look towards an Indie film or Web Series. I know the painfully human characters and dirty-gritty, but relatable, story can definitely hold an audience. I’ll get it to the world one way or another. With today’s technology it’s inevitable, ha!

Below is a sample of Things People Do. The first 10 pages.

THINGS PEOPLE DO

A seemingly perfect relationship spirals into a heated love triangle forcing all three lovers to show their true colors and suffer the consequences of their actions.

In what I do for a living, I deal with a range of people, from foreigners to citizens, to personal consumers to customer employees to business owners, and I’m often…disappointed at how people let negative emotions rule them.

If someone is having a bad day, they are more than willing to show you just how bad it is  and punish YOU for it though you have nothing to do with their circumstances.

In my opinion, in most cases there are no excuses for such behavior. Reasons like: “I’m not feeling well” to “I haven’t had my coffee yet” and “My deal fell through” are ridiculous to me.

I have bad days like everybody else, but if someone has nothing to do with it, I can’t bring myself to be mean, or rude to them. They did nothing to deserve it.

A couple of things are always on my mind, one being, the spiritual consequences are not worth it. When it’s my turn to face God and answer for my actions, I’d rather not have a list of petty actions to run down especially when the only reason for my behavior is “Just cause”.

Secondly, you don’t really know how the things you say and do to people will affect them, and most times you can’t take them back. It’s selfish to expect someone to accept your ill-behavior just because you were having a bad day or whatever other reason you have.

I wonder why people are willing to dwell in negativity. The only good news they really want to hear is their own and they love to revel in the misery of others.

How perverse is it that people watch “Jerry Springer” and other shows like it, reality tv, because looking at/poking fun at/talking about someone else’s problems makes them feel better about their own.

Do they not realize that, the time they spend indulging in such things, is time lost trying to fix their own issues?

People spread rumors, gossip about each other, curse each other out, get each other fired, hurt each other’s feelings, plot each other demise all for what? I would say 95% of the time it’s for reasons that don’t matter to the BIG PICTURE.

It’s a repeating cycle. People behave negatively which in turn causes someone to have a bad day, then that person feels justified in being rude or mean to another, then that person…, etc.

Its like virus, a disease, a zombie apocalypse scenario where one person bites another and the next thing you know we’re all fighting for our lives.

If only people thought more about their actions and the reasons behind their behavior before taking action. I think they’d find that it’s not worth it in the long run.

Is being Bad easier than being Good?

If not, then explain human behavior, lol!

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m pulled to shed light on the dark side of human nature like a bacon, a warning, a reminder to ourselves that WE are our own worst enemy.

I’m never really surprised by things people are capable of doing, but I do often find myself unnerved from time to time.

The latest person to “unnerve” me is an Australian woman by the name of Katherine Knight. She is currently serving life in prison for murdering her husband.

Unfortunately, I can say that I’m not surprised at a woman murdering her husband, it’s the…other things she did to him, after he was dead, that get me.

Now, first let me say that Katherine Knight grew up in a violent home, where her father raped her mother daily and her mother would share the details of her ordeals with Katherine and her siblings. Katherine herself was sexually abused by several family members.

Katherine became violent as a child and would bully smaller children. When she got older, every relationship she was involved in was stained by violence with her as the aggressor. In one relationship where she ultimately bore two children, she tried to kill each child, and after both attempts, she was sent to mental institutions and apparently “cured”.

To further speak of the type of person Katherine was/is, she liked to fight with weapons and when she landed a job at a abattoir/slaughterhouse, she called it her dream job. She was quickly promoted to “boning” and was given her own set of butcher knives that she hung over her bed “in case she needed them”.

Katherine met and married a man named John Price, who was a father of three, but only had custody of his two older children. Like with all of Katherine’s other relationships, her marriage to Price was full of violence.

At one point, Katherine stabbed him in the chest with a knife. Price got a restraining order put out on her, but that ultimately did nothing to prevent his murder.

One day, Price went to work and told his co-workers that if he did not come to work the next day, it would be because Katherine killed him.

The next day, Price did not show up for work.

His fate was one you’d think dreamt up by a horror writer.

Katherine killed Price. She stabbed him repeatedly. Then, she skinned him, and hung his flesh on meat hooks. Next, she cut off his head.

Are you ready for the kicker?

Yes, the kicker.

Katherine cut up parts of Price’s body and cooked it in stew that she was going to serve to his children.

Thankfully, the authorities caught her before the children ate the “meal”.

While at the house, authorities found Prices head in a still-warm stew pot.

All I can say is:

Things People Do!

Check it out HERE!

I must say, it felt odd being the the other side of an interview.

In this Podcast, I interview Screenwriter Kelly Anelons. We had a lot of fun and laughed a lot as you’ll hear. Take a listen to find out about Kelly’s ongoing journey as a Screenwriter, her thoughts on the Craft, and why her sympathy goes out to the poor little creature in the first Alien film, lol.

Kelly Anelons | www.kellyanelons.com | www.twitter.com/kellyanelons 

The Bad Seed was a Novel, then a stage play, and finally brought to screen in 1956. There’s even a 1985 Remake, which does not do the original story justice at all. Anyway, The Bad Seed is about a sociopathic/psychopathic little girl named Rhoda. She is very charming, says the sweetest things, cute as a button with her wide smile and blonde pigtails. She’s as proper and prim as they come but, get in her way and you may be pushed down a flight of stairs, beaten to death, or even burned alive.

When her husband is called away on business, Rhonda’s mother soon comes to realize that her perfect little girl isn’t as sweet as she looks and acts. She is faced with a heartbreaking dilemma of protecting her child from the world or protecting the world from her child.

This is a great movie and one of my all-time favorites. I first saw it as a youngster myself, my mother had it on VHS. (VHS? What?) Even back then I was taken in by the film. It was so chilling and I loved seeing the dual personalities of little Rhoda and how she played on the naivety of the adults around her. Also, what struck me was seeing the destructive after effects of Rhoda’s handy work through the desperate and drunken pleas of a heart-broken mother whose child was found dead during a school trip.

The movie is really good with a deep storyline, I suggest it to all. Below is a clip of one of my family’s favorite scenes featuring Rhoda and Leroy, the grounds keeper/handy man. My brother and I would crack for hours at the way Leroy laughs at Rhonda while he’s teasing her. Unfortunately for Leroy, Rhoda ultimately sets sets him straight…on FIRE that is, lol. Not in this clip though he burns later on in the film, ha!.