Long-time Writer, First-time Blogger

What a way to start this shiny New Year! After spending more than three years in "script development" (industry euphemism for: a seemingly endless stream of achingly lonely days interrupted by alternating fits of pacing, planning, nail biting, writing, recoiling, brainstorming, re-writing, self-loathing, and questioning whether your half-baked story idea will ever lead anywhere beside divorce court), here I am - making my first entry into my first blog about actually MAKING my first feature! (Thanks to Theresa-pedia for setting me up in all things blog. And thanks to Pierre Drouin for the title art.) 

For those of you who aren't members of my immediate family or circle of long-suffering friends, maybe I should quickly fill you in on how far I've already come - and how far I still have to go - on the rugged road to making a first feature film in this country...

Going from story idea to the final draft of a screenplay can be an arduous process (have I mentioned that?) and I personally would not have made it this far if it hadn't been for my producer, Barbara Shrier and the good people at Telefilm Canada, SODEC and the Harold Greenberg Fund who, at various times over the years, have funded and nurtured the project's development. Extra special mention goes to my rock-solid guy, Martin Ulrich, who's nurtured everything else.

Anyway, by the grace of all above - and by the end of this past summer - I'd pretty much arrived at a version of the screenplay that Barbara and I both felt good about. A goal we'd been working toward since early 2005! Halle-freaking-lujah! 

But now for the REALLY hard part:

How to get a script from a first-time writer/director in Montreal, Canada into the hands of superstar, Dolly Parton in Music City, USA? Not only that, but how then to convince Dolly Parton to allow us to use her name in the title, her image and music throughout the film, as well as get her to perform in the film as well?!

How, indeed...

I may not know much about blogging, but I have learned a thing or two about storytelling and right about here seems like a good place to sign off. Until next week...

Y'all come back now, ya hear?!