The Adventures of Stephen Gashler

If anyone’s following this blog, it’s now been merged with my new family website:

http://gashler.com/steve/gashlaria

Peradventure that link doesn’t work (I’m still changing things around), this might work:

http://gashler.com/gashlaria

And peradventure that doesn’t work, this might work:

http://gashlaria.org

I’ve got some splaining to do.

Two nights ago, Teresa and I performed the “Steve Versus Teresa Recital” at the home of Donna Cardon.  Lots of people were “confirmed guests” on Facebook, but of course, the actual turnout was quite different.  Though it was just a few friends and family as our audience, we still performed a great show with the help of Curtis Wiederhold.  We had everyone vote on their favorite musician, and Teresa won by two votes.  I’m happy for her.

Yesterday morning, Teresa and I auditioned for an Intermountain Healthcare commercial.  The part was for a couple with a baby, so we brought along Ariah as well.

Sam Peavler got back from Hawaii, and her friends came over to witness the opening of her mission call.  Teresa and I had gone to Kinkos to photocopy the envelope, and with some other crafty work of the family, we had Sam believing that she’d been called to the “Disney Land West Mission.”  It was funny.  In reality, she’s been called to the Lobuch, Texas mission.  That’s where Christy and Tom live.  Coincidence?

In the evening, we went to Brian Randall’s apartment to help him with a short.  Actually it was a staged proposal.  As Brian planned, I directed him and his girlfriend in a Casablanca-esque parting love scene.  The script was written with me as the author, but Brian wrote it.  He had a black back drop set up, and a makeup artist decked them out to look entirely black and white.  It was cool.  I thought they were going to look like the Munsters, but through the camera, they looked exactly as if in a black and white movie.  I don’t know why one would go to all the effort to fake black and white when it’s so easy to make a black and white movie, but the effect, at least on set, was very cool.

Anyway, the script had him giving her a flower at the end, but he actually gave her a ring box.  Unlike our rehearsals, the one shot we had at it was packed with extra emotion, real emotion, and the ending, of course, was sensational.  With lots of kissing.  Which we took as a yes.  I’m eager to see the finished product.

Tonight was Nefi’s birthday party in Centerville.  He wrote an elaborate murder mystery script for a whole lot of characters, based on similar murder mysteries I’ve written for parties.  Everyone was a Disney villain at a villains conference.  Mickey Mouse (Nefi) walked in to mock us in our inability to kill him.  He was so audacious as to raise a shot glass and drink to our disgrace.  But alas, the drink was poisoned, and he collapsed onto the table.  Because this was a delightsome outcome, rather than trying to prove our innocence, we tried to prove our guilt, sorting through the evidence as revealed to us on our character cards.  It was very fun.  After that, a lot of us played a game for what seemed like an hour in which we tried to guess what Thad Gillespie was thinking.  That’s all there was to the rules.  So it really became an exercise in randomness.  Of course, after probably a thousand guesses, none of us were any closer in guessing the mystery object.  A fun exercise is to see how many truly random things one can quickly spout off in a row.  No one could get past even four before they would start to repeat themselves in one form or another.

I, Teresa, Zach and Shannon played similar games on the drive home.  Then Teresa led us in an RPG in which Zach and I were at a theme park called Sprinkler World.  It was quite funny.

Today I made this: http://thebentsword.com.

Teaching myself the open source vector animation program Synfig. It’s pretty cool. We went to the temple and went swimming, completing my goal to exercise every day this week (except for the morning the alarm clock didn’t work). I’m really trying to cut down on self-deception, forcing myself (and my wife) to follow through with personal commitments. In other words, when I say I’m going to run tomorrow morning, I do it. No matter what. Anything else would lessen my character.

Monte came to visit. Teresa and I went to some parade of homes. It was actually quite charming. There’s a lot of mansions in Provo. It’s wonderful to see how people use their wealth for good. Miriam agreed to be my editor.

Today Teresa and I met with Rick Walton, Teresa’s professor and an accomplished children’s literature author, at BYU. He quelled a lot of our concerns about the contract. He said it was definitely one of the better contracts he’s read. Cedar Fort wouldn’t be exacting the copyright but merely the printing rights for the duration that the book is in print, and every publisher requires as much. So I just sent a brief email to Cedar Fort, outlining my lingering concerns, such as wanting foreign and movie rights, though Rick convinced me that it’s not a big deal if they turn me down. The bottom line is, I don’t have a better business plan of what I’d do with such than they do. On Enoch’s suggestion, who’s also helped me examine the contract, I asked Miriam Allred if she’d be interest in being my editor.

Tonight Teresa and I rehearsed with Curtis for the “Steve Versus Teresa Recital” next week.

Yesterday, I actually got an acceptance letter (email) from Cedar Fort Publishing. So accustomed to rejection, I had to read over the first sentence several times until the truth set in. Needless to say, I was quite ecstatic. So many years of hard work and finally a pay off. Though, Teresa and I and Enoch have since looked over the contract, and alas, it’s pretty evil. They want the entire copyright! Of course, I can’t let that happen, so I’m currently trying to find an agent who can make a good middle man and hopefully haggle the contract into something halfway decent, else I’ll just have to take my manuscript somewhere else, as much as I’m tired of waiting.

I’ve been revising my musical Bums. It’s very hard to write a musical when the computer near you is blasting Home Star Runner, the large television in the same room is blasting “America’s Most Dangerous Car Chases”, Karen Carpenter is singing extra loud from down stairs (my computer is right by the stairs), and the downstairs TV is blasting “So You Think You Can Dance”. We live in the age of relentless noise. I’m amazed that we’re not stirred to more philosophical disgust by it all. It amazes me how many awful parts about our society we take for granted. I hope I can awake myself to see our world for what it really is and somehow remove myself from it. But it’s hard to both be a philosopher and get work done at the same time.

My game’s coming along nicely. Though I’m finding it’s very hard to make a good RPG and a romantic game for couples at the same time. They’re really kind of polar opposites. But that’s the irony of it all, because all anyone really wants is romantic tension. It will be revolutionary when it’s done, whatever it is.