Here comes a New Year with 750 words

Today is New Years Eve! Yay!
The only good thing about the last year is that I moved to Los Angeles, California. Everything else sucked. I now have a couple of friends, if odd friends, but then again, what good are friends if they aren't odd. I'm currently living somewhere free of charge and fighting a winning battle against roaches. Christmas sucked a bit because I was alone, but I dealt with it by reading A Christmas Carol and watching A Muppet Christmas Carol. Yes, I am geeky when it comes to Christmas literature.

Yesterday, I finished the revision of my 2010 Screnzy and I will be allowing people to read it as soon as I can print it out. I'd feel bad about using my friend's printer because it'll be about five hundred fifty pages for all the people I want to read it. That's a little over a ream of paper. Not to even start on how much it is of ink (eek).

Since, I have that done I now get to reread my National Novel Writing Month Novel from this past November. The most difficult part will be not doing anything to it during the first read through. I know I need to add more description because I hate description. I still love my story (which I was saying about my script at this point too, not anymore) and I have many ideas on how to expand on it. My story is something of a prelude/origin story any I don't know how well it shows off my characters or the world. Most people have been looking at my synopsis on the Nano website and gasping at how long and detailed my concept is and you don't really get any of that in the novel I've written.

I started drawing again and I shall continue to draw into the new year. I am planning on pulling my art box out of storage and messing around with it. Technically, I should be going around and looking for a job and a permanent place to live, but what fun it that? What I would really like to do is play with jewelry making some more. I have some left overs from my class but a couple of important tools that make metalworking easy, like a blow torch. I like the blow torch.

God I want to weld. And I hate welding. It really sucks after the first couple of minutes. I probably just want to do theatre. What would be really nice is to go get a job doing the stuff I know and then I get to feel all superior on my first couple of days at least. Yeah, that would be good. I think I might have too many plans for this coming year.  I want to write 750 words everyday, I want to complete a script and a novel. That doesn't count participating and completing Script Frenzy 2011 and National Novel Writing Month 2011. Maybe even become a Municipal Liaison this year. I'm not committed to that last one, I am just toying with the idea.

Be the leader of something would be fun too. I like organizing people and making them do stuff. I find it too exciting. Particularly when events go well, which in my history they don't (not entirely my fault... actually so far it hasn't been my fault).

Lot of movies are coming out this year too and I need to get a job so that I can afford to see them. The ones produced by Disney I can go see for free, but that is a small number of them out of the year.

If you're wondering why this is possible the longest blog post I have ever written it's because I am writing this for the 750words.com website which gives you points for writing a lot without stopping. I can't even stop to think about what I am writing. I've written on the site most days this month, but this is the first time I have tried to write a blog post on it. A seven hundred and fifty word blog post. They honestly don't care if you put the same word down seven hundred and fifty times.

Yes, I have to write out 'seven hundred and fifty' each time. It adds more words and makes it so I don't have to add more content. I'm kind of getting tired and my back is hurting from the position I am sitting in right now. Hey look I made it to 750. Joy to me and you.

Happy New Year!
-X

Leasing agents suck

I wish I could say that I'm happily in a new apartment but that isn't the case. Part of the problem is the leasing agents. They don't seem to understand that their job it to sell these apartments. They're impossible to get a hold of, know little about the property, and don't offer to answer questions or even applications for the apartments.

So I would really like to have a place by the end of the week if reality doesn't fight against it. Find a place, convince the leasing agent to actually give me the proper paperwork for it.

Why does this need to be so complicated?

Need a job still too, but that doesn't cost me $400 for every week I don't have it. For some reason I keep being optimistic about the job thing. There will be one next week, winter season is starting, I can find one close to where I get an apartment, etc.

I still won't take just anything. You have to have limits on what you'll take, and maybe what I need is an employer that understands that.

-X

Bad week was bad.

How bad can a week get?

Last week I had an interview, or I thought I did. It was a pre-interview. All I discovered is that they don't pay enough to live in Los Angeles. Before my interview I was looking at apartments. Some of the people there gave me odd looks for wearing a suit - there goes that place.

I looked at another the day after and it was not as advertised. I understand the concept of a studio apartment, but how can you live without at least a stove? Every day or so I look at rooms for rent, but they usually cost the same for an entire apartment. They must be amazing rooms.

So no work and no home... still. How is this any worse than every other week?

I also finally broke my laptop. $800 dollars later I have a new laptop, but it was a lot of stress that I didn't need right now. Also my computer can now actually play games. That's bad.

After that I kind of decided the week was just fucked. Didn't even try for the rest of it. What I did do was work on my screenplay from Script Frenzy. I even I bought a book to help me. Do I get extra points for distractions?
-X

Perfect Health

Everyone wants perfect health, right? I've been "trying" to lose weight  for over a year now with little success. I think I'm doing better in California, but I don't actually have a scale here. Every day I'm stretching. I started during the trip and I can attest that it helped prevent cramps while driving. The muscles in my right leg still hurt for a couple days after but I was driving a lot that week.

You know, I'm trying to write something, so that this blog doesn't get tossed to the wayside, but I don't seem to have anything to say.

I'm happy right now. I can't actually remember being more happy in a long time. The only downer I have is that I don't have the money to do and see some of the attractions here. Of course just being here and seeing what there is too see is enough to tide me over for the time being. The only thing I'm really lacking is someone to talk to.

Hopefully that will change soon.
-X
Regal Entertainment Group Gift Card

Los Angeles

I am in Los Angeles now. I drove the entire way.
Not much to say about that. It was surprisingly peaceful and there was good scenery when I had the chance to look. My car attempted to spill oil the entire way and it hated the Rocky Mountains.
Now I'm trying to learn my way around the city and figure out where to live and work. I rested the first day and a half I was here. Technically writing this is "resting" too, I just felt like I needed to write another post. No one likes a dead blog.
And since I haven't said it yet, I really like this area. I like the weather, I like the neighborhoods, I like the people. It just seems like everything about it better than I could have hoped.
-X

Crazy Plan revealed

So I mentioned a couple times that I've lost my mind and was going to do something completely insane. Well here it is.

In less than a month I'm going to move out of my parent's house and move to Los Angeles, California. I do not have a job lined up, I have almost no money, and I have no where to live when I get there. I'm going by car, driving for five days straight, cross-country with whatever I can fit into said vehicle.

This might sound like an idea I had about a year ago. The difference between now and then is I have less money and I am going to do it. Read my last several posts if you want to know why. I have not gotten a full-time job in over a year mostly because I want a job in my field, the field I spent $24,000 getting a degree in. Los Angeles has more jobs in my field than any other city short of maybe Chicago and New York and most importantly it will be a change of pace and will be something for me to look forward to and force me to get some kind of job immediately.

One of the major reason I'm moving to Los Angeles is that I expect to be able to work a normal job and do some theatre on the side if I need to. I can't do that here.

Anyway, I'm seriously considering doing video blogs of my trip. More on that soon.
-X

Project: Get Out of Parent's House (as fast as possible)

So I'm trying to develop a concrete plan to pitch to my parents.

Right now my plan is to take a trip to either Los Angeles or Chicago and wander around theatres (and other places) looking for jobs. Chicago would be cheaper because I apparently would not need a vehicle to get around, from what I have heard LA has terrible public transportation so I would spend as much, if not more, on the car as my flight and hotel combined. Chicago is a little cheaper to live in but I may be unable to find the right size apartment there (I gleaned from my searches). Los Angeles on the other hand has better weather and has infinite jobs for my profession, but it has been badly hit by the current recession.

Now, you are asking why I wish to go to these specific cities. Why not New York, Las Vegas, or why not stay where I currently am (Washington, D.C. for all intents and purposes)?

Well I did look into Las Vegas, everything there is very much based on The Strip, which is not exactly what I want to do forever (I'm looking for a place to live for awhile).

New York is the obvious choice, which is why I'm against it. I'm not the best and I don't make great first impressions. Everyone goes to New York if they want to do theatre and I can't compete against that much competition. I make mistakes and I need it to be more difficult to replace me.

LA and Chicago are the next logical locations as they contain the other offices of IATSE USA 829, the Scenic (et al) Designers union (the main headquarters is of course in NYC), which lead them to be very theatre heavy cities.

And Washington. Washington is a federal district. It exists solely for government. Culture is shipped in to make it look nice. There are too many ghettos and too much corruption for theatre to thrive (theatre needs money and people need to not be afraid to go). It's kind of ironic, you'd think the nations capital would be better.

Still don't know if my case is strong enough. I plan to point out the saving if I can get a real job and don't live with them, my stuff won't be in the garage, etc.

If all else fails I'll do it without their help.
-X

Lack of Updating

Haven't gotten bored with this yet, just haven't had anything to say. Graduated, still don't have a job. Looking for places to live, possibly in LA or Chicago.

Kind of sucks to be writing about how your lost and don't know what your plan is. Will do more writing when I have interesting stuff to comment about.

-X

Coming to a close

So I'm two days and 8 hours aways from graduation. I still do not have a job, have one more project to finish and have two borderline classes that I really have to pass.

The job I was looking into requested my drawing but I haven't heard back since then. I blame my parents. The company emailed me back very vaguely requesting my drawings and to interview me this week, which I couldn't because of my finals. Trying to figure the best way to phrase my reply I asked my parents advice, which delayed my response my three days. They freaked out about the cost of flying to LA for an interview, what the job was, how much it would pay, was the company any good (which they got confirmation that it was), in other words way too much freaking out far too early in the process. Hopefully that is not why I haven't heard back. I really would have loved that job.

Anyway I keep checking the job sites, but nothing amazing has popped up (I was getting kind of set on LA). I am more convinced than before to not move back to Northern VA after my brother told me about my mother's lack of faith that I will get a job. If I ever win an award, the line "my parents who always believed in me" will not be in my acceptance speech.

All five of my immediate family members are coming in on Friday for my graduation (I get to walk whether or not I actually graduate) so I have some fun soon. Free"er" food if nothing else.

Guess I should finish this project.

-X

Awesome Job I Want

I found an awesome job I believe I qualify for in Los Angeles.

http://www.allaccessinc.com/

They have an opening for a CAD drafter, with a preference in Vectorworks.

I'm very excited. And nervous.

I'm looking for theatre jobs in scene design. While these jobs are available everywhere in the US most of them are effectively, "if your interested in designing, tell us when your free and we'll see if we can fit you in.". That would be fine if I lived anywhere that had a large theatre sector, but I don't. I went to college in southwest Virginia, where our closest theatre just closed, from what sounds like mismanagement, and the next closest is about two hours away, not counting the universities. I'm from northern Virginia, but surprisingly DC does not have that many theatres. Most are very big name non-profits and they are currently not hiring.

I should also mention that around this time of year there are a lot of "summer stock" openings. They are exactly what they sound like, theatre position just for the summer. There are many excellent theatre that run this way, using undergraduate actor and vacationing professors to do incredible theatre. Problem is that on or around July 14, I don't remember exactly, I will not have a home, so where ever I work this summer really needs to be a more permanent position so that I can move there, probably for a year. Also in December I will have to start paying off $21,000 of student loans, so I need to be making money, which summer stock is not great at.

What I need is a semi permanent position in one of the major entertainment cities (LA, NYC, Las Vegas, Chicago) so that I can then do the random little "I'm in town and bored" jobs.

I'm hyper cause I took a Excedrin migraine at 11:30pm

-X

Looking for a Warmer Climate

In looking for a job I have decided that I want to be in a warmer climate.

Yesterday it was 60 degrees, today it snowed. This is unacceptable. This also why I don't believe in global warming.

The difficulty is that my occupation directs me to live in certain areas, the largest are New York City, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. I can theoretically get jobs around the entire country, but those are the main areas.

Difficulty #2 - The companies search locally because plenty of the people who do these jobs are already there. So now I have to check the local listing for these places, well not New York, because NYC is fucking cold. It's at least 10 degrees of latitude north of my current location and I believe that my current location is too damn cold.

I have about 30 days until I graduate and I have no prospects, which wouldn't be that bad except I keep seeing ads for the new Camaro (no blogger, I did not misspell "Camry") and I reaalllllly want one. It's smaller and faster than my current vehicle, which is a '92 Caprice, so I am a little partial to Chevrolet. And it would be doing my part for the economy! Even though it would double the debt from my student loans!

Right?

Sigh, excuse while I search the LA Times for jobs.

-X