Summer Fridays are Over

Got an email yesterday from our boss saying that today would be the last "Summer Friday" here at work.

Ooooooooh, drat!!

My wife and I have obviously really enjoyed these half days to start off our weekends, and I had hoped that maybe they would be extended into September a bit. Regardless, I am more than grateful for the days we got! What a very cool perk.

Also, I know I teased you all a little in my last post about some big news that was coming. Well, I got it Monday and have just been trying to find the time and words to get it up here.

Essentially, I got my first official "coverage" on Like Brothers.

I won't say what studio or what person, but it was accurate enough, and essentially showed me that I need to continue working on my skills as a writer. Yes, there were good notes. This person liked certain elements of the story and liked a couple characters. He was particularly fond of "Tank," the grizzly, old, ex-Army Ranger friend of Kyle's father, so that made me happy. Tank is a hoot, and I loved writing his dialogue, cause it was easily the closest to my inner-weirdo! I'm very glad this person saw him as a strength. But along with the good comes the bad.

This person found some elements of my story to be too cliche and underdeveloped. And said my writing style was too amatuer. And as much as it pains me to write that on this blog, because I know other execs read this, and I don't want one person's opinion to influence another's, I also swore I would take you all along on this journey with me, and I don't want to hold back the news I'm getting even if it's not the greatest!. (man, that was a really long run-on sentence!!)

Although I was very disappointed my first coverage was so lukewarm, I have no problem facing the truth and realizing that my journey will be more than just a first step. I'll keep reading, I'll keep writing, and some day I'll have a story that will hit the mark.

And I'll keep praying that one of the other people out there who is still evaluating Like Brothers will have more faith and vision than this last person, and can see how it has the potential to be at least as big as some of the other things that have gotten the green light. After all, Mike Rich was rejected by everyone on "Finding Forrester" until it won the Nicholls, then he's the cat's meow! At the recommendation of a friend I recently watched a movie from 2004 called Cellular, which grossed $32M. I can't help but feel that if Like Brothers got the right two guys to play Kyle and Dillon, it would do easily better than that!

Oh well. Time to focus on what's ahead. I'm still working on a page one re-write of "Inside," taking into consideration some of the feedback I got from people at the conference.

Until then....have a great weekend all!

PS. Fantasy football geeks out there. My draft went very well! I'm in a "keeper" league, so I came to the draft with Hasselback, Larry Johnson, Portis, Chester Taylor and Fitzgerald. I ended up drafting Culpepper, Simms, Maroney, Mike Bell, Driver, Galloway, Glenn, Winslow Jr., Crumpler, and a handful of others. I got a good group, and am poised to repeat as champ!