Rae Roy

Today is the start of the first week after school has ended. For myself, I was already living a freelance writer lifestyle before school, so it's partly a return to that only actually getting paid for it. For many of my classmates though, it might be overwhelming thinking about where to start. I've started by applying to jobs and filing my taxes. I plan on having someone else do my taxes next year as it is getting too complicated for me. Next, I will be developing my schedule. We had an assignment on this in school and it's mostly putting that into my Google calendar where it will pop up and remind me what I should be doing and when I should do it. Matthew McConaughey has an inspirational video that talks about eliminating all the things that aren't you as a starting place. We did so much this year. Some of the workshops were about things I thought I'd want to do, but in learning more about them I realized they weren't for me. Lifting is a problem for me due to

So I got distracted by friends and Poutine Fest yesterday. Sorry! In my defense, there was a gluten free truck! There is an organ in Moscow. It's debatable how musical it is, but this video is pretty cool. But this is the one I was actually looking for. Here's another . There is an entire festival in Norway on ice music. The tones that ice instruments make are different than cold instruments. They're also different than almost anything else. To me, they sound almost otherworldly. But I can't imagine that it is comfortable to play most of them with the need for the instrument to stay cold and your hands needing to be warm. They're beautiful though and I could see there being a certain level of honour involved in playing them. R~

[caption id="attachment_10523" align="alignright" width="300"] Image created using Bitmoji[/caption] It's been about a month since I felt like writing this type of post and it's about time I got back to it. Everyone knows women need time to warm up, but there's a perception that men are always ready for sex. While many are easier to get excited, quite a few men enjoy and need foreplay too. This isn't often thought about. Many aren't really a fan of the hand unless you use a little lubrication. And it's not about going for that zone right away either. Kiss him. Everywhere. Run your fingers down his spine. Get creative. Be careful though. Some are particular about where you let your fingers wander to and you might want to talk about some things first. Above all, have fun with each other ;) R~

Sometimes one can become hyper-focused on something bad. The thing begins to consume from within until one has difficulty doing the most basic things such as eating and sleeping. It's at times like that when I find it helpful to freeze. Then I switch my thinking to what is wonderful in my life. Close friends who support me and my writing. A delightful little boy who makes me remember my purpose of helping others. Clients who love my work. New friends. Acquaintances who might be becoming more. Realizing I may not be as far from becoming bilingual as I thought. New hobbies. My life is full of so much potentially awesome things right now. It can be hard to realize one is spiraling downward though. Hard to get to that point where one knows they need to put the brakes on. Hard to stop the negative momentum from carrying one further down. The only way I've found that works is to breathe. When everything around me seems to be exploding, I stop and take a breath. I talk to loved ones.

[caption id="attachment_11040" align="alignright" width="300"] Image created using Bitmoji[/caption] As today's post needs to include both martial arts and cold, I wondered about martial arts that may have been used during the cold war. Well, an Internet search got me to the website of Impact Martial Arts who have a tournament called Cold War. That wasn't at all what I was seeking, but it could have been much worse. That's how research goes sometimes. Of course, it doesn't help me that I don't know enough about the actual Cold War in order to figure out where to search for martial arts that may have been in use during it. Now, technically one could say all fighting done by a military is martial, but I think you know I'm trying to find out about arts such as karate, taekwondo, tai chi, BJJ, and more. It also doesn't help that I'm very much a person who lives in the present day. Eventually, I found a bit on an art called Syst

In theatre, it's quite common to have to read something aloud that one has never laid eyes on before. This is called Cold Reading. The most common times it happens is the first time one gets a script or at an audition. It's can be a bit uncomfortable. Often, I've felt as if I'm being scrutinized on how well I step into a role I've never seen before. I might not know anything about the character. This happened a lot during my 9:00AM Monday class that is now complete. We would be given a play to read and I often didn't know anything about it or its characters. I'd get barely a moment to skim and try to get a sense of what the character was about. Professional actors probably have to do this regularly. It's almost like presenting something you haven't researched. In my limited experience, it's common to do some parts of the read through well and some completely wrong. A good director will help one get the tone right. I've gotten to a point in my

Well, my week of holding back ended with a seminar that was coincidentally about a martial art that has holding back as an integral point. On Saturday, I did an entire afternoon of Yagyu Shinkage Ryu, which is the study of the life-giving sword. It's goal is to leave your opponent with a warning blow rather than killing them. It was such a fascinating change from the usual and fit with where I am in my life and career. Sorry, I got too busy to post with all the homework I've had.  It's the last week of school and after today, all I'll have left is one assignment and a couple of quizzes. We still have a couple of lessons, but mostly they're about what we should do to be successful as new screenwriters. This week's theme is cold. That's what came out of the bag randomly. In terms of success, I think it's common to feel like one is getting colder as they draw nearer to a major breakthrough. At least, I keep reading that successful people have found that the

This post is very helpful right now. If you are the praying type, please pray for those who feel the need to hurt others to find their way to healing the damaged parts of themselves. R~

This week's theme is holding back. I suppose there are some things I need to hold back on in order to make it to the finish line. My last class is on April 26th. I need to bite my tongue. There are so many things I would like to say to someone, because they have some things extremely wrong, but sometimes we must never speak to someone again. And sometimes there are people one spends months trying to work with only to be repeatedly disrespected at every juncture. I hate drama and b.s. Otherwise, I'm trying to get as much done as possible while dealing with fire testing in my building. I've been cleaning. A lot. Oh, I had a wonderful coffee date recently! It was so comfortable and the conversation was great. I'm looking forward to seeing him again :) Here is what I have left to do to graduate and their [due dates]: Complete my portfolio. [Thursday] Fix up this website. Yes, some tweaks will be made. You'll see my poetry tabs and some others moved to a new Portfoli

So... I forgot to post yesterday. Sorry for that. I haven't been sleeping well, or eating well, and there's tons of homework to get done in these last two weeks. There has been some extra stress in my life recently that I'm not going to get into. Suffice it to say someone wasn't who I thought they were. And someone else was exactly who I feared they were. I also have the extra stress of rapidly house cleaning before Monday because they're doing fire inspections. Why they can't wait until May, so people don't have to put their tax papers away only to dig them out again to finish their taxes, I don't know. But as my home gets cleaner and as I get an assignment done, I feel a little better. Entropy and sex. Well, I could go down the rabbit hole of ejaculate breaking apart into individual sperms only to come together again in an egg and create life. That could be seen as entropy, I suppose. I think it works better as a dating analogy though. Sometimes someth

I don't know about you, but my home is a place where one can see entropy in action. Things seem to migrate all over. I'm not sure if it's slightly worse for me because I'm the daughter of a hoarder and I've rarely witnessed my mom cleaning anything. It's definitely the thing I struggle with the most. I think it's also partly my current position as a student swamped in homework assignments combined with about 3 hours lost daily to commuting. Somehow, though, it's easier to push to get a lot cleaned up in a short time when there's someone holding a metaphorical gun on me. My condo corp is doing fire testing next week and needs access to my unit. As it's been in quite the state between travel, a hectic schedule, commuting, homework, and the odd social event, I'm trying to get it as clean as possible before Monday. The downside is that I have a lot of other things I could be doing, like the final assignments I need to be done in order to graduate

[caption id="attachment_11040" align="alignright" width="300"] Image created using Bitmoji[/caption] One of the concepts we bandy about at martial arts is The Beginner's Mind. Basically, the idea is to approach something as if you are a white belt and know nothing. I use it often. At school or while in some other learning environment like a seminar, even if I have learned much of the content before, I clear my mind and pretend I know very little. By doing this, I can listen and absorb things because I don't dismiss anything. Now, I don't completely ignore what I've learned before. I use that previous knowledge to help me fill in a gap. For example, we were discussing how to get a play script sold and the way the teacher was explaining things seemed a bit convoluted to me. That's when I used what I knew from film and TV classes to figure out that while in TV and film you need to find a willing producer, with plays, you need to be the pr

I first learned about entropy from either Blue Planet or Planet Earth. The concept fascinated me immediately. The idea that things break apart in order to create something better with the pieces later is highly relevant in my life right now. I think that writers often have to be willing to blow up our work and reassemble it differently. This is challenging. Probably one of the most challenging things we do. I think this is pretty much how to take draft one and make draft two. You need to be willing to rearrange something so differently that it barely resembles what it was before. I don't know where it's all heading yet, but it's definitely an interesting time. R~

What an experience visiting and pitching to places was! We went to ten places that are key in media in all of Canada. When we first got there, I felt like I definitely knew what my path was going to be. I was planning on getting a job near my house and then write during the hours I wasn't working. While there, I felt I really wanted to be part of this thing that is media in Canada. I was a little down discovering that I didn't get that job because it makes me stressed out about money again, but I think it's ultimately a good thing for my future. One of the things I learned is how useful I could be as someone with a background in project management. I think that is the right path for me to take. I could end up an Assistant Director or someone who manages programming schedules or nearly anything because time management and getting talent to deliver things on time is one of the areas that is a constant struggle. But my work life is a little like sand right now. A strong wind c

I don't usually post on Sundays, but some things can't wait. The Canadian hockey world is in mourning this week and will be for awhile. On Wednesday evening, Jonathan Pitre lost his battle with EB ( Epidermolysis Bullosa ). Jonathan was well known to the Ottawa community as The Butterfly Boy . He was especially known to Senators fans. Jonathan suffered from a disease that made his skin as fragile as a butterfly's wings. This included the skin inside his body like his mouth and throat. Faced with a life of excruciating pain and knowing that he would likely only live to about 20 years old, Jonathan devoted his life to trying to make people aware of his affliction. He was a huge hockey fan and a special member of the Senators family. He had such a positive outlook despite struggling to do the most basic things like swallow liquids. He was also an A student. He often refused opiods as he preferred the pain to having his mind dulled. But Jonathan's death isn't the only r

What an incredible week I've had! I have so many pages of notes from our Toronto pitching trip. Some things didn't go so great. Something got overlooked and my first film pitch was to a woman who was upset by the content, but gave great feedback on it anyway. I'm now thinking of it being a mix of live action and animation because that would reduce costs and be different. It would also make use of local talent given how many high quality animation studios exist in Ottawa. At my other film pitch, I was told there is a problem with one of the story elements, so I've reached out to a medical science organization in the north to see if they can help me find the information I need to fix that piece. He also said that he could see my film being made! Given he works for a distributor that works with a lot of horror films, I'm super stoked! I got up this morning fired up to get the pieces together to fix some parts and make a plan for the next version. Last night, we used th

I meant to post yesterday. This is an insane week for me, so posting will be sparse and brief. Actually, maybe even non-existent as television and movie companies don't allow electronic devices thanks to apps like Facebook listening. Yesterday was Easter Monday in Canada. To some, it meant a holiday. To others, it was a Monday with sale chocolate. Classes were running. I felt a bit dizzy and I decided the best thing for me to do was to take some time to prepare for the week ahead. I don't usually miss, but there is a lot of stress right now and sometimes one needs to practice some self-care. So I hemmed my jeans and did some folding. I did laundry and planned my outfits for the pitching trip. I also practiced my feature film pitch. With the hectic week ahead, I didn't travel home to see my family. I'm hoping to soon as I haven't seen them since Christmas. I'm going to teach them Skype. Since it was April Fool's on Sunday, I tried to have my dad tell my mom t