34 Random Facts About Myself

August 15, 2024February 18, 2024 valmanwillLeave a comment

Hello. I turned 34 last week. My age feels both accurate and inaccurate. Like I don’t feel 34 while sitting on my office chair with my feet tucked under my butt. But I guess I do feel 34 when I drive my minivan to pick up my kids from school. The heartburn and the back pain screams 34 haha.

Anyways, to celebrate my age I wrote 34 random facts about myself, one for each year I’ve been alive. You’re welcome.

I was born in the same exact hospital that I birthed my first child in.
Dinosaurs have been a special interest of mine ever since I was two.
One of my earliest memories is giving myself the chicken pox. I was jealous that my mom counted all of my sister’s chicken pox and so I snuck into her room when she was asleep and tried to “breathe in her germs” hahaha! Unfortunately, it worked and I got WAY sicker than she had been.
I wrote my first story at three or four. I drew it as a four panel picture on a Mac “Kids Pic” program. And it was about the chicken pox I gave myself lol. (“I got chicken pox”, “Then Mom gave me a bath”, “Then I felt better”, “The End”)
I’m the middle child in my family. I have a sister three years older than me and a brother five years younger than me.
I’ve always held my pencil “weird”. Resting on my middle finger instead of pinching it or whatever. My first grade teacher tried and tried to correct it but I still hold my pencil that way as an adult.
When I was in second grade I was obsessed with Santa’s reindeer. I wrote them each individual letters instead of Santa that year.
In third grade I purposely sat in the back of the class so I could write stories in my blue denim notebook all day instead of pay attention to the teacher. I filled that notebook and I still have it.
At 9, I briefly took acting classes but I couldn’t sing worth a dime so I never got cast in any significant roles
I started directing my own plays and performed them for all the other 5th grade classes. (This was the skit I had my friends do haha: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfLdFZ4my9g )
The only time I got a ticket or a pink slip in school was when I snuck under the fence to play in the creek next to our elementary school. My mom wasn’t even mad about it. She was more mad about the girl who tattled on me.
In Jr. High, I had a red guinea pig named Joe.
At thirteen, I wrote, directed and starred in a play I put on for my local church. It was a comedy called, “The Foot.”
I was obsessed with the original Twilight Zone. I even threw a Twilight Zone party for my friends. That TV show would become a massive influence on my writing.
Took 4 years of French in secondary school because I liked this guy in my class. Can’t remember a single word and speak fluent Spanish now lol.
In high school, I wrote a full-length feature film with my friends. A low-budget student slasher. (What else?) It wasn’t very good or anything lol but it ended up being a creative catalyst for a lot of the kids who worked on that project, including me.
I got shingles my senior year. How does that even happen? Haha. The haunts of giving myself the chicken pox
One year I repeatedly got cast as a monkey in a few different plays. Type casting I guess.
I studied Classical Acting at Southern Utah University until I ran out of money and had to move back home.
One of my favorite hobbies when I was 20 was exploring abandoned buildings. One time the cops came and my friends and I hid ourselves inside an abandoned school. (oops)
I lived in various areas of Peru for a year and a half. Lima, Trujillo, Salaverry, and Neuvo Chimbote.
Twenty-two was one of the worst years of my whole life. Like the entire year. Birthday to birthday. Just horrific. I couldn’t think of a single good fact I wanted to say about this year. So I guess that’s my fact. Unlike the popular song at the time, I was not feeling 22 lol.
Coincidentally, twenty-three was one of the absolute best years of my life. Even at the time I called it “The Golden Year”. I ended up meeting my soul mate when I was 23.
I used to work in Accounts Receivable at a printer company and got in trouble for writing during work (Heh heh heh. It wasn’t funny to me at the time, but now it is.)
I left my job at the printer company and went back to school. In my Intro to Educational Psychology class, the professor said that “the things we chose to do in our free time as children reflects as close to our true selves as possible.” That’s the moment I realized how much story-telling has been a passion throughout my life.
When I was twenty-six, I began writing regularly and have not looked back since!
The first time I had ever set foot in the Phoenix area, was when I stepped off the plane to live here.
I found out my first story was going to be professionally published while I was in active labor with my second child.
At twenty-nine I had this life-changing Beatlemania phase that… never went away lol.
We moved into our first house the exact weekend that everything shut down for the pandemic.
I have three spectacular kids and I’m not just saying that. I really love each of those three people so dang much.
I published my first book on Amazon at thirty-two.
I got my first screen-writing credit at thirty-three.
At thirty-four, I still sit on my office chair with my feet tucked under my butt haha

I Was One of 100 Screenwriters Working on a Single Film

April 11, 2024March 24, 2024 valmanwillLeave a comment

Literally, just a post of me trying to explain what exactly this is because everyone keeps asking lol.

One unassuming afternoon I got a message from my sister-in-law. “You should totally do this!” and a link to something called the 100 pages movie. Four producers were looking to recruit 100 screenwriters to each write one single page of a full-length movie. I thought that sounded like a really unique and fun idea, and serendipitously it happened to be “Sendtember”. The ONE month where I actually take chances and put my work out into the world. I felt like that was a cue from the universe to give it a shot, so I applied.

I got a follow-up email in the middle of the night that they were interested in my application and wanted to schedule a Zoom meeting to ask me a few more questions. After a bunch of technical difficulties with Zoom (of freaking course) we FINALLY were able to meet and it turned out that they only had one question for me:

“Would you like to be one of the writers for The 100 Pages Movie?”

And I was like, “Yes, I woooooullllld! YEEEEEEssssssss!” That’s exactly how I said it. Here’s video proof:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cx_CTetuwJU

Being accepted also meant that I was required to meet them in Nashville so that I could take part in the behind-the-scene docuseries, sign paperwork, meet the other writers, and receive whatever page number I would be working on. So that was a bit hectic, trying to organize a last minute business trip. But also SUPER COOL.

I’ve only ever been to online writing conventions, so being surrounded by a hundred other passionate creatives felt FREAKING INVIGORATING. Sharing all our projects with each other, dropping writerly lingo like “scrivener” and “NaNoWriMo” and “Save the Cat”. We were all so hyped and energetic, (even though most of us admitted that this was too much excitement for us little introverted artists and we were going to pass TF out after the event haha)

The producers had gathered a really diverse team of writers. Some of the writers were professional daytime-authors and some of the writers had very little to no experience with writing. Some of the writers were local, some of the writers were from other countries. The oldest writer was in her late eighties and the youngest writer was 14 years old. But every one I met at the event was just… UNBELIEVABLY nice. I don’t know that I’ve ever met a nicer crowd than the screenwriters working on this project.

“SO HOLD ON. WHAT EXACTLY IS THIS PROJECT? I’M CONFUSED.”

Okay. Here’s how it works.

Every single day a new writer adds a page to the script. No one knows where the story is going, it just develops one page at a time. Each of us have an assigned page number. (I’m 85 BTW, which turned out to be a freaking nightmare. But I’ll save that for another post.) You have one day to finish your page and then you hand it to the next writer. Everyone has access to the entire script UNTIL you’ve completed your page and then you are left in the dark, baby. You do not know how the movie develops after that.

So for example, I wrote page 85. So I read the script every single day (what writers 1-84 decided to add to the movie) and then on day 85, I continued the story from where they left off. 15 writers after me finished the movie.

Does that make any sense? Maybe Marcus Johns explains it better than I do:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CzcMzd_vys4

In short (lol), it was a really cool project. I def have a TON more to say about the process and the actual day I wrote. But because most of this project is a secret while they film and promote the movie, I’m going to save those details for another post. Mainly, until I can get a green light from the producers to be able to discuss what the script is actually about.

Overall, what I can say is that I feel really blessed to have been a part of this unique project. I so SO wish I could astral project 10 years ago and visit myself when I was depressed and unfulfilled working AR at a printer company. I would whisper in my ear, “Hey, you know your favorite vine about the guy who thinks his friend’s shower is like ‘a dang spaceship up in here’? … That guy hires you to write a movie for him.”

My Most Unpopular Opinion: I Neither Hated Nor Loved Barbie

March 14, 2024March 11, 2024 valmanwillLeave a comment

It was just a’ight.

DISCLAIMER #1: Because this movie is so “cOntRoVErsiAL”, I want to clarify right off the bat that this is not a political commentary on this film in any way. Any critiques that I may or may not share is based solely on the storytelling that was presented.

DISCLAIMER #2: I’m going to be sharing spoilers. So if you haven’t seen the movie and are wanting to see the movie, you have now been adequately warned.

Positives first. I had a lot of fun watching this film. A lot of the jokes hit me just right and it was nice seeing something so original. Initially, I felt that the storyline with the Kens oppression in Barbieland was such a smart and funny commentary on the toy line. I distinctly remember playing ‘Stupid Ken’ with my sister, where Barbie would repeatedly reject his proposals. So for the most part it accurately portrayed my experiences growing up and playing with Barbies. Acting was great, sets were perfect, Margot Robbie’s wigs were immaculate.

So, this is why I only liked it and not loved it.

Barbie has two storylines. Storyline A is that Barbie suddenly develops an existential crisis and travels to the ‘real world’ to find out who has been playing with her. Storyline B is that Ken’s identity revolves around Barbie until he discovers that men rule the ‘real world’. In my opinion, both of these storylines are good. My biggest problem is that after the midpoint, Storyline B becomes Storyline A and then Storyline A just pilfers out of existence. Everything that is set up in the first half of the movie is magically solved for no reason. “And now Gloria’s daughter is totally fine with Barbie and has a relationship with her mother again.” “And now the Mattel executives pose no real threat to anyone.” “And now no one has an existential crisis anymore.”

What happened to Storyline A??? It was so strong but then there was hardly any follow through. In my personal opinion, Storyline A was the stronger of the two. Barbie was the PERFECT medium for that story! A perfect doll with everything she could ever want decides to become ‘real’ because the ups and downs of life are more fulfilling. I thought that was an insanely beautiful message. The scene where she sits on the bench and examines all the imperfections and nuances of the real world made me cry! (Don’t lie. You cried when she saw an elderly lady for the first time and said that she was beautiful. Admit it.)

But then Greta filed it away. It was like she never-minded the whole storyline. I mean, yeah, “I’m Just a Ken” was fun, but not fun enough to completely derail the story. Patriarchy already takes over everything in my womanly life, why does it have to have my fun Barbie movie too? And speaking of the word ‘patriarchy’ lol. Like I get that was supposed to be the humor of the film and I laughed the first time it was said (“Barbie, why didn’t you tell me about patriarchy?”). But if you drank every time they said the word ‘patriarchy’ after that you would be in the hospital getting your stomach pumped. Everything was SO on the nose like that. When America Ferrara went into her speech I felt like I was reading a Twitter thread or something. It wasn’t any new information for me. Girl, I know the expectations for women are impossible, please tell me how to accept my fear of death and cellulite.

And honestly, despite the thematic pounding I still enjoyed that storyline. I’m not trying to take away Ken’s Mojo Dojo Casa House, I just wanted it to remain B storyline, you know? Like y’all got me invested in this mother-daughter, existential crisis, flat foot, several executives riding a pink bike into Barbieland thing. In the end when they literally said, “But what about Barbie?” I was like YEAH HELLO??

So… okay… I know that script doctoring a Best Original Screenplay nomination is a ridiculously bold claim for someone who writes John Lennon fanfics… … But this is how I would have written the ending lol.

I think Sasha should have either refused to go with them or run away from Barbieland. Then Gloria would have made the decision to chase after her into the real world. Later in the film, Sasha would find her mother crying next to Barbie’s dream house in her room and holding the Mojo Dojo Casa Ken from Mattel. Sasha feels temporarily sorry for Gloria, remembering that her mother missed playing dolls with her she picks up Barbie and pretends to ask Ken why he is crying. Their conversation mirrors Barbie and Ken’s conversation in Barbieland happening at the same time. After the dual heart to heart scenes, Gloria and Ken realize that they have purpose outside of their relationship to Sasha and Barbie. They make the decision to become their own people and follow their own dreams. During the conversation, Barbie and Sasha apologize and vow to be kinder to those around them. Both Barbie and Sasha have a deep realization that they want to be real. For Sasha, putting away her meanest-girl-in-school facade to become a genuine version of herself. And for Barbie, literally real.

Then cut back to the original script where Ruth Handler’s ghost arrives for Barbie and Billie Eilish sing-whispers us out with the most beautiful song of the year.

I mean I don’t know. I guess it’s sort of nitpicky of me. Overall, I enjoyed the film just fine. Using my mom’s movie rating I would give it a C+ or a B-, which means if I were at a party and someone wanted to watch it I definitely would.

It was a’ight. Still recommend.