According to Google Analytics, last month saw a 300% visitor increase in the country of Turkey. Wow! I’m like some sort of international blogging playboy!

I also see increased view counts in France, Germany and Belgium. Woot wooooot! To all my German readers: Ich verwendete eine Web site, um diesen Satz in Deutschen zu übersetzen.*

My numbers in Poland have slipped. Have no fear, I talked to my European street team rep. and she assures me an aggressive viral marketing campaign is underway. Krakow, I’m coming!

In all seriousness, the combined visits from all those countries was 53. Not amazing, I know. It’s really cool that anyone outside my small group of friends gives a shit about anything I do. But Turkey? Even with the small numbers, wow. That’s weird.

Here’s a healthy dose of reality for joeavella.com: My most popular blog posts is this one: 7 Celebrities That May Be Zombies. And it’s found by the most popular tags on my blog: ‘goldie hawn’ and ‘buck cherry’. I think this is very funny.

I won’t do any more meta blog posts, aka blog posts about my blog. At least not until I’m blowing up in the Czech Republic.

*English translation: “I used a website to translate this sentence into German.”

A majority of my writer’s block comes from the overwhelming pressure to get it perfect the first time (or the time I’m currently doing it). I keep stopping myself because what I’ve currently got sounds too cheesy or melodramatic or whatever:

Ug! Seen this a million times!
Oh god, what a bunch of melodramatic nonsense.
This lowbrow humor won’t fly!

Pish posh to that! My new method to overcome this is to write it wrong. Instead of staring at a screen waiting for the perfect blahbidy blah, or rewriting the same line over and over, I will embrace the cliques and crap that are slowing me down.

Then, I’ll watch the scenes with a notebook and think, “Well, this really stinks! You know what would be funny/interesting/good here instead…” and jot it down. Think of it like putting place holder in your scenes. I’ll keep this crappy joke here until I come up with a better one.

Check it out, a picture of me ended up in the latest issue of Chicago Magazine! The Sex and Love issue.

DO THIS NOW!!
Go to your local news stand and grab the latest issue of Chicago Magazine (it’s the one with the hot babe on it. Ooh la la!)


Flip to page 59 for the article about the Midwest Teen Sex Show. Get a load of that pic of a dapper Guy Clark!



Read the article. “Wow, this thing is really well written! I’m floored with intrigue.”

Now flip to page 77 for the rest of the article. What’s this?! A picture of Britney and me and the back of Neil Arsenty’s head! How exciting! Take a moment to drink in the eye candy…

Ahhhhhhh. Totally awesome. Now put the magazine back, because this isn’t a library.

After a week of letting my mind clear, I went through the script and now have about 5 pages of notes. The notes are a healthy combo of scene specific and script-as-a-whole notes.

Act 1 Scene 5:
Do more of the embarrassing photos framed in office.
Running gag in the scene.
Maybe cut to the frame store? Frame store owner: I’m rich!

Act 2 Scene 8:
News report and action in the bar needs to balance each other better.
Reporter banter goes on too long.

Script as a whole:
Strengthen the relationship between inventor and his love interest.
Too much arguing. Needs to be replaced by “real action”.
Introduce the singing GPS earlier!
Infomercials need to be in the movie more
Too many holocaust references

Now it’s a matter of organizing my notes, deciding what to work in and what to eliminate. It’s very exciting at this point because I can really see it coming together. I hope to have the next rewrite done in 2 weeks.

I’m putting a tight deadline on myself so I don’t get into a pattern of endlessly sweating the details. Rewriting is a process of deconstruction and reassembly which can go on forever if you’re not careful.

2 weeks from now is the 4th of July. I plan on spending that day celebrating our nation’s independence and the completion of the second draft. USA! USA! USA!

The first draft for Master of Inventions is done and printed. What a relief. 76 pages. Longest thing I’ve ever written.

I will wait for this weekend to go through it. I need a day or two to clear my head. I’m so excited to read it straight through. Nervous too.