Category: Film Industry

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“Luka and Iso”- Top 10% in The Nicholl Fellowship!

Hello wonderful blog readers!

I received an email from the Nicholl Fellowship today.

Every year, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences picks five writers and pay them, based on the strength of the script they submitted, to produce another feature length screenplay.

I didn’t make the cut for the Fellowship, but my script scored in the top ten percent!

7,251 entrants, and I’m in the top 10%?  Pretty awesome, but of course, disappointing not to advance.

Ah well, I’m hoping I can find someone out there as excited about the story of the first genetically engineered dragon as I am!  Perhaps this will help me along.  It will make a killer film.

Congratulations to everyone that is advancing.  I’m sure there are some amazing scripts, and how they’ll ever pick just five is completely beyond me!

In other news, I received my second ever royalty cheque!  Seems that A Quick Bite of Flesh is still selling.  Want some zombie flash fiction?  Then this book is forrr yoooouuuu!

I am waiting on an awesome agent for a new book I’d like to see in print.  Paranormal romance/urban fantasy here I come!  I’m well into the sequel already, and hitting short stories out of the park on a daily basis.

I’ll keep at it until- BWA HA HA YOU CAN’T STOP ME

Thanks for stopping by.

Oh what’s that?  This is my 100th post?

Hurrah!

Oh man, if I’ve been this into my small successes so far, when I get my first novel picked up I’m going to be happier than a kitten with a feather.  More excited than a porcupine with a banana.  You do know porcupines love bananas, right?

Anyway, thank you for stopping in and staying with me on this long, long journey to authordom.

Heidi out.

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Time to type every word I know: Coffee, Writing, Iron Man, Duck

As you may know, I enjoy participating in the various gift exchanges through Reddit Gifts.  It’s like doing a secret santa, only with thousands of other people, and for specific categories of things.

I was so pleased to open my Coffee Exchange parcel yesterday!  My package came from Macedonia– and contained Turkish coffee!  I tried making a cup this morning, and it was delicious (Without cream?!  Amazing.).  Very flavourful, and unusual.

In writing news, my short story “The First Gentlemen’s Galactic Scavenger Hunt” has been shortlisted for the World Weaver Press anthology, “Far Orbit- Speculative Space Adventures”.  I’d be super happy to see this one in print; I feel like it’s actually a project I’d like to expound upon a bit.  A scavenger hunt in space: what’s not to love?

I have also entered my screenplay in a contest to win tickets to PitchFest, where I would get a chance to hook a studio.  That would be totally mathematical.

Currently, I’m continuing a read-through of my Spell Carriers series, and I’m into the second book.  The first book took me three days, though it would have taken less if I weren’t making edits here and there.  It was a pretty easy read.  Trook Hunters starts off more complex, having had book one to set it up.

Anyway!  Enough ramblings.  What’s important here is seeing how they did the Arc Reactor makeup for Iron Man.

Painting on the latex.

A lot of latex.

A good sport.

Different colours for the different layers.

Airbrushed to make it look real!

They can peel the latex back and make it look like skin.

Final effect: amazing.

And, seeing as I have duck brining in the fridge, this:


:O

Well, I’ll keep you posted.  I hope one of these days to have some truly excellent news for you.  For now, I’ll keep at it.  I know that one day all this work I’m doing will pay off.  I hope it’s soon, but I’m in it for the long haul.  🙂

Cheers guys.

Heidi out.

PS: Leaked Jurassic Park 4 logo!

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The Nicholl Fellowship, Google Glass

I was really pleased to see sci-fi becoming a reality, as it tends to do.  In my latest novel and screenplay, I take Google Glass to limits, exploring such a devices purposes and practical uses.  Today they showed off the preliminary interface.  I’ll be interested to see, as the years tick on, if I got it right in my work.

Also, one of my test readers got back to me (with some very good feedback, useful edits, and much welcomed praise) about my screenplay.  He suggested I submit it to the Academy Awards Nicholl Fellowship.  Apparently they actually *pay* five writers for a year to write a screenplay!  This would be a dream.  Getting paid to write, and exposure for my work?  Maybe it would get “Luka and Iso” picked up for production.

If you’re interested, you can check out the Nicholl Fellowship here.

I am ensconced in the Quintaglio Ascension Trilogy by Robert J. Sawyer.  As ever, he strings me along at a good clip, with wonderful characters and a great hook.  Sentient dinosaurs advancing their culture from the bronze age onwards?  What’s not to love!  I can hardly put it down.

Also recently, my friend Brie and I have teamed up; she asked me to write something for a comic she was making, and I did.  I’m excited to see the inks next week.  Hopefully we can have further collaborations in the future; her art is mega, mega cool, and being on a writer-artist team with her would just kick so much butt.

That’s all for now, folks!  I’ll keep on tightening up my script, and let you know how the process goes with applying for the Nicholl Fellowship.

…And if you know of anyone looking for a sci-fi screenplay/novel combo about the first genetically engineered dragon, would you point me in their direction?

Cheers.

Heidi out.

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THE END.

Well, the first draft of my screenplay is finished!  My latest novel, Luka and Iso, is adapted for the silver screen.  I have editing to do still of course, and actually quite a large chunk that I need to compress…  But the bulk is done.

Typing those two words, “THE END.” at the finish was actually far more satisfying than I thought it would be.   After all, I’ve written three books and dozens of short stories… but none of them actually have the words “THE END.” at the end.  They just sort of- stop.

But with the screenplay, it’s customary to put “THE END.” at the end.  And it felt good.

And now, as is my custom, I will take a break from it for two weeks, and work on a short story.  I’ll come back to it fresh, wielding my axe in one hand and my scalpel in the other.  Both help me cut away, in broad, messy chunks, followed up with precise, delicate cuts.

So good readers, Happy New Year.  I wish you the best of luck with all your creative endeavours!

Cheers,

Heidi

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Good News Everyone!

Hello all.  So glad to be able to share some more good news with you today: a short story of mine, “Mirror Twenty-Two” has been published!  It’s part of the online portion of the Haunted Waters Press ‘From the Depths’ magazine.

…And you can read it for free!  It’s a paranormal-military-action-horror.

“For our purposes, that little girl is no longer a little girl,” he said with measured calm.

I want to thank everyone that has subscribed to my blog.  It’s really nice to have a few people interested in my work.  I’m so, so grateful for your readership, and it’s nice that I can share some nifty things with you.  🙂

“Mirror Twenty-Two” by H.G. Bleackley

Hopefully I’ll have something more in this universe to share in the new year; I’m working with an artist to adapt another story into comic form.  I’m really excited about that one… And I really dig the world I’m building using short stories.  I think there might be something more there, something bigger.

Also, I’m adapting my latest novel into a screenplay, which I will start shopping around in January/February.  My screenplay chops are a little rusty, but it’s coming along.

So I’ll keep writing, and submitting, and sharing.

Thanks once again for reading.

Heidi out.

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The Exciting World of Home-Brewing!

Aaron and I and his co-worker Chris have been brewing!  Chris makes various neato beers, and Aaron and I are jumping on the opportunity to have someone help us along as we get into a new and exciting hobby.  A tasty, tasty hobby.

Our first batch of Pear Mead came out rather well!

We have bottles on reserve to be opened in 1, 2, 3, 5, and 10 years.

And we’ve got a couple of smaller experiments happening; a root beer, and a test for a larger Apple Cizer.  Both are bubbling away nicely.

Today I go get a large primary fermenter bucket for large projects.

And perhaps also today, I want to start a test for a pumpkin wine.

In other news, I’ve been emailing the various productions that are starting filming in the next few weeks around Vancouver.

I got my Traffic Control Person certification, and I hear PAs with a flagger’s ticket are pretty useful.

In still other news, I was on the front page of Reddit last week for my Minecraft project, a Hardcore Superflat world.

Thread (with link to album) here.

Anyway, that’s all for now.

Thanks for reading.

Heidi out.

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Oh Mighty God of Boxes, Thou Hast Smiled Upon Me

Safeway’s produce department is a gold mine.  A gold mine that, instead of gold, yields boxes.  Sturdy boxes, with lids, and handles.

And lo, it came to pass that many things around my apartment are being boxed up.

And for a time, it was good.

…Though I’ve already had an instance of “where is that book Sarah lent me” “oh god this stack of boxes could contain it”.  Labeling is important; I’m on top of it, but you can only go so far with labels.  Specific books and games are just in this flux state; they’re basically all quantum boxes, each one simultaneously holding everything that we’ve packed so far.

In other news, I’m sufficiently distracted by moving that writing has stalled out.  I have a super good premis for a short story, but working on it has been like pulling teeth.  I don’t think it’s possible to make tomorrow’s deadline.  Though, it’s super strong, and if I work on it, I’m sure I can find a place for it to be published.

I watched Layer Cake with Aaron and a friend yesterday.  It’s a British heist movie.  My brain was screaming at the focus puller the entire movie.  The music choice was weird, and whoever did their sound mix should be shot.  Though, I did enjoy it, in no small part due to the cast.  Colm Meaney (AKA Chief O’Brain from Star Trek), Danial Craig (AKA the latest James Bond), and Tom Hardy (from last year’s delightful Inception) made it all worthwhile.  I watched it on Netflix, and was appalled that the only female character, who was completely gratuitous and in the film for all of five minutes as a sex object, is on the cover.  I’m not too upset by it; just one of those extra things that makes me roll my eyes.

And seriously, Clive Prior, I don’t know if the focus was all your fault or what; you’ve done a lot of other work I like, so I’ll let it slide.

This time.

Thanks for reading.

Heidi out.