Archive for December, 2008

back in the SF marina

Monday, December 22nd, 2008

I slept on the floor last night and shivered as though the 3 feet of snow on the ground in Boston followed me to San Francisco. It’s cooold in the foggy city. But I still miss this place.

With 3 moves in nearly as many days, it has been a busy return to California. First stop was Los Angeles where a loyal Scripped blog reader and mother of my someone special had a fantastic birthday party at a tapas restaurant in Ventura. Just one day prior, I loaded up a Zipcar and moved my crap from Cambridge to Boston, where I will sunset my days as a graduate student in a cozy new Beacon Hill apartment. From Ventura we took the 101 straight up to San Francisco and woke up early to help the movers load up a U-Haul. No more kitchen nook and views of Scott and Chestnut. It’s funny how much smaller an apartment looks when the furniture’s out. With hardly a moment’s rest, were back on the road to Davis for another apartment cleanout. Then half of us returned to the empty marina apartment and cuddled up on the bare floor next to the radiator that hissed and spat as it tried to keep us warm through the night.

And now I am back at the marina Starbucks. This place is like a friend that I couldn’t get along with for a while and is now back in my life. I credit it to the free wireless. I used to hate the fact that Starbucks, at the height of its cash hogginess, would charge obscene rates for Internet access. Finally, my old friend has come around. I’m loving the free Starbucks wireless, and I reward them by purchasing a soy mocha with my Starbucks card.

Today I am off to Napa for lunch and a visit to grandma. Sunil is traveling around Barcelona and Zak is currying it up in India. That leaves Josh and I to hold down the fort through the holidays. Were it not for my iPhone life would be much less pleasant and I’d have to duck into these cafes more often to keep up on your emails and other business. It’s such a treat how technology not only makes it possible to keep up with a virtual company, but also allows the possibility to be a student, a grandson, a boyfriend, and even an apartment mover, more or less all at the same time. I would not have it any other way.

Happy holidays, Scripped folks. We’re really looking forward to the new year. In the next big newsletter we’ll tell you why!

Cheers,

Ryan

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Posted in Writing, entrepreneurship, ryan | 3 Comments »

making money on YouTube

Friday, December 12th, 2008

This NY Times article was sent to me by a good friend, my old pal from UC Berkeley who was the BMOC (you remember that term? “Big Man On Campus”) our senior year of college. Tall, tanned, handsome, charismatic Hawaiian athlete-turned-president of the student body, he couldn’t take a step outside of Eshelman Hall without a high five or hello.

Anyway, we still chat, but the conversation has matured a bit. We now talk about making money doing what you love, and he sent me this article. I’ll quote just a bit here:

Making videos for YouTube — for three years a pastime for millions of Web surfers — is now a way to make a living.

Granted, building an audience online takes time. “I was spending 40 hours a week on YouTube for over a year before I made a dime,” Mr. Buckley said — but, at least in some cases, it is paying off.

And no, Michael Buckley has no relation to me, unfortunately. But if you happen to know him, please send his email address over. Maybe a common last name is enough to get him to promote Scripped.

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Posted in entrepreneurship, publicity, ryan | 3 Comments »

Scripped Note — Please Nominate Scripped!

Tuesday, December 9th, 2008

Scripped
Note

December 9, 2008

Dear Loyal Users:

‘Tis the season, right?

As selfless providers of free screenwriting software, we subsist on just your kindness, some generous donors, and the knowledge that we help people like you write more and better scripts.

But every once in a while, we have to ask a favor, and The Crunchies 2008 is one such occasion!

It takes just 5 seconds. This is an opportunity for Scripped to get noticed by some big names for being the scrappy yet awesome startup that we are. Please do the following between writing scenes of your next
masterpiece:

- Click here and click “Nominate” [link removed - contest is over!]
- Continue writing!
- But please do it today; contest ends tomorrow.

Thanks so much for your help, and if you have any favors of your own, you know how to reach us.

Happy Holidays,

Zak, Ryan, Josh and Sunil
The Scripped Guys

P.S. (Thanks again…)

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Posted in newsletter | 7 Comments »

COMMENTS!

Saturday, December 6th, 2008

Hey everybody, guess what? You can now make comments!

Yes, you could have made comments before, but they did not appear immediately because some genius out there created a spam bot that would add oh, about 10 comments each day with links to pics of you-know-who and his or her you-know-whats. We at Scripped also believe in innovative publicity, but hey, not on our blog. So we had to screen each one, and I got tired of it.

Last night, as I spent 5 hours doing the door shift at the venerable Muddy Charles pub, I installed reCaptcha on our blog. Now the spammers can’t leave their digital poop on our doorstep, and you can have the immediate gratification of seeing your comment posted right away. Just click the comments link below, write your comment, and enter the two words in the reCaptcha box before you click submit or hit enter.

Comments, anyone?

Ryan

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Posted in Scripped, blogosphere, ryan | 13 Comments »

writing under pressure

Friday, December 5th, 2008

One of the best classes I’m taking this semester (or should I say took? 1 class left!) is taught by Maralee Schwartz, former political editor of the Washington Post. In this class, titled “How Politicians Connect,” we study the connecting strategies of Obama and McCain.

Of course it entails a good amount of reading and writing. Hmm… connecting, writing/reading… Seem to go together, no? A good book, or in Scripped-land, a good screenplay, connects the writer to the reader. It is done not just by writing well and looking good (Mitt Romney) but by being straightforward (McCain, at least in his better days) and always genuine (Obama, frustratingly consistent). Finding your true voice and being honest with yourself is what readers respond to in good writing. It’s probably why writing under pressure often produces your best stuff.

Like today. I got an email from Sunil asking me to put another one of my awesome blog posts together. I thought to myself, I have nothing to write about. Then I self-corrected - there is always something to say if I let my true self out. The best way to do that? Give yourself a time limit. I have contact@scripped emails to respond to before my lunch date with said Prof. Schwartz! Plus my own personal overflowing inbox! Plus economic problem sets to grade!

We all have our obligations, but taking the time to write, if that’s what you like to do, is critical. I leave with one last anecdote. Yesterday I had the good fortune to lunch with Jeff Taylor, the former “Chief Monster” at Monster.com (wildly popular job/resume website) and current head of Eons.com. He asked the other students at the table what we do for fun. Odd question from a bad ass CEO, right? Well, he told us he’s a DJ and spends his Sunday mornings sourcing music from all over the world and does his mixing on Thursday nights. Then his mix goes off to Sirius and XM where they broadcast his creation.

He told us that as you get older, it becomes increasingly important to do what you love. It helps you connect, stay straightforward, and be genuine and sincere with yourself. So thank you, Sunil, for making me write.

And with that, I return to those emails…

Ryan

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Posted in Uncategorized, Writing, ryan | 9 Comments »