Operation: Zacksplanation is go for launch.

Updated 8/29: You can now read my script...right here!

"The Man in the Restaurant"

And Wendy's equally intriguing (and completely different!) script is here: "The Man on the Roof"

Coming soon: Another version of the script - with commentary! Featuring my very own chicken scratch and Red Pen treatment!

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The day has come. Or at least it will in about 18 minutes, probably by the time I finish typing.

My link is not quite ready, but soon Wendy Young from Obsessed With Bones and I will be unleashing our fan scripts dealing with the "Zack Situation" on "Bones."

I'm not going to tell you too much, because I want you to read it first. But I can tell you that this was written as an "episode," meaning it could logically follow the season finale's events by a few months. (Of course, Season 4 has already started filming and has followed its own plot, but anyway...) I can also tell you that it deals with several aspects of Zack's story that were never explored, never mentioned, and probably never even considered. But aside from this being a completely unofficial, fan-written story, there is nothing fantastical going on here. In "The Man in the Restaurant," you will not find Booth in a delirious state, you will not see Patrick Duffy exiting the decontamination shower, and Zack will not be waking up next to Suzanne Pleshette.

Until I can update tomorrow night, please visit www.ObsessedWithBones.com to download my script in pdf format. I will post a more comprehensive summary tomorrow, including a list of the very important people who helped me write this.

In the meantime, I thank Eric Millegan (who celebrated his birthday this Monday!) for creating such a great character that his undoing also undid my writer's block. I wish I hadn't had to write this at all, but if a good story can come out of it (and if it means that Eric is free to do more storytelling himself), maybe this hostage situation of a script was worth it after all.

I also thank Wendy, a fantastic writer who was crazy enough to go along with this cockamamie idea. This was a fun ride, and it's been such a pleasure writing with you!

Also: Stay tuned for a HuffPo on fan-fiction later this week, including another version of my script with "commentary." How self-indulgent, I know. Equal parts sharing the storytelling process and defending my sanity.

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"I love it when you two impersonate earthlings."

Doing absolutely nothing for my case of convincing my loved ones that my sanity is in tact after a "Bones"-centric spring and summer, I started rewatching Season 1. Holy crap, this is such a great show. It's almost frustrating, even aside from how Season 3 ended. Because "Bones" makes everything else on TV look like crap in comparison.

The script I've written for Operation: Zackplanation has been registered with the WGA and will be unleashed on the Interwebs August 27th, one week from Wednesday. In between will be an announcement on Searching Bones and a podcast soon after the release. Wendy and I will be letting you in on some information beforehand, but since we really want them read, we're not letting on too much. I've gotten excellent feedback from my friends on mine, and I've also read Wendy's - and they are insanely different! I really think fans of the show will be psyched for this.

Meanwhile, as I mentioned, I've been defending my mental state all summer. Yeah, I got so affected by a whackadoo storyline on a TV show that I spent my summer outlining, writing, rewriting, researching and - literally - going back to school to write this script. But I'm not gonna front - it's been fun.

And I'm so glad it's over.

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"The Man in the Restaurant" - Bones "Episode" 4.53ish. (Not really.)

My draft is ready! I have a final draft of my "Bones" script, "The Man in the Restaurant" written, rewritten, fed-back, and edited to within an inch of its life. Wendy and I are set to unleash these things in about two weeks pending possible additional feedback from a VIP, whose identity I will reveal only if said VIP is able to give us said feedback. Otherwise, you'll have to live in suspense.

More info to come, but I've also read Wendy's script, and I can assure all of you "Bones" fans that you will be loving our two takes on the Zacksplanation!

Stay tuned!

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A puffer? For me?

So, all the feeling like crap last weekend was manageable until about Thursday, when I officially developed a barking cough. I skipped my class in favor of sleeping, thinking I would go to the doctor in the morning and go to work.

Yeah, didn't happen. Friday morning I woke up and could barely breathe. And the barking cough remained. So, that would be bronchitis, which I don't think I've had since I was a kid. But my throat from Thursday into Friday actually felt like someone was wringing my neck. I was issued a real live inhaler, antibiotics and cough medicine to go with the decongestants and Tylenol I was already downing. Now, none of these things alone will put your head in a fog, but all put together? And sick already? I basically slept all day Friday and Saturday. (And never used the inhaler. But Friday morning I totally would have.)

But today I was feeling good enough to shoot a movie for my buddy James, which is a really good thing because it had already been delayed for two months. So I got to have scary zombie makeup and corn syrup splattered all over me and then pretty much just walk across James' lawn and try to make him cry. Awesome.

And I'm putting finishing touches on my "Bones" script, on which I've gotten no feedback on the thing as a whole, but will be getting some tonight from my friend Jake and hopefully some more from others by tomorrow.

And by "getting some" I meant feedback.

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Draft 1 Finished! Also, I'm seriously a mess.

Can I tell you about my weekend for a second?

Friday night, I attended a screening for the Ghouligans, a comedy venture created by my good friend Mike. I usually don't go out on Friday nights because I'm most likely dead tired. I did this time, and I probably should have stayed home, except we had a great time and I would have regretted missing it a lot.

Saturday morning, I was awakened by the worst charley horse EVER. I honestly wanted to gnaw my own leg off with my teeth and be done with it, and it even made me sob and verbalize. It ended up leaving behind an entire yanked calf that had me limping like House. Meanwhile, I was morning-phlegmmier than usual and had a wicked headache.

So, I was off to a great start.

Then, I went to pick up the wig I was going to wear to play Lilly in my friend's new show "PB&J." I was told immediately that I was the perfect candidate for extensions, that my hair was doing nothing for me, that my hair was basically crap and going gray...

We were also holding a Slacker TV BBQ at a beach park that day. It was thundering when I got home, then it started pouring rain. The outdoor BBQ in the tree/lightening rod-filled picnic area was ON! I went. I felt like crap, but I went. The rain stopped as soon as we finished building a rain shelter, and by then I had progressed to feeling like shit. But I got to murder a crippled CD player:

Jamie Smashes CD Player (Slacker TV BBQ '08)


Then I went home and fell asleep with my Zacksplanation script open, unfinished and taunting. I finally finished that sucker after dinner - 62 pages. Just slightly overlong, but officially the first full-length script I had completed in ten years. I'll be editing that tonight and Wendy and I will soon unleash these things on the "Bones" fan community.

Not over yet!

Sunday I woke up with a full-blown cold - sore throat, clogged nose, weird, awful buzzy headache. But we had a shoot in Brooklyn for "PB&J"! No way was I missing my first day as Lilly, plus we were going to Coney Island, the day was gorgeous, and I had no lines, so there was no reason to slack off this time. The day was awesome. I came home and fell asleep at 11:00 and slept clean through my alarm the next morning. I had also stubbed my toe so bad during the shoot that it looked like someone tried to torture it, but you can't even tell on camera. But then my co-star Jaime and I went on an amazing journey throughout the Prospect Park area of Brooklyn looking for an open pharmacy - on a Sunday. Oops.

That was my weekend. It rocked. I was pumped the whole time for other reasons, but it was really a great, awesome time.

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"Bones" progress finally made.

I finally - finally - started writing my Zacksplanation script this weekend, albeit last night. Saturday was spent in East Hampton rehearsing with my scene partner from acting class (who actualy lives in Phildelphia - so, two people with preposterous commutes to NYC) and Sunday was gray, wet and loud, so I did some housecleaning and found my piano.

After dinner, I finally got over the "white page shakes" and went on to write 28 pages of a 60-page script. Had I started that afternoon, I could have easily finished. I'll probably get the chance tomorrow night to do just that, completing my first draft, then going over it to make sure it doesn't completely blow.

I never heard back from any forensic experts. I'm disappointed but not surprised, what with them having actual jobs of importance and time sensitivity. (BTW, the professor from my previous post apologized to me after I sent him a tersely worded response. Now I'm wondering if I should also apologize for being such a bitch.)

But it's making good progress. The second half of my script deals with the actual Zacksplanation and the character Zack Addy, and this is the part I have the most confidence in. Writing for characters that fans of the show love so much, namely Booth and Brennan, is a bit daunting. I don't know if fans will be reading this expecting a completely typical, consistent episode or if they'll be excited to read an episode-formatted version of my Zack theory.

I guess we'll find out. Headlines of the future: "Bones" Fan, Writer, Burned At Stake.

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Asshole of the Day!

In writing my script for Operation: Zacksplanation, I have been running scared from the scientific aspects about which I have only very crude knowledge. Wendy was kind enough to point me to a directory of registered forensic anthropologists that included email addresses for pretty much all of them. At the bottom of the page was an option to send an email to everyone on the list, plus a fun graphic of a skeleton and the apparent promise that "someone will bite!"

I sent an email this morning, explaining that while I can't pay them, and I know they have much more pressing things to do with their time (such as being a forensic anthropologist) than help me with my fan-fic-gone-too-far, some technical advice would be really swell. I always worry a bit when I send emails like this because who am I to ask these accomplished people to spare schmucky little me some of their time and wisdom? I have no credibility, and there's no reason to respond to such a request. But I'm told again and again, the worst that could happen is they say "no."

Well, one of them flat-out scolded me for even asking:

Do you expect busy forensic anthropologists to set aside their time for your projects? Most of us work 65 - 80 hour weeks. And you offer this proposal without any comment about what you plan to pay these experts within their different research areas of forensic anthropology? Please think again about your expectations. Do you request these favors from physicians, military officers, business men and women, school teachers and other persons devoting their lives to their professions and for whom time is a critical factor?

For one thing, the subject line was "(Unpaid) Consulting for 'Bones' fan script," so that was pretty clear right off the bat. For another, I made it clear in my email that I know they have rather important jobs. And for yet another thing, I have contacted several people asking for technical advice and they actually have obliged and provided me very useful information. (Even when I would tell them what I was working on may never be published.)

And if his time is so fucking precious, why didn't he just delete my email and be done with it? He seemed to have plenty of time to condescend to me. Douchebag.

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Yay! I didn't sound that pretentious! My "Bones" interview

I use a lot of big words when I write and speak, so sometimes I feel like I come off as a rather pretentious bitch. But I just listened to the interview I conducted with the unofficial official podcast for my favorite show "Bones" - the Bonecast - and I didn't sound that stupid! So click here to listen to my interview and the rest of the podcast to see what's going on This Week in "Bones." The hosts are Lindsey, who runs the Anti-Boneyard and Wendy, who runs Obsessed With Bones and also happens to be my writing partner in Operation: Zacksplanation, the script project we are writing for fans of the show who were displeased with the season finale. We have starkly different theories, mainly whether or not Zack could kill and why or why not, respectively. My story stems from this obscenely long post that I wrote a few days post-finale. (Seriously, only the brave and eyestrain-immune need enter. I may have snapped the tiniest bit that day. I can tell you that for real, I couldn't cry for a month afterwards.)

So take a listen and see what you think. Namely, how bad my accent is. I'm competing with a Canadian and a Southerner, so it's quite a crew.

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New episode of "Bones"! (For me, at least.)

For as big of a "Bones" fan as I am, all two of you might be surprised to know that I didn't watch the show until this past March. As a result, I missed three episodes that have not appeared online until now, when they aired as reruns. This proved to be incredibly frustrating during spoiler season since so much information about the killer Gormagon was presented in next week's rerun, "The Knight on the Grid." This week was "The Boy in the Time Capsule," which I also missed, and I'll finally get to watch that one tonight.

None of this "new" evidence will convince me that Zack Addy should have ended up as Gormagon's apprentice, but the writers had noe even made the decision until after the strike, and that first returning episode was "The Verdict in the Story." Pre-"Verdict," Zack's really underused and comes off as much different than the Zack of previous seasons, reason obviously being Iraq. In last week's rerun, "The Intern in the Incinerator," a line that Wendy said supported her Zacksplanation seemed to illuminate Zack's feeling of being unnecessary:

"I was being precise. You used to appreciate that."

Now, as I mentioned, Wendy and I are mostly blind to what is taking place in each other's scripts. But I'll definitely say that Zack's post-Iraq behavior is pretty consistent with PTSD. It's clear the writers wanted to address this, then, soooooo regrettably, let it fall by the wayside after the strike. Such a casualty.

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Getting fingers to keys is the goal of the day.

I haven't talked about my writing ventures much lately, especially the really cool, semi-obsessive "Bones" project I'm doing with Wendy from Obsessed With Bones. We were both kind of disappointed in the season finale this year (probably me more than her, as demonstrated in the "Windbagger") As a result, we both came up with different (very different) theories on what went wrong with Zack Addy (Eric Millegan) that caused him to join forces with a cannibalistic serial killer. True - the logical argument was a premise that Zack could support: Killing those who would do harm to preserve the human experience as a whole. But actually following through and committing murder? Wendy believes it's possible, I do not. She's taking a psychological perspective, I'm subscribing to a cocktail of PTSD, Asperger's and forensic linguistics.

We've been emailing back and forth on our progress, our setbacks, our trepidations, and the parts of which we're the most proud. Both of us really like our stories. Now, with a July 31st deadline looming, it's a matter of execution. I expressed this morning that I feel like I'm not writing enough in character, that my "dialogue" so far is more what I want them to talk about and not what these characters would actually say. I also have a lot of expository dialogue, and it's going to be a challenge to "show" and not "tell." In a procedural drama, I would think there's a bit of leeway with this, but I'm not going to put crap out there. I feel like this is the ultimate exercise in screenwriting by getting inside the heads of existing characters, and holy crap, what if the impossible happens and someone involved with "Bones" actually reads it? I mean, it's always possible, right?

Either way, I'll be posting on it more as the deadline nears.

In the meantime, keep reading!

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