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A title is a name of a project. So what’s in a name?

Marketability.

At least, that’s the information I’ve heard in course discussions about what producers look for.  The title needs to grab you, be memorable, give you a sense of what the show’s about.

For example, the project I’m now marketing started with the working title TRAIL FALL.  That’s because concept and characters come directly from a short story I wrote and registered in 2011 as “Trail Fall.”

During the course, feedback from others told me no one could figure out what that title meant, so — after considerable brainstorming — I switched the working title to MISSION METRO as sort of a nod to “Mission to Mars” in an attempt to let people know this is science fiction.

Then I attended a pitch-training event. The coach at our table let me know that MISSION METRO doesn’t cut it for a title.  MISSION TO METRO didn’t work either.  The coach wanted me to call my series “It’s My Planet” but I felt that gave it too much of a sit-com vibe.

I did more brainstorming, and finally found a title that got positive feedback from my little circle of supporters.  So, what started as a story called “Trail Fall” is now a pilot registered under the name MAP’S EDGE.

What’s in a title?  A lot of thought, brainstorming, feedback, and discussion — but usually not very many words.

A big advantage streaming services have over theatrical release — you don’t need to worry some demonic POS with an assault rife will take out dozens of viewers simply because he doesn’t like the movie.

After a long spell of ignoring this website, I find it may be beneficial to start posting again.  Family matters aside, my time has been focused on learning a different style of communication — screenwriting.

Maybe I’ve done this the wrong way around.  First I turned four of my novels (the trilogy and Waln) into six scripts, and a short story (Trail Fall) into a TV pilot.

My novel Senders actually started as my first screenplay years ago — I have a letter from Donie Nelson about it dated around the year 2000.  After that screenplay didn’t make it out of the second round of the Monterey Film Commission’s contest, I used it as the outline for the novel Senders of Shaula, then later rewrote the novel as another screenplay.

Last year I enrolled in screenwriting classes at ScreenwritingU.com.  The classes are great. I’ve learned so much in a year’s time (plenty more than enough to know those six scripts need to be rewritten)  and restructured the pilot into something I can actually show to people who know something about the industry.   In addition I’m in the middle of  a new project, the first script I’ve written that didn’t start from a novel or short story I wrote.

On second thought, maybe this was the correct sequence for learning screenwriting.  One’s first attempts  are usually “learning scripts” destined for the dust files.  This way I got the learning scripts out of the way before getting the professional view of how to approach screenwriting.

For anyone wondering about the Insurgent Oak infant forest, it’s thriving!  Each year my front yard has had a different look.  The first few years were all about protecting the tender sprouts from too much heat by setting up shade structures, so the yard at times looked like a junkyard. One year it was the location for a vegetable garden grown in old garbage cans (providing both shade and water for the little trees).

Last year was their first summer as independent growers.  I did have to water several times, but did nothing to provide additional shade.  Many of the littlest crisped out before the end of summer, but the forest needed thinning anyway. The strong survived. Now I have two saplings taller than I am, and a multitude of others providing low shade in their own right. The birds love it.  It’s perfect habitat to let the fledglings hop around in while Ma and Pa Bird keep watch from a high perch nearby.

[This is an update on a blogpost I first posted on the Writer’s Carnival website last August, and posted here last December.]

I followed my basic battle plan.  As acorns began dropping last September, I collected them in dishpan-sized bins and stored them in the garage, out of the heat. It was a mast year for acorn drop, so I ended up with five bins, heaped.  The acorns came from three trees that dropped different sizes of acorns:  small, medium, and serious head-thumpers.

As an experiment, I immediately planted a dozen or so of the plumpest  by using the point of old pruning shears to drill four or five inches into the sun-baked ground, then put temporary shade structures over them to prevent roasting.

When the first rains were forecast, I started raking up fallen leaves, carting them out front to blanket my flat expanse of dry lawn stubble.  (If lack of water hadn’t killed off all the grass, maybe lack of sunshine would.) Eventually the blanket, four and five inches deep, covered the yard’s prime grow-zone (the middle third of the yard, not too close to the house or power lines.)

I brought in leaves from several different kinds of trees, and quickly learned my first lesson — small leaves work better than large ones.

Small leaves from oak and ash trees were better at staying in place during windy weather. Large leaves from maple, cottonwood, and sycamore kept ending up drifted against the house.  I’d rake them up and put them back on the blanket, hoping rain and sun would break them into smaller, tamer pieces.

As cool weather and spells of rain settled in, I removed the shade structures so the planted acorns would get watered, and I brought out the bins of acorns to scatter.

Horrors.

Every binned acorn had at least one hole where a grub had drilled its way out.  Grubs wriggled in the bottom of the bins, and black mold covered the lower layers of acorns.  I was certain I’d lost a year’s harvest, and the insurrection would have to start again the next September, because not one of those acorns would sprout.

In a way, I was right. Not ONE of those acorns sprouted — THEY ALL DID.

By mid spring, my yard had become the nursery for a thousand infant oak trees.

At first, I did nothing but cheer them on.  I knew I’d have to make choices later about which ones could be left to grow, but at this stage I wanted natural selection, not my interference, to show me which seedlings were the healthiest, most vigorous and resilient. The life of a baby oak isn’t all rains and roses, you know.  They need inborn stamina.

This year’s El Nino rains helped.  The long rainy season meant I didn’t need to interfere until mid-May, when I gave the rapidly drying grow-zone one deep overall soak.

End-of-May hot weather sent me out to fashion shade structures to protect the infants from leaf-crisping heat.  Other than pulling some weeds, that’s all I did until a couple of weeks ago (mid-June).  The shade meant for the seedlings created favorable growing conditions for encroaching Bermuda grass, and it was getting tall.  So, starting at the back of the grow-zone and working my way forward, I began a comprehensive forest maintenance job:

• pulling Bermuda to reduce its mass and use of water meant for seedlings
• mounding leaf  mulch around the most vigorous and well-placed seedlings
• reorganizing shed structures to protect those seedlings, adjusting for summer’s shadow pattern
• carrying containers full of water to trickle on the selected seedlings, giving them a deep soak without watering the surrounding ground.

Seedlings and Bermuda in untended, sun-baked areas are crisping out. Infants under shade structures are thriving, most now between three and seven-inches tall.

A ten-inch tall seedling has leaves five inches long, two-and-a-half inches wide.  (I know which tree that acorn came from.)

But the true forest phenomenon is one Baby Champion Oak.  Currently growing about one-half inch per day, it is now twenty-nine inches tall.  All it needed was some shade and a little water.

That’s right folks.

An acorn I planted last October is now a tree over two feet tall.

Last September, my front lawn was a flat area of hay-dry grass stubble.  As noted in an earlier post, I decided the best way to re-landscape that patch of land would be to transform it back into a fragment of the native oak woodland it was until the first half of the last century, when it became a plum orchard that eventually turned into a dry, treeless slope covered completely  in star thistle, and transformed again into a residence with lawns and growing trees of several landscape varieties.

First, I collected acorns from under the oaks out back .  It was a mast year, so I had five plastic bins full.  I stored them in the garage, out of the heat. When cooler weather brought Fall rain, I used oak leaves to blanket the front lawn four to five inches deep, hoping it would smother out dormant grass by depriving it of sunshine, and break down into mulch.

When I finally thought it was time o scatter the acorns, I discovered most of them had worm holes, and those at the bottom of the bins were covered in black mold. “Dang!” I thought, “A year’s harvest wasted.”  I scattered them anyway, kicking leaves over them for cover, sure that not one would sprout.

And I was right, not one acorn sprouted — all of them did.  By mid-spring my lawn was a nursery for several hundred infant oak trees.  For the first month, I did nothing to assist or interfere with the growing.

For several days I watched a flock of seven flickers hunt assiduously for the toyon berries I had scattered with the acorns.  They found about all of them.  Just as well, for later I decided having a bunch of toyon mixed in with the oaks would make too dense of a shrubby wilderness.  I’m hoping the flickers managed to plant some of those seeds in good spots elsewhere.  So many kinds of birds love the berries, and toyon is native to California.

As the summer heat moved in, I put up an ugly hodgepodge of boards and rigid-foam insulation sheets leaning on plant pots and patio chairs to create shade over seedlings that had sprouted in the prime growing zone: not too close to the house. or sidewalk, or power lines.

Last month I gave the growing zone one deep soak to help the fragile sprouts along. Yesterday, I got selective, giving a second deep watering only to the  healthiest-looking seedlings that are placed well in the landscape. I am amazed at the vigor of some of these baby trees. I now have one baby champion oak that is 18 inches tall. After I watered it, I think it grew another inch before sundown.

Now I’m cleaning up the nursery a bit. Poorly placed oak seedlings are snipped out, and scattered weeds pulled (the mulch makes that easy.)    I’m rearranging and reducing the shade structures to protect just the selected seedlings, and mulling over ways to make structures that look nicer.  They need to be something the Delta breeze won’t blow over.

Since the deep soak, Bermuda grass has come roaring back in, so I’m hand-pulling to reduce its mass, but I’m not trying to get rid of it completely.  It acts well as a net to keep the leaf mulch in place as it decomposes.  I’ll probably fashion some kind of trunk guards when the trees are bigger, so I can use a line trimmer to keep the Bermuda in check. Eventually, the trees will overwhelm the Bermuda with their shade and little need for water during the summer.

With those trees shading the front lawn, the house will be cooler all summer.

The way I see it, Progressives could win big with a Clinton/Sanders ticket.

Right now, as the people inspired by Bernie Sanders are digging into coin purses and checking under couch cushions to scrape together something to donate to his campaign, the Koch brothers, health insurance companies, oil-fracking companies, and big pharma are pouring a river of cash into every close congressional race in the country.

They want to make sure Congress remains in the firm grasp of Republicans, because then it won’t matter who gets elected President: no progressive legislation will have a chance to make it to the President’s desk for signing.

I’ve seen it happen too many times before. A candidate holds out hope for positive change, gets elected, then is called a disappointment because Republicans in control of Congress block everything the Democratic President tries to accomplish.

If Progressives want to see actual progress this time around,  then we need to vote for Hillary Clinton for President and Bernie Sanders for Vice President.

Let the two combine their campaign war chests now, instead of spending so much on fighting each other, and run a combined campaign against any Republican who gets in the way. Let them form a united front against the regressives, while Progressives throw support behind progressive congressional candidates across the country. If we can get Congress back under Democratic control, a Clinton/Sanders administration would have a chance of pushing through progressive goals.

While Hillary deals with whatever global or national crisis walks in the door each day, Bernie can focus on strong-arming members of Congress to get the votes needed to pass progressive legislation. Instead of being pulled in a hundred different directions at once by presidential duties, he could concentrate sustained energy on what he already knows best – Congress and the US economy.

And Hillary could hit the ground running in regards to foreign policy. Experience may not be everything necessary to do a good job, but it sure can save time when a person is being deluged with information about complicated situations. Hillary would be able listen to her advisors without being dependent on their opinions (as has happened in some other administrations), because as a former Secretary of State, she already knows the turf and has met many of the major players.

So my vote is Hillary for Head of State, and Bernie for Head of Getting Progressive Legislation Through Congress.

IN A XENON WORLD (Flash Fiction)

I have a spectacular view of the valley.

From the veranda of my cabin high above, I can see across to the mountain slopes on the other side, the fringe of green forest near the timberline, and peaks silhouetted against the deep, saturated blue of the sky.

I’m told the lovely deep blue of the sky is caused when red light in the sun’s spectrum gets absorbed as it strikes the Earth. The red light doesn’t bounce back up to muddy the blue color.

That’s one benefit.

I guess my parents liked living in the valley because it was a better place to raise children. Green lawns, playgrounds and soccer fields, all that. Later, I guess they just didn’t have the energy to move, even though air quality had deteriorated, and the neighbors became disruptive.

Mom gave up gardening roses, preferring to spend the day indoors with her rejuvenating oxygen tank while she lounged on the couch to watch programs about parents battling over custody of the kids. Every parent always promised they were the one who could provide a better life for the child.

My parents hadn’t paid much attention when the nearby power plant shut down.

The news lady said the light water reactor had been in operation for over sixty years and was no longer considered safe, that investigators discovered a series of cover-ups about incidents when radiation was accidentally vented into the atmosphere. None of the incidents was significant, though, so there was never any immediate danger. Each incident just caused bits of radiation to be sprinkled into the air, like a few grains of salt sprinkled into a pitcher of water.

However, investigators had also discovered radiation was eating a hole through the top of the containment dome, and now only seven inches of concrete kept a massive release of radiation out of the atmosphere.

So they shut the power plant down and decommissioned it. People knew about it, but the topic wasn’t interesting enough to discuss at neighborhood block parties. The power plant issue got the attention of valley inhabitants, though, when electric bills went up.

My folks and others in the valley wrote letters of complaint. How could they keep the house temperature at 74 during the winter if the monthly bill was going to be hundreds of dollars? How could they run the AC all summer, and keep their water feature’s recirculating pump going 24/7? Heck, they even had to think twice now before using the automatic ice tea maker.

Everyone cheered when the power company broke ground on a new power plant, a cutting-edge, innovative design that eliminated design flaws in the old-style light water reactor. Neighbors held excited discussions about all the great features of this new design, and Fred Frump became our local expert on the issue.

“It’s safe. There’s no possibility of a meltdown,” said Fred. “It’s got a plug of electrically-cooled salt. In the old plant, when the power went out, the pumps would stop pushing water through the system to keep it cool, so the fuel got a hotter and melted through the reactor floor. With this design, when power goes out, the plug melts. The fissioning molten salts drain into a pit to stop the reaction.”

“You don’t say!” My dad was stoked. “That is so cool! How long does it take for the fissioning salts to cool down? What do they do with the cool stuff? How do they get it out of the pit? How do they get the plant started again?”

“The report didn’t say,” said Fred. “But I heard this new reactor will be cheaper to run because it uses the cast-off fuel from old power plants. The new design squeezes energy out of fuel the old plants thought was all used up, and the waste from this plant won’t be nearly so radioactive.”

“How ever do they do that?”

“The old plants used fuel rods packed with uranium pellets. The process of fission produced gases, like xenon and krypton, which absorb neutrons. It’s like throwing baking soda on a fire. And the rod cladding trapped the gases in with the pellets. It poisoned the fuel.” Fred sipped his beer. “So this new design – it’s genius – they aren’t using fuel rods and uranium pellets. They melt uranium salts and let the gases boil off. The krypton and xenon just drift away so they don’t slow the reaction. That reactor keeps right on reacting and heating water to make steam to keep those turbines churning out energy.”

“Usin’ spent fuel from other nuke plants, ‘eh?” Old man Slurry was a little slow on the uptake. “So how’r they planning to get that high-level radioactive waste over to the new plant?”

“Oh, trucks, trains, I don’t know,” said Fred. “The report didn’t say.” He beamed. “Isn’t it great?”

Old Man Slurry’s attention drifted. “Hey, did you hear? They found rusty bolts in that train trestle over Harper Canyon River. Looks like they need to rebuild it. And they’re planning to upgrade the freeway overpass. I guess they don’t think it’s earthquake safe.”

“People are always worried about earthquakes,” said Fred. “You get a little rockin’ and rollin’. How bad can an earthquake be? Myself, I like a little rock ‘n roll now and then.”

The other neighbors laughed.

“What about that stuff they’re boiling off,” asked my dad. “Those radioactive gases. What do they do with that?”

“The report didn’t mention that either,” said Fred, “but I expect they’ll catch it and bottle it to sell to hospitals and light manufacturers. Xenon is expensive stuff, but it makes a great anesthetic and filler for gas-discharge lighting.”

“Whoa,” said Fran from down the street. “Maybe I should call my stock broker and invest in xenon light.”

“An anesthetic, hunh?” said Old Man Slurry. “So if they have any trouble that lets xenon and krypton gas out into the atmosphere, we’ll all just go to sleep and not cause the power company any trouble?”

The neighbors laughed.

The power company built the new Harper Valley Molten-Salt Reactor. My folks kept the AC going all summer, and used krypton- and xenon-filled lights to illuminate nighttime barbecues in the backyard.

No one paid much attention to occasional news reports that the power plant couldn’t always adequately contain the radioactive gasses. Heck, a little release here, an accidental venting there – the sky was big place, and those gases just mingled in invisibly, drifting away. No immediate danger.

Of course, we had earthquakes now and then. Some did cause structural damage in the neighborhood, and every year a few big windstorms whipped through the valley, cracking fragile things. Neighbors would line up at the home improvement stores to buy new windows and pipe fittings and xenon lights. Xenon lighting was so cheap by then, we could replace it without a second thought. The city issued publications, trying to educate people about proper disposal of damaged or burnt out lighting. However, that issue never was the topic of discussion at block parties.

After a few decades, some troublemaker investigating the molten-salt reactor power plant reported that structural deterioration due to constant exposure to radiation had been causing more leaks than the power folks and Nuclear Regulatory Commission wanted to admit.

A few years later, a meteorologist and an atmospheric scientist went on the news to say that, since most of the year our valley didn’t have a lot of wind to ventilate it, radioactive isotopes of xenon and krypton accumulated over it, building up to a significant concentration. That’s when we learned a basic fact of science: krypton and xenon are heavier than oxygen and nitrogen. That meant xenon and krypton gas drifted down, instead of up, accumulating in the layer of air blanketing the floor of our valley. Sort of like smog in LA or China, with the little added zing of radiation.

Some physician tweeted his prediction of a 50% increase in number of lung cancer deaths in our valley over the next fifty years. But what did he know?

We also learned there’s a reason xenon gas gives off a lovely bluish light when it’s packed in a glass tube and electrically agitated. The xenon absorbs longer (redder) wavelengths of the light spectrum.

Unfortunately, most land-based oxygen-producing plants on this planet use the long waves of red light to power their photosynthesis oxygen-factories. So in our valley, increasing levels of xenon in the layer of air where the plants grew filtered out the light waves plants need for energy, shutting down all those little oxygen factories. Plants got sickly, and died off. Oxygen was no longer being produced on the valley’s floor.

We all became very aware of another little scientific fact: because xenon and krypton are much heavier than either nitrogen or oxygen, concentrations of those gases displaced the air we needed to breathe, like carbon monoxide invisibly accumulating inside a house, preventing oxygen from entering the blood streams of sleeping residents.

The tweeting physician went on the evening news to tell us humans evolved to survive in a very narrow spectrum of atmospheric conditions. Normal air is 78% nitrogen, and almost 21% oxygen. A healthy adult human male will run into trouble if the percentage of oxygen drops by only one percent. When the concentration of oxygen drops from 21% to 16%, he’s in deep shit.

We never did get told the oxygen requirements of other species – I guess that wasn’t important enough to study – but we were still above 20% when I began to see drunken bees and beetles wobbling about on the sidewalk. As the oxygen percentage crept under 19%, they died in swarms. Normally, the ants would have carried away the insect carcasses, but I guess by then there weren’t any ants.

That spring, Mrs. Whatcher, the local birder, told us songbird nests were failing. Eggs hatched, she said, but the little peepers died before they fledged.

Rich people moved to fourth floor apartments and planted gardens on the roof. Poor people fought each other over lengths of two-by fours so they could fashion themselves crude stilts.

I decided we had to move the day my daughter’s canary died.

(First draft posted at www.writerscarnival.ca on May 26, 2015)