2012 (long overdue) Update

   I'm sorry it's taken me so long to blog again.  Actually, I've been blogging like crazy in other places and, after discovering the power of Twitter, well, I've been Tweeting maniacally, spurred by Gary Vaynerchuk's exhortation to get on Twitter and work it, engage in it (thanks, Gary!).  I feel like the guy in the above photo with Twitter being that crazed gremlin on my shoulders — but in a good way.  I love Twitter, and I urge you to Follow me there @rexpickett.  I Tweet mostly #writing advice to aspiring scribes of all ilk:  novelists, screenwriters, et alii.  And I love the feedback that I get.  If ever I wanted to feel loved …

   Over December Rich Blotto of Stage32.com ran my 6-part serialization My Life on Spec:  The Writing of Sideways.  It details everything I went through with the writing of Sideways, the indignities I endured, the making of my novel into a movie, and the eventual fallout from that.  Thousands, I'm told, read it, riveted by my story.  The comments left were unbelievably gratifying and I want to thank each and every one of those who took the time to read it and left their remarks  With so many damn blogs out there these days, one wonders if anyone takes the time to read these things anymore.  I guess they do!

   Speaking of my blogs, my inaugural Huff Post Books blog, It's the End of the Word as We Know It, is now LIVE.  Yes, I've gone legit, thanks to Twitter and meeting renowned author Jennifer Weiner who made the introductions.  I will continue to blog about my travails in the traditional publishing world and my eventual landing on the self-imprint path.  So, look for that.

   Other news:  we held the third cold read — but the first for my director Amelia Mulkey — of the Sideways play.  Amelia and I had agreed to some major restructuring of the first act and needed to hear it read and timed out.  After the read, I went back inside and did another revision.  Plays, unlike novels, and even movies, are works-in-progress until opening night.  Even then, they can still change!  The hard thing for me is not to get inured to the humor — i.e., start to think things that were funny in the first read are no longer funny and take them out because I'm tired of them.  Also, because it's a "cold read," the actors are not off book, there's a non-actor reading the stage directions, and you have to really see through the "cold" reading of the dialogue and maintain perspective.  What's going to be exciting is when we start casting.

   Speaking of which:  Casting will commence middle of February and conclude by the end of February so Amelia's and my chosen actors can launch immediately into rehearsals.  I believed esteemed, and multiply-credited, casting director, April Webster, is now on board to help us with finding the right actors for this — forgive my immodesty — hilarious play.  Oh, and did I mention, I love working with just-turned 30 Amelia Mulkey?  She hails from an acting family, and although she has only helmed one full-length play, she is a force of nature.  She's opinionated, stands her ground, but so far we have collaborated felicitiously, with zero conflicts or disagreements.  We are totally in sync, and that makes me happy because it was something I was worried about.  She's been great with her input on the script, knowing full well that she's critiquing — for the stage — a now iconic book/movie.  I also know my place in this production and am careful to listen to her input and not step on her toes.  And although I will be intimately involved with the casting, the staging of the play is going to be her responsibility and it's going to be a big one.

   I don't know who we're going to cast.  Playwrighting is a different animal than novel writing and screenwriting (though the latter does bear some similarities).  Because a play is all dialogue-driven, and because those characters are literally living in my head, I know exactly how I want every line to be read, how I want their timing to be just so.  But this is not how you direct actors.  They have to find it themselves.  It's maddening for a playwright when the actors muff a line, miss the timing of a joke or mispronounce a word.  I see why so many playwrights have turned to alcohol and drugs and inhalants and fashioned nooses.  When you're writing a play you can literally see and hear it, line-by-line, in your head, and it's almost impossible to believe that that could ever be duplicated on stage.  Hell, it might even be better.  That's why I can't direct this, and that's why I have the redoubtable Amelia.

   Life is incredibly busy.  I continue to do a lot of PR for Vertical, my Sideways sequel.  A lot of it is over the Web:  Skype interviews, e.g.  It seems there's no end to the people who want to talk about that movie and my book that spawned it, and the sequel that now is widely available everywhere.  In fact, tonight I'm going to be on Twitter at 6:00 PST hosting a Live "hashtag" interview with whomever weighs in at #winechat with their questions.  It's a good chance to see how the Twitter world works for those who are unfamiliar with it.

   My HBO pilot continues to be in development.  I'm excited about a Merlot I'm coming out with my name on it in partnership with Bion Rice of Sunstone Winery.  My friend Pamela and her friend Arzu created the cool-looking label, and it looks awesome.  Sunstone Winery & Rex Pickett Present the Author's Series:  "The Apostate" Merlot.  I know, it sounds kind of ironic and funny, but … it's a delicious wine from the Santa Ynez Valley.

   So, check out my various blogs.  Sorry for the absence.  I wake every morning and barely leave my couch, the computer on my lap, Tweeting and blogging and conducting interview and answering the tons of E-mail that I get every day.  I guess you could say I've come out of the 20th Century closet and have now totally, fully, entered, and engaged in, the wide world of social media.

Cheers, Rex