Right now we're just struggling with a few third act plot points, and then we can hopefully send our outline off to our producers for them to pick apart.
You'd think it'd be too easy to simply switch a few scenes around, hack a few others out, and add a handful of new ones in.
Not so.
It's really like working with this intricate, fussy jigsaw puzzle. We're currently trying to figure out how to bring our supporting character, Finnley, into the third act. We thought it'd be great if we could create a scene where there was suddenly some sort of undeniable proof or a perfect situation where he was finally compelled to believe Donovan, after throwing doubt in his face throughout the first two acts. This was something we just came up with this afternoon... but now... how to make it work? That is the question...
So, I'm just gonna take my mind off of it for a while, and continue on where I left off yesterday.
Now, if you haven't read yesterday's post yet, then I suggest you do... since it's part one n' all. Of course, if you don't read it, the world isn't necessarily going to implode on itself. Although it probably does help to have slim summary of knowledge about the kind of gal my sister is before you read part two.
That being said, if you wanna jump back and read Part One, go ahead. I'll meetcha back here in five.
Okay, ready?
So, like I was saying in part one, Amy has a goal... but finding a goal hasn't been an easy task. Amy has always struggled. She has a learning disability, and unfortunately, twenty-some years ago, kids with learning disabilities didn't quite get the help they needed in school as children do today. Amy was pushed through year after year, after year, after year, after year.... always passed along to become someone else's problem. I don't know how the hell a child can fail nearly every test and project all year long, and then magically get promoted to the next grade. The school system failed her in a huge effing way! Pardon my (implied-use-of) language.
Making matters worse, I was somehow able to coast through school without too much of a problem. (With the exception of math. Actually, it's ironic that our script is about a mathematician because I've always hated math. Nonetheless, I still always managed to pass with about a B average... well, at least until high school anyway. :P)
So anyhow, whenever a teacher would meet my sister two years after I had come and gone, they could never comprehend why she was such a troubled student. In parent-teacher interviews, she was constantly compared to me, which obviously only diminished her self-esteem and caused the riff between us to grow.
I am honestly amazed that we ever managed to mend the vast ocean of animosity that festered between us for so many years. Because as a result of Amy's educational hurdles, we ended up being raised very differently. I think our parents... no, scratch that... I *know* our parents unintentionally overcompensated for Amy and were much harder on me, as some sort of skewed way to balance the scales. Amy would probably even admit this herself, as would several other relatives who witnessed the inconsistencies first-hand. It really did us no favours and only caused the resentment to grow.
Of course, how could our parents have known the massive impact this imbalance would have on the two of us? Like mom once cried during one of our famous battle-royals, "Children don't come with handbooks!"
The first time she used that line on me, I conceded. Mom n' dad were only doing the best they could.
The second time she used it, I snarled that she had already used that line on me once before, accused her of probably ripping it off Oprah, and then continued to scream about the harsh unfairness of life in the Krieger household.
But no one said that life was fair. And all things considered, life certainly wasn't fair to my sister.
If our teenage angst was the kindling, and being raised differently was the fuel, then by the time my sister's now-ex, Charlie, entered the picture, he was the spark that that set the fire ablaze that burned between us for years. (Almost ten years, in fact, as she started dating the asshole when she was only 15.)
But as we all know, a fire stimulates regrowth. So when Amy finally ran from that abusive shit head in the middle of a cold winter's night, with nothing but the clothes on her back and their baby in her arms, she opened her life up to massive regrowth. And truly, she has grown in the most incredible ways.
Amy is such a different person now, you'd never even believe it. Back in the day, I would chat with her on the phone once every six months (if that), and the conversation was always painfully limited.
Me: "So, what's new?"
Amy: "Oh, not a whole helluvalot."
Silence.
Charlie hated me. (Don't worry, the feeling was very mutual.) So she wasn't allowed to talk about much other than the weather, because heaven forbid she might confide what was really going on behind closed doors. However, these days we chat about once or twice a week. And while Amy will always have the edge of a pit bull who has seen her share of dog fights, she now has this absolute lightness in her voice.
She's since found herself a loving husband, and has slowly rebuilt her shattered (not that it ever really existed in the first place) confidence. She also recently went back to school and upgraded her skills. (I should mention that after the principal at our high school encouraged her to drop out -- which my parents obviously wouldn't allow -- she managed to barely graduate grade 12 by taking a basic correspondence course.)
Anyhow, Amy wanted to upgrade her skills because like a lot of people, she has always felt that she needed a "real" career - she just didn't know what that career should be. She knew that she wasn't necessarily cut out for college -- not that it ever stopped her from trying. In the past she had also looked into various trades, like heating and refrigeration, and even considered the military (following in her husband's footsteps). But it was during her recent mat leave when she discovered where her true passion lies... in the culinary arts.
With the Food network on 24 hours a day over the last year, Amy's love of cooking and being creative in the kitchen absolutely exploded. She was jotting down new recipes left, right and center. Whenever we'd chat on the phone, she'd often tell me what impressive dishes she had prepared for dinner. While her husband was overseas for nine months eating fried camel (I'm not kidding), she'd have our parents in almost every night, just to have company to cook fancy meals for.
By the time Troy got home from Afghanistan, Amy knew the path she wanted to pursue.... cooking school. But not just any cooking school. Amy had her eyes on the world's BEST cooking school - Le Cordon Bleu.
Okay, sorry to do this to you folks again, but I think I've written enough for tonight.
Let's pick up where we left off tomorrow, because there's still just a wee bit more left to this story yet...
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