I Yam, what I yam...

Okay,what to tell about myself that you guys might find even remotely interesting...

Well, for starters, my name is Elaine, I live in Chicago. I'm currently 46 years of age, I have 2 boys. The oldest is in college, the youngest, his second year of high school.

I started training as a painter when I was seven. that happened because while the other kids were drawing pictures with the sky sitting high above the ground. I drew my pictures with the sky and earth touching on the horizon-I simply drew it as I saw it.

I started writing when I was about 13 years of age. Poetry mostly at that time, very overly romantic girly stuff filled with "thees" and "thous"-I've since gained a heck of a lot more skill and style (at least, I hope I have).

I started my training in music at the age of 16 when I joined the Drum and Bugle Corps of ,y ROTC regiment in high school. A yearlater, I was in another school that did not have ROTC, but I'd signed upfor beginningband and settled on learning the saxophone which was the instrument that all the males on my mom's side of the family played-I wasn't half bad. I ended up being able to play alto, tenor and baritone saxophones and string base in about 2 years. 

I had dreamed when I was younger that I'd grow upto be this cool classical saxophonist who wrote poetry and painted amazing pictures when I wasn't touring with the orchestra. I'd be married to an incredibly smart, funny and successful man who would love me and our 2 children above all else and we'd live in a fashionable downtown apartment filled with great furniture, art , and music, with shelves upon shelves of books.

That was a long timeago of course. I quit playing the saxophone after my dad promised to get me one of my own and then broke that promise (he was good at doing things like that). I did not go to college because I allowed people who had no business being involved in my life convince me I wasn't good enough to go.

And for the longest time, I did not write anything more challenging than a grocery list and limited my artwork to the occasional doodle.

I went into the Marines after being asked to leave high school (I wasn't a BAD kid, I just wasn't living up to my potential). I left the Corps after a year a month and a day of service. You see, while the Corps has no problem with us losing our minds and killing others, they take a very dim view of us wanting to kill ourselves.

And, being rather screwy in the head after I came out, I made no end of mistakes as I struggled to get to what I hope is now a more stable state of mind.

I went through times when I had very little, then I went through times when I had nothing at all-except my kids, and the ability to tell stories in my head that I've had since childhood.

while pregnant with my youngest, I set out to write my first "serious" project-I'd written other things before and gotten some notice, but this time, I wanted to actually make my writing work for me.

I started a short entitled "The Enslaved". Well, the short story after a while began to feel more like a novella, then the novella began to feel more like a stage play. I'd written stage plays before so it wasn't that hard to make that transition.

I finished the stage play, but then felt that I hadn'tquite expressed the story the way I'd wanted to-So, I got a book from Writer's Digest on writing screenplays and found a section about adapting books and plays to screen format.

Following the instructions in the book, I turned my stage play into a screenplay. and then,once my youngest was born, and we were struggling to just keep a roof over our heads, I took a daring step and having nothing to offer but my writing, I applied to the American Film Institute's Conservatory.

I was one out of 3,000 that applied that year. There were only 125 slots for first year students available-I got in, then I had to turn them down (I did not have th money to go to school full time and take care of two small boys at the same time and my family again felt I wasn't worthy of anyone's assistance in that respect). In a desperate move (I'm rather good at those) I told my story to a reporter who wrote an article that got attention, that got memoney to help with the kids. Friends agreed to help care for my kids while I went to school, Jean fistenberg-head of everything AFI arranged for my tuition to be paid for by the Stan Kamen Fund and I thought my future was assured.

I dreamed of writing incredible movies that won Oscars whilemy kids and I lived in a gorgeous big house in the Hollywood Hills while I turned down proposal after proposal from some of the hottest actors around.

Boiy, can I dream big.

Anyhoo, things did not turn ourt as I planned: the producer who took an option on my second screenplay had no real understanding of either sci fi or horror and therfore got lost in a piece that was basically a hybrid of the two.

I toiled for over a year and a half before Universal gave the project the boot and me and mine were left with no money and an ever-growing pile of debt as I tried to figure out how to work the system.

Let's fast forward past the bouts of homelessness, depression etc, and come closer to today...

In 2001, following a hysterectomy, I realized that the only way to make my dreams a reality was to take control of what I wanteds to do and how I wanted to do it. I reworked "The Enslaved", and decided to produce it myself.

This was not a total pipe dream as I'd spent the time between losing the deal at Universal and 2001 (about a good 8 years) reading every book I could afford on everything from business management to film production. I watched telecourses, read trade journals-I even bought a book on how to write a business plan for filmmakers and wrote my plan accordingly.

Armed with knowledge,I set out to do the unthinkable: I was going to make amovie with a budget of about $25,000,000- while being a Welfare Mom with no money of her own. I gathered together a small group of friends to help out whenever they could and set about calling agents, distributors and the like.

Some laughed at me, but enough people got into who I was and what I was doing so that I actually ended up with letteres of intent with the likes Of Malcolm Mcdowall, Terrence Stamp, Pam Greer, and Michale Praed along with a group of awesome, talented newcomers.

Had the movie gotten made, I believe it would have been a hit. But life just doesn't always turn out the way you plan. I trusted the wrong person. A brokerwho was supposed to help me raise the money I needed to get the film made.

She said we had the money, I agreed to work with her insurance and bond companies as well as her accountant. All I needed was to get a distributor-I found one distributor, her new partner decided he wasn't good enough, so I found another one.

then I got the rug pulled out from under me: the broker had never meant to raise the money,so,when it came time to write checksand finalize contracts, she suddenly was nowhere to be found, nor was her partner.

In the end, I lost the deal, I lost my apartment (I'd been betting everything on getting the deal done and moving to a better place) and I lost the respect of a lot of people. And so, humiliated, my reputation ruined, homeless and destitute, I ended up having to go back to Chicago to live with my mom with my sons in tow.

I spent the next few years in my own private land of Mordor (You LOTR fans will get that one). I worked crap jobs for bosses who couldn't care less and made myself ill in the process-Until about 2 years ago,when I decided to follow the advice offriends to get off my butt and quit feeling sorry for myself and at least do "The Enslaved" as a novel if nothing else.

So, I began writing and then another friend sugested gong to a site and posting the chapters as I did them and actually get feed back.So, I wne t first to Fictionpress.com,but realized it was full of kidsand my story is not for 12 year olds. so,another friend told me about FanStory.com. So, I went there.

Fanstory turned out to be the better choice: I could list the story as being Adult Sci Fi (only to then end up having people tell me it wasn't Adult enough)

Anyhoo, I spent over a year and a half working on the book. I got some great reviews, I got some crap reviews, but overall, the book got a rating of 5+ stars (the highest you can get there is six stars).

Bolstered by the reception the book was getting at FanStory-and,having a friend set up a free website in my name at Bravenet.com, I began to seriously work on getting back on my feet and making my company a reality once again.

Not that it's been easy-I'm still "in the system" which means I'm not making money on the business as yet, but I've expanded my original plan for the company and I now own (I finished my registration with my local county last October) a multi media entertainment company.

So, after lots of work and only spending what money I could squeeze out of my most limited budget, I have just published "The Enslaved". I did it at a site called Lulu.com. I have a global distribution plan that will allow me to not only have a presence with the book online, but also make it possible to get on the bookshelves of stores around the world-and all under my own company's name. And,I'm now working on putting together a presentation that I can use to raise the$35,000,000- I'll need to make the film.

I'm also working on script revisions, but find it's hard going as I tend to spend more and more time these days dealing with promoting my work as opposed to actually doing the work itself.

I wasn't quite prepared for that part, but I'm learning to get used to it.

As for my boys; Charles,my oldest is in Arizona ateending college on his way to becoming a game programmer/designer. He loves being away from home (It gets very cold here and he hates the cold). And, while he has very little time for his mom these days, he has been kind enough to lend me a few bucks so that I can buy myself a new laptop along with the software I need to "take it to the next level" so to speak.

My youngest is in his sophomore year at high school, he made the honor roll first quarter (he got a C in driver's Ed,so he won'tmake second quarter,but I'm not complaining). Every day he and his brother amaze mewith some new thing they've accomplished-they're my chief inspiration these days.

As for qwho I am mentally and spiritually? Well, I've spent a great deal of time on the couch, sometimes it helped, others it didn't. Losing the deal in 2002 and having my church take what seemed to be no end of joy in that made me lose my faith in Christianity, and after a bad run in with some Buddists I have since worked on being a more spiritual individual as opposed to a religious one.

I speak plainly these days, do my best to avoid the righteous and I spend my time focused on finding out who I need to be in order to manifest my dreams while doing my best not to harm the folks around me.

The reason I'm here at Squidoo, is that I'm doing what I can to develop as much of a presence on the web as I can for little to no money and build a fan base.

I need to sell copies of my book and items at our studio store in order to show the "suits" back in Hollywood that I'm worth the effort and my work as different as it is is just what people want to see these days.

So, if you'd like to show a sister some love and buy my book, go here. Just remember, that this book is ADULTSci Fi which means that there are some "naughty bits" and if you're either very young or on the sensitive side, don't go there-In fact, because the book has a mature rating on the site, you'll need to still click on that thingy that asks if you're over 18.

There, I've given you guys warning.

If you'd like to check out the Lens Cap Studio Store, just go here . I've got a line of tees, gifts and things that I hope you'll find interesting.

And, if you'd like to get a better feel for my compnay and what it means to be what I refer to these days as a "Welfare Mogul" on the rise, check out my main website here. I keep a weekly blog there where I talk about all the aspects of doing what I do.

I do that because I know for sure that there are no end of people like myself who have the knowledge (did I mention that my business plan got high praise?) and ability to start their own businesses or live their dreams, but don't have enough of the info about where to go and how to get there.

Anyway, I've yakked enough here for one day. But, don't worry, I'll probably be adding my lenses soon enough, after all, I've still got the store to promote and my business to push.

And yes, anyone who wants to feel like an angel is free to send money my way. My friend Cathy who lives in Phillidelphia and works as my assistant (for no money mind you) is in need of a new computer and we both need to get new cell phones as well as be able to handle the ver-increasing financial demands of running a business.

So, thanks for taking the time to read this,drop a note in my guest book and let me know what you think.

Love, Peace and Axle Grease,

E.