Recycling, Revising, Rethinking Old Projects Into New Mediums

 I am writing this post at 11:42 pm after a day of attempting to produce a new short film. I am compelled to direct another film for a 72-hour challenge sponsored by an organization dedicated to inspiring beginning filmmakers, Cinematography for Actors, because they provide an opportunity to get out there and make films with other creatives.  It is an opportunity that is too delicious to pass up.  It requires 72 intense hours of your life and the reward is that you have completed a film.  The last film I made, Don't Assume is now being shown in the LA Film Festival on May 21, 2026 at 7:00pm.

To buy tickets if you're in LA

LOS ANGELES FILM FEST | May 13th-24th 2026 Tickets, Wednesday, May 13-Sunday, May 24 | Eventbrite

Although I was enchanted by filmmaking when I first arrived in Los Angeles in the mid 80's, I never fully pursued this "dream" in serious ways.  I worked on crews and dabbled, but made my way into education and other art forms instead.  This new interest is a much more realistic approach.  I love the format of the short film.  I am long past any "Hollywood Dreams" and am much more interested in telling a story in a different medium, in addition to as an author.

As the writer/director/producer, I find that the first step for me is to pair with a cinematographer, with whom I can collaborate. With this accomplishment, the potential script can begin its journey into the formation of a cinematic reality.  

As an author, the story reality begins with me.  The creative work done, is solitary.  Yes, there are critique partners along the way, my agent's expert adjustments, an editor's desire for the story, and the acquisition team’s decision to make the manuscript into a book.  But for the most part, the process is a relatively solo journey until the manuscript is ready to make its way into the publishing world.

A story on its way to the screen is a completely different process, with many collaborations along the way.

I began this particular endeavor with a creative partnership with the cinematographer, Evan Parquette. Together, we worked the script into shape.  It had many layers for a 7-minute film so there were many hours spent tweaking and twisting the words and directions on the page.

Once satisfied with the shape of the story, we set about finding other members of the crew.  We found a film editor who will take the footage we will shoot and arrange the sound and images into a cohesive story, paying close attention to tone and pacing. Using their artistry, they will tell the story by the arrangement they choose.

We have spent the past few days securing equipment necessary to record sound and image.  As these pieces came together, we were hopeful. But one cannot make a film without a location or actors.  This is where we stumbled.  It is easier said than done.

Writing a manuscript as an author isn’t easy but there are some key differences of the artform.  As an author, I must world-build.  I must use the words to create images of place, in the imagination of the reader.  I must create living, breathing characters with histories, objectives, desires, motivations, and relationships.  If I succeed, the characters come to life in the readers imaginations as well.  Taking up emotional space and navigating a journey through a story that the reader is willing to embark on.

Throughout the day, we thought we had secured the location.  We were on our way, and then we lost it and had to start from scratch.  By afternoon, we were unsuccessful in securing another location.

Meanwhile, we were scrambling to cast the two main actors.  Without actors, we are unable to bring the story to life.  By late afternoon we threw in the towel and pivoted.

As an author, I have complete control over the characters in my story.  In film, I must depend on other people to act out the parts on camera to tell the story.  I have no real control.  It is a feeling of helplessness and frustration.  A feeling that I am not accustomed to.  As an author, the story dictates my progress.  I am experiencing that in film; the logistics and other people dictate the progress.  Film is truly a collaborative medium. I love story crafting as an author.  I am learning to love story crafting as a filmmaker with many collaborators. 

The film story we were trying to tell was multi-dimensional, with many different complicated levels. We were beginning to worry that the elements necessary to tell such a sophisticated story with very little prep would result in a telling that was sophomoric and trite.  

Did I have a different story that we could film? Could I recycle an old story?  How much revision would be necessary?  Changing from a manuscript to film script would take some rethinking.

By late evening, I pulled out a scene from the novel that I have been working on about the twin sister of the school shooter. 

I know these characters backward and forward.  I know what's in their hearts.  I know their wounds.  I know how they love and hate.  Fortunately, it didn't take long to rework the scene into a 7 minute short film.  Thank goodness.  We were out of time.

By late night, we were back to looking for a location and searching for actors for a different story.

It is now 2:32 am.  Tomorrow will tell if the pieces to this puzzle come together.  So many pieces must align.  It’s so labor intensive as well as expensive.  If you have an explosion in the story, it will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.  As an author, it’s free.  It is all created in the reader’s mind.  Such different mediums, and yet, there is enchantment and excitement in both.  A journey to be taken.

By Zeena M. Pliska

Author of 

Hello, Little One: A Monarch Butterfly Story

Egyptian Lullaby

Chicken Soup for the Soul for Babies Say Thank You? (But Why?)

Chicken Soup for the Soul for Babies A Gift For Me? (I Want It!)

Saving the Heart of a School Year With the Power of Story

 

On March 13th of last year, I said “so long for now” to my transitional kindergarteners/kindergarteners in Los Angeles.  It was supposed to be for two weeks, but doubt tugged at the edges of my mind.  I stayed late that day and collected everything that meant anything to me and packed it into my car.  I really wasn’t sure when we were coming back.

Even the thought of two weeks online without any preparation or direction was daunting.  How would I preserve the heart of my little community that we had worked so hard to nurture? 

My wide-eyed, five-year-olds had spent six months  learning to connect, communicate, and create together.  Stories kept them bound to each other. Braided together by three-quarters of a year,  they had learned that their stories were valuable and listening to each other’s stories was equally so.  We had created an artery from which those stories flowed straight to the heart of our class, keeping us alive and nourished.

The expectations for teachers on that first Monday of virtual class, March 16, 2020 were high but undefined, ambiguous, and undetermined. There was no roadmap. No guideposts. No precedence that we knew of (a year later it turns out that this is not the first time in history that schools were shuttered because of a pandemic.)  I didn’t even have the proper technology to switch to virtual teaching. 

But, when it comes to children, it’s often very simple.  As long as you speak to their hearts and can hear their hearts beat back,  you can’t go wrong.  Those last three months were painful for all of us. The  simple answer at the time was to hold onto storytelling.  It was our life raft that we rode to the other side.

I began the new school year in August with the same intent, creating a new artery with a different set of young storytellers.  Beginning with four and five-year-olds who had never been in formal school was like the cliché, “building the plane while flying it.” 

I did not have the advantage of beginning with a group of students in-person and finishing up online.  This was a whole new frontier. How could I bring this group together and create cohesion amongst young children who were still at the beginning of their development in terms of social skills? Most importantly, could I save the school year with the power of story? Could we build that artery like I had the year before? I was unsure.

I am a big believer in the power of story and so my lack of direction led me to my most basic core value as both a teacher and an author.  Stories are the only thing we leave behind when our time on this earth has been completed.  The stories other people tell about us and the life we led is our only true legacy after we are long gone.  Learning to tell our stories and to recognize the stories of others is the essence of humanity.

Stories define us and dare us to dream.  They simultaneously connect us to each other and allow us to shine individually as we explore our own narratives.  Stories are perhaps the most powerful thing that humans create.  They are what set us apart from other species.  They are how we communicate to each other, to our young, and across generations and centuries.  They defy time and space.

 I believe that the art of storytelling is the most basic skill that children need.  Most academic subjects flow from story and narrative. And so, I travelled deep down to the memory of the lifeblood that flowed through that artery that  I had created the year before under much different circumstances. When faced with the dilemma of what I would teach my young students  virtually, my path led me back to keeping our humanity.  Preserving our humanity with stories that flowed through the artery would sustain us and learning lessons that reached beyond, writing, and arithmetic would save the heart of our education. 

The media says that we have lost a year of learning,  but I disagree.    

The students in my class this year have learned to tell their stories to each other. We have not lost.  We have gained. I believe we have gained  back our heart in education. I believe we have  preserved our humanity. What really makes us human? Standards and tests? Data and criteria? Or stories that create a rich tapestry of existence.

 My students paused and observed things around them that they would never have noticed in the hustle and bustle of their typical lives. Our community has been able to notice the details of their personal stories that they usually don’t have time for, as life rushes by.  More importantly, we have grown our relationships and have created rich narratives.  

We have not lost. Perhaps we have shed the things that have cluttered the “being” part of human being and travelled down to our true heart where stories keep us alive and will for generations to come . . . and then some.

Stories are the lifeblood that flow through the artery. They feed the heart of education which is our humanity. Isn’t that the true purpose of education?  I’d like to think so.

Posted by Zeena M. Pliska

For more information about my picture books and teaching experiences click www.zeenamar.com

If the videos don't play for you above.  You can click on them below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2y38klGd4w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABH2HJAAVdY

And if the picture book trailer for Hello, Little One: A Monarch Butterfly Story from my previous post didn't play, you can click on the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&feature=share&v=-cs9wKmvII4&fbclid=IwAR0YsscWoLCctqD6WscG0Fm0kuVfeqdfThdXDws593_ylt1B4txIPjtCuHU

Hello, Little One: A Monarch Butterfly Story 

Written by Zeena M. Pliska and illustrated by Fiona Halliday

Published by Page Street Kids

Video created by  Kyle Ragsdale  kyleragsdalevfx.com

"Real" Life on Line

Today, April 10, makes 30th day of self-quarantine. March 26 was my birthday--my age now has at least one digit that's a 6. The above picture sums up that special day--my daughter sent me daisies, my husband went to Costco and scored toilet paper and...Well, the typewriter was my dad's, the one on which I wrote my first stories when I was in second grade. OK, it's symbolic. Writing is what I do. And when I'm not writing, I'm thinking about writing.

I've done a lot of thinking these past 30 days.

One day, you're bopping along, the embodiment of "Age is just a number." The next, the CDC has declared you officially "elderly" and "at risk" of the coronavirus. Who? What? Me? I felt extremely lucky to be sound in mind and body. Until the CDC told me,"We don't care what age you think you are. You're over 60 and we say you're in big trouble. And old."

So, why am I thinking and not writing?

I am a worrier by nature, even on the calmest of days. A world upended sends me spinning into outer space, like an astronaut who comes untethered during a space walk. (Think the movie Gravity, and that's me.)

Now, with my connection to the outside world is Face Time chats and texting, I need something more to keep me going. Biographies and memoirs are my favorite reading material. I'm especially fascinated by how people cope in impossible situations. Right now, I'm reading Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker, about a family with twelve children, six of whom were diagnosed with  schizophrenia. Not applicable to writing, but helping to anchor me in my safe, if solitary existence.

Other people, other stories have arrived in my life, via my laptop (how else?)

From the Washington Post came this article by Sunny Fitzgerald (available only with subscription) about the guilt "of not working in the midst of crisis." Currently, my husband works from the kitchen table, solving "six impossible things before breakfast" and catching up on twenty years worth of home improvement jobs.  He gets exasperated with my inactivity. I get exasperated with my inactivity.  If nothing else, this article stopped my negative inner chatter.

I discovered The Storytellers Project through my morning read of USA Today. As a child, there was nothing I enjoyed more than my parents and grandparents telling me stories of about their childhoods.  The Storytellers Project records everyday people, sharing their real, first person stories with an audience. They appear in USA Today every Thursday. This week's theme was "overcoming self-doubt, certainly helpful in a time where everything seems to be in doubt.

My friends are forever sending me writing links. This one from McSweeney's,  "I Am Using My Free Time Not to Write a Novel" by Scott Bolohan is a snarky look at all of us stalled-out writers.  It turned my current state into something not-so-serious, but with more than a hint of truth.

Finally, there is this episode of NPR's Fresh Air, Terry Gross interviewing that Master of Writing-Every-Day-No-Matter-What, Stephen King.  Like a lot of us, he is stuck in the house with a WIP that's been stalled for years. I have a feeling King's problem is not being "stalled" so much as having too many simultaneous WIP's. I've always secretly thought that King turns on his computer, leaves the room, returns in a couple of days and finds a finished novel. (He's never said that's not the case.) I always enjoy his interviews, which reassure me that while he is incredibly productive, he sounds like the rest of us...watching Netflix, taking out the garbage.

We are living in an open-ended nightmare. There is no end date. When someone does conjecture a date, my first thought is "So soon! Will it be safe then? Who knows what safe is." I know the world I "return" to will be unlike the like the one I left March 12, 2020.

And when we re-emerge to our new reality, I know there will be my friends online, sending me links and personal advice, to cope with what is.

We Are Story Animals

These last few days, fellow Teaching Authors Mary Ann,  April,  JoAnn, Esther and wonderful new TA Carla have discussed the blending of fiction and nonfiction. In the end, as I noted in my post, I offered that we are story animals, as Kendall Haven (Story Proof: The Science Behind the Startling Power of Story, 2007) suggests. We have told our stories for over 100,000 years. Not every culture has developed codified laws or written language, but every culture in the history of the world has created myths, legends, fables, and folk tales.

Stories are so old, so intimately connected with language, some researchers suggest that language was created to express stories. Researchers have found that telling stories at an early age helps develop math abilities and language literacy. And teachers know that understanding the story process helps young readers understand the organization of language.

 A simple definition of a folktale would be that it is a traditional story, usually dressed in metaphor and symbol, told by a people—of a particular community, group, or nation—to help explain how and why things happen, how one meets the challenges of life, or how one might become a better, or wiser, person. But such a simple definition negates a bigger truth embedded in these tales.

Traditional tales are like icebergs; we see only the tip. Jung would call this tip the “personal unconscious,” the aspect of story derived from personal experience and acquisition. But the greater meaning of the tale lies beneath this surface of consciousness. Carl Jung calls this deeper layer the collective unconscious, an inherited “psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is defined in all individuals.” (Man and His Symbols, 1968).


As Rafe Martin tells us, traditional tales belong to the world of the imagined, to the portals of dreams. “They are the eternal literature of humanity.”


 Remember the child’s game, “Telephone”? Everyone sits in a circle, and then the teacher whispers a joke or a story to the student next to her. That student whispers the same story to the one sitting next to her. That student whispers the same story to the one next to her until the story makes its way around the circle. The last student recites the story to the group. Of course, with each retelling, the child puts her own spin on the tale, sometimes reordering the events, recasting it in personal symbols, and reinventing characters as she understands them. That’s the folklore process in action. Someone tells a story. That story is told and retold, and with every telling, the story changes as the teller makes it her own. Despite the many changes the story underwent, there remains intact certain kernels of emotional truth. An old Ibo (Africa) proverb states, “all stories are true.” Not necessarily factual, but certainly true to what it means to be human.  

Europeans left behind their own ancient histories to seek a new life in an unknown land. Upon arrival, they found that they needed to redefine themselves as a people. If the new land was a sanctuary in which they could pursue “life, liberty, and prosperity,” it also proved an overwhelmingly strange and alien place. These new immigrants dealt with their insecurities when faced with forces greater than themselves by overwhelming these forces through the “magnification” of the self, epitomized  in the unrestrained exploits of Davy Crockett, Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, and many others.

From the beginnings of the westward movement, the near incomprehensible vastness of the landscape, the extraordinary fertility of the land, and the variety of natural “peculiarities” inspired a humor of extravagance and exaggeration. The immigrant’s need to affirm the value of a culture independent of European refinements, constraints, and mores created a humor that became exclusive. The immigrants purged their terror of the overwhelming trials of life by minimizing it, and the storyteller as narrator became superior to circumstance with wit and humor.


In true rough-and-tumble fashion, the hero and heroine of the tall tale mocks and defies convention. The tall-talk of the tall tale, like the hero who inhabits these tales, is as wild and unabashed as the frontier that created it. The language defies the tidy and restrictive, even uptight, structure of formal grammar. It mocks it, in fact, using pseudo-Latinate prefixes and suffixes to expand on the root. The result is a teetotaliciously, splendiferous reflection of a frontier too expansive for mere words to capture. By creating such a grand language, the frontier storyteller found a means to make an unknown frontier less scary. The grander language captured the bigger ideas of frontier life.

 In reading such tales, a young reader develops an appreciation for language itself, for language is more than mere words: the rhythms and patterns, the musicality and the poetry of language.  Studies suggest that language acquisition is keyed to youth, and we can infer that language appreciation is similarly keyed.
 
As Mary and Herbert Knapp suggest, the traditional tale plays a vital role in holding together “the frayed, factory-made fabric of our lives.” Such tales connect us to the past and to each other, exist when people share an identity, “and since all of us once belonged to that group of human beings we call children, the folklore of childhood brings together all of us.” (One Potato, Two Potato: The Secret Education of American Children, 1976).

What are your favorite traditional tales?


Thank you! A version of this article was published by Children’s Literature Network (2012). Thank you to Vicki Palmquist and everyone at Winding Oaks Children’s Literature for all their support for the children’s education and literature field.

Bobbi Miller

Quilts (and the artists who need them)

   I secretly call myself "The Constant Reader," which was the name of the late, great Dorothy Parker's New Yorker book review column. I read constantly...most of the time. However, this Constant Reader is currently trying to keep her head above the morass of activities and paperwork involved in my daughter's high school graduation Friday. She's stressed, I'm stressed, and when I'm stressed, I'm not a Constant Reader. My mind sails off to South American, and I crochet while watching endless episodes of Law & Order in all its incarnations. (There. Now you know my guilty secret.)
   My brain wasn't entirely on autopilot. The one children's book I read this month (one?!) was a lovely little morsel, Mooshka, written and illustrated by Julie Paschkis. This picture book spoke to several of my  loves--quilts, family stories and "blankies" in general.
    Mooshka is a quilt who belongs to Karla.  Like Karla, I had a grandmother who quilted. When I say "quilt," I don't mean the carefully designed and color-co-ordinated modern quilt. My grandmother made "scrap" quilts. using the leftover material she used to sew her family's clothes. "Meemaw" wasn't intere making art.  She was keeping her family warm during the Depression. What she didn't know was that she was also preserving family stories and instilling in me a passion for storytelling.
    I am the only person I know who has two baby quilts.  The first was made from a cache of pinwale corduroy samples. I dragged that quilt (which was made for a single bed) everywhere. Wrapped around my shoulders and trailing at my heels, "Meemaw's quilt" allowed me to be a queen ( usually the wicked kind) or Miss American (minus the ermine collar and tiara).  I was a sickly kid who found comfort in the quilt's soft folds, which grew softer and more velvet-like with every washing. In the instant before I threw up, I would heave the blanket out of the way, to spare it another washing. By the time I went to college, large portions of Meemaw's quilt were all but transparent.  So, as her very last quilt, every stitch hand sewn, she made me a new quilt, decorated with bunnies (my favorite animal), all embroidered free-hand. I had a new baby blanket to take to college. (I have no idea what my roommates thought of this.)
     I still have both of these quilts (hermetically preserved, like a wedding dress).  When Meemaw died, I inherited two of her Double Wedding Ring Depression-era quilts. Fragile as they are, I save them for days when I need some grandmotherly comfort (usually days when I wonder what in the world made me think I could ever be a writer).  Then I look at the varied patch prints, and remember Meemaw telling me the origin of every piece.  "Now this here was a shirt I made your daddy for his first day of kindergarden."  She would then go on to tell me how my father, deciding immediately that school was not his thing, escaped and was dragged back to school three times that first day.
     "This flowery piece here was a dress I made for Easter one year. I was wearing it the first time I met your mother." Meemaw was a great storyteller.  Recalling those stories as I touch each quilt patch, I remember why I wanted to be a writer in the first place.
    In Mooschka Karla's quilt actually talks to her, telling her the stories sewn into its seams.  Mooschka not only touched my heart with it's story of passing on family history, but it's beautiful folkloric illustrations.
Not surprisingly, Paschkis is also a textile designer. (Warning: This is not a story to share as an e-book. The pictures are half the story, and they need to be seen full-sized.)
    My daughter is graduating (I hope) on Friday. Next month she will be leaving for a month-long pre-college arts program. (She inherited Meemaw's artistic talent.) Packed in her bag will be her own Mooshka, one of Meemaw's quilts.  She knows it's only for those special days when she wonders why she thought she could be an artist.
    Don't forget, faithful friends, you have until 11 pm CST today to enter the drawing for a copy of Guest TeachingAuthor Karen Schreck's new YA novel While He Was Away.
    Also, for our TeachingAuthors Third Blogiversary Giveaway Contest prize of THREE 30$ gift certificates to Biblio.com.  You must enter by 11 pm CST Monday, May 21, 2012. See April's post for more information.
Posted by Mary Ann Rodman