Twilight Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg with Amy Senger

When screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg, previously known for her work on the television series Dexter and The O.C., was offered the chance to adapt the vampire series, Twilight, she was promptly informed she’d have only five weeks to write it. “Five weeks? You can’t write a screenplay in five weeks!“ she replied, to which the studio asked her, ”Well, you want to get it made?” She did, and as a consequence, all she did for five weeks was write: “You don’t shower, you don’t pet the dog, you don’t eat.”

At the recent Future of Film Summit, where she participated in a panel discussion on why women matter in Hollywood, I sat down with Melissa and asked what her biggest challenge was in adapting the Twilight series. Her answer? Meeting the expectations of the fans. In order to have the experience of the viewer, she refused to read ahead, wanting each installment to stand on its own.

With the fourth movie Breaking Dawn Part 1 opening to a $139.5 million domestic gross this weekend and touting a wedding, a honeymoon and a birthing scene, Rosenberg says Part 2 still leaves lots to anticipate: ”The thing I’m looking forward to is seeing Bella as a vampire. It’s a very different character. The fidgeting, the stuttering, the insecurity, the awkwardness- it’s gone. I’m looking forward to that. I’m also looking forward to seeing vampire sex versus human sex [laughing].”

When asked what advice she had for women looking to succeed in Tinseltown, Rosenberg had this to say: ”Be prepared to compete. Be prepared to take a hit. Pick yourself back up, and get in there. It’s not an easy field to get into but we need you…we need some fighters.”

Here’s my talk with Melissa and, yes, Robert Pattinson is just as lovely and charming in person as he is on screen.

This Fall, I started doing something extremely rare and extraordinary (for me)…cooking.

After months, okay years, of me partaking in (he calls it mooching off) @robotchampion‘s culinary creations, he challenged me to literally start bringing something to the table. So I have, in the form of soups.

I’m a little surprised to admit this, but I’m loving it for several reasons:

1. It’s the perfect food for the fall and winter months.
2. I typically avoid ordering it at restaurants and buying it at stores because they add so much salt.
3. We get a weekly delivery of CSA produce and I’m able to use a lot of it in one recipe.
4. Finally, I’ve been cooking in the afternoon when I need a break between writing away at my laptop. I turn on NPR and use it as an opportunity to get off my ass and experiment like a mad scientist in the kitchen.

Slate recently did a piece on why Second Life, the virtual reality world, failed. It concludes, rightfully so, that the Linden Labs creation world lacks a clear purpose. Given how significant this factor is in the “real world” — people with a strong purpose and vision in life thrive, while those who lack direction, don’t — the rationale makes sense. In the words of Kit DeLuca (Pretty Woman): “You gotta have a goal. Do you have a goal?”

But there’s something missing, and I believe it’s an even bigger part of the equation: social, more specifically, Facebook. Second Life launched in 2003. Facebook came out in 2004 and with it came the rise and explosion of Zynga games, FarmVille and CityVille.

If purpose is the defining factor for success, then why is one of the most purpose-driven games in the world, World of Warcraft, losing players? My answer: Facebook. Blizzard Entertainment’s now seven year-old brainchild has been losing players since last October and has lost ~two million subscribers during the last 12 months.

Let’s compare this to The Sims Social, the Facebook addition to the Sims series. By augmenting the videogame with a Facebook edition, it expanded its user base and is second only to CityVille, Facebook’s most popular leisure activity.

Second Life failed because Facebook became our new virtual world, our “second life.” The alternate world is simply too disconnected from where people spend the majority of their time online.

Just to preface this video for anyone who has never surfed: the ocean, and specifically surfing, has a way of teaching humility and respect for Mother Nature in a way few things can. It’s tough to comprehend the true size and power of a wave is until you’re staring it down, in the water, just you and your board. You realize this incredible act of energy and inertia can swallow you whole, like some Melvillian Moby Dick scene.

In the case of surfing, if you’re not actually in the water, objects are always way f’ing bigger than they appear. You are the bomb, Garrett McNamara.

With websites like exRATED (http://exrated.com) popping up, allowing people to review their exes and aiming to be the ultimate Yelp for those looking for insights on potential romantic partners, and Facebook algorithms that can determine your sexual orientation without you indicating what it is, and increasingly more of our personal and private information being posted online, leading to sometimes embarrassing, if not life-altering consequences, a historically behind-closed-doors activity is now evolving to a more “out there” experience and forever changing how we view and approach sex.

I caught up with my friend Stef Woods, attorney, sex and relationships blogger, and professor of ‘Activism and Social Media‘ at American University to discuss the topic.

When I asked her what trends she’s noticing online with regard to sex and sexuality, here’s what she had to say:

 Interesting question. The huge growth in social media has led to a new sexual revolution of sorts. People now obtain much of their sex education from the Internet. The majority of sexual health and entertainment purchases are done online. And, the more that women and men write about sexuality, sexual health and sex toys online, the more that sex is normalized. Women can learn about sex during menopause or how to achieve their first vaginal orgasm. A gay teen can see a video, encouraging him to stay strong because it does get better. A couple can shop for their first toy together. Planned Parenthood has even implemented pilot programs that allow people to text and IM staff for answers regarding STIs, pregnancy, contraception and AIDS.

However, the combination of social media and sex can also lead to public scandal and private crisis. Would Weiner have lost his position without Twitter? Would the world have known the extent of Tiger Woods‘ indiscretions without social media? Would Phoebe Prince and Tyler Clementi still be alive if they hadn’t been subjected to cyber-bullying? Has social media increased the opportunities for people to engage in emotional and sexual affairs?

I personally believe that “sex in the cloud” is forcing us to deal and address sex in a more open and transparent manner, and that this can only be a good thing. I don’t believe AIDS would have declined as sharply as it did in the United States without the education and awareness the internet and email provides.

On the flip side, change can be uncomfortable for a lot of people, especially around a topic as sensitive as sex. I can’t even tweet about tampons without eliciting vehement commentary from a handful of men.

Which is why people like Stef, who is trailblazing a path to a more accepting, compassionate and informed sexual society, are so necessary — and impressive. It’s tough enough to talk about and sometimes even have sex in the comfort of your own home.  But doing it for all the world to hear and see, and having it captured in the cloud indefinitely — it’s a whole new ballgame.

*Stef Woods is a professor at American University, attorney, sexuality educator, writer, and women’s health advocate. She writes about relationships, sexual health, breast cancer, and dating on her blog, City Girl’s Blog. Next semester she will be teaching ‘Sexuality and Social Media.’

When my friend Leslie Bradshaw, a woman who absolutely inspires me with her energy, ambition and insanely sharp business intellect, asked to interview me for her Forbes blog series “More Seats,” I said yes, with the understanding and intention of bringing more awareness to the lack of women contributors and editors in Wikipedia. Originally, Leslie was going to name the series “More Role Models” but changed it to reflect her purpose of addressing three major problems women face: not having enough women “at the table,” not enough women holding positions of power, and not enough women prevailing as role models.

When I began responding to Leslie’s questions, which ran the gamut of topics from the glass ceiling to work-life balance, I found myself having more and more reservations in answering. I didn’t tell Leslie this, but a part of me didn’t want to do the interview because I doubted my own worthiness as a role model.

It was in conflict with a lot of things I was taught growing up. I questioned why I was deserving of being interviewed. In my house, boasting in any way is “unbecoming.” And talking publicly about something so intimate and unsavory as being sexually harassed at work is disdainful. Then there’s the fact that I discussed my pursuit and passion, screenwriting, that has yet to produce any external reward.

Together these created a month-long delay in my responses. Until something happened that reminded me what it means to be a role model and why Leslie’s column is so important.

I was surfing, like I typically do, on a Wednesday evening in southern California. I’m still a beginner surfer. I have yet to graduate from my learner board. I’m at the point where I can stand and ride a wave but I fall a lot, especially when I take waves bigger than a few feet, which is affectionately called “eating sh$t” in surfer world. I eat sh$t a lot, but I have fun and improve each time I go out and that’s all that matters to me.

More times than not, I’m the sole female surfer in the water.  This evening was no exception. There were plenty of guys surfing but I was the only “Betty.”

So there I was doing my thing, when I notice a girl, maybe 10 or 12 years old, in the water nearby, staring at me. She must’ve watched me for a good 5 or 10 minutes, which made me feel completely self-conscious and I’m wondering why this little girl has an optical lock-in on me. Then she disappears. Goes back in shore. And I resume my uninhibited surfing fun.

Ten minutes later, she’s back in the water, but this time she has her dad with her and he has a surfboard and she’s asking him to teach her how to surf.  And half the time the two of them are watching me and mimicking what I’m doing in the water. That’s when I realized the power of role models and how important they are for anyone in a minority position.

Gloria Steinem recently said at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, “We do what we see, not what we’re told.”

We become role models by doing. We learn and follow by seeing. I might have been the worst surfer out in the water that evening (which I don’t think I was), but because that little girl identified with me more than anyone else, I was her role model.

It made me appreciate the beauty of Leslie’s series all the more by reminding me of the power in seeing and hearing other women’s stories and that to be a role model, we just need to do, even if it means falling along the way. Who knows who might be watching.

You can check out my interview with Leslie in Forbes is here.

Wikipedia: Change the Ratio (design by JESS3 + 1X57)

Commence beating the figurative dead horse. As I’ve written previously, (here, here and here) Wikipedia is suffering from a lack of female contributors (less than 1 in 10 editors are women, per the 2011 Wikimedia survey). This has the unfortunate consequence of compromising the overall quality and objectivity of its content, as illustrated in my post, How I Redefined “Man” for The World.

While there are several reasons offered for why women aren’t editing (Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, recently gave an interview to CBC highlighting these and summarized them in her post Nine Reasons Why Women Don’t Edit Wikipedia), half of them I just laugh at. Women are too busy? I’ve spent enough hours at Starbucks to observe the gratuitous amount of time some women devote to Facebook. Or, women are conflict-averse and don’t like Wikipedia’s sometimes-fighty culture? As Denis Leary so eloquently stated in The Thomas Crown Affair: ”Life is full of sh$tty conflicts, okay?” It’s not an excuse.

So what would I do if I was running the “Change the Ratio” Wikipedia campaign? For one, I’d be focusing on the initial phases of the technology adoption curve: awareness and understanding, in the form of education.

Awareness

Simply put, there needs to be more recognition and media coverage of the issue, illustrating the societal impact of not having women (as well as other demographics) editing Wikipedia. Taking a cue from Simon Sinek, I’d be making it clear to women why it matters. And then I’d enlist some influential voices to help the reach the target audience: women.

• Who better to get the word out than the mother of influence on all things women, education and action, Oprah. The issue is right up her alley. She does Twitter, she does Facebook, so why not Wikipedia? Can you imagine Jimmy Wales or Sue Gardner sitting down with Oprah (and Gayle) for a tutorial on Wikipedia and releasing a 2-minute video of it?
• In the event Oprah isn’t available, an “I Edit Wikipedia” compilation video of some of the most influential women in tech would make a statement. Ladies like Sarah Lacy, Danah Boyd, Jolie O’Dell, Laura Fitton, Tara Hunt, Sheryl Sandberg, and Marissa Mayer. I wonder who of these industry leaders edits, versus who doesn’t?

Then there’s the use of social media to spread the word.

• The awesome folks at JESS3 worked with me on the Wikipedia: Change the Ratio logo (you can see all the versions here), and next week we’ll be spreading the word via a Facebook initiative for users to change their profile pics (and Twitter avatars and whatever else) to it on Ada Lovelace Day (Friday, Oct 7) which celebrates the achievements of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

Again, the point is awareness.

• And to celebrate Wikipedia women rockstars, we created a set of barnstars for contributors with 100, 1,000 and 10,000 edits (you can see all the versions here). Below are my top 3:

• Finally, it wouldn’t hurt if Wikipedia made edits easily shareable by adding some version of a “Share This” button in the Edit mode, integrated with the most prominent social media services for female (and male) influencers to share the pages they contribute to.

Education

It’s essential. Wikimarkup can be a little intimidating for those not familiar with “code” and having edits reverted can be off-putting, but neither of these factors are something that can’t be addressed with a small dose of education.

• In 2010, the Wikipedia Foundation launched a pilot project to explore the potential of formally using Wikipedia as a teaching tool in higher education but I think education at a grassroots level is more important.
• Half-day workshops like the one we hosted at JESS3 are something local Wikipedia chapters can embrace, with a proven format and curriculum available. And there doesn’t even need to be formatted sessions. In the same vein of SuperHappyDevHouse, folks can just get together and help each other out, using it as an opportunity to have fun, learn, build, and meet new people.
• There are tons of YouTube videos and internet guides on how to edit and get started with Wikipedia. I even created my personal Seven Essential Steps to getting started with Wikipedia.

NOTE: For those interested learning more about the gendergap issue, you can subscribe to the gendergap mailing list. The discussion threads provide incredible insight into what’s going on, everything from harassment on women’s user pages to inappropriate sexualization of images for topical pages.

Pat Robertson, Christian television evangelist and ex-Baptist minister, created quite the controversy when he advised that a married man, dating another woman because his wife was suffering from Alzheimer’s, should “divorce and start all over.”

I try not to involve myself with the musings of offensive radio hosts, nor do I think it’s wise to judge another person’s situation. But the episode did made me think about my own experience with Alzheimer’s and what it taught me and I thought I’d share it today, on World Alzheimer’s Day.

My grandmother had Alzheimer’s and for ten years, I and my family witnessed her condition deteriorate. As the disease progressed, my grandfather assumed more and more of the housekeeping responsibilities – from cooking to cleaning to doing the laundry. It was truly amazing to watch, considering he had been attended to so dutifully by my grandmother all throughout their marriage. But my grandfather didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he seemed to take great pride in being able to care for his wife.

Eventually, it became more than he could handle (just managing the steps in the house became a challenge) and he sold their home and moved into a 1-bedroom apartment in the Alzheimer’s ward of an assisted living residence.

Here’s the thing about my grandparents: they were crazy about each other. What they had, in today’s day and age, seems rare. They lived for each other and their love was something fierce, like The Notebook, times ten. But unlike The Notebook, where the children seemed to question the father’s dedication to his Alzheimer’s afflicted wife, the disease only served to bring my family closer together. And unlike The Notebook, my grandmother rarely forgot my grandfather, even when she didn’t recognize him. She sometimes thought my uncle was her husband, which made for some awkward situations all around.

Almost every Sunday and every holiday, all the kids (six total) and the gaggle of grandchildren, would gather when they could in the 1-bedroom apartment at the assisted living home and we’d just be a family. I changed my grandmother’s diapers. Most of the time she didn’t have a clue to who I was. Sometimes she thought I was a nice, young man. But I played along because I knew who she was and what she meant to me, and that’s all that mattered.

Pat Robertson equated Alzheimer’s to death:  “I hate Alzheimer’s. It is one of the most awful things because, here is a loved one, this is the woman or man that you have loved for 20, 30, 40 years, and suddenly, that person is gone. They’re gone. They are gone.”

My grandmother was never gone. Even on her worst days, she was still, at age 80, the same fiery, feisty girl from Hagen, Germany who survived the boat ride over to the United States at age 5. Her memory might have left, but it was okay. We remembered for her, what it means to love, and what it means to be a family. And sometimes, almost miraculously, her memory would come back, even after the most dismal of diagnoses.

I was emailing with my aunt and she reminded me of an incident that happened between my mom and one of the staff members at the Alzheimer’s home:

Your mother could have taught [Pat Robertson] a lesson. When a staffer told Linda to just “dress your mother in cheap sweat shirts and pants, she won’t know the difference,” Linda turned to her and said, “My mother never dressed in cheap sweats and never will. And believe me she knows the difference. She always has a smile on her face when we dress her up in something new.”

You know I have such pride in the way our family took care of Mom….every one of us did what we could, and that is something to be very proud of.

To this day, I can’t hate Alzheimer’s. It taught me a lot about myself, about loving, and about family.

So while it might not be the Bible, I’ll sum this up with a quote from The Beatles’ The End: The love you take is equal to the love you make. Alzheimer’s taught me that lesson. I hope anyone is fortunate enough to learn it.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us…”

~ A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

Talk about timelessness of good writing. Somehow, with pitch-perfect lucidity, Charles Dickens over a century ago eloquently described my summer.

Starting with leaving DC. In the weeks leading up to our departure, Steve and I had some of the most tempestuous showdowns I’ve ever endured, including a 5-hour fight (five f***ing hours) that ended with me trying to hit him with a tin bucket of dirt and him catching it and dumping it on my head. I can’t even write those lines without laughing, but at the time, it was intense and devoid of any humor whatsoever.

I wanted to leave and I didn’t. DC was home for me. But if you’ve ever tried to fill up on tofu or non-meat substitute when all you’re craving is a hamburger, no matter how much “toburger” you consume, it just doesn’t cut it.

I needed a solid break from everything I was trying to fill up on that wasn’t fulfilling me. So I moved 3,000 miles across the country to Southern California to pursue screenwriting and a different way of life. And I found a happiness that I haven’t felt in a long time.

I took up surfing and after at least 50 (maybe it was 100 times) falling down, I finally rode a wave. Anyone who has ever surfed knows that first wave you ride makes all the times falling down worth it.

I needed surfing. It’s been my salvation. After struggling to get off Adderall for the past two years I finally cut the cord. I needed something to replace the mental and physical “stamina” and “focus” Adderall gave me and I found that in surfing. When I’m in the water, I find that edge I’m looking for, and afterwards, I have a sense of peace and clarity of mind Adderall never gave me.

And I’ve been writing, a lot. I completed the first draft of a second screenplay and finished a 10-week Advanced Screenwriting class at UCLA, rewriting my first screenplay and learning the things you won’t find in any screenwriting book. Which has been the best part of my summer and the worst.

No matter how much I love writing, no matter how much I write, no matter how many people read what I’ve written and say they love it, I still have my moments of doubt when I ask myself, What the hell are you doing?  Which is really code for, How far are you willing to go to make this happen, to make this a career and not just an interest and indulgence?

The answer is always the same. Pretty far. This summer I came to the conclusion that this is what I want to do, this is the life I want, which is a pretty big pivot.

So if you ask me to describe my summer, instead of quoting Dickens, I’ll sum it up with one word: gnarly.

As in, get a job?

Despite all the haranguing on our economy and jobs market, why aren’t we talking more about the massive labor imbalance in our country?

A recent Rutgers University survey of 571 Americans who graduated from college between 2006 and 2010 found that only 53% held full-time jobs. And yet, it’s not hard to understand why. In 2009, of the 1,601,000 bachelor’s degrees conferred, the greatest numbers fell into the fields of business (348,000); social sciences and history (169,000) and health sciences (120,000).

I had to look up health science and found this description:

The health sciences are concerned with the development of knowledge and programs related to health and well being. Health science is also concerned with the study of leisure and cultural phenomena.

And just so we’re all on the same page, social sciences include: anthropology, archaeology, communication, criminology, political science, sociology and psychology.

I’m going to refrain from commenting on the social and health science and history majors and instead take a moment to focus on business majors. You would think having a prevalence of business majors would be positive for our economy but we first need people who can actually make something before we need the people to market, sell and manage it.

We are missing the makers (engineers and scientists), the people who actually have the skills and knowledge to create something.

The fact is, there are jobs in this country. According to the most recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, over three million job opportunities are unfilled in the United States right now, the highest level in three years. And yet, in that same period we have produced the highest unemployment rate we’ve seen in over two decades.

I was at my alma mater (James Madison University) a few months ago and caught up with a former professor in the college of Integrated Science and Technology (ISAT) ; she told me that enrollment numbers in ISAT were the lowest they’ve ever been, even though these students are the most desirable and in demand by employers. Given the current economy and jobs market, I was a little shocked.

I’ll be honest here and say that when I was 17, college and majors didn’t consume my thoughts nearly as much as boys and field hockey. I went to JMU because it had the best field hockey program in the country. And my parents essentially chose my major for me. I was pretty ambivalent about what I wanted to do. There was lots that interested me (minus Accounting). At one point it was Law, another time English, I even considered Business. But my parents reasoned that I was good at math and science and the world needed more women in STEM, so I said sure, why not.

When I graduated, I had 15 job offers. Looking back, I’m certain my collegiate experience would have been a lot easier if I majored in something that didn’t require me to spend so much time in computer and science labs, but in this tech-centric day and age, I’m glad I left knowing how to program and build a website, amongst other things.

How many young Americans today think about employability? If you look at the degrees that are most likely to land a person a job, there seems to be a disconnect with the majors students are pursuing the most. Case in point,  in 2009, degrees in “parks, recreation, and leisure studies” saw a 43 percent increase. Yep, the things with budgets first to get cut in a recession are what students are flocking to.

I’m not saying people should neglect their true callings in life. In fact, I think the world benefits the most from the people who vigorously pursue their passions, including social psychology majors (who have the highest unemployability rate). But for those who aren’t so sure what path to pursue, wouldn’t it make sense to take a look around, at the state of the country, and consider majoring in something employable?

Incidentally, it seems the United States isn’t alone in its labor gap. A recent report from the British Chambers of Commerce reveals small businesses are frustrated at the quality of applicants, who they say can barely concentrate or add up. The report warns: ‘Too many people [are] coming out with fairly useless degrees in non-serious subjects.’