After I read the script for My Mother's Curse I immediately sent it to my mother. She thought it was terrific and immediately got why I wanted her to read it. It's one of my favorite scripts of the year and I took a few notes from it because Salvage is about a mother/daughter relationship. One of the things My Mother's Curse does so well is pick up on the things all mothers do that drive us crazy; my favorite scene is when the protagonist's mother tells him over and over that he should put on his windshield wipers and he keeps telling her it won't work, then finally he does it and she's right.

That is the worst, when your naggy mom is completely right. Everybody can relate to that - I don't care who you are.

So as soon as I put that script down I started thinking about things my mom does that are so very MOMlike, and I started working them into the script. I found myself writing conversations we've had in the past and smiling. Yes, Mom, I am aware that I'm going five miles over the speed limit. No we will not crash and die.

After I finished Salvage I sent it to the Manager, then I sent it to my mom.

Now my mom is different from other moms in that she does not think everything I touch turns to gold. She thinks I'm awesome, but she also thinks my last screenplay had too much sex in it, and she never read my zombie script at all because she just doesn't see the appeal. Explosions really do it for me, but Mom thinks they're unnecessarily destructive.

A compliment in this house must be earned, and that's how you know it means something.

Which is why, when my mom said my comedy is good and that I wrote a cute story, I beamed. Yay! My mom thinks I'm funny.

I asked my mom the historian to read my screenplay and tell me what kind of historical inaccuracies I was committing. I did an okay job being all accurate, although Mom thinks I need to remove the sex scene because people don't need to see sex in the movies.

Moms. Gotta love 'em.

The other day she drove to somewhere or other with a friend and told the friend my story on the way. She said when they arrived at their destination, the friend wouldn't let her out of the car until she finished telling my story, so either my screenplay is gonna kick ass with the retired set (unless they are offended by my one sex not very graphic sex scene) or my mom is a terrific storyteller.

Actually my mom is an awesome storyteller. Maybe my screenplay's not as awesome as her story makes it sound.

Either way, Thanks Mom.