(ripening) before the bloom

Since I last wrote, life has been busy, off-kilter, and to be honest, I’m a hollow husk of my normal self at the moment. All of my plucky optimism and self-help mantras from the beginning of the year could not shield me from life pressures of late, and what I once turned to for escape and joy (writing) suddenly became unavailable to me. I just haven’t been able to write. Is it exhaustion? Is it writer’s block? Is it late winter dormancy? Do I have too many competing projects and responsibilities or do I just not have the emotional energy to spare for creation? I guess all of the above… depending on the day.

And the Oscar goes to…

One of my ongoing writing projects for a number of years has been the development of an original  screenplay. It’s called Ships, and on a good day, working on this story is deeply satisfying. I can hear each word of dialogue coming out of my characters’ mouths, imagine the feel of the soundtrack pulling at my soul glue and see every scene unfold — all the way through to some future-verse where I’m accepting my Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (I mean, c’mon, it’s got to be better than the hot dog finger chaos of Everything Everywhere All At Once, right?). But, somewhere over the last few months of this gestational journey of writing this screenplay, I lost my mojo and I just couldn’t make any words come.

Formating creativity

This is such a hard medium for me to work in. There are very prescribed structures and standard formats to follow, and most of the output of the writing takes the form of character dialogue, which is incredibly tricky to get to sound authentic and differentiated (from one character to another). All the swirling gestures of metaphor and insightful chronicle that I love to explore in poetry and prose are unavailable to me. My job is to tell the story primarily through my characters’ words, and secondarily through a very succinct description of the action in a scene. One is meant to only describe the action that the camera can see (ie. no sidebar of what the character is thinking) in as few words as possible and to also allow “room” for the director to determine how they might bring a scene to life. It’s a lot to think about. And when I have too much to think about, I kind of shut down. I get quiet. I don’t move around a lot. I stare out the window. I burrow myself into my comfortable blanketed hole on my couch and detach from the world. I’m not the easiest to be around when I’m like this. People who only see a gregarious, confident version of me probably can’t readily picture the equally real introverted mushroom that I can become. Trust me, for every belly laugh and saucy joke, I am an overly quiet pool of solitude, lost in my own mist.

Waking up, showing up

How did I get writing again? Well, somewhere deep inside myself I decided that the universe was trying to tell me to let go of the reins — to trust that what is meant to be, will be. I read a lot of books. I walked with the blackbirds. I forced myself to my exercise class and floated on the endorphin high of “doing the right thing” for a few hours. I showed up for my screenwriting course even when I didn’t have any new pages for critique, because I care about my fellow writers and want to be a good cheerleader for them. I guess, in simple words, I just kept going. I think I acknowledged that sometimes you grow in the light and sometimes you grow in the dark. You don’t notice every cell dividing while a bud is being formed on a tree branch, you just suddenly see pussy willows in the ditch beside the road and exclaim (with astonishment) “It’s Spring!”. Today, this tiny realization sparked enough momentum in me to cobble some thoughts together into this post. One word at a time, one moment to another I can finally feel things easing forward.

A glimpse to believe in

In order to challenge myself to keep going, I’m sharing a tiny excerpt from Ships. It may not translate well to this medium, and I’m not going to provide my logline or context, but by going public with my project and goal, I’m trying to force myself toward completion. Perhaps those reading this can believe in me, and be my cheerleaders. I’d be grateful for the support.

 

SHIPS – excerpt

INT. KITCHEN – DAY – MORNING

The kitchen is dirty with the aftermath of the party. Paulie pushes bottles out of the way on the counter to make a space. She scoops a bowl into a large bag of cheap cereal then puts it on the counter, adding milk from a near-empty container.

PAULIE

Hurry up Little! I’m not waiting for you.

She quickly eats her cereal, while opening the fridge and looking inside. It’s empty.

PAULIE

Little!

At the sound of a door opening Paulie looks up. SANDI BROWN, 28, hungover with smudged makeup, staggers forward, pulling a borrowed robe closed around her naked body.

SANDI

Heya Paulie. How ya doing kid?

She leans on the counter and scrounges in the robe pocket, finds a joint, which she lights, and inhales deeply.

Paulie ignores her, and pushes books into a backpack.

SANDI (Cont.)

Hey. You seen your Dad?

Sandi anxiously spins the lighter in her hands as she looks closely at the posters on the wall. They are concert posters featuring Junior. They are tattered and peeling in around the thumbtacks.

PAULIE

Little!

SANDI

He said he was going to leave something for me.

Paulie ignores Sandi completely, turns and walks out the front door.

INT. KITCHEN – DAY – MOMENTS LATER

As the front door shuts, LITTLE, 14, a quick-to-smile, disheveled teen, rushes down the hallway, pulling a shirt over his head. He smiles cheekily at SANDI, as he heads out the front door.

LITTLE

Dammit Paulie. Wait up! I’m coming.