Breakfast with Sharks Page 17
Jerry’s Deli in Beverly Hills and Studio City
Bring Your Laptop, Get a Latte—Coffeehouses Where Writers Work
Bourgeois Pig on Franklin Avenue in Los Angeles
Stir Crazy on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles
Lulu’s Blue Plate on Sawtelle in Los Angeles
The Coffee Table on Rowena in Silver Lake
Patrick’s Café on San Fernando in Glendale and Patrick’s on Wilshire Boulevard
The Coffee Bean (locations throughout Los Angeles)
Insomnia Café in Santa Monica
Seattle’s Best Coffee on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica
The Novel Café on Pier Avenue in Santa Monica
The Office on 26th Street in Santa Monica
Psychobabble on North Vermont in Los Feliz
WRITING GROUPS
In Hollywood, both writing groups and social groups for creatives are plentiful. Check the Web postings for long-established groups like the Screenwriters Organization of California and the Alameda Writers Group. With so many from which to choose, the question becomes “Which one is best for me?” The answer is the one that comprises peers at your own career level (i.e., those who have finished at least one short film or feature-film script) and one level above (i.e., those who have optioned a project). For example, my own group includes mainly writers who have received studio assignments or have written for television shows, as well as directors who have completed feature films—small feature movies for a studio or for cable companies, or independent films. The group speaks with a lexicon formed from common experience, so the potential synergy is obvious and effortless. Conversely, I once sat in with an older group of writers who had all done series television work in the seventies and eighties. We knew none of the same people and had none of the same priorities in terms of our careers. While educational to listen to, the group’s cynical perspective was potentially damaging for me, a young plebe, to take to heart.
I was also part of a group where five of the writers involved were basically neophytes in terms of their writing skills, while three were professionals like myself, earning their keep via their craft. As such, there was more than one level separating the two factions. It soon became clear that we three professionals chafed at having to read five scripts that always had many basic errors, and at struggling to explain the problems in a way the five beginners could understand. Meanwhile, the five beginners struggled and often failed to give constructive criticism to works submitted by the three pros. For example, one writer brought pages from his assignment. The five kept attempting to reinvent the wheel by offering ways to completely rework the entire existing project, for which the writer was already under contract. Unfortunately, the group was divided by a schism of experience and soon disbanded. So a good rule of thumb is to stick with people on your level, whom you can relate to, and people one step above, who are where you want to be and have recent experience with the level you’re at now.
COLLABORATING WITH WRITING PARTNERS
Working with the right partner who complements your style and whose strengths compensate for your weaknesses (and vice versa) can be amazingly time-effective. Conversely, two writers with conflicting styles or who both struggle with writing on deadline can be problematic. Potential partners can be found in shared film courses and workshops, writers’ groups, and in online chat rooms like the Done Deal Message Board at http://pub130.ezboard.com/bdonedeal. The caveat here is to choose wisely. You don’t want to encumber the future as well as ownership rights of a promising project by splitting up as a team scant months after commencing your partnership. To that end, draft a partnership memo that stipulates a process for resolving disputes should any arise. For example, the WGA offers mediation services, the guidelines for which are available at www.wga.org. Litigation should be avoided at all costs, since a trial may tie up rights to a project for months or even years, and the results may please no one.
The main benefits of collaborating are that two heads are better than one and that output is much faster. The downsides are creative differences that may arise and splitting income. Obviously, you want a writing partner who writes in the same genre, as well as complementing your skills and work ethic. Two writers who can nail Terminator-sized action set pieces but have no flair for story development or dialogue—or one writer who churns out pages in days, with the speed of a wood-chipper, while the other ruminates for months before writing a single line—such pairings aren’t going to have much success. So focus on your strengths and weaknesses before choosing someone with whom to join forces. Are you left-brain analytical or a right-brain conceptual thinker? Left-brainers will be stronger at making sure that every scene and action makes logical sense. Right-brainers come up with the killer concept and imaginative set pieces.
Again, try to find a collaborator who will help you realize your full potential as a writer. To that end, I highly recommend taking the Jungian-based Myers-Briggs Typology test (PersonalityType.com) to find out more about your personality and how you process information. According to C. G. Jung, all people can be classified using three set of polarities: extroversion or introversion; sensing or intuition; thinking or feeling. Isabel Briggs Myers added a fourth set: judging or perceiving. Understanding typology is a good tool for anticipating potential personality conflicts with potential partners. It’s also a good tool for a writer as an observer of human nature. What’s important here is that you have some sort of objective criteria for establishing a long-term relationship.
SCREENINGS
Screenings are where you can go for advance peeks at the current crops of student films, cutting-edge indie films, and a studio’s soon-to-be-released movies. Often the filmmakers themselves will discuss their works following the screenings. There may also be opportunities for questions and answers, along with meaningful discourse and interaction. At such events I have met legendary writers like Richard LaGravenese (The Fisher King) and novelist Elmore Leonard (Get Shorty), as well as directors like Clint Eastwood and Ridley Scott. You can get on film screening lists via UCLA Extension, USC, and AFI, as well as via publications like Film Threat, Movieline, and Premiere. There are also many, many news groups on the Web, like AintItCool.com, that post such events. Try to work into your schedule at least one screening a month.
JOIE DE VIVRE
Whether you write alone or with a partner, here in Los Angeles or somewhere far from the Hollywood lights, is your decision. However, you can enhance your chances for success by plugging into your writing community. Write at a coffeehouse where other writers congregate, attend film festivals and screenings. Join a writers’ group in person or on the Web. Remember that the best part of the writer’s life is the lifestyle. Writers don’t have to wear fancy clothes to meetings—tennis shoes, T-shirts, and sometimes pants are de rigueur for most meetings. We also drink as much coffee as we like, and it doesn’t stunt our career growth. In fact, simply saying to a Starbucks employee who is trying to reclaim the table you’ve camped out at for six hours on a $2.76 purchase, “It’s okay. I’m a screenwriter,” will be like waving a badge and muttering “Homicide” at a crime scene. We are creators and visionaries whose work is seen by thousands and sometimes millions. You don’t have to have a mega spec sale to lead this rewarding life. Most working writers never do.
The Story of Manny, Moe, and Jack
In 1998, Erik Bauer, publisher of Creative Screenwriting magazine, approached me about hosting an industry poker game. I had never really played before, but knew that games like the one hosted by the late director John Huston were the stuff of legend. So I said, “What the hell.” I went out and bought The Idiot’s Guide to Gambling, and a week later, six strangers and Erik arrived at my apartment. I put out a spread of sandwiches based on what I had gleaned from an Odd Couple rerun, and we started to play. An hour later I was cleaned out both financially and in the kitchen. “Well, I’ll never do that again,” I thought. However, lasting friendships were formed, a house game called Manny, Moe, and
Jack was established, and two weeks later, somehow I was hosting yet another game. A feature film and a spec sale are just two of the tangible results from what has remained a regular game. The every-other-Thursday event is kept fresh by the more than thirty guest players to date, who have ranged from hit series television show runners (writer/producers who “run” a sitcom or series) to lawyers working on some of the biggest film deals in Hollywood. In 2002, the group sent me and two other players to represent us in the World Series of Poker tournament held in Las Vegas.
The main point of this section is that you gotta be in it to win it, and Hollywood is a tough place to succeed all by yourself. Whether you collaborate or not, join an organization or attend screenings, you still must work on your projects. Every day. Whether you’re inspired or not. That’s how the process works. Remember how you wanted to be a writer because you liked it, and you had something to say?
17
SECTION 405: SOLUTIONS TO OBSTACLES
Writer’s Block
Ageism
“People Who Need Paper” by Sonia Lent
The Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with Baskets of Eggs
9 to 5 . . . A.M.
Call for Backup
EXTRA CREDIT READING:
Word Work by Bruce Holland Rogers Writing from the Inside Out by Dennis Palumbo
I don’t know if other writers experience this, but when I sit down in front of the computer, all of a sudden cleaning the refrigerator becomes incredibly attractive.
—ALAN BALL, AUTHOR OF AMERICAN BEAUTY
WRITER’S BLOCK
I’m not going to tell you how or what to write, or which movie to make, because I don’t know. Filmmaking is a highly individualized process where no two methods are alike. However, I do know something about writer’s block, aka procrastination, aka extreme pain and suffering. First off, I highly recommend that you check out Dennis Palumbo’s book Writing From the Inside Out, which I believe is the definitive resource on this topic. For a long time I started my day by rereading certain chapters. I think I read the book cover to cover four times over the course of one year.
Several events can bring about a creative tailspin leading to a block: the pressure of facing the blank page; an impending deadline; not knowing where to start on a rewrite; coming back from being taken off a project.
Inner Voice
Golly, that sure is a lot of Web surfing you’re doing today.
Me
I know. I can’t help it. I’m blocked.
Inner Voice
Say, won’t that nice producer be calling later today?
Me
I’m tapped out. The well is dry.
Inner Voice
“Breach of contract” is such an ugly term.
Me
Help! Help! Help!
Inner Voice
(à la The Shining)
Red rum! Red rum! Red rum!
Except when it’s done poorly, filmmaking isn’t much like laying bricks, so a certain amount of angst is a normal part of the process. I suspect that procrastination comes from being judgmental about one’s human condition and place in the universe. Fear of failure is really about handicapping and betting on the chances of success. We creatives judge the outcome even before we’ve started, which, of course, is nonsense because so much of the material we create changes during the process. Realize that the project in your mind has limitless potential that cannot be judged until it is finished. It is what it is. What is important here is to figure out the underlying reasons why you are struggling with your craft, and then address those issues. That inner voice has a thousand murmurs ranging from “It won’t be any good” to “This workspace is inadequate” to “The task is enormous, and I just don’t have enough time to really get anything done.” The solution is simple: Give yourself firm deadlines, then work every day on things you truly care about—even when the end result is crap. Bad work is part of the process on the road to good work. Only by setting a consistent schedule on material worthy of your dedication can you become more confident about your abilities and more established with your routine. Meeting these deadlines will help a lot later on when the due dates are imposed by producers or the studio. That’s the very best solution to writer’s block.
Ten Methods for Avoiding or Relieving Your Writer’s Block
1. Relax. Many creatives tend to build up the complexity of the task before them. Define your goals for the session, as in x number of pages in the next three hours, or a certain number of scenes edited or completed minutes of film organized.
2. Leave off a day’s work in mid-thought. You’ll roll right into your work tomorrow just by completing the previous day’s thought.
3. Edit your previous day’s work, but set a time limit of one hour. Again, the idea is to stay in a groove and build upon the previous day’s solid production. Warning: Limit the amount of time you spend rewriting at this point, or you may risk overwriting and obsessing over existing work.
4. Keep a clean workspace. For most people, clutter on the desk causes clutter in the mind. Conversely, don’t use the clean-up as a way to avoid working. Now is not the time to install a new computer cataloging system for your paper clips and Post-it notes. Simply stack books, papers, research materials, and congealed pizza, setting all aside for later.
5. Eliminate extraneous noise. Shut off televisions, turn off your phone’s ringer and allow messages to go to the machine.
6. Take thirty-minute breaks every two hours to stay fresh. Periodically stepping away from your writing will give you microbursts of detachment that will energize your body and brain when you sit back down again.
7. If you don’t know what to write, try imagining what the characters would say back to you if they could, about themselves and about the scene. Then set a stopwatch or cooking timer for thirty minutes. Do stream-of-consciousness writing as fast as you can. Don’t stop. Just keep going. Often, the very next day, you’ll discover a few diamonds in the rubble. This is a game you play with yourself to make the process feel less one-dimensional.
8. Establish performance-enhancing goals. Twenty-five pages in three hours. Believe it or not, it can be done. Stream-of-consciousness writing doesn’t care what comes out—you just WRITE. My all-time record was thirty-seven pages in three hours.
9. Have work rituals. Hemingway used to stand at his bedroom dresser and write at 5:30 a.m. every day. Theologian Martin Luther did his best thinking during epic bouts on the commode. Find the ritual, however unconventional, that gets you going creatively.
10. Reward yourself for a job well done. Treat yourself to that twelve-year-old single-malt Scotch you’ve been saving up for, go out for your favorite messy hamburger, or take your dogs on that particularly pristine hike that overlooks the ocean. Whatever works for you.
AGEISM
“Can our lawyer be closer to twenty-one? Because twenty-seven just seems . . . old.” These words trampolined out of the forty-something-year-old producer’s mouth in the midst of our story meeting. Even as my writing partner and I explained that given the time required to finish law school, to become a former hotshot criminal defense attorney turned ambulance chaser, and to take a few chin shots in career and life, twenty-seven was definitely pushing it, I could see the producer tensing up around the gills. So I took a deep breath and then heard myself say, “But sure, he can be a little younger.” “Absolutely!” my partner exclaimed, as if his lithium patch had just kicked in. Cash money was on the line, and we all knew which way the wind blew. Internal rationalizations shot around like a leaf blower in my brain. There must be hundreds of “Cody Banks/Doogie Howser with a libido” types running district attorney offices all over America. Hundreds of them. So let’s move on.
Five Ways to Combat Ageism
1. Work with themes that pertain to your level of life experience. In other words, the quest to authenticate the vernacular of sixteen-yearolds is far more difficult when you’re forty-five than when you’re actually sixteen
.
2. Seek out producers who make the kind of movies you admire.
3. Do not allow yourself to feel entitled to a certain level or type of treatment from agents or producers.
4. Seek out agents who represent writers and directors the same age as you.
5. Conduct yourself with the utmost professionalism in person, on the phone, and on the page. Be sure every sample you send out is industry standard.
Several years ago, when the producers of Felicity discovered that what they thought was a fetus-in-pigtails staff writer named Riley Weston was actually a sixty-seven-year-old actress named Kimberly Kramer (okay, she was just thirty-two pretending to be nineteen), many in Hollywood said, “Good. Serves them right.” If you were close to thirty years old or older, you knew exactly what was meant by that. Most producers and execs in Hollywood are all about target audience, and fourteen-to-eighteen-year-old teens are the prime targets they seek. So, while in real life the vast majority of nuclear physicists up for Nobel Prizes who are also hotties and under twenty-five are pretty rare, in Movie/TV Land they abound. For screenwriters, too, therein lies the rub. Producers desire the worldliness and the mastery of craft of a forty-year-old channeled into an eighteen-year-old voice. Since gifted-beyond-their-years phenom writers are few and far between, the result becomes that nineteen-year-old Next Big Thing Riley Weston gets a staff spot on a heavily hyped TV show, along with a lucrative six-figure contract with Disney, and a place on Entertainment Weekly’s “It List” of the “100 Most Creative People in Entertainment.” Meanwhile, thirty-two -year-old Kimberly Kramer is deemed dangerously close to menopausal, so she gets a one-way rickshaw ride to a retirement community in Florida. And everybody wins except screenwriters. We face a limited shelf life where only about eighteen percent of the WGA’s working writers are over age fifty. Somehow, important movies with strong messages can still get made, but in a lean year, some superficial shared experience and raw emotion without perspective is the best we can hope for in feature films.