About a month ago I started working on a new pilot script. One that I'd been mulling around for over a year. Last summer I was challenged to come up with a huge list of ideas for stories and I did. Some were good, a couple turned into really great scripts, others were obviously meant for the old idea recycle bin in the sky. And still some? They stuck with me. This new idea was one of those. In the back of my mind for the past year, I've been thinking about these characters. I've been thinking about this place. I've been thinking about their story.
So I started the laying the ground work. I came up with character sketches and outlines. I batted around plot ideas and story lines. I finally came up with a beat sheet/outline I really liked and then I started writing.
I wrote the first scene, the cold open in sitcom terms (I'm writing a multi-camera sitcom this go around which means it will be filmed in front of a studio audience, performed like a play, on limited sets, this is a new genre for me in pilots though I have written a Big Bang Theory spec). It came out over the course of two days, five pages worth. I though, bam! check that off my list. (I actually do have a to-do list when it comes to writing, it helps me keep track of everything.) And then I started to write the first act. And I stopped.
I had Angela, my trusty first reader of all things, read the cold open. I was excited to get her reaction. And she gave it. She said it was fine. Fine was not what I wanted. I wanted a laugh (which is hard to come by from my first trust reader). I wanted a smile. Something. Anything. Not, "it was fine". So I looked back over the pages and guess what? That was my reaction too. So the next day I sat and sat, staring at the screen, trying to figure out what to do with it. I knew I couldn't go any further until I fixed this problem but I didn't know how to fix it.
That was weeks ago. I'd since taken the character charts off the wall, put away the outlines and pages of notes. Moved the file from my MacBook's Desktop to the deep recesses of the TV Writing folder. And I tried to quit thinking about it. I started rewriting my baseball pilot, which I love, which everyone loves. But it had to be stripped down and built back up again, this I knew. I knew it could be better because it has to be. It has to be the best out of thousands of scripts out there.
I started a new writing project. I worked on teaching Angela the little I know about statistics for her grad course. I busied myself with other projects. But still, the sitcom story and characters stayed with me, almost like elevator music. Always there, never fully recognized. Until this morning.
I was listening to a podcast, checking email, paying bills, doing too many other things at once. My mind was anything but focused. Cookies in the oven. Busy busy busy. And that's when it happened. That's when something in my brain clicked and I scribbled this down on a piece of paper:
what if he's mourning her and she's the one who comes in...
That's all it took and I was off, back on track. Out came the character charts, the outlines. I buzzed to the internet, looking for photos of actors to help me visualize who I wanted in my show. More scribbling, fingers moving faster than my brain. The same Alanis Morissette song on repeat for inspiration for this particular scene. And before I knew it, before lunch, the cold open was rewritten. Funnier, tighter, better. Two characters swiped away, two new ones marched in. Dialogue figured out. Story moving forward.
I can't explain how it happens, no more than a painter can tell me how to move the brush or a doctor the scalpel. But when it happens, it's great. That moment when things start to come together. When I can see actors I don't yet know, walking through the sets in my mind. When their mouths open and words come out, words I never even knew they knew. They have a fight I was not anticipating. Then in walks someone else. A laugh, a movement, a story takes shape.
Writing. I don't really understand how it happens but I'm sure as hell happy when it does.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
A Kick Start
This morning I got up and logged into my email as I do first thing most mornings. It's a bad habit (in my mind) but I always feel like I might have missed something while I was 10 feet away from the computer for the past 8 hours and being on the west coast only intensifies this feeling. And usually? All I've missed in my daily Dilbert delivery and some junk mail. But not this morning...
There hidden in the junk mail was an email from a manager I'd first contacted over three months ago. I'd sent him one of my pilots and asked him to consider me for representation. I'd followed up and he'd claimed to be busy. Life goes on. But this morning? There was that email. And as I clicked it open, I held my breath.
Another rejection. A polite one but still...a rejection.
And yet? Life goes on. I got dressed, made a smoothie, drove Angela to school (today is car servicing day and hers is first up), and then made my way back home and settled in to do some work. I checked the manager off my list, no need to follow up any more. Then I opened some of the blogs I usually read. And I found this little gem from TV writer Ken Levine:
So...what's next? (one of my favorite President Bartlett lines from The West Wing)
In the two hours since getting rejected, I haven't become a better or worse writer. I haven't even written much (a Neighborhood Watch agenda and some emails don't count, right?). So, after getting back from the smog checks, I'll settle in and open a fresh page and do some writing. And more likely than not, the early morning rejection will inspire me. Maybe one of my characters will be pissed off today. Maybe another will cry. And yet another? She'll probably do something awesome. Because really? Today, I needed the kick start of that email. And the reminder that someone has to break through.
There hidden in the junk mail was an email from a manager I'd first contacted over three months ago. I'd sent him one of my pilots and asked him to consider me for representation. I'd followed up and he'd claimed to be busy. Life goes on. But this morning? There was that email. And as I clicked it open, I held my breath.
Another rejection. A polite one but still...a rejection.
And yet? Life goes on. I got dressed, made a smoothie, drove Angela to school (today is car servicing day and hers is first up), and then made my way back home and settled in to do some work. I checked the manager off my list, no need to follow up any more. Then I opened some of the blogs I usually read. And I found this little gem from TV writer Ken Levine:
"Someone has to break through. Why not you?"And that immediately erased the rejection letter feelings I was having. (Well, momentarily, they came back soon enough, never fear.) The manager said he didn't fall in love with the script like he needed to in order to call me in. I get that. It wasn't a script written for him. It was about a 40-something woman firefighter, probably he's not my ideal demographic. I get it.
So...what's next? (one of my favorite President Bartlett lines from The West Wing)
In the two hours since getting rejected, I haven't become a better or worse writer. I haven't even written much (a Neighborhood Watch agenda and some emails don't count, right?). So, after getting back from the smog checks, I'll settle in and open a fresh page and do some writing. And more likely than not, the early morning rejection will inspire me. Maybe one of my characters will be pissed off today. Maybe another will cry. And yet another? She'll probably do something awesome. Because really? Today, I needed the kick start of that email. And the reminder that someone has to break through.
Saturday, June 02, 2012
It wasn't a car backfiring this time
Growing up just outside of Detroit, violence was not a foreign concept to me but it was never in my backyard. We watched the nightly news, read the metro papers and constantly heard talk of shootings and stabbings and standoffs and all things horrible that came out of big cities. This was Detroit in the 80s and 90s mind you. But we didn't live there. We only heard about it. It was different.
When I moved to Yuma, the violence got a little closer. Things happened in our neighborhood, we couldn't walk down the alley between our apartment complex and the grocery store even though it would cut our trip in half. We couldn't drive down certain roads in certain neighborhoods because I had a red car and more importantly, because we were "white girls". We stopped crossing the border to buy the sublime Coca Lite and family gifts in Mexico because we heard too many horror stories of people never coming back. Then some of our middle school students were involved in a fatal shooting at the town mall on Valentine's Day night one year. The violence encroached. But we were still just outside of it.
Tuesday night at 7pm the violence got closer. Way too close. I was sitting in my bedroom, just checking my email, when I heard four pops. I looked out my window and thought to myself it's just a car backfiring. Yep, a car, must be. But then, within seconds, I heard the screams. They were just far enough away that it sounded like I was in a movie or maybe a little underwater but the sound was unmistakable. I said to Angela, what are the odds, a car backfires and then kids scream? We hear kids constantly as we live between an elementary school, a high school and a park. But this was different. And it didn't stop. Then we heard the sirens. So many sirens. And when I looked out the front window I saw the police helicopter that's a familiar sight, do a 180 degree turn in the air and dive bomb our neighborhood.
My first thought was the park. Oh the park. Home to Little League games and softball games and tennis matches and so many kids playing. And that's exactly where it happened. Apparently a gang banger got out of a running car, proceeded to the basketball courts, fired, and fled. Yes, he got away. And the bullets he intended for a rival gang banger? Well, they hit him and two other people there enjoying the park and the Little League games. Because bullets don't know the difference between gang banger scum and plain old citizens. Bullets just injure and kill.
No one was killed Tuesday night, for that I'm so grateful. And according to the police, arrest warrants have been issued for this "isolated incident". But it's still scary, because the violence is here. It's not in Detroit a city we almost never visit. It's not in the gang neighborhood on the other side of the city or border. It's in my backyard. It's close enough that I can hear the gun shots. Still.
This wasn't the first shooting we had in our neighborhood this year. Five people shot since January (four at the park, one at the high school). All injured. There was a shooting last summer that left one man dead just a few feet from the park entrance. There were two stabbings in the park across from the high school a couple of months back. It's close.
And yet? I felt enormous pride and a sense of safety yesterday as we trekked to that very same park and sat on folding chairs with a couple hundred neighbors to hear representatives from the Los Angeles police department, the park police department, the fire department, the mayor's office, the councilman's office and the crisis management team speak. We listened to the police officers we know by name tell us what had happened, what they're doing to help the situation, and how safe we actually are in our neighborhood. Did people believe them? Not really. It's all too fresh. But in time, things will return to normal. And I am confident we'll all be okay.
People spoke last night about gun control and putting up public cameras and stationing armed guards around the park. I sat there and silently shook my head. I wondered where all those people were every month when we meet as a neighborhood watch group and learn how to be safe, get to know the police officers in our city, and try to make our community a better place. I wondered. I wondered how many of them would come back in two weeks for that very meeting.
Was I scared that night? Yes. Was I scared when I drove by the high school yesterday and saw multiple police cars as the clock neared the end of the school day? A little. But was I scared last night when I walked the same steps where that woman laid Tuesday night, shot in the leg? No. As Captain Davis said last night, you can step off any curb and get hit by a car. A crossing guard wouldn't help that. Our community constantly tries to thwart the violence. Thwart the bad eggs. And I love that about us. I love that I know the kids who live here and they know me. I love chatting in the street with neighbors. I love seeing an LAPD car and waving to my friend who's driving it. I love recognizing the fire department captain on site. That takes work, and I'm so glad our community's doing it.
When I moved to Yuma, the violence got a little closer. Things happened in our neighborhood, we couldn't walk down the alley between our apartment complex and the grocery store even though it would cut our trip in half. We couldn't drive down certain roads in certain neighborhoods because I had a red car and more importantly, because we were "white girls". We stopped crossing the border to buy the sublime Coca Lite and family gifts in Mexico because we heard too many horror stories of people never coming back. Then some of our middle school students were involved in a fatal shooting at the town mall on Valentine's Day night one year. The violence encroached. But we were still just outside of it.
Tuesday night at 7pm the violence got closer. Way too close. I was sitting in my bedroom, just checking my email, when I heard four pops. I looked out my window and thought to myself it's just a car backfiring. Yep, a car, must be. But then, within seconds, I heard the screams. They were just far enough away that it sounded like I was in a movie or maybe a little underwater but the sound was unmistakable. I said to Angela, what are the odds, a car backfires and then kids scream? We hear kids constantly as we live between an elementary school, a high school and a park. But this was different. And it didn't stop. Then we heard the sirens. So many sirens. And when I looked out the front window I saw the police helicopter that's a familiar sight, do a 180 degree turn in the air and dive bomb our neighborhood.
My first thought was the park. Oh the park. Home to Little League games and softball games and tennis matches and so many kids playing. And that's exactly where it happened. Apparently a gang banger got out of a running car, proceeded to the basketball courts, fired, and fled. Yes, he got away. And the bullets he intended for a rival gang banger? Well, they hit him and two other people there enjoying the park and the Little League games. Because bullets don't know the difference between gang banger scum and plain old citizens. Bullets just injure and kill.
No one was killed Tuesday night, for that I'm so grateful. And according to the police, arrest warrants have been issued for this "isolated incident". But it's still scary, because the violence is here. It's not in Detroit a city we almost never visit. It's not in the gang neighborhood on the other side of the city or border. It's in my backyard. It's close enough that I can hear the gun shots. Still.
This wasn't the first shooting we had in our neighborhood this year. Five people shot since January (four at the park, one at the high school). All injured. There was a shooting last summer that left one man dead just a few feet from the park entrance. There were two stabbings in the park across from the high school a couple of months back. It's close.
And yet? I felt enormous pride and a sense of safety yesterday as we trekked to that very same park and sat on folding chairs with a couple hundred neighbors to hear representatives from the Los Angeles police department, the park police department, the fire department, the mayor's office, the councilman's office and the crisis management team speak. We listened to the police officers we know by name tell us what had happened, what they're doing to help the situation, and how safe we actually are in our neighborhood. Did people believe them? Not really. It's all too fresh. But in time, things will return to normal. And I am confident we'll all be okay.
People spoke last night about gun control and putting up public cameras and stationing armed guards around the park. I sat there and silently shook my head. I wondered where all those people were every month when we meet as a neighborhood watch group and learn how to be safe, get to know the police officers in our city, and try to make our community a better place. I wondered. I wondered how many of them would come back in two weeks for that very meeting.
Was I scared that night? Yes. Was I scared when I drove by the high school yesterday and saw multiple police cars as the clock neared the end of the school day? A little. But was I scared last night when I walked the same steps where that woman laid Tuesday night, shot in the leg? No. As Captain Davis said last night, you can step off any curb and get hit by a car. A crossing guard wouldn't help that. Our community constantly tries to thwart the violence. Thwart the bad eggs. And I love that about us. I love that I know the kids who live here and they know me. I love chatting in the street with neighbors. I love seeing an LAPD car and waving to my friend who's driving it. I love recognizing the fire department captain on site. That takes work, and I'm so glad our community's doing it.
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