Still at work on the couch

Two weeks ago we had our wrap party for The Couch. It was a chance to come together with everyone who'd worked on the web series, and supported the web series, and just hang out. We ate good food (so much food, potlucks do really bring out the best in people!), drank a little, and just talked. We had conversations as a whole group, we had conversations one-on-one, we caught up with each other and we shared a little about our lives outside of work.

Marjorie, who opened her home to us for a shooting location, gifted each of us cast and crew members
with a couch pin at the wrap party! I wear it proudly to shout to the world -- hey, watch The Couch! 

But that wasn't the end of The Couch. It isn't just, alright, that happened, what's next. This is a project that will continue for sometime. To begin with, no one's seen the actual series yet! And that's because it's not finished...

I did my part first, I wrote the entire thing. It took months and drafts and calls and lots of walking around my house and sitting in my chair and figuring out what words come next.

Then the director and the producer and the other crew members got busy. They planned and storyboarded, they set designed and rehearsed.

And then we all met at the sets. We watched as the actors did their jobs. The camerawoman did hers. The script supervisor did hers, and so on. Those were 12 hour days not unlike the days I spent at my computer in my room, writing.

Now all of the hours of footage we shot is in the hands our our editor (the wrap party was a chance to meet her too!). She'll work with the director and the producer and the script supervisor to bring what we shot into something that everyone will be able to watch on their screens.

But wait -- there's more! Just last night I learned we might have a composer for our series! Someone who loves the story and is interested in being a part of our project. Original music! I never even considered that a possibility. Actually, I didn't think about music at all. I know it's all a part of the finished project but my only thought was it probably won't be John Legend's Darkness and Light album that I listened to while writing.

So the work continues. The networking and the sharing of information and the spreading the word. I've taken to running the social media accounts for The Couch (all three!) and I'm having fun trying to share a peek at what people will see soon!

So we're all still working, we're all still excited. Me most of all. To think that there's something I wrote, something I dreamed up, out there, just waiting to jump onto your screen -- that's so cool. And what a gift! To have all of these amazingly talented people working together to bring it to life. I really can't wait to show it to the world...

So many voices...

I have learned something in the last few years that I never realized in my previous thirty-something years on this planet.

Diverse voices matter.

I'm not sure I ever really understood the idea that people having different voices was a thing. That your voice could be affected by your race, your ethnicity, your socioeconomic status, your childhood, your parents, your education, where you lived, who you hung out with or what you were exposed to. I grew up in a fairly small town outside of a fairly large city and yet my exposure was limited to the homogeneous community I was a part of. Yes, I heard a few voices different from my own but not enough to realize their importance or their impact.

And now? Now I crave those voices. I search them out. I applaud them. I stand up for them. I champion them. I cry when I hear those voices. Because those voices each belong to a person who has a story to tell, who has a truth to share, who has a secret to lay out, who has an experience to express.

Sunday night, as I sat in my living room watching the Emmys, I cheered and sobbed as Lena Waithe took the stage and was awarded the Emmy for comedy writing. She is the first African American women to win the award. Ever. EVER. And she's just one of a handful of women who've ever won the award at all. She's the only woman who was even nominated this year. In fact, out of all the writers nominated for Emmy awards this year, just 18% were women.

As Lena gave her speech I cried. I cried because well, a woman won! Also, because Lena's writing really is so good. She won (with co-writer Azis Ansari, who's awesome too!) for the Thanksgiving episode of season two of Master of None. It's a story she pulled from her own life, about coming out to her mother and her aunt and her grandmother. It's a story about family and love and it's funny and smart and it was so so good. And unlike anything I'd ever seen before.

In her speech, Lena said,"The things that make us different, those are our superpowers." And I felt like she was speaking directly to me. To me and all of the other women, all of the other African Americans, all of the other LGBTQ writers and directors and editors and producers and actresses out there. To all the people who've not heard their voices, or other diverse voices enough. Who are dying to hear so much more. To hear stories that are different and smart and funny and harrowing and that come from people who remind us of ourselves.

I try to surround myself with different voices. I get annoyed when I watch a show week after week (or binge) and only see male directors listed. Or notice that there's only one woman in the writing credits. I put my money where my heart is and support women directed and women written films in the theater, on opening weekend. I search out voices I might never have a chance to hear if I leave it up to chance or the main media outlets. And I do the same with my news, with my Twitter feed, with my Instagram feed, with my life. I want to experience so much more.

I find that the more I listen to voices that are not the loudest or most powerful in this country, in this world, in this industry, the more I learn. I am obsessed with Pod Save the People with host Deray McKesson and what I learn each week, about social justice, the law, history (just ask Angela, every Tuesday I regale her with all that I've just discovered). I recently watched Hasan Minhaj's standup special on Netflix, Homecoming King, and realized I need to broaden my comedic mind. (His special is seriously one of the funniest and smartest things I've ever witnessed. Could not quit smiling and laughing.) I am in the middle of reading A Wrinkle in Time, written by Madeline L'Engle and about to be a major motion picture directed by Ava DuVernay and written by Jennifer Lee.

These are all voices that are different. Different from my own. Different from what I am used to hearing. And I am in love with each. I want to hear more, I want to hear them screaming in my ears, I want to learn and explore and experience so much more...

And most of all, I want to add my voice to the mix. And when Lena mentioned that we all have superpowers, I wept with joy. I am different. My voice is different. And I will not be quieted. I will be heard. And I will listen.