a good end for 2023





Lessons

l dropped in on a webinar yesterday. A free Zoom thing for screenwriters suffering from Writer's Block. The guy was quick to let us know that in the screenwriting world, there was no such thing as writer's book, like three times in the first 5 minutes. I sighed, capped my fountain pen (I was serious about taking notes), and wandered off to do something. Anything.

Some minutes later I came back just in time for him to stop beating around the bush and get to the reason I set an alarm. Cynical much? I quote the man, but the light shone on the fact that I already knew these things. Self-evident. If there was more, I didn't want to know. This was plenty. 

"If you're losing interest in your story don't expect your reader to hang around." And "What's the structure of the story? What I see as a jigsaw puzzle. Knowing that finding the shape of it was something I used to do without laboring over it. 

Then, at some point, I started saying I was "building the story" as if the necessary elements were lying around like lumber and bricks. They aren't and I still can't separate characters, setting, action, and dialogue from the flow of scene and chapter. It has to happen all at once or it flies off, an orphan. And I don't get my writer's buzz. Writers, you know what I mean.

I'll be having an orphan fire sale in the coming days. "Where does this go and why?" has to be the weeding point.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pillow Talk

Image
  The phone rang four times before I was able to grope the handset out of the cradle. Groggy and hoarse, a muffled “Lo?” was as much as I could offer, my head still on the pillow.   “Is Kitty there?”   I heard the door of a phonebooth screech a few inches and thud shut. I needed to hear his voice again. Immediately. “Who did you want?”   “Kitty. I don't know her last name. We met at the Hi-Lo the other night.”   “Hmmm. The Hi-Lo, huh? She gave you my number?”   “914-232-5646?” He was off by one. Close. So close. The acoustics of the phonebooth was intimate. His voice was like melted butter and dark syrup swirled together. Salty, sweet, smoothly overwhelming.   “No. No kitty here. Just me.”   I yawned. If I could purr, I would have.   “So what number is this?”   “And why would I give you my number if you weren't looking for me in the first place? I snuggled deeper into the warmth of my nest. “Hmmn?”   “Solid point but can I have some slack cause I’m gla
Read more

S3:E82

  There is little to know. It’s dark and I’m thirsty. It’s quiet. A soft, steady wind coming and going from  different points of my compass. I’m floating on my back in water as warm as the air. It moves like the sea,  lifting me closer to stars I don’t recognize. Lowering me down like it’s a living, breathing thing I’m inside of.  Pain comes with those fake stars, stays too long, and wears out its welcome. If I think about place, position,  or perspective, I get dizzy-sick, so I try not to think ‘there’ or ‘where’. At least pain is an anchor. There’s touch and smell. Kind, caring strangers peck at me, busy but gentle, all sharp with antiseptic over sweat. A woman who smelled like fresh dirt and green things held her hands to my face and bargained with strange gods. Another touched my hands, my hair over and over. She smelled like a party. I’m washed, dried, stabbed, dressed, undressed, stabbed. Repeat and again. Then he comes, holds my hand. A life force, a dragon. Steel, flesh, and fi
Read more

S2:E53

  Starting at dawn to beat the heat got them to lunch by ten-thirty. They lounged on the crude temporary front steps, ate sandwiches from paper sacks, drank Gatorade or beer, and smoked. Gabe tipped his head back, looked up the front of the still-skeletal structure, and asked, “How are you with heights?” Jack shrugged. “Spent half my life on rooftops. Why?” Gabe looked skyward again. “Good, ‘cause way up there on the third level, this layout has a row of clerestory windows. If Ray had his way, we’d be working off ladders, but I’m gonna break his balls to rent some scaffolding.”  He pronounced it ‘clear story’ and Jack was thrown. He knew what they were, but just last night he heard it pronounced clair-RES-tory by a guy he’d stabbed and thrown off a moving train. “What did you call them?” Gabe repeated, “clerestories. Big, fixed-pane fuckers. Heavy as shit. Expensive.” Jack dragged his tongue along the new sharp edge on his lateral incisor. “Just another day at the office. Clear stories
Read more