Confession

ust finished writing the first draft of a Casablanca prequel screenplay.

That is all.

The October Challenge & Black Swan Sandy

ast month I challenged myself to start and finish a screenplay. I can now announce that I have written a complete draft of that screenplay. It will take some revising, but I am, for the most part, content with where it starts and how the story does not stray from its premise. Following an old teacher's advice, I pushed on throughout never stopping to go back. Rather, I kept a list of items to address, flesh out, include and fix which I'll tackle in the second draft.

Up next? Another month, another screenplay. I'm also editing the cognitive psyche kids' stories I wrote. One, pertaining to Black Swans, is particularly apt in light of Hurricane Sandy. Some folks said they didn't evacuate because they had lived in their neighborhoods for decades and had no experience with such a terrible storm and so found it hard to believe such a thing could either exist or do so much damage. They couldn't imagine such a storm because they had no first hand experience with one. It didn't matter what others told them be they meteorologists or folks who had experienced such weather elsewhere; those who had yet to experience such a storm themselves stuck to their pre-existing bias against a storm of such size.

Needless to say, that's a strong and potentially deadly bias. If we can become aware of that bias and loosen the grip we have on it, hopefully we can save some lives and stop making mistakes we seem to repeat generation after generation.

The Page That Proves I Exist

oments after the Tigers eliminated the Yankees, I sat down to make progress on the Any Color You Want screenplay for the second time today. I wrote about eight lines all of which were about as good as the Yankees' swings at Fister, Sanchez, Verlander and Scherzer. I packed it in early, frustrated and without a good idea of what the next line would be, never mind the next 60 pages.

It's nights like these you'd think I'd consider hanging it up for good. Admittedly, I've been winging it lately with only vague prep done in advance, assuming it'll just come to me - if not in this draft, then in draft number nine. Creative writing, especially longer pieces (90+ pages), risks failure with every line. It is humbling. When done right, I'd argue, it's exhausting.

So why continue?

After watching a rather pale and very bearded dude for a year write from a distance, a beautiful woman once penned a poem that she handed over shortly before we parted ways. In it she included a question that has motivated me ever since. The question? "...and where's the page that proves you exist?" I'd like to think she was not referring to my long form birth certificate.

I write for a number of reasons. Writing allows me to flesh out my thoughts. It's cheaper than therapy. And novel ideas provide a fantastic high. I also write so that one day I can scribble, "The page that proves I exist," in her dedication.

The Hot Stove

etting definitive goals over a short period of time coupled with a healthy dose of self-bullying has worked well for my literary output historically. Which leads us to my latest challenge: 112 scenes by November 1st or the end of the World Series (whichever comes last), in other words, approximately five scenes a day.

Because I take literary criticism about as well as first time mothers take backhanded compliments about their newborns, sometimes it takes a while to admit the criticism is spot on and I need to change my baby, if you will.

And so I am. The first 14 pages of the screenplay for Any Color You Want (ACYW) stays; the next 88 go to the recycling bin along with a number of characters that I enjoyed creating, scenes I enjoyed writing and a story I enjoyed working on for a few years.

In comes the characters, scenes and story I should have written the first time around instead of taking a more round-about route. While the round-about route made for a good story, by avoiding the question I laid out early on ("How would locals react to foreigners setting up a Peace Corps office in the U.S.?" or, "Can we ever accept foreign help?") I also avoided the hallmark of good dramatic writing: vigorously rubbing conflicting characters and ideas directly against each other and enjoying the sparks.

If you groaned when you saw the ACYW acronym, thinking perhaps, perchance!, I'd finally laid it to rest, well, you're not alone. Part of me groaned too. But think about this: Knows all those bands that had killer first albums and dud sophomore efforts shortly thereafter? They just burst on the scene, right? Came out of nowhere with this great material, right? Nah. Chances are they'd been playing that first album for years before anyone knew who they were. That crappy second album? That's their record label rushing them to put something out to capitalize on their popularity.

Has ACYW been on the stove for a while? You bet it has. It just needs to reduce some more. You can't hurry a good stock.

Progress Report: Cookie-Wise Pablo is with the illustrator! The Boston Squeeze is on the back burner till I hit the depths of winter and get the itch to grab Bull Durham or The Bad News Bears  before pitchers and catchers report. The series of seven kids books I wrote a few weeks ago? Still on ice. And then there's another screenplay in the works that's either blasphemous or wicked awesome. Hopefully both. But that's for another time. As you can see, I take writing a lot like baking: One project in the oven, one on the rack cooling, one setting up in the fridge, another on the table waiting to be placed out while I nibble on the works of others keeping my taste buds sharp.

Everything But the Oink

here are two skills I wish to have as a cook; first, I want to open any fridge and see what I can make with what's there (similarly, I'd like to dance with any woman I meet, but that's for another post) and second, I'd like to make a meal with as little waste as possible.

Till then, I may as well get it right on paper. There's no reason to have an idea and to make it solely into a novel or a screenplay. That's like buying a pig only to make bacon. Why not develop ideas in length and depth through different forms? Start as a log line. Sprout into a poem. Grow to a song. Develop into a screenplay. Fill out as a novel. Not a bad way to flesh out a thought and expand one's works simultaneously.

All Queued Up

hanks to feedback from a screenwriting classmate, I now have 18 log lines for potential screenplays ready to go. I've also done extended preliminary work (what I call 'pipelining' for whatever reason) on five screenplays - fleshing out characters, subtexts, locations et al. These early notes get me percolating and have lead to longer notes about specific scenes and culminating moments all of which bodes well for nice, tight synopses.

Which of the 18 do you like most? Drop me a line and I'll send 'em over.

Don't Think Twice, It's Alright

appy New Year! 2010 was a productive year for the Little Engine, but more than anything 2010 sewed seeds for 2011. While I hope to learn about synopsis letters this week, I've already started to work on new projects.

Namely, I've written draft log lines for about a dozen screenplays and for two of them I've already outlined main characters, sub-characters and their subtexts, what each screenplay's major (and minor) dramatic questions are and potential locations for different scenes. All broad strokes, but steps in the right direction. Tonight I'll work on a third. I've also reached out to folks in my class. Hopefully we can continue critiquing each others' work each week as that proved very helpful.

A friend asked me what my New Year's resolution was. I didn't think twice: To write my ass off. It's alright.

Done...again!

onsider the second draft of the screenplay complete. I still await feedback from class, but I'm excited. I feel good about it probably because I brought it back to what I originally wanted it to be - a satire about two Africans starting the Peace Corps in the U.S. I even worked in a reverse "The Gods Must Be Crazy" scene, Coke bottle and all.

I get feedback from class tomorrow night which should be interesting. I'm curious if they'll buy the car alarm symphony. If enough people do, I'm good. If they throw my screenplay back at me (literally), I'll rework it.

Anyone want a sneak peek?

Finding Soul in Screenplays

while back I wrote about how there seemed to be a lack of poetry/soul/beauty in screenplays - dialogue aside. As I spend more time writing and editing my screenplay, though, I'm finding places for soul.

First, where the scene is set. It's easy to go back to the same three or four sets, but a shift in setting can color an entire scene.

Second, the description of that new setting adds even more texture to the image.

Third, if the dialogue presents the foreground activity of a scene, slugs of description between lines can color the background. What I like about this is that it doesn't take away from the main action the first time you watch a scene, but when you watch it a second time it can add to the scene.

These are the areas I've been concentrating on lately as I finish up the screenplay for class.

Perhaps the best way to describe it is that writing fiction is like painting a large mural with long brush strokes while writing a screenplay is like painting with shorter, more poignant strokes. There's art in both, but they're painted in different ways for different audiences and media.

Industry Standard

n my own I can accomplish so much. With the help of others, some more. And now, apparently, it seems that software (along with luck) can round out the percentages. After a catch-up lunch with old friend Philip Buiser of Two Penguins Productions, I learned that Final Draft, a screenwriting software application, can make sure that my submissions are properly formatted. While I will continue to read screenplays to get a feel for them, working with an industry approved app should smooth out the process of adapting ACYW and writing future work.

Screenplays Galore

aving only read one and half screen plays, it's hard to come to conclusions about what makes one. Fortunately, a friend has lent me three more. I should finish "Life Is Beautiful" Wednesday morning before starting the next four: "The Shawshank Redemption", "Slumdog Millionaire", "Thank You For Smoking" and "The Hurt Locker". I'm particularly interested in reading the last which I've never seen. The rest I can visualize because I've seen the films. "The Hurt Locker" will test that and really force me to think about how blank a canvas a screenplay is.

Strand-ed

he Strand, an institution of a used books store in NYC, is home to 18 miles of books. Of that 18 miles, I'd say screenplays make up about six feet. Though I was able to snag copies of The Shawshank Redemption and Life Is Beautiful, the pickings were slim. While I would expect bookstores in Los Angeles to have more screenplays, you'd think NYC wouldn't be a slouch in this department.

Perhaps there are other spots that have more. Perhaps the Strand's four shelves' worth was their bone thrown to screenwriters. Or maybe, just maybe, people just don't read screenplays. Zeus knows I'm reading my first at 33. Dunno. That being said, the beauty of screenplays is you don't depend on their sales to survive. You just have to sell one.

People, Events, Ideas - Screenplays?

few years ago I came across the following saying which one website attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt: "Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." I'd tweak this a bit and say, "Great minds tend to discuss ideas. Average minds discuss tend to discuss events. Small minds tend to discuss people."

I mention this because the woman who just read ACYW and provided feedback essentially said all I cared about were the ideas driving the plot and not the characters. While I do not subsequently align myself with Roosevelt's "great minds", I do agree with the assessment. While I grew to enjoy my characters after a lot of work, they do come second, if that, to the ideas that drive my writing.

To this end, she recommended I make ACYW a screenplay. I have never read a screenplay, but I requested some from the library and will do my homework.

This brings up some questions. First, why can ACYW afford to be less character driven as a screenplay than as a book? Second, why is it necessary to be intimately familiar with characters to appreciate the ideas at hand? Third, if a majority of the world thinks about events and people how screwed is work driven by ideas? This also, of course, begs a more personal question.