I’ve been reading blogs and comments and have noticed a running theme…it seems a lot of us are struggling right now. Let’s do what we can to get ourselves out of this funk!
If you can’t stop thinking about it, don’t stop working for it.
Chin up! And good luck! 🙂
Last week I attended a networking event with a manager/producer guest speaker who said outright that screenwriters should focus on television. The television market is where it’s at, which is obvious with all the new original programming options at Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon, among others. Movie attendance is down, so the studios are mainly looking for projects with a built in audience. Hence all the superhero movies, remakes, and those based on novels.
I wept a little inside. My screenplay, the one I’ve been struggling to rewrite, the one I wanted to use as my calling card, I could see was about to fall into the realm of obsolete. The advice given was to create two original pilots. Gracious. The one area I’ve been struggling in, and now I needed to create two different shows?! I barely had a viable concept for one. And what was worse, I had to write them. I couldn’t just have a fleshed out idea that I could pitch. There’s that pang in my chest again, even knowing what I do now, writing this out causes a twinge of anxiety, again. I left the event a little deflated but thankful for some honest advice from someone active in the film community. As writers, isolated, no matter how much we read or discover about the business, until we’re on the inside, we don’t know what’s really going on.
When I got home, I started looking through my half-baked ideas, and the gravity of the situation started to sink in. I have been working on my portfolio, trying to get all my ducks in a row, and I thought I only needed ONE tv pilot or web series idea, not a whole script. I started to bounce around some ideas, and thought I had come up with a couple of fairly solid ones, until my sister enlightened me. My fifth screenplay, Projection, influenced by the likes of La Femme Nikita, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Alias, could definitely work as a tv show. And the bonus, it would only need a little reworking as I had already written about 50 pgs. I know the characters, I know where I want the story to go (at least for a season or two), and who wouldn’t like to watch a female spy with special powers kick ass?!
One down.
So there you go, fellow screenwriters. A little advice from the field. I started following a few writers, a screenwriting career coach, and the editor of Script Magazine on Twitter, so I’ll hopefully have some more solid advice to share in the near future.
Happy Sunday!
Inspired by fellow blogger, Meg Writes Stuff, who writes short 100-word stories, I decided to try to something similar with the Writing Prompts. Last night at my writer’s group, I wrote the following three short stories. I did very little editing, my goal was to write as much as I could in two hours. Now, remember, I am a screenwriter. 🙂 I rarely write prose anymore, but I liked the idea of trying something different, and I’ve been so in my head lately I needed an escape…So here we go –
The Garden
The cool air was a welcome respite from the warmth of the ensuing party indoors. The scent on the air indicated the flowers were in full bloom. The muffled sighs and hushed whispers revealed she was not alone. Neither her soft-soled shoes nor the faint dragging of her gown made enough sound to give away her presence as she made her way along the crooked path. Her hands gently trailed the rounded edges of the bushes that lined the path, their prickly edges tickling her skin. There was a nervous energy about her. As she moved further inward, the darkness grew until she almost disappeared. A puff of white smoke. The smell of chicory*. She hastened her pace. Only a few steps more, and she would be in his arms.
The Castle Beyond
It felt like he had been locked in that dungeon for a century. When he was first interned he had tried his best to keep track of the days, looking for the wisp of light that tried its best to break through the smallest cracks, but as the days turned to weeks turned to months, torture, hunger, and fatigue had made it difficult to care. After so much time, death seemed the most promising prospect. Justice was not to be served here. Innocence was irrelevant. Rumors circled amongst the guards, and it was only then that hope returned. A crafty effort he had been planning for some time finally panned out and he found himself free. Desperation and sense of urgency propelled him forward until he took his first breath of fresh air. It had never tasted so sweet. His eyes, already used to the dark, made out shapes on the horizon. He knew the land well, and took shelter under a distant bridge. His prison had been just that, but at least it had been dry. He shivered throughout the night as a light rain turned menacing. By morning, half frozen and starved he got a glimpse of one of the most beautiful sights he had ever beheld…home.
The Archway
The Archway was considered a legend. The Elders had maintained that The Archway had been destroyed during the first Great War that had torn the land apart, but there were some, who quietly believed it still existed. After the clans disbanded and moved away, there were a great many things that had fallen into the domain of myth. Generations later, when my clan crossed through the Old Lands once again, the legend of The Archway was resurrected. The Archway’s true purpose had been lost over the years; some believed it was a gateway to the afterlife, while others believed it could transport the traveler anywhere they wished as soon as they crossed the threshold, or possibly into the Other Realm. Whatever its purpose, the idea that it was within reach was too great an enticement. After six days in the wild, a mist gathered about my feet and guided me towards a natural formation of steps in the hillside. With the sun rising before me, I had to hold my hand up to shield my eyes, and it was then I saw a glint of light bounce off an invisible structure. I approached with trepidation, but with each step The Archway appeared more distinctly and I became more certain. I had been chosen. I would discover the secrets of our ancestors. But just to be on the safe side, I drew my sword.
I’d love your feedback. It’s been a long time since I wrote like this.
Have a great and productive weekend!
*Note to self – I need a specific scent
Happy Wednesday!
Here’s a little update:
Last week I received my first link to a story inspired by one of my writing prompts. I was so excited! Please give the wonderfully vivid Things Best Left Forgotten by redgypsophila a read and offer feedback, and let’s start building! 🙂
Moving forward, I’ve started to have a few ideas of what I’d like to do in order to “build” this community. I’ve felt a little brain dead the last few days though, so it may be slow going. I blame all the new social media outlets I’ve been exploring.
I joined Twitter (my handle is @RachaelCMarek). Now that I’ve (slightly) got my bearings…I’d like to use this specifically as a resource, so if you have any tips on how to use it wisely, or can suggest people to follow that might be beneficial to writers, please, please, please share in the comments.
Then I signed up for Tumblr. I didn’t realize it was another blog, so that one will probably fade into obscurity, but I wasted a whole lot of time the other day…
I added a link to my YouTube page that I’m trying to build with the writer in mind. I’m trying to create “music to write to” playlists. This will be a work in progress, but if you’re like me and like to write to music, you may find a few new things.
And as if you needed one more thing, I saw a post about a blogging resource called Quora. This link is the article via The Write Life. Is anyone using this yet? Is it worth it?
Is all this other nonsense really required to be a writer…?? Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest, blah blah blah. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy some of these services (some much more than others); it’s a way for me to stay connected, keep in the know, learn new things, etc, but A) It’s too time consuming to maintain so many outlets. B) It’s too easy to waste inordinate amounts of time. And C) Why? This is not how it used to be, not even a couple of years ago. Yes, there are hints of bitterness laced with mind-numbing exhaustion. I take full responsibility for time wasted the last couple of weeks.
As for actual writing…I spoke to some of my new writer friends who helped me gain some perspective. I decided against the massive rewrite, as it would change the story completely, and am going to try to find the issue in Act I that is affecting Act III. I have been all over the place with this, and this might be one reason I’ve started to mentally check out. So wish me luck.
Wishing you all a productive rest of the week!
I’ve joined Twitter.
I’m not sure how I feel about it yet, in part because I have no idea what I’m doing. When I informed my Facebook friends, one of them immediately responded with #sellout. I replied, #haha.
So why do it then? I’ve read how useful a tool it can be, especially for writers. It’s a direct link to people in positions to offer advice, among other possibilities, and a way to build an audience. So it was time to jump on the bandwagon. My first tweet was, “Yes, I have succumbed.”
I’ve added the feed to my blog, and I give you fair warning it may be a little blank for a while until I get the hang of it. I’ll share any useful insight I learn about this along the way as well, as I’m sure to be on a huge learning curve for a while I can imagine. And I give you this promise – I will do my best to never use the following hashtags: blessed, selfie, nofilter, ROFL, YOLO, or any other annoying tag I’ve seen flung about.
I’m open to any advice, tips, or people of interest to follow if you’d like to share. Facebook, Twitter, and self-promoting, oh my!
Have a great weekend everyone!
I always thought it would be good to have writer friends, but as writing is a (mostly) solitary pursuit, and as we tend to be introverts, finding other writers, especially those whose opinions I could trust, seemed like a fruitless and futile pursuit. This is not meant to be a slight, by any means, but a testament to my own shortcomings of maintaining relationships (even with those I already consider my friends). So trying to find new ones with specific traits, well, felt like it might be a challenge.
I have many acquaintances – those people you meet through work who become your Facebook friends even long after you’ve changed jobs, who you’ve never seen again, probably never will, and might not even recognize years later…you know the ones, we all have ’em.
But, building a circle, that’s a different type of beast to tame. When I was living in Arizona, I was fortunate enough to meet a unique person, a fellow geek, who included me and my sister in his circle. It was one of those inspired moments, when you realize you’ve met a kindred spirit. Unfortunately, we moved away. His wife and I maintain our friendship via Facebook through our mutual love of all things Whedon, Cumberbatch, and other geek related passions. So that’s good for me when I want to geek out, which is all the time, but they aren’t writers.
Making “real” friends gets a bit more difficult with age. For those of you too young to have learned this yet, you will. It’s a sad truth. By the time we’re a certain age, we have the friends we’re probably going to have the rest of our lives, and making new ones, regardless of similar tastes and interests is time consuming, and takes effort. By this stage in our lives, we don’t like to waste time and effort. So I was finding it difficult wanting to pursue new relationships regardless of its value.
When we moved to Los Angeles, where we really knew no one, I made a whole new group of acquaintances, none of whom were writers, which I sort of found surprising, as this is the land of “aspirings”, so I was at a loss. Where were they hiding? As I continued forward with my writing, and very often struggling, I realized I didn’t have many life lines. Only other writers can understand the daily struggles, the process, the moments of enlightenment, and offer one another insight or a life jacket. So I had to make writer friends.
As part of my New Year’s Resolutions, I joined a few writer’s groups via Meetup, and after some time, finally did make a couple of writer friends; one of which helped me yesterday brainstorm some ideas for the rewrite. Then, the biggest light bulb went on. As I’ve continued my blog, and begun to learn the value of such a world, I’ve realized that I have an entire community of writers at my fingertips. As we reach out, comment, and build relationships here, we are building our own circle.
So I would like to offer my blog as a part of the circle I’d like to create. Fellow writers, let’s help one another succeed. If you have questions, would like to offer advice, please feel free to do so here.
Wishing you all the best!
xx, Rach
Victory! Last night I had a small breakthrough on the rewrite, and I am starting to fall in love again. I know I’m not alone in feeling a little love loss when a story you’ve poured yourself into stops loving you back; the hours invested, the sleep lost, the tears, the borderline mental breakdown…I’ve complained about this one long enough, and I don’t like the feeling that a story and characters that once brought me such pleasure could turn out to be the bane of my current writing existence, especially when people, whose opinion I trust, tell me how much they like the story. It makes me wonder if I’m thinking too much, trying too hard, or am afraid?
I know for a fact that I think too much. I over-think everything. But as writers, we all want our stories to be the best they can be. So trying to think of every possible story thread or outcome is just part of the trade. Wondering about every facet of the story is just what we do. And I know I have to get out of my head, more often than I do.
As for trying too hard in relation to my writing, I don’t think such a thing exists. In regards to becoming a writer, is there any other way? I’m a new writer, and a woman, trying to make it in Hollywood, so what else am I going to do? The Writers Guild recently released this article about the state of women in the industry, and it’s a little bleak. In an already tough business, the uphill battle just got a little rockier it seems. I need my stories to be compelling. I want them to be recognized for what they are. And I want the fact that I’m a woman to be irrelevant when looking at my scripts, although it will be clearly evident because I’m a bit of a feminist and I write for women primarily, but you know what I mean. I am trying too hard because I want to succeed.
Then there’s the possibility of fear. Fear is an enormous detriment to a writer. If I’m honest, which I will be here, I don’t feel fear in regards to my writing. I relish the blank page. It’s an opportunity to create new worlds and escape into adventure. I don’t fear endings. Some times, after spending so long with certain characters, it’s hard to say goodbye, but I like the idea of moving forward and creating a body of work. But there is one thing, the fear of success. The unknown. We get comfortable in the daily struggle, the routines we’ve created, and lives we’ve built around this dream. This may seem strange, but all the years building up to the next stage in the journey makes me nervous at times. Am I prepared? I think, not just as writers, but as people, when we dream about something for so long, the idea of actually getting what we want can cause fear.
So, back to the breakthrough. I decided to take a different approach to my writing and use some of the tools I’ve discovered along the way. Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat (this is the link to the website and information, but there is a book too) is a great resource for screenwriters, but I think all writers could use some of the techniques to help their story. Blake designed a checklist, all the components needed in a screenplay. As my rewrite is an entire perspective shift, I’m changing protagonists, I needed to get into the head of the new lead character. This is someone I know well, but until I sat down and started writing out her journey, all that time spent in my head was time wasted. I can think on it all I want, that over-thinking thing I do, but until I sat down and physically worked out the details, I was never going to move forward.
Maybe there was a little fear, actually fear might be the wrong word, perhaps anxiety is better to refer to my feelings about this script and its necessary rewrite. The love had slowly melted away under the constant scrutiny and struggle to get the third act right. This is a story I have been working on for a long time, and when I had that light bulb moment to change the perspective, it was almost like I was writing a new story and I was afraid of what it might do to the original idea. Maybe this is why I’ve been reluctant and dragging my feet to actually attempt the rewrite. But like I said above, “fear is a detriment”, and I can’t let that hold me back from moving forward. So, as I sat in my writer’s group last night working out the details, I had a glimmer of the love that drew me to write this story in the first place. I made a mental decision to look at this new rewrite with a positive attitude, and I think that worked. As I discussed the idea with a fellow writer later, I felt better and more hopeful with the idea.
So I throw this out to you my fellow writers…what obstacles do you have in your writer’s life? How do you overcome them? Or are they what drive you to succeed?
I wish you all the best in your endeavors!
I was bouncing around the internet, instead of writing, because I was still enjoying my morning tea and didn’t quite have the brain capacity for anything beyond reading emails and Facebook statuses, and luckily, I found something of use amongst the nonsense, a website called Write to Done. They offer a section for submitting material as a guest blogger (here are their guidelines), they have a free book, and over 200,000 monthly readers, so it might be worth a look-see.
Happy Sunday!
The other day I posted a link to a site called Literary Rejections with a list of author’s 10 Rules of Writing (Henry Miller and A.L. Kennedy were probably my favorites). I decided to create my own, as I said I would, and after some editing rounded out the number to 20. I’m putting this out into the world in the hopes that it will not only help me, but other writers.
I’m on the email lists of various writing sites and I get so inundated with information that some days I feel like hitting the spam button and never looking at their “helpful advice” again. There are so many people telling you what you should and shouldn’t do and sometimes they’re contradictory…so what is one to do?
Make your own rules!
Now obviously, there are some rules of writing that can’t be changed. Screenwriting has a very specific structure, I can’t change that, but my writing style, etc. is left up to me. We all know the conditions we like to write in and when, but like my To Do List posted on the wall, sometimes it helps to see those guidelines visually. We might accomplish more when there’s a physical reminder staring at us. So here are mine –
I encourage you all to make your own list, and as always Best of Luck!
I’ve been watching The Mortified Sessions, now streaming on Netflix. If you are unfamiliar with the premise, it’s a “reality” type show that looks into the pasts of mostly famous people to see how their childhood affected who they became. I like the idea of digging through your past and discovering if who we are is who we always wanted to be. I’ve been telling stories for as long as I can remember, but I never considered myself a writer, that came years later. So after watching a few episodes of Mortified, I decided to dig into my writing past and see who I was and share a little.
First off, my teen years were clearly more angst filled than I remember, according to the writings I found. I was depressed and love sick, often. Which I find strange, because I don’t remember it like that. In high school my parents divorced, which referring to as “messy” is a gross understatement, and I lost the friendship of my best friend because she chose a boy over our friendship, so I suppose I had a few reasons to be melancholy. One year in high school, we had to keep a journal, the only time I was ever vigilant (until now), and there are a lot of ramblings about love and darkness. I’ve had a good laugh.
Here are a few snippets –
Blackness surrounds
Fear sets in
Eyes deceive
but in darkness all other senses must take over.
Paranoia strikes, you try to look,
minute sounds quicken your heartbeat
The black seems never ending, there seem to be creatures lurking in the darkness
of my mind or are they?
Where is the light? Will it ever arrive?
You’re frightened. Voices invade. You tremble in terror, a ghostly chill runs through your spine.
Images of death cross you mind,
in a split second your forehead is wet,
you try to rub off the moisture in a flicker of panic,
feeling it smear down your face, it becomes sticky.
“Light!”, you scream, “Where is the light?”
Obsessed with finding your way out,
you reach your hands in front of you.
You feel a strange warmth against your palm,
a sensation of a soulless corpse.
Squinting, you see the outline of a girl, leaning forward,
you see the reflection of your forgotten self.
Finally, something clicks, as if you know where to go.
You get up, turn a corner, and see a dim light.
“Run! Must reach the light!” You think aloud.
So there’s some angst, here’s a little love sick –
I look out my window on a particular rainy night,
and you seem to be on my mind.
I wonder where you are, who you’re with, and wish you were with me.
I don’t know if you remember me, but I remember you.
That night I first saw you is like a fixed impression in my mind.
I remember every detail about you from that first night…
your hair, your eyes, your smile, and movement.
That memory plays in mind like a broken record…
repeating itself over and over, reminding me of you.
I was introduced to Dracula by Bram Stoker, and that new interest permeated a lot of my writing. These are three separate entries.
It is a damp and dreary night.
Not another living soul in sight.
I turn to look in fright.
I feel his hunger, ready to bite.Dark dreams haunt my mind.
My heartbeat quickens as well as my breathing.
Drops of sweat bead my forehead.
I turn in horror, but cannot see
the thing that haunts nearly every dream.Hot breath on my neck
in a trance of passion
A sharp pain
I fall to my knees
I look on in wonder…
Then I found some story ideas that are just too funny and almost embarrassing to repeat. When I look back on those writings, besides laughing, it does stir my memory. I was reintroduced to my love of books during this time, because when you’re forced to read in school sometimes the love of reading falls to the wayside. I was introduced to romantic fiction by my mother and fantasy by some of my teachers. Those interests melded together, marinated for more years than I’d like to admit, and became the seeds to the writer I have become.
It was a fun exercise, and a good excuse to dig into the past. Sometimes a little introspection is good as a reminder of who we are and why.
Wishing you all a productive week!
A Writer's Discrepant Memoirs and Other Tales 