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By now, I'm sure you've all read my amazing coverage of Audrey Wells' lecture at the Writer's Guild in this month's newsletter. If you aren't a newsletter subscriber, go back to the hollywoodlitsales.com home page and sign up. (Not right now - when you're done reading.)
One of the things I wanted to do with this column is ask writers how they got their big break. All that crap about "the process" and "the craft" are just so pointless to me. Every screenplay takes on a different tone. Memento is different from Shallow Hal which is different from Die Hard. One writer pours himself into his writing while one writes a little here and a little there, then throws it all away and starts all over with a clearer idea of what he really wants out of his script. I was more than a little pleased when Audrey Wells revealed that once she focused her thoughts on a script, she made notes on everything she could drag a pen across whenever the thoughts pop into her brain. I do this. Hearing her describe it made me smile.
Clearly, Audrey's story about her big break doesn't apply to me. As gay as Hollywood is, I still don't have men chasing me who will help my career in order to get my attention. Even though I'm not interested in that kind of attention, it sure wouldn't hurt to make a guy feel a little special once in a while!
"Nothing happened to me young," she said, and again I smiled. I'm not getting any younger. "I definitely remember the pain of starting out." Me, too.
Here's a shocking realization: I'm not Audrey Wells.
Audrey Wells is an excellent writer. If you haven't seen The Truth About Cats and Dogs, then rent it this week. Even in this predictable love story, the characters are lovable and unique, and the story is battered along the way by oddball plot projectiles that really add little extras to make the story even more engaging. Still, as much as I admire her work and respect her career, I'm not her, and I'm happy about that - not as happy as her husband is, maybe, but happy nonetheless.
This, of course, is the standard speech about being your own person. Audrey made some very concise points about how you "find your territory and you work in it." No one's surprised when Kevin Williamson writes a teen scream movie. He's reinvented the genre, much in the same way Shane Black reinvented the action movie. I definitely see themes that run through much of my writing, although I'm not genre specific. If you are, that's fine. We all have our likes. What matters most is entertainment value. Ms. Wells said it best: "The #1 crime in a movie is to be boring."
That having been said, I believe that the #1 crime in the life of an artist is to sell your dreams short. I have a confession to make: I waste a lot of time and energy doing things that not only don't help me, but actually hurt me. I'm finding out that this is a constant theme of most great artists. It is also the source of their destruction. It's like steroids. It can be a great thing and you can see amazing results, but it doesn't take much to make it too much and start the cycle of destruction that you just can't stop. The worst part about spending time screwing yourself up is that you now have to spend time fixing it. It's a double waste.
So, now that I've gotten all melodramatic (this was supposed to be inspirational), I want to give you a little guidance: Do what it takes to make yourself feel like a writer. Check the hollywoodlitsales.com events section and check out some of these events. Yes, I know you're sick of hanging out with phonies and wanna-be superstars and people talking out their ass about how great they are and then asking you for a ride home. Par for the course, people. It's like living in Alaska and complaining about the cold.
When I first started this column, I wanted it to be like Jackass for writers. I'm considering this my first stunt. I went to the WGA lecture on assignment and actually had fun. It was good to get out. It was good to hear what other writers had to say. It was good to hear other people who wanted to be writers asking questions that were pointless, and it was good to hear other people who wanted to be writers open their minds and their mouths and reach out for some answers.
It was good to feel like a writer.
Since so many of you tune in for laughs, I have decided that when my columns get too deep, I'll finish with a joke.
Two flies are sitting on a pile of dog poop. One fly farts. The other one turns to him angrily and says "Hey! I'm eating here."
Like I said - we all have our likes.
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