Bad Writing 4

Amy Amschler said she would read my blogs.
She was thinking that my posts might be funny.
I told her they weren't.
She said she would read my blogs.

Writing is powerful.  It is an enormous responsibility.

One of my facebook friends, (I say friend because I think he is cool and smart; he is a compelling commentary writer as well as a brilliant story teller -- plus he speaks for democratic values -- is he my friend?, who cares -- I think he's cool!), is speaking with Syd Field at a Writer's Conference in Los Angeles this weekend.  I know he'll be sharp and engaging.
He sat with Clint Eastwood before Clint's chair episode at the Republican National Convention.

I am working with Linda Seger, who indicated that my screenplay, "Johnny Blood" is 4-5 out of ten in terms of the people that she has worked with.  Ron Howard is one of her clients.  I have a baseline from the best.  I am proud.

Linda indicated that she could bring the play to 6-7 in the next re-write.  Ba-a-a-a-a-a-ang.  (It will take nine months for me to do a re-write due to my interminably cumbersome mental processing that is essential to my moving on -- and that is just the way it is -- when I see it that'll be it.)

I am so very proud of myself.  So thankful that I persevere.  I had a vision when I was younger that I was talking to myself when I was older.  Now I am older and I can hear what I was telling my younger self.  "It's alright."  I, in my 59th year, said to myself in my 38th year, "It's alright."  That it will be alright.  That the light is there when I arrive.  I have arrived.  I have arrived at a place where I look in the mirror and can say, "Job well done."  Thank you, Lynn, for not succumbing to suicide, for persevering, for continuing in a way that is hopeful.  That as my mother indicated "makes a difference."  I do make difference.  I see it.  I see when I take a student and talk about little things that relax and take the student to a place of hope.  Brandon, Avery, Terrill, Cree, all my babies.

And my beautiful birth children, who feel in ways that are not comfortable, and strive for truth and justice, who speak on behalf of those who are unable to speak.  I make a difference.  And my strength is that I lived through the pain.  I stood up and walked right past the pain.  I took it and make it an altar to see beyond to the tomorrow.  It is now, this tomorrow.  Thank you, Lynn, age 38, that you trusted me.  

Bad Writing_3

I don't read blogs. 
Too many words.
I like pithy thoughts.
Perhaps I can just write tweets.

Blog.


There are now rules for blogs.

I am to entertain, to engage.

I was told once by a friend that a poetry sharing commenced. That he and his clever friend shared their witty work. Another gentlemen shared his soulful amateur work of leaving: the collection of goods, the items he took with him, and the walking through a threshold to a new place. The gentlemen sought my friend and his clever companion after the poetry sharing. The gentlemen indicated that he would like to be witty like my friend and his companion. The companion quipped, “Keep writing as you do.” My friend laughed and the companion laughed with my friend.

I know this laugh. It is ridicule.

I understand ridicule. I have meted out ridicule.

I love my friend and I love the wit of his companion. And I love the amateur.

Writing is breath. To live I will breathe and write.

Thank you for both. 

Bad Writing_2

"No good deed goes unpunished."
 
The quote that serves me is my mother's crumpled sign above her kitchen sink, "Act as if what you do makes a difference," William James.
She did.
She kept Paula when the doctors told her to institutionalize her.
Mom is Bohemian and Irish.  Stubbornness is predicated on these two islands, I mean, in these two places.  I hated Paula because she got new underwear before her six year jaunt to St. Colletta's in Madison.
I hated her less when my brothers and I would watch from the back seat of our late 1950's station wagon, Paula in tears, as we left her in Madison once again after a day visit.

What good deed did Mom do to deserve a cognitively disabled child?

Mom's courage was not enacted on the blood of a battle field, but within the beating heart of a child of the Great Depression.  Her older brother, David, sent home $2.50 from his naval pay in California to assist her large Catholic family at Lawler's Grocery on Webster Street in Green Bay, Wisconsin.  She listened as her brother, Eddie, got whipped with a willow branch by Patrick Henry because Eddie had taken her for a perilous ride in a dinghy on the river. 

Mom's good deed was perhaps to hope.  She hoped she wouldn't get caught whispering during general math class at West High.  She hoped she wouldn't get caught in a lie about not being seen with another man after her first blind date with Bob.  She hoped she wouldn't starve before she married.  She hoped her children would be healthy.  And when one wasn't healthy she hoped she'd have courage.

She did.  Have courage.

And perhaps the former quote is correct.  She hoped and sometimes received.  She was punished with Paula. 

I'm glad she hoped, glad she had courage, and I'm glad she had Paula.

Bad Writing_1

Bad Writing
How it is done.
Pen to paper.  Or finger tips to the computer alphabet keys. 
My brother, Mark, has the best pencil sharpener on the planet. 
It hangs upside down (actually it is designed to hang that way) in his laundry room.
It's been a rough summer.
I don't disarm IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) or have to grapple with the burka .
"An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger" (Confucius).
I do wrestle with my finances (or lack thereof--the tiger) and with generalized fear (anxiety--the oppressive government).
I read Linda Seger.  She wrote that she didn't know that all people didn't eat hot dogs on Thanksgiving.  That her mother did not talk about finances.  Didn't want Linda to know that the family was short on cash.  I have passed the gift of fear onto my children. 
I am the new generation.  Female, divorced, and scared without the padding of the patriarchy.
I tell myself my feet do the walking.  Make the decisions.
I told my dad that there are stars watching over me.  He said he hoped he and Mom are some of those stars.
Of course he is right. 
My neighbor, Jerry, said that I can ask my dad for help. 
I did.  Dad sold my Packer tickets for a profit. 
Do I sell the farm?
I told my daughter Meghan that I was selling the farm every day in my head.  Perhaps it is time to walk.  Perhaps I have learned the lessons of boundarilessness with spending that I can actually say "No" when my financial boundaries are crossed.  Clean the cupboards, sell the piano.  Step one and two.
If not, say "No."

Word for the day
roup2    
noun
hoarseness or huskiness
(dictionary.com)

Spoiler alert.

Denis indicated that he is covering the screenplay, "Johnny Blood," in an article. 
He needs quotes.
Denis and I had talked about his favorite Packer player, John Victor McNally, II, Johnny Blood.

He gave me permission to work on a screenplay adapting his book, The Vagabond Halfback:  The Life and Times of Johnny Blood McNally.
I didn't know that screenplay adaptations are the most difficult to write.
Denis noted what he would like to see happen in the play on twenty post its.

I wrote word after word.  In lists.  From the dictionary.  From old books. 
Signed up for a online class with Gotham Writing site.  Was told, "Come in late and leave early." 
Okay, that would be year "1929."  Green Bay's first NFL championship.

So now I need to do some research.  Microfich.  The Green Bay Press Gazette play by plays from Arthur Bystrom.  And the New York game by George "Cal" Calhoun.
Three Bears games.  The Polo Grounds, Wrigley Field, early football, the officials, the team standings, Chicago, Manhattan, Green Bay at forty thousand people, the players, the coaches, the owners, the game, and the size of the ball.  Mary Herber finds "soda shops" on Main Street in Green Bay from business directories of the year.

Before I had started this project, I had taken another play to Los Angeles.  Jonathan from "Larger than Life Productions," or something like that told me that my character didn't have an arc.  Johnny Blood's character is not unlike Forrest Gump.  Johnny inspires the best with his joie de vivre.

The story felt like it was close.  I sent it to David Trottier--he gave me six out of ten on it.
I had to find the story (it still looked like a list of games).

I worked for another year and had Arthur McClenaghan's favorite screenplay analyst look over the first fifteen pages for five hundred dollars--the guy's name is Robert Flaxman.  His comment was that there was nothing outstanding about the character.  I figured I had some more work to do.

I figured it would be a good idea to look at a number of "story books" and "tip books:"  Syd Field, McKee, Truby, Schetcher, Xander Bennet, Michael Hauge, William Akers.  I read the titles Your Screenplay Sucks!, Screenwriting Tips, You Hack, Writer's Compass, Foundations in Screenwriting, 20 Master Plots, and My Story Can Beat Up Your Story, among others.


Denis asked me, "Do you think at some point that you need to question the questioners."
I know he is right.
To me its always been about working harder than the smart people.
But this is what I know.  That when the story is fun for me to read, when it answers all my questions and makes me cry, then I will be done. 
It's not quite done.
   

My students think that I am dumb.  Denis is smart, he knows senators of Vermont who say nice things.  And Damon doesn't care for award winning books.  They suck as far as he is concerned. 
And fetal alcohol is a condition by which a person suffers the effects of alcohol while sitting in utero.  And the detachment.  The blank stares are about turning off.  Or not having the knowledge of how to turn on.
I remember when I was dating a man who said that his first wife would say things that were so loud emotionally, the words would seer past all his filters and jolt him to "awake." 
Perhaps Damon need words that will jolt him awake.  I would like to see this young man experience awakefulness.  Presently he experiences a sense of unhappiness because a beautiful young woman, a high school student is able to brave a boundary with him.  What a concept.  A boundary.  What a turn on.  That someone would have the balls to say, "Sorry, you took the last of my blood.  Now, I am going to take care of myself.  I am not going to spill blood on your account."  Wow. 
My students challenge me daily.