Tag Archives: Screenwriting

Toast! to Movies We Watch Over and Over and Over...

Today’s Toast! goes out to the movies we watched that made us cheer, cry, talk about, reenact, stare open-mouthed at the screen! For me- my list includes Die Hard, When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, National Lampoon’s Christmas and Thelma and Louise. (yes, the list of great movies is WAY long) but this one…Thelma and Louise- before USC SCA, I would read the shooting script of this film while watching the film. I LEARNED so much from this film. Not just about elements of screenwriting, or incredible believable character arcs, but I also learned about “loving the movie watching experience”.

I watched this with my sisters when our girls were little. We laughed, we cheered and oh, how we cried. It just dawned on me- I might have fallen in love with southwest from watching this film. hmmm….that will be a different topic for a different blog.

My goal- is to make films that can stand that same test- that will make you laugh (okay…I’m not funny but ya know…for the sake of whatever literary thing I’m attempting…I had to repeat the phrase….) but… make you laugh, make you cheer, and Oh, make you cry.

What movies do this to you?

Peace

Toast! to a Creative Community. Yay! Writers Group!

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Deadlines can be a real bitch. Anxiety-inducing, difficult..soul crushing, even, depending on where you’re at with the ebb and flow of our draft.  But deadlines are also markers.  Goal posts on the road.  So, even though I could still feel my skinned knees from crawling the rugged terrain of my writing path (this part rugged, others parts are deep waters and I have to swim, or multiple feet of snow and I struggle to get warm enough to melt the ice that’s blocking me, or open air against turquoise blue skies that I float on…yes, that last one does happen. Sometimes) This most recent deadline was hard.  But…it was for my writers group.  And I am grateful. 

My husband and I raced around yesterday morning to get my tiny house ready for guests. Clean towels in the bathroom, sweeping the floors, dusting and scrubbing and… baked oatmeal.  That’s the coolest part of  hosting writers group for me-  I make my now signature dish of baked oatmeal. Oats, maple syrup, roasted walnuts, berries and bananas, cinnamon…deliciousness that I get to share with my smart creative friends. 

Once the setting is done- furniture moved in a circle, tea brewing, table set, some 80’s music in the background (again, another signature of coming to my house)- my girlfriends arrive. Hugs. Food. Laughter. My house is filled with the beautiful energy of these storytellers.  

When we finally get to the work submitted we all put on our smart caps- using the tools and skill we learned at USC SCA and have applied to our work since then. We share books and movies as inspiration. We laugh more. We support and share.  

For me- we reviewed the half draft of High Card Trumps. A deeply dramatic film that breaks my heart to write. And out of all the notes- what’s working, what’s tender, what are the questions, I discovered that I’m so sorry for breaking my character’s heart over and over that I’m pulling her out of the toughest moments. I literally cut away and show the results. The fallout. The aftermath.  It just hurts so much to make this mother go through what she’s experiencing. She already lost one son in the war and now with Sam… she’s losing it all. Her faith. Her family. Her place in her community. She’s not just floating alone in some vast emptiness, she’s being hurled through her world without direction, without guidance. She’s being torn apart by the forces of life.

I cried.  But these amazing storytellers, my writers group, held me in this space. They teared up, too. They understood the difficulty and supported me as I told them of the emotional angst I feel every time I go to the page, that it’s so hard to keep hurting Dahab over and over. No mother should have to suffer living after her child is gone. That’s a hole nothing can ever repair. And although I don’t know this exactly, I’m blessed that my child is alive and well, I did stand witness as my sister died. My family has endured the pain of death multiple times. I’ve watched my mother suffer a grief that nearly destroyed her. I want to protect Dahab from this so the real pain happens in the cut away.  

My peers, my literary colleagues while sipping tea  with their bellies full of baked oatmeal, curled up comfy on my old furniture in the bosom of my home, they listened with love and told me that they need to see these scenes. They need to see these moments in Dahab’s life. And then they told me that because I’m a mom and I can envision my deepest fears as a mother I’m exactly the person to be telling this story. 

I’m exactly the person to be telling this story. Me. This story. Whew!! 

Today’s Toast! goes out to these women. My creative community. I wish for you all to have a community that holds you and understands you, who loves you just as you are, and for the love and gratitude you give them. 

PEACE

 

Toast! to Shopping…for creative purposes, only…I swear.

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Yesterday I wrote bout five new pages, edited a few minor things and then gave myself the day to go shopping. I often do this while story brews. It’s sometimes a mindless task and not too damaging when I make sure I kick my awareness to full tilt before I actually purchase.

In this case, I was shopping for something specific. We’re going to Mexico in a couple weeks for a wedding so of course, there’s new clothes needed.  But how did this influence my creative process? How was this a part of living the creative life?

I could tell you it was wonderful and that in my head, I fixed multiple hiccups from ACT II and cleaned up blurbs of shit that currently fill my screenplay drafts.  I could spin you a tale about startling revelations of pure literary genius that struck me in the dressing room at Old Navy. I could tell you that detailed arcs of the deepest emotional journeys for my protagonist revealed themselves while trying on boots at TJMaxx. (and yes, I know, I don’t need boots for a wedding on the beach, but a girl can’t help herself sometimes) I could say that the ahhh moment of resolution appeared in a vision while I wandered like a crazed woman through The Americana on Brand.  I could say that I was so deep in thought, so enthralled with the films I’m writing in my head, that I actually walked passed IN-n-Out burger and didn’t even see it until I had crossed the street and realized I had…crossed…a  street.  Okay, this last one did happen.

The rest, though.  Eh.  Nothing major hit me. Nothing surfaced and made itself clear to me.  I still see Dahab sitting at her husband’s bedside, alone and scared. The doctors and nurses eyeing her like she’s the mother of a terrorist, wondering what’s in her bag. I see Cassidy running hard down a country road, forcing herself to look into the cornfields, unearthing the horrors of her memories that lurk there so that she can move through them to find the lost little girls. And Kiona is still holding her arms tightly in front of her, stuck, afraid to hold the infant because she’s feels like she’s barely keeping her head tethered to her grief-stained body. And Tammy…sweet sweet Tammy, I still see her with a gentle smile on her face, watching her new “friend” hum and twirl and love the life she seems to be creating for her son, not knowing what and how terrified her “friend” really is. Not knowing that her smile means love and that it could kill her.

Oh. I see. I took all women, these incredible characters of my films with me. I took them shopping. And although I struggle to make meaning of this all right now, and am distracted by the hummingbird at my window saying good morning–I bought a pair of jeans for $10. And a tiny blue dress for a hot Mexican day.  

Peace. 

Toast! to grand creative gestures…

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…like proclaiming I’ll blog everyday and then not doing that on the second day!  Lol! 

Creatively, yesterday I did lunch with my friend.  Loved doing lunch with her. We talked shopped and laughed and teared up and I got closer to a resolution on one project, got inspired to keep writing another and had a moment to reflect on how our creative paths are completely different. Everyone’s is.  Comparison will stop you in your tracks, knock your ass back. 

What matters the most is to keep moving on that path. However you can. Crawl, skip, bounce, scurry, run, roll…just move your ass down that path!  Stay true to the dreams and know that the process is the gift. 

Too many times to count I said “I don’t want to do anything else.”  I want to make movies. I want to write for television. I want my stories to be told. 

So the Toast! for yesterday goes to grand creative gestures that motivate movement. Also Toast! to to amazing creative girlfriends who believe in your dreams and appreciate with love how much you believe in theirs!  

Peace!

 

Toast! to Toasting…and movement

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Good morning,

I’ve been thinking about doing this for awhile now- to get this blog back up and moving. Moving. Moving. Moving. That’s what I feel I need to be doing…always moving forward. That’s been difficult this summer, there seems to be alot of obstacles for that…first the breast cancer scare which kept me stymied in a state of fear for a month. Movement was chaotic and emotional. I felt blind and lost. Abandoned and confused.  So when the verdict came back that I was okay, the lymph node is recessive and that I have til December before I need to pick at it again..I took a deep breath, gathered up the lessons I learned about myself and thought..”awhhh…yes, now to move forward!”   But then my arm and shoulder didn’t heal, the nerve pain intense. And just as I began to treat this, I got into a car accident. My fears loomed up from the back seat as my car was totaled and I got stuck. Again. Sure, we continued with our plans- vacation and traveling, precious time with family, but the pain kept me from moving forward as much as I wanted. As much as I needed.

Physical therapy, drugs, a spiritual and astrological reading, hours with friends, chocolate, forgiveness, and therapy – all doing its job has me ready to move. And that’s brought me here – back to this blog.

I am blessed more than I could have ever dreamt for. I am supported by the people who matter the most- my husband, my daughter, my family and friends. They believe in me as a storyteller, as a filmmaker. They hold me up when my critic gets loud (and she can be a total bitch at times) and I think my work is lousy when really it’s just draft.  I have days to do what I want to and need to…all to feed my creativity. And that’s a huge blessing.

There was a time in my life, a very long time when I struggled. Every day. I was very poor. And a single parent. Working and in school, always trying to move forward, always trying to heal, always trying to define and keep my dream alive…and to think that I’m on that path, now, living creatively, that it’s all happening as it should, as it was meant to be, as I dreamt… makes me stop in my tracks. That’s not an obstacle to movement, it’s a…present breath that surges me forward.  

So part of honoring this dream and moving forward is this blog,Toast!  For the month of October, I am committing myself to do an entry a day. Toast something everyday, something that honors my creative life.  I hope some days it’s poignant, other days, more literary, like the great story I’m reading. It could be more…technical exploring an element of screenwriting, like toasting character development discoveries or that dark writing pit towards the end of Act II where you discover if the story works or not. There will be blogs coming to you from Mexico- we’re there in three weeks to celebrate dear friends getting married…on the beach, baby. I foresee blogs about my people; friends who influence me, who make me laugh, who always make me smile. Friends who tell me I’m a good friend when I need to know I’m doing right by them. Friends who have space in their worlds for me, just as I do for them. Friends who hold my heart. There will be blogs about my current projects, what’s in pre-production, what’s brewing. I know there will be blogs about family and love and support. There will be blogs about being a socially-conscious writer, about being a COC (chick of color), about being over 40 and rockin it hard…there may even be a blog about how I would embarrass my gorgeous creative daughter if she heard me say “I’m rockin it hard..”  

Every day I’ll make a Toast! 

…last night the government was shut down. I’ve been grieving losses, again. I woke at 4 am with a heavy heart. But got up and wrote this blog…so, today’s Toast! is to movement.  We have to move. Go forward. Take that moment to feel the ground beneath you, breath into Mother Earth and hear your breath connect your heart to the world around you. Then no matter how tiny the step, take it. Take it with intention, with love, with purpose. We can’t afford to sit back. Move. Towards

Peace.

 

A Toast! to Fueling the Art.

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Morning, all…I have to do this…(taking wrist brace off to type this). This blog is about toasting my creative life…and that includes what fuels my work.  This topic is a huge part of what I write about, why I write… 

On Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC #nerdland they’re talking bout My President’s comments..and the ‘asking for acknowledgement that the Black experience EXISTS…’ that’s not even asking that it MATTERS. It’s ‘let’s begin with acknowledgement’ Let’s acknowledge EVERYONE’s experience around race… we live in a racial society. It’s in our history!

I was not the least bit surprised that the GOP, Tea Party, F-News, and other politically right folks hit the airwaves and attacked Our President even before he finished speaking. That stank will continue, sadly. I won’t post the link to the articles about the Top 12 comments because I decided I will no longer put that shit on my wall.

Making up lies about President Obama and Trayvon Martin and other Black men…yes…I was expecting that. That’s the current GOP MO…and that’s sad.

The remarks that really get to me are the ones that say that racism doesn’t exist. Which means…what? That for some of us, our daily existence isn’t seen, isn’t heard, is just not real…so…that means, I haven’t been followed in stores, I haven’t be overlooked, glared at, called nigger…that means that none of that ever happened? And…it’s all…in my mind? Right?

Some GOP remarks say that we need to get over it. It’s the privileged white racist lens that gives those who believe this their blindness. They don’t NEED to see it. They embrace this blindness so that they don’t have to address their values, their beliefs, or their responsibility. They scream that we should get over it and pay attention to all the other ills that plague our society, our country, our government- and yes, there is a long list that needs immediate attention. DEFINITELY. But what they don’t see that racism, discrimination, lack of equality is woven into all our policies and our laws..it’s a part of the foundation because it’s OUR COUNTRY’S history. Our economic policies, our laws, those that are meant to protect us are entrenched with racism…I’m shocked by the ignorance, the complete inability to see this.

But…I have to say, too…hearing white folks talking about their place in this conversation…doing that really hard ‘racial consciousness growth’ gives me hope. Not telling us they’re color blind because that doesn’t get us anywhere but doing the individual racial consciousness work– It’s hard for all of us. I’m a Mixed Blood (Native, Black, French Canadian, maybe Latina…) COC (chick of color) and I’m STILL doing this work of digging up and healing my racial background to define a racial consciousness that honors my goal of living a life of goodness, of peace and harmony. This is WHY I WRITE!  The page gives me a place to work this out.  And It’s hard shit to handle, let me tell ya!

These discussions are not going to be easy. This is painful. But to have a country that really truly honors what it claims to stand for, we have to do this. Don’t tell a FOC (folk of color) that their experiences aren’t real. Don’t hold every Black man as suspect because they’re Black. Don’t feed the stereotypes. Don’t believe the bullshit.

Let’s challenge ourselves to be better Americans for the sake of all our children, for those we can hug today, and those who have died in the fight.

PEACE.

Toast! to FADE OUT

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Ahhh… FADE OUT. Those two glorious words.  Those words that make a screenwriter finally let out the breath they’ve been holding in, that breath that has been tearing up their gut, piercing their heart, and rearranging shit in their soul.  Okay, maybe if you write… Hangover IV or some sweet romcom, the story might not hold you captive like this last draft of mine has done to me.  Maybe I’m just sharing more about a psychological problem I have but hey, I’ve got a shrink and we’re working on it. 

But writing for me is a fierce exercise in digging deep, challenging my skills and trying really hard to honor wisdom from my amazing USC thesis teacher, David Howard,  [paraphrase] “For God’s sake, don’t be boring…” 

SHIPSIDE, my latest feature has been living with me for a long time. I know these characters. I have a relationship with them. And with each revision, I attempt to deepen that. This last revision, though, was about deeper development of the antagonist.  Giving him flesh.  And because that was new and hard… (have I mentioned he’s the spirit of a notorious slave owner?) when I got to the end, when I hit FADE OUT… I sat back from the computer and felt a bubbling of emotion rising. I went to my husband, curled up on the bed and cried. 

For two days after sending the script off to my director and producer, I had to work through the emotions of what I was forced to discover to do this revision. That this horrible man was once a human with feelings, betrayals, wishes and dreams. I gave him parents and a home, all to understand how he could become the awful evil man he was.  And for me, in my process, i had to let this character ruminate in my head, and hold him in my heart, and that meant i had to let all his dark evilness come hang out, too.  

FADE OUT was relief.  FADE OUT meant “breathe, Stacey”.  

i will be writing more about Shipside, as our pre-production ramps up. I will be writing more  about creating this character and telling this story about a haunted poor young single mom.  I  plan to document the full production, the trip down south to tour plantations, to see the manacles, to look to the Atlantic Ocean and envision the ships coming over the horizon and then…because i need to see this too, envision the ships of everyone going home. 

 

i will be searching for FADE OUT in a lot of places, I’m sure. 

And maybe…just maybe in your own work, in your day, you know what this feels like? Do you? 

FADE OUT

Peace

Stacey