remodel.

First, in screenwriting news, if you haven't read Scott Myer's round table with Hollywood's newest screenwriting darlings, go there now.

I'm sprucing up the old blog. I'm looking for something a little more "serious and career-driven writer" and less "PAISLEY! SONG LYRICS!" I've been working on a Wordpress blog all week, and I think it's almost time to put a sign in the window here and head out. (Mind you, "working on the blog" is, to me, rearranging my side widgets into the optimal order. It's not like I'm doing actual coding or anything.)

Step 3 of my 5 step blog move was to import all my old blog posts. As a writer, it's incredibly difficult to give up what you've written and start with a clean page, even if you do want a clean start. That is what I thought, at least, until I started going back and reading some of those old posts.

I've had this blog since 2004, people. Eight years. And I will be honest and frank with you and say I was downright mortified by some of those old posts, what I had written and clearly how I was acting. Yikes. Obviously, I had an inability to keep my personal life out of my blog (er, just skip the below post entitled "romancing") -- or maybe I thought I was writing a LiveJournal. So I decided that I'd leave some of those chronicles here. I want a writing focused blog, so I only took from January 2007, when I started the screenwriting program at Michigan, and on.

Today I am super grateful for growing up -- at least a little. And now I'd like to share with you some song lyrics that recently have been making me all misty-eyed--

Discipline.

There's something sweet about procrastination.

I've basically had Draft Two of Consideration done for about a week. It needs a good scrubbing, a once over to make sure I've set up all the scenes properly, I've made all the correct changes, and my typos are all cleared up. I just haven't gotten around to it. I printed it off tonight, all 72 pages of it [how did that happen?], and I consider that an accomplishment.

I blame sweatpants. They are a complete motivation suck. Sweatpants, Words with Friends, and Downton Abbey.

I am a complete extremist when it comes to discipline. Either I have a plan and I'm sticking to it, I'm writing every day, turning down invitations from friends. Or -- or I'm not writing. At all.

However, discipline is a huge motivator for me. Not my discipline, obviously, but the discipline of others. Competition is fierce in this industry. And I know that one day I'm going to be up for an assignment against some guy [yes, it will be a guy] who has sacrificed too much so he can spend every free minute writing. And when that time comes, I don't want to be at a disadvantage just because I used to come home and put on sweatpants and Downton Abbey.

I know that I am, if anything, only a moderately talented writer. My biggest talent is my strong desire to be a writer. Writing is a war of attrition -- if I keep writing, I'll keep getting better. It may not be the fastest road -- because you know what? I really LIKE Downton Abbey! -- but sometimes, persistence is more rewarded than aptitude.

One of the highest compliments the Hockey Player ever gave me was that he thought I was fairly obsessive about writing. That glow kept me pushing through the day job and the harsh Michigan went for at least nine hours. But that's all I really have to say on the subject, because I have a 72 page script sitting next to me that needs a decent flaying.

First I am totally checking Twitter. Carson Reeves replied to me, and now I'm completely crushing.

Seasonal Fun.

I've never considered myself a horror writer, but since I'm writing a zombie story I found this apt and timely -- 25 Things You Should Know About Writing Horror.

Recovery and Subtext.

I had a great weekend [minus that really really horrible and embarrassing football game]. But it was not relaxing. Today it was a struggle to get back into productivity mode. But I did it! [I am very proud of work done on Mondays.] I wrote my 8 page quota in Places, a segment of another project, and had a lengthy phone call with my mother concerning my next trip home, relationships, and leftovers.

I watch less television than I could. That's what I would say if anyone ever asked me if I watch a lot of TV. Maybe, but less than I could. It's all research, anyway. I mean, it mostly is. Scott Myers' mantra is "Read scripts. Watch movies. Write pages." One thing I've been picking up on recently is the lack of subtext in television.

I feel like when I'm working on a film script, the biggest pitfall I want to avoid is to have my dialog be too on the nose. Characters shouldn't say exactly what they feel or mean because as people we don't do that very often. However, when I'm watching TV, that seems to be all they're ever doing. There are usually two extremes--either burying their emotions completely or just coming out with them. Scenes with subtext shine at a low percentage.

For instance, on Bones this season, nearly every single character has asked Brennan if she's ok with Booth dating Hannah. Or Daisy and Sweets have real conversations about their relationship status instead of having scenes with subtext. On Grey's Anatomy last week [and this was the first time I ever watched Grey's], no one felt any inhibitions about stating their opinion on whether or not Cristina Yang was ready to work in the OR again. In Sex and the City, the girls go out for drinks or lunch for complete disclosure at least three times an episode. In Modern Family, Jay and Gloria fight about what's really bothering them as it is, not disguised as something else.

Does television get away with more on the nose dialog? Usually honest dialog comes up in scenes of strong conflict, which makes sense. Yeah, the stakes were there in Glee when Terri was trying to conceal her fake pregnancy from Will, but things got really good when he actually found out that she was lying. You can have characters dance around an issue to make it engaging, but when they start getting raw is when the emotional stakes jump to a different level.

Also, there seem to be way more confident characters in television. How many times an episode do Lorelei and Rory Gilmore rehash their problems and advise each other towards a solution? How many plans did the boys in The League come up with to get Rafi out? How many episodes of the Undercovers will it take for the main characters to talk their way into a balance between being partners and being married? A character may be hesitant to broach a problem with the character they have it with, but they always have a friend who they can hash it out with, and the audience is always privy to that council.

Sometimes it's strange to write those on the nose scenes. But at the same time, they feel right. Because my heart doesn't pound when I'm dodging an issue with someone. It starts thumping right before I get terrifyingly honest with someone. And TV is drama, so it's going to capture those moments right as your emotions are exploding out of you, making a terrible mess of whatever you've been trying to be polite about.

Nine and 140.

Cell phones are a big problem in TV and movies. One, it just wrecks suspense when one character can get a hold of another immediately to warn them of impending doom, danger, or apocalypse. Two, having two characters just hanging out talking is boring enough--having them hanging out talking in different places, where they can't really interact with each other or their environment organically is beyond boring. Why don't you just go watch a play?

Not that I am saying anything bad about plays. They are just fundamentally different from TV and movies and can support dialog heavy scenes in a way that TV and media cannot.

One of the things I had to do for The Garden was separate the characters from their cell phones. It wasn't terribly difficult to do, but then it proposed an entirely new problem--

People don't know phone numbers anymore.

Even though my character had lost his cell phone, he still needed to call a friend. And then this was when I realized, I myself know about three phone numbers. Two of those are my parents' cell phones. I don't know my parents' house number, I don't know my sister's number, I don't know my best friends' phone numbers. So cell phones provide infinite frustration. Either they create excessive accessibility or they completely cut us off from contacting anyone.

I mostly stalk showrunners and bump industry news, but if you'd like to follow me on Twitter, you can find me at AmyRButler.

What other people say

Excellent interview with Nora Ephron.

Also, my former professor on what's going on in Michigan's film industry.

Oh, and Josh Olson? It was sort of funny. Now I just think you need to get over yourself.

Neurotic

I've had a lot on my mind recently that's been stressing me out. It's funny how suddenly neurotic you can become (and by you I mean me). Luckily, if things are on your mind, it means that you're thinking them through, and are hopefully making some sort of progress...

Tomorrow my screenwriting II class starts. I'm very excited. I'm a bit torn about which script I want to rewrite, the 4:05 or Collapse. I was a better writer when I wrote Collapse, but it's kinda depressing and the 4:05 is much more cheery and whimsical and needs more work. I'm still secretly planning on trying to rewrite both of them.

I was having a hard time thinking about my next script. Sometimes my anxiety level skyrockets, which just freaks me out even more because what would a real writer have to worry about? So as I struggled to come up with new ideas, I also tried to figure out what was bothering me so much. What was I afraid of? Failing? And with that my next story started to fall together.

Because this is what I realized. My best scripts, the ones that are the most well written, the ones that I love the best, come from questions and issues that I struggled with, and I will connect with them again and again because of what they mean to me. That's why I'm willing to rewrite the 4:05 as many times as it takes or return to Collapse for another semester. And just because the story is so closely connected to my life doesn't mean that it won't resonate with others. There's the screenwriting advice that says the more specific you make a story the more universal it becomes. Yes, the stories are particular to me and my life, but the issues of love and loss and fear, those belong to everyone. You have to find motivation for your story. You have to find a reason for it to be told and the fortitude to keep coming back to it again and again. Without a personal connection to a story, you're never going to be able to see it through satisfactorily.

So what's my new story going to be like? It's Atonement meets the Matrix meets the Old Testament. Come on now, who doesn't want to hear it?

Ms. Franklin knows it

Isn't it weird how medical issues work? You know how in old movies they'd always talk about how they were going to the Rivera "for my health"? Always seemed a little cheesy, didn't it? Well, perhaps the East Coast rivera is good for my health, because I just had an issue drop from the looming "hey, I wonder if this is going to affect my future" to "meh, I should get a doctor's opinion on that one day." It's a nice relief (as opposed to an 'un-nice relief'??).

I'm exhausted. I can't concentrate well enough to write the thrilling and enlightening post on producing I was planning, so we're going to talk about something else instead. Ok, Reader? (If it's not, I don't care, you can just exit click out of here). I refer heavily to Zach Helm's Creative Screenwriting podcast, so you might want to listen to that.

Writers don't get enough respect. I know we bemoan this fact a lot, but there's a problem in the way that most writers approach this issue. The treatment of writers, the firing off of projects, the rewriting of others' scripts, the sending of hams as apologies, has created a sort of "expendable" label for writers. The problem is this - that we've started accepting this label, caving to the system - it makes writers cynical. Don't believe me? How many times have you heard writers tell other writers that Hollywood's going to change their script until its not the author's story anymore? I would say the biggest problem is not the Hollywood system - it's the writers that are giving in to it.

Writers do not demand enough respect for themselves. I think we're afraid to risk it, to demand certain terms. I think we're so desperate for success sometimes that we'll blind ourselves to the possibilities, hope that we'll be treated with respect, or at the very least now we've got an option or a greenlight, no matter what the story really is about now. Zach Helm wrote a personal manifesto. He wrote it after he realize he was making a career in a way that he didn't want a career. He was being fired from his own scripts, getting assignments on other's material, writing stories that weren't really in his vein. He could have kept going. Speilberg asked him to write a script. He could have written for Speilberg. In the end, choosing the integrity of the project, Helm was honest with Speilberg about his limitations with the project. Part of this just stems from what seems to be an incredible honesty Helm seems to have with his work. Part of this is just Helm's sense of respect. At this point, he had been working as a screenwriter for about seven years - without having a script actually produced. When he finished his manifesto, he had decided on a "group of rules": no bidding wars, no rewriting others' scripts, no assignments, he would sell only to those people he respected as filmmakers, and maybe most importantly, he requires involvement in the development of the script. He gets a voice in casting, and if they decide the script needs a new perspective, Helm gets to suggest the new writer. When he's talking at the interview about his manifesto, he says that he realized he no longer wanted the pressure of his script production to be on the studios and the stars, "I wanted the onus to be on me." That demands a level of respect for yourself, your craft, and your story.

I don't know - why don't writers do this? Why do we grudgingly accept Hollywood's role for us? Some might argue that it's necessary to get your foot in the door. I'm not arguing that you should be a jerk to the execs you want to greenlight your project or that you claim there are no notes that could possibly improve your story. My feeling is, if you write a great script, you have an obligation to yourself to respect that work you've done. And there's no reason why you should slowly light every page on fire because a company may not give you an option if you don't. It's okay to be firm about your story. If it's really that good of a script, the execs are going to want it. If they respect your story, how are you going to let them getting away without respecting you as well? No one's going to give us any more respect if we don't start acting like we deserve it.

This is sorta silly, but I have one example of how to respect your craft. I'm shy about showing friends my work. I think it used to be because I was (and yes, still am sometimes) insecure in my writing and am unsure how I'd react to negative feedback. However, my attitude's changing a little. When I give a friend some of my work, their level of respect for my work tells me a little bit about their understanding of me. I'm not saying that they need to love it or say that it's great or anything. But you know how when you're with a friend and they're excited about something or something huge is happening in their life, you want to know about it - even if you're not really interested in politics or engineering or agriculture? A friend's interest reflects respect. And in my closest friends, I really hope for people who can understand my passion for writing and respect that. And when I walk into a pitch meeting or an option meeting, I hope that these people who are invested in the business of storytelling will also understand my passion for my writing and respect that. If they don't, then they never should have called that meeting in the first place, right?

Maybe it would have been easier to write about producing after all. I'm just a little tired of all the cynicism that writers carry around from their expendable label in Hollywood. I think we just spent a few months showing how wrong that label is.

And my friend that I went wedding dress shopping with? She bought her dress tonight. It's beautiful. The maid of honor and I had a wonderful time oohing and aahing over the various dresses. We may also have snuck pictures of us wearing bridal tiaras.

coconut creme cupcakes

I can't sleep.

I'm lying in bed at home (and by this home I mean my parents' house), listening to Coldplay and Damien Rice and over thinking. I think it's culture shock. Too many people growing up, leaving home and coming home, going on adventures, doing nothing. I stood on the beach yesterday and felt like I was fifteen years old. Today I felt old enough to start thinking about settling down and whispering suggestions about starting a family. I teeter every time I lose my sense of balance. I've had so many perfect moments in the past couple of weeks. Finding out how to show I care about the one I secretly care about, toasting to friends and true love and difficult times around the camp fire, wandering up and down the beach of the boundless lake with the most wonderful people, flying into the City at night so close to the buildings I could practically see the people in Times Square. Finally watching the season two finale of the Office.

And this is a sort of perfect moment, too. It's awkwardly unsettling, this quiet moment when I'm just thinking about life, because despite all the perfect moments, you have to deal with all the imperfect ones as well. And, maybe I'm just a little bit strange, but thinking about these things conjures pictures in my mind, not of my own life but of some other one, someone else's story, and the stories I make up are about me but they're about someone else. I used to think it was a great insult to say that you can see the author in a story, see how they've inserted themselves. I still think there takes a certain amount of craftsmanship to conceal your tracks, but now I believe that the stories with the most heart are often written when they come from the author's true heart, from the experiences and joys and pains held there, the invisible story teller whispering, "Don't you see the truth in this? Don't you feel it yourself?" I believe the reason that I love The 4:05 so much is because I wrote it trying to answer a question I was struggling with at the time and the answer I found there gave me hope. And as I lay here, unable to sleep, thinking about the big questions in my life right now is the same as thinking about the stories I would like to write. They are inexorably tied.

I was watching the director commentary of Walk the Line on the plane today, and writer/director James Mangold talks about how the characters and the actors are just real people, how beautifully the sincerity of the story plays. I've hardly written anything, really. But I think that the stories I will write over the next fifty years will be about real people as well. They will be about Real Me. Maybe, if I spin them with enough craft, you will see how they are about Real You, too.

As my dear H. D. Martin once said, sometimes there is only truth - and there is beauty yet in that.

Ad absurdum

I realized the other day that my posts had gotten deeply personal and a little sentimental. Ew. Let's get back to real business.

School is getting irritating. I'm so far beyond this semester and the drama it's caused. But really --

We turned in our Act IIbs in screenwriting class this week (20 pages in one day, baby). We workshopped mine, and I got reamed a little bit about de-conflicting my Act II turning point. I would agree that something was not quite right, but I'm not sure that it's what everyone was telling me. I have a tendency to want to drain scenes of their overt conflict - especially if it's not relational conflict. In my screenplay there's the real story about relationships and the conflict there, and then there's the subplot about legal proceedings and such. So for every turning point/midpoint in Current Draft, I have scenes for the relational/emotional plot and the "physical" subplot. The "physical" subplot is really only there to create momentum for the plot points and make them easier to distinguish, so really those are the only times it shows up. So for my Act II turning point I have an emotional/relational turning point and a "physical" subplot turning point. Because the latter is less important, I drained it of its conflict. And that's where I took the fall. It's definitely something I'm going to want to think about. I agree with my classmates that there's a lot of potential in those scenes - but that's not where the story is, so I'm not sure how much importance I want to give those scenes.

I feel sometimes like the story in Current Draft is growing beyond my control, like a puddle of water.

In a week and a half we'll turn in the completed screenplay. So far I like Current Draft, much better than my last two, which is good, because I pretty much went to my professor early on in the semester and said, "I've sucked at the last two screenplays - if I don't do well with this one I'm going to radically rethink my decision to be a screenwriter." I feel like I'm back in the game, though.

I shoot my mockumentary short, "Join This Group?" this weekend. I'm stressed. We only have two crew members for our first shoot (including me), the one that I got the professor that I'm in awe of to act in. First shoot, only two people, and I'm going to blubber around her anyway. Oh no, I can already feel my brain start to fog up and my throat getting sticky. I'm still looking for a fourth actor to shoot on Sunday. I think I would already have one, but it's taking a while for people to get back to me with their answer. Otherwise, I think it's going to be a lot of fun, not too stressful, and I'm excited for both the process and the finished project.

I mentioned earlier that I wanted to write a series of websoides this summer. I've got another idea for a series of websoides, but it would require tricking a whole lot more people into being involved.

April is going to be crazy. No, really. Besides school finishing (two 8-10 page papers and three finals, with a few presentations, quizzes and short papers thrown in for extra spice), I'm shooting and editing this short, doing Script Frenzy, and hopefully pulling Current Draft through a full edit in time for the Nicholl. The only way this is remotely plausible to think about is because of the fact that after April 18th I will have no obligations whatsoever to anything. Nothing. No more school obligations, no more church obligations. Pure, clear freedom. It's like a shining moment I look forward to. I wish you guys could see my Google calender to compare the next few weeks in all their multi colored jam-packed glory to the complete emptiness of the week after April 18th.

Google calender went out for like 5 hours on Friday and I almost had a meltdown. No joke, there were noticeable panic feelings.

Anyone writing anything for Script Frenzy? I'm trying to decide if I want to write something that's been percolating for a while or go with something completely different. I have an idea about Sierra Leone that I really like, a very plot-based, socially concerned piece. Or I have the vaguest idea for a more anti-structure, romantic piece that will explore some questions I'm thinking about right now. Any suggestions? What are you writing?

"This Song's for You"

My sister is a crazy knitter. She's made some pretty remarkable things over the years, including a pair of pants. She often employs her talents to make cute, unique, and very personal gifts. All her bridesmaids' gifts were things she had knitted. For my birthday she knit (or, um, crocheted, I don't really know) a really cute pink headband for me.

I don't really have a crafty skill like that. I remember trying - and failing, around the third or fourth row every time - knitting. We used to make quilt squares when we were kids, but what do you with a square? I made a dress once. It was beautiful, but our choice of fabric was not so right and it happened to rip in the middle of the event I wore it to (hehe, how to make an already memorable event *more* memorable). So in general, I don't make things for people. I think during high school I managed to pass off some of my art projects as presents for my mom, but she seemed to like them, anyway.

The thing is, novels and screenplays don't make good gifts. One year I thought about it, taking my NaNo novel and getting a couple more copies from LuLu and mailing them to some members of my extended family, and while I'm sure they would have enjoyed it, it just seems a little... pompous. Only once did I actually give a story as a birthday present. It was my friend Lindsay B.'s birthday and I had been writing a goofy little story about her or something, and I finally finished it and wrapped it up in newspaper comics and gave it to her (I think I got her a real gift too). She didn't like the ending. I wrote another story about an inside joke during high school, but that one wasn't *for* anyone.

The thing is, I do write for people. I have stories I've actually written with someone in mind. And I would do it a whole lot more. I try to ask people what *they* would want to see or in which ways movies move them. I've even thought of getting in touch with the pastor at New Life to see what sort of themes and stories he think people need to see from the movies. I only have so many good ideas; I need some from other people. But really, I don't think I've gotten a real answer from anyone yet. I would love to write you a story. I would love to write about the issues you are dealing with, give you hope, make you cry, renew your faith. It's the only thing I know how to do. I know it doesn't sound like much, but maybe when you read it, you'll be surprised.

I don't know. Maybe everything I write is really just for me.

As per my sister's suggestion...

The best of evangelicalism didn't prepare me for this struggle.
By Charles Colson with Anne Morse

Faith isn't really faith if we can always rely on the still, small voice of God cheering us on. A prominent pastor once told me he experienced the Holy Spirit's presence every moment. Contemporary evangelicals regard this as maturity. Perhaps it is—or maybe it is a form of presumption. True faith trusts even when every outward reality tells us there is no reason to.

Romans 8:18
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

2 Corinthians 5:7
We live by faith, not by sight.

Today's a good day for waxing philosophical

Today I realized that I had about 30 comments hanging out waiting to be "moderated" that I never knew I had. So for everyone who's ever written something back to me on this blog in the past year or so 1) don't be offended that I never mentioned it to you and 2) thank you so much! I didn't know that people read this or cared too much (the more I think people don't read it, the more I write a little too honestly), but it was really cool to go back and read everything people have written to me.

So I went back and re read the last two years or so of my posts. It's crazy. This is one reason why I love writing, love having this record of my life. Half those things I wrote about, I wouldn't even remember if I hadn't spent twenty minutes writing them down. C.S. Lewis thought that journals are a waste of time, and while I can understand meticulous documenting of your life as being perhaps a little extreme, I treasure everything I've written. Not because it's genius or because I was "right" about some philosophy or because I was especially clever, but because it's my life. Maybe only a few freeze frames, but I'm lucky to have them.

I have so much on my mind. I have so much to think about. It's no good talking aloud to myself. Where's my pen...