Screenwriting Advice: Getting Out of the Cave

To say I spent the day in a whirlwind of despair is an understatement. Like winds whipping through the canyons, my personal demons swirled around me. They laughed, their cackles blending with the yips of the coyotes.

Sometimes a warrior must fight. Sometimes a warrior must retreat to his cave.

Today was my cave day. Outside the bright California sun blazed. The desert sweltered. The Salton Sea, relentless in its self-destruction, shriveled in the heat.

I closed my blinds. Shutting out the landscape of poisoned fish and date trees. Wanting only to wallow in my sorrow.

The afternoon was a blur of rum and The History Channel. (Such treacle!) At about four I turned on the Riverside Community College radio station, ready to revel in their weekly prog rock show. Unfortunately the students seem to have come late to the concept of irony, and were amusing themselves by playing 70s AM Gold. "Wildfire" gave way to "Someone Left the Cake Out in the Rain." I was about to tear apart the radio with my bare hands when the truth seared through me. No more licking my wounds. If I couldn't face the computer, I had to connect with my creativity in other ways.

In short, I had to bake.

Every writer, every artist, needs a way to connect with the Muse. A way to let the unconscious run free. Proust gardened. Dickens walked. I bake.

What could be more compelling than the mystery of fermentation? Of dough rising, changing flour and water into bread, that most meaningful of foods. The alchemists of old could not have asked for more! The hypnotic process of kneading -- of slapping the dough against the board, digging into its soft flesh with my fingers, of probing its secret recesses -- ah, the freedom it could give me! The Muse would return, her sweet breath mixing with the scent of baking bread. I ran to the kitchen, ready to pummel dough as if it were my ex-agent's face. Perhaps I'd even bring him a loaf -- although the drive down to West Covina would be murder by the time I was done. (See, oh demon? The Beverly Hills post office box fools no one!)

It was then that I looked at my hands. Still bloody and bandaged from the trunk incident. As much as I wanted to make that bread -- nay, as much as I NEEDED it -- it was out of the question.

But there was another option. A recipe that reinvented an old standard, that blended disparate worlds. Just like I am doing with my script. I speak, of course, of cake balls. Bite-sized bits of cake and frosting enrobed in a chocolate shell. Pastry and truffle in one! For isn't my script, my passion, about disparate worlds mixing? Divinity and human folly. Man and beast sharing the same body. Yes!

A frenzy of baking followed. Of making cake, of rolling it in candy and nuts. Of embracing the ritual and the ecstasy of creation.

It was then that I emerged from my cave.

I thrust open the blinds. Knowing that life is good. The settlement from the fisheries department will last until I finish my script. The Generac 7000 will keep me secure. Soulless hacks will fight for the chance to write Leprechaun vs. Anaconda, but I will stay true to my vision.

I love you all. May you find your own ways out of the darkness.

Talkin' 'bout my Generation

Damned generator went out last night, right when I was in the middle of a hot streak. Had to resort to candlelight and handwritten pages. Not that I mind writing with a pen. In some ways, it fuels my work. The sound of the nib scratching on the paper is like nails on a coffin lid. The main problem is that the rest of my damned script was on the computer, so I had to try to remember where I was before the power went out. Now that I have a functioning generator again, I’m going to transcribe the pages I wrote last night and we’ll see how well they integrate.

I’m still perplexed by the generator failing. I’ve had my Generac 7000 for a couple of months now. I nicknamed it “the Mangler” after that Stephen King story. It’s a solid unit and I especially like the 12 1/2 kw surge capability. I had a three pole disconnect panel installed to connect to the house. Made up a 50 foot 10-4 cord set to connect to the outside receptacle to feed the disconnect panel. It’s heavy (240 lbs) and is not all that easy to push around on a soft surface such as grass. Also, I leave the idle-down switch on the off position. When hooked into the house circuits it seems to cause the engine to surge up and down continuously when there is only a light load on it. It is also really loud, but that’s somewhat comforting during the winter when it's 30 below and the coyotes are howling nearby. Just got to remember to keep a couple of jerry-cans of gasoline around.

Last night as it got dark, I booted her up, turned off all the breakers on the disconnect panel, switched the disconnect panel to the generator side and brought the circuits back on one at a time. Everything was going great. I got out the volt meter and checked the readout on each leg. Each had 122 volts... Nice and strong. Then, after the sun went down and I’d been working solid for about an hour, the engine pitch suddenly changed and the lights went out. I took my flashlight outside, checked the output voltage. This time, the reading was 0 volts on both legs.

I shut down everything and took the generator over my workshop and carried out further tests. By this time it was midnight and I was working by flashlight and cursing up a storm. If I had any neighbors, they would have called the cops to complain, I’m sure. I opened the generator up and looked for obvious signs and smells of overheating/burning, loose connections, etc. and found nothing.

This morning, I loaded it into the van and took it in to the nearest Generac repair depot. They told me it would take about two weeks to repair. Two weeks without power? Two weeks without my computer? I couldn’t have it. So I bought another Generac 7000 right then and there. I don’t know what I’m going to do with two of these things, but I suppose it’s better to have one for backup.

A Writer's Method

“You know, if I didn’t know you was my wife’s sister, I would get ideas about you…” So says Mr. Brando to Ms. Leigh on my old black and white television set. And it suddenly occurs to me… I have not been going deep enough. I have only scratched the surface. It is time to plumb the depths. When your subject is the landscape of the soul there is no other choice. The thespians (most of whom I despise) call it The Method. Yet what of us scribes? Can we not live our work? Are we resigned to sitting at our laptops in cum-stained underwear as our characters come to life before our eyes? I say not. I say that is no longer enough. I resolve that I, a Writer, will pursue my own Method.

I write of a race of beasts that live among us yet which most are blind to. So I will become one such beast. If only for an evening…

It’s 3:37 in the morning. I slip off my clothes. I’ve only been wearing underwear all day, so it doesn’t take long. Oh, to stand naked! I have a moment of doubt. Much like that terrifying hesitation when I first sit down to compose. But I fight it. Because I am a Writer. It’s what I do.

I slip out the door of my apartment. The cool night air welcomes me. I feel a forbidden thrill as I run naked through my building. Oh, if my neighbors could see me now! Then they would understand. They would know my nature. They would know my girth.

I leave the apartment building behind. I am on the street naked! Oh, the liberation! So this is what the Yeti feels when he is out in the woods, his Dr. Manhattan free to sway in the night breeze. I am closer to him already. I am flooded with a feeling of communion. Yes. I am willing to go the distance to complete my masterpiece...

I run down the street, keeping to the shadows, hunched over the way I imagine the Yeti would be. My nostrils flare. I read the scents on the wind. I smell life. I smell danger. I smell myself (I must admit we scribes often go days without bathing – we hunch over our writing implements, stewing in our own juices – and it’s all for you, Dear Reader, all for you).

A police car suddenly appears before me and I leap down beneath the shelter of a parked SUV. I huddle there, throbbing with excitement, wondering if the lawman will pass on by. Or if he and I are meant to do battle on this night. The car continues onward and I find I am disappointed. I was ready for battle.

I sprint across the road, briefly bathed by headlights, then I am in the shadows of Mr. Griffith’s Park. I delight in the feel of dirt beneath my bare feet – so much better than the cold hard concrete. So much more real. I crouch behind a bush and then I see her…

A coyote. Noble. Gorgeous. And in heat (I just knew this, don’t ask me how, I was at the mercy of The Method). I stare at her. She stares at me. And I can tell. She understands. She is not gazing upon an out-of-shape, out-of-work slob… No, no,no. She gazes upon a fellow beast of the night. She gazes upon a Yeti. She licks her chops…

What happened then, my friends, I cannot write about. True, I have given everything to my profession. I would die for my writings. For my dear words. I pride myself on putting everything out there on the page for all to see. But this time, I am keeping this one sacred experience to myself. I have said too much already. There are pages to be written.

I am no longer a man writing about beasts. I am a beast chronicling the experiences of my brethren.

I love you all.

Pain.

I'm 46 pages into my script and its like I'm having my spine ripped right out of my back. Torture to get this story out of my gray matter and onto the page. But it's got to get out. It burns deep down in my gut. Churning like a fragile ship on a reckless sea. Every day I sit down to write and do everything I can to make the themes and the ideas and the whole scope of it come together.

I've given some pages to writers I met online. They tell me its good. They tell me to keep going and to have faith. I don't know if I can believe them. I don't know if I can believe anyone.

What I do know in those moments when the fever breaks and I step away from the computer and get a drink -- what I do know is that I am trying to do something great. Trying to tell a story that digs deep into the things that truly scare us. Not a man with a knife. No, not that. The twisted cultural institutions that repress us and the mythic beasts of our imaginations that signify deep-rooted primal thoughts-- these representations of man's fear all designed to keep the beast at bay. These are my tools.

Milennia ago we huddled in caves, firelight flickering on our faces. We told stories to keep the darkness at bay. To keep our fear in check.

Thats what I'm doing now. Except the flames are the glow of my computer screen. I sit alone in my dark room, writing. Hoping that someday my words will turn into pictures and light the faces of lonely men and women huddled in modernity's cave: the multiplex. Stale popcorn has replaced animal bones, but the meaning is the same.

Last night I lay awake listening to the winds whistling through the canyon. Coyotes howled. I felt their hunger.

In the morning I ate a stale coffee cake.

And then I did what I had to do. I wrote.