I am Woman, Hear Me...

Coming off a project in which I wrote a script with three great, highly nuanced male roles and one so-so female supporting role, I read this article:

Gender inequality still has a starring role in Hollywood

Nothing new. The study didn't even address the fact that there are more female actors vying for fewer good female roles.

I am proud of the latest script I completed, but I do regret that it had worse than a 3:1 ratio of decent male roles to female roles. Reading this article, I'm reminded that as a female writer, I still can be part of the gender inequality problem.

Since I started out acting, part of my dream has always been to write scripts that will bring creative opportunities and employment to more female actors. It is always about the story first, and not the casting agenda; however, with half of the world population being female, it is utterly foolish to think that strong female characters somehow weaken a story! The male-dominated story mill is not a product of logic, but rather of habit. Given the fact that male screenwriters are less likely to go out of their way to create strong female roles*, I believe it is not only a noble dream for me to do what I can to fill the gap... it is also my responsibility.

It was such a joy to see all of those women up at the podium receiving the SAG Award for outstanding cast for The Help this year. While I must admit that it would be nice to someday receive recognition from the Academy for my writing, I think it would be equally enjoyable to be able to sit back and watch a group of talented actresses receive an award that they never would have been considered for if not for hours, weeks, months, even years I spent creating characters for them to inhabit.

This is not just another "I am woman, hear me roar" rant, but rather a "I am woman, hear me... Hey! Over here! I am woman, I exist... I am part of this world you are writing about. Please remember that at least occasionally. It could even add some authenticity and depth to your writing!"

There may have been a lot of changes in the world for women in the four decades since Helen Reddy wrote her #1Hit Song, "I am Woman," but looking at what comes out of (and what goes on in) Hollywood, I'd say we've still got a long way to go... Baby.

Emily Joy Craig (center, www.facebook.com/cast.emily) was the lead in "Grace Like Rain," my 2011 short script about a young woman struggling to be taken seriously in a production role in 1930's Hollywood. Seen here on set with fellow cast members, Gib Gerard, Jenn Gotzon, and Kristin McCoy

* Hats off to Tate Taylor, however, for writing the screenplay for The Help (based on a novel by a female writer, BTW)

ON THE OPINION OF A WRITER

So, the viewing marathon is over and my ballot has been cast.

I'm looking forward to seeing which performances my peers will select as the best of the year in the 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. I've been eligible to vote all 18 years. That's a lot of years of keeping my dues current even when I've not been acting, but I keep it up because I never officially quit acting -- I've just been on a very prolonged maternity leave.

For those who don't know my story, like so many other starry-eyed young girls, I came to Hollywood intending to act. My road to stardom, however, quickly became very bumpy. Literally. Bumpy. Within weeks of arriving, I contracted my first of five consecutive major bumps.

Concealing an ever-growing "Baby Bump" while running to call-backs for roles like one recurring character who was supposed to be a skinny model was one thing, but after the colicky child arrived making it to any audition, rehearsal, or performance became next to impossible. It had all happened too quickly. Without extended family or resources to pay for babysitters, I could not go on auditions, and without going on auditions one can not get cast, and thus, can not act. I'm not complaining. That derailment ended up bringing me back to an earlier love -- writing. That was something I could do at home and I didn't need to hire babysitters nearly as often.

Over the past 18 years, I've come to look at movies from a much more writerly perspective. While I love a great performance, it is usually the story that that I find myself analyzing and celebrating most when it is well done. (And I would argue that actors rarely win "Best Actor" awards alone, but rather in partnership with well-written scripts.) Because of this, I have to really slow myself down when faced with the question of which film to choose for the "Outstanding Performance by a Cast" award. I have to remind myself that this award is not about the story, it's about the acting. This is such a collaborative art that the dissection is not always as easy as it might seem.

Watching all of these great performances does give me the itch to get back into that form of creative expression again, but I may have to wait a bit longer to do that. I'm still overseeing the education of three of my kids, and dedicating a lot of time to writing. I want to be Superwoman and juggle it all at once, but the truth is, I'm not. For now, I'm a writer and mom (or perhaps I should say "mom and writer" -- priorities always affect perspective.) Acting and painting (and traveling the world, not to mention keeping a clean house) will have to remain on hold.

All that said, I view my SAG screeners as an actor, and I view them as a writer. And I celebrate when both sides are pleased. Although, I would say this was far from the best year I have seen for performances paired with stories that blow me away, there were several celebration-worthy nominees. The Help easily won my vote for "Outstanding Performance by a Cast" and is (not surprisingly) also a "Best Picture" Academy Award nominee.

Personally, I found The Artist delightful, and yet I heard one Hollywood outsider say, "Oh brother! Not another film about making films! How self-indulgent can these filmmakers be?" It's a worthy (and fiscally necessary) challenge to strive for objectivity and to try to see films as those who are not in the industry might see them.

Then there are all those films about characters who happen to be writers -- sometimes they work and sometimes they do seem self-indulgent. Is the writer only being lazy and writing about what he or she does in order to avoid research? I do find myself wondering what non-writers think of these movies.

Whether a person is in a "creative profession" or not, however, we all do create -- we create the lives we live and the environments we inhabit; some create fantasy worlds so elaborately detailed that they even deceive themselves; we create relationships and networks of relationships (and sometimes we destroy them); we create harmony and disharmony.... Because creativity is at the core of what all people do in the living of life, I think stories about writers and artists, if done well, can embody that creativity (which is rather abstract) in a metaphor that resonates well beyond the surface of the storyline of a certain character and his profession.

Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris was one of this year's films that did that well. The competition did not allow for me to cast my vote for it to get a SAG award, but I am glad to see that it received some Oscar nominations. It is a good story that I wouldn't mind watching again... and the writer in me absolutely loved this little exchange:

GIL: Would you read it?

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: Your novel?

GIL: Yeah, it's like 400 pages long and I'm just looking 

just for, you know, just an opinion. 

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: My opinion is I hate it. 

GIL: I mean, you haven't even read it. 

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: If it's bad I'll hate it because I hate 

bad writing. If it’s good, I'll be envious and hate it 

all the more. You don't want the opinion of another 

writer. 

(from Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, 2011)

You are my Context

A Note to my Dear Friends:

I found myself sobbing as I wrote a scene in my novel today.  Literally.  Tears were not just welling up in my eyes -- they were running down my cheeks (stage 2 crying).  Then came the knotting up in my chest and the heaving as I was unable to control, to hold back, the emotion (stage 3).  It was a total body reaction to the emotion of the scene.

When I finished the final word, I had to take a breather.  I knew that if the content is truly compelling and if the emotion ends up translating to my potential future readers, they will need a breather after that, too.  The next scene will be brighter.  So I stepped away from the keyboard to put myself in a different place.

I took time to "visit" some friends.

Some have said that the social media is the enemy of the writer -- that the best way to get your novel or screenplay done is to leave the phone off the hook, disconnect the internet, and cancel cable.  I took more of that approach for last year's NaNoWriMo, and I reached my goal -- the completed first draft of my first novel.  It seems to me that I poured more time into writing that than I have with this one; yet, even though I haven't been shunning social media this time around, I've been making my daily word count goals, and I may actually be benefiting from the time I've taken reading friends' blogs, and even checking out a few movie recommendations. 

Today's scene is a case in point.

I knew from my outline that I needed to write about the mysterious flowers my protagonist received on a dreary, rainy Spring day, and how not knowing who had sent them would affect her.  What I didn't know was that a second scene -- at a flower-filled funeral parlor visitation -- would expound on the need for flowers to be rooted to a significant life source if they are to carry any meaning.  I didn't know my protagonist would meet a freshly widowed woman who would dig deep into her soul with a simple musing about her deceased husband's aversion to store-bought flowers.

I didn't know any of that until after I read a friend's blog in which he shared about how he had tried to use flowers to woo his estranged wife back.  As he grappled with how the flowers he sent failed to melt the hardness of her heart, my characters began to speak to me.  They spoke to me throughout the night, and I woke up with this new scene -- a framework in which two hurting women grapple with the meaning of the flowers that surround them.  I'm not sure that I would have ever gone there if I hadn't taken the time to read my friend's blog.

Likewise, conversations on facebook have inspired me as well.  It's all a matter of keeping balance in life.  I think this year's novel just might end up being richer because I'm allowing myself a little more social interaction.  Last year's story was about a very isolated woman, so writing from a place of isolation may have worked for it, but this year I'm thankful for a broader, richer context to foster my creativity.

Even if our conversations don't touch on the subject of my story or the content of any specific scene I write, we are connected.  I don't live or breathe or create in a vacuum.  The quality of my story reflects the quality and texture of the context from which I write...  and since you, my friends, are my context, the story can't help but reflect beauty.

Reappearing to inform you of my plan to disappear...

The countdown to NaNoWriMo is almost over. Even though I'm still trying to decide what my story will be, I have committed to write a 50,000 word draft of a new novel during the month of November.

Since writing can be such a solitary endeavor, there is something beautiful about the camaraderie of knowing that there are people all over the world "running" this writing marathon along with me.  If you want to track the progress of my emerging novel, NaNoWriMo has created an handy-dandy chart for that purpose.  (Click on the word "chart")

Maybe you're thinking about joining in the marathon.  If you do, please add me as a "Writing Buddy," so I can track you, too.


Since I'm not likely to be back on here much until the month of November is over, I thought I'd post a few resources that should be helpful in answering any questions you may have about NaNoWriMo specifically or marathon writing in general:

NaNoWriMo website: www.nanowrimo.org/





Also, check out my friend Rochelle's brand new book on the subject: Write-A-Thon

Rochelle is an amazing writer and coach.  She promises to continue blogging at her website during the month of November.









Even though I may not be adding on to this blog much during the month of November, I'd love to come back in December and discover that some of the old entries have been read in my absence.  If you do dig back in the archives and find anything your like, be sure to leave a comment. 


Have a blessed November!

Writing from the Heart AND for the Market

So much of life is a balancing act.  Not only do people like symmetry visually, but they find it practical functionally as well.  Too much weight on one side of the wheelbarrow might even tip it over, and then you'll be side-tracked by shoveling up all the s*** ("stuff") you were hauling all over again.

Artists grapple with balance all the time, and I'm not just talking about within their composition, arrangement of design elements, structure of literary flow, and so on and so forth... I'm talking about within their lives and their work practices.

In the imagination of on-lookers, the life of an artist is a carefree existence--one not ruled so much by the laws of logic as by the fancy of the heart.  We're right-brained, after all (which is a nice excuse for laziness, sloppiness, and erratic behavior.) The idea of a "Starving Artist" has been romanticized.  Some even look at an artiste who focuses too much on the business side of his profession as a sell-out, less of a true artist.

We declare with deep ardor that art must first of all be true to the heart of the artist.  Who cares what the people want?--I've gotta be me!  That's why novelists are admired for dark, probing prose, and Hollywood is mocked for whitewashing the intensity of truth when the novel is adapted to the screen and the ending is tweaked to satisfy an audience hungry for happy endings tied up in neatly trimmed packages.

I've been on a high horse like that plenty of times--from the times that I've mocked the "contrived" blockbuster to the times I've defended the cryptic ending of my own "art" film.  

One really must understand teeter-totter physics in order to fully appreciate the danger of mounting the proverbial "high horse."  

Looking at the incline of the board in the above illustration, a child who has never played on a teeter-totter might think that the best place for the horse to stand in order to be king of the hill would be on the end of the board that is higher in the air (the end to the right in the picture.)  It doesn't take long on the playground, however, for a child to learn the lesson of balance.  The horse will find his highest possible position on the board by distributing his weight in a manner that is balanced in relation to the fulcrum (or by throwing a REALLY fat kid on the other end--but that's an entirely different issue).  

Instead of coming out of the closet, I'd like to invite you into my closet... and while you're at it, take a gander at my underwear drawer!

Realizing that I haven't been a reliable blogger, I'd like to say that's going to change--that from here on out you can expect to see something new from me every day or every week or at least every month. Such a promise, however, would be like a dog vowing not to linger long enough to sniff the territory he just marked. Nature is nature and A.D.D. is... what were we talking about?

I'll never forget that moment in junior high English when I was first introduced to the concept of the "Stream of Consciousness" narrative mode. It was like a tiny glimpse of freedom in the stifling linear world of traditional education. I might have grasped how profound that moment was, had I known then what I've come to realize in recent years of "dealing with" and researching my own kids' learning challenges. As I came to grips with the fact that one of my children had all the symptoms of A.D.D. (which is harder to spot than it's more obvious cousin, A.D.H.D.), I also had to admit that I fit the description to a tee (and that coping wasn't getting any easier with age).

My brain doesn't process things quite as "efficiently" as the brains of others may--efficiently for the results that traditional academia is seeking, that is. I take detours to check out alternate possibilities (lots of detours), which means it may take me longer to get from point A to point B. When I get there, however, I usually have a web of connections that incorporates other tangent points; and, even though I may be slower, I think a web just might be stronger than a single thread. Some "Stream of Consciousness" literature seemed to reflect that web-spinning way of thinking that felt most natural to me.

As much as I can count my differing mode of operation as a gift that has allowed the birthing of some of my most creative ideas, I must admit that in other ways it is also a disability. What good is it to have heaps and heaps of ideas if one is too disorganized to ever see any of them through to fruition?

In preparing for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month http://www.nanowrimo.org/) which is only days away, I've been trying to find all the story ideas and files I've compiled over the years. I've dug in boxes and file cabinets and drawers and closets, and plugged in external hard drives and zip drives. I've read notes that were typed on an old word processor, scrawled on restaurant napkins, and incorporated into old journals. In spite of all this searching, the two ideas I thought were developed the furthest are still nowhere to be found. All is not lost, however... in this process of searching, I've stumbled upon gems that I had totally forgotten about:

-- treatments for feature films that have held up over the time--I'd still like to see the movies described therein

-- old poetry, both mine and my parents'

-- short stories and plays

-- articles and books clipped and saved for possible adaptation...

I'm not going to fool myself that this will be easy to sort through. It's quite the overwhelming task. Those who live close enough to have been in my house in recent months can attest to the fact that what was supposed to be "Spring cleaning" has drug on into Summer and now Autumn with little evidence of an end point. I hauled boxes out of closets in order to sort through everything before putting it back in the closets, and now my closets are the only areas of my house where I would feel comfortable entertaining guests. Oh, my sock and underwear drawers are super-tidy now, too, but I'm not sure what that has to do with entertaining guests. It does, however, bring up an interesting quirk of mine that I have admitted to few:

My sock and underwear drawers are a sort of barometer of my psychological well-being. If I'm depressed and have essentially "given up"--as I sometimes do--I will start shoving undergarments into the drawers unfolded. If, on the other hand, I'm hopeful and my self-esteem is intact, I treat myself to the neatest, most orderly (nearing O.C.D. levels, I will admit) storage of my unmentionables (which, I just mentioned... sorry 'bout that.)

I am taking hope, however, that since I was able to organize my eating and exercising to the point that I've lost 1/4 of my previous body weight and dropped a bunch of pant sizes since the beginning of the year, I CAN discipline other areas of my life as well. At some point in time, I may have to ask for a little help from my friends. The number one way you can help me is by holding me accountable. Feel free to bug me. To prod me. To remind me of what I said I was going to do. If you haven't heard from me for a while, that doesn't necessarily mean I'm off making good progress on a project... It might mean I'm tangled in one of my A.D.D. webs and need to be reminded where I was headed.