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.

Ouch, that Hurts so Good: The Tortured and the Torturing Artist

Ouch.

Just got one of those healthy, humbling kicks in the pants that reminds me of why some artists say they don't read reviews, and it's got me thinking about rejection in general. Artists of any sort get a lot of that ouchy stuff and the hurt is probably deeper the more of yourself you put into what ever it is that is getting shredded--be it a painting, a poem, a performance...

I can't remember any especially bad reviews as an actor, so most of the rejection I associate with acting would be audition-rejection--not getting the part--which is a daily staple for most actors. There are so many factors that go into casting, so that kind of rejection is really no statement about the talent or value of the actor as an artist... it's more of a matter of fitting in. I can deal with that.

Rejection of a script can be similar, but since it takes longer to create a script than it does to secure and drive to an audition, I think the blow to a writer is a little bit more personal. Writers, too, have to remember that often the rejection of a script is a matter of not fitting into the line-up or tastes of a particular production company at a particular time (that's not to say that a writer shouldn't also consider the fact that the script may still need work, or may actually belong in the trash).

The jolt I got today was neither of those types. It was a full frontal assault on the most personal piece of work I've ever done. It wasn't a simple "I didn't like it" or "It wasn't my kind of thing..." but rather: "This was the biggest disaster of the festival... if people are telling you nice things..they are being kind…not truthful."

I wrote, directed, and produced a piece that I knew wasn't for everyone. I knew I was taking a risk and that there was a chance that I would be the only one who "got it," but on the off chance that there were others out there, like me, who longed for this type of film, I made it. When I read that review, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. It was the bluntness of it that caught me off guard, though. I was raised on the Bambi philosophy of "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

Don't get me wrong--I'm as opinionated as the next person (okay, maybe even more so), but I do always try to balance the blow with some kindness, some benefit of the doubt, some personalization of the "maybe it's just me" type. And this reviewer seemed to truly HATE our film--enough to put the energy in to rattling off his/her longest review of any in the festival. I think the review was actually longer than my script!  [BTW, I found it interesting that he/she could dub something the "biggest disaster of the festival" so early in the line-up--there is a lot more to the festival than just the shorts. Who knows? there could be a 5 hour documentary on which direction one should hang a toilet paper roll! I do hope that Mr./Ms. Brave Anonymous Reviewer will expend the energy to come back and update the review if some later film manages to beat us out for the honor of the "biggest disaster"; however, since most reviews are basically hit-and-run, I don't expect and would be seriously shocked by such a courteous post script. But I can dream, can't I? I'll imagine the addendum of: "sorry, I spoke too soon; your film was actually the second worst disaster of the festival. It didn't suck as bad as _____." Ah, what relief!]

Before this review, I was already struggling with how to word my own comments on other films in the festival. I want to be constructive. I want to see filmmaking as a whole grow in artistic quality, but I also realize that much of appreciation is in the eye of the beholder. I want my words to encourage that which is universally good, beautiful, challenging, moving, entertaining and all that, but I also don't want to be a snob that derides things that I personally don't like just because it doesn't suit my particular taste. It's a scary thing to put your art out in front of others to be critiqued, but it's also daunting to be in the role of the one offering feedback. Sometimes I'm tempted to do neither and just crawl back into my cave and write. Sometimes I think I should become one of those artists who refuse to read the reviews and just create what they want to create... but I have a feeling I'll always be tempted to peek, and I'll always go through these emotional roller-coasters after doing so. To me it's part of being an artist. People don't walk down the street looking for artists to torture... it's something we do to ourselves. It may be painful for those who have to live with us to watch, but I think it does have some value in that it humbles us and it pushes us on to fight back--to reach even further next time.