It's Over

Today I dropped off my thesis script for the other two professors on my thesis committee; it's done, it's over, it's out of my hands. Now begins the process of waiting to hear what the committee thinks. Here's what I can get:

• Pass with distinction.
• Pass without a rewrite, which means that they really liked your script and couldn't think of any way to change it.
• Pass with a rewrite.
• Rewrite, then we'll think about passing you.

I gave the final copy to Len yesterday. I also asked Len if he thought my script was ready to show people, and he said, "It's pretty close." Which I'm going to take as a yes, dammit.

Class yesterday...another 6.5 hour extravaganza. There were good moments, but it ended on a bad moment.

The fun part of class was when Len asked me what the class could do for me today, and I said, "Loglines." We have to write catchy, selling loglines for the Script List, and Wednesday night Darin helped me write about 15, none of which really struck my fancy. When I mentioned that I needed help with loglines, Len decided to go around the room and work on everyone's logline, which we did. We also had a great deal of fun coming up with loglines and with "x meets y" premises for everyone.

Mine, by the way, was "The Grifters meets A Fish Called Wanda."

Class ended...somewhat badly, let's say. I'm not sure how to write about this, because so many of the people in my class have now found this journal, even though no one has mentioned whether they've looked at it twice or not. I guess no one's been coming here for gossip on anyone else (which is good, because I haven't provided any, with the exception of Bernice).

We got to Carolann. Len critiqued some of her writing and Carolann blew up. Everything he said she should be doing she was doing, she said, it's all right there in the script, why does he keep saying the same damn things to her over and over?

She then proceeded to say that she doesn't want to take the easy way out and have her main character do something completely out of character in order to satisfy some stupid requirement--she wants to show what the character would actually do. She wants to be truthful.

In fact, she said, "I'm the most courageous person in this room, if not the program, because I'm trying to do something honest."

Oh, really?

The conversation went downhill from there.

We got into a long diatribe about Truth versus Believability in a screenplay, and what constitutes either. So long, as a matter of fact, that I missed handing in my thesis script. I'm sure that the only thing that Carolann got out of the conversation is that anyone who seeks to present the truth is an artist and everybody else--that would be the rest of us in the class--are hacks.

And no, I didn't say anything to the effect of, "What a self-congratulatory and self-important statement, Carolann, but in fact your writing doesn't reflect truth, it reflects the same bullshit that all of our writing does, and in your case, your characters aren't any more real than anyone else's, and in a few cases they're less real."

(She's writing about a socialite, a girl who's been wealthy and sheltered all her life--the kind of girl that I grew up with and went to school with and have done a fairly good impression of all my life...and it's clear Carolann doesn't know anybody like that.)

On the way back to the parking garage I opined to Linda that I had never wanted to slap someone so hard in my life.

All the way home I wish I had. Or at least had said something.

When I got home I asked Darin why this was making me so angry. He said it's because I suffer a lack of self-confidence and I wonder if what Carolann is saying is true. (The one criticism Carolann has made to me over and over again is that my characters aren't believable.) He pointed out that you don't say something like that if you're feeling particularly self-confident yourself, really, inside, and who the fuck knows what truth is anyhow? He also said that this wasn't a courtroom; you don't lose the case if you don't point out that the star witness is fatuous and self-delusional.

I really want to call Len and ask him what the fuck happened on Thursday and why we went through that. And what he thought of Carolann's comments. But I won't. Because if he's smart--and he is--he won't go there.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Today: 4.7 miles. I decided I had to make up for yesterday. It was a pretty good run, despite the return of the stitch. I'm doing my situps, honest!