i accept your challenge. i choose banana cream pies as the weapon.
So, Stee F wrote me to congratulate me on advancing and to challenge me to a duel on the steps of the WGA at first light, since he made the semifinals too. (Great--biggest goddamn thrill of my life and I'm not the only online journaller who gets to crow about it.)
I wrote back and said that he was going about this all wrong--one of us dying only decreases the competition by 1 and there are, after all, 5 fellowships. What we should do instead is team up and knock off the other 110 semifinalists, thereby assuring ourselves not only of getting fellowships (I don't think there's anything in the rules about "must not commit felony") but also of getting huge publicity and studio deals.
I mean, think about it: SCREENWRITERS GO ON MURDER RAMPAGE FOR CAREER ADVANCEMENT would be front page not only in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times (mostly 'cause it was on the front page in New York), but also Variety, and getting your name known in the industry is what it's all about.
Not only that, killing 110 other screenwriters in Los Angeles isn't serial killing; it's civic pride. Okay, they're not all in LA--I have great wheels: we'll go to them.
Fernando's been coming over the past few days to help Darin build an infrared device. The other day I came down the stairs and saw Fernando bent over the far end of Darin's desk (which is about 15 feet long) working with the wires and breadboard, and Darin sitting at his computer 10 feet away, working on the computer and talking on the phone. I started cracking up.
They looked at me. "What's so funny?"
"Looks like you're running a sweatshop down here."
A sweatshop of one imported high-skilled Brazilian worker, but you get the idea.
My friend Michele offered to read the high school script for me and give me feedback on it. She read it within a few days and we chatted this morning. She gave me lots and lots of notes. She kept stressing that none of these things were major rewrites, just individual things that had to be fixed and strengthened. You know, like Act I is weaker than the other two Acts. (NOT A MAJOR REWRITE??)
Actually, her notes were very good--I've heard some of this stuff before but she was much more specific and pointed out ways I could fix some of the problems. She saidmainly I had to ratchet up the tension a lot in the scenes I already have. And she pointed out my structure is just fine.
Ha. Structure is my life now.
That's why I went to USC, you know. Everybody always liked my writing, but nothing happened. I couldn't figure out how to do plot or make a structure for my story. Most of the time, if you'd asked me what the story is, I would have stared at you blankly and then shrugged.
This is no longer true.
I told Len on the phone once that after a year with him beating into us what a story is (usually followed by my crying on the way back to my car in the parking garage), I now knew what a story was.
He paused and said, "My treatment of you guys was that bad?"
But that was what I wanted--knowledge of story, not being made to cry--and that's what I got. Some of my classmates have said they wasted their time at USC and it was a pointless endeavor for them. Too bad.
Wendy, a woman I met online, had a party tonight at her house. Several other people I knew from online would be there; Darin wouldn't know a soul. That made us about even in the chattiness department. (Darin is never at a loss for words at a party.)
Everyone congratulated me on the Nicholl thing--I could get used to being the center of attention, I swear.
Darin and I haven't been going out much recently, which made this get-together a good change of pace for us.
How come they've never remade that great Rat Pack movie, Ocean's Eleven? Okay, maybe not.
The answer to yesterday's question: The 50th state in the Union was Hawaii, which joined the Union 40 years ago today.
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Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com