there is, in fact, something about mary.
The quote of the day:
"You know what an intellectual is? It's someone who's been educated beyond their intelligence."
Running news:
3 miles yesterday.
Today: off.
She said, "I'm just sitting down to write."
Somehow, the way she said that was so inspiring, it made me want to go write, instead of plan what I was going to write or re-read what I'd already written or go read something someone else has written.
We agreed to meet at 3:30 at a local coffeehouse, which would give us enough time to get some good writing in. And having a deadline worked like a charm--despite having all my e-mail to read and my usual places to stop on the Web first thing in the morning, I started typing. And got about 10 pages done by the time I knocked off at 3 to go meet her.
She hadn't visited any coffeehouses in the area since moving here, and she's been missing that a lot. She comes, after all, from Seattle, where you can't go a block without stumbling over 15 new coffeehouses. So I told her where to meet me, and she was there, right on time.
We met at the Horseshoe Cafe in Sherman Oaks and she said, "Wow, I didn't even know this place was here!" Mary says "Wow!" a lot, and with her it's totally natural. I've never known anyone who could talk so effervescently and not have it seem like an act. Actually, Mary both looks and sounds like Lisa Kudrow from Friends (without the whole space cadet thing).
We talked about (what else?) writing. How her script is coming--she really wants to get a first draft of it done before the baby shows up and she won't have time to think, let alone write. How my script is coming along--pretty well, actually. We talked about other people's scripts, and really great advice we've gotten recently.
The best advice she told me was something MikeC challenged her with when she was describing her movie to him: "So what's new about it?" Bells went off for me--that is the best thing I've heard for a long time. I am going to say that every time someone proposes a new idea: "So what's new about it?" Make them defend it. What's going to grab me about this? How is this different from anything else I've ever seen?
We talked about how we write and our different philosophies of it: she will write a chunk, and then the next day rework that section some more before moving on to anything new. I, on the other hand, keep moving forward and I make notes about stuff I discover as I go along that I have to keep in mind when I eventually do go back to rewrite: "Pooks is actually a vampire--change earlier scene." I want to get the whole story out before going back. Then I can find out what this story has turned into.
I said that we should meet every week, and I'll introduce her to a new coffeehouse in the area, so she can see more of the neighborhood. Reminded me of the way the old student introduced the new students to Berlin: they put us on a scavenger hunt that took us into their favorite haunts around town.
Nothing's been catching my attention as the quote of the day. Actually, a few things have been, but I haven't been able to find the actual quote and I don't want to get it wrong. I think the quote above is right, but I haven't been able to find it in the paper of record yet.
We had writing group last night, and it went pretty well, I think. We discussed everyone's script in different ways: theme, structure, individual scenes. Depended on where the person was and what he or she was doing. For example, I don't bother to line-edit Aaron's stuff, because when he writes he does a total rewrite from page 1. (He's done so many drafts of the first half of his script that I'm stunned.)
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Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com