Diane contemplates the future.
The quote of the day:
DIANE
This is Darin Adler.
OPERATOR
It is?
Running news:
None today. I had to get up and drive
to the airport. It's not a good excuse,
but it's the one I'm working with.
We realized something he'd forgotten (software), but by the time we realized it we couldn't go home and get it. This made him very upset, because he wanted to work on a presentation he's making whilst on the airplane, and not having that software made it a whole bunch more difficult. (He's taken Nero for the week. It's a strange sensation not having my Powerbook attached to me anymore.)
Well, I have plenty to keep me busy this week. But I kinda miss him already.
I had to call the bank this morning to transfer some money from Darin's business account to our personal account.
The first operator I talked to said that only Darin could transfer the money and she couldn't help me.
Okay, I said, and I dialed the bank's number again. This time I was not stupid--I said, "I'm Darin Adler and I'd like to transfer some money." The second operator was not buying it for a second, and instead of the usual security questions (social security number, mother's maiden name), she asked for the amounts of some checks written on the account. I found them, she transferred the money, I learned a lesson about lying in order to get something done.
So, the big news around here is that I'm changing my name.
My professional name, that is. I'm working on my "stage name."
The sad fact of the matter is that men and women writers are perceived differently: men can write anything, women can only write chick flicks. Men can write chick flicks, and when they do they're considered sensitive and earnest; when women write them, well...that's what women write. Men write action movies, but women can't.
That perception isn't fair. It isn't right. It is the way that it is, and perception is reality.
I don't write chick flicks. I write action flicks.
When a man writes action, that's just a given. When a woman writes action, that's "surprising." Linda has a neighbor who read her script and who pronounced himself amazed at how well she wrote action...for a woman. He said this to her face. (He also got angry with her for wanting to change to a gender-neutral name, because that just feeds into the stereotype that women have to sneak by to get read. I asked if she pointed out his hypocrisy.)
When a reader is handed two scripts, if one has a male name or a gender-neutral name and the other has a woman's name, the reader is more likely to read the guy's script. It isn't fair. It isn't right. It is the way that it is.
So I'm trying to come up with a stage name. Now, having a man's name is not going to get me sold--the producers are going to meet me and are going to see that I'm a chick. (Even I have to admit that it's tough to miss that fact.) But it will get me read, which is the important thing.
I'm debating whether to go with initials (which I think must be a tip-off that the writer's a woman, but at least you don't immediately think "Chick story" when you pick up a book by, say, P. D. James or D. C. Fontana), a gender-neutral name (my mother almost named me "Dana," after "Dana Andrews," but she was worried that it was just a boy's name), or an outright masculine name.
DIANE and DARIN sit in the car.
DIANE
How about Dionysius?
DARIN
Makes you sound like an
insane Greek billionaire.
DIANE
I'm not sure that's a bad
thing.
I'm having a hard time with this. I can't believe women change their names so easily when they get married. Perhaps because I've put so much effort into naming characters, I want to make sure that my writing character is named correctly. It definitely feels as though I'm putting on a new suit of clothes.
I told Darin that I had even thought about going with "Adler" somehow...in order, as Brent had put it, to take advantage of the International Zionist Conspiracy, which as everyone knows is centered in Hollywood.
"Great," he said, "you'll be the first woman to keep her maiden name for her personal life and use her married name as her professional name." (Actually, I came up with several others--Demi Moore and Cheryl Ladd among them.)
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