April has been a jam-packed, incredible month, filled with many blessings and surprises… and it’s not even over yet!

April began with a speaking engagement at the RT Convention about the importance of script coverage, and what to expect from your story analyst. Merrel Davis was on the panel with me, and we spoke to a full-house crowd of published, aspiring, and undiscovered writers and readers who were willing and eager to learn.

We were met with such a warm welcome thanks to, popular and sensational author, Viviana, who hosted and moderated our panel. She paid keen attention to novelists and how they too can benefit from a writing assessment. What the writers left the panel with was a solid understanding of the steps required to start their careers in screen / novel writing and why being open to feedback goes a long way once you achieve your goal of selling your work. We also made sure to get out the word on branding. Just because you’re a writer and you’re sitting at home hunting and pecking out your opus, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have a proper web and professional presence. It’s easily achieved and is so integral to your success.

Next we were on to the LA Comedy Shorts Film Festival, where Merrel and I were sponsors. It was more branding talk and networking with some very, very funny people and exceptionally talented filmmakers. The event was a 4-day non-stop, hilarity-filled extravaganza, with fantastic nighttime parties at the Kyoto Grand, ESPN Zone, and J Restaurant and Lounge. The liquor was ever-flowing, the attendees loads of fun and with every short we screened, it reignited my passion for making film.

As fate would have it, my recently reignited cinematic passion would get instantly put to good use, because Merrel and I are off to shoot a documentary pilot in Nebraska. It is an awesome time and a most exciting adventure traveling to a town of 292 people about 4 hours south of South Dekota. It’s a town that time forgot. The residents harken back to a way a life that is all but extinguished. It is a place where men work the land and rear their cattle to support their families. We’re going in search of the last bastion of the original American way of life and some sexy cowboys!

The last two weeks have been pre-pro central; work-shopping cameras, production meetings and shot lists. With cameras and crew locked in, we’re off to start location scouting / casting on 4000 acres of rich ranch land and local prep for our shoot.

Even though I can barely sleep for excitement about what’s coming in just a matter of days, beyond our awesome Midwestern Safari shoot, there’s loads to look forward to this summer!! GAPF in June, Screenwriter Karaoke NYC edition in July and much more! Stay tuned!

I am a total rule breaker, a rebel, Dottie, a loner. I cut in line when I don’t feel like I should have to wait (that’s the entitled New Yorker in me). I write my emails in all lower-case because I know, somewhere in writer heaven, William Strunk and E. B. White are sharing a drink and would approve of my minor rebellion. And I live in a special Eden reserved only for those who can stomach / thrive in the smoggy entertainment industry that is Los Angeles. Nothing about me is commonplace or pedestrian; everything about me is wild, edgy and unexpected… especially my writing.

I realized, after a heated debate during last night’s #scriptchat on twitter, some writers are flat out refusing to outline and I was shocked. I am no hobbyist. Writing is my profession, and as such, when I sell my work, people expect my scripts to not only be correct, ground-breaking, and unexcelled, it also has to be worth paying for. So, how do I make sure that I not only deliver a solid product that is exactly what the story editor / producer / client wants and still get to run free through the fields of creativity?  I OUTLINE EVERYTHING!

Don’t get me wrong. Outlining sucks. I hate doing what feels like extra work for free. HATE! Outlining is boring and hard and annoying and not as fun as running through the fields of creativity untethered to such banalities as a plan. Who needs a plan when it feels so good just to write? Well, writing for pay, or any writing really is not about the masturbatory feeling of creation. If you’re lucky, sometimes you get a happy ending and that’s awesome, but that’s not usually the end goal. It’s about getting the work done correctly and excellently. And the way to ensure that happens is to outline.

I can hear all of you non-outlining writers and your myriad of excuses like a Greek Chorus: it “hinders my creativity,” “forces me into a box,” “doesn’t allow me to find new angles with my story…” Yeah, I totally get it. But without an outline, the fields of creativity turn into a hall of mirrors and you will get lost in the reflection of what your story was supposed to be, not what it actually is. It is the very rare writer who is able to wing it and churn out a salable product at the end. So, basically, not you. Not me. Not 99% of working or aspiring writers. We all must outline, so we have a basic road map of the story we’re trying to communicate or your story will literally get lost in translation.

Outlining does not, in fact, hinder anything. It in no way hampers your ability to fantasize and create inventive scenarios for your characters to live out. It forces you to do all that awesome “thinking-it-through” before you ever hit page 1. It’s a twisted version of instant gratification. Outlining affords you the chance to play with your characters without spending tedious hours churning out pages that suck and eventually get deleted. In reality, outlining will help you and your story stay focused, and if you follow a few of my tips, you’ll discover that you’re in fact freer to do all the fun writing because your foundation is solid.

There’s a few ways / steps to tackle outlining:

I generally will have the client start by writing a simple beat sheet. Just a basic shopping list of story beats: this happens, then this happens, and then that happens, etc. It’s never more than a page, but it helps them see what their story really is, the important beats, the basic ideas and characters and helps them discover plot holes, lacking character arcs, and story misfires. The simple act of “thinking-it-through” always helps the writers see what is working and what still needs work.

Then, once we’ve gone over the 1-page and talked through the story they want to tell, versus what I’ve read, and they’re at a place where I feel like their barest skeleton is solid, I ask them to expand that simple 1-page into 5. It’s then, they can add more flourish, but not too much… this is an outline, not a short story, some important or funny snippets of dialogue they don’t want to forget, and flesh out the story a bit more.

After we review that, see how it’s working, discuss tweaks if necessary, I send them back to expand their 5-page outline further to 30-ish pages. I say “ish” because this isn’t an exact science. Some writers who are honed and in practice can deliver a solid feature outline in 20-pages, some are gabbier and need 40-pages. But 30-pages is a good number to shoot for. In this pass, I ask the writer to really tell the whole story (without florid language), scene by scene. 30-pages is enough to develop your characters’ emotional pathos, embellish your sub-plots, and still allow for dialogue quips, etc.

Then (and here’s my trick) what I do, and what I instruct my clients to do, is take that solid 30-page outline, and pop it into the script. Since you’ve been so painstaking in setting forth your story, you can use your outline as the basis of your first draft, building out your script from there. It always seems to the clients “God! Why is she such a sadist?!” until they realize, that they never have to stare at a blank screen. You’ve immediately got 30-pages of your script done, just by popping in the outline. It removes the pressure of facing that white page, with only FADE IN:. It’s a cheap trick, but it’s a good one. By then, you’ve already got a leg up on expanding your 30-pages into 90 or 120, but no more, because my bladder can’t take anymore 3-hour movies.

When you write from within the outline, you know which scene is next, where to plant the misdirection and how to heighten the tension, because you’ve already planned for it. But let’s say, now you’re into draft 1 and you think, “Eh, this isn’t working.” You’ve at least got your 1-page list of scenes, your 5-page outline and your notes to reference, which makes plot changes way easier to implement and keep track of, especially if it’s a major shift. You need to remember all the stuff that builds around it, and fix whatever is impacted by it. How are you supposed to keep track of all those balls in the air, if you forget one? Outlining will help keep your writing on the ball.

Writing without an outline can be fun and dangerous, but rarely yields successful results. Why not expend that same level of effort and enthusiasm by furiously typing in a constructive manner? Then, you will be free to run through the fields of creativity untethered by banalities… you’ll be able to have your script and write it too.

Photo courtesy of regrifters.com / Photo Credit – Jon Shaivitz

As Valentine’s Day draws near, hopefully your mailboxes are filled with sweet cards, your hearts are filled with glowing love and may the chocolate from the shiny red box not end up on your ass. My fingers are crossed for all three for me!!!

But chocolate and valentines are not nearly as important as your romantic comedy script. Is it merely in need of a new outfit and a bikini wax for that first date? Or is it so rusty, from being benched in a drawer that it needs a whole new shine before getting back out on the town? Either way, we’re here to help!

So, between now and the end of February, Covermyscript.com is offering a SPECIAL: book coverage on any ROMANTIC COMEDY / DRAMEDY (or ZOMBIE / HORROR flick if you’re just anti the whole “love” thing) and you’ll get a FREE QUERY letter as our valentine to you. That’s a $65 gift… something that should hopefully warm your cockles… and help your success.

I’m so excited to get all, hot, bothered and in-the-mood reading all of your steamy romantic movies. February is going to be a very special month, indeed!

The Social Network patois is annoying! Which part? The part where they…talk too much and say so much and so fast and it’s all so precious. My head hurts from The Social Network, Aaron Sorkin‘s 2-hour amped, surprisingly deposition laden romp about people writing code and backstabbing over fraternities that are really study clubs, chicken abuse and big bucks.

I listened to the opening scene: a break-up we’ve all had, a scene we’ve all written. A generic college bar, a guy and girl who can’t get it together. Harsh words exchanged at such a fast rate that it felt less like real life and more like the characters were waiting smugly with their barbs just to step on each other’s words. They weren’t talking like people, or characters really, they were using the writer’s own voice. And when everyone sounds the same, it’s a lot of shouting down a boring crowded hallway of clones.

Opening your characters to new voices while keeping them in stead with their peers is the way to properly craft a character. Besties will have common phrases, while so will criminals, generally not the same ones, but each person and the way they speak is unique and special and to just steamroll from one line to the next isn’t right, because it doesn’t give the actors a chance to emote, to relate, or to create the necessary pathos needed to care about the characters. Or to borrow a phrase from Tyler Durden, Sorkin is just letting his characters “Wait for their turn to speak.” He doesn’t give them the space to deeply interact. It’s like a boxing a hanging bag: boom boom boom boom. Rhythmic repetition but a slamming beat over and over.

Those characters weren’t connecting, they were reciting lines like every Sorkin character ever recited a line before them, well, but sounding like Sorkin himself, hyper, clever and geniusly aggressive. And maybe, if I play devil’s advocate for a second and give Sorkin some credit, and say he was setting up the pacing, the energy of the film, the characters as unlikable people through this opening scene, well he did that in spades. Except nothing about any of it endeared me to any of them. Because they were so go-go-go in the exact same way, my heart was thumping, due to the non-stop, rapid-fire, pseudo-genius-ease. I found the dialogue exhausting. I walked out and wished for aspirin for my aching head.

This whole movie felt like each character was hanging around the craft service table just waiting for their chance to deliver their lines perfectly. I LOVE David Fincher. He’s a God and his filmmaking is incredible. It was exciting, off-putting, confusing and while I felt the ending lacked some of the resolution I was looking for, I felt it was artful and worthy. It was beautifully shot, the pacing was excellent and the match reveals worked brilliantly.

However, the writing drove me mad! I tried to get lost in Fincher’s cinema, but I can’t help it. I can’t stand Aaron Sorkin’s “coke binge patois”… every character sounds like the same genius who has been up all night doing blow. And while that’s fun for some, it gives me a headache, especially when no one has their spoons out willing to share.

To be fair, Sorkin isn’t the only one whose writing I find challenging for this exact reason. Sitting through aggressive, same patios is exhausting, not because the writers themselves are not super-genius talented; they’re characters, every one of them, are a one-trick ponies and I want more.

The common thread here is that when every character in your script sounds the same: the grocery man, the teen slut, the butcher, the baker, and the gun runner, your script won’t read right. The best writers are writers who are able to have a total consistent voice that is their own, while imbuing their characters with their own voices and patois. For example, I might speak differently with my bestie at a rave than at a holiday dinner with the folks, but if my folks and everyone at the party sounds the same, and everyone in every scene after does as well, it looses its charm. But in movies like this, with very important writers, the WRITING IS WHAT MATTERS. Don’t make everyone sound the same. Give the characters the respect they deserve to be their own people. You put so much effort into creating them, make them the special individuals they are.

Yes, the story is important, but one part of the screenwriting process that is so neglected are the characters’ voices, and if you’re unable to craft them so that they’re different enough to live in the same world but “be their own people,” then for me your movie isn’t a success. I’m not lambasting Sorkin. He’s a genius and talented and he and I know it. I just wish he didn’t write all of his characters the same and at the same level of clever genius, studio exec or janitor. It makes them all seem dumb in their shining brilliance.

Oh and a little shoutout to Justin Timberlake trying to act. He’s so cute. I wanted to pinch his cheeks every time he earnestly tried to deliver a poignant line. Aww, Justin. Keep at it buddy, you’ll get there. I hear you’re the voice of Boo-Boo.

When my partner Merrel Davis, suggested we watch The Godfather on my new fancy Samsung LED the other night, I thought, sure why not? If nothing else it will look incredible. And while it certainly did look incredibly beautiful, I couldn’t help being alarmingly bored and wishing that the long suspense building shots that I once worshiped in film school would get to the point already. Have I become a film ADD watcher with no attention span, or is The Godfather needlessly long?

I’ve been a fan of the mob movie since Jimmy Cagney first snarled “You dirty rat.” If I drink enough, I could probably do a pretty solid one-woman rendition of Goodfellas. I’ll tell you to get your fucking shine box and I’ll feel sorry I got blood on your floor.

I spent six years, well eight if you count how long they took to air, waiting for Tony Soprano’s exit to Journey. Needless to say, film and the Coza Nostra, were a large part of my cinematic upbringing.

I no longer wanted to luxuriate in the tension this movie so beautifully provides, but rather wanted to get to the meat of the action. While the wedding was immaculately shot, and beautifully colored, I could almost smell the bocci di dama and the gravy bubbling, but it took so long to get through it. I felt like Sonny; hotheaded and ready to kill. This rewatch felt like a complicated chess match filled with players and moves that all seemed pointless and unnecessarily busy, for what is ultimately a straight forward story. There was Sollozzo and McCluskey, Tessio and Luca Brasi. Then there’s the Kay and Apollonia love triangle, which has no real meat to it. It’s just a time waster.

I’m no hater, and this used to be one of my favorite movies, but after watching it with fresh eyes, I found that I had some problems with it this go around and most of them dealt with the book adaptation. Since this came from a novel, The Godfather kept so much of the original story that I felt tied to the minutiae and not part of the bigger picture. The Godfather, if released today, would be touted as an hour too long. I don’t care about any point of the masturbatory time Michael spends hiding out in Italy after he offs Sollozzo and McCluskey. There’s no need to spend almost an hour keeping Michael away from Kay just to have “Monday, Thursday, Wednesday, Friday” and puffy Italian nipples. But tell Coppola to get in and get out of a scene, is like telling Bill Cosby to stop mugging to the camera for pudding. It’s just never gonna happen.

The long Italian foray aside, every scene was filled with names and plotting to kill, but the real meat of the movie is Michael’s ascension to Godfather status. It is the story of a man becoming The Man; a son becoming a father, a boy taking over for his father, the rise of a new empire, and during this last watching I found that this wasn’t the main focus, but rather the little details were more prominent. I was surprised by this because I had remembered it differently. I remembered it with rose colored, ADD speedy glasses, because I remembered the plot points, only I remembered them sped up.

The Godfather is a wonderful movie, don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate it, I don’t think it sucks. Don’t send me tons of hate mail saying I’m a Philistine for not loving The Godfather. I do love this movie, mostly out of nostalgia and a fondness for Vito playing with his grandson in the tomato patch, but I guess what everyone needs to remember is that while some directors are genius and amazing story tellers, even they can reign it in.

So, to answer my question, The Godfather is just too long and yes, I’m probably a little ADD theater. Puffy nipples are definitely a treat, but not worth waiting an extra hour for.  So, I’ll do like I do when I watch Godfather II; fall asleep when Michael lands in Cuba and wake up when Fredo gets killed in the boat. It’s worked for me every time so far.

June is a very exciting month! It marks two very important occasions: The Great American Pitchfest and Screenwriter Karaoke’s 1st Anniversary!

CoverMyScript.com is so proud and honored to be participating in the 7th Annual Great American Pitchfest. For those of you unfamiliar with The Great American Pitchfest, it is a yearly event at the Burbank Marriott where hundreds of writers pitch en masse to hundreds of production companies. It’s an exciting, frenzied, energy-packed event and we at CoverMyScript.com are so proud to be a part of it in two ways.

Saturday, June 26th, CoverMyScript.com will be on site with a team of talented, speedy story analysts from 9am until 5 pm to help you meet your Sunday pitch time crunch. We will be offering a variety of on-the-spot services from one-sheet construction, query writing, as well as last-minute pitch prep consults to help you hone your skills. With prices starting at $20, there’s a service to fit any budget.  We will be accepting credit cards through paypal as well as cash for easy transactions.

There are many seminars to check out from 9 am until 5 pm with something for every writer. Then stick around for Screenwriter Karaoke! A fun networking event for screenwriters that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Have a couple of drinks and sing your heart out. We promise we won’t judge. We can’t sing either. ;-p

Not sure what to sing? Here’s the Screenwriter Karaoke Song List for PitchFest.

Saturday, June 26th @ 6 PM
Marriott Burbank Hotel & Convention Center
Room “Academy Two”
2500 N. Hollywood Way, Burbank, CA 91505

AND LATER COME OUT TO OUR REGULAR SPOT SARDO’S AFTER 10 PM. Just a short ride in town.
Sardo’s Grill and Lounge
259 N. PASS AVE.
BURBANK, CA 91505

What are the rules?
* NO COVER CHARGE.
* CASH Bar only.
* Hotel parking has been made available at a discounted rate of $14 to attendees.
* 21 and over only. Please bring ID and be prepared to show it.
* Have fun, drink , sing and connect!

Come out, make some new friends and meet #scriptchat peeps Jeanne Veillette Bowerman and Zac Sanford who will both be in attendance. It’s a very exciting time and CoverMyScript.com couldn’t be more honored to be apart of this. Hope to see you there!

My first day of Screenwriting 101 at Tisch, my teacher stood before us, a motley collection of wannabes, wearing mostly black. He gave us his non-negotiable screenwriting rules:

1. Courier 12 point.
2. Always have an active protagonist.
3. No Deus Ex Machina. A Deus Ex Machina literally means “God from the Machine” or rather “a plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new character, ability, or object.” (Thanks Wikipedia!)
4. There are only two types of stories and they’ve already been written: “I’m going on a journey” and some version of “boy meets girl.” Every story falls into one of those two categories, metaphorically they can fall into both; it’s the details that will set your story apart.
5. Know your three-act structure, so you can most succinctly and satisfyingly tell a story.

And for whatever reason, those five tips resonated with me. To my credit, I’ve never pulled a Deus Ex Machina because I knew it was a cheap punch, lazy writing. When you use one, you’re, in essence, screwing your audience out of seeing the protagonist have to struggle; which is really the best part. You throw a life raft to help your character, and then he doesn’t have to try and swim. He’s succeeded simply because you, an unseen “hand of god,” helped him. It’s one of those cop outs that always makes me angry.

Rising from the footlights of the ancient Greek stage, Dues Ex Machnia was never acceptable or enjoyed even during its inception. It was so maligned, in fact, as a storytelling device, even on opening night in ancient Greece, literary critics complained about its use, saying that it ruined the story for them.

For example: your protagonist is about to drown, he’s in a small box that’s quickly filling with water. He is going to die. That is, until a tsunami comes from out of nowhere, breaking open the container and freeing our hero into a sun-shiny tomorrow. He didn’t have to try to get out of the box. The box opened on its own, due to circumstances outside of his control. To borrow a phrase from the Bluth family, “That’s a freebie.”

I mostly never think about Dues Ex Machina as a device because I refuse to acknowledge it as a screenwriting tool. That was until yesterday when I re-watched the 1981 “Clash of the Titans.” For some reason, I saw this beloved movie in a new light.

The perfectly cheesy Perseus, played by Harry Hamlin, is LITERALLY moved around throughout the story by ACTUAL GODS. In this instance, Deus Ex Machina wasn’t a lazy go-to, it was an integral and literal story point. So, it got me thinking, in a world where there are few absolutes, is a Deus Ex Machina device always a bad thing?

It turns out no, it’s not. In “Clash of the Titans” it is an integral part of the story that gods are toying with mortals’ lives. If Zeus, Hera, and Athena hadn’t been squabbling and decided to meddle with mortals, there would be no story. So, while Deus Ex Machina is employed as a device, and Perseus becomes the most in-active, active protagonist in history, the device works within the structure of this story.

Deus Ex Machina was also cleverly used in “Donnie Darko.” In fact, Donnie even utters “Deus Ex Machina” as the as the grandma / death paradox plays out. Without the inexplicable addition of the engine falling from the sky, his story would never get moving. Without the Deus Ex Machina, his story can never be concluded.

Also, Charlie Kauffman, like a slight-of-hand-magician, brilliantly used a Deus Ex Machina in “Adaptation.” Not only was Kauffman daring enough to employ this device, he told you he was doing it, while he was doing it. Rather sexy indeed.  In the movie, the character “Charlie Kauffman” desperate for screenwriting advice, goes to see the character “Robert McKee.” McKee guides him, demanding that he not use a Deus Ex Machina in his script. But the actual screenwriter Charlie Kauffman, and the character “Charlie Kauffman” both resort to them in their respective ways. It’s a masterful and clever nod, from a consummate writer.

So, you rebels out there are going, “I am smart enough to pull off a Deus Ex and get away with it.” But you’re not sure how? Build it into the structure of the script. By making the endlessly giving “gods” characters with their own stakes in the script, their interference no longer becomes lazy writing, but clever plotting.

This is not to encourage you to just hand your characters everything they need simply because they want or require it. As a parent you wouldn’t give your kids Oreos for breakfast because you know it’s a bad scene if you do. You need your protagonist to strive and struggle for what he wants, so it can be satisfying to the audience when he succeeds. Remember, for your characters just as it is for yourself, the things worth fighting for are the things worth having, Deus Ex Machina or no.

An old article of mine “The Six Deadly Script Sins” has recently resurfaced,  and some of the comments were that writers wanted less about the do’s and don’ts of “presenting” your script to agents / prod co’s  for consideration, but rather they wanted to know about the do’s and don’ts of writing. So, here are my newest Six Deadly Script Sins, only these are about the craft of screenwriting, not the submission process.

1) Have one ending – Jaws ends beautifully.

The end. There’s no more, just one end. There is no need for a tag, and then a tag’s tag, and then a button on the end of the final tag. Just decide what the end of your movie is and commit to it. It’s exhausting trying to navigate more than one proper conclusion. It also makes you seem indecisive and amateurish as a writer.

2) Have an active protagonist – You character should always be doing something. They have to be the catalyst that propels the story forward. Allowing supplemental characters to cause havoc surrounding the main character is good story development and excellent to add plot complications, but you can’t rest on that alone. Set up your protagonist with a singular goal from the outset and have him work towards achieving it the whole script. It will give your protagonist interesting depth as well as create a built in plot device. Also try a MacGuffin if that better suits your needs.

3) If you don’t outline you’ll die. Well not really, but it is serious. Always. Always. Even if by the end of your first draft you’ve completely gone another direction, write the outline anyway. It’s good homework for you to know what the story is. It’s important that you, the writer, understand the full breadth of your characters and the over arching story. An outline is a horrible, tedious thing, but it’s good for you. It’s the brussel sprouts of writing. Just eat them and shut up.

4) Stop worrying about the writing and start worrying about the content. Yes your script should be well written. It should be properly formatted and in the correct font. But that isn’t the end. Your script needs to be concise, visual and above all convey a complete story. Spend less time worrying about how beautifully your action passages read, and think more about the content. You’ll find that you’ll feel less stressed when you realize pretty prose is for novels.

5) Don’t be vanilla. Yes, 90% of movies have the same beats and structure. I know you’re all “But my script…” yeah yeah, no. Your script is the same basic structure as everyone else’s whether you choose to believe it or not. It’s not that your story isn’t special, it’s just that there’s everyone else in the world with a story in their heart that probably touches on some similar beats. What will make you stand out are the details. A utilitarian scene is often necessary to give information or move the story along. That is the perfect time to add weird, quirky details if it’s a comedy. Throw in extra layers to your joke by building in visual references to complement your dialogue. That way you’re effectively hiding the fact that you need this scene to move from A-B, but at least it was interesting and unexpected. That way you’re getting more bang for your buck. I love when you get more for your money. Add the details. It’s worth your time.

6) You’re not Tarantino. You’re not Diablo Cody. You’re not either Gilmore Girl. I don’t care how cool your friends think you are. I don’t care that you once waited on Jane Lynch while you were a cashier  at a Bookstar. You are you and as such you are special. Quit trying to write preciously clever dialogue that is pervasive throughout your whole script. If you have one mouthy teenager who says the coolest, hippest street ever. Awesome. Give her her own voice. She deserves it. But if mouthy teen’s mom, the green grocer, and an alien from Neptune all have the same patois, it grows immediately tiresome. Find a voice unique to each character. Allow each character to be rich and full. Don’t make them spew semi-cool dialogue out of every pore just so you, as a writer, can seem relevant. It’s just totes, lame peeps.

There’s tons more. As I think of them or as people comment I can certainly write more and expand on this as requested.

5 days ago, I finished my 108 page feature that I wrote in approximately 20-ish days, for Script Frenzy. As soon as I typed “FADE OUT.  THE END.” I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. The last month was jam-packed with stress and thinking and typing, and worst part was, I neglected everything else in my life just to finish.

Finally after typing until my fingers bled, I got to have mermaid time (that’s fancy talk for taking a bath),  get my toes done, have a facial to peel off all the layers of blood, sweat and exhaustion. And now, I am back to feeling alive.

But now that I’m alive again and have my first draft completed, where do I start to try and make my “vomit pass” a viable script? It’s so overwhelming that it seems insurmountable. So, now what?! Well, that’s when it’s time to call your story analyst.

Upon re-reading my script, while I got the basic structure down (thank god!), I recognize it’s not nearly good enough. There is so much that I wanted to accomplish and so much more I want still to do. It is in no way ready to be seen by an agent, a prod co, most of my friends. The only person who is going to get to see it, is my story analyst. Hey, all therapists need a therapist of their own.

So, I called my story analyst and booked a consultation. I needed someone to tell me what to keep, what to junk and what to donate. And it turned out to be great. Most of what I had I could keep. Some of it was actually funny. But a lot of it was utilitarian place-holders that needed to be replaced with sparkling dialogue and clever character quips.

My friend Janelle was on a mission from God, yesterday. She showed up, like Moses to shepherd me across the Red Sea of cookbooks that was drowning me in my living room. It was a bad scene. Janelle came in, opened my basically empty and cavernous hall closet  and said, “We can start here.”

She was right. We did the linen closet and realized I wasn’t lacking space, I was lacking organization. I needed someone to say to me “Take manageable bites.” Someone to help me sort through all my amazing things, help me take stock of what’s important and what’s donatable and what’s garbage. I basically needed a story analyst for my closet.

Thankfully, my story analyst was able to help me with my first draft. He really put things in perspective for me and is actively helping me reach my goals. It’s so important too, for you to have someone like that for your writing. You need someone you can confide in and trust, someone who is non-biased and most importantly someone to help you move forward after your first draft is complete. Because there’s always going to be revisions.

My story analyst allowed me climb out from under the massive stack of  mis-matched towels, and show me what my story really looked like. And you know what? It’s really cute in here!!

Okay, so I’m now 27 days in and I have written 91 pages. That puts me 1.1 pages over my target. I should be happy, but I’m not… this script is still not finished. Why is the end so hard to reach?

When I started this script almost a month ago, I was ready. Well, sort of. After three or four false starts, I was ready.

I had my outline, Final Draft, I had snacks… it seemed like a winning combination. I would stare for endless hours at my screen and then I would type diligently for 20 pages. I would procrastinate and then I would write 3 really tough pages for 9 hours. I never seemed to find my rhythm like in other projects.

This whole writing process, this writing to a self-imposed deadline with no promised paycheck at the end, reminds me every minute of every day of a 1-mile marathon I ran when I was a kid.

My step-mother, Eileen, and I trained for weeks to participate in Millbrook, NY’s fun summer festival activities with the hopes that I would do great. I always have loved the idea of being a runner; the light on your feet pounding, the swift feeling of power as you raced your body hard like a steam engine. I always could see the deliberate turning of the body’s gears, as I watched other runners passing me by on the NYC reservoir’s track and I longed to be poetry on my feet.

My family had a weekend house there, so we practiced running the course religiously. We also ran in the city. I never could keep up. Even as a 13-year-old, I was no runner. (Author’s note: at 13 I had a D-cup. Now that I’ve put that inappropriate image in your head, here’s a picture of your mother.)

Well, the day of the race came. I woke up, I was ready to go. I was running the course in my mind. I laced up my sneakers. I was bouncing around like Rocky. That’s what runners do, right? They warm up and stuff?

My parents took me down to the starting line a bit early. I was one of those busy-body kids. The kind of kid you tell to stay someplace, and they don’t listen. They go off in a fog, thinking their weird kid thoughts and then wind up sleuthing mysteries that no one knew existed. Well, yeah, that was me. So on that day, I wound up next to the awards table and discovered they were giving trophies for the various races. There was one for the 1st girl and 1st boy of the 1-mile race. Hmm… I liked my odds for a trophy. I looked around at the other kids who were taking their place, and so far, it was only boys and me. I also liked my odds for having a soda with a boy at the diner afterward. But that’s another story.

I silently prayed that no other girls would show, just so I could trophy, and that’s when they gathered us around. The gun was fired. We were off and running. Haha! I was the only girl in the race, and provided I didn’t die and I crossed the finish line, I would win a trophy! I was so getting that trophy, I was so getting it, if it killed me.

At first, surrounded by a bunch of very cute boys I was running and bouncing and being a pony-tail flipping moron. For about six feet I kept this up, until I couldn’t breathe. The cute boys all ran very ahead of me, very quickly, leaving me with my plodding feet, beating mercilessly down on the cruel hard pavement, my gasping breath that no amount of well-intentioned training could’ve prevented, it was just me and the road. I had to run or quit. It was up to me.

So, like a quarter mile in I’m thinking, how far is a mile? That’s like 20 NYC blocks right? I can run 20 blocks. So like that’s from my house to 73rd Street. I can totally do that. Then maybe two NYC blocks later I start complaining to myself “The reason why NYC is so much better than the stupid country is that there’s stuff to look at while you’re running the mile. God!” This carried on for maybe six more NYC blocks, until I was too tired to silently complain anymore. I was now just groaning on a loop inside my mind.

I had run this course before. I knew how much farther it was going to be, and it was indeed far. I couldn’t breathe. My legs were burning as they always did every time I tried to run. I wondered how it was that people were able to run 26 miles. I didn’t think at this point I could evade a serial killer if I had to. I would be the first person killed in a horror movie. I just knew it.

But I kept on running. So, like NYC block 17, I’m basically blind, sort of delirious, definitely deranged. I can’t breathe. I am drenched with sweat. I feel pretty low, but I’m still moving. Barely. That’s when the ambulance showed up. I wondered who they were there for. I hoped they were alright who ever they were. The paramedic, sitting  in the open back door of the ambulance spoke to me. “Are you, Xandy?”

The ambulance pulled up and around me, so that they were in front of me, pacing me while I ran. One of the paramedics sat in the back, the doors open, his legs dangling. His partner tooted the horn at me. I was startled. I shivered, I was roused, like a demon was released from my body. And there before me was the smiling paramedic. He told me all about the mayor and how he was worried that I was dead. He told me to get in the ambulance and they would drive me the rest of the way.

I had been gone so long that the mayor thought I was dead? How long had I been running this mile? Going on 3 hours. No wonder I was so tired. I was dehydrated, I was exhausted. I was basically brain dead. The paramedic tried to hand me some water, but I refused. The mayor thought I was dead?! Oh, crap! There would be no trophy for me now. All of this for nothing. I slowed to a stumble. The paramedic told me to hop in. They would take me the rest of the way.

I was done. I was done 8 NYC blocks back. I was dead on my feet. But I was no quitter. As soon as I realized the mayor thought I was dead, and sent the ambulance to resuscitate me I got a second wind.  I don’t know from where or how, but I roused and I ran. I wiped the sweat from my beet red face, I fixed my pony tail and I ran.

I refused to let the ambulance take me the rest of the way. I had come so far and only my determination would carry me across the finish line. And, something like 20 more minutes later, about another quarter of a NYC block,  I finished. The whole town was there, to cheer me across the refastened finish line.

Everyone came out to see the girl who took nearly four hours to run a mile. It was humiliating. Everyone in our town now knew us. The search for me, or really the town-wide caucus to decide if they should send the ambulance to go find me, had really brought everyone together. It would’ve been sweet if not at my expense.

I made it three inches on the other side of the finish line, and that’s where I collapsed. My parents were there. My dad had many stories about the nice people concerned about me, about all of the people who volunteered to uncover my dead body. Eileen was proud of me that I finished on my own. So was I. In fact I was so glad to no longer be moving, that I forgot that I didn’t win a trophy.

I was finally able to stand. Eileen said I could order whatever I wanted from the diner to celebrate my victory. That’s when the mayor came over. He was thrilled to discover that while I was indeed a wreck, I wasn’t dead and a girl found alive during the town festivities is a weight off of his shoulders. The race had been over for the better part of 5 hours for everyone else, even though it was only really minutes for me. But, he handed me my trophy anyway, and said that I deserved to win just for having the strength to finish. I felt renewed. I accepted it and walked with my parents to the diner and ate probably the best BLT that ever existed.

I’m sure that as soon as I type “The End” on my script, I’ll feel as accomplished as I did after finishing the 5-hour 1-mile marathon that cost the city $17,000 in man hours and service from the dedicated paramedics. How does this relate to my #Scriptfrenzy script? Well, I’m right now at NYC block 17 and I’m really looking forward to my BLT.