Who Is the One?

 

I've been writing posts for this blog for almost four years now. With nearly 70,000 page views, I've tried to keep it lighthearted, staying clear of any topic that might get me banned from the planet. Today, it's important to agree with the mob otherwise the social media universe will call you out, and you'll be fired from your job. Lucky for me I don't have an actual job.

I've written a few screenplays. I read somewhere that the screenplay is the middle aged guy's mixtape. Everyone who writes a script is certain that it will be on fire once Hollywood gets ahold of their gem. Tinseltown needs me; after all movies like The Odd Life of Timothy Green get made all the time and those movies stink, and not just because Jennifer Garner got cast as the mom. To date, I've garnished fifteen placements in seven different screenplay contests with three different scripts.

One script was a top fifty semifinalist in the Academy Nicholls Fellowship in Screenwriting, arguable the most prestigious screenplay competition in the world. Last year, another script came in second place in the New York Metropolitan Screenwriting Competition. After becoming a finalist in the Big Apple Screenplay Contest this past summer, my wife, Christine, and I attended a public reading of excerpts from the winning scripts. While the contest placements have been exciting, and I've enjoyed sitting back on my laurels, I've always wanted to write a comedy.

Comedies are the hardest genres by far. Anyone can write a drama. Just dream up a few characters, one being a priest, another being an attractive women. Make some people good and others bad, then kill off a good one now and again. In the third act, set fire to a barn, and there you have it. You got a drama. It worked for Thorn Birds. Comedies are hard because while anyone can write a tragedy, very few of us can make people laugh. Even if you dream up a few zingers, you still have to do so for 90 pages. I hate it when you watch a comedy in which the five best gags are in the trailer. You think you already saw the film. My goal is to write a script so funny that the viewing audience will collectively piss themselves. While this means the film will go straight to DVD as no theatre will carry it primarily due to the mess, writing a comedy requires a skill set I knew at the time I didn't yet have.

Most people hate to write and are amazed that some people manage to make a living by doing so. I have a friend who is always going on about being a novelist. The reason she wants to be an author is so when she goes to the doctor's office and fills out the paperwork, she can write "novelist" for occupation. I always advise her to write it in script. Recently, I told her that she shouldn't let the worldwide ban on paper and pencils keep her from realizing her dream. I suspect that the hard part about being a novelist is the novel part. Everything else is probably pretty easy.

Hollywood is flooded with terrible screenplays, so much that professional readers assume yours stinks before they even read the title. Tinseltown is full of people trying to make it big in whatever lane they've chosen. People spend all day managing clout, that is, convincing others that they are the go to person for the next big project. I once read an article written by a professional script reader who described the three piles of scripts he had to read. The first pile was the scripts his boss gave him. The second was made up of material from his friends and family. The last pile, the one he never gets to, was the contest winners. It's sobering that a nobody like me is beat out by the dude's second cousin. I once asked a friend of mine, who wrote for years in the film industry, why she thought screenplay competitions don't discover the best scripts. I never forgot her response. She said,

"Nothing of value is given away for free in Hollywood."

Writers have always been struggling for recognition in the movie industry. There are plenty of crummy jobs fixing the dialog in some equally crummy scripts. These so called "uncredited" writing tasks are partial payment of your dues to make it in Hollywood. I read a blog written by a writer who was hired by a big production company to work on a script about a Catholic priest who was a vampire forced to choose between the zombie he loved or his faith. He stated that a good writer can fix any story, even a stinker like that one. I imagine so, but why would you want to?

So like most lost writers, I found my marble coming to rest in a remote corner of the internet. I've was writing emails to my sister, Jeannine, for years. She would respond by telling me how she laughed, then always sign off with,

"You should blog that."


My Sister and Me

So I started sending her emails entitled "Blog of One." For several years, she had her own private blog in which she was the only reader. Having only one subscriber who's your sister gives you a lot of freedom as a writer. It's pretty hard to offend my sis. So I figured I would take her advice and write a humor blog for a year to hone my skills, then attempt to write a feature length comedy.

 

My promise was to posts every Tuesday and Thursday, no ads ever, and this was as indulgent as I would ever get. There also wouldn't be any frigging poetry either. I completed the Year of the Blog, then continued to post now and again, eventually settling on every Tuesday.

Whenever I think of my childhood, anything that was any good always involved my sister. After ever post, I would wait for her text letting me know how I did. Her affirmation is never guaranteed. It's earned. With her encouragement as well as that from Christine, my editor, I continue to write. Now that I'm working on another script, I've been reposting earlier pieces with an occasional new one. It will likely go that way for a while, but I still promise that there won't be any frigging poetry.

My sister and I are close in age. As little kids we were sometimes mistook for twins, mostly because my mother to save money gave us the same haircut. It worked out for me, but not so much for her. I often remind my sister that she spent the first year of her life alone in a playpen. Being younger than her, I always had someone in there with me which is why I'm normal, and she's just a little bit nuts.

She's the One.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on October 5, 2016.