Blog of Done

Ten years ago my wife, Christine and our two boys, Aidan and William, and I were on vacation in a warm place with our friends from California when a story unfolded in my head. On the flight over, I read an article that described the lack of relevant scripts for the many aging actors in Hollywood. As we relaxed in the pool, I told my friend, Roger, a Yale educated emergency room physician, about my idea for a screenplay. I described a story in which two young boys befriend an elderly man over a mutual interest in trains then embark upon an adventure to save a forgotten steam engine. Roger asked,

"How much of this do you got down?"

"Nothing. I just came up with it," I admitted.

The only thing I wrote at this point in my life was a humor article in college and technical papers on topics in computer science presented at conferences. I didn't have a clue what made me think I could write a feature length film.

When we returned home, I got online and found a fifteen page summary explaining screenplay formatting. I purchased the popular script writing software, Final Draft, and off I went. A few weeks later I completed the first draft. I read online to never let anyone who is not a successful writer read your script. The problem with this is that no one who is in the industry is interested in reading the musings penned by a nobody. Most first time writers unload their initial draft on their friends and family, all of which are likely not professional writers.

Most of the comments I received added virtue not value to the story. Some insisted that a particular character should be a girl or that every character should be from a particular ethnic group. I waded through all these sentiments, made some revisions then submitted the script to the prestigious Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science international script competition. It tanked.

In response to a call for scripts with strong female leads, I wrote a drama about a former mountain guide, overcoming the loss of her son, finds herself banding together with a group of neighbors for mutual survival during a winter of excessive snowfall. I became interested in the storyline after a late summer tropical storm caused thousands of people in our state to lose power for four days. People started to unravel. I thought that if this ever happened during the winter, we would all be screwed. I also liked a plot in which your own home was not a refuge, that the familiar was not a safe place. The story was a modern day Donner Party, less the cannibalism.

The script was an ambitious project. To be of any interest, it had to be about a lot of people being shoved together in one space which meant developing multiple, distinct characters. Long ago, we lost the ability to live in a village so it was easy to find conflict. I also liked the idea that if it snowed in New England like it does in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, that is, feet for days at a time, the entire region would shut down. The fact is each winter, we are six feet away from being six feet under.

A guy who worked for my wife was neighbors with a woman who once worked in Hollywood. She has writing credits for several popular Disney movies. She graciously offered to read my work. As my first exposure to a real industry professional, her commentary was succinct and actionable. She said things like,

"Make this character quirky"

and,

"You brewed all these people together and nothing really happened."

After absorbing her input, the following year I submitted both scripts to Nicholls. The drama was received favorably, making the quarterfinals which was top 375 out of 7442 entries. I was certain I was on my way to a career in writing.

The following year I wrote a science fiction piece in which the International Space Station was repurposed as a luxury retirement community as medical research pointed to the health benefits of low gravity living until a pilot and his uncle begin to question the operation of the facility. The Academy's contest allows three entries so I completed three scripts, something less than 5% of the entrants do.

Most would-be screenwriters take a class in college that requires them to write a script which is why they have one in the first place. Once I was on a panel discussion when I was asked what advice I would give someone just starting out as a screenwriter. I answered,

"First off, listen to as much advice as you can get, but don’t heed nobodies like me who actually haven’t made it. If you have taken a class in screenwriting at a local college and you got an A on your final project which your professor wrote on the title page, 'Great Job! You should enter this into a contest,' don’t bother. If that’s the only reason why you have a screenplay, then you’ll probably hate being a professional writer."

Money won't make a writer write well. That I know is true. So this time around with my three entries I was certain I would place highly. When the results rolled in all three scripts bombed. Worst yet, one commenter referred to the protagonist in the family film by the wrong name. He called him "Winston" when his name was "David." That wasn't even close. I was disappointed. Every year, I thought I was advancing just a bit, but now I wasn't so sure. It was clear that my scripts were skimmed by readers who offered vague commentary like,

"The characters are undeveloped,"

or the go to screenwriting bash,

"The dialog is stilted."

My son, Aidan, played trumpet in his school jazz band. He auditioned for an exclusive regional ensemble but didn't make the cut. When I went to console him he said,

"It's okay."

"You're taking it pretty well," I noted.

"That's because you taught my how to lose."

"I did?" I asked.

"Not because you're a loser. Because you keep trying when you don't win," he explained.

I entered each of my three scripts to a whole host of competitions. To date one placed first and another third. I was a finalist nine times and a semifinalist eleven. Often all three scripts made it to the same level of distinction in a single contest. In 2018 my family film reached the first third of semifinals, top 50, in Nicholls while the drama made quarterfinals in the latter three times in 2015, 2017 and 2020.

Along the way the many contest achievements allowed me to speak to a whole host of industry professional and a few movie stars. I didn't always follow the advice given to me which is probably why I'm an unsuccessful screenwriter. One bit of guidance I ignored was to perfect a single genre. I always thought a writer should be versatile, that is, capable of penning most anything. After writing three screenplays in different genres, I decided my next script would be a comedy.

Making people laugh on demand is no easy task. Most comedies put the biggest gags in the trailer to make you think the film is funnier than it really is. Writing a film that makes people laugh out loud requires capabilities I knew I did not have. To hone my skills, I wrote a humor blog posting every Tuesday and Thursday for a year starting in August of 2016. After 104 posts on subjects ranging from politics, celebrities to medical procedures, I completed my year of the blog. I wasn't sure if I would keep it up, but I did. Initially I thought I would run out of ideas after a month, but they kept rolling in. With over 120,000 page views and over fifty subscribers, I think I can say that it was an enjoyable run.

After four years of research and note taking, I finally completed my fourth screenplay, a comedy that is close to home for me. I know now that my future resides in humor writing which is even more challenging today in a world in which offense often triggers censorship. It's very hard to be funny in a Petri dish.

During the run of my blog I saw a lot of changes in what I was able to write. At first, I penned anything I regarded as funny. When I started out I never dreamed that anyone would do anything worse than flameout in the comments. The cyberattacks on my subscription service and outright attempts to gain control of my content by fraudulent scammers pretending to be Google employees peddling advertising advice was amusing at times. Often these events resulted in a post in which I played the clueless old guy baffled by technology. Ultimately Google made it difficult to promote my blog by rejecting ads for half my posts on grounds that my font was too small and hyperlinks too close. Oddly, ads were dropped only for posts about current events. When Google announced that they no longer supported subscription service on Blogger, I knew it was over.

Many readers enjoyed the pieces about being a parent or how I met my wife. I often described these events as a "journey" because it always felt like to me that together we all were going someplace. If I couldn't come up with something funny, I opted for a family themed post to stir emotions. When we laugh and cry we make the same face and sound and even tear up because both come from the same place. Good writers know to visit that place as often as they can.

We all need to smile again and to that end, I'm going to continue to write, focusing on comedies, but I won't be doing so here anymore. When I started out I promised to write something twice a week that would be free of ads and never include poetry. I managed to live up to that bargain even though many times I wanted to upload excerpts from my three volume memoir of my experiences photographing decoy swans written in Iambic Pentameter. I truly hope that I made some of you laugh, perhaps just when you needed to the most, and maybe someday we'll do so together once again.