the agony and the ecstasy

I am not referring to Michelangelo here, but the impulse that drives - and destroys - anyone who voluntarily puts pen to paper or fingers to keys and creates worlds out of letters. I'm talking about the fundamental need a writer (or screenwriter or author or storyteller or bard or whatever you are, you freaking nitpickers) has to write. To tell a story. I get these quite often and, quiet frankly, they are the best and worst thing I've ever felt. Except for watching Real Housewives.

My moments of pure, unbridled I MUST WRITE OR I WILL DIE usually come when I'm walking out the door or in the shower or anywhere besides right next to my computer. This is a phenomenon all writers know and love/hate, because it reminds of who we are and what we do, but also the terrible pain behind that urge. If I can't write the exact paragraph that's marching through my head at this exact moment, I feel like jumping out of my skin. I've jumped out of the shower, shampoo in my hair, to jot down a sentence or a phrase, or left a party to go home and write. I've even attempted to narrate  to some recording app while navigating standstill traffic. The latter I only did once because I was too embarrassed by the sound of my own voice (I mean, isn't everyone?) to listen to the recording.

But that need is nothing compared to when you actually sit down, crack your knuckles, open up that word processor and suddenly find that all those stories and sentences and oh-so-smart turns of phrase are gone. You are dried up and you haven't even begun. The blank page taunts you. And you deserve it, right? You're a damn writer, you can bang your face against a keyboard and get a coherent sentence out of it! But despite all the button mashing, all the furious playlist creating (because a new playlist WILL help you and no it's not a distraction) all you end up with is the blank page and a lot of frustration. You go to bed pissed, wondering where all that drive went. And, for me, that's exactly when it comes back.

When I was writing THE RED QUEEN, I kept a legal pad behind a pillow so I could jot stuff down. Usually I woke up to incoherent scrawling and pen on my face, but it at least gave the illusion of help. I went back to my computer knowing the drive was somewhere, I just had to find it. So I pushed and typed slowly and fought myself. And that's where the third pain comes in, the one that might be worse than all the others.

I don't know how it is for anyone else, but for me, when I'm really going, I mean when I know every damn letter that's coming for the next twenty pages, I go into a weird little trance. My headphones go in, ambient Nine Inch Nails comes on, and I am a zombie. It doesn't happen often, at least back when I was writing screenplays it didn't, but the last 2 weeks of writing TRQ resulted in two full weeks of blank space. I remember waking up, eating a bagel, and then realizing it was sunset and two chapters were done. The only memory of the moments in between that stays with me is the thought I always have when writing: I am bleeding.

Because that's what writing is to me. I bleed. The connect between my brain and my fingers goes away and the words just happen. I open a vein and somehow pour it all out into a Macbook. This doesn't mean what I write is devastatingly serious or tragic or beautifully intelligent. Quite the opposite, I write to entertain, because that's what I see as my primary goal. Theme and moral and message come later, or else you're just writing a sermon or, at best, an episode of Seventh Heaven. I'm even crazy enough to feel this way when I'm writing something cliche or juvenile or just plain fun. (By fun I mean the zombie vs. cowboys melee that was the third act of my first screenplay). And because it's my blood on the page, it hurts that much more. Where is this going? Is it good? Am I good? All those questions that we all know way too well come haunting, a shadow behind every single letter. 

No one answers back, not for a long time, until the draft is done and you're ready to put that black blood out in the world. I was lucky enough to study screenwriting in college, and get four years of workshop classes under my belt to help me develop a hopefully thicker skin. But I still feel the sting (oh man do I feel it), and I'm sure you do too.

I was never good at conclusion in those five paragraph essay things they made you write in school (or introductions or theses either, come to think of it), and I'm a rambling writer. Again, I'm bleeding out a jumble of words. There isn't much advice in here, if any, but hopefully this post is more of an outstretched hand to remind us that other people understand the agony and the ecstasy. Other people, other writers, know exactly how you feel and how hard it is to do what you do every single day. Writers are, by nature, insular creatures and so we, above all others, need to be reminded that we are not alone.

All the stuff I didn't do

I sometimes get questions about how I: decided to write, wrote a manuscript, got a KICKASS agent at a KICKASS agency full of KICKASS people, etc. so I’ve been trying to think of ways to answer them. And I realized I don’t exactly have one. 

I try to read as much as I can about “Becoming an Author” and all that jazz and, on paper, it seems excruciating. Getting critique partners, entering contests, querying agents, submitting to agents and of course, the actual writing the manuscript part - those all seem horrifying. In retrospect, I realize that I only fully did one of those things (writing the manuscript) for the project that landed me with Suzie. Of course the submitting thing happened (Suzie and I did not have an out-of-the-blue dream about working together and meet for the first time all dramatically on a bridge), but I wasn’t aware of it at the time. How can that be, you ask? Let me attempt to explain without the help of GIFs or outrageous movie metaphors, I reply.

Last April, I participated in a mandatory pitch event that caps off the BFA screenwriting program at the University of Southern California. However, I wasn’t pitching books, but instead screenplays. It was something like 12 rounds of 10 minutes with film and TV industry execs/agents/producers/managers/coffee fetchers and it was the most nervewracking event of my life. But I wore a blazer and I was professional and I did it. I specialized in “popcorn” movies because I have a short attention span and if explosions aren’t involved, my brain wanders. I ended the night feeling pretty good, with multiple script requests and email addresses and all the dreams of a starry eyes film student. Of course, none of these panned out in any special way, as is custom. I did, however, receive a request from an assistant I didn’t meet with, but was requesting from all the students they missed on pitch night.

I replied with my portfolio, he requested several projects, and, shock of all shocks, loved the TV pilot I wrote to see if I could actually write TV. This was very much a “the spider doesn’t know which part of the web will catch the fly” moment. Then a manager/producer at the company then contacted me to say he loved the pilot and wanted to set up a meeting. Long story short, I met with him and several other execs, pitched another tv pilot and a movie. They were buying what I was selling, so I had the strangest “oh screw it” moment in my head and told  them I had another idea for a story. It was a book this time, and I told them I wanted to write the next big YA novel. Then I gave them the logline and basic story arc that I had. I guess screenwriters don’t say that very much because they went nuts, told me that’s what I was doing, and set me up with a rep. This was in May, a little bit after graduation when I was jobless and getting close to homeless. Now I had DIRECTION. Now I had PURPOSE. And I still had no money/job/home.

Los Angeles is not cheap/kind to New Englanders used to seasons and people who can drive properly, so I made a big decision. My summer housing plans fell through, I took an eye opening trip to Montana, and then I moved home to Massachusetts. My dad and I drove my car cross-country and of course, I got a phone call in Illinois saying I got a screenwriting job I thought I wasn’t going to get. Such is my life. Luckily, it was only for three weeks and for good money. All together, everything combined perfectly to allow me to live at home, not work, and WRITE.

So from July to January, I wrote. I submitted chapters to my LA rep and he was a great motivation to keep going/not get caught up by the inner demonic editor. Another friend of mine became my first fangirl and my biggest cheerleader, also quelling my fears. I got stuck, I kept going, I wrote 10,000 words a day, I wrote 2 words a day. And then I edited, with the help of my English teacher mom. And then I finished. And I was afraid. Because what happened now?

At this point, my rep was no longer a rep, but still on my team. He had some ties to New Leaf from the other side of the book-to-movie equation, and submitted my finished MS to a friend there. I was told this on a Friday. I shrugged, and figured I’d hear something in a month. On Wednesday, Suzie contacted me. She was given the manuscript, peeked at it to see what it was about, and then read the whole thing. Of course, I screamed at the email, then furiously responded. We called (on the phone, my nightmare), we emailed, we exchanged notes and we revised. A month later I was officially signing with her. My MS never went anywhere else and I’m so glad things happened this psycho way, because I landed with some amazing people.

This was my very convoluted and strange path to literary representation. I never wrote an official query letter, I didn’t enter contests - in fact I didn’t know those things existed until after my MS was with Suzie. I didn’t even know what MS meant. I was - and still am - a little literary baby bird. And hopefully this post will help other literary baby birds in showing that there’s more than one way to break in. I did it ass-backwards and you can too!

After signing, there were more emails, and more revisions. There were tweets and follows and newfound Twitter friends to offer amazing advice and support (and more publishing vocab to learn). And now we’re moving onto the next step. And I’m still afraid. But I’ve never been more excited.




And this GIF has never applied to me more. Yes, I love Saved By The Bell.

I’M SORRY I TRIED SO HARD TO DO THIS WITHOUT GIFS.

--xpost from my Tumblr--