YOU Will NOT Read My Fucking Script!

Posted on July 28, 2010 by margie

Before my readers who aren’t fellow screenwriters assume that I’m suffering from a bout of turrets, I’ll start with this disclaimer; I am writing my own follow up to this article.  If you are a screenwriter, then you’ve already seen it, and the odds are pretty good that you’ve encountered this attitude in person.  Perhaps you’ve even stifled the urge to spew out the same rant when another writer asked you to give their work a once over.  Reading scripts is hard work.  An entire world that is meant to be seen, heard and emotionally experienced, starts as nothing but courier new, spaced across a white page.  The ability to make that world jump out of its mono-spaced font is quite rare.

So that’s why I don’t entirely understand a phenomenon I have experienced since I became a screenwriter; everyone wants to read my scripts!  When you hear the first person request a gander, there is no better feeling.  You’ve poured an elaborate ensemble and a full story, arced like a rainbow, out of your head and into the tangible world.  You can’t wait for someone else to experience it and then, of course, tell you it’s just as amazing as you think it is.  But it only takes a few e-mails sent into the abyss of “never heard from again” before you realize how few people actually mean it.  There are those constant readers, and by that I mean the ones you are actually related to.  You have enough history with family to guilt them into giving you a read and review.  But it’s almost a guarantee that no one else, even the best of your friends, will ever read your script.   Even on the rare occasion that they find time in their busy lives that is not already occupied by Facebook to scan through your heart and soul in paper form, they will never tell you what they thought of it.

I’ve learned my lesson.  Let them ask.  Let them ask again.  See if they actually send you an e-mail about it.  Tell them that if you send your script, you’ll want to know what they thought.  Add the caveat that it need not be more than a few sentences, basic reactions, less words than one would utter when leaving a movie theater.  Tell them over and over again that a bad review will not mean the end of your friendship.  We all learn from our mistakes.  Tell them to take their time, we all have full lives to manage.  Forgive their first few “I just haven’t had time yet” responses.  Continue to be that good friend and communicator that you are.  But it won’t matter if you get a thousand yeses and words of good intention, they are not going to read shit.

So your creative mastery floats out into the internet ether.  Drafts one through thirteen have been sent to someone at some point, and could have been bounced around to any other human sharing your electronic cloud.  And all you hear is crickets chirping.  I know that when one of my films actually gets made, I will only get reviews from those paid to publish them, and those who think it’s their duty to share their opinion in all CAPS on every comment stream they come in contact with.  But it won’t matter.  My script will be a fucking movie!  The people who want to see it can drive their asses to the theater and pay (what will probably be a good $45 by then) for a seat.  You won’t have to ask me.  You won’t have to ask me again.  You won’t have to make promises you can’t keep.  You won’t have to feel the guilt of having broken those promises.  Just buy me a cocktail and all is forgiven.  Then go see my fucking movie.  You’ll wish you had read the script.

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Artist in Overdrive

Posted on July 19, 2010 by margie

It’s only recently that people have stopped asking me what I do each day.  The idea that I did not have a job, in the classic sense, lead them to believe that I must be spending each day wandering about in a state of idle purgatory, somewhere in-between lounging on the beach and constantly running from one job interview to another.  People are starting to get it now, starting to understand that not only do I fill each day quite richly and productively (some more than others) but that I am, in fact, so busy that I frequently don’t even have weekends to use for said lounging.

Substantially harder to explain is why I choose to do what I do.  Life would certainly be easier if I had a paycheck handed to me every once in a while (which is one of my aims).  And it would be substantially easier if I simply chose to do less.  I don’t have to volunteer to design yet another short film that only the festival geeks will ever see.  I don’t have to set a deadline for my next screenplay since I’m worlds away from having an agent breathing down my neck for it.  So why do I?

All people are driven to step beyond their obligations to simply exist and procreate by different reasons.  It can be to stave off boredom, to release a subconscious desire, to answer the call of the muse, or the desperate need to be able to look back on their lives and say “yeah, I did that.”  For me it is both all of those reasons and none of them the same time.  It’s a voice that tells me that I will accomplish something great.  It’s the visions of me attending my own premiere, being interviewed by an iconic figure and yes, being handed awards.  Above all that, it’s the idea that I will watch a compelling story that I helped to create, play out before my eyes and still get from it that same sense of amazement and wonder one only seems to touch in the early years of childhood.  It is want.  It is desire.  It is drive.  It is need.

I can only relate this intangible concept to one tangible object: Michelangelo’s Rondanini Pietà.  Never heard of it?  I’m not surprised.  It was the last piece Michelangelo was working on up until a few days before his death, and it was never finished.  What remains of this marble block is only the sinewy ghosts of Mary and Jesus, and one nearly finished arm, polished to a shine but completely dismembered from any body.  This hacked apart marble block could never have become a completed work worthy of the master’s reputation.  Nonetheless, seeing it nearly brought me to tears.  Michelangelo worked on this sculpture up until a few days before his death at the unheard of age of 89.  Driven by whatever his need was, to touch the divine, to step beyond the mortal plane and out of his pain-ridden mortal body, or to perhaps leave a piece of his soul here on earth, he just had to keep working.  In that dismembered arm, the shadowy faces in the stone, the jittery marks of an unstable chisel, I could feel that need, that driving force to create that was so strong it became destruction.

So I keep chiseling.  I answer my muse.  I let my subconscious take the driver’s seat.  I am far from bored, and someday I will look back and say “Wow, I did that!”  I just hope I know when to stop chiseling.  Even if I don’t, someone may look at what I created and see beautiful destruction.  I leave you with the words of the master himself.

Only with fire can the smith shape iron
from his conception into fine, dear work;
neither, without fire, can any artist
refine and bring gold to its highest state,
nor can the unique phoenix be revived
unless first burned. And so, if I die burning,
I hope to rise again brighter among those
whom death augments and time no longer hurts.
I’m fortunate that the fire of which I speak
still finds a place within me, to renew me,
since already I’m almost numbered among the dead;
or, since by its nature it ascends to heaven,
to its own element, if I should be transformed
into fire, how could it not bear me up with it?
- Michelangelo Buonarroti 1532

Posted in Musings, The Artist's Life | 1 Comment

A New Direction

Posted on July 13, 2010 by margie

I actually never wanted to write a blog.  As soon as it became something that everyone’s friends, cousins, grannies and doggies could do, they did.  We all have interesting experiences, fun stories worth telling at the water cooler.  We all have opinions that we’ve learned to back-up with a thesis statement and three supporting paragraphs.  But lets face it, very few of us actually experience something exciting everyday and nobody really cares what you think about the rising price of milk.  I was encouraged to start my blog to both better my writing and share my experiences with anyone who cared to listen.  Despite my doubts, writing Marglish.com has been a very rewarding experience.

But lately I’ve been finding myself short of material for my loyal readers.  Why?  Because having committed myself to life in Sydney it has become just that, life.  It’s not always average but it’s also not always interesting either.  Aussie culture isn’t the mystery it once was and though I have a lot of the country left to travel, thinning bank accounts prevent it from happening with any regularity.  So my inspiration to write about the oddities of life as an ex-pat is waning.  But my desire to create beautifully written pieces of bite-sized autobiographical literature lives on.

So what am I going to write about now?  What is interesting enough about my life that it will make my blog better than your dogs?  Well, moving to another country wasn’t the only thing that changed about my life in the last year.  I also officially became a freelancer, a.k.a. starving artist, a.k.a. indy filmmaker, a.k.a. broke-ass writer.  These were all things I had done in the past but always in balance with the 9-5 daily grind.   But now I live my daily life in the constant pursuit of seemingly lofty artistic aspirations, with no promise of an income in my immediate future.  And I love it!

My experiences may not always be blogworthy, but life as a freelancer has taken me to some odd places and introduced me to some even odder people.  It’s also forced me to face the most frightening challenge of all, self discipline.  Cultural observations and travel reports will still be choice topics on Marglish.com but I’m expanding my palate to include the colors of life as a hopeful artist.  I hope to paint you all an entertaining picture.

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