That’s how my brain felt when I thought about writing this morning. Stuck. But right now, I’m attacking a goal. I’ve been thinking about, talking about, planning to get back into writing for a couple of years now. It starts today.
In 2003, I made some progress. I wrote a few essays and hit up some women’s magazines to publish them. They didn’t make it into print, but I received some solid feedback from editors and they encouraged me to try again. A query letter that I wrote to a health magazine got me the go-ahead to give my proposed piece a shot. Again, the article didn’t make it into the magazine, but the editor liked my writing and was open to seeing more work.
Instead, I decided to try screenwriting. I wrote a few drafts of a witty romantic comedy with a political twist (or, as Hollywood might describe it, Pretty Woman meets The American President), and started sending out queries from my rainy Seattle apartment. Shockingly enough, it got some interest. I racked up a few script requests, had a phone chat with a D-Girl who worked for a company that made “films for chicks,” and decided that if I wanted to make it “the biz,” I needed to trade in my galoshes for pink Ugg boots and a tiny dog.
So, I moved to L.A. I soaked up the sun and went for swims in November. I made more industry contacts. Since I wasn’t selling my script right away, I went back to my research roots and took a job in the film group of a market research company in Hollywood. That was the first blow to my writing. It’s hard to write a movie when you spend your days…long, LONG days…writing reports telling studios how they should market the crappy movies they’ve already made.
But I did end up meeting a person who eventually led me to another person who ended up optioning my script. I did get to experience a slice of the screenwriting life. Notes. Re-writes. Stupid ideas like, “Stick a scene in there of Stephanie dancing with Jack in the kitchen. That would be good for the trailer.” Note: Some research shows that some people are sick and tired of obligatory kitchen dancing scenes. Or, here’s a great one, “What if he (the male lead) WEREN’T running for President?”
I did the rewrites. All of them. I went to meetings and held back my laughter at absurdities. I actually heard someone seriously refer to people who didn’t work in the entertainment industry as “civilians.” Even after all of this, no movie. The producers who optioned my script ended up dissolving their partnership. The one who actually kept working couldn’t re-option my script without his severed partner, since she was the person who brought him the project.
By this time (almost three years later, from first draft to the end), I had lost steam and interest in the movie-making process. I wasn’t really working on anything new. I dabbled in another script, semi-solid beginnings of a novel, some artwork, but I had lost my creative mojo. I made a few moves between L.A. and Seattle. I went through a divorce. I realized that I hated marketing movies. I met the love of my life. But those are all other stories.
But today…TODAY. I am back.