Gentle Reader or Dear Reader or Sweet Ass Reader (what have you in terms of salutation)... recently e-mailed me to check out her blog and it made me think, as I do everyday, about where I'm at in life and trying to get my work out there. That's the hardest part about writing, I think, getting your work out there. Well that and finding the time to complete a coherent thought and FOCUS! at least when you're a new mom, like moi (hey four years of college French finally pays off!).
I'll share a little secret with you: it's not that hard to get read. It isn't, really. And by the big agencies and producers and everyone. This isn't to say it's easy, but it's just not impossible. What comes after, however, is very, very difficult. (ie hoping for that Consider, deal, meeting, sale, etc.) That's the tricky part.
As I type this, just to prove my point and not toot my horn, I have two big agent "requests" one is for a memoir, inspired by this blog, no less. That e-mail has been sitting in my Inbox for a few weeks. I am trying to find the time and find a way to shape my life into a memoir, my life which is described in loose leaf notebooks and journals with pretty gardenias on the cover or old looking maps, filled with short stories, and movies, and plays and letters and pictures and emails exchanged and events lived and not lived and places seen and not seen and miraculous happenings (truly, and I'm not talking about the time I saw Her Holiness Our Blessed Mother's face in cottage cheese or in the dust bunnies under my grandmother's writing desk) but truly remarkable... and the mundane happenings of everyday life... and how do I do it? No, that's not rhetorical but I'm suddenly overwhelmed... where do I start? What do I include? What is the shape of it? 
I love watching old movies. I love Robert Osborne. Nay, let me correct that... I'm in love with Robert Osborne. How many anxiety filled moments have been soothed by his voice, the voice the flavor of graham crackers with a bit of marshamallow (spelling is the first thing that goes with new mom sleep-deprivation, that and the ability to form an analogy or finish a thought!) I digress... how many restless-spirit, worrying, nail crunching a night has been soothed for me by the words, "Tonight on TCM we bring you..." I think I was born in the wrong era, so much about my personality is very 1940's: I have the palate of a noir gumshoe: just give me a cup of joe and some hard-boiled eggs with jam on toast, please (seriously, it's really good). For a long time, chili cheese dogs were my favorite food (I'm not kidding), so my palate (and hence my body), my fast-talking Rosalind Russel-esque demeanor, and my preference for old films, good books, and dusty, city living in cramped apartments makes me think I was born in the wrong era. But it's not my fault, it's my dad's. He did a great job raising my sister and I while my mom did what she did (another story) but cooking was not one of his strong suits. Hence, I have my dad's palate.
I watched an old movie, debuted on TCM recently, called THE RAT RACE with Tony Curtis and Debbie Reynolds, which was based on a play (both written by Garson Kanin). (Aside: Tony Curtis was seriously invoking a Vince Vaughn vibe in this movie, or rather, vice versa I guess...) It wasn't great (and maybe not even that good) but it was fun to watch. I liked it, I did. Don Rickles played a bad guy. Funny, back then, being a "dance hall girl" where guys paid you to dance with them was considered scandalous. I guess I'm old fashioned in that I was raised to try to avoid salacious things like being hired out as a female anything and/or stripper poles. How "quaint" such ideas are. Anyway, Don Rickles gives Debbie a really self-esteem dressing down in a scene where she begs money from him and he yells at her (I'm paraphrasing) "You've got the kind of mind that's jumping from one thing to the next, like a monkey, it's always thinking about something. I can see it, what's it thinking about now?"
And I thought: hm, I have that kind of mind. When I was fifteen, my great creative writing teacher who is a respected playwright called me "monkey brain" because he said I was swinging from branch to branch, idea to idea and well... I think that has sometimes served me well and sometimes... not.
As an idea person, it's hard when you have LOTS of ideas. A grad student, film school friend once said: "but how do you think of an idea? I can't come up with any ideas." And I looked at her in wonderment, completely baffled. I don't understand that problem. My problem: too many ideas!! Too many directions!! I need to focus, complete, and submit. I do.
This year is going to be a year of focus for me and completion AND (big and) "marketing."
Why do we hate getting our work out there?
Rejection.
It reminds me of that line from THE TRUTH ABOUT CATS AND DOGS (written by the great (UC alum) Audrey Wells):
Anyway... I've got to get cracking. I also have a publisher waiting for some sample chapters on a screenwriting book inspired by my male character arcs (hotly viewed) article. They got the Table of Contents and want sample chapters. Yippee for me, I just need to find a way to get up at five am or clone myself.
We all want to escape the rat race. I came across this HST quote (all roads or posts on blogs lately lead to Hunter S. Thompson)
"Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men's reality. Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of the rat race is not yet final."
I guess you could say the same thing about dreams, such as the dream of being a screenwriter. It certainly keeps me going, keeps me alive. I write because I feel compelled to write, because I have to, because I always have, all my life. Writing gives me hope against the tyranny of life, sometimes, and that onward march of time.
--adn
this post is dedicated to my dad: still going strong and reading his philosophy and mathematical theory books! (and hey, give us a break on the mustache, it was the 80's remember Hall and Oates?)
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