Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

Life in Hollywood

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The other day Tamar wrote a wonderful entry about why screenwriting isn’t for her any more.

What she says is true. but despite the odds (which are terrible) it often seems like everyone I know has had some and in some cases a lot of success. (Excepting my MFA buds. So far. Yes, I am snarky and mean. Deal with it.) Mary, the mom in Seattle, has managed to sell two pitches without the so-called track record. She does it by coming up with ideas that scream “Movie.” I am in awe of what Mary has managed to do, because it’s the sort of thing that everyone says you can’t do.

Everyone says a lot of things. There are many pieces of received wisdom among pre-pro screenwriters, and one of the biggest is: as soon as I sell a script, I’ll be in the game, I’ll have some power, things are going to get easier…

And one thing I definitely learned in LA and from Wordplay is: no, things don’t get easier. If anything, they just keep getting harder.

On the Wordplay forums someone asked Terry Rossio (he of Pirates of the Caribbean, Shrek, Zorro, and Aladdin writing fame) if he (and his writing partner Ted Elliott) had any Dream Projects that they’re holding on to until such time as they can get their projects done the right way. As part of the question, the poster asked:

>> If you DO have a Dream Project like that, are you thinking 

>> about doing it as a novel, short story, or stage play first, so that 

>> you can keep at least some semblance of control over  

>> the underlying rights to the story?

To which Terry replied:

Absolutely.

Okay, now, let’s recap: one of the most successful screenwriters in Hollywood says that it’s absolutely imperative to do something other than a script to maintain control over his work.

You know, that’s the kind of advice that certainly makes me reconsider what kind of career I’d want as a screenwriter.

There are actually a lot of parallels between working in Hollywood and working in just about any other industry. Okay, between working in Hollywood and working in Silicon Valley (since I’m not intimately familiar with any other industries). But the way screenwriters and their wares—which are, after all, the basis for putting these gargantuan economic forces known as “movies” in motion—are treated is singular, and it’s horrible.

Let’s say I write a novel, and let’s say it’s successful enough to garner movie attention. I have to be honest: I don’t know if I’d sell it. Maybe if I put enough caveats on it (such as, I get script approval). But the movers and shakers in LA don’t like other people having power. Giving people money is fairly easy. I’d kill the deal by asking for power over money.

No, no, I’d have to do what Harlan Coben has done: keep (or, in his case, buy back) the rights to his beloved series, and write a series of stand-alone novels that practically sing “Hollywood fodder.”

In Hollywood the only way to maintain control of your work is to becomea director (movies) or an executive producer (TV). Coming up with the script is not enough— you have to add a couple of high-pressure jobs that have little to nothing in common with writing to protect it.

Oh dear Lord.

And to those of you who say: Who cares? So long as the checks cash! I remind you of what my first year writing teacher, David Hollander (who went on to create “The Guardian”) had to say on that score: “If you take a job for the money, you will earn every penny.”

I’m not completely unenamored of screenwriting and of Hollywood. But I’m not starry-eyed about it, I’m not gung ho. And I’m not sure I have the fight in me to pursue something even Terry says is a game that can’t be won on their terms.

Local writer makes good

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There’s an article in today’s Mercury News about a local writer who did what I always thought I would do but haven’t yet (registration required—try Bugmenot if you hate registration):

Lolly Winston’s dream came true.

Her first novel, “Good Grief,” is a bestseller. Lately, life’s been “a surreal string of good news,” she says. But before that, she was living a Silicon Valley nightmare.

The Los Gatos writer always dreamed of writing a novel by 40. So she quit her other jobs to finish the book she’d been working on parttime for four years.

Then the bubble burst. Her husband’s software company went bust. They were paying the mortgage with a home-equity loan. The credit card was maxed. Her stepdad died. Her brother drowned.

“It was kind of scary,” Winston says of trying to finish the book in the face of financial and emotional hardship. Once done, she found an agent who secured a book deal. “It was like winning the lottery to sell the book.”

The novel is the sometimes painful, sometimes humorous tale of a young Silicon Valley widow. After her software engineer husband dies, she suffers a breakdown at her PR job, showing up for work in her robe and slippers. She moves to Ashland, Ore., and rebuilds her life.

“Good Grief” is No. 14 on the New York Times bestseller list. Reviews have been good (“Bridget Jones meets Elisabeth Kubler-Ross.”).

You know what? It’s nice to know that it can be done. For those times when I’m not so certain.

A little about writing

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You want to know the definition of happiness?

(For a writer, at any rate.)

I stopped working for a couple of weeks—can I help it that there was a major holiday and everything came to a screeching halt and I couldn’t concentrate on writing anyhow?—and, as happens every time I stop, I find it hard as hell to start up again. Writing? A lot like exercise. You have to keep doing it, or you start finding excuses not to do it at all. Anyhow, I opened the piece I was working on prior to stopping for three or maybe four weeks and…

…it’s pretty good.

I was amused by what I wrote. It’s entertaining. Had someone else written it—and, presumably, written more than I have so far—I would have kept reading, and there is no higher compliment one can pay a writer, even when that writer is one’s self. If you know what I mean.

Of course, relief at discovering I am writing well and on an interesting project does not manage to make it easier to start up the daily writing gig. The gears grind, the oil of practice is needed.

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In a stunning upset victory for the Evil Empire over Snooty Elitism, I’ve found that I actually like to write at Starbucks. At least the Starbucks near my house. It’s big, there are plenty of tables, the staff is great, and, best of all, they’ve clearly designed the place with people like me—that is, people who come laptop-equipped—in mind: lots of power outlets scattered around the place.

(And now every Starbucks on the planet is installing T-Mobile Wireless, so I can goof off on the Internet here, too.)

I used to go to a little European place that’s nearby. Tiny, no power outlets, not comfortable. I used to read the paper there and then exit, stage left.

At Starbucks there are five or six of us regulars who show up, our computer briefcases or backpacks in hand, looking for one of our usual spots. We nod at one another, sometimes ask what the other’s working on. Every other person typing away is working on a screenplay, except for a woman who I know from Fia’s preschool—she’s working on a novel too. Oh, and there’s the law student who’s forever doing briefs or book reports on Brown’s. Once in a while someone uses Excel and pie charts start popping up; the rest of us glare until the newcomer gets the hint and fires up Final Draft.

The most annoying thing about working in Starbucks is the most annoying thing about being out in public anywhere these days: cell phones. I mean, when I say I’m treating Starbucks like my office I don’t actually mean my office, okay? But these people yak away at the top of their lungs and seem to have no idea that sound travels beyond the perimeter of their little tables.

I love the way that most of the kids—and they are kids, sob: they’re 21 year olds in bands—remember everyone’s name and their drink. It’s like a bar, except with no alcohol and tastier snacks. And once in a while the kids show their appreciation of their regular clientele by pushing a snack off the back of a truck.

Not, of course, that I’ve ever had that happen. It’s just a rumor.

Mo Pie, get off the hotline to Seattle right now.

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Our AirPort went toes up recently. At home I can only access the Internet while attached to a Big Ugly Cat-5 cable. It’s monstrous. I can’t sit anywhere I want to in the house and surf!

It’s like I took a time machine to the prehistoric days of 1998 or something.