Love's Long Labors
by PJ McIlvaine

Sometimes they come to me in a dream. Sometimes I’ll be watching the boob tube, reading the newspaper, driving the car, putting away laundry, disinfecting the bathroom or shopping at the mall. I honestly don’t know what sets me off. It might be the clever turn of a phrase or the way a man looks at a woman when he thinks no one’s looking. Most of the time, I discard them like rotten fruit. "Only the best for my brood," I sniff in my Martha Stewart voice. But the ones that remain, well, I turn them over in my brain like a prospector mining for gold, inspecting them from every possible angle. It has to grab me by the throat and the heart. When that happens, I’m in deep, deep trouble.

My family knows all the signs. I get a vague, distracted look on my face, as if I’m not getting quite enough oxygen. I burn brownies. Hamburger Helper becomes a dinner staple. I have the attention span of a gerbil. I forget my pocketbook at the supermarket. An asteroid could land in my backyard, my spouse could be abducted by aliens, a tornado could smash my house to bits, the cats could come down with Ebola. I’d still be in my own little world, focused on only one thing, and only one thing alone: I have to get this screaming brat out of me and into the real world.

Of course, by screaming brat, I’m referring to my newest script, a process which I can attest, as a woman, mother and writer, is more excruciating than childbirth. In the last four years, I've gone through this self-induced trauma more times than I care to count. Some labors have been effortless, a pleasant memory, a true joy, while others have been long, tumultuous and painful. Regrettably, some of my offspring breathed life for but a few fleeting moments before perishing to ill conceived plots, meandering themes, uninspired characters and leaden plotting. I quietly mourn their passing and go on to the next, always optimistic and confident that this time, Lord willing, I’ll get it right.

I freely and unabashedly admit to having my favorites among my "babies." I dote on them and lavish them with praise. I proudly show them off and speak of their accomplishments at every opportunity. Conversely, I take any criticism or disparagement of my little darlings personally. A sour word is like a hot poker to my heart. Why can’t people see their beauty, promise and potential? Their rejection is my rejection. Still, I assure my pets that their day will come.

I'm not embarrassed to admit that I have a few illegitimate offspring running around the house (unlike Thomas Jefferson), born in the heat of the moment without any consideration given to plot points, noble ideas or mythic structure. In my heart of hearts, I know they're not going to any multiplex in a town near you, but I keep them around anyway, reminders of my inexperience and of what could've been. And they’re still my babies despite their faults, which are legion, and which I know like the back of my hand.

You can call me an Equal Opportunity Gestational Host. I've spawned bio-chemical thrillers, comedies, rom-coms, adolescent angst, teen, fantasies, suspense, dramas, family, coming of age. About the only genre I haven't flirted with is porn (I have principles. Not many, but some). And all the places I’ve gone to without a passport. I’ve researched the state of Russian medicine, viruses, Black Magic, roses, Greek curses, meteor showers, aliens, lunar eclipses, supervolcanoes and Benedictine Monks. Thanks to the Internet and a high speed modem, no website is too obscure or arcane.

Naturally, like any mother, I get discouraged when my children don’t behave quite the way I’d like them to, embarrass me in public or take an unexpected turn to the dark side. That’s part of parenting; I have to let my kids find their way. All I can do is fasten my seatbelt and pray that the ride isn’t too bumpy.

I freely admit that I drive my family to distraction with my writing rituals. In order to facilitate my creativity, I wear five "bead bracelets" espousing love, wealth, health, hope, etc., the white bracelet first, the black last. For each project I have a favorite album that I play constantly or until my family is ready to have me committed (you try listening to "Lord of the Dance" for six months straight). My desk is arranged just so and if a paper clip is out of place, I go gonzo. My family says I’m obsessed; I prefer the term "creature of habit."

But I’m not the only one. Screenwriters have a variety of tricks up their sleeve and in their imagination bag to keep the creative juices flowing. One veteran writer who prefers to stay anonymous relates that merely the act of looking at a blank page induces in him such a heightened state of anxiety that’s only relieved by taking a minuscule amount of Xanax, an anti-anxiety medication. Once that takes effect, he reports, he’s ready to rock and roll.

Taylor Waters, another aspiring scribe, prefers to write in the backdrop of a "loud coffee shop. It’s very hard (for me) to write at home in a quiet room. I get antsy. I need to see people. I love to go from the surroundings of the coffee shop back into my story to get lost...then come up for air and see what’s changed around me...look at the new faces. Plus, it helps for character descriptions and eavesdropping...it also helps if it’s raining. Nothing better than a pounding rain to get me in the writing mood."

Speaking for myself, the inciting point in which I actually begin writing a screenplay start with character names. I’ll carry the plot and entire scenes and dialogue in my head for weeks or months, but once I find the right name, boom, I’m off and running to the races.

Many writers, buoyed by an initial burst of adrenaline, energy, enthusiasm and adrenaline, find themselves sagging after page 30 or so and begin questioning if the script or story has "legs." (In the birthing process, this is tantamount to being six centimeters dilated with no end in sight).

Artie Anderson, a Nicholls semi-finalist several times over with several options under his belt, has a unique tip that gets him out of a jam when he "really hits a snag." He allows the "characters to talk...I’ll take a pad and begin a character monologue, where that scene’s protagonist (not always the main character, by the way) will prattle on about why he/she wants what they want. You would be shocked how often these character essays help me figure out what the real issue of the scene is. Just let them babble on as long as they need, and they will probably not fail you."

When Liz Lehmann hits a rut in the writing road, she finds that often, just changing to a different word processing system helps (and lots of gold old fashioned Java and M&M’s). Sometimes, when she’s really blocked, she abandons her computer altogether and returns to good old fashioned pen and paper (remember that?).

My own trick to avoid the dreaded writer’s block is to write 365 days of the year, even if it’s only a pager or two, switching genres and scripts frequently. And I always end at a spot where I know without doubt what will come next. Even better, when I’m at a fork in the road, I sleep on it. More often than not, my subconscious wrestles with my dilemma and when I awake, I find I’ve "dreamed" the solution.

Donna Marie Vaughan swears by what she calls "The Decision Tree," a handy tip she learned in management school. Vaughan will "sit with a character or situation and take them down a different path. Sometimes, it’s just for fun, sometimes it just helps to excuse myself from the problem at hand, but sometimes you can come with up something completely different-and better. This is similar to daydreaming-allowing your mind to simply wander on its own."

Heather Hale, whose script "The Courage to Love" was a recent cable movie starring Vanessa Williams, says she knows of writers who "put photos of the actors they’d like to see perform their role around them so that they see these characters every time they look up." But her favorite writing tip is English Toffee Tea "with a dash of Bailey’s" on a particularly good day.

When all else fails, however, and the thought of sitting down at the computer is too much to bear, you can always try a suggestion from the wise old sage Larry Brody, Internet Guru of the popular www.tvwriter.com. He tells of a writer who employs college students to write his first drafts from his outline. "When they’re done, he completely re-writes them so that nothing remains but the structure that was in the outline, but since it’s ‘only rewriting,’ he always feels that he’d now be doing the easy part of the job."

Now if you’ll excuse me, I hear one of my babies fussing. A parent’s work is never done.

Copyright © 2000 PJ McIlvaine. 

Visit PJ's website, The Lone Wolf, here: 

http://thelonewolf56.homestead.com/PJ1.html 

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