These Days

Hello all, 

It’s been a couple weeks since my last entry. I’d say that life got in the way, but that’s not quite true. I think it’s been more that my tank has been running on empty lately. I’m not sure why. I think it’s tied to how I feel when I’m writing in general.

I’m drawn to Burning Pictures  when I’m knee deep in a script. One tends to feed the other. But when I’m in the outline stages, it just tends to suck the life out of me in all sorts of ways; I’m finding that this is one of them.

The interesting thing is that the story finally began to break today. The shadows took form. The swirling shapes slowed  enough for me to get a real glimpse of who they really are. 

For a while, those shapes and shadows raced past without a second glance. And each day they swept into the distance was one more where I felt…left behind.

But then something happens. Maybe it’s a conversation, maybe a glimpse of someone in a crowd. For me, it was These Days by Jackson Browne. A song of longing desire to connect and a deep fear of doing so.

One particular section stayed with me:

I’ll keep on moving
Things are bound to be improving these days
One of these days–
These days I sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones to ten, my friend
Don’t confront me with my failures
I had not forgotten them.

I don’t know why those words cut through me…don’t confront me with my failures, I had not forgotten them. Not one of us ever does. My failures loom over me when I’m beginning a new story, sometimes oppressively.

But for the first time in a while, listening to Jackson, the shapes slowed for just a little while. The forms took on a clarity amongst the chaos. Sometimes it’s hard to see past the failures to what’s waiting just past them, but there is something on the other side. It’s just hard as all hell to get there. 

Until next time -

Burning Pictures

The Wind

A woman stands in the rain on the side of the road. She barely notices the downpour, eyes holding the car slowly driving off. Tears mingle with raindrops running down the curves of her face.

A bittersweet smile on his lips as she fades in his rearview mirror. Then the smile too fades in the rain…

I have this image in my head. Rain. Her. Him. Both free. Both broken.

There’s a soundtrack that plays through the story. Cat Stevens, The Kinks, Simon & Garfunkel…a beautiful melancholy that wraps around us. Comforting even as it leaves us there yearning.

“I swam upon the devil’s lake, but never never never…I’ll never make the same mistake, no never never never…”

That’s the story isn’t it. The character who at first is trapped in those roiling waters. And then eventually escapes. But who is the devil there — and who is saying never…?”

Guess that’s why I need to write it. So eventually I figure it out.

Until next time –

Burning Pictures

Wonderland

Hello all,

Some people have asked me if this was going to be a site where I ripped into the soft white underbelly of studio execs and producers. Which made me realize there’s tremendous anger directed towards the gatekeepers to the big screen.

I have a friend who’s constantly in a state of agitation over the perceived missteps of his agent or the producers on his project. And I get it. our lives are in a constant state of turbulence…at any moment our stories that we’ve worked months or years can go down in a fiery blaze.

But here’s the thing. The same people that are being derogated are the ones working their asses off to see to it that not just this, but sixty other projects find a home and see it through to completion. It’s got to be fucking exhausting on a daily basis.

The life of a writer is just about the greatest that I can imagine. We get to tell stories that mean something to us, drink coffee until we drive home with the shakes, see movies, talk story, and ponder life for hours on end every day.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s miserable. Hours, weeks, however long spent on dead ends…stories get shot down with just a “nah…not a big enough hook.” long periods of doubt where you sit in front of a computer convinced that you’re a fraud, that whatever mild success you’ve had is as far as you’re going to go. An outsider peering into the cozy restaurant that you’ll never be invited in to dine. It sucks.

But there are moments where something happens and hope is renewed. I was out for a drink. A creative exec came over to me and asked if I had written a certain piece. I had. She said she had loved it and was so bummin’ that it didn’t go forward. And for a moment, it made everything else that was so shitty fade into the background.

Most writers I know suffer in one way or another because of the love/hate battle with the craft. The page is a brutal enemy. But when we write something special that day…when we finish a draft of something and know there’s lightning in the bottle, it’s the greatest feeling in the world. Or at least up there with being the shooter at a hot craps table.

So, yes, writing is my wonderland…just as the classic song by Big County would suggest.

Until later -

Burning Pictures

The Darkest Place

There’s an album called Painted From Memory by Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach. As far as I know, I’m the only person in America (and possibly the world) who owns it. I’m yet to meet anyone who has the faintest idea about it when I mention the epic collaboration between the two brilliant songwriters.

One of the songs that stands out is In The Darkest Place. It’s just a wonderful song of deep melancholy and longing.

I think every writer has this place where they keep that secret part of themselves which they desperately want to expose to the world in a story. In many ways it’s like exposing the most hidden part of yourself to the person you love.

I think about movies like Sideways, The Graduate, Being There and Michael Clayton. Each of them hit me on an incredibly deep visceral level. After seeing Clayton, I needed to take a walk in the cool night air because I was so blown away. To write stories like that, the writers tapped into that place and immersed themselves deep under the surface. 

I write a lot of sci-fi. To me, it’s a way to explore the nature of humanity in different settings: distant planets, strange worlds…but most of that is just window dressing. No matter how event oriented a story may be, what makes it compelling is the human condition underneath.

I’m working on a project now that looks into a different sort of alien invasion. But at its core, it’s a story about what it means to be human and the rest of it is just the mechanism to get there.

Exploring that darkest of places means allowing those fears and uncertainties lurking inside us to find their way on to the page. My character struggles with a sense of alienation. Distance from his wife, a lack of connectivity to his children…a feeling of being severed from the wires which everyone else seems to stay attached to.

The world may be in jeopardy, but what drew me in was what this man would do to find his way back to those connections.

It seems like only after we’ve swum those dark waters, do we really understand what we’re trying to get to on the other side.

Until the next time -

Burning Pictures

Greetings from Burning Pictures

Dear friends,

I wanted to be the first screenwriter in Hollywood to start a blog about my experiences. Turns out a few other people had the idea as well. What can you do…

In the days ahead, I plan to use this forum to tell the tales of my adventures. Hopefully it will be a pleasant distraction for each of us.

Let me open with this: The International is a terrible movie, Wall-e should have won best screenplay and I’m thinking I’d like Malaysian food for lunch.

Most of all, I promise it gets better from here.
Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers,
SB