A couple of weeks ago, I read this very interesting post by David, about Ernest Hemingway’s lost suitcase. The story brought back eerie memories of my first year in graduate school, when I was scheduled to turn in my very first screenplay for review. The professor who led the workshop was really strict about deadlines; you had to turn in a draft, no matter how awful you thought it was, on a certain date to give classmates a week to read it and critique it. Miss your date and you don’t get a class review until your next deadline comes around.
My computer crashed the day before my script was due. And I didn’t have a backup.
But I couldn’t miss my deadline. I had never written fiction before, and I needed the help of my fellow writers. Desperately. I had no time to call a techie to fix my computer. I had to write the whole thing, all 110 pages, all over again. From memory.
I first borrowed a classmate’s computer, but for some reason she didn’t want me to use it all night. When she kicked me out of her apartment, I ran to a 24-hour Kinko’s, and despite my 75-word-per minute typing speed, it took almost nine hours for me to finish. Renting a Kinko’s PC cost about $0.15 cents per minute, so this was a ridiculously expensive crisis, too. When I finally closed file on the story, a young guy in a Kinko’s apron with a bad case of acne came over to offer me help with the printing. He even gave me some free coffee. I’m sure he had seen pathetic computer crash victims like me before.
When I passed out my script in class, I felt this amazing sense of accomplishment. That, “I did it!” feeling. And a week later, I was steamrolled by my classmates’ comments, all of which started with, “This is a good first effort, but…” In sum, the verdict was that my script stank. The really caring classmates offered great ideas and suggestions for my next drafts, but in the back of my mind, I knew this screenplay, “Confidence Games,” was going nowhere. I finished three more drafts by the end of 1998 after which I never touched it again.
David’s interesting post about Hemingway’s misfortune prompted me to reopen “Confidence Games” for the first time in more than ten years. Two, three pages in, and I thought, “No studio executive in his right mind would go further.” But I skipped over to several of the decent scenes, scenes which for a first-time fiction writer aren’t bad. They don’t stink, at least. If you’re curious, you can read one here and let me know what you think. I’m proud of this scene and others that I wrote, but I won’t go back to that script. It was a great learning experience that taught me how hard it is to create fascinating characters and stories, and most of all, how rewriting is writing.
This coming Sunday night is Oscars night, and my friend Sharon and I have gotten into the habit of making sure we never miss the pre-show portion of the broadcast (the red carpet fashion). The only other parts of the awards broadcast we really pay attention to are the announcements of the winners for best original and best adapted screenplays. As writers, we have dreamed of winning an Oscar and believe that any screenwriter who states otherwise is just not telling the truth. I think we really pay attention because we know what kinds of battles these screenwriters have been through, including computer crashes and painful reviews. But they persisted. And there they are! And so when we watch Sunday night, we will be very still until the winners have been announced, and we’ll applaud no matter who wins.
Two notes:
If you do read the scene I mentioned, here’s the setup: it’s about a woman whose famous artist father is dying. Around the time of his death, she discovers some sinister things about him. The woman he refers to in the scene is his late wife.
About the cookies: the photo is a few years old. And the film in the picture is Standard 16mm film that had been sitting in our fridge for years. I bugged Wolf to shoot something with it, but he never got around to it. By the time I made these cookies, he said the film was probably not usable, so he gave it to me. Apparently no one uses Standard 16mm anymore. Not true. I do. Just not for filmmaking.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
i couldn’t imagine my computer crashing like that. yowzers.
but i can imagine eating those cookies…
have fun oscar watching!
When my students lose a paper, I tell them the rewrite may actually be better than the original. I don’t really believe that–it’s meant as consolation.
If they don’t have as much time to recompose what they’d originally done, a sort of grief underlies the new version, as if they couldn’t keep resentment, disappointment, resignation, or loss from seeping into their work. Reading your lovely scene, I wondered about that too–how everything you did during the long night after losing your work might have really been about its departure.
Maybe there’s a doctoral thesis about that for Hemingway too.
The scene contains so many cross-cutting statements–witticisms hiding something sharper–I loved it.
Thank you for citing my post… and your wonderful response to it… and enjoy the Oscars!
Wow! What a story. I’m glad you were able to finish your script. Can’t believe your classmate wouldn’t let you use the computer till you finished. Anywho, you were victorious!
Paz
I absolutely love what you wrote. So fresh and funny and tender.
Very nice Mari! What a nightmare you experienced.