the blog. (2010)

Catch up on the 2010 entries of The Blog, where the CSSC chronicled the rise of new talent, shared writing tips, and celebrated the year’s top short screenplays from Canada and beyond, curated by #WW Laureate Carolynne Ciceri.

The Blog > Archives > 2010

Gone Fishing

Carolynne Ciceri

22 Dec 2010

Time to stop fooling around on the Internet with Total Wipeout playing on the TV in the background. About nine billion things I should be doing running the gamut from writing this blog post to taking out the garbage and all tasks literary and domestic in between. There is chicken to marinate in buttermilk, a dishwasher to be unloaded and loaded again, hair to be brushed, the contents of the mending box which were dumped all over the floor while rushing to get ready for last night’s Canadian Tenors concert. Which by the way was brilliant. A comment that I want to add a few heartfelt expletives to, but that doesn’t really seem in keeping with most of their fan base, so I’ll confine my off colour remarks to the cancelling of Stargate Universe.

I’ve joined the Save SG-U Facebook page which should be worth fifty times a normal person since I hate joining anything. How’s that for an expression of extreme self esteem? No, really I hate joining things. Commitment of any kind is not my friend. I feel that showing up for work when I’m supposed to and suffering the slings and arrows to earn a living is all the commitment that I’m really up for. Hey, my signature cocktail is called “Fear of Commitment” so that tells you all you need to know. Anyway, enough about me and my neuroses and about canceling a show I like and watch. I even watch it on TV, with commercials. Rats. Now I’ve got myself so annoyed I’m going to go sharpen a knife and get that chicken into the buttermilk. With a touch of cayenne pepper and salt in case you want to know. More after I work out some cranky on the chicken carcass.

Alright. The chicken has experienced my wrath and I fear it will wreak its revenge upon me later as I might have gotten a tad carried away with the cayenne. In any event, I am still thoroughly annoyed that a well written sci-fi show is canceled when there is a preponderance of mediocrity out there still going strong. Well I’ve done my fanly bit by lodging my request to Save SG-U with the Powers that Be, so the only other way I can think to change things on the dial is by continuing to hammer on the writer’s room door and continue producing script pages of quality. Maybe someday soon I’ll have enough of those that can stack them in a pile, climb on top, lever open the grill on the HVAC and crawl inside. Can’t you see me, sweaty, breathless but determined, inching my way through miles, well yards, of aluminum duct work only to crash through the drop ceiling and into the writer’s room? Dry wall dust, twisted metal and a flutter of spec script pages and post-its mark my abrupt passage from horizontal in the ceiling to horizontal on the conference table. Just cause nobody’s ever heard of someone successfully using Guerilla tactics to get in the room doesn’t mean it can’t happen.

Instead though, this holiday season I will eschew (your word of the week), practicing my hard entry techniques and focus on doing the work. So in the lush and expansive interval away from my day job I will finish the script for the feature length Rom Com, which is fully outlined and about 15 pages in. I will finish rewrites on Rain Girls original pilot and get it proofed for use in agent hunting. I will make the agent hunting plan which means crafting the dreaded query letter and making a list of agents that might take the time to read it. Then gotta have the writing samples package ready to email off within 5 minutes of getting the request. Hmm, what else. Oh, yah, have to do my video pitch for the Crazy8′s competition. I’d better stop walking barefoot around the apartment humming excerpts from that Bach partita for violin transcribed for the guitar and figure out how to charm the Crazy8′s jury. So far I’ve got paper dolls and begging which I don’t think will do the trick.

Then, of course, there are the loglines for the first 13 episodes of Rain Girls to iron out. A new spec script to bang out – for Flashpoint I think, so the use of “bang out” is justified. I’ve got an idea for an episode that just won’t leave me alone so I’d better write it and get it out of the mental logjam. Or at least do a beat sheet. Jeepers. Then there are the two new series pitches to have in shape before Banff and the play to finish. A script that could make a good low budget feature and therefore is a twofer and worth the effort. Not to mention I should try and reconnect with a couple friends and colleagues once the family time is done. Ah, how could I forget, I have a friend’s first novel to read and comment upon – a must do since Squish has always been a super cheerleader and reader for me.

I just read back over that last paragraph and am feeling a bit nauseous. Think someone has bitten off a tad more than she can chew as the year turns round again? Me too. Interesting, spell check thinks “twofer” is a word.

All that to say my lovelies, is that I hope you will forgive me if I put out the “Gone Fishin’” sign next week in an attempt to put a few more check marks against items on my literary To Do list. I promise to return in the new year full of vim and tales of Dragons slain and family Trivial Pursuit games dominated.

Happy Holidays all! Please eat, dance, play and stay safe – I’ll kiss you all in the New Year.

Loving the Fear Monkeys

Carolynne Ciceri

15 Dec 2010

Another Tuesday night riding the post-guitar lesson high while at the same time trying to settle down and tackle this week’s blog topic (which is not quite as joyful as the music lesson endorphin rush– But then few things are). Mind you this week I began to learn “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” so perhaps the fact that it does seem a bit strange to be bubbly and enthusiastic over taking on what is properly considered a melancholy tune is in keeping with this week’s overall writerly activity in the Cocoverse. There was a lot of fear this week. Lots and lots of fear and, thankfully some overcoming of fear with Secret Santa at the end so don’t be too worried; it all comes right in the end. And I get a present.

The topic of fear is one that has arisen before in this writer’s life (see Blog the 11th: Thirteen Lines) and as I was mulling over what to write this week I thought I’d better search the archive to make sure I don’t repeat myself. Then I marveled for a few minutes over the fact that my posts for this blog have accumulated to such a point that I have to refresh my memory by checking back through them. My memory NEVER needs refreshing. It’s a bit of a fresh issue for me. Makes for a good writer, a good memory, but also big therapy bills. Then I got to thinking that it doesn’t matter so much if I’ve talked about fear before, since if, here it is again, obviously it needs to be addressed further.

A colleague once told me, in the resonant tones that indicated that she was quoting a higher power, that the only two motivating factors for any behavior are fear or love. I love grand absolute statements like that because they really get me going. Not only in examining my own life but when writing a character I come back time and again and ask myself whether they are being motivated by fear or love. But what about Fear of being loved? or Fear of never being loved? I guess that is still fear. The thing that I think I have learned though, through many years of battling my fear demons.– which look allot like the flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz movie by the way — anywhoo, what I’ve learned is that people and motivations are nowhere near as black and white as my old colleague wished them to be. Mind you she was a very binary type person whereas I myself seem to be more of a fractal (your word of the week) or even a fuzzy logic type person.

And is as much as I would love to think of myself as being entirely a single varietal from the south slope of a famous vineyard – maybe a rich fruity Shiraz – only motivated by Love, the truth for myself and my characters is, I fear, that I’m more of a fruit smoothie. Motivationally speaking I think that I’m one of those crazy juice bar fruit smoothies that use kelp and blueberries and ambergris all whipped up with a banana and a raw egg.

As confused I as remain about my motivations, from time to time I do manage to rise up, step beyond my fear and take a stab at advancing my writing career. This past weekend I slapped the fear monkeys back from the castle gate, grabbed an umbrella and went down to the Van City Centre to sign up for the Crazy8s film competition. The deluge of emails from folk suggesting it might be a way to get The Lobby on film (5th place finalist CSSC 08/09); in particular a few emails from Women in Film and Television (WIFT) actually double dog daring me to apply did the trick. Right up until the moment I stood in line I nearly backed out. Do I really want to put myself through another competition? Spend my holiday break preparing a video pitch? Get my hopes up? Yah, I guess so. At the end of the day you have to make the call, do I want this enough to risk failing? Yep I do. So whoo hoo for me, for slapping my 50 hard earned bucks on the line and trusting that if I move forward with the dream in the Real World the stars will align both there and in the Cocoverse and I’ll get a piece of creative writing on film.

So that is two biggies this month. I told you about applying for the CTV Diverse Writer program, in an earlier post but I didn’t tell you the whole story. I admit I was holding back the Fear of Success section of the tale. In conversation earlier this week with Princess Gwenilian, the Grammar Nazi, the whole truth came out. She and I have an ongoing dialogue about the Fear of Success and the Fear of Failure. For myself, I’m still not entirely clear on the difference between them. But since I seem to have a healthy dose of both, I just offer up my little stories and she does the taxonomy for me.

The Fear of Success story goes thusly: After a very late night tweaking and a very early morning printing copies on the super slow home printer, two copies of magnificent 68 page application hit the courier envelope at lunch hour on the day before deadline. Last thing on the check list before envelope sealing was completing the two page application which was to front the package. Done and sealed and pickup called in and back to my desk to eat a sandwich before the lunch hour clock runs out, As I’m chewing away and congratulating myself on another successful campaign against the Fear Monkeys a stray thought bubbles to the surface of my self-satisfied, but sleep deprived brain. Question: “In the application form section where I describe my diversity, did I actually finish that sentence? I was writing longhand… got interrupted, put pen down…” Uh-oh. Given that I’m not just a fine writer, but a well trained producer, I did keep a reference copy of the application for my records. I put the sandwich down and rifle through the application copy to check that little…Sh*&! In this key section on the first page of the application, I describe my diversity: Female/Over 40/Physically Challenged/Psyco.

Yep you read that right. The sentence was supposed to end “Psychotherapy Survivor” a light-hearted and humorous reference to my life-long battle with my own Black Dog of Depression. It should not have a misspelled “Psyco” as a descriptor of the fourth aspect of my Diversity. How’s that for a Fear of Success? Not only a misspelled word on the front page of an application for a professional writing program, but a declaration that I’m whacka doo. Who could resist inviting that person into a writer’s room?

The sandwich forgotten, I grab the white-out and a fresh envelope, dash out to the reception area, fix the typo, reseal the envelope, and the courier arrives for pick-up. As the truck pulls away, I wave goodbye to the 68 pages (times two), carrying my hopes and dreams and a little bit of white-out, on its way at long last to the big plane that will carry to the big smoke for judgment.

Say, maybe the next time the Black Dog has me by the throat I should throw a couple Fear Monkeys at him and make a break for the Glade of Sanctuary at the heart of the Enchanted Forest? See the Cocoverse isn’t all scary, there are even a few places with sidewalk cafes that serve strong coffee and fine apple fritters.

Until next week, good luck with your own Fear Monkeys.

– Carolynne

P.S. While the origin of the expression “double-dog dare you” isn’t entirely clear, it does appear to date to the turn of the last century and it is childish. So there you go, sort of appropriate then for a childish old person, which is as apt a description of a screenwriter as I’ve ever seen.

P.P.S. Secret Santa brought me coffee, chocolate and a custom Christmas Tree ornament that has a picture of the Canadian Tenors and a greeting “Merry Christmas Carolynne”. Santa knows me well.

Do I have IT?

Carolynne Ciceri

8 Dec 2010

“What are you going to write about on your blog this week, Carolynne? I can hardly wait. I so enjoyed your last post. And the pickles one? Really hilarious!” chirps the chirpy co-worker. “Yah, well, pickles are funny.” My reply could be described as resembling a mutter. And yes, it was cleverly calculated to side step the Elephantine Question in the room. Cripes. I’ve already written a blog with elephants in it, am I repeating myself already? I could blame the pressure of THE Blog being top five finalists in the Canadian Weblog Awards for this touch of writer’s block. But you know what? It wouldn’t really be true. I’m not sure the issue is even classic writer’s block. It’s not that I can’t write. It’s that I don’t know what I want to write. I’m bored. I’m bored with me. That is usually a good thing for my screenwriting because I’m so bored with being me that sneaking off to pretend to be a bunch of other people sounds just the thing to put a smile on my face.

Writing this blog, however, is not the same kind of escapist writing at all. Hmmm. Though I guess since I’m the boss of me I guess that it could be. Nothing to say I can’t change it up this week and write a bit of fantasy for at least your amusement if not your edification. I don’t know though, seems a bit self indulgent of me to subject you to a piece of off-the-cuff fantasy writing when you came to read something possibly useful to your own understanding of screenwriting as a business/art form/vocation/delusion.

Just an aside, but check out the changes to the way Telefilm is planning on funding writers. Interesting their explanation that the way the program had previously been run (Writer’s First), was in the hopes of Canadian screenwriters creating a big whack of marketable scripts, but what they got instead was 328 scripts funded and less than 2% actually made. They seem to think that is an unsatisfactory return on investment, and who am I to say one way or another, but my math says that means 6 features got made out of a pile of 328 scripts (in 10 years). And that is a bad stat because? Anyone got a stat on how many scripts that get written overall and then produced?

It would be an interesting question even just to ask one of the big agencies or production companies “How many feature script submissions do you receive annually?” “What percentage do you option?” “What percentage makes it into production?” Hmmm. I’ll look into that for all of us and see what comes up. Still it seems to me that stat shows from around 33 scripts funded annually that 1.6 scripts is produced, or if you have an aversion to fractions. – every two years about 65 scripts are written, three of which make it to the screen. So continuing with my number play (forgive me for offering up this little peek into my OCD’ness – it usually only comes out when buying lemons or grating cheese – but that’s another story), that shows that for every 21 scripts funded that one got made. Again my question is, that’s a bad stat because?

Now with Telefilm’s “Premier Writers Program” you essentially need to be a full time professional screenwriter (with a box office hit, major film fest award or 10 hours of produced TV) to access any funding at all and that money is a repayable “advance”. Which then seems to me to say that Telefilm is, with respect to writers, acting like a bank offering bridge financing to a business with major assets and holdings? Again, who am I to say that this isn’t exactly how we want Telefilm to encourage quality screenwriting in this country. But is it? I’m just asking. And at the risk of having to eat my words someday, if I’m a screenwriter at the career level they now require, I’ll be damned if I need funds from Telefilm. Given the paucity (your word of the week) of financing opportunities for emerging screenwriters in this country it sort of seems like a really awful way to spend my tax dollars.

Reminds me a bit of my bemusement (your second word of the week since I forgot to give you one last week), years ago in my days at Vancouver Opera when I would read about the Canada Council awarding $25,000 grants to new or emerging singers and then when reading the names of the awardees, shaking my head. Given that at the time I was privy to a large volume of personal information about some of these folks, I knew that all had already received huge cash prizes or big contracts. It struck me hard at the time, and obviously stayed with me, that the Canada Council was awfully late to the party and wondering how much these “new” stars could have really used the money five years previous.

Is this a Canadian thing to wait to be told what art or artist is good and worthy before we dare speak up? Or is it just part of the human psyche that ticks me off because I don’t have a lack of confidence in my ability to spot talent. I don’t need anyone else’s opinion of a piece of writing or a performer to form my own. They stand up and sing, and I say, that person really has IT going on. I then tell them so, and buy their home made CD and make an intro to someone in the biz as I am able. I read a piece of writing and I can tell if the IT is there, regardless of typos or structure issues. So okay, maybe it is just me and my massive overconfidence in my ability to spot IT. Even way back in my salad days (spot the literary reference) when I stood on the very lowest rung of the Opera world hierarchy one of my senior colleagues looked at me thoughtfully one day and commented that I seemed to have an extraordinary ability to spot talent. I took the statement as gospel and at face value but now that I see it in writing I’m wondering if she wasn’t commenting on my ability to date above my station. Now Marianne Faithful I’m not, but truth to tell my dating choices were always selected by amount of talent which, to this day far out-ways considerations of money, power or physical attractiveness. So if you are lucky enough to meet me someday and I not only compliment your talent, but try and pick you up – you may rest assured that if nothing else, you have IT.

Despite this rant I’m not saying that the Premiere Writer’s program is a bad thing necessarily, I mean it was evidently conceived by a number of industry insiders, who unlike me, are actually in the room, so I like to think they know what they are doing and I wish them well. But where are the little bits and bobs of seed money given to emerging talent? I’m not saying I think someone should pay my rent just because I have a way with words and might produce the next Genie award winning best picture script. But a little bit of money for emerging talent could really go a very long way. Think of how much faster my feature script would be finished if I could afford to work with a story editor, send the laundry out and pay for the innumerable takeout dinners as I hammer away at my solitary pursuit, after clocking in a full day at the day job. What would a few thousand in travel bursaries for conferences and workshops do? Or jeepers the $9.81 long distance charge for a 28 minute phone call to a development executive about re-writes.

So kudos to the few folk out there who are indeed trying to act locally in an effort to effect change globally and take a risk on developing new talent instead of throwing cash at those already well underway. And that would be, gee, David Cormican the Canadian Short Screenplay Competition for coming up with not only the biggest cash prize for a short script, but for actually getting some of those scripts in the can – Seeing in the Dark, Rusted Pyre and Minus Lara. Here in BC the Hot Shots and Crazy8 competitions. And wow, I’ve run out of people to thank already. Although the new CTV Diverse Screenwriter’s Program presented by the WGC, Praxis, Global, NSI and the CFC all have programs that can benefit entry level writers, none of them actually offer cash, usually just opportunities for further training, which while crucial, means more time and money going out of the bank account and not in.

Yep, it’s cold and lonely out here in the emerging writer’s room, generally a plastic tarp located in the extra’s parking lot behind the honey wagons. Another aside here, if you don’t know the expression “in the can” or “honey wagon” you really need to do some more reading about the film biz.

In conclusion, not really raspberries to the Canada Council, HG Fund, Telefilm, BC Arts Council, and all the millions of you waiting to jump on the successful writer’s bandwagon, but not props either. Please do spend some of my tax money contributed from my toiling at the day job to figure out a few ways to get some bus money into the hands of people who demonstrate some talent rather than market appeal. I’ll bet you that $9.81 you’ll be able to spot the next Genie award winning screenwriter by reading a piece of their writing, rather than their credit list.

Okay, I guess we sort of figured out what this blog post was going to be about through the mechanism of the aside. Funny, I had thought I was finally going to bite the bullet and write about how to get an agent. This is far more important for me to do than you to read, since I don’t have an agent yet. Moreover, I’ve been dragging my feet about making a plan to get one. I met a coupla nice possibilities at Banff last year and now that I do have an original TV pilot, a polished spec script and a couple new pieces of hardware on the shelf, it really is time to make a plan. Yup, it really is. Maybe next week. For now the day job lunch hour is done and I must return to generating the tax dollars that will allow one of my more prominent colleagues to chase the dream.

Sucking and Blowing

Carolynne Ciceri

1 Dec 2010

Jimminy Crickets! So much writerly type stuff to write about this week I don’t know where to begin. So since my brain feels like a big pot of cooked spaghetti, I may as well use the ole’ tried and true method of determining done’ness: grab a handful out of the pot, throw it at the wall and whatever sticks, ah, sticks. Huh. I didn’t think that one through very well did I? It was all very visual and illustrative but doesn’t apply very elegantly to the task of sorting out the tangled strands of thought.

Okay, Carolynne there you go. What you are looking for is not a metaphor to determine “done’ness” but one to help you “untangle”. Tangled thoughts, like the yarn in the knitting basket over by the couch that sits untouched and unloved ever since you abandoned knitting for guitar playing. Oh, or better yet tangled like the cord for the iPhone ear buds currently resting on the bookcase by the front door. I swear those things exist in a perpetual knot. You can even lay them down on the bookcase in a perfect straight line but the next morning when you pick them up… Tangled. If I added all the time I spend untangling my ear buds to my daily writing time I might approach the literary output of …

Yikes, that was a mistake. I decide to Google the world’s most prolific English language novelists and found Mrs. Mary Faulkner of South Africa lands in the number one spot with 904 novels written in 70 years of life. So, doing the math, if we assume that she didn’t write her first book ’til she was ten, that’s 15 novels per year, again assume just for fun 365 pages per novel. That’s only 15 pages of about 500 words a day. So 7,500 words of finished prose a day. Sure no problem. You see what can happen if you hare off to the Internet in mid sentence to look up some tasty tidbit?

While it is true that you may zip off for 45 secs, check a fact and immediately return to task, it is far more likely that you will end up getting lost in a data forest, wander around a while, end up checking prices on Canadian Tenors tickets, look for a brownie recipe you can make with the ingredients on hand, source antique prints of paintings originally done by your Great-Great Uncle Eugene, Google-stalk a couple of ex-boyfriends just because you haven’t for a while, and feed your imaginary livestock on your imaginary farm before coming back to the page. But that isn’t the worst thing that can happen. The worst thing tat can happen is that you, in all your bright shiny I-wanna-be-a-screenwriter naiveté, head out there into the Cyber Abyss, trip over a perfectly turned genius chunk of prose that someone careless left lying around and fall headfirst into the Doubting Writer’s Swamp.

That is exactly the place where reading of Mrs. Faulkner’s life accomplishment just about pushed me. I was only saved this time from a good soaking in the scum covered Pond of Self Criticism by one of the gnarly old DeadLine Trees that line the Doubting Writer’s Swamp perimeter. The DeadLine Trees, in this particular case (Writer Wednesday Blog tree), is the one that I clutched desperately enough to break a guitar fingernail. Fortunately, having been growing for 24 weeks, it is sufficiently sturdy to bear up under the weight of my self doubt.

Do you think that writers and artists are so bedeviled by self doubt because to be any good at creating material that has wide-spread resonance with the rest of humankind you need to have significant parts of you be deeply analytical, questioning and unrelenting? Maybe even unforgiving?

That is the second time in 48 hours I’ve been clutching at the sharp protuberances of a DeadLine tree teetering on the edge of the aforementioned Swamp.

Monday night in the wee hours I was agonizing over my application for the CTV Diverse Screenwriter’s Program presented by the WGC. I did it. It is done and in and Amen. But man there were about twenty minutes in the wee hours of the morning where I was sucked so down into the swamp of self-doubt I very nearly drowned. I was tired, I was sick, I was tweaking and fiddling and pulling together the writing samples. Mind you the letter was written, CV printed, reference letter glowing, etc, etc. The thing was really all done except for the printing and signing but I was suddenly and completely convinced that I was wasting my time. That I am a truly deluded and talentless hack and the committee was going to shake their head over my application before sending off to the shredder and a new life as toilet paper.

Of course when I say that S#!T out loud in the presence of co-workers and friends I get a lovely chorus of shocked and disparaging grunts and annoyed outbursts of “you know that’s not true!” and “are you kidding me?” “you are a great writer!”. Now I’m sitting here feeling a little bit embarrassed that I shared this with you. I know it sounds like begging for compliments, and maybe it is, but I’m really trying to show you that the constant interplay between reality and fantasy in the mind of a writer is, well, constant!

I pushed aside the complete certainty of my writing suckage and sent off the application because I got mad at myself. I was mad because this self-doubt was trying to prevent me from trying. Big deal if I fail. I’ve failed before, and as sure as the earth rotates I’ll fail again. But you can’t let the fear keep you from trying. And yes, applying for stuff is hard. You assess your whole life and self and dreams, all that S#!T when putting together an application like that. It hurts man, to try and explain yourself, it hurts like hell to ask for things you want and need. But if you need to be a writer, you need to put it out there.

This is the place where I tell you to get your short script in for the CSSC competition or whatever piece of writing you need to let go of that you keep picking at instead of submitting. You might not be the best judge of you, so share it and see what happens. No worries, I promise you even if your script wins, personal experience tells me after 1.62 minutes of joy you’ll fabricate some new reason to feel crappy about your writing.

This is also the place where I tell you that the day after the long dark night of sucking and blowing the noxious fumes at the edge of the Doubting Writer’s Swamp that I received an email informing me that this blog is a top five finalist for a 2010 Canadian Weblog Award in the Writing and Literary category. Perhaps a sign that what Mr. Cormican, Mr. Andrews and I are putting up in this particular cyberspace neither sucks nor blows. So I’m going off to enjoy my 1.62 minutes of joy.

There. The 1.62 minutes of joy is over now because I decided to Google “prolific screenwriters” and got me a list of the 13 most prolific screenwriters working in Hollywood today. Not a single woman’s name on the list. Now there is something that both Sucks and Blows.

First Law of The Cocoverse

Carolyn Ciceri

24 Nov 2010

Not sure if this will turn into a blog post, a rant, a prayer or a big whiney, gloopy, dump of self-pity. I sometimes wonder if writing self-pitying prose merely leads to an ever-deepening cycle of self-pity, or if vomiting forth on to the page truly has a cathartic effect. Okay, just looked up the word and it means laxative or purgative. Ick. It can be your word of the week, but go wash your hands before you read the rest.

Let’s start again, and use this post as an example of why I habitually cut the first paragraph, or first few scenes off the front of any writing that I intend on showing other human beings. Okay, as backstory, I do have the flu so perhaps I’m feeling a bit less sunshiny than usual; exacerbated by trying to meet a big day job deadline from my sickbed. Oh, hey, that’s a great word, “exacerbate,” let’s make that the word of the week. Fits with the blog topic too, don’t you think?

I won’t bore you with a list of my symptoms—pretty sure you’ve had the flu before, so can figure it out yourself. Also, I have decided this is not going to be a whim-whiney blog of self-pity after all. Nope. Even though the topic came out of me whining to a friend about the issue. She said, “you should write a blog about that.” Good idea. Also it made me shut up and go away, so she gets big friend points for getting rid of me without hurting my feelings while teaching me the lesson that one person’s irritation is another’s inspired literary rant.

Not that this will be a rant either. My toes are cold, my nose aches, and daytime cold medicine sucks, but all that puts me in a curl up and whimper mood, not a dance around unleashing bolts of fire from mouth and fingertips mood, as would typically be seen in a rant.

Round about now you should be wondering “when is she going to get to the bloody topic already?”. And if you aren’t then I haven’t done my job; deliberately irritating you whilst drawing you ever deep into my world, the Cocoverse.

If there were a First Law of the Cocoverse, it might just be – Leave Me Alone When I’m Writing. Garbo had it right, man, I do so want to be alone. Now, if you are a writer, around now a bunch of you are already nodding your heads in affirmation and you haven’t even read the series of events that inspired this topic, nor the supporting arguments for leaving a writer the hell alone when they are trying to write!

I’ve had two emails and one IM in the same two hour period on Monday from friends all complaining that I’m being too quiet. Not enough tweeting, emailing and Facebooking, not enough dropping by their office cubicle, not enough with the witty text messages. Then, when they do get me in a conversation I don’t have much to say. Not what they expect from someone they usually can’t get to shut up about anything. “Sorry,” I say, “I don’t have anything new to report. I’ve just been writing.” …“On what?” they ask. “How many pages?” they ask. “Is it going well?” they ask. “When can I read something?” they ask.

At least that’s what happens, unless they’ve pre-decided that my silence means either there is something seriously wrong with me, or wrong with us. That’s when I get a taste of what I put some of my ex-boyfriends through. “There’s nothing wrong. I’m not depressed. I’m just writing a lot.” “It’s not you. It’s me. I’m in my own head right now.” “I’m not ignoring you, I’m just writing.” “If it makes you feel any better I’m not answering anyone’s emails in a timely fashion.” None of this is ever what they want to hear, and I’m not sure I’m ever truly believed but seriously people, shush already, I’M WRITING!

There are a handful that get it, and back off with a cheerful rah-rah you-go-girl-call-me-when-you-can, but most, I still get a whiff of she-loves-her-writing-more-than-she-loves-me off of them. Wow. I’m going to need a trip to Hyphens Anonymous after this post.

I’m not sure how other writers deal with this enormous weight of guilt about neglecting the needs of the relationships in one’s life. Maybe it is so bad in the Cocoverse because the principal architect of all creation (me) has a tyrannical conscience. That’s an actual psychiatric diagnosis by the way. Just a bit of fallout from being not only born and raised Catholic, but bred into the bone Catholic.

It just feels like there is this enormous pressure to write both internally and externally. Everyone wants me to write, but it is only those, who, are themselves taking the path of the artist that understand this tremendous push-pull on the psyche. And I’m not talking about being busy. Lots of people are crazy busy with work and kids and volunteering and pets and hobbies and commitments, but those are all real world things.

When you write, you world-build. In a very real way you need to leave the here-and-now and travel the Land-of-What-If-and-Maybe (LOWIM). The struggle for me is that it is almost impossible to come all the way back to the here-and-now every day. Part of Coco has to stay in the Cocoverse to stay connected to the story. As delightful and fulfilling as the demands of friends and family, they are still, well, demands.

I wonder if the truth of stories of inflated egos and legendary selfishness from many great artists comes from the insistence of those artists that they must stay within the universe of their making in order to create the art that both their muse and the rabble of the here-and-now insist upon. Without a Picassoverse or a Mahlerverse or Pollockverse or a StevenKingverse with defined borders and a clear and powerful ruler, would we have their art? Know their names?

Stuff to ponder I guess. I’m not ever sure if I’m proudly defiant or apologetic and embarrassed that sometimes I don’t come all the way back out of LOWIM or the Cocoverse, even when I’m supposed to, or you think I have. I’m a pretty decent actress and you may never be aware that I’m not really with you at all during a conversation.

For those that know me best, they at least suspect it. A former roommate once gave me a copy of Jane Urquhart’s novel “Away” and told me that she’d never read a literary character more like me. I wasn’t even insulted by the fact that the heroine is completely mad because I was so astonished that she’d seen so accurately who I really am. She knew that I struggle each and every day to come back to you and participate in our shared reality. That who I really am and where I really live is not here-and-now and hasn’t been since I was about seven years old. It is a conscious choice I make every day, and I only make the decision to come back to you all because I do love you all and want to share the wonders of LOWIM with you as I’m able. Even if there are many things about that world you don’t understand or find distasteful, or irrelevant, it is still brimming with magic and mayhem and things which delight.

If you are a writer or artist I suppose you need to define the boundaries and laws of your own Cocoverse. Mine is still very much a young country with much to learn about self governance and international relations as well as negotiating a few outstanding border disputes. And if you aren’t artistically inclined, but know, support and love someone who is regularly and determinedly trying to transcend the here-and-now, please be tolerant of when and how they go Away. They will come back with treasure to lay at your feet if you greet them with a hug and a warm fire. Oh, and Italian Hot Chocolate – Cioccolata Calda. It’s the only kind served in the Cocoverse.

I’m Away now, back soon with treasure,
Coco

Bullet-proof Your Screenplay in 10 Easy Steps Before Entering A Script Contest

David Cormican

19 Nov 2010

AKA. The Biggest Mistake Writers Make When Entering a Screenplay Competition

Zip your writing fly before you go out in public. With your script, that is.

You can make so many mistakes when entering a screenplay competition it can feel as though you’re making your way across a minefield. Checking to make sure your screenplay meets the criteria of the competition, researching the company sponsoring it and remembering to include the cheque when sending in the script are just a few of the things you must remember with when submitting your screenplay. But the consensus among professionals is that the biggest mistake you can make is not having your script ready before you submit it.

Industry professionals frequently lament that truly great writing is really rare. This might not be the case if more writers practiced patience and took the time to really polish their scripts before submitting them. You wouldn’t go out in public without checking to make sure your fly is zipped (hopefully), and sending out your screenplay before it’s ready is the script contest submission equivalent.

So how do you get your script ready? It’s hard to see the gestalt of your story when you’re immersed in the details. Here’s a few tips you can try out to make sure your next script is ready:

1. When you’ve completed your first draft, print it off and leave it in a drawer. Don’t look at it for six weeks, minimum. Go on to your next idea. Just forget this script ever existed for six weeks.
2. When six weeks have passed, take the screenplay out of the drawer. Mark it up; make the changes that need to be made. It’s an easy way to keep track of your changes as long as your edits are neat.
3. Waiting for so long to read your script will allow you to be the reader instead of the writer. Every cut bleeds for the writer, but the reader in you will immediately see what needs to be changed.
4. When your second draft is done, go through this process again. You probably don’t need six weeks—even a couple of days might do it—but you should leave enough time so you have a fresh eye. Do this with each draft until you’re satisfied with your script. Don’t give into temptation to be sloppy because so many things get changed during production, anyway.
5. Now it’s ready to send out to your beta readers. Your beta readers should be the industry professionals, writers, and writing consultants that make up your arsenal of people who check to make sure your writing fly is zipped before you leave the house.
6. Pretty soon, your beta readers will start sending you feedback. If there’s a general consensus that an element needs to be changed, you’d do well to listen.
7. Okay, you’ve made the necessary changes. Once more it’s time to put the script back in the drawer and take it out again. If you once again feel a sense of finality about the script, your mind doesn’t wander as you read it, and you can’t imagine the events happening any other way, your screenplay is almost ready to send out.
8. Make sure you copy-edit and proofread. This is a different step than content editing. Copy editing is making slight content changes to the script: polishing dialogue, touching up directions. Proofreading is meticulously going through your script to catch typos and grammatical errors. Your spell checker will catch many of these, but if you’ve confused “its” for “it’s” (“its” is possessive, “it’s” is a contraction of “it is”) or accidentally spelled “pouring” when you meant “poring,” a spell checker won’t help you. This step is important because you’re not always going to have the luxury of time to outsource this step if you get hired for a rewrite or even to write another script.
9. Okay, proofreading done. Do you know the script so well you can recite dialogue in your sleep? Is it free of errors? Is it formatted correctly? Yes? Congratulations! It’s now ready to submit to the competition, executives, broadcasters, producers, studios, etc..
10. Time to celebrate.

You might be saying to yourself, “Yeah, but if I go that route, I’ll have missed the deadline for the competition.” You might, but you’re better off submitting something you’re really proud of. You don’t want a mediocre product going out with your name on it. Besides, the good competitions stick around year after year. Better to make sure your writing fly is zipped before you go out in public.

Green Eyes and Serotonin

Carolynne Ciceri

17 Nov 2010

It can be very easy when you are heading into the year X as an “Emerging Writer” to maybe get a little bit discouraged by the fact that while one is still writing, one is also still emerging. Over the past several weeks a number of my friends and acquaintances have had some rather lovely things happen for them which have poked me a little bit in my envy muscle. And it’s not that I’m jealous, for I have at long last figured out the difference between envy and jealously. Yeah, I know it took me long enough, especially since it is the sort of thing a wordsmith should know.

Jealousy is either the state of anxiety over someone being unfaithful (potentially or actually), or the resentment of someone who has received or achieved something which you don’t think they deserve, or that you wanted for yourself. Envy is coveting the something or someone that someone else has, so while I envy my sister’s new Honda CRV, ’cause I want one too, I’m not jealous ’cause I don’t resent her having it, God knows the girl deserves a little happy and a nice new ride with what all she’s been through.

There was a 24 hour period within this last year where I was variously and independently described as “a very jealous person” by one person and as “the least jealous person I know” by another. Both people who know me both long and well. Interesting huh? I guess you see the green of my eyes differently depending on how the light hits me. From where I’m squinting into the mirror though they were both inaccurate. In the first instance, I was thoughtless, not jealous, and in the second I was being joyful and supportive because I now really and truly enjoy when good stuff happens to people I know. Mostly because it keeps me hopeful that something great is going to happen to me and alright, maybe a teensy, tiny bit because they are a nice person or have worked hard or have been through something tough. See, it really is all about me.

Though I gotta say, learning to tame or harness, your own green-eyed monster is, I think an important part of being an effective and sought after creative professional. A few years back I made an intensely concerted effort to be a more positive person all across the board and, at long last, celebrating other’s successes immediately and whole-heartedly seems to be my default position. Not that the green-eyed monster doesn’t stick up its scaly paw from time to time with a wave and a mutter, trying to get my attention. But it usually shuts up and goes back to sleep after I give it a pat of acknowledgement on the head. It’s the elevated serotonin levels that make him sleepy. I’ve found out for my own self that what the self-help gurus and scientific researchers have been telling us is true. You can choose to be happy, and if you do, you will, eventually, feel genuinely happy. It has something to do with retraining the synaptic pathways in your brain, which is plastic by the way, which will be your word of the week since I’m using it for its early 20th century meaning before rigid hydro-carbon byproducts formed into containers for leftover goulash bogarted the meaning.

Back to the plastic brain and celebrating other peoples happy. Celebrating other peoples happy now gives me a pure rush of pleasure. And sometimes, I will dance. As I did when my dear friend landed a great and terrifically fun guest starring role in my favorite TV series – Supernatural. The fact that she got to spend two days with two guys who feature prominently on my personal Hottest-Guys-Ever list and on my favorite show (for which I have a polished spec script by the way, should anyone care to read it), did cause my eyes to move from their natural aquamarine to the greener end of the spectrum, but I was so over the moon for her. People, she got paid to pretend to be an expert on fairies and most importantly, paid to flirt with Jensen Ackles. She even got to touch him. Sigh. See dreams really do come true. So what if it was my dream and it came true for her. It means that these things are possible and they do happen.

Give it a try the next time a writer or actor or any kind of friend shares a piece of happy. Make celebrating for them your default stance. I also find it chases me back to my desk to keep writing as well as topping up the serotonin levels in the ole noggin.

And here is a shout out to some of the amazing folks that have shared their happy with me this week. Actor and Voice Coach extraordinaire, Trish Allen who guest stars in Supernatural this week (“Clap Your Hands if You Believe” on Space and CW network Friday night); Jessica Holt my new writer peep who not only got plucked from the Set Dec department and transformed into the Vampire Queen during a shoot last week, but also had her ½ hour comedy script win the CBC 3-2-1 award which will result in her first broadcast credit and thus open for herself all those funding doors so firmly slammed in the faces of emerging writers still out in the credit-less cold. Brava baby, way to resist being put in a creative box! To Elena Kirschner, talent agent, who looked happy and elegant, as all get out, in her backstage at the Gemini Awards photo, celebrating the success of her clients and cheering on the host, the oh-so-charming Cory Monteith of Glee fame. To writer /illustrator Paola Opal (author of Saffy et. al) who inked a deal for the creation of two more children’s books! You my dear are first, last and always my work ethic and artistic inspiration. By the way people, she draws every day. Every day. Mr. David Cormican, founder of the Canadian Short Screenplay Competition for taking not one, but two more of the winning scripts to camera next month, joining “Seeing In the Dark” in the “winning CSSC scripts produced” column. Quite simply YAH HOOO!

There are probably still more to mention, but now that I have mentioned these guys, I’m all fired up to get back to work on the stuff I’m writing. So that’s what I’m gonna do. How about you?

5 Short Films to Watch before 2010 ends!

David Cormican

12 Nov 2010

The short film isn’t the bastard cousin of the feature—it’s its own creative form. As 2010 winds down, we have a chance to look over some short films that received attention in 2010 and show just how versatile this art form really is:

1. EARTHLING: Clay Liford
A sci-fi story of a team of scientists who, after an unexplained atmospheric event, wake to find the lives they have been living are lies. Do they continue their lives as men or find a way back home?

2. THE SIX DOLLAR FIFTY MAN: Mark Albiston and Louis Sutherland
Andy’s an eight-year old outcast living in his super-hero dreams, the only way he can deal with the local bullies. His imagination helps him to perform stunning physical feats, but when he has to face the headmaster, he begins to realize he has to deal with his problems head on in the real world.

3. DRUNK HISTORY: DOUGLASS & LINCOLN: Jerry Konner
Starring Don Cheadle and Will Ferrell. In this film, Jen Kirkman drinks two bottles of wine and then discusses an historical event . . . with hilarious results.

4. PLASTIC BAG: Ramin Bahrani
Hard to know whether this one is serious or satire, but Werner Herzog’s voiceover as an existential plastic bag recounting its “birth” at the supermarket, through its trials and final end is gorgeous at any rate. Features a subtle score by Kjartan Sveinsson.

5. EVE: Natalie Portman
In her directorial debut, Portman tells the story of a young woman who surprises her grandmother for dinner and instead finds herself the third wheel on her grandmother’s date. Stars Lauren Bacall and Ben Gazzara.

The “S” Word

Carolynne Ciceri

10 Nov 2010

Now I suppose that for every writer and artist that lives or has ever lived or maybe ever will live that the “S” word could mean any number of different things. It could mean “suck”, as is in “I think that my writing s___s.” It being in the realm of writing for film and television, could mean “sh__”, as in “this business is full of bull-sh____.” But I’m going out on a limb here and saying that for most of us, at some point or another, the “S” word is Struggle.

Okay, it is a very short and very sturdy limb, but I’m about to tap dance and swing off it so we’d all better hope that it is very sturdy indeed as it will have to support my weight. By weight I mean of course the gravitas (your word of the week) and density of the intellectual gymnastics of which I am capable, not my actual weight-weight, because that would be too much to ask of any tree limb.

For the most part, I consciously avoid thinking of myself as a Struggling Writer. That has to do with the whole staying-positive-about-your-life-and-being-careful-what-you-manifest thing. I chose rather to describe my place in the universe as an Emerging Writer, one who is ever hopeful, perpetually positive and poised on the brink of making it big! Yah. Big. Sigh. This week it occurred to me that I’ve been teetering on the brink of making it big for so long that I’ve worn a deep groove in the bottom of my shoes. Not to mention I’ve been standing in the same place such that even if the carrot did finally appear two feet from my nose I’m not sure I’d be able to step forward and grab it, given that my leg muscles are perma-locked in their current position. So I wallowed around a bit this week thinking about my struggle, and your struggle and the overarching struggle of all artistes and then, after a while, it came to me that such reflections were exhausting me without providing either fun nor insight. So I stopped.

Though I was only able to stop the wallowing when by some accident of thought, the idea came to me that even if I was able to move past Struggling Writer to Successful Writer, I’d still be a Struggling Writer. I’d just have new writer-type things to struggle over, like staying on top and consistency and that strange and scary place where everybody wants you and how stressful is that going to be!?

At a midsummer’s night eve party many years ago, upon introduction to another guest , she responded to my name with, “Oh, yes, you’re the aspiring writer!” I replied, “No, I am a writer. I aspire to have my writing produced on TV.” Sounds kindy bitchy now that I look at it in print but I hope you see my point. I am in fact a professional writer. People pay me money every day to write sh__ for them. Not necessarily the sh__ I want to be writing, nor the sh__ that makes the big bucks, but sh__ none the less, and if I do say so myself, often good and useful sh__.

We all know that the first step in getting to the top of this particular sh__ pile is to have sh__ on the shelves that one can share the second one is asked to show ones skills. And yes now I am fracking with you with the s’s. For fun, read this post aloud and allow the scads of s’s to really get the saliva flowing.

It was these two last thoughts in succession that slapped me in the head and got my butt to slide back into the chair and get some real writing done. For you all the only downside is that because I’ve actually been doing my work, you are getting short changed on this blog post, in that I’ve not once tried to be funny as I’ve used up all my funny working on my Rom-Com.

Reading back over what I’ve written so far today I’m pretty struck by the single-minded self pity and navel-gazing that’s been going on here. Boo-hoo, Carolynne! I’m not allowed to erase it though or change it to make me sound like a nicer, more balanced person. The Rock of Truth staring me down from its precarious position balanced on the top of my monitor just won’t let me.

Doesn’t mean though, that I can’t examine my week and see if I can finish off with reporting at least six more-or-less altruistic actions that could perhaps make me look a bit less of a whinger (a whinger is sort of like a whiner but with more extreme facial expressions and a British accent.)

Here we go:

I dropped off a script for an actor at his place of work out of the goodness of my heart (So what if I complained about doing it for 24 hours before and 24 hours after?)
I promised to visit my Mom tomorrow (If she’d make me lunch, a batch of cookies and let me bring my laundry – so what? She likes being helpful.)
I didn’t haul the woman who nearly ran me down out of her car by the hair and thrash her to within an inch of her life (refraining from violence is altruistic, right?)
Hmmm, seem to be running out of items for this list…

Oh, I know, I pledged $20 dollars to help rebuild a village in a war-torn area of Africa – there we go, and if I post the link here for donations to encourage you all to donate I can count that as a fifth good deed can’t I?5. www.indiegogo.org/ProjectBuildTK You guys can match that can’t you? Come on, we’ll all drink Lucky for a week or two instead of Stella Artois, okay?

Right, not even going to try and come up with a number six because the “S” word is now “Starving” and I only have 15 minutes left in my lunch break before I get back to kicking the ass of some info sheets.

Thing I’m holding on to this week? Writer’s write. Even if they throw pity-parties and wallow in self-absorption and elevate their minor annoyances into high-drama. Writer’s write. So I’m gonna go do that, and I hope you’re gonna do that too. Oh, and I’m going to try and say something nice to someone, just because I can.

-CoCo

How to Start Your Own Writers’ Group

David Cormican

4 Nov 2010

Whether you live in a metropolis or a small town, having a writers’ group can be crucial to your writing. There’s only so much help family and friends can give when you’re trying out a new story. Eventually, you’re going to need people who are going through the same things you are—and your brother-in-law’s harsh critique of your latest horror story isn’t going to make the cut. What does he know, anyway? All he cares about is football.

Luckily for you, writers are everywhere, and if your city doesn’t have a writers’ group, they’re probably longing for the same camaraderie and encouragement you are. Why not start a group in your town? You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.

First, you should consider what kind of writers’ group you want to start. If you’re a screenwriter, it’s a good idea to make sure the group specializes in screenwriting. After all, your goal is to find other like-minded people, and a hodgepodge of writers from all over the writing map probably isn’t going to achieve that objective.

The next thing you should do is find out whether your local library or some other venue has space for your group one night a week. Maybe you could help drum up business for a local coffee shop by hosting your group there once a week. Wherever you meet, it should be relatively quiet and private. You don’t want to disturb other patrons and you don’t want them disturbing you. Unless they want to join, of course.

Next comes the advertising. There are lots of places to advertise. Online—specifically Craigslist—is a great place to start since there are many places where you can advertise for free. Craigslist also has the advantage of being local. Additionally, it wouldn’t hurt to print off a bunch of fliers (the cost is minimal here) and hang them around town. Libraries, grocery stores, coffee shops—even bookstores may be open to donating a little counter or bulletin board space to your cause.

Before the first meeting, you might want to consider figuring out a topic to kick off the conversation. Nothing kills enthusiasm faster than showing up to a meeting and seeing people staring at each other, not knowing what to say, because no one thought to frame the conversation ahead of time. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, but you should have an outline or a list of things you’d like to talk about before the first meeting. You could also ask people who have expressed interest whether they have things they’d like addressed. Someone may want to discuss writer’s block and how to get passed it. Another may be struggling with how to develop believable characters. Having a handout with the main points can help keep the meetings on track without being too formal. Leave time for people to read from their work and get feedback, but don’t be surprised if people are shy at first. Maybe at the first meeting you could read that horror story. A-hem.

You don’t have to stop at the meetings, either. A blog is a great way to keep the topics organized, review pertinent information from the meetings, and keep everyone updated on all things related to the group. Here you have the luxury of expanding on ideas you may not have had time to fully flesh out in your meetings. You can also use the blog to list resources, books, scripts, and members’ email addresses.

So what are you waiting for? Tell your brother-in-law to go back to watching football. You’re going to start a writers’ group!

Aliens Among Us

Carolynne Ciceri

3 Nov 2010

Hmmm, what to write about this week. Hmmm. What to write about? Maybe if I just keep moving my fingers across the keyboard they will magically find just the perfect topic to inspire me and amaze you. La-la-la dee dah. I’d really rather move fingers over to guitar, or better yet into the bowl of Halloween candy ‘cause hey, just because I’ve never had a trick o’ treater in my building doesn’t mean it’s never going to happen so “Be prepared”, I say, “Better safe than sorry!” I say. Man I don’t know how people can be novelists, I just despise all the quotation marks and commas and what all. Slows me down people. Harshs my mellow and interrupts my flow.

Which is no problem for the writing really. Top writing coach Deb Norton commented once that people are always raving on about the flow and finding the flow and getting into the flow but in her experience she has seen crap writing come from flow and genius come from one painful fraught clunky word-at-a-time.

But I don’t feel like talking about flow. Kinda feels like talking about a really hot ex-boyfriend that I haven’t seen in a while. Yah, a few warm, slickery, lusty thoughts but mostly the cranky of a child denied its candy. (You need to say the Cocoverse word “slickery” out loud for full effect.) Now for a pause, since I think there is a chocolately treat lurking in the bottom of my lunch bag. Ahhh. There you go. 110 calories of chocolate can go a long way toward meeting a writing deadline. Look I’ve got half a post done already and I’ve shared a couple writing tips almost by accident. Look it me go!

Pitches gone wrong, could talk about that. CSSC founder David Cormican blogged a bit about that earlier this week and invited readers to share their horror stories. I, wearing the big fuzzy sweater of denial that serves as armour against unwanted soul searching in the Cocoverse, tipped my chair back after reading that little invite and snorted sanctimoniously, “Well, I’ve never had a pitch go badly so I can’t contribute there at all,” I thought. Also sanctimoniously. Hey, I’m all for sparing the adverbs as per Stephen King’s advice in “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft”. Accept when directed at one’s own flaws I think. Then I maintain it is well and mete (your word of the week) to “ly” yourself into smartening up.

You can tell that the Deities of the Cocoverse concur since I managed to spell sanctimoniously through correctly, twice, on the first try. The third time I couldn’t quite believe that, so I added an extra “u” somewhere in the middle just for a reality check. And indeed spellcheck kicked into action, confirming that my Deities had made their point. They just re-enforced it too. I stuck my hand in the coffee cup/pen holder that I keep beside my keyboard to fish out the little ripped in half piece of emery board that I keep in their as a tool of procrastin…er… a tool to keep my guitar playing nails in tip-top shape and came out with The Rock Of Truth. Which is in fact a piece of polished rock with the word “Truth” painted on it. A gift from the aforementioned writing coach and the amazing Dara Marks screenwriting consultant to just about everyone that matters. That includes me and you too, if you check out her book “Inside Story’. And that’s not a paid advertisement except for the fact that I paid for the book and the workshop, and I guess the rock too if you want to look at it that way. Which I don’t. It is the Cocoverse after all and I like to the think of The Rock Of Truth as their gift to keep me safe in my varied and often dangerous travels through LOWIM (that’s the land-of-what-if-and-maybe) to those of you not yet fluent in the lingua franca of the ‘verse.

So the truth that I have avoided addressing hitherto is that when I have a pitch go awry there are always Aliens involved.

Scene: Canadian Film Centre meeting room, Ontario Canada. It is a hot summer day, but I’m sweating more because I’m about to be interviewed for a rare and coveted place in the CFC’s Primetime Television Writing Program than because of any 31 celsius plus humidity. Cause who wouldn’t want to step out of the workforce for 5 months and blow the RRSPs on becoming a TV writer? Hey, they got me out there from Vancouver and greeted me warmly with the news that all three of the panel thought that my letter of application was quite possibly the best they’d ever received. Yep that’s me sitting there thinking “Hah! I’m in! They love me! Just don’t blow the interview.” You can see what’s coming can’t you?

Things weren’t too bad until the program’s Showrunner set me up with an opening scene of the series he was planning to develop with the group. Then he tossed it over to me to spit-ball some ideas – pitch him some of my off the cuff instinctive thoughts. That is when the Aliens appeared and sucked my brain out of my ears. Well not literally, just sucked hard enough to disconnect the brain from the mouth. But I kept on spitting. All my mucous laden balls fell short though, on the table right in front of him. For a while he nodded and made a few encouraging noises until at some point I think he started getting embarrassed for me as the pile up of wadded up paper covered in saliva grew ever larger and he flicked a few back in my direction to see how I’d deal. Sigh. At least I knew the spitballs smelled minty fresh as I’d chewed a big wad of peppermint gum mere moments before entering the room. I just keep on babbling about Aliens with my minty fresh breath, even after he specifically said, “No, maybe not Aliens.” I said sure and headed off in a completely new direction…which ended up leading all the way around and…you guessed it, back to Aliens.

There you go. That is the story of my worst pitching session to date. And no. They didn’t offer me a spot in the program. To this day whenever I can’t think of what to write I start on about Aliens. Cause hey, Aliens are Among Us.

Now let’s recap just so you an can both pretend we learned something today.

1) When Carolynne is out of ideas she defaults to blathering about Aliens.
2) In the Cocoverse “slickerly” is a real word which by the way rhymes with Terpsichore, the muse of dance…oh, nevermind, by now I know you can find Wikipedia.
3) Flow is over-rated, chocolate is not.
4) Adverbs are permissible when pointed at one’s own foibles.
5) Not sure what five should be, but I have an obsessive compulsion about odd numbers. Thus the storied love life life. But that’s another blog post.

Sorry for that last touch of inappropriate ribaldry. It’s the higher than usual level of endorphins as a result of more than usual amounts of guitar and chocolate. And that’s the truth. Or, Aliens made me do it.

– Coco

P.S. I’ve proofed this frackin’ post at least 4 times and still keep finding typos and spelling and punctuation errors. It’s the frackn’ Aliens people!

The Top 3 Tips to a Perfect Pitch

David Cormican

28 Oct 2010

You’re at your computer. You’ve just completed the finishing touches on your script. It’s a great story that’s ready to be sold; you know that. You let yourself feel a touch of pride at getting to a milestone many others would have abandoned long before reaching. But then you realize you have no idea how to pitch this story. If you were to have a meeting with a film executive tomorrow, you know you’d stutter out a train of unrelated events until the words trailed off into an embarrassed silence. Then you’d become joke fodder.

It doesn’t have to be that way. You can (and should) have a succinct pitch that tells your story in a few sentences, but more importantly, you should be able to talk about your story intelligently. Your pitch doesn’t have to be a script in and of itself, but you should be able to talk about the story in a way that gets it concept and storyline across clearly.

Once you make it into a meeting with someone in a position to buy your work, there are a few key elements of which you need to be aware. Many people blow their meetings with producers or executives because of nerves—which often come from not being fully prepared—or because they try too hard to sell the script right out of the gate. Though there are a plethora of tips on how to pitch once you finally get that meeting with someone who can buy your script, here are the three that stand out:

1. Do your research. Make sure you know everything you can about the people to whom you’re pitching before the meeting. This isn’t to flatter them with false compliments; it’s to help establish a rapport that can last beyond the meeting. If you’ve taken the time to research their work and it shows in the meeting, it will go a long way to helping you in the next tip.
Look up their IMDb page(s), check out their websites. If one of the people you’re meeting has written a book, read it. If one of them has done work you’re genuinely fond of, it’s okay to say so, but refrain from gushing.
2. Establish a rapport. This is easier said than done, of course, establishing a rapport in the meeting is really the only way you can hope to interest anyone in your work. One of the key ways to do this in a meeting is to pay attention to nonverbal cues and to listen. Make sure 100% of your attention is focused outward on the people with whom you’re meeting. Practice this active listening whenever you’re with another person until it becomes a natural part of who you are.
It’s best to avoid the hard sell. If your would-be clients want to spend a little time talking about the weather, let them. Allow them to take the lead and let the conversation flow where it may. If you’re pitching to more than one person, it’s also a good idea to make sure you’re including everyone in the conversation, and you’re not unconsciously focusing your attention on one person.
3. Know your pitch. This doesn’t mean to just have a few sentences memorized. Being able to pitch effectively is an art. If your story is good and you’ve conveyed its elements effectively, it’s likely the person with whom you’re meeting will have questions. You need to be able to answer those questions without going back to a memorized pitch. Know the important elements of your story. What’s the inciting incident? What’s the climax? How does the main character develop throughout the story? What compelled you to write this story? What’s the genre? The more questions your listeners have, the more likely it is that they’re interested in your script. Aim to use concise language that avoids generalizations and clichés. Also, have your synopsis and logline ready, in case you’re asked for it.

There are many more tips and tricks to pitching your script, but these three are key. If you pay close attention, know your pitch, familiarize yourself with your would-be clients and treat them with respect, you’ll increase your chances of selling your work. You may not sell the script in that meeting, and that’s okay. If you can get a second meeting, go for it. Every step you take is an opportunity to build a solid working relationship with other filmmakers.

Part II: Producers, the Care and Feeding Of

Carolynne Ciceri

27 Oct 2010

or… Dolphins vs. Sharks

First, an apology for leading you on with my last blog post. We will not be discussing co-writing today; instead we will tidy up a previous promise for more on the writer/producer relationship. Second, a word about why it has taken me so long to follow up on this topic.

I have ruminated, deliberated, cogitated and sublimated this topic, I have not procrastinated. I never procrastinate, some things just need more mulling time than others and this would be one of those times. That would be because it is time to progress in talking about our relationships with producers from the attracting their attention to the keeping their attention and of course on to getting them to the sign-the-cheque phase.

In all honesty with regards to the film and television business, this is an area of expertise in which I’m almost completely lacking. Yah, you read that right. I’m admitting to not knowing much about the topic into which I’m about to dive. But far be it for me to let ignorance stop me from shooting my mouth off about something. So fair warning these insights might be worth just about what you paid for them.

One of the reasons I do have a little bit to say on this is that I sorta used to be a producer. But if you tell anyone, I’ll deny it. Earlier in my career I worked as a multi-media and themed attraction producer, mostly informal science education, games, websites, exhibits so there was a place and time when I did the proposal, the budget, hired the talent, the camera crew, the composer, etc. etc. But as the years and the projects flowed by I began to work under a Creative Director who earned his bones at Disney Imagineering. Which means he did things the Disney way. Even in a small company that involved separation of Church and State or if you prefer, the Creative team and the Production team. I landed on the Creative team. Now this was totally fine by me since I’m much happier facing down an empty page then I am haggling over DVD duplication costs or calculating the contingency fund. And so I became all about content and story and creating the experience. The fun stuff as more than a few envious colleagues characterize it. And they are right, it is the fun stuff.

It’s important now that I tell you why I got to do the fun stuff and why as an emerging film and TV writer I still get to do the fun stuff since it plays into the discussion of writer/producer relationship. It is because I’m better at it than most people. And that is something that I need to remember when I’m negotiating my relationship with a producer and you writers out there need to remember when you are negotiating your relationships. Not in a big snotty I’m the creative genius and my poo doesn’t smell so you should give me bags of money and not change a word kind of way. But know that you have value and what you do has value. What a Producer does has value too, never forget they get to do the bits that you don’t want to, and if you do want to, go forth and be writer/producer.

And by the way, the reason that I’m better at the creating thing than most of the schmoos that you know is not because I’m more creative. I’m not, we are all creative and we all have equal capacity to create if we both allow ourselves to, and teach ourselves how. The part that moves me from someone who writes a bad poem or knits a sweater now and then, to a creative professional is the learned stuff. It is learning how to brainstorm, learning how to explore and articulate ideas. Learning how to evaluate ideas for their ability to deliver factual or emotional content. Learning how to trust your ear and your heart. Learning that your insatiable curiosity and voracious reading are the things that feed your creativity. And oh yah, Learning to incorporate feedback. Sucks man, I know but if you want to create for a living you’re gonna need to create with people and for people, which sadly, for a megalomaniac like myself, bites.

And here we go now swerving back on topic now that you and I have bolstered our delicate little writer egos in the face of having to talk about the Sharks. Er. I mean Producers. Though, if you’ve seen The Player and/or Swimming with Sharks or any of dozens of movies that touch on the subject – did you catch Tom Cruise’s turn as Producer Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder? And if you have seen none of the above you are interested in being in this business exactly why?

In another swerve to avoid actually addressing this topic, there is a love scene in The Player that I think is one of the sexiest things ever put on film.

Okay, so safe to say Producers, by and large, have a bit of a Shark like rep. And in truth a producer needs to be assertive and definitive and have strong leadership qualities. Unfortunately some believe the title Producer is license to be the part of the donkey immediately under the tail. It is not. And if you are wise you will search out and woo the kind of producer that is really a Dolphin in Shark’s clothing. Someone who wants to play with you, loves you, loves your stories, and believes that you can make something great happen together. Not to say that they shouldn’t look like a Shark to certain people in a certain light and if they are fighting for the creative integrity of your work with the studio or the network you won’t mind so much this occasional resemblance to the Shark. This photo (above) is a perfect example; it is in fact a Dolphin. Bet that surfer didn’t know that in the moment though, eh?

A word of caution. Even when you find yourself a nice group of Dolphins, they are gregarious creatures and, dare I say it? Not monogamous. In fact, one Internet source describes them as “one of the most sexual of creatures”. So if you are thinking that after they’ve kissed you once they’ll be back for more, or that what’s going on with your producer is in anyway a marriage type thing? Make sure you get a pre-nup, or black mail material – or better yet, both.

In closing I’ll just share yet one more example of my penchant (your word of the week) of pushing a metaphor to its most illogical extreme. I Googled “shark behaviour” in order that I could be totally accurate in my Producer/Shark comparison. Turns out Sharks aren’t as mean as I thought. Most Shark attacks are because the Shark is too dumb to realize you aren’t a Seal. More people are killed every year by bees, elephants, dogs, lightning bolts, and pigs than by sharks. So there you go. When in Hollywood don’t act like a Seal and you’ll be fine. But watch out for the Elephants.

– CoCo

Meet Pablo, My Muse

Carolynne Ciceri

20 Oct 2010

That sound you just heard was the crack of my jaw opening in a yawn that can only be characterized by the word cavernous. Note my lack of the use of quotation marks around the word “cavernous” not used in the first place because I wasn’t quoting and used in the second place because I was quoting myself from the sentence preceding. Right. Now that that little bit of writer pet peeve is out of the way, onwards to this week’s exploration of the current state of my neural net with respect to the occupation of creative writing.

Is it possible to be both exhausted and over stimulated at the same time? Guess so. Related to, but not exactly like the state of Schmirpeedoo. Schrmirpeedoo is a word that you aren’t likely to encounter outside of the Cocoverse so we won’t make it the word of the week but I will define it for you. It is that warm glowy tired feeling that arrives upon the completion of a tough job well done. Self satisfied and empty and with assurance that nothing can ruffle my feathers all the rest of the waking day since something big or nagging, or big & nagging was tackled and beaten into submission and run up the flagpole. However the way I feel after the last 48 hours of activity isn’t exactly that so I need a new name for exhausted, over-stimulated, triumphant and grateful all wrapped up.

So what happened in the last 48 was I went to work and did my thing all day then rushed home for a sandwich, a cat nap and 15 minutes of guitar practice before heading out to auditions for a play I’m about to Stage Manager. Now it’s been a few years since I’ve done such a thing and I really do not in any way have the time to do such a thing given the three writing projects I’m hoping to put a pin in by year’s end, and yet some hoarse and strident voice from within counseled me to suck it up and book the gig. “It’ll be good for you.” said the voice. So I booked the gig still with absolutely no idea why such a thing would be good for me.

Even sitting my butt down for the auditions I was, in all honesty anticipating an evening both boring and tedious. Which might sound repetitive to you, but tedious implies boring + extended duration. And it wasn’t. I found myself fully engaged for the next two hours with fifteen hopeful actors trying to delight and amaze us. A couple of which did in truth delight and amaze. Might have even been a couple women there who are better than me. Given the gargantuan size of my ego with respect to my own acting prowess, please realize the magnitude of the compliment.

So I came away from night one of auditions with some new insight. I remembered how much I love the theatre when it is done right and I got a hot poker applied to the banked down fire of the creative ambition that burns in my belly. Jeepers that is kind of a weird way to describe it but it is true I feel all fired up to complete the writing on my play – Sublimation – which can be your word of the week, unless it has already been – hmm, Someone should keep track of stuff like that. Seems to me. Okay fine. Started the word of the week list, so someone will be keeping track. Maybe at the end of 52 weeks I’ll have to set the writing challenge of incorporating them all into my farewell blog post.

The answer to the question of “Why am I doing this?” is thus to fan that creative ambition to burn more brightly. The downside of this little epiphany is that Pablo, my Muse, stopped by to visit after I got home last night. Now I do understand that for most writers a visit from one’s Muse is a celebratory experience or at least so most of them lead me to believe. Mine however, seems to favor the middle of the night, Lost Hour, to be specific which falls regularly between 3 and 4 AM. Would be fine without a day job. With a day job is like having a trust fund baby cranked up on lattes and energy drinks pounding down your door in the middle of the night asking if you have time to teach him that bridge on the guitar.

Sigh. Don’t get me wrong. I love Pablo, he is lovely and gorgeous, stands about 6’6” curly blonde hair, eyes green as new leaves in the sunshine and a` build that could see him play Tight End for the Dallas Cowboys. Now you see me showing off my football knowledge? the obvious go-to for that description is Linebacker, but by selecting the more specific and lesser known position I draw him for you more strongly and accurately, for male and female readers alike.

Anyway. I love him to bits but last night he wouldn’t shut the hell up. At 3:32 a.m. he wants to talk about this new idea for a post apocalyptic TV miniseries set on a Saskatchewan farm 50 years after a massive meteor strike. No. I don’t want to talk about that now honey, and I’ve still got four TV series in the development queue ahead of that one. Okay he’s fine with that as long as I get up and write down enough that I won’t forget about it. The follow-up question though is almost worse. Can we talk about his play – Sublimation – the one I’m writing to honour him and shouldn’t I be getting back to that? Jimmy Crickets, NO! I have decided on the three projects I will write upon from now ’til Dec 22 and did I mention I’m stage managing a community theatre show and I have a day job? I may as well have saved my breath ‘cause then he decided we needed to review the big giant spreadsheet of story ideas. On which there are, at last count 85 items. Not kidding. That is nine feature ideas, two novels, four series, one short story collection, one musical, two stage plays and one short film. Okay. Maybe 85 is overstating, but that is 20 without even looking at that actual spreadsheet, just recalling after too little sleep and too much coffee.

Alight, here we are Wednesday lunch hour and time to get this puppy finished, proofed and posted. I believe that after yet another night of short sleep that this is being accomplished simply by the virtue of the six shots of espresso I’ve slurped up this morning. Another night of auditions. Fantastic turnout by the way, thank you Vancouver! A shocking number of men, sadly many fine actors just far too young, the male lead is 45. It was tough being on the casting side and trying to let everyone have a fair go even though you know within fifteen seconds when they are a “no thanks”. Definitely too much stimulation to go to bed on-time. With the added WAKE UP scream from the email when I got home, informing me that THE Blog – that’s the one you are reading right now by the way – has been nominated in three different categories for the 2010 Canadian Weblog Awards. Two of the categories are juried and one is a Peoples’ Choice so if we make the short list – out Dec 1 – we’ll let you all know what’s going on and where to vote.

A last few words on handling The Muse and then I need to wrap this up and drink more espresso. It is nice that he is back and seems to be settling in for an extended visit. He is truly the best companion, date, escort, guide, partner, sidekick, love interest, conscience that a girl who spends so much time in LOWIM (Land-Of-What-If-&-Maybe) could have. Trouble is when he hangs around for more than 48 hours, like he’s doing currently, reality shifts in weird ways. For example he just asked me when the next episode of that TV show about the Supernatural Fixer is going to be on and I had to remind him that at this point the only place that show is running is in my head. Then on the drive to the office he was chit chatting about the restrictions imposed by the Covenant of Seven Worlds upon the characters of the TV series The Gatehouse (also currently running in my head, starring me, me, and, oh yah, me, when I realized all the leaves had fallen off the trees and there are a giant knife and fork on either side of the door to Sophie’s Cosmic Cafe. How long have I been wandering the misty paths of LOWIM during the morning drive that I’ve missed those little details?

Early to bed tonight. Then tomorrow lunch I’ll outline next week’s post which at this point looks to have a horror theme – Collaborators: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Or rather The Bad, the Inept and the Barely Tolerable. I promise you there will be no 6+ foot wandering stud muffins with a predilection for lounging around in my apartment wearing nothing but brand new white boxer briefs, playing my guitar and getting potato chip crumbs all over the purple velvet couch.

You did get that Pablo, The Muse, is an imaginary compilation guy, didn’t you? I might of forgotten to mention that part.

Until next week, happy writing my lovelies and hey right now – Go Read a SCRIPT. It’s like going to the gym, you might not exactly enjoy it at the time but you’ll be very proud and happy with yourself afterward.

Why Pickles are Funny

Carolynne Ciceri

13 Oct 2010

Today I must take a firm stance in defense of my use of the pickle as a comic device in last week’s blog post. Sometimes a girl has to stand up for what she believes and this is one of those times. Pickles are funny.

My rush to defend both myself and the noble pickle is prompted by a piece of feedback on last week’s post that filled me with terror and dismay. For you see after 16 CSSC blog posts received with joy and enthusiasm by my mini-mentor (not because he’s short, but because he’s younger than me), I was cut to the quick by his first ever criticism of my rambly and badly punctuated missives – to whit – he direct tweeted me “I have to admit I cringed at the pickle juice part…”

“Oh, my God!” I thought to myself, “He thinks I’m serious about still having sticky pickle juice toes the day after the spill!”. So now good people strap in because this is where I start to panic. The Producer hated the Pickle Post. You must understand, this is a guy who laughs at the way I butter my toast, I can keep him laughing for days on end, and have, and now for only the second time in our intensely verbal relationship, he doesn’t think one of my jokes is funny. The only other one he wasn’t keen on was my suggestion for our academy award acceptance speech, but that’s another blog post. Now back to my panic.

So dismayed was I at his tweet that I picked up the phone and called him, long distance and before 6 pm and spent 21 minutes trying to explain a) that I was joking about the sticky pickle juice toes; and b) why pickles are funny. Here is more or less how the conversation went.

Me: Hi! How’s it going?
Him: Good. How’s it with you?
Me: Well, sorta super except I just got your tweet so I had to call to make sure that you knew I was just kidding about still having sticky toes the day after the pickle juice accident. Washing the feet did actually do the trick. I just put the sticky bit in because it was funny.
Him: Uh-huh.
Me: Seriously, it was just to make the joke work. Pickles are funny so I just wanted to make the set up pay out one more time.
Him: Sure.
Me: Gee, I’m sorry, you’re probably working and I didn’t schedule this call so I should let you get back at it.
Him: No, that’s fine I’m just reading some scripts.
Me: Okay, well I just wanted to make sure you knew it was a joke.
Him: That seems to be very important to you.
Me: Well, yah, the whole pickle thing is kinda a lesson in comedy writing you know, it was all very deliberate because pickles are funny.
Him: Ah hah.
Me: Come on just say the word “pickle”. See how it feels in the mouth the plosive “p” then the “ick” always fun to say “ick”. Then the tongue slide on the “l”.
Him: And who doesn’t like a good tongue slide?
Me: Exactly. And even more fun when you add the “s’ and make it “pickles” cause you get that extra sibilance. “Pickles” is a comedy word. Not like, say, “Zimbabwe” Go ahead and try it “Pickles” then “Zimbabwe” see how pickles is funny but Zimbabwe is a serious dance word, first you got your “Zim” which is like a hum then the drums come in on “bab-we” very rhythmic like.
Him: Uh-huh.
Me: Ah, you are busy, I should let you go.
Him: No sorry if I sound a bit distracted, I was just trying to remember the other thing I wanted to tell you. And I just did.
(pause)
Me: Okay, do you want to tell me?
Him: No, not yet, you go ahead and finish.
Me: Well, you see I set up the pickle jokes right in the blog title so you’d read “pickles” and you’d think “yippee, there will be pickles” and you’d think that because who doesn’t like pickles? I learned this from Ellen by the way.
Him: Ellen?
Me: Yah. Ellen DeGeneres. You know that bit she does in her stand up routine about the pickle claw?
Him: Don’t think I know that one.
Me: Oh, yah. Totally a famous bit. I’m sure you can find it on You Tube.

Now comes the clack of computer keys over the phone line as he Googles it. And the beads of sweat break out on my brow. Probably just a hot flash but the panic has really started to set in. How can we work together if he doesn’t get why pickles are funny? How can I trust notes from him if he doesn’t see the craft and care I put into building that pickle joke? Our entire friendship and future career as collaborators is now dependent on my getting him to acknowledge that the pickle juice was not cringe worthy, it was belly laugh worthy, or at least worth an appreciative snort. I will not hang up this phone until he is convinced that the pickle bit is funny.

Him: Nope. Can’t seem to find it.

Note to self: Never tell a producer he can find something on You Tube unless you are absolutely sure that it is on You Tube.

Me: Okay, well she does this whole thing about fishing out the last pickle and using your hand and realizing you should have got a fork and… anyway then later in the routine she comes back and the pickle claw becomes the toilet paper claw and it becomes super more hilarious.
Him: Uh-huh.
Me: It does really, it’s about building the joke I got you going by mentioning pickles in the title then just at the point where people are really starting to wonder where the pickles are, I give them a sad little story about book club drinking everything in the place, but not touching the pickles. Then the story gets a bit pathetic with the spilling of the ice cold sticky pickle juice on the bare toes and it’s a bit funny cause you are laughing at my misfortune, because we do laugh at things going wrong. Especially, allowing ourselves to chuckle because neither my toes or any actual pickles came to harm.
Him: I can see that you really thought this through.
Me: I just wanted you to see that I’m not funny by accident you know, there is demonstrable skill here.
Him: Okay.
Me: So now it gets really funny cause I bring the pickle juice back in a completely unexpected way later as a sticky toe joke! That’s comedy! And then when I, a few lines later, add the pickle juice as a cure for annoying foot order it becomes comic genius! Bing, bang, boom!
Him: Uh-huh.
Me: We still on for our Skype call on Sunday?
Him: You bet.
Me: You want to tell me that thing you remembered to tell me now?
Him: Sure…

And he does tell me the thing. And I say “Gee” and “Wow”, and we say a pleasant good bye and I hang up the phone completely unfilled in my quest. I grump off to the fridge to eat a pickle, because it seems like I must somehow. As I crunch and slurp I wonder how much money I just spent on a 21 minute long distance phone call just to make sure the Producer understands that pickles are funny and that my feet are not sticky.

Then rinsing the pickle juice off my fingers I begin to see how crazy and neurotic and desperately begging for approval I just sounded. Gee. Almost like a real comedy writer. So then I smiled. That made me feel better.

Then I realized that thing he remembered to tell me? I’ve completely forgotten what it was. So then I laughed. That makes me feel lots better.

Of course the “feeling better” could have just been a residual effect, I had after all just eaten a pickle. And pickles are funny.

Mental Dust Bunnies and What Happened to the Pickles

Carolynne Ciceri

6 Oct 2010

We began to address the issue of clutter in last week’s blog and as follow up I’ve decided to give you a peak into the mental clutter that I deal with daily, my mental dust bunnies if you will. Those things that must be chased around with a duster and expressed or banished to achieve my emerging writer goals of reading, writing, exercising, networking and playing guitar every day.

By the way, if you want to be a writer, I really recommend starting a book club. Your peeps choices will keep pushing you to learn about the craft and think thoughts that you have hitherto left un-thunk.

Monday
So what is the deal with new guitar strings. Do they seriously have to be tuned halfway thru a song? Are you kidding me? I put them on when? I’ve re-tuned how many times?

And what is with my incredibly well developed avoidance-of-success thing? Though I can report 9 pages on the Rain Girls pilot and 7 pages on episode 6 (yeah me!) How long did it take to write 10 thank you cards and send 7 follow up emails? Two Weeks? Are you kidding me?

By the way, anyone looking for a new technology – in preparing last night’s meal, I have successfully bonded sockeye salmon skin to metal and absolutely no clue how to separate them. I seem to have created an entirely new substance. Perhaps useful for shoring up wormholes.

Wondering if I can get away with Glade plug-ins and blindfolds for book club on Wednesday.

And I’m cranky because now they’ve been on Oprah, sung for the G8 Leader’s and done a PBS special– everyone is a Canadian Tenor’s fan what do they need me for?

OOOOhhhh. Where’d that little toad come from? Though they did make nice comments about fans flying from afar and bringing treats. I guess that’s me, as long as I send chocolate and don’t show up on anyone’s doorstep I’m going to say that makes me a good fan not a stalker fan. The CTs incandescent success is a good thing, right? To do with them making the world happy. Which I want for them and they want for them. Hah! I have fan jealously. That is just silly. So.

Okay, moving on to the next cubbyhole of mental clutter for the day. Now the reminder to breathe. I did get the acknowledgement that though the three videos I prepared fell short of everyone’s expectations, my hard work and effort was noted. They thought they looked too polished. Over produced. Apparently low-production value equals sincerity. Who knew? Thanks. At least no-one complained about the font.

Tuesday
I am re-reading “The Geography of Bliss” by Eric Wiener for book club – it is my pick and I have to lead the discussion tonight so therefore I feel obligated to re-read and remind myself why I am subjecting the E-litteratii to it. Interesting every single time any of us goes to spell the name of our book club the – E-litre-atti it gets a new treatment.

I am reading “This is your Brian on Music” by Daniel J. Levitin – given to me to read by my guitar teacher, surely one of the Nephilim – that’s your word for the day. For his genius and his patience. Still ever and always the highlight of my week the time I spend with him, and not in a creepy “I have a crush on him” kinda way, not that I don’t or couldn’t or whatever.

The music is the thing people. And if you know me at all you know that a man with mastery of words, music or movement pretty much has my pure and unadulterated hero worship. Also men who are good at fishing and take out the garbage and recycling without being asked. But I digress. Because I can and because it is what I do and because it is Tuesday. Because of guitar the happiest day of the week next to Friday. I really should be implementing my notes on the Rain Girls pilot but instead I think I’ll read Emme Rogers latest blog on her life as a much more advanced writer than moi and go to bed early.

I am also reading “Anathem” by Neal Stephenson and dipping into “Writing the TV Drama Series” by Pamela Douglas. And finishing up the very racy “Venus and Adonis” by Bill Shakespeare.

Now are you wondering why I never married and never answer my phone? Didn’t think so. Now to finish the CSSC blog post. It’s on the care and feeding of Producers. I probably should research it. Nah, let’s see what personal experience offers up first. I wonder if I can keep it PG?

Wednesday
Last night as I was approaching the realization that there was nothing on TV that I was remotely interested in watching, I caught myself wishing I could catch that next episode of that series about the drug-addicted, wheelchair-bound sorceress. You’ve seen the promo’s surely of “Shadows Gather” with the next episode being just after a long dark night of the soul when the hot Cop shows up to make her and her almost-but-not-quite-jail-bait-live-in-boy-toy French toast for breakfast. Then the flash of realization that it’s not a TV series Carolynne – it is the next chapter of your novel that you haven’t quite written yet. Really? Seriously? I actually had a moment of pining for the next chapter of one of MY stories. Good sign. It’s a good sign, right?

Thinking of the Shy One and our conversation about never feeling good enough. Never being able to receive love or praise or affection of any kind because you have this deep rooted feeling that if someone actually likes you it is because they are mistaken about who you really are and misguided about the quality of what you do. At some point they will come to their senses and walk away.

Made me think of one of the Producers of note in the Cocoverse. I was well and truly shocked when the Cossack admitted not having read my scripts yet. I actually looked and him and thought, “Then what are you sitting here for?” Yes. The concept that an attractive successful smart man just hanging out with me for my company and not what I could do for them was kind of cataclysmic. And sad. And maybe misguided. Perhaps he is only interested in whether or not I can advance his career. But I hope it is only because I make him laugh. That’s what I hope. On the other hand, if he thinks I’m so smart and funny and worth having dinner with, why hasn’t he read my scripts? Can he really be that busy? Does he not get that my funny actually can be put on a page and shared with broadcasters who will then throw money at us?

Thursday
Lesson learned. When Book Club turns into Wine Club mid-week, Thursday turns into an achievable goals day.

Pretty sure I’m not going to be able to put together cogent thoughts here today people. It is lunch hour and I should be writing script but after staring at the blinking cursor and feeling the eyelids droop I figured I’d switch to blogging as it can still be considered writing practice but if the story ends up being about cheese no-one really minds. Mind you, an episode where my human/alien hybrid discovers the joy of cheese could be a lot of fun. Okay, I will pop open my episodes list and make a note, hold on a sec.

Right, where was I – ah yes, cheese. We had cheese at book club which was quite well received by all assembled. Perhaps the selection was too fine and that is why the wine went down a little more easily than usual. Or maybe it is my own personal decadent influence, as the peeps rarely indulge like that at book club. They often don’t even at wine club. Could be the influence of the purple velvet couch. Hmmm. It is a couch pretty damn high on the decadence scale.

Sure nice to have a place where your friends feel like hanging out though I must say. The concrete walls turned out to be important as it happened. Hey and our newest member celebrated her first anniversary with the E-litteratti and earned her blog nickname – Alien PM. I could explain, but frankly I’m too tired for one, and I’m not sure I exactly remember for two.

Several funny moments – first and foremost Po announcing that she liked the book we were ranting about (a previous disaster – current book is excellent) And hey, why is it that books we really like get 20 minutes of nodding agreement, and books we are split on keep on coming back to haunt and irritate and inspire Duder to fabulous fresh new rants. She is really the only person whose rants are truly art, since even if it is a topic on which you’ve heard numerous previous rants from her, she always comes up with a fresh new rant twist. I learn from the master.

But back to Po announcing that she liked the accursed book but then she added that of course she probably liked it because she is the only member of the group who isn’t a writer. Which was super material for much mirth since Po was the only one in the room who is actually a PUBLISHED AUTHOR.

That is comedy folks. Powering thru the highlights were curing Squish’s plantar faceitis, Alien PM’s quite helpful advice on coping with annoying in-laws, Duder’s adventure in real-estate and watching the Fry/Laurie YouTube sketch: “Your name, sir.”

Though I am never doing a vegetable plate again (seriously need a nap, just had to spell-check “vegetable”) Alien PM ate 3 pieces of broccoli and one cherry tomato and now I have enough vegetables to make stir fry for 12 vegans. Must go back to the day job but will finish with the fate of the pickles.

First, no one ate any. Second, when I went to put them away I spilled all the cold pickle juice over my bare feet. So had to wash my feet before bed. Didn’t do a good job though, my right pinkie toe is sticking to my shoe. Hey Alien PM, maybe a cure for someone’s in-law’s foot odor issue?

Friday
Ah Friday my old friend. Skype date with the Producer tonight so this’ll be a five minute post. Week turned out to produce not one but two ideas for short film scripts. One for me and the Cossack to act in together, though how I’m gonna get him to read it, not sure. Maybe I’ll just give it to his business partner and not him, but make sure that he knows I gave it to his partner and not him. Tricky, huh? Think that will increase his desire to read it? I’d tell you what it’s about, but at the moment the script is not quite R-rated and I haven’t registered the idea yet with the Writer’s Guild of Canada. Not that those things have anything to do with each other.

The other idea came out of my crazy fan jealously and the Producer laughing at my extremely polite on the surface smackdown with another crazy Canadian Tenor’s fan. It was like that theatre school improv game where you try and out status your opponent by making progressively more grandiose claims until complete ridiculousness is reached. It’ll be funny and lucky you won’t have to compete with the hilarity of it in this year’s CSSC, ’cause I’m giving you guys a chance to achieve the greatness that is finalist status without me. I wouldn’t steal this idea from me if I were you though. You never know who might be asked to be on the judging panel. Smiley face.

Next week out with the dust bunnies. I promise to deliver a clean clear post of 750 words of wisdom focused on one important aspect of writing. Yah, really.

Electromagnetic Phlegm

Zach Herrmann

29 Sep 2010

Technology is just about on my last nerve today. No. Scratch that. Technology is on my last nerve this week. It just seems to be getting in my way. One little annoying thing after another until I’ve got a big bucket of cranky and lucky you get to share it with me. Now we could blame the killer head cold which made its appearance last week about this time and is taking its own sweet-ass time about moving on. So it could well be that the otherwise minor annoyances of the week are getting stuck in this big noggin full of phlegm and accumulating like dead flies on one of those sticky things that catch dead flies. Fly strips. There, that’s the term. Good, one more synapse saved from atrophy.

For those of you hoping for Producers: The Care and Feeding Of Part II? Too bad. Waiting for sequels just blows don’t it? That would be because I believe in treating you all to a dose of the most perfect human emotion (according to me and Proust) – anticipation. Plus I think sequels that come too quickly are always the ones that suck the most. Not to mention that the next part has to explore the topics of how to deal with keeping a Producer’s attention and dealing with notes from said Producer. I just don’t feel like going there today and since I only go where I don’t want to, writing wise, when someone is wielding the big pay cheque stick, I’m gonna stick with the rant. Because I can.

Just in case you think this is about to be an anti-computer rant, it’s not. Okay, well it might be, we’ll see. But first I’d like to complain about the Brand-Name-Spot-Remover-To-Go that didn’t and work backward. You know how you love it when I work backward to the inciting incident, so don’t pretend otherwise.

There they all still are. Four greasy blops down the front of my white shirt proclaiming my slobdom for all to see. This is why I always wear black people! Except today. Today I am wearing white with yellowish grease stains. Not that in my current state of cranky that I would normally care what you people think of my state of dress but today I have guitar. Time for my weekly guitar lesson. In case you haven’t been paying attention, my guitar teacher is pretty much the only human being about who’s opinion I currently give a rat’s ass. Well, him and the Producer. But the Producer has been a house guest so he already knows what a slob I am so that ship has sailed. But with the Maestro, his face time with me is confined to an 1/2 hour every Tuesday night so hopefully he still harbours a few illusions about the high quality of my upbringing, education and personal grooming.

Today’s big bucket of technology crankiness has certainly been accumulating all week but started slopping over about 2:34 AM this morning when the compressor on the refrigerator came to the decision that its right to transform into a jet engine would supercede (your word of the week) my right to a peaceful night of sleep. After 15 minutes of jiggling it around, opening and closing the door and clearing the freezer vent, I gave up and dug out the ear plugs before returning to bed. But not before an open bag of frozen cranberries made a break for it and 137 cranberries burst forth bouncing off that laminate and ricocheting off the appliances like little red super balls. Those little suckers get a lot of bounce when they’re frozen.

On the plus side, I’m renting, so ultimately the big ticket outcome of the fridge’s death spiral is someone else’s problem. Except for the whole swapping fridge thing time suck that will be yet more hours when I’m moving condiments and not writing.

And just because my technology cranky bucket ain’t full enough…I’m writing this on Google docs during my lunch hour and just got a message flashed up that there has been an error and I have to refresh the page and oh, by the way, none of your changes will be saved. Jeepers.

Okay, slopping that in with the unreadable e-book from Kobo that keeps telling me the book has been updated and do I want to download and then when I say “yes” it doesn’t download. And yes, I tried the two fixes that the Kobo support team suggested and neither work so now they want me to un-install the whole app and reinstall – second time for that this month peeps – like I have time for this? Again? On the plus side they have very responsive customer service, but I’m getting to know them better than I’d like.

Another nice big chunky mess is that neither iPhoto nor iMovie will open after the reinstall post computer crash last month, so now I will have to un-install them and go back to the install discs and sigh. Do I have time for this? Goodbye Saturday writing session. Oh yah, and just another friendly warning to those of you using screenwriting software. When you update your operating system, chances are very good that your screenwriting program (applies to both Final Draft and Screenwriter) will crap out and tell you your license has expired and you need to contact the company to remedy the issue. Which they do, but buh-bye another 24 hours. Seriously a stack of legal pads and a box of cheap pens are starting to look really good about now.

Crap. Now my rant comes to a screeching halt because I just got some fantastic news from my good friend Trish Allen who just booked a very nice little co-star gig on Supernatural, my current favorite show. And I’m so frackin’ happy for her that I started jumping around and spilled my big bucket of cranky, most of which has hit the storm drain and is now the problem of the alligators that live in the sewers. Hang on, I’ll check and see if anything is still stuck to the bottom.

Oh yah, the inciting incident. But since we are working backward the exacerbating element must precede it. Got an email from a smart friend with a link to an article and a book to do with the dangers of cell phone use. And not about texting and driving either, but the thing that kept me cell-phone less for many many years which in the course of my love affair with my iPhone I’ve conveniently shoved into the denial closet. Electromagnetic radiation people. Holding a cell phone to your ear is holding an EM receiver/transmitter to your head. Just can’t be good for the brain. And I’d already read the studies and had a big heap of misgivings years ago so I should know better. And now I’m reading books on the damn cell phone and keeping it on my night table for use as an alarm clock. So this helpful reminder email has got me all anxious about the amount of EM I’m getting from sitting in front of a TV/Computer/cellphone all day. And I’m pretty sure it doesn’t trigger vitamin D production, ya know what I’m saying.

So this week’s head full of Electromagnetic Phlegm is brought to you by the inciting incident – a helpful comment floated by the Producer last week during dinner. The first domino carefully placed to start the series before falling into the rant bucket. He helpfully suggested that I might get more work done if I cleared some of my clutter. So well intentioned but right up there with “Perhaps if you ate less and exercised more, you would lose weight.” Yah think?

Most of you guys out there that write will love my snappy defensive comeback. I said without my clutter I wouldn’t have anything to write about. You see clutter – I see nuggets of story gold. That little brass camel was a gift from my genius cousin with whom I have a very interesting and complex relationship. That card with the big Angel on it I got this past Christmas from the first boy I ever French kissed. The binder with all the pages falling out is my vision board for the romantic comedy I’m working on for you. This script brad is the one you gave me for luck. This Ganesh medallion was a gift from one of my Sisters of the Pen to guide and protect my writing endeavours. If I didn’t have all this clutter in my head and my life, from where would the writing come?

Good comeback huh? I thought so too. Except for the fact that he’s probably right. Or at least partly right. I’ll have to think about it some more. For now I’ll just turn my shirt around so the stains don’t show and go to guitar lesson. No clutter there. Not many words either. About a month back when I arrived for my lesson the Maestro asked how I was doing. I answered “People suck”. He said, “Yes, yes they do. That is why I like music. We could just play?” “That would be good.” was my answer. And play we did. And good it was.

Producers: The Care and Feeding Of, Part I

Caroylnne Ciceri

22 Sep 2010

This is a topic on which I am far from expert. And yet it is much on my mind today so let’s talk about it and see if I know anything useful. It is a last minute topic switch by the way, I was going to do a cleaning out the junk drawer thing and revisit each of the first 13 blog posts and give you an update on some of the topics previously raised, but not this week after all. The Producer looms too large in the Cocoverse today so let’s have a better look at the creature.

I had dinner with a Producer last night. He paid too. Always a good sign. We talked about stuff. He gave me advice. Some of which I might take. All of which I’m thankful for. This particular Producer happens to be a dear friend and the Producer with whom I’m currently the most professionally involved. That is going to change. And soon. I’m going to cheat on him. He knows it too, frankly he encourages it even though it is gonna drive my price to him up a lot. Wonder if he considered that angle yet?

A writer can go mad trying to get a producer’s attention. If a producer is any good at all, he/she is very busy. But you know what? If they aren’t busy they may not be worth the effort it takes to get on their radar. How you get their attention, keep it and ultimately get a project on screen and money in the bank is a process, that’s for sure. So far I’m still dib-dabbling around with the first stages of building the relationships but here are a few things I’ve noticed so far.

Let’s start with getting their attention. Unlike some of you gentler souls, attention getting is part of my core skill set, both in person and via the written word, so I’ll share in the hopes that you might pick-up a pick-up tip or two. If you’re at film fest, or pitch fest or party and you’re going at it in person here is a place to start.

Be funny. So far, the producers that actually know me by name think I’m funny. Cause I am for one, but for two, with them I do make a serious effort to show it. Which, in my case doesn’t revolve around prepping material for to dazzle in my elevator pitch (though sometimes I do craft a few standard yuks for my back pocket) mostly though comedy is about being present in the moment and listening and interacting, lose the ego, lose the filters, say out loud what you are observing and most of the time they’ll laugh. Not always. Some funny lines fly out of your mouth and immediately hit the floor with a thud and a squish, or burst into smelly flames the instant they pass the borders of your slobber coated lips. Oh well. Retreat into uber politeness and back away slowly. Another Producer will be along soon enough.

Don’t worry about pitching or pushing your agenda, either. Producers, like all predators can smell fear and desperation so don’t be a Wildebeest, be a rock throwing Chimp. Okay, well, maybe not rocks. I personally like to play it a bit coy. Make ‘em laugh. Let them know I’m a writer. Let them ask for a pitch. They always do. Might not be the pitch for them but they might have a great lead for you to someone it is right for.

That’s fine you say, but you’re not funny, so what do you do? I haven’t got a clue. In the Cocoverse all good writers are funny, least ways every good writer I’ve ever met makes me laugh.

I remember very clearly sitting in the Rookies in the Rockies intro session at the Banff TV fest a couple of years back and listening to the panel talk about how important building relationships is to getting a go on a project. They kept using dating and marriage metaphors until I started to sweat and get short of breath. I suck at dating. My only brush with marriage was some time last-century, getting left at the altar for a high-school dropout who sold Tupperware part-time. Good times. My home is still a no-Tupperware zone. Another part of my core skill set – holding a grudge. You might want to note that for future reference.

It might sound all very odd to you; I know it did to me at first. I remember thinking “I don’t matter, my WRITING matters.” Ah, nope. You really believe that, go write a fine literary novel. In the film and TV biz it is such a tough row to hoe and bringing together the right cast of characters to just get the thing green lit let alone the cast of actors and crew that need to be assembled to get it on screen. Yikes. Face it now – it is a collaborative medium and regardless of how perfect your script is, it will change before it hits the screen. Again, you don’t want that? Go raise your own 10 million and make it yourself. So you need the producer and he needs you. Don’t worry he’s not altogether happy about that either. But if you guys can find a way to respect each other and play nice, the process will still be way longer and more painful than you could ever imagine, but from time to time you will actually have fun.

If your intro to a producer is going to be an email keep it short, sweet and to the point. Try and keep the name of your project in the subject line – always – and don’t ask too many questions in one email. People find it easy enough to answer up to three questions with some immediacy, more than that and they put you on the back burner to be dealt with when they have more time. Also profoundly resist the urge to mix messages in your emails. If you are coming to town to meet, you can mention it in the email where you talked the arc of the protagonist, but send a separate email with the flight and hotel details. These people get hundreds of emails a day and if they find it hard to ID the info on you that they are looking for you’ll be giving them grief before you even meet them.

Make it easy for them to say “yes” OR “no”. If they’ve had your script a month do send a brief, polite follow up email suggesting a deadline. Ask if it’s possible to hear back by a certain date, letting them know that after that time they’ll be submitting it elsewhere.

And seriously, be nice. If they give you notes, be happy they actually read the thing. If they give it a pass thank them for their time, and take it on the chin.

That’s enough thoughts for today; I’ve got a meeting with a producer who I plan to ply with alcohol and tortilla chips until he agrees to spend his weekend making notes on my current feature project.

In Summary When Meeting a Producer:
Be Funny
Be Nice
Be Concise
Mean what you say and say what you mean
Be as gracious to a “no” as to a “yes”

Until next week, keep writing my lovelies.

P.S. Apologies for the rambley post but I’ve got a head cold (blame the meds). Your word for the day is “yare” – you’ll need to at least appear to be two definitions of this word it you want to make a Producer happy!

50 Dead Chickens

Carolynne Ciceri

15 Sep 2010

What happens to a writer who can’t write? Not your typical writer’s block kind of can’t write but a writer who finds herself in the circumstance where putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard is more than slightly rude. I found myself in that odd spot this past week, on a cruise vacation to Alaska with family. My third cruise, lucky me, and yet the first where I found myself without the requisite space/time for writing.

This because of a confluence (your word of the week) of a number of factors, one, for the first time in 20 years I went computer free for seven complete days. I did not bring my laptop. I did bring my big red journal which most helpfully has the word “write” embossed all over the cover both as word art and some kind of not-in-any-way-subliminal suggestion. What’s the opposite of subliminal by the way? Liminal? Obvious? Overt? Two, I was part of a much smaller group than hitherto which meant my social obligation was concomitantly much larger. Thus no ability to sneak off to a quiet spot while the others entertained themselves.

So I tried the age-old tune out and write in my head trick, which only worked when we were listening to music. The rest of the time I was pretty much forced to speak to and interact with people. Nice people to be sure and I certainly got a few new stories from my mom of special note. Most particularly, one that I’m going to turn into a stage play set in 1959 involving 50 dead chickens. It’ll be hilarious, I promise. Though when I told the basic story to a couple of friends I got the old “Why a play? why not a TV series with the city mouse and the country mouse, and…” Cause I hear it as a play people! Eight characters, three acts and a lot of door slamming.

Whoops. Sorry, I was digressing again. More on the 50 dead chickens another day. Back to the writing about not writing. It was okay though because once I let go of the not writing I started listening and looking. I saw things and learned things and felt things and thought things. Now I just want to write.

The week of not writing taught me that I can no longer not write. The sentence isn’t really as pointless as it sounds. If you ask me to my face why I write, I’m sure that I’ll come up with an answer that is both convincing and detailed, maybe even slightly amusing but whatever it is that I say to you, it won’t be the whole truth because the thing that I found down the bottom of the pool this week while the water was drained out for maintenance, is that I have to write to stay out of jail. I have to write to stay out of the mental asylum.

It was all just too much silence for me, even while having conversations, which were for the most part surface communication nothing like the deep cosmos conversation I had a few weeks back whilst watching shooting stars. So I got bored. Then I got to watch myself being bored and watch myself walking and talking and laughing and making choices of what to wear, eat and speak. Altogether too much self awareness quite frankly. Writing allows me to cope not only with life and reality, which is its most obvious face, but also with the life internal. I don’t know why that should come as such a surprise to me, habitué of the Land-of-What-If-and-Maybe (LOWIM) as I am. But it really was a shock it see my internal need to create stories laid so bare.

I am super excited to find out how this strange week of awareness of writing will affect my writing. I used to think of writing as an adjunct part of me, like an extra toe, or a hyper developed set of muscles like a good pitching arm, or of putting on my writer hat or opening up the word smithy for the day. Now I’ve had week of routine so completely altered 24/7 that the how and why of everything I do or do not has been taken up and examined. Writing somewhere somehow shifted from something I do into something I am, bone and blood. Not sure how comfortable I am with that. Does it mean anything or nothing? Am I just playing word games with myself or does this shift in perception herald a new direction in my work? I suppose only time will tell my lovelies. Until then. Don’t stop believing. Hmm, maybe just too many Glee reruns in compensation for a TV free week.

Does it make you go Mhhhgnk?

Carolynne Ciceri

8 Sep 2010

How do I read a script?

Now this is a question that I get from time to time when I send things forth to my select group of readers. That is partially because I solicit readers of all types for my material in the early stages, not strictly just those that are screenwriters or who are in the business of reading scripts like actors or producers. Frankly the question “How do I read a script?” always baffles me a bit so I put a little extra thought into it this week. Let’s see where it took me.

First, it made me think about why I like my script read by non-screen writers and why I work hard to have a first draft read by a really mixed group. Why do I do that? I just find that the type of feedback I get on a first draft is most useful if some of my readers, quite frankly, have no idea what they are doing.

They can be easily confused and so they point out best which areas are confusing. They respond strongly to the characters and pace. Most importantly, if something is amiss, they don’t try and fix it for me. They point out places that are problems, ask original questions and they give even weight to all of their comments since they don’t have a clue how I’m going to fix something. They have never heard of the seven pillars of a screenplay or that the theme is expressed on page ten or that all must be lost at the start of Act III. Their ignorance of script keeps them from over thinking and they respond to the piece with clarity and passion.

While a bit later in the process, like next draft, I’ll move further into my group of experienced readers and writer’s for help with fixes, right now I find a mix of comments from the script writer and the layperson most useful. None of these people are family by the way. Not that I don’t give stuff to family to read, I do, but I don’t use their comments. Indeed comments from someone who knows you too well can get into psycho therapy or twenty questions about what real life person or incident inspired the bad guy. Maybe not a waste of time in the larger scheme of your life and self-knowledge, but certainly a waste of time in the get-the-script-done sense.

I find comments from actors very helpful in terms of dialogue and character. Actors, who have been properly trained by the way, dare I say it, have been to theatre school, have a great tool kit for breaking down and interpreting a script for performance so the way they look at a script is really essential to the quality of the writing in terms of character development and expression.

Writers and directors and novelists give you the best notes on structure. But keep in mind that this is one of the hard parts of screenwriting once you get beyond the seven points that every script is supposed to have, so I like to wait till I have notes from at least two of these folks before I make any changes as I like to see if there is consensus as to what and how to fix something.

One of the drawbacks for me with writer notes is that occasionally they want to rewrite a character or change something fundamental about the theme or take that plot in a direction that I’m not interested in going. When I was less experienced I used to take writer and director notes as gospel and make all changes requested. Not anymore.

Like most everyone, I hate criticism and so selecting a group of people to critique my baby is a tough thing to do. Lucky for me I’ve been writing long enough for pay that I’ve received just about every writing insult imaginable. It’s a good thing I like salt cause I’ve had to take a grain of it often enough. It is a bit distressing and shocking how gleeful, or conversely, insulted people can be when they discover an error in your spelling, grammar or usage. Like the supervisor who liked to point out errors with exclamation points!!! Somehow never getting the idea that while a writer should proof their work as best they can, the truth is they are the worst person to perform the task.

One of the ways to not take the critique too personally is to send the material to five people at the same time. Preferably five people who read a lot and whom you respect. I like them to not know each other too well and I try not to pick the same group all the time. I don’t want them to get tired of being asked. I want them to take it seriously and consider it an honour that I’m trusting them with my newborn. I also like a variety of ages and professions, regardless of the target audience of the piece.

And so, whether you are reading a script for someone or asking someone to read your work, here are some of the questions I like to have answered:

I want to know what you liked/didn’t like or left you going Mhahk?
Where do you feel like putting it down? Getting a glass of water or checking the time?
Does each act work as a mini movie?
Is the imagery strong and consistent?
How do you like the dialogue – does it convey plot and character in an interesting way?
Where are you surprised?
Where are you confused?
Where don’t you give a Rat’s Ass?
Do you want to come back after the commercial break (beginning of each Act in TV)?
Do you like the characters?
Are there any scenes where you get told something you already know?
Does the story stay with the lead characters?
What do you want to know more about?
Who do you want to know more about? Why?

Does that help? You are essentially looking for the things that make any story good: imagery, dialogue, character, plot, pace, cleverness, boredom, cliche that is bad, cliche that feels fresh.

By the way if you don’t know what seven pillars of screenwriting I’m talking about – read a book!

Robert McKee’s Story, Dara Mark’s Inside Story (my personal fave), or Syd Field’s Screenplay. In fact, if you really want to write scripts, not only do you have to be reading them daily, you need to have a book on writing or screenwriting on the go at all times.

If that all feels like too much homework you can always go learn to make cheese. That’s what I’m going to do if this writing thing doesn’t work out for me. Come on, everybody loves cheese, except my friend Mark, but he’s got, you know, issues. And you lactose intolerant types secretly wish you could, you know you do.

Oh, funny. I forgot to say what kind of feedback I find the most valuable from producers. Funny I forgot that, huh?

10 Tips for Creating a Winning Entry

David Cormican

5 Sep 2010

I stumbled across this great article written by The Contest Guru, Melanie Rockett, and I wanted to share it with everyone. Visit her website for more information on entering and winning contests. And in the meantime, enjoy some sage advice:

There are literally hundreds of writing contests open for entry at any time of the year. There are contests for every genre and level of experience — from amateur poetry writing contests to competitions for published novels.
Some of today’s top novelists, magazine writers and screenplay writers got a kick start in their careers by entering and winning writing contests.
Here are 10 tips that will help you position your entry to become the next WINNING entry!
1. Follow the Rules. Read them once and then print them out and read them again, this time with a highlighter in hand. If the rules are in a miniscule font, copy and paste them into your word processor and then increase the size of the font until you can easily read it. At risk of repeating myself, be sure to FOLLOW the rules. If it says 500 words or under, you will likely be disqualified for submitting 501 words.
2. Examine previous entries. If the contest organization posts or publishes the winners from previous months or years, read the winning entries. You may get insights into the types of stories and the writing styles that have caught the eye of previous judges. Are the winning entries experimental or conservative? What style(s) did the judges move towards? The idea is not to clone last years winning entry, but to get an idea of the overall direction that the judges appear to prefer.
3. Submit more that one entry. Judging a contest is an extremely subjective process. Submit several entries. Make them quite different in content and style. Your favorite entry may be totally bypassed by the judges. The entry you thought to be the weakest could take a winner’s ribbon simply because it evoked the right response from the judge(s).
4. Polish your entry. There is no hurry. There is ALWAYS another contest or another year. Never rush, and never enter a contest in a rush. Unfinished work always looks like unfinished work. Take whatever time you need to polish your entries and only enter when you feel the work is totally finished for now.
5. Write on Schedule. Good writers practice their art. They write regularly and are always learning. Set aside some time every day for your writing. You may only have 15 minutes a day. That’s OK. Over a month only 15 minutes a day will add up to almost 8 hours!
6. Read good work. Good writers are usually voracious readers. Don’t just passively read, take action, make notes on what you like. Pay attention to how your favorite author describes a character or a location. If the book is your own, make notes in the margins. Highlight sentences, descriptions, and passages you love. Focus on your weak areas. If, for example, you are weak on dialogue, analyze what your favorite authors do. How do they keep out of the “he said, she said” trap?
7. Create a Work Space. Your workspace could be at home, in front of your computer in the kitchen, or it could be in a coffee shop with your notebook or laptop. Your workspace should inspire you and be conducive to your writing. For some that will mean a totally quite space. Others can create a cocoon of inspiration in the midst of chaos. One of my favorite writing areas is MacDonald’s during the morning coffee rush! If I lack inspiration, all I have to do is look up!
8. Opening word, sentence, and paragraph. Your opening should immediately grab the attention of your audience. In a contest, your audience is the judge. You have a lot of competition sitting there on the judge’s desk. If you don’t capture his/her interest right away your entry will quickly go into the rejected stack. Rewrite and polish your opening until you are sure it will keep the reader moving onto the next and then the next.
9. Format. Whether you are writing Haiku or a screenplay, there are accepted formats. The format may be specifically outlined in the rules. If formatting (i.e. double spaced lines) is not specified, do some research and find out the formatting conventions for your specific genre. For example, if you are submitting to a screenplay contest you must use screenplay-formatting protocols. If you don’t know what these are … find out!
10. Enter. One of the saddest tales is “I had this great idea, BUT I never got around to it. It probably would have won. I should have, BUT you know, life got in the way.” Yes, life does get in the way. BUT winning writers find a way to get their writing done in spite of it all!

Phew! Now that you know, good luck! And we look forward to seeing your entry– or should we say, entries! Thanks Melanie.

About The Author– Melanie Rockett is THE Contest Guru. Visit her website for more information on entering and winning contests, and for information about DOZENS of current writing contests. http://contestguru.com

Thirteen Lines

Carolynne Ciceri

1 Sep 2010

Beginnings and endings are on my mind this week. And Black Holes. Definitely with the Black Holes of both the literal and the figurative variety courtesy of a viewing of a Black Holes episode on DiscoveryWorldHD.ca show “How the Universe Works”. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been waiting for someone to explain exactly that to me for like, forever. Awesome show by the way. Probably in the absolute original sense of awesome.

Funny, how now I’m trying to decide whether or not to start with the end or the beginning. Not much to choose between them since they are both the same thing, just a pause for breath in the great continuum of the story of the universe. But tiny little creatures that we humans are, we do like someone to cut up our food for us and make it a bit easier to manage.

So, what the hay, as my prairie relatives are wont to say, no really, they do. Let’s work backward to the thirteen lines which is the riddle of this blog title.

Did you know that the death of a star is the birth of a Black Hole? Not all stars turn into Black Holes when they die. Some of them just explode, I think, in a sort of typical explodey kind of way. Is it all right with you that I turned the word “explode” into an adverb? At least that’s what I think you call it.

Some might be inclined to attribute some light vs. dark theological yadda-da-yadda-da to the story. After all the gist is that the Black Hole sort of eats the light of the dying star. But Black Holes aren’t really evil, just transformative. The star is going to die anyway. The development of the Black Hole just gives all that energy a chance to do something different.

What kind of gets me is that here, at the Event Horizon of a Black Hole is where all the laws of physics start to break down. Space? Time? pfhhffft! The last man standing is good ole’ gravity. Still swinging in there right until the end of the end. A truth of the universe if there ever was one? Gravity gets us all in the end. A truth which can be confirmed and endorsed by any woman who has ever crossed the event horizon of forty. Not that I’d know of course. But I’ve been told.

So the thing that happened last night pre-Black Hole documentary, the thing that sucked everything I am into its gravity well. I finished something. The first (Hah!) draft of an original TV pilot script – Rain Girls. Those of you that know me are rolling your eyes right now thinking, “About frackin’ time!” Those of you that don’t are thinking, “Yah, that’s nice but so what?”.

Neither of you are getting the whole Carolynne finished something thing. I am more afraid of finishing a piece of creative writing than I am of killer bees or lemon meringue pie (long story). This all hooks back to the Black Hole thing as in that weird icky post-email-send-with-script-attached time last night when others might be dancing around with the cat and drinking peach schnapps in celebration, I am slumped on the couch watching really cool 3D graphics of stars exploding and Black Holes birthing wondering why I feel so blue. Separation anxiety? Fear of failure, fear of success? Fear of criticism?

I can hear my pal Squishy reminding me to recite the Dune litany which I committed to memory in college and cling to like a life raft in moments like this.

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” – Frank Herbert

Twenty years since I memorized that thing and I still have it pretty word perfect. I just tested myself by typing it before confirming in the text. Well I may be feeling a bit wibbly about my writing ability today, but jeepers I still have a fine mind for useless trivia.

Back to the Black Holes before this blog gets sucked into one and appears retroactively in 2009. I am watching a little robot probe approach the event horizon of a Black Hole and it seems to slow down. Wow, I’m thinking to myself that is exactly me approaching the end of a piece of writing. Despite the fact that the gravitational pull of “Fade Out” is starting to tear my fingernails out of their nail beds, my progress slows and slows and slows. In this case “Fade Out” was typed Sunday afternoon. All I need to do was give it one last proof read and spell check and send it out to my faithful readers. Noon on Monday spent my lunch hour eating a truly disgusting salmon burger and proofing half the script. No worries, I tell myself, another hour and I’ll have it proofed and emailed; I’ll do it as soon as I get home. Now here is where, like with my robot probe approaching the event horizon, the laws of physics as we know them break down. Flash-forward to the post-work proofing session? Not happening, instead I am on my hands and knees cleaning the toilet – ya’ with me here? Instead of finishing I am engaged in heavy house cleaning – and me house cleaning without the arrival of guests being imminent is certainly a breakdown of all the known physical laws of the Cocoverse.

You already know this story has a happy ending since I started from the end, for you see time only appears to slow to a halt at the event horizon. Eventually the horizon is crossed and my robot probe and my script become one with the singularity. That’s the centre of the Black Hole for those of you that don’t speak Geek. The singularity is, according to one of the scientists, just a fancy way of saying, “We don’t know.” So that is where my pilot script currently resides, in the singularity and I don’t know what will happen with it next.

I am wondering though if, since the more people liked this idea and wanted me to write this thing, the more I dragged my feet, if I shouldn’t ask my peeps to reverse psych me and praise the crap and pooh-poo the good stuff. Then I work on the good stuff just to be perverse and it would get finished, I’d sell it and we could all head to Vegas for a fun weekend on me.

Some writers’ counsel beginning something immediately upon ending so I suspect I’m not the only one who becomes slightly unglued at this point. So I began something. I began a new series pitch, or rather take one out of the plastic bin under my bed where I keep my half formed ideas. But I need it to percolate a bit so I decide to begin reading my next book club book. Or at least the first thirteen lines. Orson Scott Card (www.hatrack.com) noted author of Ender’s Game has a fab website which includes some fantastic free writing lessons – he says that you can judge the quality of a story by its first thirteen lines. Ever since I read that, I always read the first thirteen lines and stop; equivalent to reading the first page of a screenplay. Then I stop and I ask myself – do you want to continue? If so, why? If not, why not?

In this case it was the first thirteen lines of Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood. I put it down. I stopped. I started knitting a shawl instead. Not because it wasn’t well written, come-on it is Margaret Atwood, but because of this sentence among the first thirteen lines, “The abandoned towers in the distance are like the coral of an ancient reef – bleached and colourless, devoid of life.” – Margaret Atwood. Now in retrospect I know she probably means “dead” by using the word “ancient”, but that is not the word she uses. So what leapt out at me and hit me in the head was the fact that coral reefs are far from lifeless. What stopped me cold was how could I commit to reading a post-apocalyptic novel which delves heavily into the idea of science and corporate greed gone mad when the author gets a basic science fact wrong on the first page. I wonder if she was so in love with the turn of phrase that its accuracy as a metaphor was deemed unimportant. At this point you all know how I feel about my metaphors. Thus is demonstrated the fragility of beginnings. Will I return to the book and give it another chance? Don’t know. I have to get un-annoyed about it first, which may not happen. Thus is demonstrated the harshness of judgment of this reader. Strange isn’t it? Glowing green rabbits I could buy. Or magical beans or aliens in the shape of summer squash but compare a real thing to a real thing poorly and I’m outta here. Oh well, I’ve got my own Metaphor Closet to clean out and things to begin. After that I’ll consider parking my Science Snobbery in the top left corner of the deep freeze and get back to reading the novel.

Until next week, watch out for those first thirteen lines.

P.S. Cocoverse is the realm over which I hold domain – named for one of my milder nicknames – Coco

I Wrote It Blue

Carolynne Ciceri

25 Aug 2010

I wrote it blue.

And they wanted it written red. Not, they admit, that red is better than blue but it is different and they know themselves well enough to know that red they are and red they must be.

I had thought about taking a big swing at writer’s groups this week. This would be completely unfair to writer’s groups everywhere since I’ve never been in one. I base all my material on the two groups that I’ve visited, plus conjecture (your word of the week), hearsay and a big fat dose of my own prejudice. But I think that we’ll leave that for next week given yesterday’s events. Today I feel like talking about rejection.

Okay, so I don’t really feel like talking about it, but I will anyway. The one benefit of a Catholic upbringing is that after someone has poked us with a sharp stick, we have no problem at all picking up that sharp stick and poking ourselves, repeatedly, in the same spot. Whether it is because the pain reminds us of our heavenly reward some day in the far future after much enduring of being poked at, or, we’re just so used to the pain we feel too weird when it stops.

So the inciting incident, as it were, for this blog post was a very nicely worded rejection email from a broadcaster who had been considering a piece of my work for series development. And seriously, nicest “no” ever, mild enthusiasm for the content, described as “interesting concept” and my favourite three words in all the universe “very well written”. Hmmm. Kind of sad really that I just typed that sentence instead of “I love you”. Maybe because I’m lucky enough to hear “I love you.” all the time and a writer can never hear “very well written” enough.

“Very well written” from someone who reads for a living to someone who writes for a living is a cup of sweet water poured upon the dry sands of self esteem. Immediately sucked from view as if it had never been, but let’s hope someday soon enough cups will have been poured out upon the sands to trigger an explosion of green growth and bright flowers. Jeepers. I really do need to roll up my sleeves and clean out my Metaphor Closet. And it is just that kind of tangent that gets me into trouble at book club and in project meetings.

But at least it’s well written.

I also got a not-quite-invitation, but definitely a sort of implied-kinda-invitation that almost, if you turn it sidewise, hints that they’d be interested in considering reading other future projects that I might bring their way that would be a better fit for their demographic. I could share the sentence from the email that makes me think that but I’m afraid one of you will debunk my Pollyanna view with razor sharp logic and then I’d have to go all the way to the Feeling Crappy Basement instead of standing on the top step with a firm grip on the handrail and face pointed toward the sunlight.

In telling you that rejection is part of an artist’s life I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. I’m pretty sure that I’m not even giving you any real advice on how to overcome it. Except maybe suggesting you distract yourself by going to play around in your own Metaphor Closet. How you deal with your rejection is up to you but I advise finding methods that are easy on your liver and your relationships. You’ll have to deal with rejection again soon enough, as will I, so let’s pace ourselves people.

Besides, I could run into someone tomorrow who is looking for Blue, and hey, I’ve got a great Blue project right here ready to go. And I’ll forgive the Red people their redness, easier than you might think because I have not one but two Red projects on the back burner.

So whenever and however the hell and high-water of rejection sweep you up, keep writing, and keep writing in colour.

– Carolynne

Dear Ariel

Carolynne Ciceri

18 Aug 2010

Dear Ariel,

My friend Angela has been telling me all about you and your stories, so I thought I’d send you an email to say “Hello”. So, Hello!

I was very inspired by hearing that you write all the time because that is what I know you need to do to become a better writer. I try to write as much as I can every day. Some days it isn’t easy of course because as a grown-up I have a day job, which is nice actually because it is writing too, just of a different sort.

But I try and visit The-Land-of-What-If-and-Maybe every day, even if only for a little while, and even if I only wander around a bit and don’t get much down on paper.

The-Land-of-What-If-and-Maybe (LOWIM) is what I call the place in my head where all my stories come from. It is a vast and crazy kind of place where any turn in the path might bring you to the edge of a blazing hot desert or the open air lock of a starship or a pretty little cottage garden thick with hollyhocks and tea roses and a family of gnomes living down by the back gate.

Some days LOWIM can be hard to get into as it is bordered by a wild and dense forest that is a buffer zone between Reality and Stories. The kind of forest where it can be hard to find the path, and once you are in under the branches, can’t see where the sun is too well. But it is always worth trying to visit, don’t you think?

Artists of all kinds roam the landscape, sometimes in groups, but most often alone. In fact while anyone can visit, it is the painters and writers and musicians and poets that have diplomatic passports and trade visas. That makes it sound a bit too civilized maybe, since certainly no kind of central government or organization exists there. No, with a meadow full of wild flowers slap next to acres of cracked concrete and rusted chain link fences patrolled by packs of killer Chihuahua, an animal inexplicably sacred to the ancient Aztec and Toltec. But that inexplicableness is why I go really. Not altogether sure the inexplicableness is a word, but it sure seems to suit, so I’m going to hang on to it a bit.

While it is a place that can be exquisitely beautiful, sometimes funny and always amazing, LOWIM can also be a very dangerous place. Some who wander from the well trodden paths or ignore the warning voice of their tour guide and fall behind the group are never seen nor heard from again. Still others will stagger out of the bush, years after friends and family have given them up for lost, with nothing in their pockets but a few mustard seeds, a red silk kerchief and a stale piece of cheese wrapped in leaves.

Over the years I’ve developed a whole range of tools and tricks to get safely in and out of LOWIM at will, usually but not always, with my knapsack full of story and my notebook filled with treasure. Still, with all the stamps on my passports and lessons learned from following around some of LOWIM’s master guides – Shakespeare, Cameron, King, Matisse, Bach, Austin, Angelou, Child, Dickens, Card etc. ad infinitum (that’s your word for the week), it doesn’t do to take traveling there for granted. As you keep visiting and writing while you grow up, you’ll find the things that work best for you.

If I’ve been having a tough time finding a clear path in, sometimes I’ll take a few minutes to visualize getting dressed and ready and packing my gear. It is just a little daydream but it helps me put Reality in its place (my rear view mirror) and opens a gate into The-Land-of-What-If-and-Maybe.

I dress in layers, the way my Mom always told me to when traveling, so over a tank top goes a long sleeve t-shirt and a tight fitting vest. The vest is reinforced with boning which can come in as handy protection in a knife fight. The pants are usually leather and unlike my wardrobe in Reality where pretty much everything I own is a shade of black, in LOWIM things are grey and brown and green and tan with the occasional flash of red or blue.

Of course my LOWIM persona is tall and lean and can get away with the leather pants and the low heeled boots that have to work well in a swamp, on the deck of a ship, riding a horse or shuffling along a dusty road. The coat is part cape, part western duster made of a funny fabric that will give you a headache if you stare at it too hard, but is super useful when you need to keep your swords or knapsack of treasures from prying eyes. LOWIM, for me, is a blade kind of place as firearms can be extremely unpredictable. A good knife or two, or six, is far more reliable for self defense and for lots of other things come to think of it. You can’t cut your hair with a shotgun after all.

While the sword I bring varies on the landscape and my planned itinerary, the knives are always the same. Thought, is the name of the l0 inch leaf blade with razor edges and a bone handle that gets tucked in my left boot, in the right goes Memory, a Smith & Wesson tanto knife, 9 1/8” overall with a black carbon blade and a rubberized grip. Then the hat is black, a stiff brimmed Spanish gaucho hat with a chin cord. I also pack some chocolate, pencils, notebook, pencil sharpener, string, elastic hair ties and thermos of coffee, bottle of water, cinnamon gum and a roll of duct tape. You never know when you’ll need some duct tape. Oh, and a couple of those little packages of tissues. I tend to be a weep sort, you know cry when happy, sad, angry or bored, so it is always good to be prepared.

So I guess that now that I’m dressed I should probably sign off on this email and actually head out into The-Land-of-What-If-and-Maybe and get started on this day’s story. Hmmm, I’m thinking I might catch heck from Angela and your Mom for too much scary talk about the weapons. But you’re almost twelve now and when you told me your favorite books were Ender’s Game and Everlost I figured you were the kind of girl that wants to know the whole story, not just the happy bits.

I hope that you will keep writing as you get older. Remember that while not every person will like your stories, that as long as you like telling them to yourself it is important that you also keep writing them down to share. Because you know what? Not everyone can travel The-Land-of-What-If-and-Maybe as easily as you and I can so we need to share our gift with the world. It’s sort of our responsibility. Someday there will be someone who reads one of your stories and it will make their day better, and that makes it all worth it. Best of luck and no matter what – keep writing! Maybe I should say that again, a bit louder NO MATTER WHAT, KEEP WRITING.

– Carolynne

Care Don’t Care

Carolynne Ciceri

11 Aug 2010

If that title sounds vaguely like a Zen aphorism (your word of the week) then that’s good, it’s supposed to. Not like I’m any kind of big Zen expert. In truth my entire experience of Zen comes from reading Zen and the Art of Archery and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Both which I have read multiple times. Does that count extra? And which by the way, I highly recommend, though I can’t say for sure how much real knowledge about Zen Buddhism they actually convey.

I will however, cheerfully plow away as if they’ve taught me everything I need to know, ‘cause though I love you, I’m just not in the mood to spend long hours researching the tenets of Zen Buddhism just to make a point in this blog.

I should though shouldn’t I? I should care that much. My tyrannical conscience (a real psychological diagnosis by the way) is thrashing about just above my brainstem right now trying to force me into leaving the writing of this and find at least three legitimate sources for what I’m about to launch into. And The Producer wonders why it takes me so long to first draft stage. Deep breath. Two. Three. What I am experiencing viscerally right now is a version of the topic of this blog – Imaginary Criticism.

I had the occasion this week to have two separate conversations with two intensely brilliant people, whom I admire, and I also like a lot, and they both expressed a surprising anxiety. The first is an academic with two books and nearly 40 years of experience in her field, she was describing her struggle to find a topic she cared about enough to become book number three. I of course, always fascinated by writers who tell me they don’t have a story idea – hey I have three suitcases, a filing cabinet and a storage locker full – want one of mine? Anyway, upon closer questioning I discover she does have a book in mind but thinks people will say “Who are you to write this? Who made you the expert? What makes you think you are good enough to do this topic justice?” “Jeepers,” I said. “You’re you. You are educated, intelligent and passionate about the subject. Who else do you need to be?”

The second conversation which took place later that evening was a younger person, but extremely talented and driven and successful as all get out at his age. His anxiety was over his dual career, concerned that people who knew him as one thing wouldn’t take his skills and accomplishments seriously in the second arena. “What will people say?” he asked. Again colour me astonished. Neither of these friends are newbies at what they do, and both have shelves full of awards and accolades and accomplishments yet they are both expressing the same anxiety to me “What will people think?”

I can never decide whether to keep terminal punctuation in quoting dialogue inside or outside the quote marks. Apparently one is British and the other American so as a Canadian I guess I’ll just continue to mix it up.

So I wake up at 3something AM, my usual Lost Hour, and the first thought that leaps into focus – I hate it when it happens at 3 AM when I work a day job but it seems to be a genetic thing – is that both these confident, capable and already successful people are not only losing sleep over Imaginary Criticism, (as apparently am I) but are letting it shape their choices. So as the thoughts kept tumbling down, I was struck by the fact that both as productive members of society and as artists that some part of us, some of the time, have to care what people think. In particular if we intend to create as a profession, most people need to like, approve and desire our creative product or we are going to have to supplement pretty heavily with our barista salaries.

At the same time, in order to begin, and certainly in order to do the best most truthful and powerful work, one has to learn not to care. If you’ll forgive me for stepping into my metaphor closet again. Caring is like a trench coat that you need to wear to the door of the Land-of-What-If-and-Maybe, but then you really need to check it or let it hang on a coat rack and drip what “people are saying” into a big puddle on the floor. This, with any luck, will have evaporated by the time you are finished your creative walkabout.

So be careful my friends about the scope and reign you allow your inner judges, particularly when they seem to be standing judgment on creative work not even yet attempted. The world will have plenty of Real Criticism for you to deal with. Find the place where you Care Don’t Care and mark it on your inner map so you can return there when threatened.

As for your internal tribunal? I’ve never been fully successful at banishing mine but sometimes if I give them something other to chew over I can get some writing done while they’re distracted. Like right now for instance, they are busy debating what I should wear to meet up with a group of writers and producers for dinner tonight at VJs. So while they are agonizing over that, I got to write this post while they decided on the black tank with ruffles and the chandelier earrings.

-Carolynne

Watering the Elephants

Carolynne Ciceri

4 Aug 2010

It’s run-away-and-join-the-circus week in the Cocoverse. Or at least it would be if I was a regular person. But I’m not. I’m an emerging screenwriter.That means a bunch of things but in the context of my little circus metaphor, it means that I don’t need to run away to join any circus ‘cause the whole troupe pulled into the cow-pie strewn farmer’s field in the back of my head long ago. It’s a permanent camp now and for the most part the inhabitants treat me like one of the family. I’m still having huge trouble braking into the aerialists who as working screenwriters, er, acrobats, are the stars of my show and the most clannish and closed of all the groups. Oh, they are friendly enough, and full of advice, but so far I’ve just got to help put up the nets (book to film treatment), sew on some sequins (script coverage) and give post-show massages (story editing). Mostly I’ve just had work on the midway setting up the attractions the Hall of Mirrors (Expos.), the Haunted House (themed attractions) and the Wax Museum (museums) not to mention the Freak Show (science centres). In the past I’ve also worked the dog and pony show (corporate video) and taken my turn with the jugglers (web content). Mostly these days though I just work the gate (update the website) and water the elephants (work on my own stories). But hey, really can’t complain, it beats driving the clown car (taking committee meeting minutes) and working the cotton candy cart (getting coffee)…

Okay, this has just got to stop. Hear the needle skid across the record or dive for the stereo remote as DVD player jumps into an annoying repeat. This blog post is going no where good fast and I think the reason is twofold – the crazy circus metaphor is just too big for me to handle and I’m not approaching this topic from a place of truth. What I was trying to write here was an inspirational and slightly humorous piece about work life balance. Something full of encouragement that says hey, you can learn the guitar, keep your friends and family happy, be a great asset to your day job and get to the gym all while serving the muse.

But that really ain’t the truth of my week. The truth is that I’ve been snowed under by a blizzard of resistance (oh, look out, there she goes with the metaphor again). Resistance is the name that my current Yoda of the Keyboard, Stephen Pressfield (The War of Art), gives to the big pile of stuff the universe throws at you to keep you from achieving your higher purpose. In my case that means writing. So I’m abandoning the circus metaphor, though I kind of like the one about taking committee minutes being like driving the clown car, think I’ll keep that one.

Hang on though ’cause that probably means this blog post is about to take a left turn into what Tank Girl, one of my blog phanatics, calls one of my Crazy Blogs. She’ll be pleased. Those are the kind she likes best. But Sweet Potato, another loyal devotee, tends to run for her psych textbooks after I commit one of these to print.

So here goes.

I haven’t actually written for two weeks. Outside these blog posts and my day job of course. I’ve even been stingy with the email responses. The muse has not been served at all, unless he enjoys listening to my guitar practice, which he might. It is after all starting to sound pretty good and is at least some kind of demonstration that I can sit down and be disciplined about something. Albeit about something that will never earn me a dime. Most of the time he’s been channel surfing and calling out unhelpful tips for reinstalling software applications. I can tell if I don’t get back at it soon he’s gonna head for Wreck Beach or the patio at Bridges and the next thing you know good bye August productivity. Yes my muse is a guy if you must know. Hey if Stephen King’s can be a drill sergeant with a flat top lurking in his basement, mine can be a guy too.

Reasons I haven’t written: The toilet needed scrubbing. I ran out of clean underwear. It was my birthday and I had to see friends eat pie read Stephen King’s new book call my Mom and let her tell the story of my nativity again and how cute it was, which is true, I have a picture where you can already see I have a pair of lips that will take over my face not to mention flap too frequently. My computer crashed and needed a new hard drive and I waited two days to get it fixed cause it was in Yaletown and parking is now 2 bucks for 20 minutes and reinstalling files took days and none of the Microsoft applications would work and I junked them and went with iWork and it was my birthday and I had to sleep in go to the gym eat carrot cake sweep the floor recycle the recycling watch a documentary on Hawaii clean out the freezer practice guitar emails to writer peeps read twitter posts harvest grapes and sugarcane in farmville read book on neuroscience of music try and get my outgoing mail to actually go out pickup my passport renew my driver’s license buy a new shower curtain get a haircut buy groceries make carrot and celery sticks look at the job postings clean up my hard drive reinstall screenwriter and activate then email support cause every time reopened it wanted to be reactivated (don’t we all).

There. So while resistance may be futile. The last couple of weeks is still beating me.

Can’t go backward. Must go forward. While you may have thought that the “emerging writer” part of me was all about getting paid regularly for my creative writing. Now you know the larger part, which is I’m trying to learn how to be a pro. Being a pro has nothing to do with technique or who you know or how much you get paid. It has everything to do with getting the butt into to the chair and doing the work.

Sometime after work and the workout and a shower and some dinner and before the Skype call with the producer, please imagine me, butt in chair opening RG_PilotJuly16, and writing.

And just to ice the cake (crap, another metaphor leaking out) I thought I submitted this blog post SEVEN HOURS AGO. But I forgot to attach it. Sigh.

– Carolynne

Coming back to Papa.

Carolynne Ciceri

28 July 2010

This post will be about, variously, Hemmingway, Book Club, being a better writer and my big fat gob.

For a rabid reader and wannbe writer, the greatest thing about book club is being pushed out of your specific little comfy cozy niche of the Great Library and into a seminar room with a small collection of other disreputable book worms who are going to challenge all of your assumptions about what makes a book good. I received a quick sharp kick in the kester at the last session of the E-litter-atti in just such a way. “A Farewell to Arms” by Ernest Hemmingway was the vehicle by which several new “Ah-hah” light bulbs were turned on in some of the more dimly lit caverns in my noggin.

And just an aside. What’s the deal with everyone in your whole life who you actually like phoning and emailing you the day before you’ve got a blog post due? Twelve, count ‘em in the last 12 hours, twelve. Plus three co-workers sticking their heads in the door to say howdy. Is it a conspiracy? I’m really not this popular and well loved. It’s a bit freaky. No. It is a lot freaky. Go away people! I have big pontifications to pontificate (your word for the week)! Call me Thursday!

Now that I’ve used up three of my monthly allotment of a dozen exclamation points I will continue with why I think writers need book club even more than a writers group. Okay so there is the first ah-ah! Book club gives you the chance for lively discourse with smart people about Story. Especially if you ban self-help books, which we have. Also no-one in the room wrote the blessed thing so feelings can’t get hurt when the gloves come off.

Well, actually they can. I for one will never forget the incredibly tense back and forth escalating into almost an unfortunate moment between two beloved book club members. The book in question, the selection of one of the parties as one of the best books she’d ever read (Lisey’s Story by Stephen King) and an incredible insight into the creative process of writer’s was being savaged by the other. Someone finally had to leave the room and splash some cold water on her face when it was discovered that the savager never made it past page 100. As it turned out the passionate inquisition of the savager was triggered by the fact that she has so much respect and love for the selector that she really really wanted to like the book. But obviously, didn’t. See, even book club can have moments of high drama. Sometimes even a small life has some big moments.

So the selector of the book this month, is as it turns out a fan of Hemmingway, which I am in fact not. A little too adamantly not as it turns out as I opened my big fat gob and dumped all over it at length. Thing is, by the time the others got a word or two in edgewise I was starting to have a strange itchy feeling. The mental itchy kind of feeling behind my eyes and at the base of my neck, which in the Cocoverse generally indicates a giant and not always welcome flash of insight and personal growth is about to occur. In this case not one insight but a bunch ricocheting through the aforementioned empty cavern in my head. First, I talk too much when I get wound up talking about story. Second, I talk to much when I’ve been doing nothing but working and writing and not socializing enough – in this case losing my social skills and expressing my loneliness as one big run-on sentence. Third, I talk too much pretty well all the time about everything to everyone. Book club peeps, I promise to work on that. The rest of you will have to learn to deal.

Then I realized that I was very happy to have read this book again, twenty years after I didn’t like it the first time. I LEARNED something. Something big for a writer, I think anyway. I learned that Papa Hemmingway has much to teach me about writing after all. In fact I went home and finished reading the book and dug out my Snows of Kilimanjaro and read some more. So while I wouldn’t exactly describe myself as a fan, I still dislike the way he writes women and I don’t think I’m necessarily down with what he chooses to write about, I have come to appreciate and value the way he writes. Some of it is pretty stinking good. Huh.

There may need to be a part two to this one. I might have more to say about book club over writer’s group and I guess you might actually be interested to know what, specifically, it is that Papa taught me. For now though I’ll take a page from my TV writing lessons and leave you hanging ’til after the commercial break.

Until next week then, keep writing, form a book club, revisit Hemmingway, listen more than you speak, and Stephen King’s Lisey’s Story really is one of my top ten books of all time. Safe travels to all through the Land-of-What-If-and-Maybe.

“Farewell to Arms” funniest line:

Frederic “I was blown up while we were eating cheese.”

Okay, well to the cheese crazed members of my book club, it was hilarious.

-Carolynne

Oh, the travails and tribulations

Carolynne Ciceri

21 July 2010

There you go, that’s your word for the week, right up front – travails. Sigh. How’s that for some heavy handed foreshadowing? Yep, safe to say this week’s post is gonna be tagged with multiple keywords about some of the unexpected lessons that life as an “emerging” writer has coming to kick you in the g…er, teach you things you need to know.

First note to self. Stop shaking hands with people. At the family wedding some enthusiastic hand-shaking from a couple of young men with biceps the size of melons re-aggravated last year’s boxer’s fracture of the right hand. Both as a writer and a player of classical guitar, this is really not good. Like a concert pianist I make my living with my hands, and like a person trying to stay out of the nut hatch I find my solace and my soul in the playing of music. Almost ironic since the young man with the bruiser grip happens to be a highly accomplished pianist and I mean that in the He’s-Really-Frackin’-Brilliant-on-the-keyboard kind of way.

How did I get the boxer’s fracture you might be asking? If you’ve seen a recent photo of me you might be aware that my martial arts training is a little bit last century. And though I did once in my youth bite a guy in the trapezius at a 54-40 concert, I am not in general of the get-drunk-and-brawl persuasion. Drunk and flirty, drunk and maudlin, drunk and dance like a lunatic, but not drunk and belligerent.

The re-telling of the freak laundry room accident incident resulting in three solid months of “frack my hand hurts today” is pertinent to you lovely readers in that its occurrence was a result of my fear of success as a writer. Or a poorly maintained dryer, you decide.

Int. Apartment Laundry Room Day
She places wet clothes in dryer. Shuts door. Inserts $1.50 in coins into the metal slide and pushes. Slide JAMS. She hits it with the heel of her hand. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Begins to remove hand from slide zone. Metal slide SNAPS open and collides 3rd metacarpal of the right hand. SNAP.

COCO
((*&*&&$$#@$%^^%. Ow.

Why does this relate to my fear of success? Because it occurred as I was in the throes of assembling materials, and clean clothing, for my rookie trip to the Banff International TV festival.
Things Learned:

• Default to kissing all buff young men instead of hand shaking.
• Refrain from fist-bumping workmate in celebration of first pre-workday gym visit in 15 years.
• When approaching life changing career moment, send laundry out.

Second note to self. The experimental Flip video from the Yorkton Film Festival, the first on-film collaboration of the soon to be legendary Ciceri & Cormican, transferred to the MacAir to make space on the camera for the aforementioned family wedding filled the hard drive such that now there isn’t enough free RAM for the computer to boot up. I just get the Apple and the swirly thing. Haven’t yet been able to get it to soft boot so that I can dump the video and restore the planets of the Cocoverse to their proper elliptical paths. So I had to write this by hand and spend my lunch hour at work typing it up.
Happily – if you’ll excuse the use of an adverb, always a sign of sloppy writing but I’m running late with this post – I use Mozy, an on-line backup so my entire hard drive was backed up off site after my last writing session. However, still not having a working computer to restore files to, and still having a deadline to deliver today, using Google docs as a temp back up means I can finish and upload from anyone else’s computer, or my iPhone if I must. Now I can address the non-functioning computer with a stress level far from terminal as I’m both safe and delivered.

Things Learned:

• Use Google docs to draft blog posts and as temp backup for pieces nearing deadline.
• MacAirs are not meant for video, if you want to do video get a second computer and dedicate it to photos and video.
• Get into the habit of checking memory before shutting down.
• Find a new Mac Guy who will work for beer and cheese puffs.
• Don’t leave writing your blog post to the night before. I will no longer procrastinate.(Hah, hah . HAH, snorfle, choke, hah! That last one cracks me up).

In closing, I will ask for your prayers that the priceless video footage of several dozen of Yorkton’s finest examples of retail signage executed on black pegboards with yellow, orange and green neon lettering survives this week’s travails. Finger’s crossed.

-Carolynne

“The One Night Stand of Screenwriting”

Carolynne Ciceri

14 July 2010

First off I want to know how it happens to be Wednesday again? Time is truly a fascinating thing, isn’t it? Especially since in some real science way it doesn’t exist. Those of you not inclined to think esoteric thoughts about space time, or question whether or not stars have souls, are likely skipping ahead right now wondering how far I’m going to wander down this time tangent. You tuned in after all to get the answer to that big icky question left outstanding last week – How do you know your idea is a movie? Of course the short answer, and the cheap pop psych answer is, that if you truly see it and believe in it as a movie, then of course it is!

But that’s not the way it works in my head aka the Cocoverse, so leaving that with you as an answer is likely the coward’s way out. Not that I’m against that completely, sometimes the coward’s way is best, but it’s only Blog the 4th so I want to put off any overt displays of creative cowardice on my part for at least a few more weeks.

I’ll try and give you a bit more to work with. Then back to my time ruminations (that’s your word for the week).

First off, when the character chatter gets going in my head and I have to decide whether the story idea is best expressed as a novel, short story, song, poem, play, short film, feature, TV series, webisode, game, etc. It’s kinda like a Broadway audition. Except that instead of yelling “Singers who can Dance stage left and Dancers who can Sing stage right!” I yell “Doers who can Talk in the green room and Talkers who can Do wait out in the house.” Hmmm, that last is going to be pretty cryptic to those of you who know nothing about theatre. If that is you, your homework for the week is to see a play, doesn’t matter what it is, or even if it’s any good. If you want to want to write for the screen you have to know not only what that is, but what it is not.

All that to say that if my characters are exploring ideas and the expression of those ideas through language, I start to frame the story as a play. On stage the play of language takes the place of a sweeping landscape shot or a close up of a cherry blossom falling. So the chatty Cathy’s who want to wallow in hyperbole get the stage.

If the conflict plays out in a place, or places, I start thinking film or TV. If the place is big enough and complex and important enough to the play of the story that it becomes a character in and of itself then I’m thinking feature. Whenever big sky or weather or rocky shoreline or acres of cracked concrete are key to making the story work, it’s a feature. But also to be a feature it has to meet a couple other criteria. Is the plot all of a piece? There needs to be a certain unity of story to make me believe in it, in that I have to at least sense the shape of the beginning, middle and end. As well, it had better be wildly interesting to me if I’m going to invest myself for months and months in the story landscape. For me too, a feature has to have a complexity of plot and action that exceeds the budget of a TV show. Features have scope, even low budget ones.

TV for me is more about complexity of character. Characters that tangle and untangle and re-tangle themselves around each other. As well, TV ideas for me don’t have crisp endings, being so character driven, a good ending of one TV episode is just a good beginning for the next. Feature endings need to come down more, to a place of greater quiet and rest. Maybe because the up part has to be of such scope and intensity that the great exhale at the ending needs to be longer and deeper. And in terms of investment? For a writer a TV series is a marriage while a feature is a fling, so if you don’t want to be married, careful about heading down the TV development road.

Do I really think about all this stuff before I start writing? Yah, sorta. Sometimes I’ll sketch out a few scenes and just ask myself what it feels like. If I produce an inciting incident and a lot of internal dialogue, I start thinking short story, if a new world or a series of events jumps in, I’ll start thinking novel.

Short films come to me quickly, within a space of hours I have a beginning, middle and end sorted out. Writing one is like planning a big party. I know the time commitment won’t be that great but it still needs to be one hell of a good time, so I try to make sure that I give it a tight container to fit in. I like my shorts to have a unity of time, place and/or action. I find setting limits or story parameters keeps it from spinning out of control. Whether it is limiting character number or location or theme, I limit something about the structure in order to stay focused. In the Cocoverse the short film is the one night stand of screenwriting, so I try and have fun and not take it too seriously.

Honestly though, here we are at the end and in truth, back at the beginning because I’m going to leave you with the thought that your story idea is a play, song, painting, graphic novel, short script, feature film, TV series – indeed all of the above. Your idea is all of these things and none of them until you choose. I think the only way you can choose is to actually have some knowledge about the different storytelling techniques that come into play with each format. That means read. Read short scripts, plays, novels, features, teleplays, novels and cereal boxes, and oh, yah, blogs. If you are a screenwriter writer you read every day. Sorry, but it is a non-negotiable. Watching short films on the web, your favorite TV show or a movie marathon, is negotiable. Reading is not. Best of all is to get a hold of the screenplay and a DVD of the film, read, watch, repeat, read, watch, repeat.
Time for me to go do all that right now. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, always a slot in my space-time continuum for a classic.

-Carolynne

“When is an Idea a Story?”

Carolynne Ciceri

7 July 2010

Hmmm. What to write about this week? What to write about, hmmm. I do have a list of blog topics on the go. I could just open it up and pick one. But I’m thinking hey, “What to write about?”, that’s a topic right there! Look how clever I am with my grasp of the glaringly obvious. How does one decide what to write about, where to pour out your heart and soul and sweat and time and colourful oaths, not to mention how do you know what your story is? Is it a song? Is it a play? Is it a film, a poem, a rant, or maybe a short film? All of the above? I’ve had a few people ask me these questions and given that I always know what to write about and feel completely (and probably irrationally) confident in my selection of format let’s give it a bash as a topic and see what happens. Warning I am feeling especially enthusiastic which tends to lead to run-on sentences and italics abuse. So strap in before continuing.

First, how do I know what story to pursue from the snap crackle and pop of the firing of my neurons, through the language area and the motor cortex, down the arms and through the fingers, till finally it rests on the page as a series of marks, black on white, ready to be shared with all and sundry, providing that sundry can read English of course.

Well, I pursue the stories that pursue me. The ones that won’t leave me alone, that chase around in my head, sometimes buck-naked with their hair on fire screaming “Look it me! Look it me!” but often like a sore tooth or an itch that I can’t quite scratch or a faint pressure behind the eyes. Sometimes I’ll carry stories for years and years and years before they emerge, sometimes a few days, sometimes when my writing coach gives me a colour, an object and a verb and sets the timer for eight minutes, ready, set, story! Then it is only micro-seconds. But more usually, is a conversation in my head, a whisper or perhaps a scream, that kind of coalesces into first voice, then faces, then place and time, and BOOM it becomes a story idea.

Then for the thorny question of judgment – is it a good idea for a story? I run it through the gauntlet of “What If?” questions. What if she was a university professor? What if he wore cowboy boots? What if she were too busy to date? What if she needed love? What if he needed money? After about a half dozen “What If” questions are answered, the thought bubbles up, “Hmmm that would make a good story.”

And now I can see you scratching your head and saying, yes, Carolynne, but why would it make a good story. The answer is very simple, it would make a good story, because I am interested in it. Okay, enough with the italics already. It is a good story if I am curious to find out what happens. Do I want to ask another million What If? Questions? Yes? Then it is a good story because I care enough, am interested enough, to make it so.

Remember kids, ideas are a dime a dozen. Actually a dime for two dozen given the recent economic slowdown; it is the expression of the idea that matters. (Sorry, last use of italics for this post, I promise.) If I really care too, I should be able to make the tragedy of running out of coffee filters into a powerful melodrama that will have you crying in the aisles.

So hey, make it about you. You’re the one that is going to have to brave the dark places of The-Land-of-What-It-and-Maybe in order to bring it to the page. So choose what stories to write simply to amuse yourself. If you are curious and intrigued – good enough. While it is true that I’ve been known to pursue stories for the targeted amusement of a select few, I am first and foremost my most important audience. So, if I think I have a character, and a situation, and a theme that I want to chew over and get intimate with and cry over and laugh about, then regardless of the specifics of the substance of the idea, it is a good idea for a story.

Perhaps a reverse angle might help. I was once asked to write a feature on spec (which will be its own blog topic) – it was to be a thriller about a blog writer who gets cyber stalked by a crazy reader. I said no for a whole bunch of reasons but the one I could say out loud without hurting the guy’s feelings too much was that I wasn’t interested in telling a story about a people who sit in front of computers, I couldn’t see how to make it a visual story. Now, not to say it was a bad story idea, but it was a bad story idea for me. If he’d had a fist full of cash, I might have tried to love it, but writing is way, way too tough and too intimate to pimp yourself cheaply.

So there, that is my twofold advice for the week: if you are passionate about it, it is a good story, regardless of what anyone else says; if you’re gonna pimp yourself out, make ‘em pay through the nose.

Next week I promise fewer run on sentences and a ban on italics. Until then, dream big my beauties, and write well.

-Carolynne

“On Grammar Nazis and Semi Colons”

Carolynne Ciceri

30 June 2010

This week’s blog was partially inspired by the CSSC’s tag-line “Short. Is. Better.”, and partially by the attack upon my person earlier this week by the office Grammar Nazis. Every workplace has at least one Grammar Nazi and by virtue of the fact that I work on the university campus of a tier one university, we gots us a big bunch. In fact, out in that place you people live, what we at the U like to call “the world”, it is likely that at least half of my forty-four co-workers would qualify for the title. Here, however, the standard is extremely high so we only have two official Grammar Nazis and one in training.

The topic in question, or subject around which I got my butt kicked by the Welsh Grammar Nazi, Princess Gwenllian, was my habitual free-wheeling use of the semi colon. It had something to do with only being used in two cases, separating items in a list or separating equal related clauses. Course it would have made more sense if I’d paid better attention, as we were in the lunch room at the time and I was attempting a rather complicated bit of coffee making my full attention was not on the lesson at hand. Also might make more sense if I really actually understood what a clause was, or is, whatever.

For my defense I grabbed at a few straws and next thing you know I had woven quite a serviceable little shield. My straws numbered two and consisted of two facts: I am a creative writer who is in continual pursuit of a unique voice for myself and all of my myriad characters; the majority of my work is meant to be declaimed (that is your word for the week – look it up) by actors as well as inspiring all manner of creative professionals to bring their individual talents to bear on the full realization of my creative vision. Thus I argue, I am permitted to take almost unlimited license to punctuate as I will. And I do, so be fair warned if you are to be a regular reader of this blog. I punctuate the way I will, and devil take the hindmost.

You see, in particular with dialogue and creating character, while words may be the paint, the punctuation marks are the brush strokes. Yah okay, not the clearest of metaphors maybe but what I’m trying to get across that the use of punctuation is crucial to differentiating between character voices. One character may emulate one of my former co-workers and astonish by speaking only in paragraphs – always. Thus as a clue to the director and actor and wardrobe person and production designer, etc. I employ creative punctuation, or maybe none at all. When they read the script the multiple run-on sentences in the dialogue with no punctuation will inform them enormously as to what this character is like. If all of my characters were to speak with perfect grammar and punctuation, they would all sound the same. Not good. The way they sound would be deadly dull, as other than vocabulary there would be no overt or covert clues to bring in all the colours of personality.

And so I encourage you to experiment. Play it a bit fast and loose with your en–dashes and em—dashes and semi colons; mind you if the feedback is returned that what you’ve written is completely nonsensical you’ll have to pay some attention to that and of course spelling errors are no-one’s friend, but a little creative construction and punctuation would not be amiss. Go ahead. Write. One. Word. Sentences. If you are trying to illustrate a character who is having a hard time getting the thought out, but not stuttering either…stutt…stuttering can..uh, can call for a bbbbbbunch of eli-eli-ellipses. Leave out verbs, change tenses mid-sentence, write the way people talk. Of course some of your characters, like Princess Gwenllian, do indeed speak the way they write and write like they are supposed to. Which in their own way makes them just as colourful and incomprehensible as the rest of us.

In closing, I have already had one note that perhaps the expression Grammar Nazi is too harsh and should softened a bit, how a ’bout the Grammar Police? Nope, I mean the expression to pinch a bit, it’s part of my nefarious and elaborate campaign to train you into standing up for your writing and yourself. Grammar Nazi stays, if for no other reason than if you don’t like it, that’s good, let it remind you that words have power. Wield them well.

-Carolynne

P.S. in the drafting of this post I spelled “punctuation” 5 completely different ways. Maybe I shoulda left it like that, then it coulda been, like, an artistic statement.

“The First Place CSSC 2009 Speech that Never Was.”

Carolynne Ciceri

23 June 2010

A few people, including me quite frankly, are probably wondering who could I possibly be, and what useful things could I possibly have to say, that qualify me for the lofty honour of being being the CSSC’s first Blog Writer Laureate. Both good questions neither of which am I particularly qualified to answer given that the first question is one that I’ve been chasing the answer to all my life, and the second seems to have something to do with my placing a short screenplay into the CSSC’s 5th place slot two years running. Which is the kind of result that makes my mother pat me on the head and say that she has got to hand it to me for the fact that I keep trying. Thanks Mom.

However, (a word my mother hates as being too wishy-washy) if you visualize that the two years of short scripts entered into competition probably stack up to about one metre high, and that two with my name on them are in the top ten centimeters… More of an impressive result, huh? Or better yet, my friend Skyhammer, who is very good at Maths (Cambridge ’94), tells me that my aggregate score over the two years is actually first place, given that I’m the only one of the top thirteen this year who was top thirteen last year. He is a very good friend who got a big kiss on the cheek for this fine demonstration of math prowess.

And now you begin to see the convoluted mental gymnastics this emerging screenwriter goes to in an effort to keep her sunny-side up and the dream alive. “Emerging” is such a happier word than “struggling”. Don’t you agree? But between you and me, I didn’t really want to come first this year. No, it is absolutely true. I offer as proof of that assertion the first place acceptance speech that I never had a chance to give.

The First Place CSSC 2009 Speech that Never Was.
May 29, 2010 Yorkton Film Festival Gala
(I came 5th – again. Sorry, have I said that already?)

Wow. First place. Gee. I’m not sure I’m ready for this. First place.
Thanks to the Yorkton Film Festival for all of your kindness and generosity. And thanks to David Cormican for getting this competition going. I’m pretty sure I’ll never ever be able to thank you enough for your encouragement of my writing.
But you know I’m not all that crazy about coming first. I never come first. Well that’s not exactly true I did come first once in the BC rowing championships but they took the medal back cause the coach hadn’t paid the registration fee in time. But usually, mostly I’m an also ran. A bridesmaid. I mean really I’ve come to terms with my bridesmaid karma. I’ve actually been a bridesmaid 5 times and never a bride so I know what I’m talking about.
Seriously, two years back I was short-listed for the CFC primetime TV program – didn’t make the cut. Even last year in this competition my script finished like, 5th. And I’m okay with that because I understand the bridesmaid role.
So I don’t think I’m down with this 1st place bride thing, cause now when the speeches are over, I’m not gonna get to kick back and relax. No, now I’ll have to pose for photos and smile and nod and accept congratulations from you all. I’ll have to pretend to care who you are and try and remember your names. And I’ll have to let whomever wants, kiss me – even that highly unattractive Ryan Lockwood over there, who… Buddy I don’t know where you got that after shave you’re wearing tonight, but you smell like my crazy uncle Phil, and that is not a good thing.
Yah, I kinda want the bridesmaid thing back, cause that’s something I know how to do. And the dresses are like, awesome. And you know it is even written in the bridesmaid handbook that after the speeches I’m supposed to get piss drunk, dance like a lunatic and sleep with all the groomsmen. Preferably, all at the same time.
So first place. Yah, thanks for that. I guess.

So there’s the egg timer going off telling me I have to wrap this one up as in the spirit of – Short.Is.Better – I shouldn’t make my first post longer than my last short script.

-Carolynne

Bring on 2010!

David Cormican

8 Feb 2010

Time sure does fly! It’s hard to believe that the 2009 Canadian Short Screenplay Competition is now over and done with. During the course of the next month or so we’ll be taking a look at all of the entries to decide who will come out on top and secure our biggest prize.

Thank you to all who entered last year, we value each and everyone one of your entries and wish you the best of luck!

It wouldn’t be right to not give a shout-out to all those who tweeted, joined our facebook group, or simply used their voice to spread awareness of our competition. From the bottom of our hearts here at the CSSC, we thank you. We can only hope to have your continued support for the 2010 iteration of the competition!

So what does that mean for all of you who wanted to enter this year but forgot to enter, or didn’t have the time to get a script finished? It means be patient and enter in 2010! Put pen to paper and make things happen and you will have the potential to win in what looks to be our best year yet!

…That’s a big claim, isn’t it? Why such hype for the 3rd year of the CSSC?

Well, let’s just say that it is shaping up to be the biggest ever for us. Exact details cannot be discussed as of right now, however, I can say that we are working in partnership with a very prestigious Film Festival! Expect an announcement in the very near future.

It’s no longer debatable, the CSSC has proved this year that Short.Is.Better!

SHORT. IS. BETTER.

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