Once Upon a Time, There Was a Purple Unicorn ...

My fiction writing class is officially half over.  In the past when I’ve taken workshop-style writing classes, I’ve always managed to establish myself as the star pupil by this point, mostly because I have a lot of free time to devote to polishing and perfecting the assignments.  Unfortunately, this is not your typical workshop-style class.  Most of the writing is done during class, through various creative exercises.  We're expected to write hastily and carelessly for five minutes and then share whatever we've scribbled down.

Personally, I would rather parade around the classroom stark naked than read my unfinished, unrevised writing aloud.  First drafts aren’t meant to be shared; they’re meant to be burned and destroyed.  Even my blog entries are rewritten and painstakingly edited, hence the long gap between posts – and you thought I was just lazy!

The other students seem perfectly comfortable sharing their unedited writing.  There are a surprising number of improv performers in the class – including the teacher, who performs fully improvised musicals (there isn't enough alcohol in the world to get me up on that stage).  I never would’ve guessed that I’d be the only introvert in a writing class.  I’m basically a spectator.  When it comes time to share, I keep my head down and avoid eye contact with the instructor at all costs.

During the exercises, I rarely produce more than a few scattered notes.  Unlike my classmates – who type at a furious, almost maniacal pace without ever stopping – I feel compelled to plan everything out before I write a single sentence.  I’m usually still in the brainstorming phase when the instructor announces, “Pencils down."  Then I sit in disbelief and listen to my classmates share entire stories, with beginnings and middles and ends – and they're not always terrible.

I even struggle with stream of consciousness, the simplest of exercises.  The teacher will ask us to write down a chain of word associations starting with the word "purple."  The idea is to keep going no matter what, but I can’t seem to make it past three words.  Here's a sample of my best work:

Purple.  Eggplant.  Marinara ...  No wait, I don’t like that.  I’m just hungry.

Purple.  Unicorn.  Rainbow Brite ...  Um, yeah, that’s a dead end.  I haven’t seen that show in years.

Purple ....  You know what?  Purple sucks.  It’s by far the least inspiring color.

Yellow.  Banana.  Monkey ...  Oh my God, how predictable.  I hate it.  I hate yellow.

It has occurred to me that my problem might be a lack of creativity.  It does run in my family.  My mother took an aptitude test in the tenth grade, and her creativity score fell into the 4th percentile.  The guidance counselor said it was the lowest score she’d ever seen.  My mother’s achievement score, on the other hand, fell into the 99th percentile.  Come to think of it, that explains a lot.  I might not be able to write spontaneous stories about purple unicorns, but when it comes to achieving good writing, I’ll always pull through ... eventually.

Sarcastic 30-Year-Old Female Seeks Bestest Writing Buddy

Are you a woman between the ages of 22 and 40 with a passion for writing, a dry sense of humor, and plenty of free time?  Do you live within 10 minutes of downtown Austin?  Do you enjoy mocking others over a cup of coffee or many beers?  If so, I would like to invite you to audition for the role of my best friend / writing companion.

For several weeks now, I’ve been scouring the Austin writing scene for such a person, attending various creative writing Meetups and critique groups.  I can’t even begin to tell you how much bad writing I’ve subjected myself to on this quest for friendship.  And I mean really bad.  The general rule when critiquing someone else’s work is that you’re supposed to offer at least one positive comment; this is an area in which I struggle.  I’ll end up saying something like, “Well, I thought your avoidance of plot was really innovative. The main character didn’t actually do anything.  It was like we were trapped inside her head, listening to whatever random, pointless thoughts she was having.  So, um, great job!”  In my experience, comments such as this one rarely spark lasting friendships.

I've also noticed that the other writers who attend these groups are either much younger or much older than I am.  It's as if all of the thirty-year-olds have retreated from the social scene to play house and make babies.  On Facebook, my friends’ smiling faces have all been replaced by pictures of big-eyed, drooling infants.  Meanwhile, I’m left socializing with older retired ladies and college girls with fake IDs.

Last week, I went to my first fiction writing class, where the teacher kicked things off with a guided visualization.  She had us close our eyes and said weird stuff like “Listen to yourself breathe” and “Your hands are getting heavy” and “Let everything go white.”  I took the opportunity to blatantly stare at my fellow classmates, sizing them up and trying to decide who might be good friend material.  There was only one girl who I thought had potential.  She had bright pink hair and the only thing she said all night was “Go @#$% yourself,” but she didn’t say it to anyone in particular – it was part of a creative exercise.  Anyway, she didn’t show up to this week’s class, so it looks like I’m back to square one.

A Great Work of Fiction

I enjoy writing about my own life.  It’s a fascinating topic – one that I never seem to tire of.  Unfortunately, the market for light-hearted, humorous memoir is rather small.  I’ve noticed that the memoir pieces in literary journals and magazines usually involve some sort of trauma: being stricken with a horrible disease or losing a loved one in a senseless tragedy.  And although I consider my life to be riddled with disappointment and drama and horrific struggles (like my ongoing addiction to television or the fact that my breakfast taco came in a corn tortilla even though I specifically asked for wheat), I realize that other people might find my life mundane.

If I really want my work to be published, I should probably branch out and start writing fiction.  As Katherine Paterson once said, “I am constantly writing autobiography, but I have to turn it into fiction in order to give it credibility.”

The more I think about it, the more it seems like a good idea.  I’ve always been imaginative.  As an only child, I spent countless hours playing with my dolls and stuffed animals, and I not only gave them names but personality flaws, sordid backgrounds, and conflicting motives.  I used to pretend that my two identical Cabbage Patch Kid dolls were twin sisters named Mandy and Sandy who were torn apart by jealousy and competition.  If that isn't the makings of a great fiction writer, I don't know what is.

Even when you have a natural inclination, a blank page can be intimidating.  Where do you begin?  All great stories have great characters, so it makes sense to start with the protagonist.  Unfortunately, creating a three-dimensional character out of thin air is no easy task.  I always end up basing my characters on real people.  I’ll start with someone who looks and sounds a lot like my mother.  Then I’ll give her a mean streak and a drug problem to spice things up a little.  But then I worry, what if someone who knows my mother reads this and thinks, "Oh, I always knew she had two sides to her!  I wonder how long she’s been hitting the pipe."

I have the same problem with screenwriting, but since I’m usually writing a comedy, the worst case is that I make a hilarious joke at someone else’s expense.  And I’m sure everyone realizes that it’s all for the sake of the joke.  That’s the beautiful thing about comedy: you can get away with almost anything!

Perhaps I should write comic fiction.  A Confederacy of Dunces has always been one of my favorite novels.  Of course, the author eventually committed suicide because no one was willing to publish it.  It was his mother who finally got his novel published, and it took her eleven years.  And I don't have half the writing talent that he had.

The other challenge of writing literary fiction is, well, making it literary.  I scored in the 99th percentile on the GRE Verbal section, so in theory I know lots of big words.  I just need to practice using them.  Recently I started incorporating fancy language and rhythm into my everyday speech.  Instead of asking my husband “So whaddya want for dinner?” I’ll say “When we come together this evening to gormandize, what succulent fare do you envision on your plate?”

I'm also considering signing up for an online writing class.  I enrolled in a fiction writing class once before, and I crumbled under the pressure and dropped out after the very first class.  Hopefully it goes better this time around.  

Dear Hollywood, Why Won't You Return My Calls?

Back in 2007, when my career frustration had yet to snowball into a full-blown crisis, I decided to enroll in a non-credit class, just for the hell of it. Since I had always wanted to be a writer, Fiction Writing 101 seemed like an obvious choice. The teacher was a one-time novelist who utilized the opportunity to show off his chest hair and promote his band. He did throw in a discussion of Aristotle’s story-telling arc. He also gave us an assignment to write a piece of short fiction that would be read aloud during the next class. I went home and wrote the short story equivalent of a bad Lifetime movie featuring teenage girls who rebel (oh, the drama!). I knew it was awful, so I dropped the class and never went back.

One day, I was riding the subway home from work and saw a guy reading a book on Screenwriting. I considered it a sign and immediately enrolled in Screenwriting 101. This time, I took an instant liking to the teacher. He was bitter and self-deprecating and brought a half-empty bottle of vodka to class. I was also less intimidated to share my writing, since most of my classmates were crazy. My favorite of the bunch was an elderly lady who had recently adopted an 18-year-old boy (no, that’s not a typo). I admired her blatant disregard for screenplay format; she mostly shared handwritten journal entries. Her best story was about a hermaphrodite who wanted to be a ballerina but couldn’t wear a leotard without giving herself away. This lady also had a knack for finding new and hilarious ways of insulting other students’ work. She once told me that I had worked too hard and should try again with much less effort.

I ignored her advice and worked tirelessly to finish my first script, a comedy entitled BEST WISHES, NICE KNOWING YOU. I submitted it to the most prestigious screenwriting contest out there: the Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Here I am mailing my submission in April 2008. Aw, look how hopeful and optimistic I am!



Amazingly, I did fall into the top 10%. It was nice validation, but you need a win to get noticed. Two years later, I’m still submitting to contests. As an unknown screenwriter, that’s about all you can do. Although I’ve started (and occasionally finished) other scripts, BEST WISHES, NICE KNOWING YOU is still my best. So I keep trying to improve it, and every year, it places in at least one contest:

2008 Gotham Screen Finalist

2009 Slamdance Top 100

2010 Page Quarterfinalist

Of course, it also gets its fair share of rejections. In the last 24 hours, I got cut from both the Nicholl Fellowship and Scriptapalooza. I did get a P.S. from the Nicholls explaining that I almost made the Quarterfinals. Great, thanks. Anyway, if I’m less funny today, I blame the depression.

And so my smart female comedy will continue to gather dust. But at least I can look forward to the high quality films that Hollywood is sure to come out with: Bride Wars 2 and Sex and the City 3!