Tag: writing

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The Nicholl Fellowships

My neighbor works for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.  Yeah, that’s pretty cool.  What’s even cooler is that she invited me to attend an event at the Academy last week!  And even though I generally try to avoid the mid-Wilshire are for any reason, I couldn’t turn down such a special invitation.

The event was the celebration of the 2019 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting.  This is an international screenwriting competition that was established in 1985 to identify and encourage talented new screenwriters. The first year of the competition, 99 entrants – all California college students, submitted work. This year, the competition received over 7,000 submissions from all over the world.

Previous fellows include Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich), Doug Atchison (Akeelah and the Bee), and Andrew Marlowe (Air Force One).

This year’s fellows were Aaron Chung, a recent college graduate from Florida; Karen McDermott, a former attorney who now teaches at Cal State LA; Renee Pillai from Malaysia – who, when she was notified that she had won, had to find someone to drive her the two hours to Kuala Lumpur so that she could apply for a passport; Sean Malcolm, who certainly gets the tenacity award for submitting screenplays to this competition for something like 20 years; and Walker McKnight.

The formal awards presentation included a live read of scenes from each winning screenplay. Amandla Stenberg (Rue in The Hunger Games), Rosa Salazar (Parenthood, American Horror Story), Wes Studi (Dances with Wolves, The Last of the Mohicans, Avatar) and Tyrese Gibson (The Fast and the Furious franchise) performed the live read, which was directed by 2016 Nicholl fellow Geeta Malik.

I had never been to a live read before and it was very fun.  I loved watching the actors sitting on stools, with the scripts in front of them and then jumping into their parts. I felt like I could really see the acting, if that makes any sense.  They were going from regular person to performer just right in front of our eyes. Rosa Salazar was especially act-y and I mean that as a big compliment.  She really used her voice and her physicality (even though she was perched on a barstool) for all of her different characters.

The scene from Karen McDermott’s screenplay gave me an idea for a short story and I was so glad that I had brought a little notebook with me so that I could jot down some quick notes.  I roughed out a first draft the next day and yikes!  It is going to need a lot of work. I will be sure to let you know when I manage to get it pulled together.

It is so exciting to get to see up-and-comers succeeding in their field. The Nicholl Fellowships are the kind of thing that really makes a huge difference in someone’s life and it was a treat to have the opportunity to share in the celebration of their creative success. I am so proud of all of the winners and of the Academy for having a great program like this to encourage new talent. It was a great evening.

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The Real Housewives Triad

Twice a month, my writing group does flash fiction writing exercises.  This is not a strong area for me, and most efforts are nothing that I would try to get you to read.  This one however just makes me giggle.  Here is the photo and below, my story about the Real Housewives Triad.

Photo courtesy of: Starrchez; character: Anann (Sara Maraffino) from short film, Killing Anann; courtesy of C3Stories and Dreamwalker Productions
Photo courtesy of: Starrchez; character: Anann (Sara Maraffino) from short film, Killing Anann; courtesy of C3Stories and Dreamwalker Productions 

The Real Housewives Triad

In behavioral psychology the “dark triad” describes the convergence of psychopathy, narcissism, and machiavellianism.  Researchers have also identified a “light triad.”  But there is another, less understood triad, the “Real Housewives triad.”  This describes the convergence of hunger, drunkenness, and menopause resulting in explosive and irrational behavior.

Jen had had it!  Who did he think he was?  After taking two bites of the extra-large slice of princess cake that he had requested, he stood up, dropped the rest in the trash, set his plate in the sink, and headed for the sofa in the other room.  He wouldn’t even put his plate in the dishwasher.  Two bites!  He had no idea what she would give for two bites of princess cake.  The heavenly combination of raspberry, almond, and cream.  Princess cake was everything to her that he wasn’t and she had had enough.

Calmly, she pushed her chair back from the table.  There was a locked box in the kitchen junk drawer. 

He padded into the kitchen, “hey, do we have any ice cream?” 

The look in her eye told him that he had asked the wrong question.  She raised her right arm, pointing the barrel of the 9-millimeter Luger at his head. 

“Outside, now.” She was not about to get brains all over her new marble backsplash. 

The End

I learned about the light and dark triads from this article by Scott Barry Kaufman.  His website also has a personality test to see where you fall on the light triad scale.  As far as I’m aware, no one has begun conducting research on the Real Housewives triad…yet.

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Estate Secrets

My writing club had a flash fiction contest so I made my first attempt at writing a 1,000 word short story.  The writing prompt was:

The wacky antiques dealer took pictures near a broken refrigerator about an hour ago to discover the secret.

Here is my story:

Estate Secrets

I never expected this to be my life. 

Sure, getting into the estate sale business seemed like a good idea.  Think about getting paid to go through someone else’s lifetime accumulation of treasures.  Imagine being the one to discover that rare item that would send Leigh and Leslie Keno into a tizzy.  Every day would be an adventure of discovery!

I’ll tell you what, it’s not like that.

What it is like is long, dirty days of sorting through mountains of someone else’s junk, trying to create some semblance of organization in order to encourage today’s hoarders – excuse me, I mean my future clients – to pay me for the privilege of taking as much stuff as possible off of my hands.

Our fiduciary responsibility to the estate means that my team has to go through every item, catalogue it, and research its value.  We can’t just skip the piles of magazines and overflowing linen closets, and we can’t make someone a bro deal to get them to take that 120-piece collection of Waterford crystal.  It is tedious and often smelly work.

I never thought that I would say this, but I should have listened to my father and gone to law school after all.

I’ve been in the estate sale business for long enough that I thought that I had seen it all.  I mean, did I tell you about the crazy cat lady who, in addition to the dozen living cats which were the beneficiaries of her estate, had a collection of nearly 3,000 cat objects?  Sure, plenty were from the Dollar Store, but there were also dozens and dozens of Baccarat and Lalique crystal and Herend porcelain figurines. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars of cat tchotchkes.

Then there was the guy who had every issue of Playboy magazine from 1953 through 2003.  Someone bought the entire set.  And yes, we did wear gloves the entire time we were at that house. 

But this house really took the cake.

This tutor-style bungalow has always been something of a landmark in town.  Let’s just say that no one else had a Stonehenge-style garden folly in their front yard, much less one illuminated with gas-powered, flaming torches (at least until the fire marshal had something to say about it).  And, I have to admit that I was looking forward to getting to see what was inside…until I did.

I was expecting to find the suit of armor, the elaborately carved, throne-like chairs next to the fireplace, and the endless yards of heavy, red, velvet curtains.  I was not surprised by the well-stocked library with floor-to-ceiling shelves of leather-bound, first editions.  Frankly, I was not even surprised when we were cataloguing the library and discovered the volume that revealed a secret passage.

What we found when we explored the passage was surprising to say the least.  Horrifying is probably a better word.  But in spite of how disturbing it was, it was not illegal and was no reason for us not to carry out our responsibilities in terms of liquidating the estate. 

A rare book dealer from Archer City, Texas had agreed to take the entire collection site-unseen so we wouldn’t have to worry about having the library accessible to the parade of antiques dealers and lookie-loos who we were expecting for the sale.  We moved on to the kitchen.

#

It was the first day of the sale.  I peeked out at the line of early birds and my heart sank.  Roger, that wacky antiques dealer from Glendora was at the front of the line, pontificating about the home’s provenance and extemporizing about the value of the items that he expected to find.

The doors opened and we admitted the first 15 from the line.  The house was immediately buzzing with the excited energy of the treasure hunters.  It was a welcome relief from the ominous feeling that had come over my entire team after we found the chamber.  Now if only we could get Roger out of here before he discovered the secret.

From the moment he walked in the door, it was clear that he was not here to shop.  Watching him snooping around the fireplace and tugging on the sconces in the hall, I knew that it was just a matter of time before he asked me why we had placed that enormous credenza in front of the locked door to the library.  I did enjoy letting him know that Larry McMurtry had already wired the funds for the contents of the library and that there was nothing in there for him to see.

With a sniff, he proceeded to the kitchen.

“Why isn’t the refrigerator priced?” he asked Monica.

“Oh, it’s broken, and we don’t know that it is reparable, so the family chose not to put it up for sale,” she replied in her fantastically, disdainful manner. 

What did he think she was going to say? “Oh, it’s a second passageway to the most horrible thing that I have ever seen,”  Monica was too smart for Roger’s games.

He sniffed again.  “Well, you won’t mind if I take a few photos so that I can look up the model then. I may still be interested.”

The only thing interesting about that refrigerator was its secret.

#

About an hour later, I came through the kitchen to check on Monica.

“I didn’t see Roger leave; do you know where he went?”

She shrugged and glanced toward the broken refrigerator, “You know those wacky antiques dealers,” she deadpanned, “sometimes they just disappear right out from under your nose.”

The End

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Sometimes Ken Kesey

I recently read a historical biography of Ken Kesey called Its All Kind of Magic, the Young Ken Kesey by Rick Dodgson.  It reminded me of my fondness for Kesey’s writing.

I became interested in Ken Kesey when I read Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test in high school. It was not assigned reading, I think I borrowed it from the cool crunchy girl who lived down the street when I was going through my hippie phase (I had to abandon my goth phase when I got a convertible, it was impossible to stay pale and sullen).

Then in English class senior year, we were asked to pick our favorite writer then the teacher would assign each of us another author based on who we liked.  I picked Ken Kesey.  Then I was assigned Charles Dickens (the guy who loved Kurt Vonnegut was assigned someone comparable to Dickens, the very prim girl was assigned D.H. Lawrence, you get the picture).  So, I read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion, then Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities. Ok, I really didn’t read very much of the Dickens books, just enough to write the book reports.  Anyways…

Do you like to go back and read books over again?  I don’t tend to re-read books, even books that I really like.  There are just too many books out there and I’m never going to get through all the ones that I want to read anyway.  In spite of that, I have re-read Sometimes a Great Notion several times over the years. It is so richly written, and I get more out of it every time.  The way that the scenes melt into each other is so interesting.

Sometimes a Great Notion would probably still be a good book if it was written in a more linear format, but the structure makes it so fascinating to me. Rick Dodgson talked about the process that Kesey went through when he wrote the book.  It was intense.  He had some sort of notated flowchart pinned up on the walls of the room where he worked. I really can’t imagine writing something with such a complicated structure.  Especially on a typewriter.  I mean, he was literally cutting and pasting sections together.  With scissors and tape, no CTRL X for him.  It’s no wonder that he didn’t write anything after it for a very long time.

As much as I love books, I try very hard to purge my hoard semi-regularly. Every so often I regret that I got rid of something like my collection of Larry McMurtry books, but in general, I try to only hang onto certain books (vintage etiquette books and dance histories are two big categories that get a pass).  For some reason, Sometimes a Great Notion has survived every book purge in the past 25 years.  After reading The Young Ken Kesey, I think that it is probably about time to dig it out and put it back on the “to read”pile.