Sympathy For the Dreamer

We get no respect.

Yesterday I was looking about the net–because that’s what I do–and I came across an article on Salon.com.  What it basically boils down to is this:  if you are a creative type person–someone who designs, or dances, or writes music or poetry or stories–as far as 99% of the world is concerned, you’re a leach.  You get no help.  You loose you ability to earn, and you’re not even deserving of someone peeing on you if you’re on fire.

In short, you’re wasting the world’s time.

I came across the article some hours after responding to a Facebook post.  A woman in one of my writing groups, who has decided to go into writing full-time, asked if it was really normal for her friends, once they knew she was taking this great leap of faith, to pretty much abandon her and shun her like she were Charlie the Unicorn.

I told her–as did a few others–that their reaction seems normal, and whenever you decided to “Follow your dream,” and join the cast of The Starving Artists, you suddenly feel alone.  Friends, acquaintances, even family–they all walk away.  They leave you behind and drop you like a bad habit.

It’s their way of saying, “I don’t get it.  I don’t understand what you’re doing.”

There was a time in the U.S. when culture was big.  You could actually make it as a writer or musician or poet–assuming you didn’t over extend yourself and sink into a bottomless morass of sex, drink, and drugs.  You could actually get props for being published; you could get recognition for having something show up in Collier’s Magazine, where your intelligence and natural wit made you a star.

These days, you tell your friends you’re going to become a writer–or worst yet, a blogger–and they look at you and give you that all-knowing glare, then say something like, “But that’s not really work; whacha gonna do for a job?”

It seems as if there’s no legitimacy in having an imagination.  It’s all about makin’ those Benjamins in today’s world–and, conversely, keeping your company’s stock in good shape; something that was actually written up as an employee value at my last job.  And woe be to you if you’re one of those dreamer types who wants to entertain people with your ideas and stories, because you, Madam or Sir, are nothing but a drag on this country–nay, be it the world.

I’m callin’ bullshit on it all.

Though people might seem content with accepting the lowest common denominator when it comes to entertainment–and if that statement isn’t true, explain how three movies based on a toy line from the 1980′s have generated just over a billion dollars in sales in this country–you still need those dreams to feed upon.  They want to feel like there is something in their lives that makes them think a little, or vicariously live through another person, or experience sensations they haven’t in real life.  People want these things–

They just don’t want to give us any help in getting them.

I feel the biggest problem to being a creative person–like, in my case, and the case of some of my friends, being a writer–is that ordinary people, the non-dreamers . . . they don’t get it.  They don’t understand.  They want to consume your dreams, to make them theirs.  It’s like you’re a chef, and your readers are the people who come to your restaurant.  You put your heart and soul into your work, and the customers eat it up.  And all the while, they’ll never understand why you do what you do, or how you do it, or why you have passion for your work, why you feel you put so much of yourself out there every time you prepare a dish.

Naw.  They just wanna eat the damn thing.  And if you’re lucky, they won’t bitch about the taste, or the presentation, or how much it cost.  And if they’re lucky, they won’t have the chance to discover if you’re really Gordon Ramsey–

Normal people–the undreamers among us–they will never get it.  They will never understand that creativity is a job unto itself.  It’s a job; it’s a living; it’s a life.  If you make things, if you put your creativity out there for all to see–be it paintings or song or writing or even crocheting–you will always have people who’ll look at you and say, “Why are you wasting your time with that shit?  Why aren’t you doing something useful?”

But their opinion doesn’t matter, because you are a dreamer–

Why waste your time with mere morals?

Please Welcome My First Guest–

For the first time ever, Ladies and Gentlemen, a guest has arrived!

I’ve followed Katherine Gilraine’s blog, Improvisations on Reality, for some time now.  She is a published writer, an extremely witty and charming person, and an all-around good person to know.  As someone who is, as I like to say, “playing the writing game,” I enjoy her insights into the writing world–and whatever else she enjoys chatting about.

So, without further ado, take it away, Katherine!

 

So a Novelist Writes a Script…

 

I know it sounds like a joke, believe you me.  *rim-shot*.  However, it’s no secret that I’m trying my hand at screenwriting, and I’m in the process of transforming my first novel into a script.

I will not lie: it’s daunting. Of all the forms of writing I tried my hand at so far – journalism, poetry, short stories, novels – screenwriting was the odd man out. I’ve never written a full-scale movie script before, and considering I’ve never taken classes for it, which I may rectify after this experience, I’m walking into the world of movie scripts blind.

But on the other hand, I like the one major effect of transforming my book into a movie script: everything is clearer than ever.

I won’t lie, the opinion of Mages has been mixed. Some people like it, and the nine 4- and 5-star reviews on Amazon are testament to the fact that something went right with it. The other reviews, received in private, say that the book is hard to follow, and it’s not really clear what’s going on. The first massive benefit of the script is that whatever was less than clear with the book gets a spotlight (and some key lights) on it with the script form.

The inverse to this is that some of the scenes of the book had to get cut with the script form for the sake of the storyline, and this is something that film-to-book-adaptation fans have been grousing about for quite some time, myself among them (hey, I’ll be the first to admit it). This is the thing: no matter how clearly you picture it in your head at the time you write it, and no matter how great you think it would look on screen, when it’s in the actual script form, it takes away from the story. It’s one thing to butcher a book in the interests of time constraints, as we know, but if you see that a scene, in and of itself, isn’t doing anything to add to what you’re looking to achieve with the screenplay, it has to go. You get a two-hour cap to show your story on screen, and the acronym of K.I.S.S. applies in stereo.

Which, in turn, clarifies the flow of the original story.  Where a novel can get clunky and verbose at times, the screenplay flows along much faster.

Now, while I value learning a new art form as much as the next author, there is a major marketing slant to this. People are visual creatures by nature, and we like to see things in front of us – book, movie, what-have-you. The movie market is just as competitive as the book market, even more so than the world of traditional publishing, but it opens up the writer to a whole new audience.

This is the thing, though. Movie scripts and traditionally-published manuscripts go through quite a bit of rigmarole before they get to their final destinations. If a writer ever wants the screenplay to see the light of day, they have to keep pitching it until they’re blue in the face or until someone is actually willing to take a look at it, whichever comes first. Reminds you a bit of querying, doesn’t it? So then this idea occurred to me: considering that I’m the author of both the source material and the screenplay, why not go the self-publish route with the screenplay as well?

I’m not saying hire an indie director, take out a multimillion-dollar loan, and produce it. No bank in their sane mind would approve that sort of endeavor. I am, however, saying that a potential way to market it is to make it available as an e-book. The existence of sites like SimplyScripts.com shows me like nothing else that people love to read screenplays. So why not tap that?  TriggerStreet.com is a good hosting place for indie scripts, but what about Amazon? Why not treat the Kindle like a book and distribute it that way? Copyright is still with me. But this taps into the audience of people who like reading scripts above books.

And bam! – a whole new door opens.

For anyone who may be asking just how difficult it is to write a screenplay, I will give you this advice: read them first. SimplyScripts.com is a great site for scripts of known movies, such as Star Wars, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and the X-Men films. The best thing you can do before starting work on a movie script is to get acquainted with one. What is the structure of it? Do you know the abbreviations? Can you compare the script to the film to see where and how the shots are marked? That is the first step. The rest is to take the step forward.

Kat Gilraine