"We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect."
--Anaïs Nin
I strive to be a writer with cultural impact, compassionate vision, and inspirational influence. I don't have a writing degree, but I have been published in books and scholarly journals. I am a Masters Educated woman and pen is in my name. I don't carve out mistakes in my writing or identify them as dangling participles or double negatives. I write because the writing of Maya Angelou gave me courage.
I recently have begun pursuing understanding about how to write for film and television. This requires a lot of skill building, discipline, concentration and a lot of time. Thankfully I work my business full time at home so I have time that I would not have had if I were working outside of the home. What I have learned in the past six months is that I need to build a village of people to mentor me, read my work and give me critical feedback and push me forward into this goal. I feel like I am running to catch up to my dreams because I am in my late forties, but I recognize that there is a time and season for everything.
I recently had the opportunity to watch the Variety Magazine screening of the film, "Being the Ricardos." Watching the film for the second time with the opportunity to hear from the writer and actors made me experience the film differently. I have not up until the past six months, looked at movies to see who the writer is. I had not heard of Aaron Sorkin, but I have now adopted an analogy from his talk, that of the "Tangerine
Theory."
Mr. Sorkin stated that when you squeeze a tangerine, juice and pulp fly everywhere. He further explained that details matter when writing a script. This is something I am working on. I am not good at showing - I tell way too much.
Mr. Sorkin did not want the actors to do an imitation, he wanted them to play the character. It took a lot of detail to write the characters in a way that they could do that. Ironically, Nicole
Kidman had not known many details about Lucy, but she embodied her with this artistic performance. In addition, Mr. Sorkin shared that he has spent a lot of time in his career listening to, and watching weaknesses and learning how to write them.
As a director, Mr. Sorkin is also concerned about creating a space where everyone wants to be at work. When they do this they are able to do their best work and take ownership. When the community is built on this foundation, there will be joy in the work that emanates from the screen.
Along the way, I will be collecting articles, images and reflections to help me on this journey. You can find them here: https://www.diigo.com/user/penscribed
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