Lighting a Cigar With a Crisp Hundred Dollar Bill

I was very happy to be invited by writer, screenwriter, and graphic artist, Anthony Schiavino, to participate in his Fall Guest Blogger series. I was even happier when I read the questions he gave me...the kind of questions most of us think about, but rarely have the opportunity to answer.

You can read the whole interview below:

This week we have writer Karla S. Bryant, who brings a little bit of “old soul” to the mix. Her short story, ‘Not My Secret to Tell’, retitled ‘Catch and Release’, is currently in pre-production as a short film by Mondall Films.

What would you say you do?

I say I write. Because it’s what I do. There are a number of goals I want to achieve as a writer, and I’m doing the work now to get there. Earlier, I wondered if I should wait until I was making more money from my writing before calling myself a “writer”. Then I wondered what that criterion would be. At $50,000, would I be a writer? $75,000?  Would I have to wait until I made six figures? I realized that made no sense. Money has never been the deciding factor in determining if someone is a writer, or a filmmaker, or an artist of any kind.

Before you sit down to write, what gets you going?

Story. I have to have a strong story in my head. Without that, who cares about the characters or setting? It’s like a film that looks fantastic, but makes you feel nothing. Most of the time, I’m drawn to what’s playing out beneath the surface. So often, what people are thinking and feeling are very different from their words. When people do something that seems totally unexpected, they’re usually acting from that deeper level. Conflict between a character’s thoughts and their dialogue builds suspense and subtext. Keep pushing both and it makes a satisfying read.
Recently, I’d felt I was getting bogged down with formatting issues on a screenplay. I could feel the focus of my writing shift. Coming back to the mantra of story-above-all-else, I wrote a short story and submitted it on Trigger Street Labs. It became a Featured Short Story eight times before being chosen as the Short Story Spotlight selection for July 2012. That was all the affirmation I needed that story comes first. Always.

Drop some names.

I’m not sure if I’m blessed or cursed that research for both my writing and genealogy projects often involve the same books. Both tracks have led me to an old series of the tawdriest kind of “non-fiction” pulp: the “Confidential” series by Jack Lait and Lee Moritmer, published in the ‘40s and early ‘50s. So far, I’ve made it through Chicago Confidential, Washington, D.C. Confidential, USA Confidential, and I’m trying to get my hands on a copy of New York Confidential. Love that the blurb reads, “Rough, tough, and well informed.” about advice that reads, “Never give a babe a break, or her parents your real name.” and “Chorus dames are okay for dates, but make sure that when she tells you she’s got to get home to ma, that it’s not an oboe player instead.” Most of my reading lately has been related to research…or reading drafts of work that friends have written.
Television shows that I never miss are Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Modern Family, Game of Thrones, and Boardwalk Empire. I’m consistently amazed at how good they are and how much better other shows could be. Vince Gilligan and Terrence Winter have brilliantly elevated the bar for TV.

What's in your glass?

It depends on the time, place, and company. If I’m laser-focused on a writing project—especially if the word “deadline” is involved at all—I’m downing a Metromint Chocolatemint Water. I like to tell myself it’s an energy drink. Which it isn’t. But, it somehow keeps me going. If it’s a night out with my husband or friends, it’s either a cosmo or sangria. I do occasionally enjoy a glass of red wine while watching “Mad Men” or “Boardwalk Empire.” It just seems fitting to raise a glass with Don Draper or Nucky Thompson.

What's the first thing you buy after lighting your cigar with a crisp hundred dollar bill?

Well, my fantasy has always been to have a small writing space of my own…a separate building, not just a room. There are about three variations in rotation in my mind…a cottage near a beach, a condo in a city, or a cozy cabin in the woods. I have no idea if I’d be a more productive writer in a space like that or not. But, I certainly want to experience it and find out.
Once I settle in my cottage/condo/cabin, I’ll light a second cigar with another crisp hundred dollar bill.

I know a guy, but how can other people find you/your work?

You can find me at www.karlabry.blogspot.com.

(You can read more about Anthony Schiavino and his current projects at: http://sgtzero.wordpress.com/ )

Stories: Past, Present, and Future

What happens when you return to your hometown when you haven't been back for decades? You begin to understand the genesis for the series LOST (ignoring--temporarily--it's sub-par finale). Your back stories and your current life keep crossing lines, intersecting at unexpected points, fading in and out, and resulting in theories that take weeks to process.

As a writer, I knew the experience would be good fodder for future projects. But, I hadn't expected it to be quite the mother lode it was. Which was more unlikely: the fact that with one sentence, I picked up where I'd left off 30+ years ago with old friends? Or that the main street of the small town was almost completely unchanged? I could have held up an old, faded postcard and it would have matched what was in front of me. It felt at once weirdly wonderful and a little unnerving. If I was time travelling, where was my DeLorean?

Mash into the experience the fact that it was also a reunion weekend for all graduating years (it's a very small town) and the crush of memories got more dense. I tried to keep straight who had moved away (and to where), who had never left, and who had moved away and recently moved back. I tried to hide my sorrow for those whose lives had not been as happy as they might have been. I was thrilled for those who, against the odds, had made a success of their lives on multiple levels. The fact is, all of us are still on the journey. As I spoke with one person after another, the old Rod Stewart song, "Every Picture Tells a Story" came back to me, but I heard it as, "Every Person Tells a Story." And they do. With their words, or their demeanor, or with an unguarded expression or two.

There were moments that rattled me. Not having known someone's son had died until the still-grieving father told me in a choked voice, "No parent should ever have to bury their child.". Realizing, mid-conversation, that another person I was speaking with had not emotionally evolved past their 16 year old self. There were moments that delighted me, especially when I was able to say, "Thank you," face to face with my influential junior high English teacher. Or when we were in town and I brought my husband and son to eat in the old soda shop where I'd worked during high school. It was so unchanged, I could have slipped behind the counter and made a sundae without hesitation. (Yes, I realize that sounds like I was in high school in the 1950's. I promise, I wasn't even born then.)

I made sure there was time set aside to be with those I'd been closest to all those years ago. I savored reconnecting with them, and expected regret on my part that I'd kept my distance for so long. But, I truly believe things happen when they're meant to happen and so, joy took the place of regret. Interestingly, there were very few sentences that began with, "Do you remember when...?" We were in the present. Whatever had connected us in the past, connected us now. Some discussions carried a depth and mutual empathy that was lacking when we first knew each other, when we were too young to have had much weight of experience on our shoulders. Some conversations were enlightening, others raised unanswered questions. Some new stories began and some old stories had new chapters. Most of the stories, though, are just waiting to be written.

Finding One's Voice

After the Grammy's, I was wondering what it is about Adele that has brought about such a massive, cross-generational following. Earlier, just before announcing Song of the Year, all the nominees were on screen. And all of them were carefully-crafted personas while Adele was simply a person. When she performed, there were no over-the-top dancers, special effects, or embarrassing attempts to be edgy or shocking. There was a stage, a microphone, and Adele. It's that kind of strong talent and stark authenticity that makes people take notice.

To be able to reach deep enough to find creative authenticity isn't easy. Hemingway's famous goal was to write "one true sentence". It was hard then and is, perhaps, even more difficult now. We're constantly exposed to endless voices and chatter in our real lives, our virtual lives. In social networks, we're sometimes encircled by invented lives. And it's difficult to find a quiet corner, a still space, where we can hear our own voice, let alone find a way to have others hear it.

I've read about all kinds of tricks. Abandon social networks as if you were giving them up for Lent. Write down the exact time of day when you'll write and stick to it. Set a timer. Keep writing until the timer goes off. These may be adequate exercises in discipline, but is that how to create your best work? To find those core truths needed to create something authentic, something without contrivance or shallowness, time and quiet remain the best partners. Not only to be able to hear oneself think, but to understand what's being said. To peel away the protective layers until the honest, sometimes uncomfortable core of an idea is revealed.

Once that core idea has been grabbed and turned over and held tightly again, all those methods of accountability come into play. It's the turning point that divides the writers from the daydreamers, those who aspire from those who do the hard work. And in the end, to take a found truth and chisel at it until readers can see it as clearly as you do, is to reveal the heart of Hemingway's "one true sentence".

Long Ago and Far Away Lives

I've been running into a recurring theme lately: people being reminded of significant incidents and people from their pasts that they hadn't thought of for some time. A wonderful journalist and friend who goes by the alias Hollywood Spinster recently posted in her blog about the confused and complex feelings that occurred when she learned that an old boyfriend had died. She was visiting the country where she'd once lived with him, decades earlier, and decided to google him-as one would-, only to find his obituary from two years ago. She writes movingly about her unsettled emotions over the discovery here: http://hollywoodspinster.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/death-of-an-ex/

I'm involved in planning a large school reunion in my home town of Eagle River, Wisconsin. A place I haven't visited since my mother's death there, 29 years ago. Although I'd recently reconnected with many friends from the North Woods on Facebook, there were some I knew I'd have to call. Like one of my mother's closest friends, whose annual Christmas cards I'd left unanswered for decades. I finally found her number and called. Understandably, she was surprised to hear from me, but she was friendly and engaging. It wasn't until about 8 minutes into the conversation that I discovered she thought I was my mother. After correcting her, and more discussion, I realized that she clearly had pervasive dementia. The last time I'd seen her was when she was in her 50's. She's now 86.

After hanging up, I broke down in tears and wasn't sure why. Guilt, that I'd not communicated with her for so long and now, meaningful communication was impossible? In part. Speculation that, since my mother and her friend had been the same age, my mother might have also had dementia if she'd lived? I think it was an example of how the passing of time can bring startling changes to our old realities. Especially when you step back into a world you'd left long ago. In your head, everything is as you'd left it. In reality, nothing's stayed the same.

Another person recently blogged that, given our longer life spans, people are reinventing themselves multiple times in a lifetime. Reading it, you couldn't help but feel energized and optimistic. I thought about how many times I felt my life had truly taken new directions: certainly, when I changed from being single to being married. And again, when I became a mother. And, now that the more time-intensive years of motherhood are subsiding, I feel like I'm on a new journey with my writing.

Yet, with all the forward momentum, there are those stark moments when something unexpected triggers a memory and you stand still, suddenly remembering being in a different place, talking with a person you'd almost forgotten. You hear an old friend's laugh, remember an old boyfriend's smile. And I realize that it's not so much that we move forward and have a "new life". It's all part of the same book, just a new chapter. And you can't fully experience Chapter Twenty if you forgot what happened in the worn and dog-eared pages that came before it.

Lesson Learned

So, where was I? Right. Almost seven months ago, I'd blogged that I'd decided to bravely take risks and say yes to positive opportunities as they appeared. And I did that. What I learned along the way, as my dormant blog may indicate, is that sometimes enthusiasm needs to be tempered. I'd taken on several creative projects, but didn't finish them all. By spreading myself so thin, I realized the sobering truth that, since nothing had received my focused attention, my best work just wasn't there. I can do better. I could hear echoes of my mother's voice, saying, "Karla, stop being so cavalier." How long does it take to learn some lessons?

In this case, it took seven months to learn that the more specific I make my goals, the more likely I am to achieve them. Tightening the horizon even more, I'm focusing on goals for the next six months, rather than the whole year. If I can hit the first round, I'll have that much more confidence when choosing the next set. Over the next six months, I have two primary writing goals:

*Finish and polish three feature scripts, including a collaboration.

*Keep my blog active.

It's a good list. Focused and solid. It's challenging, but achievable. And, this time, it even gives me space to breathe.

Taking Risks

The other day, I read a blog that focused on the image of ladies waving away the dessert tray while dining on the Titanic. Playing it safe with their diets, priding themselves on their tiny waists. The writer wondered, hours later, how quickly their priorities must have changed. I have to disagree with the writer, though, when it comes to his opinion that they would have regretted passing up the cherries jubilee. That had to have been far from their minds. But, I thought it was a striking example of the dilemma of how much should one plan for the future and how much should one live for today?

The question has been on my mind for some time. More so now, when there are increasing instances of peers suddenly dying, their long-term goals never to be met. Often, not even their short-term goals. My own mother died in an accident decades ago and I'm well aware of all the sentences she'd say that began with, "Someday...". The problem is, no one knows if their "someday" plans should be pulled a little closer.

For me, I've found my risk tolerance seems to grow each year. Having played it safe and cautious most of my adult life, I've asked myself, "Why not?" with some frequency. You know, when it comes to positive things. For me, that means kicking my writing into action. NaNoWriMo, a challenge to write a 176 page novel in a month? Okay. NYCMidnight--short screenplays written in 48 hours? Sure. Enroll in the highly recommended ScreenwritingU ProSeries? Why not? And, while I'm at it, I'll work on my novel as well. I finally reached the point of being tired of my own excuses for delaying things. My mantra has become, "If not now, when?"

And, to be honest, the musing over the ladies on the Titanic is a little bit forced. I would never wave the dessert tray away, whether I was on the Titanic or not.

My Badass Great-Grandfather

So, it's Father's Day this weekend and I realized that my last post had been about my paternal grandfather. The one before that had been about my Dad. Okay, so I looked to my maternal side. As many of you know, my maternal grandfather is Mr. X...that man with the unknown identity I am determined to eventually discover. But, I DO have a paternal relative on that side of the family who I know something about...my great-grandfather. Sam Bloom.

I honestly don't know how else to describe him in one word other than badass. Born in a Lithuanian-Jewish shtetl, Sam Bloom was a young man when a military officer came to his home to give him conscription papers to the Russian Army. Knowing that, as a Jewish male, he'd be used as cannon fodder, he promptly hit the officer, knocking him out before immediately leaving home. He traveled around Europe for a few years, spending enough time in Greece that he could still speak the language fluently decades later. In about 1903, he met his future bride in a small Jewish community in Norway. Together, they immigrated to America, his wife pregnant with their first daughter.

There are some spotty years where we don't really know what happened. But, by 1920, he was the owner of a large, successful scrap metal business in a major city. He and his wife had two children, both daughters---ONE of which is my grandmother, but the odds on which one have been fluctuating lately. And speaking of odds, Sam Bloom loved to gamble. Compulsively. And drink. Compulsively. But, so did his friends, some of whom were among the most notable bootleggers, gamblers, and goodfellas of the 1920's and beyond. Again, some facts are foggy, but Sam later moved to Miami Beach, where he made frequent gambling trips to Havana. His wife died in 1927, and it appears he married three times after that. In the 1930's, he moved back to his former city and business. In newspapers, he's described as a successful, charismatic person, known for his light-colored suits and expensive cigars. And shrewd business practices.

It's odd to have so many fragments of information about a person and not quite be able to know where they all go. When I think of Sam Bloom, there's a montage of images as I try to envision his life in Lithuania, his quick financial rise in America, his notorious circle of friends, his charm, and, from other accounts, his extreme cruelty.

Within a year of discovering my mother's birth family, four years ago now, we happened to visit the city where they'd lived. I visited Sam's grave. Doing my research, as always, I learned of the Jewish tradition of leaving a few stones on top of a headstone, to show someone had visited that grave, someone had remembered that person. No one had been there before me. As I put the stones on the bare surface, I wondered what Sam would think...he was being remembered by the daughter of a granddaughter he'd never known. But, it felt important that I make the gesture. And, on Father's Day, he's not really the kind of paternal relative I would honor. But, now that I know so much of his story, he's someone I will never forget.

My Grandfather's War

There's a curious pattern on my father's side of the family in which a long line of men became fathers at the age of 45. And that's how it happened that my grandfather--my father's father--enlisted in, not World War II, but World War I.

My grandfather's parents had immigrated to Minnesota from northern Germany and never fully grasped the English language. His mother had died when he was five, and his memories of his father were of a man who longed for the country of his youth. But, that Germany had been changed by Prussian influence and would never be what it had been. America became his refuge, his land of opportunity. But, he could not stop telling his son about the beauty of the Rhine, about the beautiful, deep forests near his small hometown of Hamoor. My grandfather grew up dreaming of one day visiting the half-magical land of his father.

The reality of his arrival in Germany couldn't have been more divorced from his dream. He enlisted with the U.S. Army in April of 1917. He was young and ready to fight for his country, in battle against what he been his father's cherished nation. And he fought well and bravely. Among his medals and honors was the Distinguished Service Cross, as cited:

William H. Siemering
Distinguished Service Cross
Awarded for actions during the World War I

The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Private First Class William H. Siemering (ASN: 1106054), United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in action while serving with Company G, 142d Infantry Regiment, 36th Division, A.E.F., near St. Etienne, France, 8 October 1918. Although one of his hands was disabled, Private Siemering left a sheltered position against the advice of his companions, and went through heavy shell and machine-gun fire to the aid of a wounded comrade, bringing the latter to a place of safety.

General Orders: War Department, General Orders 66 (May 21, 1919)

Action Date: 8-Oct-18

Service: Army

Rank: Private First Class

Company: Company G

Regiment: 142d Infantry Regiment

Division: 36th Division, American Expeditionary Forces

Like most heroes, my grandfather never spoke about his time in the War, made no mention about his valor in battle. The only reminder of his time at war was that he asked that no family member wear red in his presence. He'd seen enough of the color on the battlefield. And that request was honored for the rest of his life.

My grandfather went on to devote his life to veterans. Living in Madison, Wisconsin as an adult, he'd always go to the cemetery and place small flags on the graves of veterans. There was an area of the cemetery where Confederate Civil War soldiers had been buried and he noticed those graves were never touched. He began placing flags at their graves as well. My grandfather was criticized for his actions, being told that the Confederates had been on the opposing side. My grandfather's simple response was that every American soldier deserves to be honored and remembered. And so, on Memorial Day, I can't help but think of my grandfather, his wisdom, and all those who have bravely served their country.

All Things Considered, Dad, and Me

This is a big day for NPR's first signature show, All Things Considered, celebrating its 40th anniversary today. While so many are rightly praising the show, I'm also thinking back 40 years to when my Dad, Bill Siemering, created it.

We'd recently moved to Washington, D.C. I know I was very excited that we had a uniformed doorman in our apartment building, while Dad was very excited about something else--a new kind of radio show he was developing. It would be an in-depth, intelligent presentation of the day's news for evening drive-time. In 1971, such a program didn't exist.

If you ask most people what they recall about their parent's work while they were in grade school, the answer is something like, "He went to the office and did stuff." There was that, but Dad was so full of enthusiasm and energy about the "new" program for NPR (for which, by the way, he wrote the Mission Statement and served as their first Director of Programming) that it made an impression. It showed me that it's important to do work you believe in, that you should be passionate about your goals. He provided an example I've tried to follow.

Since 1971, All Things Considered has won some of the highest honors in broadcasting: the Peabody, Dupont, and Overseas Press Club awards. It was the first radio program to be inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. It became the model for many shows that followed at NPR.

And since 1971, my father has accomplished amazing things. He has spent decades helping to establish community radio in developing countries around the world, always listening for ways to help those often considered the least among us. More publicly, he was awarded the McArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's highest honor, the Edward R. Murrow Award. His current work is as President of Developing Radio Partners, created to help broadcasters build healthy stations that strengthen communities. Through it, successful projects have been completed in Mongolia, Sierra Leone, and Russia. Current projects are underway in Malawi, Kenya, and Zambia.

Someone asked me how I would describe my father in one sentence. I answered, "He's spent most of his life trying to make a better world for as many people as possible." And I stand by that statement. I couldn't be more proud of what he's accomplished, the work he's currently doing, and the work he's yet to do.

Anthony Schiavino and His Pulp Tone

As much as I love irony (and I do), it was never my intention to write a blog post titled "Visible and Vocal" only to disappear for over two months. All our lives are busy and mine recently became more so...determinedly pushing my screenwriting to the next level, accepting larger assignments for freelance writing, and so on and so on.

And while I'm kicking my writing up a notch, I've noticed someone else is doing the same thing. Anthony Schiavino. Also known online as Pulp Tone.

As anyone with a large number of writers, filmmakers, photographers, and other creative types in their social networks knows, it can be wonderful, yet overwhelming to be connected to many talented people. It's just not possible to click on 100's of links to check out everyone's projects. So what happens is you peek in on the work your known friends are doing and randomly click on the links of a few others. I believe, since Anthony and I seem to be on the same page on a number of issues, that we may have discussed politics or religion or families or the current state of print newspapers before I actually read any of his writing. I know the first thing I'd read of his was a piece he'd submitted to NPR's "This I Believe":



"My beliefs lay in the free-flowing smoke, sultry and alive, of a dance hall as Shaw or Goodman or Dorsey swing rhythms around two people talking – talking about everything and nothing at once, spanning eternity, meaning every word like it was their last. In their own world — a world going dark around them...

I’m an old soul at home in a decade thirty years before I was born. Too young to truly know what life is, yet too old to ever fit in. I sit and dream of what I could have been. (Not even sure I could have made it through those war-torn times – an era when men were men and not enlisting genuinely meant something.)

So I keep my faith in the power of words on paper, that thing I’m told is so unfashionable and out of date in these digital times. I write what I know. I write what I am. I write what I could have been."

Amazing writing, right? That was my reaction. Even though I don't normally read comic books, I was now intrigued to find out more about Anthony's major project, an ongoing series called Sergeant Zero. In it, his love of the 1940's and 1950's underscores a genre-blending story of brave GI's fighting Nazis, with unexpected supernatural elements. If you have a moment, he's written a brilliant background about the series and how he goes about creating it:

http://sgtzero.wordpress.com/2011/04/24/on-creating-character-comic-books/

This month alone, he's also written a two-part flash fiction piece for the pulp fiction site, Shotgun Honey, called "The Treacherous Road (Parts 1 and 2)", along with a shorter piece called "Jack Rose", all linked to on his site. If you have a moment, I highly recommend you check them out.

When people complain about social networking being banal and trivial and full of nothing but posts about what people have had for lunch that day, I just shake my head. It's like a cocktail party and it's as good as the people you invite to it. It's as good as what you contribute to the conversations yourself. And sometimes, you find people who can introduce you to new worlds, half-remembered, like an old jazz song from faded decades. A place where hard-boiled stories jump off the page with a strong, fresh voice.

Visible and Vocal

Sometimes, one thing happens after another until it finally catches your attention. On last week's episode of "The Big Bang Theory", the idea of a 30-something male romantically involved with an attractive, older female was the source of ongoing hilarity. It did cross my mind that if it had been a 30-something female romantically involved with an attractive, older male, it wouldn't have been funny at all. It would have been played out as a romance. Later, I was reading a brilliant piece written by Tina Fey in The New Yorker. Among the many things she touched on was her observation that, in the entertainment world, once a female reaches a certain age, she's labeled as "crazy" so that she can be ignored without opposition--albeit with a false accusation. Before bed, I read an article on a news website which stated that women "of a certain age" become invisible to the opposite sex. And just this morning, my son asked, "Mom, are you older than Steven Tyler?" A rapid-fire check on Wikipedia found me saying in a not-very-quiet or motherly voice, "Steven Tyler was born in 1948!" The issue of age was suddenly everywhere.

I don't rant often, but I will now. I refuse to drink the offered kool-aid of self-doubt and surrender. As a woman "of a certain age", I don't believe it's now time to spend the second half of my life with my eyes lowered along with my ambitions. Nor is it time, as is the case with some of my peers, to try to look markedly younger. Hello Kitty t-shirts don't fool anyone.

I love where I am in my life. I finally have some wisdom gained from experience. I have the solid marriage and family I'd always wanted. I can detect liars and posers more easily now then ever before and promptly ignore them. I spend time with people I actually want to spend time with. And I'm fervently working on my writing. My overriding thought tends to be, "If not now, when?" and it's emboldened me to be braver and to take risks I would have shied away from before. This is not the time to make my life smaller.

Of course, there's some inner conflict. I won't pretend being my age doesn't have its sobering moments. I was so happy to reconnect with an old friend on Facebook and later realized that we haven't seen each other for 32 years. And it's not as if we parted as toddlers. I don't like having lines around my eyes, particularly after a good night's sleep. Or that teenagers use their "polite" voices around me. When someone guesses I'm younger than I am, I feel like purring. Yes, I realize I haven't mentioned my exact age at any point here. Nor do I think I will. As I said, I'm not without conflict.

And, by the way, Steven Tyler has well over a decade on me.

Speaking of Competitions...

Amid the nail-biting period while I wait to see if I made the next cut in the NYC Midnight Short Screenplay Challenge, another competition popped up. Tweet Me A Story, which asks writers to tell a story in no more than 140 characters, including spaces. And punctuation.

I knew at least two of my favorite twitter-writer-friends, @lisamarks and @LynneRice, were hopping on board and it was hard to resist. For a talkative person-and one who must learn to limit dialogue in scripts!-it sounded like fun.

Last Thursday night, all participants were arranged into groups and given a word that HAD to appear in the story. We could submit up to three entries by midnight that night.

Taking full advantage of this three-chances opportunity, I submitted mine before deadline. I've actually forgotten the third one I submitted, but was thrilled to see two of mine made the top 25 for my group, so I'll be in the next round.

For the curious, my given word was HONOR. And my two entries that made the cut were:

"What's MOST important?" he repeated. He stared at Ray's revolver and whispered,"Silence?" Ray hissed the last words he'd hear,"No. Honor." by Karla Bryant [12]

and

Drunkenly,he staggered to his front door. He fumbled for keys amid fake ID's and forged prescriptions.The newsboy waved,"Hi, your Honor!" by Karla Bryant [12]

Competition!

Being fairly new to screenwriting, the idea of signing up for the NYC Midnight Short Screenplay Challenge intrigued me. All I knew was that each writer would participate in at least two challenges, each time writing a five page script within 48 hours with a given genre, location, and object. The idea was exciting. It seemed like a unique way to stretch as a writer and when else would I write anything in the (potential) political satire genre? Aside from that, if I came in last in both challenges, I would accept that as a valid sign that maybe I needed to rethink the whole screenwriting idea.

The first assignment for my group was a fantasy set in an abandoned house, the story featuring an engagement ring. I immediately became a contrarian. I suspected most people would interpret "Fantasy" as pseudo-medieval hobbitscapes, so immediately decided to write about a Greek goddess instead. The next assignment for my group was a romance set in a driving school, the story involving a bottle of hot sauce. For some reason, Daniel Craig came to mind, along with the title, "Baby, You Can Drive My Car", and I had it written within an hour. Now I was enjoying myself and having fun with the absurdity of the parameters. Last week, I found out I'd made the initial cut to the top 100 participants and would be moving on to the next round. Which would begin the next day.

The clock began ticking near 11:00 pm (midnight EST) when I received the new criteria: OPEN genre; location, tugboat; object, x-ray machine. Absolutely nothing came to mind. I went to sleep and woke up the next morning. I grabbed the laptop, opened Final Draft, typed the words: EXT. TUGBOAT. DAY Then, I stared at those words for about half an hour. I decided on a sci-fi sub-genre and some other details and began writing. But, I knew there was something missing. In a panic that evening, I shared my draft with a screenwriting friend who summed it up, "But, nothing happens!" Ah! That's a problem. By the next day, and with the deadline looming, I still had nothing. Another screenwriter friend calmly offered some suggestions that helped me focus. I called the first friend back and we brainstormed for a while. I opened Final Draft again and glanced at the clock. I had to write quickly.

I finally had it...fabulous character, inciting incident, conflict, and resolution. Done! After more tweaking and editing, I submitted the script with less than an hour to spare. The next day, I checked the message boards designated for screenplay contest writers. "The roughest time I've ever had writing...". "This round was very difficult for me...". Consistently, everyone posting had experienced the same thing I had. In fact, one particularly good writer never did come up with an idea and didn't submit a script.

So, what happened? I suspect we'd gotten lulled into the good fun of writing as best we could within unexpected parameters. We looked forward to seeing what each other had done with the same criteria and comparing notes. But, now, it had changed. It's as if we'd all realized that we were now in an actual competition against each other. I'm not sure writers, with their solitary side and lack of team participation in their work, are the most competitive group of people. Yet, the challenge is now on. I have no idea if I'll make the next cut or not with the script I submitted. But, it's been a fascinating journey.

#amwriting

#amwriting. On Twitter, this is the shortcut to let people know you're closing your social networking window for a while to stop talking about writing and start doing it. It can just as easily apply to Facebook, Google search, Stumbleupon, numerous email accounts, and all those other distractions that mysteriously devour one's "writing time". For an example, before signing in to write this post, I first completed a quiz on the BBC's website to discover what my name would be in a James Bond movie. (Answer: Honeypie.)

The New Year always brings with it, if not resolutions, ideas on how this year can be better than the last. How the year will see your goals move forward instead of treading water, or worse, dissolve entirely. And, for me, my greatest tool in being more successful, more professional, more in control of my time is to set limits. Although social networking is a weakness of mine--I do learn useful information from links of creative, intelligent friends and enjoy "talking" with them--it needs parameters. It's not just the internet that needs boundaries. It's phone calls and texts and long lunches...all of it is in need of reins.

As I thought about this more, I realized that while everything I've written is true, what a wonderful problem to have. I know some amazing people and am fortunate to have them in my life, whether around the corner or on my laptop. There are many ventures I would have never undertaken if it wasn't for them, new journeys I would have otherwise left to others.

So, what I'm most seeking in 2011 isn't, perhaps, boundaries as much as balance.

A New Adventure: Her Letters

"A work of art is above all an adventure of the mind."-Eugene Ionesco

About this time last year, I made a mental list of the writing goals I wanted to accomplish in 2010. While I haven't achieved all of them, they're achingly close. But, an extraordinary thing happened on my writing journey. I was asked to work as an executive producer on a small, beautiful film, "Her Letters".

Amanda Lin Costa is the multi-talented writer, director, and producer of the film. Amanda and I have known each other for a while now. She's been an amazing mentor to me in my venture into screenwriting, even while she's been tremendously busy with her own professional projects. In November, we finally met face to face in New York City with a group of mutual friends. As expected, it was an evening packed with conversation, laughter, and a wish for more time together. And one of the things we discussed was one of her upcoming projects: a film adaption of a short story by the 19th century writer, Kate Chopin.

Later, when I was on the train back to Philadelphia, Amanda and I emailed each other about the project. She sent me a copy of the story itself, shortly followed by the first draft of her contemporary screen adaptation. And as the train rattled down the tracks, I was suddenly lost in the lives of others in a poignant, timeless story.

“I leave this package to the care of my husband. With perfect faith in his loyalty and his love, I ask him to destroy it unopened.”

These words are at the core of both Kate Chopin's story and Amanda Lin Costa's film. A woman, in the prime of a life soon to be cut short, is blessed and burdened by a stack of letters. And, when the time comes when those words are read by her husband, what does he do? What would any of us do? The conflict between respecting his wife's wishes and maddening curiosity grows increasingly deeper. Like an emotional cancer, it consumes him until he finally makes his decision.

I am truly honored and excited to be a part of "Her Letters". What am I going to actually be doing in my position? Primarily identifying and contacting potential funding sources to cover finishing costs, exploring target audiences and future distribution channels, and working with Amanda to determine which film festivals would be most appropriate for the film.

Above is a previously unpublished production still from the film. I think it gives a powerful visual of "Her Letters" as both a timeless drama and a beautifully realized adaptation.



Be sure to take a second to 'Like' "Her Letters" on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/HerLetters
and bookmark www.herletters.com for frequent updates.

Why Write?

Not too long ago, filmmaker Joel Coen said,“One of the pleasures of movies is creating a world . . . it gives you a license to do certain things.” While the most common explanation offered as to why people feel the need to write is to communicate, I think the reasons may often be closer to Coen's description of the pleasures of filmmaking. The creation of a world. The license to do certain things.

There are those who claim they wouldn't know where to start if they were to write and others who can not stop themselves. There were years when I wrote consistently, followed by years of responsibilities that left little time to create worlds in my mind, let alone write about them. And then, something remarkable happened. Just as some of the demands on my time lifted, a story was dropped before me. As touched on in other posts here, the details about my mother's birth family contain enough material for at least three novels or screenplays. Yet, every time I begin writing a semi-fictionalized version about it in one form or another, new information is discovered that changes things. The revelations usually make things more intriguing and often less plausible, yet true. It feels like trying to grab hold of water.

In the meantime, I started writing about other things, other people and places. I began my blog and worked on short screenplays. I completed the NaNoWriMo challenge of writing a 50,000 word, 175 page novel in one month. It felt comfortable to be back in that place where you can move between your reality and an alternate reality that's being built line by line, page by page. And sometimes deleted and rebuilt as something entirely different.

When I was looking for a graphic for this post, I inadvertently found myself looking at photos, sketches, and paintings of women writing in a variety of places, from a number of centuries. Studying the images is fascinating. Who were these women? What were they writing? Letters, stories, prayers, poetry,...confessions? One thing that seemed consistent was that each one was engrossed in her writing. It was as if the passion to express or create something on paper was the common thread that tied women writers together from ancient Greece to the present. In the painting I finally settled on, there's a duality. While one woman writes fervently at a table, her servant looks out the window. One is looking out at the world as it is, the other perhaps writing about an entirely different world. Whatever she wrote may have never been read and was most probably lost in time. Yet her image remains, pen to paper, writing without end.

Dark Eyes: The Search for My Grandmother

After twenty-four years of trying to find information about my mother's birth mother, I suddenly received an email from her other granddaughter three years ago and I thought my search had reached a definitive conclusion. I was wrong. It turned out that my grandmother had lived a life very much apart from that of her known four children. And my newly-found cousin and I decided to roll up our sleeves and work together to figure out what our grandmother's life had really been like. In the back of my mind, I still needed to know the identity of my grandfather. I was and remain motivated in that pursuit.

In the 1920's, Ada B**** gave birth to my mother and her twin brother in a Chicago maternity home two doors down from where the St. Valentine's Day Massacre would occur. It was the same hospital where John Dillinger's girlfriend gave birth. In the 1930's, the family told me, my grandmother could walk into any nightclub in Miami Beach and, upon seeing her arrival, the bandleader would immediately start playing the Russian gypsy song Dark Eyes. I had to wonder: Who was this woman? Where did she come from? Where to start?

90 percent of my research success has come from the internet. After finding an early census in which her name was listed as "Ida B****" instead of Ada, I began searching with the new spelling. And, in a Cedar Rapids, Iowa online newspaper archive, I found her. Ida B****, the "pretty fifteen year old" girl from Minneapolis had been tracked down with her twenty-one year old boyfriend. From the multiple stories printed as the 1920 story unfolded, it went something like this: A young medic fresh from WWI was stationed at Fort Snelling in Minneapolis. There, he met and fell in love with Ida, who was "attending business school at the West Hotel". The solider had questioned her age, but had been assured by Ida and her friends that she was "almost eighteen". They met in secret for months, then ran away together to get married.

There was a problem. Ida's father discovered their correspondence in her bedroom and set off in pursuit of his fifteen year old daughter. Successful owner of a Minneapolis scrap metal and auto supplies business, Sam B**** arrived late at night in Cedar Rapids, offering $500 to anyone who would tell him where his daughter was. At the time, the average annual income was $1236.00. The two were discovered and brought to police station for questioning.

This is where the story gets even more interesting. The police interview with the soldier paints a portrait of a terrified and confused young man. He explains that he truly believed Ida when she'd said she was almost eighteen, that he wanted to marry her, and that more than anything, "I just love the girl". Then, the paper printed an interview with Ida. She's very sketchy on details, but apparently, while it turned out the soldier was broke, a well-off dentist had just treated her to breakfast in a good restaurant. As for the soldier? "I don't care if he goes to prison now," was her non-chalant response. And he did. Two years of hard labor at Leavenworth. And Ida? Months later, she was married to the first of her three husbands.

Sometimes, in light of a discovery, I overlook a detail. Re-reading the articles, I thought it strange that Ida would have attended "business school" at the West Hotel. So, last week, I did research on the West Hotel, which had been demolished in 1940. The prominent fact about it in that era seems to be that Isadore Blumenfeld aka the notorious crime lord, Kid Cann, had run all of his operations out the the West Hotel in the 1920's. I spoke with a librarian at the Minnesota Historical Society and, after consulting an old city directory, it was clear there was no "school" operated in the West Hotel, just Kid Cann's businesses that were usually used as fronts. To those of you who watch Boardwalk Empire, he ran his operations from the West Hotel just as Nucky Thompson ran his in Atlantic City. And, for those of you who don't watch Boardwalk Empire, think of Kid Cann's position in Minneapolis being parallel to that of Al Capone in Chicago or Charlie "Lucky" Luciano in New York. "Business school" indeed.

I know my grandmother was smart. As an adult, she left almost nothing of a paper trail. She frequently changed the spelling of her surname and would randomly use the surnames of former husbands. You won't find her on a census or a voting register. But, she could have never imagined the information available on the internet. She could have never known that she'd have granddaughters in hot pursuit of the truth and that they'd question older relatives who still have clear memories. We know the geographic path of her life now: Minneapolis to Chicago to Miami Beach to Key West to Jamaica to Los Angeles and back to Miami. And, little by little, the puzzle pieces are fitting together to form a very unexpected picture.

The Rise and Notorious Downfall of Aunt Kay

It's true. My reaction to many of my discoveries of my recently-found-mother's-side-of-the- family has been something like, "What? What?!? WHAT?!?!" I've shared a few stories with a handful of people. Other revelations have remained in the family until we have time to process the information. My cousin and I have become a detective team, opening cold case files others never knew about. Or never spoke about. Understandably, I have to be careful about what I write when it could affect other members of the family. But, it's been agreed that I could safely write about Aunt Kay Brunell. After all, that was never her real name in the first place.

Technically, Aunt Kay is my great aunt, only sibling of my grandmother. The younger of the two by a couple years, Aunt Kay was born Kate B**** to Lithuanian-Jewish immigrants. In her teens, Kate moved from Minneapolis to Chicago, writing obituaries for The Chicago Herald.

Suddenly, Kate B**** disappeared. In the 1930 U.S. Census, she reappeared under the identity she would claim for the rest of her life: Kay Brunell, "author of books", daughter of an Anglo-sounding couple from Pennsylvania. In the next paper trail we've found, she was living alone in New York City in a Park Avenue apartment. A fashion editor for film and fashion magazines, there are newspaper articles about her attending rooftop parties at the Pierre Hotel and suing another hotel for refusing to allow her Beddlington terrier to stay there with her.

When she was very young, my cousin visited Aunt Kay in her spectacular apartment. She remembers Kay smoking a cigarette in a long holder while my cousin felt the soft fur coats that filled a whole closet. Aunt Kay, in her deep, raspy voice, commented, "Maybe someday you'll have a closet full of fur coats, too."

But, soon after that, things began getting shaky. The tide of good fortune that had carried Kay along for decades was shifting. Instead of working for fashion and film magazines, she became a fashion editor for True Romance, a pulp fiction publication. She soon left that position to become a stockbroker. The house of cards she'd built was about to collapse.

In the 1961, Kay registered with the SEC to become the sole proprietor of Kay Brunell Securities Company, 277 Park Avenue, New York. And, her registration was denied by the SEC due to the small fact that she'd been using fraudulent claims to sell shares in a shady Florida racetrack. As my cousin and I frantically did more research, we discovered that soon after the SEC rejection, Aunt Kay's long-term boyfriend was involved in a headline-making stock market scandal. The trial lasted 11 months, the longest federal case on record at the time. There were indictments and plea bargains. And it was just about then that Kay contacted Christie's auction house to sell an original Sir Joshua Reynolds oil painting that had hung in her lavish apartment.

It's difficult to track the next seven years of Aunt Kay's life. Without children and having lived an invented life, there are no photos of her since childhood--aside from a few, grainy, unflattering newspaper pictures. We know she died in 1971, alone, penniless, and in pain, in a shoddy nursing home in Miami. She'd been put there, then ignored, by her sister. My grandmother.

To be honest, my grandmother's story is more exciting and dangerous than Aunt Kay's. But, it's so complex and there are so many privacy factors to consider that I always feel thwarted when I try to write about it. It may be easiest to fictionalize parts of it. In fact, it may be best if I used a pen name for it. The alias K. Brunell comes to mind as being perfectly appropriate.

Private Literature

Earlier today, I came across an Aldous Huxley quote I particularly liked: "Every man's memory is his private literature." I'm not sure which I initially liked best, the idea of literature being mined from memory or the concept of "private literature". The more I thought about the statement, I realized Huxley had, of course, meant both things are one.

Even among the most outwardly unexceptional people, all lives trace a story. Some contain more characters than one can easily track, others follow plot lines that can only be described as convoluted. Some are full of description where nothing seems to happen, unless you're patient enough to read between the lines. I'm not sure writers can create anything meaningful without the work being influenced and shaped by some person, place, or thing in their past. Memory is so often synonymous with inspiration, even if it's the recollection of something heard, seen or read.

"...private literature." Never entirely private, is it? Almost everything we've experienced has been a shared event, even the once-forgotten moments that play back clearly and unexpectedly in our minds. I know that in my "private literature" collection of memory, there are some amazingly poignant stories waiting to be told. And, in some cases, the stories will never materialize. They come from shared libraries and cannot be borrowed without special permission. Like an ancient manuscript, some moments are too fragile to touch. Best to leave them on a high shelf, both acknowledged and undisturbed.

Fortunately, there still remains much to be revisited and reworked and rewritten until it becomes something new on its own terms. I think of some of my migratory paths: From an idyllic childhood in Buffalo, New York to being greeted daily by the doorman at our apartment building in Washington, D.C. to trudging through deep snow in a remote town in the north woods of Wisconsin to Philadelphia to a small city in the South.

I consider the people I've known from so many walks of life, on such different career tracks, holding varied beliefs and motivations. There are the moments that felt frozen in time as they happened, from the across-the-room realization that my then-boyfriend would be the man I'd eventually marry to the phone call telling me my mother had died an hour earlier in a car accident. There are the highs and lows that make up cherished friendships and the expansive reach of family. Memory can be like an endless web that starts with one experience, then continues to include all who had been a part of it and their individual pasts. And everyone's private literature contains stories worth telling.

Skepticism, Trust, and Donald Trump

Sometimes, I think I worry too much about my son. Yes, that's an understatement among mothers. I suppose I have the standard-issue concerns, but one of my biggest ones is that he's so trusting. Too trusting. He believes in the best in everyone and it would never occur to him that anyone, other than a costumed arch villain, could wish anyone harm or have ulterior motives.

When he was nine, for some long lost reason, we'd watched the first season of Donald Trump's The Apprentice. It was the first time that Thomas had ever seen anyone show so much arrogance, so much posturing, so much Trumpness. Yet, he was excited that Donald Trump was giving up his "valuable time" to help the career of a hard-working, smart individual. Of course, there could be no other motive. At this time, we had a trip scheduled for New York City. Looking at pictures of our hotel online, Thomas noticed we were not too far from Trump Tower and happily detected a McDonald's in the hotel's background. My son is a notoriously picky eater and, at that age, he needed the reassurance of a McDonald's as back-up. So, it was all perfect in his mind. He'd invite Donald Trump to lunch at McDonald's. He'd saved his allowance, he'd be able to treat. So he asked me to help him find Donald Trump's address.

I admit it. I balked. I explained that not only was there no way this idea would ever become a reality, but his letter would probably get trashed. At Thomas' insistence, we found the address and he carefully wrote out his invitation, including the tempting offer of a free Happy Meal PLUS an apple pie. Thomas enclosed the most recent photo of himself so Donald Trump would recognize him at the restaurant. The photo had been from Disney World. A picture with Chip, of Chip and Dale fame. Thomas added a p.s. that he was the one in the photo who wasn't a chipmunk.

No, the lunch never happened. But, much to my surprise and Thomas' satisfaction, he received a letter from Donald Trump. Initially, I thought it was a form letter. Reading it, I wondered how many times he wrote: "Your invitation to treat me to lunch at McDonald's is appreciated..." Okay, so maybe it wasn't a form letter after all.

A couple of years later, we were in Minneapolis. While my husband was at a conference, we spent the day on our own. There was a restaurant I was interested in for dinner, and again with his caution of all unknown foods, Thomas and I were going to stop by during the day and look at their menu. Taking an unknown shortcut in a large, unfamiliar city isn't always the best idea. Suddenly, the street we were walking down looked a little...menacing. I realized we were the only two people on the block, aside from a couple of men several yards away who looked a little threatening. One glanced up and saw us. He whispered something to the other man, who glanced our way. Their stances changed.

I took Thomas' arm and whispered, "We're crossing the street here."

"But, we're not at the corner!"

"I know. I'll explain later, let's go."

I gave a quick look both ways and we started quickly crossing the street. Until the heel of my shoe got caught in a pothole and I fell down, my ankle so twisted I struggled to get up.

"Mom, the light just changed!"

As soon as Thomas said that, the two men I'd been avoiding hurried over. One held back cars while the other helped me to my feet.

"Are you okay? Are you able to walk?"

"Yes, thank you, I'll be fine."

So, I hobbled across the rest of the street and towards the restaurant, which was nearby now.

"Mom, were those guys who just helped you the ones you didn't want us to walk past?"

I looked at him. I felt ashamed. In his eyes, I could see mild reproach and concern. He understood why I'd reacted the way I did, but wished I could be more trusting, see the best in people.

Sometimes, I think my son worries too much about me.