Column #4 - Putting Foot to Ass OR A Mexican Standoff With An Empty Page

Writers talk about it, that's what writers do most of their free time -- talk. They don't talk so much as bitch and complain. They lament their situation with other lamenting author-types, coming together to bitch about whose luck is better than theirs, or how they could've written a movie just as bad but at half the price, and maybe not so bad, really. All writers have this fear, apparently, something that I myself haven't really been prone to, the fear of facing the empty page. No, I have another problem altogether. Actually, come to think of it, it's not an empty page anymore. It's a blank screen. I bet it was something in the days of yore, which comes somewhere between yesterday and the past, to have to face that shiny white paper in a manual typewriter. I wouldn't know, I've always written on a computer. Except when I write out treatments longhand on yellow legal pads, anywhere from several dozen and just under a hundred pages. Nonetheless, this prospect, the empty page, is a tortuous experience, I'm told, the scariest part of the writing process, when the entire world is waiting, expectant, breath bated and tense, for that first touch of pen-to-paper. And then it happens, the first words are written and they're simple, direct, and easier than expected.

What words are they, you ask? What a fine question I reply, avoiding the question. Well answer me please, you say, ever polite and refined. What fine weather we're having, is my reply, though the snow on the ground in September and the wind-chill chokes my throat and burns my butt. The snow's so thick I can't actually see the person I'm speaking with. Come on, tell me, you say, growing increasingly frustrated by my evasiveness and bookish good looks. Fine, I say. "And". (Long pause)

And what, you ask. "And". Now before we go through a whole who's on first, what's on second routine, the first word a writer puts to paper is the word "and". Now, AND is just a euphemism. What's a euph -- just kidding. Each writer has a word that serves to release the floodgates of creativity, that purges the soul. It might be 'Bad Guy', 'house party', or 'Ben Affleck', which are really two words. How about 'fishy' or 'Gus' or 'tornado'. Those are all singular. This word is unique and personal or generic and impersonal. I bet it varies from writer to writer, except maybe Harlequin romance writers, I hear they use a template.

I, myself, use no such magic word...alright, it's 'mosquito'. Again, kidding. Rather, there is a phrase, usually descriptive, always containing (hopefully) evocative imagery that I connect with at the start of a screenplay. Allow me to use an example: "An unholy scream courses through the earth's abyss". What does this mean, exactly? It means, I think, and if anybody should know it should be the writer, is that there needs to be a pants-staining, arm-resting clutching, boyfriend grabbing, mouth-watering scream. Something alien and identifiable and most of all, scarier than s**t. Cause that's the purpose of this particular story, to scare your socks and anything else that might be handy, right off.

This phrase, not just this one in particular but anything around which I can wrap a story, serves as my touchstone, whenever I lose direction in a screenplay this proves to be an effective grounding. Usually... Sometimes...Once in a while...See, I've had the writing experience that literally feeds through me onto the page, and it didn't suck. This is like an epiphany in reverse (there's that turn of the phrase I was talking about). I've also had to bring a story into the world kicking and screaming, caught by a desire to tell it when it's premature and underdeveloped and should've percolated in my brain for a while longer. There are several stories I want to tell, I need to tell, I'm probably here to tell. But I know that I'm not yet ready to tell them effectively, remember age is relative, or time is, or space was...I need to grow and mature as a writer to really do them justice, and boy when I'm ready, so will they be.

Someone smart once said that "inspiration is ten percent luck and ninety percent perspiration", or maybe it was "perspiration is ten percent sweat and ninety percent smell". The point, and there is one, is that the genesis of creativity, the essence of a truly great idea, comes from somewhere sacred and unknown. And it's rare, rare like a French-Canadian goaltender (just kidding, I have to throw these in to keep you awake). But when it happens, a writer is really just a conduit for something very special. And he or she, must not, must never ever, even if Michael Eisner is offering to name the new theme park after your first born, a writer must never take this for granted. Because for as long as can be remembered, as long as someone has seen fit to etch in the dirt or muss up a cave wall, the creative muse has been a secret and fickle thing capable of great power. People rise up at the written word , people change governments, people hurt each other, people do great things...

...Never forget, that words are powerful and must be used by only those officially licensed to wield them. I got mine from inside a cracker-jack box.

I should get back to the script I'm supposed to be working on...Enough procrastinating already...Here I go...Right after this commercial break...
Jess Nakaska is an aspiring screenwriter always on the lookout for the next great script idea. He'll let you know if he finds it. Feel free to contact him at jessnakaska@hotmail.com.