Shouting into the Wind Saying my piece in a windy world.

I watch a lot of television.

No, really. Maybe you think I’m joking. The fact is, I want to write television so I watch a lot of it. A lot a lot. Like, imagine how much television you watch and probably double or triple that.

So when I tell you that TNT’s SouthLAnd is the best show on the air right now, you will understand that I, watching as much tv as I watch, must be making a statement that commands attention.

Yes, Justified is great. And Game of Thrones. And Mad Men. But none of them have what Southland has (gonna discontinue the weird capitalization for the purposes of readability) — but before I make my case for Southland over all of these great, great shows, a little backstory.

I am not a “Day One” Southland viewer.  When it first premiered on NBC, I expected, like most others did that it would just be another by the numbers cop show.  Of course, every few years one cop show comes along that blows out all of the others — Boomtown, The Shield, NYPD Blue… and the ratings on NBC reflected that the audience didn’t show up, but it wasn’t because it was a ‘by the numbers’ cop show.  It’s because it wasn’t.

TNT saw that.  John Wells is the executive producer (not showrunner though) and he knows a thing or two about delivering quality shows, and Southland was a quality show.  In a rare move, TNT picked up the dead show and revived it.  Already it was defying the odds by being good, but now it was even more rare that it was given a second chance to thrive.

I didn’t discover the show until its 3rd season, 2 years ago.  I was reviewing for Seat42F and I was asked if I’d like to interview Michael Cudlitz and Ben McKenzie for the site and review the season premiere.  Naturally I said yes, but that required binging on the first two seasons of the show to get up to speed.  Fortunately, because the NBC season was cut short and the first TNT season was also short, I only had to watch about 13 episodes.  I blew through them, one after another, compelled by this gripping drama, that dared to bleep out profanity, as if we were watching COPS on Fox rather than sugarcoat the dialog.  The stories were about the cops and the crimes were secondary, until it tied directly to character development.  It was engrossing, engaging, and I couldn’t get enough.

I interviewed Michael Cudlitz, who plays Officer John Cooper on the show, and was even more impressed.  This guy has bounced around a lot, but this was the first time I took notice.  His character, a veteran cop put in the position of training “boots,” new recruits who just happened to be gay AND have some lingering health issues was just a ball of complexity.  I found Cudlitz himself (It’s hard not to get in the habit of calling him that, since it is his twitter identity) to be smart, funny and really insightful about his character and the show.  Most of all, he was so grateful for the chance to play this character, to have the second life of this show on TNT, to be doing great work with great people.  If you’ve not followed him on Twitter or Facebook, where he is very present, he’s a one man cheering section for the show, and fans respond.  I tweeted him thanks after our interview and he responded in kind AND followed me.  It was the first time I was thrilled to have an actor acknowledge my existence.

Okay, I may have a bit of a crush.

So that was my introduction to Southland, binging on the first two seasons in preparation for the third, watching that screener of their third season premiere, and then promptly setting my DVR to record the show every week.  One of the best show decisions I’ve ever made.

A few shows have managed the trick of keeping a constant level of quality for the duration of their run.  Even fewer have actually managed to GET BETTER as they age.  As we learn about the people who populate the world of the show, it’s hard not to get invested.  When a major character died in a previous season, it was a huge shock, and not in a ‘Walking Dead’ kind of way — we’d grown with these characters, cared about them, and we don’t want to see them make mistakes or get hurt.

But the best characters are the ones who do make mistakes.  I don’t know how the LAPD feels about Southland. By a mile the show is more a testament to their hard work and dedication to the job than anything else, but there are those times when the reality of life as a police officer seeps through the cracks — that reality is what makes the show amazing.  The raw honesty.  The flaws.  In those moments we see beyond their uniforms and see them as human beings.  They aren’t eloquent or erudite.  They don’t always have the perfect resonant thing to say, and that’s okay.  We get the point without anything being said, most of the time.

So this is my plea.  I’m not sure the show will get another season.  Already actors from the show are signing up for pilots, because the ratings for Southland have been lackluster this year.  But next Wednesday night is what could be the series finale.  Watch it.  You don’t need to have watched all five seasons of the show to enjoy what I promise will be a riveting hour of television in your life.  This week was so intense I left fingernail imprints in my palm as I watched.  I rarely get engaged with a show to a degree that manifests in physical reaction from me!

I hope that in the next few years people will discover this gem of a show, just as they’ve discovered Arrested Development, Firefly and others which were gone too soon.  You might think 5 seasons of Southland should be enough, but their 5 seasons is only 46 episodes.  I want more.  I probably won’t get more, and I’ll have to cope with that.

In the meantime, I am going to savor this last moment with the cast and crew.  Ann Biderman, the creator and showrunner is a new idol of mine.  The writers are demi gods.  I bow to their ingenuity in turning stories you’ve seen a dozen times on their ear and then again on their other ear.  But for once, I will give even more credit to the actors — Cudlitz, McKenzie, Shawn Hatosy, Regina King, C. Thomas Howell and the rest — you’ve done great work and made a fan out of me.

Posted under analysis, reviews, tv news

So here we are at the Ides of March.  No one makes a big deal of the Ides of June or September. I’m guessing because it doesn’t have the same ominous ring or the whole Caesar’s death thing hanging over it.  No one fears the Ides of November, unless you are a turkey.

But I digress. There’s a shocker.

So, Julie and I are pitching a show around town, and it has been quite an experience — a whirlwind tour of conference rooms and offices — some are fishbowls, others look out on car parks and Century City.  Others have intimidating video conference setups which we never use.  Some rooms are located after a long trek down labyrinthine hallways along which the cheery assistant leading us to our destination must leave breadcrumbs for us to find our way back to civilization.  All of this and so much more.  I have a fine collection of various water bottles obtained from the many studios.  My favorite may be the pint sized (literally) bottle of Crystal Geyser.

The one thing I’ve learned to do in dressing for these meetings is keep it simple.  I’m not allowed to look too dressy (I’m a writer after all,) but I do believe in looking like I give a damn about being there, so I put on the make up and the nice cowl-neck sleeveless top, checking to coordinate with my sister so we neither matchy-match or clashy-clash. We strive for perfect color complement.  A pair of boots and a jacket which changes with the color of top chosen…but one component never changes.

My perfectly sized boot-cut blue jeans. My pitching pants.  I wear the same pair of pants because they are truly the finest pair I own — they fit me perfectly and even seem to have the magic ability to stretch or shrink to my waistline on any given day (I wish it would do more shrinking than stretching, but I have to get a handle on that problem myself).  I consider them my lucky charm, my talisman, until my sister snarkily pointed out last time I wore them that they were perhaps our albatross, preventing us from selling our show.

I really hope that’s not true. I’d hate to think I was wearing a dead albatross around all this time.

But all humor aside, there’s something about putting on my clothes for the pitch that feels a bit like dressing for a performance.  When pitching, you are performing, playing the part of “Writer” and within that part many other parts as you weave the tale you want to sell.  In this it feels imperative to give the attire careful consideration.

Next up we’ll hopefully start making the rounds for staffing season.  Maybe I’ll buy a new pair of jeans… just in case.

Posted under randomness

So, if you follow tv news obsessively like me, you know that the networks have been greenlighting pilots right and left for next season. It’s actually a little late for them, supposedly because scripts came in late to the networks — this makes sense to me because I swear no one went back to work until January 7th. I tried to deliver some belated holiday gifts to a few people at studios and everything was closed or people were still out on vacation. There is nothing harder than getting a studio lot ‘drive on’ to make a delivery when everyone is out of town.

But I digress.

I always get a little annoyed when anyone except Variety, Deadline or Hollywood Reporter reports on the pilots because they always seem to equate the greenlight of a pilot to ‘this is a show you’ll see next year.’ As we all know that is far from truth, and the town is littered with the dead — pilots made and tested that never made it to series.

The pilot season is a gauntlet. The first round is getting that script order. That’s a brass ring right there, just because as a writer, hey, YOU GET PAID. The second challenge is the pilot greenlight. You can write a great script, but it doesn’t guarantee you get to make the pilot (unless you have a pilot writing deal that comes with heavy penalties or with a straight to pilot or straight to series order, which are rare, but happen). Now is when things get tough. Now you’re competing with only a handful of projects to make it to series. Having had a front row seat to this process (but not directly in the process — my sister had the courtside seats for that), I can say it is brutal and heartwrenching when there are four slots and five or six pilots…and the one you worked on or wrote doesn’t make it. Brutal.

This year my seating is pushed back further, but kind of on the edge of things, like offstage (to continue this weird audience seating metaphor). My sister and I do not have a project in contention, but we are out pitching something for cable, so we are keenly aware of the process and our potential to get into it in the future, if not with this project, then with another somewhere down the line.

It’s scary.

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Been catching up on the Scriptnotes podcasts from John August and Craig Mazin. These are great podcasts and if you aren’t listening to them, you should be.  I also listen to Rob Long’s Martini Shot every week — he does a great job of explaining this crazy business and distilling down an element of it in under four minutes. I still listen to Nerdist Writers Podcast and Meet the Filmmaker from time to time, particularly when the guest is a writer or filmmaker I am really intrigued by or want to hear more from. The nice thing about Scriptnotes is the focus on topics and not necessarily people. It’s a mechanics and business focus, which I enjoy. I know there are a multitude of podcasts, and I have over 500 downloaded which I have not yet played and heard.  Crazy.

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Julie and I have been outlining and writing a pilot for weeks now and are finally nearing the finish line on the draft. It’s been tough — this one is very procedural, something we felt we needed for staffing season — and since it has been an idea we’ve circled for so long, I’m looking forward to finishing it so we can start working on something new.  I’m itching to write a feature spec.  I’ve no idea why, except I haven’t written a feature in a few years and I’d really like to try my hand at it.  I guess that’s the side effect of working for someone who writes features, tv and novels (!) — it makes me want to get out of my comfort zone with writing…

… which may be why I’m even here, blogging.  I needed a break from the pilot but I needed to keep writing something so I would be able to switch back to writing the pilot, approaching it feeling a little refreshed.  Not sure this is much of an update but more a collection of what’s on my mind.

I suppose that’s always been the point of blogging…just saying what’s on my mind.  Good to remember from time to time.

Oh, one last thing. My sister got a dog. His name is Gideon. My new side career is personal photographer.

Posted under randomness, Uncategorized

So, my sister and I have an agent.

We’ve been repped for about a month, but I’m only now getting around to saying something, because it seemed strange to just blurt out “Hey, there’s a guy who talks about us in meetings hoping to find us employment.” Actually, that’s still weird — but, the ‘agent thing’ is such a milestone to most people, it actually felt weirder not to acknowledge it. So, it’s weird either way, and that about sums up my life right there.

I know the first question you’re going to ask. Well, maybe not the first, but some of you will ask it at some point — “How did you get your agent?”

Here are the things I did not do:

I did not cold call anyone.
I did not query anyone.
I did not sleep with anyone (I feel like that’s worth mentioning).

My mantra for the many years I’ve been running this blog is that Relationships are Everything. Julie (my sister) and I got our agent because of who we knew, and who they knew who might be looking to rep someone like us. That person then reached out to us to submit material, which we did. He liked it, liked us and asked to represent us.

That sounds easy, doesn’t it? Well, it took a hell of a lot of time and relationships to pull that off.

So, what does this mean for us? Primarily it means that the Benson Sisters are an official writing entity — we have been for awhile, but we are really marketing and branding ourselves (I shudder to say that) as sisters who write genre together. There are a couple of other sister teams out there, one of which I can think of that also does genre, so it’s a narrow field, but makes us appealing as a unit.

So, that’s it — piece of cake, right? Well, not really. The work is far from over and is, in fact, just beginning. We need to rewrite one of our pilot specs and write a new one entirely — it turns out we don’t quite have the material we need for staffing season, so right now we are focused on quickly getting stuff together. And when I say quickly, I mean by the first of the year.

Yeah.

Meanwhile, that webseries project I sold with Bernie Su earlier this year is still moving along. We’re about to do the second rewrite on the script. After that — hopefully they get a director and talent attached and start finding sponsors. A long way toward production yet.

But Julie and I are about to enter our first real staffing season. Pray for us.

Posted under Uncategorized, writing

Four months with no new posts. I’m a bad blogger.

Things for which I need to post updates: My triumphant return to Austin Film Festival last month. My continuing career progression. Geekerati Radio’s return from the near dead and our growing audience.

Lots of exciting happenings for Team Benson (not just for me, but my sis too!)

Have I intrigued you? Do I leave you wanting more? My work here is done…for now. Back soon.

Posted under Uncategorized

I hear this question a lot — actually, more than the question, I hear it as a statement: “With the influx of Hollywood, there is no place for comics at Comic Con”

That statement isn’t true, but I can see why you would think it is.  The Hollywood influence at SDCC, more pronounced than at any other major comics convention, gives the impression that there is no room for comics at comic con and that those attending don’t care about comics.

Let’s unpack that.

San Diego Comic Con started in 1970 as the “Golden State Comic Book Convention” (I’m pulling most of the historical info from past SDCC guides and Wikipedia). It went through a few name changes in the intervening years until it is known as THE “Comic Con” — there’s a New York Comic Con and a Chicago Comic Con, but generally when people refer to “Comic Con” they are talking about San Diego, which in the past 40 years has become the premier comic book convention in the country?

Why is that?

Primarily, SDCC has grown to be what it is today because of Hollywood.  George Lucas showcased “Star Wars” there in 1977.  “Superman” was previewed there (to a few catcalls) in 1978.  Since then, Hollywood has had a consistent presence at the convention, recognizing early on that not only was it a short drive down the coast, but they could get early feedback on their genre projects.

Hollywood also recognized early on that Comic Con was a good place to find new stories and writers.  Independent artists, animators and writers were always there, hawking their latest books and independent work, so why not find the coolest and hottest properties at the convention to option and develop as future projects?

The last 10 years showed a real explosion in the coverage for Comic Con, due to the internet and blogs.  Now that people could hear about these Hollywood projects early, there was demand.  In 2005, ABC thought that it might be interesting to bring a new show to the Con, see what the audience thought before it premiered in the fall.  The response was so positive and enormous that it set the precedent for TV networks and cable — LOST became a huge hit, the pilot getting great word of mouth three months prior to it hitting the air.  Now every year, not only do established shows make appearances at the con with cast and writers, but new shows which haven’t aired yet get a chance to test the waters. Fans made it clear that they wanted this kind of attention from Hollywood and Hollywood responded.

The impression as that the Hollywood machine is so enormous now that it pushes comics, the original inspiration and medium which generated the convention in the first place, off to the side.  While I understand that feeling, the fact is that comics are still a dominant force at Comic Con.  DC and Marvel still have the largest booths in the Exhibit Hall. A vast section of the Exhibit Hall is dedicated to independent comic publishers, retailers and artists. While it is true that the major traffic jams occur in the Hollywood section of the floor, it’s because the studios bring all of their big screens, flashing lights and — well, Hollywood — flair.  It’s hard to ignore something so bright and shiny twirling endlessly before your eyes.  So while the Hollywood and Silicon Valley (gaming) sections of the Exhibit Hall create most of the traffic, the square footage of space dedicated to comics is still larger.

But what about the panels? This year there are more than 64 television shows with panels at Comic Con! If you are doing that math, that is 16 shows a day!  The film panels have dwindled markedly, as studios have had mixed results from showcasing genre films at the convention.  A few years ago, everyone expected the big attraction at the con would be the panel devoted to the long anticipated film adaptation of the beloved and groundbreaking comic series/graphic novel WATCHMEN, but a curious thing happened.  There was an undercurrent no one had really paid any attention to, except for Lionsgate which was producing a different adaptation of a Young Adult series that was quietly taking over teenage girls across the country.  The teenage girls showed up at Comic Con, once word was out among the rabid fanbase that the film would be presented at the Con with the unknowns cast in the film.

The result was TWILIGHT took the Con and everyone there by complete surprise.  My sister Julie was in Hall H awaiting the start of the panel following Lionsgate.  I received a text from her during the TWILIGHT panel in which she told me of the deafening crowd reaction to the actors as they came out on stage.  It was in that moment that we knew, a full six months ahead of its premiere in theaters that the film would be a huge hit.

Conversely, panels have a way of telling you what won’t do well.  Reviews following the panels for The Green Lantern were so decidedly mixed that the studio had to be worried about their tentpole after the Con.  Like it or not, the Con has predicted success and failure for Hollywood, and they are fools not to heed the bellweather.

But back to the issue of the quantity of panels — let’s take a look at the names of the panels in the first two hours on Thursday, the opening of SDCC this year:

• Comic-Con How-To: Building the Foundation to a Page-Turning Story
• The Witty Women of Steampunk
• Marvel: Breaking into Comics the Marvel Way
• IDW & Hasbro
• Racebending.com: Creating Spaces for Diverse Characters and Representations
• From Fan to Creator: Goal Setting for Creative Types
• Flesk: Celebrating a Decade of Publishing
• Comic-Con Film School 101: Preproduction and Screenwriting
• TheOneRing.net: The Truth About The Hobbit
• DC: Talent Search Orientation Session 1
• Battlestar: So Say We All
• How to Get News Coverage (for small press comics)
• Comic Book Law School 101: ABCs for a Savvy and Smart Start (Up)
• Books and Hollywood: Literary Franchises in Television and Film
• Epic Games: Fortnite Revealed
• Comic-Con How-To: Creating a Character-Driven Story

Those are all of the panels that begin between 10 AM and 1o:45 AM.  What do you see?  More than half of the panels are dedicated to comics and publishing.  Weirdly, we only have one TV show with a panel during this time frame, and it happens to be for a show (Battlestar Galactica) that has been off the air for years!  It’s true, not every hour of every day has this many comics panels running simultaneously, but it’s pretty close.  I would argue that while Hollywood films and tv shows overshadow these smaller panels in their coverage, they are like the umbrella which allows for all of the other panels for games, books, comics and fansites to exist.  If there was no Hollywood, there would be maybe half as many panels.  This diversity is what makes SDCC the greatest display of fandom and geek culture that exists in the world.

In recent years, indie comic producers have felt that they are losing real estate in the convention hall — a valid complaint, given the limited space and growing demand for it.  Some of them decided to move out of the convention center and set up shop in a building nearby.  Heck, even some of the Hollywood folks have been crowded out of the convention center and have found places to establish a headquarters in the sprawling Gaslamp district a block or two away.  This has only grown the Con more, as more and more options make it easier for people to enjoy elements of the convention without needing a badge TO the convention.  After all, the con has grown so large, it is difficult to buy a pass, whether for a single day or the entire weekend.  The solution has come in a most unexpected way — take some of the offerings and events outside of the convention, available to anyone and everyone.  Until the San Diego Convention Center expansion project is completed in about four years, this will have to suffice.  In the  meantime, I doubt that anyone will really mind.

One of the most anticipated events during this weekend is the annual Eisner Awards ceremony, celebrating the best in comics and graphic novels for the preceding year.  If there were no comics, there probably wouldn’t be a convention.  Is it fair to call it “Comic Con” anymore?  From a traditional point of view, the purists say ‘yes’, though even Comic Con itself bills the event as a celebration of popular culture, recognizing that the reach has expanded far beyond its original intent.

So, does SDCC still care about comics?  I think they do.  Hollywood certainly does, as so many films and tv shows have come from comic roots.  So long as there are comics, I think it’s fair to say that Comic Con will care.

Long Live Comic Con!

Posted under analysis

Yes, we are consumed with planning and organizing for SDCC.  I thought someone might be interested in my post-mortem article I wrote last year for Seat42F (a great site with lots of SDCC news), so here it is:

San Diego Comic Con 2011: The Rise of the Sideshows  

by Shawna Benson

In the last five years, San Diego Comic Con passes have sold out before the doors even open on the first day of the convention.  This year the con was sold out weeks (and really, months) in advance of the event.  Unfortunately, the planned expansion of the San Diego Convention Center is still a few years off, so the number of passes which can be sold will continue to be capped (by some estimates there are approximately 130,000 attendees, between exhibitors, press, professionals, guests and paid passholders.)  So how can more people experience the array of activities at Comic Con without actually being at Comic Con?

Some enterprising companies, organizations and even celebrities seem to have the solution.  There have always been a few outside events for convention attendees to investigate in and around the Gaslamp district adjacent to the Con, but this year, the number of offsite events exploded.  A visitor to San Diego during Comic Con this year could really experience the convention without ever setting foot in the convention center.  Granted, the experience wouldn’t be quite the same, but you could still see a lot of the personalities, get photos and autographs, and partake of swag and contests in the many venues which popped up within blocks of the main event.

Directly across the street from SDCC at the San Diego Wine and Culinary Center, a small independent comics event called Tr!ckster set up shop.  It became a place for hardcore comics fans, tired of being overshadowed by the film and TV influences on the Con and craving a return to the roots of the show to interface with some of the master storytellers and emerging artists in the comics world.  Not only could fans chat and relax with a nice glass of wine, but they could also purchase small independent titles and get autographs and photos with participating professionals.

If your focus for the Con was to see some film and TV stars in smaller, more intimate settings that the big panels at the convention center, you could buy tickets to events at NerdHQ, an event sponsored by The Nerd Machine, Zach Levi’s brainchild for nerd outreach.  All of the proceeds for these events, which included panels with Levi, the cast of Firefly and other greatly revered Nerd Idols, went to Operation Smile, a charity devoted to helping children receive surgeries to correct cleft palates and other facial disfigurements.  The NerdHQ also hosted parties and autograph signings and emphasized that it was open to all, not just the elite Hollywood types who dominate the party circuit in the evenings during the convention.  Hugh Jackman came to San Diego to promote is new film “Real Steel,” but there was no panel for the film at the convention.  Instead, Jackman participated in a presentation outside the convention and handed out some tablet PCs to lucky attendees.

There were lounges with free food and drinks, sponsored by various companies – the South Park experience, celebrating the 15^th anniversary of the Comedy Central series set up in a parking lot a block away from the convention center.  SyFy took over the Hard Rock Café on Fifth Street as they have for the past three years at the convention, turning it into “Café Diem,” the hangout from their original series “Eureka.”  The food served was off the Hard Rock menu, but with names which represented the shows and characters of SyFy, like “The Strathairn” omelet or The Frakking Cylon salad.

Wired Magazine has had huge success with their Café, set up at the Omni hotel and made available for one day of the convention to readers of the magazine who sign up to attend.  Wired has for the past few years set the standard for an oasis to escape the hustle and bustle of the convention itself, bringing in shows like HBO’s “True Blood,” The History Channel’s “Top Gear,” and sponsors ranging from Budweiser to Pringles.  AMD set up a lounge two floors below at the Omni to demonstrate the remarkable 3D gaming capabilities of their processors, providing visitors with energy drinks and free t-shirts for stopping by and checking out their equipment and demonstrations.  Gaming oriented lounges were set up by Sprint, CNET and IGN for gamers looking for a place to try out new games and learn about upcoming releases.  Some of the cast of the Cirque du Soleil show “Ka” performed excerpts from their show outside Petco Park at dusk on the first day of the convention – a free show for all.  Conan O’Brien brought “Coco-MoCA,” to the con, an art show devoted to “The Fine Art of the Flaming C,” which featured artwork by professionals and fans related to Conan O’Brien’s superhero alter ego.  There were demonstrations and giveaways everywhere, set up in restaurants, parking lots and galleries, all rented out during the convention to provide spaces for fans and guests to interact with each other.

The con itself has stretched into both the Hilton Bayfront Hotel and the Marriott Marquis Hotel on either side of the massive convention hall.  The likelihood of spending the entire day in the main hall is dwindling as the exhibitors find new ways to circumvent the space limitations and the challenge of capturing the attention of the masses who shuffle through the crowded exhibit floor.

With so much going on outside of the convention, a person could justify a visit to SDCC without even having a badge to the main event – with movie screenings and all of the aforementioned events, there’s a satisfying experience to be had without waiting in the massive lines to get into Hall H or Ballroom 20, the two largest rooms for presentations and panels by Hollywood studios and television networks.  That leaves only the challenge of finding a hotel room – while the number of available rooms has grown every year they are still in very short supply.  Fortunately for convention attendees, an agreement was reached with the hotels in San Diego to cap the room rates in future years, to prevent potential abuse of hiked rates and more importantly, as an incentive to keep the convention located in San Diego.  It is widely known that the immense growth of the event in the last few years has brought other prime convention cities, like Anaheim, Los Angeles and Las Vegas to come calling to lure the event away.  Currently the convention is expected to remain in San Diego through 2013, at least.

Finally, there is another way to experience the convention without leaving home – the internet.  Videos of panels and events pop up on Youtube within hours of them happening, and some events are streamed live.  So much of the news which breaks at Comic Con is now available instantly on websites such as Seat42F, ready to feed an audience hungry for the latest announcements and photos of their favorite stars.  Though it can’t replicate the actual experience of wandering through the Gaslamp or hustling through the convention center to get to the next event, watching the events unfold from the comfort of your home is certainly less expensive and time consuming.

Of course, that doesn’t mean I won’t be back next year.  The four days of Comic Con really can’t be replicated or replaced.  Despite the heat, the lines of people and the exhaustion, there is no place as exciting or alive as San Diego for four days in July.

Posted under randomness

I had a lot planned today.  Laundry to do, check to deposit, dishes in the dishwasher to unload, new ones to shove in, my fancy new wine glasses to meticulously hand wash because I refuse to put them in the dishwasher, and of course, there is the writing — the ‘work on my pilot rewrite’ writing or the ‘rework the first act of new pilot’ writing or even the ‘hash out an outline for this feature spec’ writing… but I’ve put it all aside right at this moment, because right now, there is nothing I want to do more than talk to you about something.

It’s something I’ve put off a very long time, in part, because I fear that talking about it may not make any difference, and could in fact make things worse.  It’s been on my mind all morning, because it is every morning. And every afternoon. And every night.  Since I’m not male, you probably surmise I’m not thinking about sex all the time, so you can stand down from worrying if this is an X-rated post.

I want to talk to you about the Dark Cloud.

The dark cloud has been with me as long as I can remember.  I refer to it as the ‘dark cloud’ because of a specific poem I wrote when I was a kid, all imagery of scary darkness and frightening forests and anger and pain.  The dark cloud loomed over all of that other stuff, as it does in my real life.  The dark cloud has descended upon me so often in my life and when it does its effects are devastating — relationships destroyed, personal health and happiness abandoned, apathy and hopelessness conquering all else.

My “dark cloud” is clinical depression.

I was diagnosed officially in 2000, but it has been with me all my life.  There’s no abuse, no divorce, no tragedy that I can point to that has impacted my ability to be happy as an adult.  All I have to look to is myself and this constant feeling of inadequacy, of failure and ennui.  I had been functioning with it for many years, but it wasn’t until I headed down a very dark spiral in 2000 that a friend of mine finally alerted me to the fact I needed to get professional help.

“I can’t help you with this anymore.  I think you need to find someone who can.”

Those were the words that set me down the path of getting help and learning that admitting I needed help wasn’t itself a failure — it was a first step toward happiness.  So, I called up the “behavioral health” (I love that euphemism) coverage provider for my then-job in Orlando and got a referral and an appointment to be assessed.  It didn’t take much for them to figure out I was clinically depressed.  From there I was assigned a therapist and not long after I was prescribed medication.

For the first time in my life, I felt like I had control.

Over the next ten years, I would go through fits and starts of mental health.  Most of the time, I’d be functioning incredibly well, and handling depression became easier.  There was a brief time after my initial move to Los Angeles in 2003 that I had to deal with finding a new therapist and getting a new prescription, but I didn’t let my mental health progress lapse for more than two or three months.  Even after I was laid off from my job in 2009 I had built up enough coping mechanisms and good mental health practices that I still looked to the huge question mark of my future with optimism — being laid off was an opportunity to pursue my true dreams!  For the year following my lay off I certainly saw my therapist more (which really, this was probably my 8th or 9th therapist. There’s always been a revolving door there, but that’s the nature of things) and handled my new situation pretty well.  Even when relationships fell apart I weathered the storm with little damage.

Then my COBRA coverage ended.  My supply of anti-depressants dried up.  For awhile I was actually happy to get off my medication;  I eased myself off by ratcheting down the dose from the supply I had available once I no longer had any refills remaining.  It felt liberating — I had been chained to a drug every day of my life for 10 years — why wouldn’t I want to try to break free of that?  I had also read extensively about the school of thought that drugs weren’t really the answer for everyone.  I had always hoped that the drugs would be a temporary arrangement anyway, so moving myself off of them seemed like a good arrangement.

The trouble with having depression is that it is a sneaky bastard of a condition (I refuse to call it a ‘disease’) — very often I don’t recognize the signs that I am in a downward spiral until I’m circling the drain, about to fall in.  I’ll go days and weeks saying ‘I’m fine’ when I am very clearly not fine.  In fact, I sometimes even used this system to my advantage.  I figured as long as nobody noticed I wasn’t fine, then there was nothing really to worry about.  I never actually start worrying until I hear this from someone who is very close to me (family member, inner circle friend):

“Hey, are you okay? I mean, really okay?”

That’s when I know I’m not pulling one over on anyone anymore.

A few months ago I discovered a lost cache of anti-depressants in my bathroom.  I debated with myself for a month whether to take them, as they were an older prescription, one I had before my medication had been switched up when it had lost efficacy.  Of course now that I wasn’t taking anything, it seemed like they might work again.  Also, now that I was paying for my own health insurance, I reasoned I could start with these, and if they helped, I could ask my doctor to write me a prescription (I can’t actually see a therapist or a psychiatrist under this health plan — the cost for that is prohibitively expensive).  So I gave them a shot.  Usually it takes about four weeks to notice any change from the medication, but I noticed improvement within 2 weeks, and that was on half the dosage I had (I scored the pills).  After about 40 days, I noticed I only had about a week or so of pills left, so I called my doctor to arrange for a prescription…

…it never got called in.

Now at this point, I should have called my doctor back, asking why, but the dark cloud has a way of causing self-defeat.  I never called her back.  My self-defeating brain told me that if it didn’t get called in, ‘it was because she couldn’t authorize the prescription, which would mean I couldn’t have it, and what’s the point of raising a fuss about something when there’s nothing that can be done about it…’

We all have self-talk.  Those moments when you have to psych yourself up to do something or when you tell yourself you can’t do something… that’s self-talk.  Mine is nonstop.  Seriously, my self-talk is a chatty Cathy, and it never shuts up.  If the medication does anything, it shuts up my negative self-talk or at least mutes it so I can function in my life.

My self-talk sounds like this: “I don’t know why you bother with this script.  You’ve been working on it for months and it isn’t getting any better.  No one loves it — you’ve not gotten a single note raving about it.  If they’re all so critical of it, it must be bad, so you should probably just quit working on it.  Besides, it’s not like you’ve written anything else that’s good.  If you had, you’d be doing so much better by now, you might even have an agent.  But then, that’s you — you can’t finish anything; you still have a book to read that you started a year ago.  Oh and don’t try to counter me by bringing up the ‘Mars’ thing — you’re just piggybacking on someone else’s talent for that project and you know it.  Your sister is a better writer than you and she’s been doing this half as long as you have.  You know what else? She’s prettier than you are.  She’s pretty and younger and more talented.  She writes with you out of pity because she feels guilty that you aren’t capable of having your own career.  She’s also more well-adjusted and has better relationships than you do because you are an introverted freak who can’t keep a relationship going.  Everyone knows you are the quiet and less talented sister — that’s why she’s so popular and you aren’t.  You hide in your room and refuse to wear makeup or go out (and let’s not even get started about how fat you are) so of course you are social kryptonite on the scale of Gollum.  You look a lot like Gollum actually.  Perhaps you should live in a dark cave, or perhaps, you shouldn’t live at all…

Yep.  That’s self-talk.  It’s horrible.  Believe me, it was effortless to write that, because most of that stuff runs through my head at some point, and it all usually ends up in the same place “perhaps you shouldn’t live at all…”

Believe me, I’m too much of a coward to ever actually kill myself (I really hate pain), but the self-talk plants this constant refrain in my head — that I’m worthless, I’m talentless, I’m ugly, I’m fat, I’m old, I’m past my prime, that everyone around me is better, that I’m kidding myself, that all I do is for naught.  There have been more nights than I can count where I have gone to bed fantasizing of never waking up again — and that’s a comforting thought that allows me to fall asleep.  THAT SHOULD NOT BE.

Why am I posting about this, publicly? And why now?

Because last night was another one of those nights — where I lulled myself to sleep by thinking about it being my last night alive — that maybe I’d just die in my sleep and the pain would be over.

Because this morning I woke up from a dream where someone said “I can’t help you anymore.  I think you should find someone who can.”

Because I decided I was done with living in pain, but dying wasn’t the answer.  I did this pain for years before my first step, and it got me nowhere.  Revisiting the pain doesn’t help anything, and it certainly doesn’t make me happy.

Because I really don’t want other people to suffer as I have suffered.  If some person reads this, who has never sought help for their depression and sees a reflection of him or herself here and decides they don’t want to live like this anymore, then it will have all been worth it.

This is the scariest thing I’ve ever written on my blog.  It’s more terrifying than when I wrote about career success or failure, or putting my creative work on display.  It’s scary because THIS IS ME.  This is who I am, this is what I live with.  Every day.  For the last two years I’ve let the dark cloud rule my life, and I’m not letting that happen anymore.  Today I’m taking back control.

I will probably never get the dark cloud out of my life, but I can certainly push it far enough away it doesn’t interfere with my ability to live my life.  I also figure that most of my friends already suspected I was a ‘brooding artist’ type — but I don’t want to be the artist who suffers for their art and then dies for it.  Also, brooding is really not fun.  I miss my friends.  I miss you.  I miss living my life and never regretting it, even when I make mistakes or take wrong turns.

I don’t ask for people to walk on eggshells or treat me as a fragile porcelain doll.  I know my true friends will just nod their heads and tell me to get on with it already with a virtual slap on the ass to get back in the game.  They won’t tell me to stop whining or mock me for my admission — they’ll just quietly support.  That’s all I want.  You don’t need to post an ‘atta girl’ in my comments here — I’m not looking for that.  I don’t need that.  What I do need, is for people to be more conscious that someone they know may be in this kind of pain and needs help.  The last thing people suffering depression want to do is admit they need help.

I’ve asked for help once, so I know I can do it again.  I called my doctor today and asked for that refill…hours later, I got the call back.  The prescription is being called in now.

It’s a step I was ready to take and now that I have, I am going to work hard not to move back to where I’ve been the last few months.

Thanks for listening.

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Welcome to Year Nine.

It’s been on my mind a lot lately — I moved to Los Angeles 9 years ago. I have been at this, the trying to break into Hollywood, becoming a paid writer (consistently paid writer) for NINE YEARS. In a lot of ways, it feels like the pressure is really on now. Why,  you ask?

Because I gave myself 10 years to make this happen.

Ten years — that’s what most people say it took to have success. The ten year overnight success, is a very common story.  Anything less than 10 years feels like you are half-assing it, not being realistic about your goal, but ten years, that feels like a lifetime, SO much time.

And yet, here I am, facing down year nine…and it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long.

And there’s all the time I’ve spent meeting people, figuring out “the system,” and then figuring out the system is broken, and then figuring out that the system doesn’t really matter, and then learning the craft, writing my early, horrible scripts which I look back on and laugh, but recognize that they were essential to my learning… but I’m still writing horrible scripts.  And there are people who are whizzing past me on the Hollywood Freeway, getting agents, getting managers, getting deals.

I’m always happy for them. Always. And then I go drown myself in my own truths.

I still don’t have a portfolio. I have nothing to show for this 9 years.

People ask why I don’t have a manager by now, or why I don’t have an agent, and that’s pretty much the reason. “I’ve got nothing to show them.”

When I did an assessment of last year, it felt like I had accomplished a lot — I got a job assisting a writer — a REAL Hollywood writer!  I finished writing a new pilot, and then, I wrote a new spec.

And now I’m rewriting the pilot.  The spec will soon be unusable for the competitions and fellowship/program entries. I’m writing a new pilot, which will go through the rewrite process, eventually. I’m writing a feature spec, which will also go through the rewrite machine…

It’s a never ending process.  Welcome to the reality — “making it” in this business is non-stop work.  Once you climb one hill, all you will really see is the next hill, and the one after that, and the one after that… in biblical terms, this is good — you should want to see the hills.  If you see a valley — well, they don’t call it the “Valley of Death” for nothing.

I’ve noticed a lot of my fellow screenwriting bloggers, the ones who started recording their journeys around the same time I did, have come back to their blogs, feeling like they have something new to say.  I count myself among them.  I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to consistently blog again, but lately, I’ve felt a lot more like I did when I started this blog; I feel like I have something to say.

Still ‘shouting.’ Still very windy.

Posted under randomness

…or a new blog post from me! Happy Holidays to all!

I’m working up a post on my year in review and a few other odds and ends (you have no idea how many draft posts I have stashed away), so I hope you’ll come by. I promise to Tweet, Post on FB, etc when the new blog post goes up, so hopefully you won’t miss it…

unless you want to. But that’s up to you.

Posted under Uncategorized