Female writers in movies

In Michael McGrath's article this week in The Millions, he reviews the latest movie featuring a writer as the main character. He says

In the 2011 film Limitless, Bradley Cooper is Eddie Morra, a struggling novelist. His ponytail is greasy, his apartment is a mess, his girlfriend is fed up. Then he accepts a neural accelerator from a shady source, finishes his manuscript in four days, shoves it in his editor’s face and promptly moves on to day trading and sport fucking. In The Words, released this past Friday, Cooper again plays a writer (Rory Jansen) confronted with a Faustian dilemma. The Words is a mess of cinematic and literary clichés weighed down further by a vaguely meta-fictional plot, twin voiceovers, and an obsession with a sparkling brand of literary celebrity that no longer exists, but it does effectively illustrate the difficulties inherent in conveying the illusion of great art and it serves as the most recent example of Hollywood’s strange vision of writers and their creative process.

He goes on the create a list of necessary characteristics of any writer protrayed in film (in order to maintain the stereotype:

A Quick Guide to Writing a Movie About a Writer: You are writing a movie about a writer. He is a great writer. He must be a great writer, the plot demands it. Here are a few necessary visual shortcuts. 1. Tweed, tattered sweaters, corduroy, maybe an old Army jacket. 2. Bouts of inopportune drunkenness. 3. A library with one of those sliding ladders or perilous stacks surrounding a stained mattress (throw in a dusty globe to suggest world-weariness). 4. Rub jaw or stroke beard. 5. Have writer tell a beautiful and supportive female character that she just doesn’t get it.

I find number 5 the most telling and frustrating on the list.Have you ever noticed that anytime "a writer" is featured as a character in a movie, it's almost always a man? Why is that? Because the screenwriter is a man? Short of Carrie Bradshaw, can you think of any representation of a female writer in film. Hmm.

MFA: Not worth the money?

I read an article yesterday on Yahoo, titled the 5 Degrees Not Worth The Money. The first degree listed was the MFA. Great. Here's what it said: Master of Fine Arts degrees Students can obtain Master of Fine Arts, or MFA, degrees in disciplines including studio arts, creative writing, the performing arts and art criticism. Tuition costs vary, but at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, for instance, students can expect to pay more than $22,000 per term, plus the cost of housing, course books and other expenses. That investment isn't likely to pay off: The Georgetown study saw just a 3 percent boost in income potential for studio arts MFA graduates. Kristen Harris, owner of Portfolio Creative, a staffing agency in Columbus, Ohio, says her recruiting clients always favor candidates with relevant experience and work samples over those with graduate arts degrees. "It's hard to get that first work opportunity if you don't have that education and training, but after that, it's your portfolio and experience that speaks louder than your degree." While I agree that getting that degree is not going to automatically guarantee a raise or getting a better job, but no degree will. What about getting a degree to improve your craft? What about getting an MFA to become a better writer? Our society is so materialistically-driven that we have forgotten the school used to be about LEARNING, not job training. Oh well. I have the degree already (after I get this thesis novel squared away). Maybe I'll be able to prove this stupid article wrong sooner than later.

Weekend Assignment

Weekend Assignment

A call to arms!

So Dan put this out there in class this week. He wants the program to be bigger than anticipated, so here's what he's proposing: that between the two graduating classes, mine (#2) and the very first one, that we publish 7 books in the next 5 years. Wow! That sure got my attention! He wants us to concentrate on writing stuff that is publishable, rather than stuff that seems like MFA workshop stuff, i.e. stuff we think is "literary", all style and low on substance. He even told us that if we write something great, he will personally give it to his agent. HOT DAMN! This was just the kind of thing that gets me fired up. I'm already working on something that I think could be successful, so I just need to put even more effort into it. And I'm going to! I emailed Dan yesterday and told him I was determined to be one of the 7, and he wants to talk to me about it next week. Anxious to hear what he says!

Dan rocks!

Here is what happened:

Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 3:56 PM
To:
Wheeler, Maggie
Attachments:
What's up, Maggie? You want to talk on the phone. I'm in my office for
the next 40 minutes -- XXX-XXXX -- give me a call.

Dan

On Sep 17, 2009, at 3:52 PM, Wheeler, Maggie wrote:

> at 3:52. Not having a productive day. I'll try again later.

So I did and I'm SO glad that I did! Here is my task:

"Why I Can't Write My Novel"

My assignment from Dan is to put what I told him in writing. Why I gave up today was because I am having a bad day. I'm emotional, my head hurts, and I still haven't gotten over my sinus infection. But really, the problem I've been having, today and in the past is that I have viewed writing as an emotional process, so therefore, if I am having a hard time, the last thing I want to do is deal with those emotions and if I'm writing, that's what I'm doing. So if I'm upset, the last thing I want to do is work on something that upsets me, right? What I need to do is make it simply about putting words on the screen and divorce my own emotional needs from the process. Perhaps I need to view writing as an escape as I do with reading! Wow! that just really hit me just now as I was writing that! If we all viewed writing as a fun escape from reality, what a huge difference that would make! Hot damn!

The other thing that I got clarification on is the whole idea of conflict. I've been worried that in discussion I've been wrong in the things I've said. I feel like I've been grasping for profound crap to say and trying to sound like I have found the Holy Grail for fixing everything. But when it comes to both the writing and the discussion the main thing is conflict. And if that exists in the story, it doesn't matter if it needs more of something or less of something. Conflict is the stone, the ripples are everything else. BAM! What a freaking AH HA phone call!

So I guess, now, I really can write my novel now! :-) Thanks Dan!

First story workshopped

Last night, I got my first trip in the "hot seat" over. It went better than I feared, based on Dan's comments to the guy last week. Here are his comments:

Maggie,

Your writing is powerful and fluent, and you have a good command of the drama in ordinary moments. I liked, particularly, the moment when she walked into the room and heard the "gunfire". That moment says a lot about him (and her), and it effortlessly ups the ante on this subtly dramatic situation for those few moments that we don't know what kind of gunfire you mean.

Still, I find this piece to be mostly skirting around the real drama. There's so much drama near this piece, but you always seem to be finding some way around it. There were two opportunities for dialogue here, and in both cases, you found a way to avoid it. That left me wondering if that was because the piece demanded that avoidance or if you (the author) was more comfortable just not getting into it.

During the workshop, I'll talk at length about all the drama that is inherent in this piece and the choices that were made to avoid it--we'll discuss whether they were good or bad choices. For right now, though, what I want to say is this: when you avoid drama--that is, decide that telling your story is more important that letting your story tell itself -- you want to be aware of the cost of that behavior. Yes, maybe they don't have anything to say to each other in their last moment together as a couple. Yes, maybe the mom doesn't have anything good to say to her daughter. But think about all that you're missing when you pass those opportunities by. Think of all that might have been revealed in those contentious moments. You'd better have a good reason to not let us find out.

Best,

Dan

So, not too bad I guess, right? I felt better after I read the comments when I got home. I'm not discouraged. I mean, I got into the program, so I know I don't suck. I think the thing that bothered me is that like half the students didn't have any comments, which kind of made me feel as if they were indifferent. Either that, or they didn't know what to say because they didn't know if there were supposed to be problems or not. IDK. I guess I'll see when I read the written comments from them. I'll post some of those after I read them. So, the good thing is that I got the first submission over and now I kind of know what Dan wants. I think next time I'll submit chapter one of Ghost. He wants drama! That's go DRAMA! ;-)

Our first actual "workshop"

Last night was the first time was actually workshopped a story. We had two, but because we had an early class so we could go hear our first speaker in the Visiting Writer's series, we only go through the first one. It was the first chapter of a novel and I hated it. The main character was two-dimensional and had NO redeeming characteristics. Plus, he killed cats as a way of determining the amount of poison he could use to make his infant daughter sick without killing her. And you all know that I do NOT enjoy anything that contains cruelty to animals. I just refuse to read the rest if I come across that shit. But I had no choice in this case. So we went around the table and everyone was gushing about Alex, how great the story was, how they loved the character, blah, blah, blah. My stomach started to churn. Was I the only one who wasn't in love with Alex and his character? This is the shit I hate aobut workshops. I always feel like if I don't agree with everyone else, I'm in the wrong. Luckily Corey had some valid criticisms, so I felt better.

And then Dan said flat out that the novel would never get published and no one would read it as written. Harsh, but true. I would not have read past the first page. And the lesson was that you have to hook the audience from the first page, which I already knew. And which I try to practice at all times.

So now, I have to submit for next week and I'm VERY nervous. I don't really care so much what my classmates think. It's Dan I'm worried about. He's blunt. Very blunt. And I'm terrified he's going to be blunt with me and I will be upset. The worst thing I could do is cry in class, and that's my fear. I'm going to be a nervous wreck on Wednesday. :-/