writing

January 2, 1965

With grandparents (whose money I spent on pop records!)

Given the privacy concerns expressed in this entry, it’s ironic I post these entries on the web for anybody to read. I worried about others reading my diaries back then because I used them to vent my rage when I felt abused or insulted. To demonstrate my wrath in these early days, I appended Witch to my tormenter’s name – as in Jani-Witch, Joyce-Witch, etc. It was the worst I could think of to say.

Sometimes I wondered what would happen to my diaries if I died. I didn’t want anyone to read them but I didn’t want them destroyed either. Why bother to write all these careful entries if they’re all going to end up in the fireplace? On the other hand, some of my thoughts and feelings would be hurtful if read by the wrong person – and just about everybody I know became the wrong person at least once.

Occasionally, I willed my diaries to somebody I felt particularly close to. At the time, I regarded willing my diaries as a privilege to be bestowed upon some lucky person. In reality, nobody was begging me to bequeath multiple volumes to them.

After approximately 20 years, I switched from diaries to blank books. The photo below shows most but not all of them. Not only are they nearly impossible to read due to poor penmanship and weird abbreviations, they consume formidable storage space.

These are some, but not all of my diaries

So, what do I do with them on my deathbed? I still don’t know. It bothers me to picture them burning but I don’t know anyone gung ho enough to archive them – and I’m not sure it’s wise to take that risk anyway, since there’s something there to hurt almost everybody I care about. That’s not how I want to be remembered – but at the same time, I do want to be remembered – otherwise, why write these books at all?

After all this time, you’d think I’d have some answers but I don’t.

December 30, 1963

Of all my diary entries so far this is the one I most longed to rewrite. In my defense, it’s entry #7 of what now totals over 15,000 entries. When I wrote it, I was a 12-year-old amateur but that’s just an excuse, not the problem. The problem, obviously, is the stilted, cloying, artificial prose. “Anticipating lovely things of the future?” Please, who talks like that, outside of terrible Victorian novels?

The one redeeming quality in these early journals is my penmanship. My writing was larger, rounder, loopier with robust capital letters. This made it significantly more legible, which was darn lucky because for the first two years I wrote with a dull smudgy pencil – sheer torture to decipher fifty years later.

Reading the Diary of Anne Frank was my inspiration. I aspired to be as talented and profound as Anne, oblivious to the distance that separated my pedestrian prose from hers. Her diary inspired empathy as well as suspense due to her horrible (but historically significant) circumstances. Given my diary details the plight of a preacher’s daughter in suburban Santa Clara in 1964, the only thing our two diaries really have in common is they were both written by teen-agers.

My little town made history after I left, when Santa Clara became Silicon Valley. Even though most of my friends’ parents worked in electronics, I remained blithely oblivious to what that meant.

My world wasn’t much larger than my friends and family. As much as I loved Anne Frank’s diary, I couldn’t be her. I lacked her talent and the sweep and scope of her canvas. That said, what matters more in life than your relationship with your friends and family?

So even with my limitations, maybe I’ve got something to say – if that prissy judgmental twit who wrote today’s entry gets out of my way.

December 15, 1971

Michael Wasserman, fellow winner of the first Jim Morrison Memorial grant for his Film Project 1.

This was so unexpected it was hard to believe. The debacle of my last film (at UCSB – see diary blog May 28 1971 link) seared itself on my psyche and lowered my expectations to the point where merely passing would’ve felt like a triumph.

At my screening, when the first ripple of laughter landed it was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard. I loved it. To my surprise, what I considered huge success was just as disorienting as massive failure. For the first time, I leaned toward taking film production instead of film writing.

In other words, I forgot who I was – again. What saved me was enrolling in a camera class with Michael. One session of brain-numbing technical talk restored me to sanity. Production people rise at the crack of dawn and work long days – 16 hours isn’t unusual – all of it on site (as opposed to at home, where I can write in my pj’s.) Production people are surrounded by other people and forced to endure production meetings.

I couldn’t design a worse job for me if I tried (except maybe military service). I was constitutionally incapable of surviving a week, much less making it my career. To clarify, production is fantastic for people like my sister Janet. She thrives on it. She’d probably be miserable in the solitary confinement film writing requires. No value judgment is implied, neither one is “better” than the other. It depends on who you are.

Janet with Ben Vereen on the set of one of the early shows she worked on, "VEGAS". — Janet with Greg Morris on the set of one of the early shows she worked on, “VEGAS”.

Free-lance film writing is not unlike eternal college. The typical time period allotted to write a script roughly corresponds to quarters and the reaction of buyers/producers is like getting a grade. Ninety-five percent of the work is done in solitude, on my own hours, at home.

At UCLA, I discovered a genuine talent for college (this assertion based on graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa). Clearly, film writing was my ticket and I lived happily ever after.

You didn’t buy that, did you? I’m kidding. That would make for a truly boring story. Escalating conflict, big problems and hard decisions keep things interesting – and I was blessed with an endless supply, enough to fill many years of diary blogs.

December 2, 1985

I’d spoken to Griffin and Amy on the phone, but this was our first face-to-face. I was slightly awed by both of them. Long before I fell in love with Griffin’s performance in the sensational film After Hours, I enjoyed his father Dominick’s books starting with The Users. As for Amy, I was a huge fan of Baby, It’s You, an indie film she produced. The fact it was based, in part, on her high school and college life made her that much more fascinating. Not only were they a hot young producing duo, they were classy and smart with superlative taste in literature. They fell in love with the same obscure novel I did. They intended to option the book and produce the movie. I would adapt it for the screen.

Griffin, Amy and myself with right hand in cast at my house.

The Moonflower Vine, Jetta Carleton’s first and only novel, became an overnight sensation upon publication in 1962. I don’t recall how it wound up in my hands in high school. It didn’t look like the kind of book I gravitated toward. To be blunt, it looked boring – like a plotless description-heavy feel-good tale of a rural family. It looked like hundreds of similar books I failed to finish after a quick perusal of the first and last chapter. (Yes, I read the end of most books as soon as I finish the beginning. I have my reasons.)

The Moonflower Vine wasn’t one of those books. I was so engrossed I read to the last page without peeking. It blew me away. Critics raved about the grace and beauty of her writing. While exquisite language is far from the first thing I seek in a novel, it doesn’t hurt. Equally if not more important than the prose, Carleton’s characters were full-bodied and three-dimensional, bursting with life and the weight of their secrets.

Despite four months on the New York’s Times best-seller list and its selection by major book clubs, the book fell out of print. The lack of a follow-up didn’t help. Aside from two paperback reissues in the 70s and 80s, it was all but forgotten.

A couple factors led to its recent renaissance. It was featured on the “Neglected Books” website which included an endorsement by Jane Smiley. Smiley cited The Moonflower Vine in her book 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel. Perhaps most important of all, voracious fans like myself read and re-read it, and recommended it to others.

I, for instance, persuaded my sisters they had to read it. They did and they fell in love too. Since the book tells the stories of a Missouri family with three living daughters, it’s not so surprising an Iowa family with three daughters related rather strongly. Jetta’s fictional family bore enough similarities to her real family that her two older sisters felt tainted and infuriated. Was that part of the reason she didn’t write another book? They forgave her before she died in 1999.

3 Knutsen Sisters (just like 3 Soames sisters in the novel!)

Carleton left a draft of another novel – Claire de Lune – behind which was published posthumously. Meanwhile – in part because so many fans consider it unforgettable – The Moonflower Vine was republished to some fanfare in 2009 by HarperCollins.

I know, it looks a little dull, but it’s not. It ranks high on my personal list of “Books that Mattered” and I highly recommend it.

Ten Books That Mattered To Me

November 18, 1985

I met Gene Simmons for the first time in Gary Lucchesi’s TriStar office. Gene was wearing leopard boots, a multi-strand choker with colored glass beads or gems and some sort of mesh bracelet. I’m pretty sure I looked like a PTA president by comparison in my dress and pantyhose. (What was I thinking???) He liked my spec script and wanted me to write his movie project about groupies.

His plan was for me to attend a lot of rock concerts, go backstage, and soak up the scene. For those who read yesterday’s blog, Simon and Garfunkel’s empty dressing room at the San Jose Civic in ’67 was as close as I’d come to getting up close and personal with a rock star. (Not actually true. I met some heavyweights with Cindy Williams in 80 – but that was more of an “Industry” event, not a groupie scene).

I love rock music and I’m fascinated by the “secret society” that surrounds it – the novel I’m working on right now, in 2016, is set in the rock world. The prospect of safely immersing myself in that world was enormously appealing – but so was my hope of adapting the Moonflower Vine, a novel by Jetta Carleton I’d loved since I read it in the sixties.

It seems as if good things (such as opportunities, rewards, and kudos) as well as bad things (failure, rejection, and financial stress) tend to come in clusters. Either there are two or three projects I want to write or I can’t get arrested. Two guys ask me out or I’m home alone on a Saturday night. I’ve always assumed it’s the same way for everybody (“buses always come in threes”) but I’ve never asked. Is it?

Actually, I don't mind spending Saturday nights alone if I've got something to read. — Actually, I don’t mind spending Saturday nights alone if I’ve got something to read.

Don’t bother looking up either of these projects on the internet. Another party already purchased all rights to the Moonflower Vine – forever – so there was no hope of optioning the underlying material. I wrote a draft of the groupies’ project for Gene and TriStar at which time it died, never to be resurrected (at least not with me as the writer). In this case, these days of indecision – ripe with intoxicating possibilities – were as good as it gets.

November 17, 1967

I think this show took place at the San Jose Civic – is it still standing? I was – and still am – a devoted Simon and Garfunkel fan.

Ticket stub for the Simon and Garfunklel concert

I’m fascinated by boyhood friends who become successful creative collaborators only to discover they can’t stand each other and implode. I’ve read several Paul Simon biographies – all of them discuss the friction, none of them explain it in a way I understand. They’re far from the only paired performers to be so afflicted, though, so a lot of people probably relate.

Sweet shy Mary in our backyard in the sixties

The truly remarkable thing about this night was Mary and I actually blazed a path all the way to Simon and Garfunkel’s admittedly empty dressing room. Granted, security would’ve been tighter if the stars were still on site, but factor in the fact Mary and I were as far removed from bona fide groupies as possible. I wouldn’t have known what “groupie” meant, let alone believed there were girls who actually acted like that. (And there were. Lots of them.)

Mary and me suburban matrons - about a decade later — Mary and me suburban matrons – about a decade later

For another thing that makes you go “huh”, tomorrow’s diary blog finds me on a trans-Atlantic phone call with Gene Simmons in London; he wants me to write a groupie movie for him. Stranger still, while I’m not as naïve as the girl fighting my way backstage at this Simon and Garfunkel concert 49 years ago tonight – I’m not that much wilder, either.

November 15, 1980

This was an amazing day, full of promise, and it retains its magic quality in my memory even though almost nothing unfolded like expected. I got the assignment to adapt S. E. Hinton’s classic novel, the Outsiders, for the screen. I did pose as a high school student and return to the high school I graduated from (more than a decade earlier) without getting busted.

Gio Coppola took this Polaroid of me with Fred Roos on this day.

Augie didn’t direct the movie, Francis did, which was the good news and the bad news. I’m awed by his talent; he directed some of the greatest movies of our time IMHO. How could this development possibly be bad? He’s an equally talented writer and took over the rewrite himself. When I saw the final shooting script, my name was nowhere to be seen.

Under the Writers Guild of America rules, this triggered an automatic arbitration because a production executive (director, producer etc.) sought screenplay credit. Three anonymous writers read all of our scripts and rendered a decision about screenplay credit. After a second and third arbitration and a Policy Review Board, I prevailed. It was a tense time.

After winning the arbitration - before the storm. — After winning the arbitration – before the storm.

This experience piqued my interest in the arbitration process and I volunteered to serve as an arbiter. Eventually I got to serve on the Policy Review Board, which I continue to do to this day.

Reading multiple drafts of the same script to decide who deserves screen credit provides a spectacular education in screen writing or, more accurately, rewriting. It was a front row seat to see exactly how scripts assume their final shape. I also learned a lot about human nature.

W/my sisters, wearing my Writer's Guild Strikes! tee-shirt. The WGA struck for the right to determine their own credits - and it was worth it. — W/my sisters, wearing my Writer’s Guild Strikes! tee-shirt. The WGA struck for the right to determine their own credits – and it was worth it.

There are significant financial rewards for getting your name on a script, even if the movie’s a bomb. That might have motivated a few writers to battle but I think most of them fought because they believed they deserved to win. It reminds me of the joke about the actor playing the gravedigger in Hamlet, who’s convinced the play is about the gravedigger. Time after time, writers clearly saw – and frequently exaggerated – their own contribution and missed or minimized the contribution of writers before or after them. I doubt I’m immune to this self-serving blind spot; no doubt I do the same thing, despite being aware of this trap.

I suspect this tendency isn’t restricted to actors and writers – that many, if not most, human beings focus on their own contributions to the exclusion of others regardless of their line of work.

October 22, 1971

Less than a month after I bought that splicer from Larry Kemp, he served as cinematographer for my award-winning Project One film. He also functioned as my AD, my confidante, driver, grip, sound technician and comic relief. He stepped up and played every role that I asked him to because he was the only guy who was there. That’s not a bad description of Larry and what he meant to me. He was the guy who was there.

He was the youngest of three boys and I was the oldest of three girls. He was from New Jersey, I’d been in California (by way of Iowa) most of my life. We both loved the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel (okay, not exactly crazy choices in those days, but I doubt we’d have gotten along so well if he’d been into country.)

Laughter was easy with Larry. On the day of my shoot, we were both in hysterics when Larry leaned on Josie’s couch, causing her to almost poke her customer’s eye out with a tweezers. (Maybe you had to be there.)

Of course, it couldn’t be a real friendship without an occasional conflict or two. Larry met my Inner Brat and witnessed my pettiness up close and personal but he didn’t lecture, judge or reject me. It was the kind of friendship I expected to last a lifetime but we took different paths and lost touch after college.

We haven’t seen or spoken to each other since the 70s. We are Facebook “friends” but almost never email or message. In other words, our friendship today is nothing like what it was – but we’re not who we were forty years ago either. The knowledge those days are gone doesn’t diminish the friendship that once existed. I’m happy just to know he’s alive and living happily ever after in LA – one of relatively few people I went to film school with who actually wound up working in the film business.

If a time machine dropped me back in 1971, I’d buy Larry’s splicer all over again. It was worth every penny. I got the deal of lifetime.

October 10, 2014

My absolute all-time favorite game growing up was dress-up (today, it’s called role-play but it’s the same thing.) I was up for a part in any fantasy – princess, boarding school, teen-ager, Rapunzel and Bonanza were perennial favorites. The only role I couldn’t relate to was horsy. Then as now, the appeal of prancing around pretending to be a palomino eluded me. For starters, playing horsy pretty much precludes costumes unless you count tucking a fake tail in the rear of your pedal-pushers (I don’t).

I have only two requirements for a good game of dress-up.

I play a human (no horsys!)
I wear a costume – and hopefully a wig.

Beyond that, anything goes.

It’s a shame that dress-up tends to be cast aside before adolescence. It’s all but forgotten by the time we’re adults. IMHO, this is a real shame. Luckily, like riding a bike, the requisite skills reside inside you, ready to resume active duty if called. If you can get past your self-consciousness for a trip into fun and silliness, dress up is even more fun to play as a grown-up.

Technically, each of us gets only one life to live. Dress up role play lets you dabble in as many lives as you can make up. If – like me – sometimes you get sick of being yourself, take a break. Cut loose and be somebody else – someone without a mortgage, congested kids, or pets pooping on the rug. All you’ve got to lose is your dignity. Isn’t it about time?

ANY GIRL CAN BE GLAMOUROUS. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS STAND STILL AND LOOK STUPID.

If you’re over 18 or past the age of consent: Dress-up role-play is unlikely to be hazardous to your sex life, if you get my drift. Enough said.

October 4, 1972

I don’t know where, when or even if Jack Nicholson made that comment but plenty of people relate. Consider all of the rock and pop songs about the anguish of running into your ex – Walk on By, I Go to Pieces, I Go Crazy and When We Were Young to name a few. The gut-crunching misery of realizing the heel who broke your heart is living la vida loca without you is timeless and universal.

When I find out an ex is getting married, my higher self wishes them well. My lower narcissistic self prefers they pine for me forever[1]. If that sounds heartless, consider this. How happy does the dude who shattered you deserve to be?

IMHO, the vengeful narcissist inside all of us roots for the bastard who dumped us to crash and burn in an epic fail. Anybody who acts overjoyed when their ex’s success far eclipses their own is a liar.

I wish you nothing but the best - as long as you don't do better than me. — I wish you nothing but the best – as long as you don’t do better than me.

My own encounters with exes occurred in or around Melnitz Hall at UCLA where our film major brought us together. Since leaving college, I rarely run into anyone I know, not even casual acquaintances. That’s life in the big city.

However, a motivated ex can beat those odds with an assist from Google and FB. The downside is the risk of being labeled a stalker and served with a restraining order.

I'm not stalking you! I just happen to be here. — I’m not stalking you! I just happen to be here.

I’m a crying fool for movies (Splendor in the Grass, The Way We Were, Wild Horses) in which ex-lovers encounter each other long after their breakup. It kills me how they make awkward chit chat to hide the depth of their true feelings. Does it work this way in real life? Sometimes, probably.

What gets to me is the message that even though it’s over – their great passion is gone and it’s never coming back – the remnants of love remain in a new shape. It might manifest as love from a distance or devotion to a memory. It could come in the form of compassion, affection, concern or the deep camaraderie of people who know each other to the core. It might not be the love we’re looking for or the love we want but a little love is better than nothing.

I'll always love the way we were. — I’ll always love the way we were.

Something about that always makes me cry.

[1] In the interest of full disclosure, even when I was the heartbreaker, I wanted them to pine for me forever.

writing

January 2, 1965

December 30, 1963

December 15, 1971

December 2, 1985

November 18, 1985

November 17, 1967

November 15, 1980

October 22, 1971

October 10, 2014

October 4, 1972

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