Where You Can Die of Encouragement

Dorothy Parker said, "Hollywood is the only place where you can die of encouragement." Cheeky bugger. Why was she always right?

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I worked in film and tv for ten years in production and casting, mostly on 'runaway' films, as Hollywood films shot elsewhere are called. These movies were shot in Alberta and BC.

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I worked on such films as The Edge, Cool Runnings, Legends of the Fall and many smaller productions for tv movies, like Out of Nowhere, One More Mountain and Season's Greetings.

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In the meantime, I was writing screenplays for tv and features. I wrote screenplays for years...then decades...only one was produced, a tiny indie production TV pilot. But, I came so close. SO many times.

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i won the National Film Board Award of Canada for Best Pitch at the Banff TV Festival for a tv pilot I wrote called, 'Hypoxia'.  At the Austin Film Festival my script advanced to the quarter finals with...again...'encouraging' notes like 'I literally laughed out loud.' 

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And I was 'encouraged' with every submission...again and again...'your dialogue is fantastic'...'we love, love, love this but it's not quite for us'...'this is the best script I've read in years'...'you are a writer working in rarefied air'...'this script haunted me so much I was thinking about it while in a meeting at Paramount and they had to yell at me to get my attention'...etc...etc...etc...

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One of my scripts was accepted by an indie production company. They loved it. Two lead actors were attached. And then...Q Anon (yes, the cult) reared its ugly head and I could not continue that project with people espousing and spreading those insane conspiracies.

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That was the last straw for me and a deeply depressing time. And then...I almost died on February 21 of 2023. I mean, seconds away, and I knew what was happening because I was an emergency room nursing unit clerk for 20 years. What was happening is 100% fatal if not successfully treated within 4-5 minutes. I was incredibly lucky that three cardiologists were nearby when the alarms went off and they all responded along with the crash team of respiratory tech, ultrasound tech, lab techs and nurses. When I heard what they were saying, unfortunately, I understood what was happening. Sometimes ignorance IS bliss. I thought I was done.   

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That changed my perspective. I quit my health care job. I quit writing screenplays and entering contests and keeping up on all the blah blah blah about script markets...it makes your head want to explode. 

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 I went back to the first type of writing I did as a kid. Prose. And, I remembered something.  

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I remembered how much I love word play on the page. How much I love being able to plant images in a reader's mind. And how much ROOM there is with prose to explore your characters, worlds and situations while always keeping in mind Margaret Atwood's admonition to 'hold my attention', 

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So, hey, I'm still here! And from now on...writing is king. Starting with the King starring in The Golden Ass of 1124.