The Ink Interview

A few weeks back I did an interview over email for Karen Walton's InkCanada (THE Canadian Screenwriter's community...growing and growing...). It allowed a group of writers much more successful than me (for now) to learn about the project...any way I can spread the word.

She's been kind enough to allow me to post the transcript here. Thanks KW.

KW. Your blog rarely gives away much about exactly what you are writing, but is heavy on the number of projects you are pursuing, and a certain recurring theme is, the time involved. Can you talk about why those two elements seem to be a focus for you, personally, right now?

Before I begin – Hi Karen! How are ya? I hope you’re well. I know I am…there’s light at the end of my tunnel. With that in mind, I dutifully answer your queries...

Now, to your question: It’s because I feel there is a real lack of time. There’s pressure - I probably put it on myself, but I’ll argue that doesn’t make it any less valid. It’s like I’m wading in the shallow waters, feeling the waves crashing into my legs, pushing towards the shore (wow, that’s really nerdy). I’ve only been out of the CFC for 6 months: I don’t know who I’m chasing, or why they’re beating me to the punch, but I’ve got this nagging sense of catch-up. It’s my own hang-up (one of many). Also, being the only one of my class that took full-time work right after my stint on Bayview ended, I felt like I put myself behind the 8-ball before someone broke the rack. That addresses the time issue. Now, number of projects I’m pursuing? I’ve got a lot of ideas ;)

Seriously, it’s that I’m fortunate enough to have a great group of talented friends and collaborators, and when they ask me if I want to do a project with them, I shriek ‘Yes!’ like two banshees screwing on ecstasy. I’ve yet to learn the art of saying no (not that I’ve wanted to, but the barrel only carries so many apples before the bottom breaks and you find yourself stepping over an avalanche of fruit in forty-two dollar shoes…).

While I do want to work on everything I commit to, and am committed to everything I take on, I am learning the limitations of the finite hours per day (as discussed above), and, despite being Superman (the straight version, not the screen version), I cannot do everything at once. I’ve found myself having script/story/brainstorm meetings 4 nights a week, after work. Doesn’t leave much time for my personal projects. Or unimportant things like laundry, exercise, relationships, and hygiene.


KW. Canadian screenwriters in general don't seem to discuss the 'resonant reasons' they choose to pursue projects: resonant meaning that very sensation one's audience is waiting to receive.... Why a given idea, or general subject, or type of conflict drives us to dramatize. Which is strange, because the first thing a producing partner or investor or a ticket-buyer will ask: what's it about? Not plot, not twangy tags, but what's it About. So I'm curious, what do you write About? What themes are you most attracted to, at this stage of your work - and why?

I'm sort of unconsciously magnetized towards stories about loneliness and self-confidence. Not because I’m any more lonely or self-conscious than the next guy. It’s just what I write about. I’d love to write about vengeance and greed and Velcro and lollipops…but my thoughts just don’t generally gravitate towards those subjects (except Velcro – I think about its adhesive powers a lot). I do have notions of writing a real gritty ‘fuck the world’ street thug movie – something along the lines of ‘Belly’, only good.

God knows I don't set out to fill the 'self-conscious awkward loner' quota of my personal story palette, but things just tend to lean that way. It even spreads across genres - I've written comedy, drama, and thrillers, and each one, although distinctly different, orbits around those two central themes. In the Budd protagonist stable there is: A 14 year old girl with no friends, a bumbling henchman who fails at everything because he doesn’t believe in himself, a traveling salesman battling guilt and disease, and an overweight outcast who may or may not want to prop his niece up on the bathroom counter and introduce her to womanhood.

The way it works for me, right or wrong, is that everything begins with a scene. I often come up with something I find funny/poignant/marketable (kidding…sort of) and then try to flush it out and see if there’s enough inherent conflict/action in those characters or stories to be feature material. By fluke or by aligning stars or by whatever cloaks the invisible island on ‘Lost’, these little scenettes seem to trace back to issues of self-confidence. Also, I like comedy. Humor and self-depreciation seem to be two peas in a pod.


KW. About a month ago, you blogged about the experience of writing a new feature screenplay in four days. Was it your idea to try that (ie. was some producer holding a gun to your head, or..)-? For anyone who has missed the entries...

It wasn’t a gun in the traditional sense, but it was pressed against my cheek, loaded and ready to spray…

Sorry about that. My fault entirely. You can stop reading right now if you want to. I’ll understand.

If you’re still with me, the story goes like this: A friend works for a PR company that was on set of a Cdn. production (her first time on set). She’s smoking out back with Director and Producer. Conversation turns to their next project (now I’m sure statements like this are made ALL the time, and being new to the game and overzealous, she may have read too much into it) and Director says he’s looking for a new Cdn script. Producer chips in and says ‘hey, you get one, I’ll make it with you’. She immediately tells them: ‘I have one! The writer is a friend and he’s great and well groomed and aces in the kitchen’ (may or may not be verbatim – I wasn’t there).

Then, she calls me to tell me the good news, tells me to get her a script ASAP. Now, while this was very kind of her, I didn’t have anything in my project slate that would be appropriate for this particular Director. Wasn’t about to give Chopin to 50 Cent (not that I’m one and he’s the other – perhaps a better example is that I’m not going to give a script written in Swahili to Casey Affleck…although this doesn’t help my point, it does amuse me).

So I brief my agent, who thinks that director/producer and li’l old Budd would make a wonderful marriage. Asks me if I have any ideas that would be good for them, gives me a bit of a rundown of what they traditionally look for. I said not really, maybe a half-idea I was toying with. She asked if I could write it. I said sure, it might take a few weeks, I’m really busy with work at the moment, etc. She said, well, try to punch it out by Friday (when they wrapped their production). After I spit warm tea all over her, she said ‘what’s the worst that could happen? You get a half-finished draft of a script? Don’t be scared, etc.’ I had been feeling kind of down about my lack of production over the last few weeks, so I said why not? I was up for the challenge. And so, it began.

KW So walk us through your days, on this mini-marathon. What did you have in-hand, when you started? Did you do an outline? Treatment? Beat Sheet? Where did you work? How would you suggest someone set themselves up for a stint like this? And let's add, kudos - because I know you also recently quit smoking... so, what's your performance enhancer of choice, now?

All I had in-hand was a pipe and a dream…which is untrue, but fun to write.
No, I had a half-baked notion of a small piece of a sort-of idea. I used a story-building document Noel Baker gave us as a template to start from. I didn’t outline really, but I did write down some sequential moments, some key conflicts, and some locations I wanted to use. I knew where I wanted to begin, and just kind of ran from there. I avoided my age-old nemesis: rereading. I didn’t begin each day tweaking the work of the day before – just trudged forward. It would have slowed me down, and anything I could fix during can be fixed after. I don’t put things on the page just for the sake of it, with plans to ‘make it work’ later – I’m very adamant about this. I’ve heard writers say that they often toss in placeholders, things they know they will cut later, etc. That doesn’t work for me. I certainly write lots of unimportant, masturbatory character descriptions and dialogue, but when it’s going down, I’m absolutely certain that I need it. Until I prove myself wrong.

I kept a journal during the writing process, and transcribed most of it on my blog. If you’re interested, here you go: http://bdsa.blogspot.com/2006/04/4-day-feature.html. To be clear and sincere: This IS an opportunistic plug. Who’s foolish enough to pass on a chance to sell themselves?

Performance enhancer of choice? Since I don’t drink coffee, Greens-Plus Chai lattes to fuel the fire, playing a game of basketball to calm the flames, and, on occasion, a recently decriminalized plant that serves as the equivalent of pissing on the firepit to ensure it’s good and out.

KW. Everyone would love to have a working draft of anything in four days. It's not unusual in television, due to force mejeurs. Can you describe what your creative goals for that first draft were? What you hoped to see on the page?

My foremost goal for this draft was to get it all down on the page. To see if I could push myself to complete this task whilst working 9-6. I looked at it like the school bully who said, ‘Betcha can’t climb that tree’. This was me saying ‘oh yeah? Watch this!’ I skinned my knees a few times, got sap on my shorts – but I made it up the tree in four days (much more impressive a timeframe when writing a script than when climbing a tree).

I really just wanted to have something coherent. Holes I expected, but gaping chasms of logic and motivation were to be avoided. I think I got lucky with the story I chose. It kind of wrote itself – or at least plotted itself out – for the majority.

I would have been satisfied if all the characters were motivated, their voices distinct, their interactions somewhat organic. If the plot didn’t weave seamlessly to the end, that was okay. I really wanted to nail down a clear, appropriate tone for the subject matter, which I think I did. Tone for me is HUGE. It dictates every element from dialogue to setting to music to the descriptive words we choose. This is an obvious point but merits mention.

KW. Your blog is clear you were satisfied with the result. Tell us about Chub.

Chub’s the story of the unconventional bond between an obese loner and his niece. It’s set in a rural shithole, home to drunks and scam artists and curmudgeonly seniors (only here, they don’t drive Lincolns). Locations include a trailer park, a flea market, empty fields, and the mansion of the protagonist’s deceased mother.

Here’s the one sheet. [ed. note: I can't figure out how to link to the actual one sheet, so y'all miss out. Sorry. Anyone know how, please let me know.] I’ve attached this purely out of laziness and to avoid actually having to think about how I’d describe the story informally.

KW. You offered the four-day pass to several readers. It is no secret that screenwriters are most often criticized (myself included) for showing work prematurely. But you seemed to get what you were hoping for at this stage from those consulted. Who did you show the draft to, at this early stage? Agent? Producer? Financiers? Other writers? Directors? Editors? Can you tell us what kind of input you were hoping for? And how do you choose your readers? Why is their input important to you? How do you decide what, if any, to use in your next steps?

I chose the following: Three writers, one agent, one film theory/cinephilic friend, and one girlfriend. It was important for me to get unbridled honesty from the writers, the blind support from the girlfriend, the non-industry eyes from the friend, and to see if the script addressed the things I was hoping would entice that director/producer (from the agent). Most importantly, I chose people that know story - and know, even if they don’t know why, that something doesn’t feel right.

Questions I was looking for answers to:
1) Does it make sense? Is there any clarity to this draft?
2) Does anything seem overly convenient, plot wise?
3) Do you get and understand the protagonist?
4) Does the setting and environment feel accurate?
5) Do you like it? Why or why not?

I find that (and I’m sure most writers agree) that while I’m too close to the draft right away to see any specific places to change, I’ve got my hunches on what needs re-working. My protagonist is obese (hence the title). I know why, and how this affects his life – but is it acceptable on the page? Or does it come across like I was just implementing a gimmick without actually incorporating his weight issues into the story? Another example, I had a feeling that daughter-mother relationship needed to be addressed, there was some back story holes that I knew the answers to but weren’t on the page, and the protagonist needed to be more active, and (phew), most of my assumptions were validated by the feedback. There was a specific story beat that no one really understood, and it was because I didn’t write it properly. Once it was explained verbally, it was like ‘Ohhh. Now I get it’.

KW. Your blog is clear that you enjoy the 'infatuation of creation' - that first burst of satisfaction one gets from getting something down. But you are not so hot on rewriting, to wit: "I've heard that being a 'writer' is really being a 're-writer'. This used to terrify me, I think because I had to labor over what to cut, where to tweak, and what to completely overhaul. " To many, this is indeed the essence of the art - be it writing novels, poetry... A typical guild contract, for instance, expects a minimum of two likely page-one drafts. Others only rewrite others' scripts, for a living. The scripts we all often most admire are without coincidence the stuff of legends in terms of rewrite sagas...So what do you think is the root cause of our resistance, on this topic? (Personally, I adore the rewrite - and hate the first dump pass... if I could skip what you seem to enjoy the most, and get to the art of sculpting it, I'd be a much happier camper. So tell it to me from the other side of the Looking Glass ;)) Is it a question of getting more tools, more experience to feel as excited for that next step? Or maybe just needing time away from the rush of the first 'Fade Out'-?

I can re-write someone else’s work, that doesn’t frighten me. Pardon the vulgarity, but pumping out a first draft is like giving birth - but without the placenta and blood and cornucopia of goo and feces every which way. It’s awesome – nothing makes me feel as good. It’s a great rush. Every time I’m done a draft, I feel like Bart Simpson in that episode when Jessica Lovejoy kisses him and he flips up his collar, smiles, and struts down the street. It’s the stepping back from this, flattening the collar, and realizing – shit – there’s SO much more to do here. I’m scared to go in and reorganize scenes, re-tool dialogue, re-structure stores, etc. I’m scared I’ll make it worse, so bad that I can’t ever get back to what was holding it together in draft one. This, despite the fact that I have the original file safely tucked away on my computer. It’s all cerebral, all a mindfuck. Josh vs. Josh.

Having time away to clear your head is supremely important, perhaps the most integral part of the process. I often fall in love with lines of dialogue - the kiss of death, as I like to call it. Putting fashion before function is a slippery slope (just ask Kevin Smith). Ask me to snip a line I like is akin to asking an 8 year old child of the 80’s to cut off his rattail (which I hear are making a comeback, much to my chagrin) But, yes, with the experience of re-writing comes confidence and clarity and blah blah blah. Someone (I think it was an agent) told us at the CFC that your 8th script sells. To me, that means on your 32nd re-write, you’ll finally start to figure things out. ‘START’ being the operative word here.

KW. Finally, where are you at now with Chub? Have you commenced the next rewrite? When do you expect Chub to be circulating as a contender in the production community?

Chub went on hold while I worked on a few other projects, but is racing back to the forefront with a widower’s vengeance. I’ve compiled the feedback with my own story notes, and will be beginning re-write (which will have begun when this is published on your great site). There has been early interest by a production company - who now has the one sheet - but Chub should be finding its place at the bottom of script stacks everywhere by mid July. If you happen to find a draft in the dumpster behind your friendly ProdCo, do me a favor – toss it into the recycling bin. Paper doesn’t grow on trees, you know.

KW. Is there anything regarding this project you hope the other members might help you with?

Good question. I don’t know, really. If you are talking to anybody who asks you what you think of this punk kid Josh or his script Chub, say you like it. Even if you haven’t read it, or haven’t yet met me. I promise you’re not endorsing one of Hitler’s youth or a boring, masturbatory art piece. It’s a good read, on its way to being a darn good read. If you have any suggestions as to who you know that would be interested in this sort of thing, I would love to hear them. Also, if you know of any films that sound comparable, those titles would be great.

KW. Thanks so much for this, Josh. Your blog is a first in insider writing - as far as we know - in Canada; if your work there is any indication, I've no doubt we'll soon be enjoying your work in theatres. Good Luck and let us know when you're ready to celebrate the next pass... we will booze!

Karen, its patio weather. My dance card is wide open come July 1, and I’d love to meet the other members of ink that have, to this point, dodged our liquor-fueled engagements…I promise I won’t bite. I can’t make the same statement for Karen, though. She’s ferocious.

Originally published on ink canada, July 2006 Edition
Reproduced with the permission of Inkling Entertainment Inc.

A new post coming this weekend - I have some fun to report! It's going to be a busy summer...

It's Evolution, Baby

Summer-summer-summertime. Sing it, Big Willy.

The weather is here (and there, depending on the day – but HERE, regardless), and I now have three months of warm weather to apologize to my loved ones for being such a surly prick in the winter months.

Starting…now.

I have some news. It's news to me at least, and if you're reading this, then I imagine it's of some minute yet genuine interest to you. I’ve found myself staring at one of those increasingly frequent ‘life decisions’, the ones you didn’t know existed when you were 14 and wishing to be grown up. I don’t really know how to describe it. ‘Transition’ is apt, but I’ve found myself unintentionally using ‘Crossroads’ to address it in conversation, although using the word makes me feel like a wrinkly country singer with halitosis (and for those who want to reference Bone Thugs, I can go there too. I roll deep.)

I’ve parted ways with my day job. The time has come for me to try ‘full-time writing’, like any writer should. I’m following the old ‘writer’s write’ adage. The full scoop: At the end of June, I will no longer be working in an office 45 hrs per week. I will be writing full time, available to take meetings and write-off lunches. Doing what I want to do, what I like to do, what I’m good at, what I’m supposed to do. In order to keep above the poverty line, I hope to continue a string of freelance copy work I’ve received recently. That’s the goal – there are a few agencies in the city that I’ve freelanced for and can continue to get assignments from. If I can grow that list, then I can maintain afloat whilst poppin’ out scripts, outlines, bibles, synopses, etc. until one of them development folk point in my direction.

It’s a big decision, but one that came fairly quickly after outlining the pros and cons. Got some good advice – after all, writer’s are in business for themselves, are they not? Why prolong this impending eventuality? It’s not that I’m quitting one job to write, it’s that I’m transitioning into my career, full-time. Investing in my ‘business’, my assets (pieces of paper with ink on them), my future (as blurry as it may seem).

I doubt that this audience needs much convincing, but another piece of evidence I use to back my decision when explaining this choice to my grandparents, who think being open-minded is for hippies and homosexuals (their opinion, not mine): Right now, I’m 24. The time is now. Financial responsibilities are minimal, and I know I won’t go hungry. Could I say no to a regular paycheck and write full-time if I had mouths to feed? Mortgages to pay? I don’t want to be 35 and wish I had given it a go. So, I’ll give it a go. What can go wrong? (Please don’t answer this).

Another great piece of advice: “Making the wrong decision for the right reasons is still the wrong decision”. This, I think, is an excellent adage that I will adopt for many of my future life crises (and, knowing me, there will be many, from ‘which movie to rent’ to ‘does she love me enough to wear this Alf ring I found in my desk drawer’). Staying at work and collecting the paycheck because it’s safe and comfortable and mindless still isn’t the right decision. Thanks, Jon.

So, as of July 1, Josh will be prowling coffee shops around the city, scoping out the most quiet, most comfortable places to write. My roommate’s a musician, so home isn’t an option. Does anyone have any suggestions? I will start by offering up the Second Cup at Bathurst and St. Clair: The upstairs lounge, with three leather armchairs, is always empty and quiet. Where do you write outside your home? Wireless internet is always a plus. There should be a catalogue of these places.

Also beginning July 1, I will be able to contribute much more time to this blog. I plan to revamp the links and spend more time creating an engaging post of procrastination for y’all. You’ll like it. Or at least pretend to when we bump into each other. That’s the least you can do. I’m fragile.

Writerly updates: Finished my 1/2hr. spec, pretty pleased about it. Moving on to my 1hr. original script, draft 2 of Chub. I’ve got some interest from Big ProdCo. regarding 4 of my projects, so I’m on the mission of writing one-sheets for submission. Hope they are well received. Also have another feature I’m hoping to develop with a wicked-funny director, and a webisode series with SA that has me really pumped. More on all of this soon - hurray!

Ahem…I mean…that’s, like, cool.