Respect yourself and others will respect you? Not if you're a screenplay writer, apparently.

For once (or perhaps more often than that, who knows?) Confucius is NOT WISE.

Long post...as a caveat to other screenwriters.

I respect myself as a writer. For sure, I have loads of moments of self-doubt - it goes with the territory - but, in my heart, I know my writing pleases me and, unexpected bonus, it pleases other people too.

SO... a script I wrote (commissioned ) - I did the rewrite as required and it was approved.  N.B. This was all unpaid but I was happy that my work was being taken seriously and that some 'names' had loved my script and wanted to be a part of the film.

Imagine this is a woman!

I requested that I was to be kept in the loop and that any subsequent rewrites would be down to me. This was agreed.  "Keeping me in the loop" seemed to entail occasionally posting things on the film's Facebook page.

So one of the posts was "Final script adjustments are being made and should be complete in the next couple of weeks.'"  WHAT? When I queried this, the response was "just tweaking a few things here and there to get it to work. I will send you what the team has come up with."

No script arrived. No response to my repeat request.

Next post:  

"I have been approached (WITH FUNDING) for the possibility of turning (the script)  into a FEATURE FILM!! This funding is a substantial amount of money and the investors are anxious to see the SHORT FILM version.....So,we really have to make tracks on getting this done now guys!!"

When I queried this, here was the response: "We have been offered £15,000 and an extra £10,000 to make the feature film,this offer is subject to the completion of a 'satisfactory' short film that we are in the process of making." 

  I asked if I would be the writer for this, as he hadn't said.

"Would love you to BUT it's a MASSIVE job,probably best to wait to see how the short film comes out before we start putting too much effort in."

We discussed payment as I said writing a short for nothing was one thing, but a feature length....

"There would definitely be money in the kitty for the script writer"

Still no script sent...

Next post on Tuesday of this week: "Casting now well underway for Amy..." AMY? WHO'S AMY? There was no Amy in the script I wrote and that was "loved"

I asked who Amy was. (The post has since been deleted!)

I queried this. (It was becoming very tedious!)

Here is what I was told:

"We have had to completely change the whole script that you wrote.The producers and investors were not happy with most of it.We had numerous meetings but in the end they had to bring in another script writer to amend it the way they wanted it.We will still credit you for the work that you have done for us and we are extremely grateful for your part in the growth of this."

and

"Professionals analysed your version. I'm afraid it was found that your ideas were inadequate for the project. Money had been invested and the investors were not happy, so they took my ideas(like you did) and got their own version written."

And finished  with that well-worn phrase: "That I'm afraid is how this business works."

 I am a professional. I KNOW writers get replaced. I ACCEPT THAT. THAT'S FINE. REALLY.

What is NOT FINE is the way in which this was done.

I requested, and, surprisingly, was sent the new version - plus the praise and the WOWs! and the compliments that it was so much better than the first version (mine)

Here is my honest and objective (as possible) review of the new version (which was a million miles away from the brief I had so carefully fulfilled)

"The flashbacks are helpful, if cumbersome, in giving a bit of back story, but the dialogue is dull and 'on the nose', there are far too many characters and subplots introduced in such a short piece, there is no subtext, and the story has become lame and cheesy because of the mother's advice at the beginning being so very predictably fulfilled at the end. You read that bit - the flashback with the mother - and you already know what the ending will be. There is no surprise or subtlety."

I have requested that my name is NOT credited alongside this film. I fear for my reputation.

And I consider I have had a lucky escape NOT to work with a group of people so low in integrity and so lacking in courtesy and respect for a writer.

Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.

I like that, Thich Nhat Hanh

Last night, Peter and I went to our first meditation session, run by a Buddhist of the New Kadampa Tradition.

Okay, so Uckfield Civic Centre is not QUITE so idyllic...

I didn't really know what to expect. Would we be lying down? Would we be expected to sit in lotus position for 90 minutes? No - we sat on chairs. For me, even sitting in a chair for 90 minutes was quite a challenge.

I sat a long way from Peter because he does BREATHE so...

I have to report that the session was very good.

Some of it was very good AFTERWARDS. In the second meditation - breathing in white light and breathing out black smoke - not LITERALLY or we'd have set off all The Uckfield Civic Centre smoke alarms - I got the most AWFUL crashing headache.

 In discussion, later, I learned that this was quite to be expected and was to do with the negativity in my mind being expelled. Or it could be that I was sitting in a draught...

Rather spookily, as soon as I came out of the meditation, my head cleared as if by magic and felt...well, cleansed and pure.

And Peter slept right through the night for the first time in forever.

SO...

We didn't take much convincing really.

Memories warm you up from the inside.

But they also tear you apart.

Haruki Murakami, from Kafka On The Shore

Jules Julien

Here, on this beautiful sunny day, is a memory that DOESN'T tear me apart, DOES warm me up from the inside and also makes me smile.

The other day, a friend and I were wandering through the perfume section of a department store - me actually trying to hold my breath because those places make me nauseous. (Don't get me started on airport Duty Free shops.)

I love perfume, by the way - INDIVIDUALLY.

I do NOT love six hundred and thirty seven perfumes all at once.

Then I remembered THIS:

It was THE perfume of my teenage years. I can still smell it in my mind. I had that very bottle, in the same packaging.

"Aqua Manda was timed perfectly to capture the spirit of the the end of the sixties and the beginning of the seventies. Its packaging suggesting oranges and flowers and the stylish Art Nouveau lid chimed in perfectly.

It smells of orange blossom and was the definitive scent of the flower power generation and as much a part of the backdrop to that era as the music and the fashion."

 I say...

BRING BACK AQUA MANDA!

When people are mean, it is really because they are just unhappy

This is really the only reason people are ever mean--they have something hurting inside of them, a claw of unhappiness scratching at their hearts, and it hurts them so much that sometimes they have to push it right out of their mouths to scratch someone else, just to give themselves a rest, a moment of relief.

A slighly adapted quote from Laura Moriarty.

This is me trying to put a compassionate spin on some people's meanness - towards me. Today, I'm not talking about sloppy use of figurative language. As I said yesterday, I'm glad I live in my world and not theirs.

It's still hard always to remain unscathed, being the one these unhappy souls choose to scratch. It makes me cry sometimes. And sometimes it makes me feel like this: (Scuse the language)

By Rob Stears

 I'm trying to work out which is the best response. I think I know.

Anybody can become angry — that is easy...

but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way — that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.

Aristotle was AMAZING, don't you think? To realise that was written...let me check...something like two and a half thousand years ago...

Yep, today I'm angry.

by martin kratochwil

It's people.

I won't go into the humdrum every day anger about people in my life who are selfish and self-centred. I encounter that too much. Suffice to say, I'm glad I live in my world not theirs.

No, it's people who are SO LAZY and THOUGHTLESS in their use of figurative language. It makes me angry. I will complain. I HAVE complained.

This is what gets me all riled:

On BBC South East Today, a week or so ago, there was a report about potholes in Kent.

Kent - a privileged county in the South East, the garden of England, average house price £296,807 - I just checked.

What was the headline?

"Potholes could leave routes in the South East in a third world state."

Oh dearie me. My heart bleeds for the good people of Kent. Life is so unfair, isn't it? Our fancy wheel-rims might get an itsty-bit dented because there are a few potholes in the roads. I really think we should get Bob Geldof to organise a global concert...

 
PLEASE, stop comparing our paltry first world problems to the daily struggle for survival that millions of people endure in third world countries.

If you celebrate your differentness, the world will, too.

 "It believes exactly what you tell it—through the words you use to describe yourself, the actions you take to care for yourself, and the choices you make to express yourself. Tell the world you are one-of-a-kind creation who came here to experience wonder and spread joy. Expect to be accommodated."

My heroine of the day - Victoria Moran and her book Lit from Within

More and more, I believe that the words that come out of my mouth define who I am, what sort of day I have, how I will feel, what will happen to me or not happen.

It works for me!

Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul

And sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all.

Emily Dickinson

 I love that poem. That sentiment. For me hope and happiness are interchangeable.

Although...I mean hope in the sense of optimism, not some sort of craven desperation. In my role as an editor for marketing copy, I ALWAYS change text like 'We hope to be able to...' 'Hopefully, this product will...'

NO! DON'T SAY THAT! It sounds so lame and weak. Be proud of yourselves! Be confident!

And now, in one of Caroline Coxon's strange synaptical leaps - maybe not so strange - here's a song to cheer you up on a damp and drizzly Friday morning (well, it is here!) should you need it.

Ooops there goes another rubber tree plant!