Hello again,
I have finished Scenes 3 and 4 - so check those off!! They were both pretty short -- Scene 3, in fact, was only one shot, so that wasn't exactly "editing" except insofar as it was choosing the best take and that sort of thing. In Scene 3, Marissa enters Bill's apt with her bag and plops down on the couch to wait for him. Scene 4 is him coming in ("Heyyyy!") and showing her that he brought her some raspberries, and she thanks him for letting her stay there. Then they move into the kitchen, where he fixes her a snack that I wish someone would fix for me sometime --
--yes, as with calling the conservative, "freaky," I get to serve my characters raspberries and lime rickees and make reference to Joni Mitchell, Skip Gates and Marian Wright Edelmann (sp?). This is definitely not _Grey's Anatomy_. Not to mention, I can have a Quaker meeting without quaintness. It's no accident that the character I'm currently writing has a pet iguana, either.
Of course, when I say "currently writing" I really mean "currently holding off on because I have far too much other stuff going on."
I have not fully appreciated that "create your own world" aspect of writing in a long time, but it really is aces. I remember once reading a murder mystery in which the main character was a transplant to a small New England town from Greenwich Village, NYC, and what's more, she was married to a liberal Protestant minister. There were all these little references and in-jokes about the differences between NE and NY and about being on the admin side of a church community that I especially relished and had never found in any other book. It drove home the point for me that readers respond most powerfully to characters who are actually like the people they really know - an argument for making sure little kids "of color" have books that aren't all about white people, among other things. I had a similar experience with the characters in _The Bean Trees_ and in the comic strip _Dykes to Watch Out For_. So rarely have I encountered characters with life experiences or priorities or interests like mine that - even though I'm supposedly educated and sophisticated in my understanding of literacy and related things - I think that subconsciously I _still_ have a resistance to believing that such characters are "legitimate." I struggle with that issue, anyway: "Ohh, I can't write about _that_!!"
But I do believe that it's through the specific that we reach the universal. The more clear and truthful you can be about your personal, genuine experience, the more likely you are to be genuinely recognizable to others.
Without wanting to go too far afield -- that's why Marlon Brando is such a f%#!ing brilliant performer/actor: because all the moments of all his characters are just so beautifully damn SPECIFIC. There's no "anger" or "pleasure" or "wonder" in Brando, there is only THAT MOMENT FOR THAT CHARACTER. He is never *outside* his characters.
Was never, I mean. Alas. Time. Have I mentioned lately that we're all Five Years Older than we were when we shot this movie?
Scenes 27 ("gay comedian") and 28 ("moths") are next. I'll try to upload them tomorrow.
Anybody know the answer to that DVD question?
Peace and fortitude,
Rachel
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