Winter Love Story: Movies about Writing

Since I actually, kind of enjoyed Mistletoe Inn, I decided to try one more Hallmark movie about a writer. I regret my decision. Although, full disclosure I missed bits of the beginning.

Cassie (Jen Lilley) is the daughter of a celebrated novelist and Princeton professor. She has just published her own first book following her divorce, a romance memoir full of humor and real-life inspired feelings. Her publisher asks bestselling fantasy author Elliot (Kevin McGarry) to help Cassie with being comfortable doing book readings and signings. He agrees and the pair go on tour together along with Elliot’s adorable dog, Bungee. Blah blah blah, they fall in love, they have a misunderstanding, they end up together. Oops, did I spoil it?

First of all, in the scenes where Elliot’s books are being read out loud, they still sound like the style of a romance novel, just with a dragon written in. Then again, his audience did seem to be a lot of twenty-something women who wanted to jump his bones. At least the film was realistic in its decision to show that even published authors who aren’t bestsellers need to supplement their income by showing Cassie as a barista. However, she works in a small coffee shop owned by her roommate. Mom’s a famous author who gave her advice. She lives with her boss. Cassie’s life is a lot of near-nepotism. At least Cassie admits this and chooses not to use her mom’s last name on her own book.

The concept of the book tour itself is a tad cringe. Two almost strangers taking a road trip together while their “point people” make sure they have places to stay in each city felt a little too fancy for a publishing company to pay for. If they hadn’t constantly pointed out that Elliot was making the company LOTS of money, I would have been making psh sounds through the whole movie. Also, they appear on a morning show together. I would understand interviewing Elliot about his popular series, but what kind of strings did they have to pull to let Cassie talk about her book too? (She chokes by the way and Elliot tries to teach her about “public speaking”).

What I did like was that Elliot immediately read her book as a way to get to know her and have a better working relationship. Meanwhile, Cassie is just a snob about his work calling him the “dragon-writer” and sneering as she refers to his work as “nerd novels”. Then she keep apologizing right afterwards like a passive-aggressive “no offense” comment. She learns her lesson, but seriously rude!!!! Cassie is not a particularly likable character, complaining when her room at the bed and breakfast is tiny and acting all superior. Elliot is the best promoter, giving her opportunities that a publishing company would never give unless her books were selling like his. He even confesses to her that he has writer’s block and she says nothing helpful! You’re both writers! Be a writer and try to help the man!

By the last twenty minutes Cassie almost won me over. She finally started to give back professionally to Elliot and was excited to be trying new reading and writing topics. She takes initiative in her own career while appreciating the careers of other authors. AND YET SHE COULD NOT GET OVER THAT ELLIOT HAD A GOOD RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS EX-WIFE. Holy crap! He’s a better person than you. Deal with it.

Also, the dog needed more scenes.

Knives Out: Movies about Writing (Copy)

This one is a going to have spoilers - so you’ve been warned.

I love this movie so this will be written with bias. Knives Out is what happens when a bestselling mystery writer kills himself and leave everything to his kind nurse instead of the spoiled members of his family. I can’t do this film justice in a blog, so I won’t go into intense detail, but here’s the background. Christopher Plummer plays Harlan Thrombey, a self-made millionaire with his own publishing company and house of fabulous oddities based on his many novels. His family is made up of a whose who of great actors (including Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, Michael Shannon, and Chris Evans) in a traditional Agatha Christie style.

This comes with their own quirky private detective Blanc (Daniel Craig takes this role and runs with it in a fantastic way) working with the exhausted police investigators (one of whom is notably played by LaKeith Stanfield). At the center of all of this is Marta, the quiet, young caregiver played by Ana de Armas. Also, Frank Oz has a cameo as the lawyer at the will reading. Side note: I just imagine this moment on the set of Star Wars the Last Jedi where Rian Johnson fanboyed over Frank Oz and slyly asked if he wasted to play the snarky attorney. If this is not how the casting occurred, I don’t want to know. Let me have my geek dream.

This movie is Rian Johnson’s love letter to Poirot, Colombo, Jessica Fletcher, and the film Clue. So, he includes so many of the tropes needed, while mixing in it a unique story of socioeconomic status.

Let’s look at the author/victim of the mystery first. Harlan Thrombey fills his house with a mix of oddities and objects from his novels. He raised his family in this attempt to make his own life more interesting as his daughter talks about his love of games and how he regrets giving them all too many handouts that they don’t seem to appreciate. For example, when he finds out that his son-in-law is having an affair, instead of coming out directly with the information, he writes in a secret message to his daughter that he promises to deliver if the husband does not come clean.

Therefore, when Marta thinks she’s accidentally poisoned Harlan with morphine, he is determined to save her in a way that is full of all the complications of a mystery novel, after he considers how this form of murder would work well in a novel. He refuses to allow her to call the police as her mother is undocumented. Instead, he tells her to leave the house so everyone sees her, sneak back in, pretend to be Harlan so everyone thinks he was still alive after she left, and then sneak back out. All of this while he has slit his own throat to make his death appear as a suicide. This, by the way, is not the actual twist of the film. All of that is revealed in the first 30 minutes.

Going back to the idea of a successful mystery writer being the center of a murder mystery. I’ve mentioned the house and property full of wonderful eccentric relics. This is meant to mirror his personality and the themes of his novels. The reason why I point this out is because it is the beloved goal of every writer or artist to be able to afford a house big enough to fill with all of the weird items of our dream lives. Mine would have a secret bookcase door, a cast iron spiral staircase, and a giant mural of either a Gustav Dore’ picture or a N.Y. Wyeth illustration.

None of this has to do with the plot of the movie (well, it does, but you need to watch the movie to find out how). I’m just saying - I want Harlan Thrombey’s house.

Crimson Peak: Movies about Writing (Copy)

I’ve seen this movie at least once a year since it came out. Crimson Peak includes some of my absolute favorite supernatural tropes: a Gothic house, a woman who is both the victim and savior, ghosts who are both frightening and helpful, and utilizing the social norms of the Industrial Era compared to the “old world” European settings.

Crimson Peak is an atmospheric thriller about Edith (Mia Wasikowska), a writer and the daughter of an American businessman, who marries the charming Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) despite reservations of those around her (Jim Beaver plays her father and Charlie Hunnamam plays her old friend Dr. Alan McMichael). Thomas whisks Edith away to live him and his sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain) in their crumbling English estate, Allendale Hall to pursue his attempts to make the manor lucrative once again. It is not long before Edith is the center of mysterious visitations from those no long living.

The movie is written by Matthew Robbins (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Dragonslayer, *batteries not included, etc) and Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy, The Shape of Water, etc.). The director is, naturally, also del Toro. Of course, this might be partially why I adore this film. Guillermo del Toro and I have many similar loves - Ray Harryhausen, Charles Dickens, fairy tales, Disney movies, the Haunted Mansion, Richard Matheson, Poe, and classic horror movies including Freaks and one of my all-time favorite films The Uninvited from 1944. I desperately want to get a beer with this man and just geek out for hour about books and movies. WHY CAN’T THIS HAPPEN?

Let’s get down to the parts of this story that relate to writing. This is a mystery so warning: MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

After an experience of her deceased mother delivering her a cryptic warning as a child, Edith Cushing has grown up as an aspiring writer of supernatural fiction. The early scenes of the film focuses heavily on her writing ambitions and how society mocks her efforts. An exchange between Edith and the mother of her childhood friend shows how little she cares about their opinions, as well as her attempts to build a somewhat morbid reputation.

“…our very own Jane Austen. Though she died a spinster, didn’t she?”

“Actually, Mrs. McMichael, I’d prefer to be Mary Shelley. She died a widow.”

Edith shows up early at the publishing office, covering in ink from doing corrections while she waits. THE NOVEL IS NEVER DONE - I TELL YOU!!!! Movies that take places in the mid- 1800s up through the 1910s always show the publisher or editor reading the whole manuscript while the writer sits there anxiously. How do they do this? Do the pair sit there four hours together in uncomfortable silence? Is this potential buyer just skimming? Are there bathroom breaks?

Either way, the scene in Crimson Peak keep this pattern of Edith on the edge of her chair while the publisher (played by Jonathan Hyde who still haunts my childhood at Van Pelt, the hunter from the original Jumanji) criticizes her for being a woman who wrote a ghost story (“It’s not! The ghost is a metaphor for the past” as Edith insists) without love story in it.

Despite the rejection and her decision type her stories from then on to hide her gender, Edith’s father buys her a beautiful fountain pen. I point this out because the pen is important a the end of the story. She also, as she is typing out this manuscript for another attempt at publication, meets the dashing rogue of the tale, Sir Thomas Sharpe Baronet. He compliments the story in front of her, not knowing she is the author. Seriously, if Tom Hiddleston complimented my writing I would probably marry him too (the fact that he is Tom Hiddleston does help, though).

Mr. Cushing has Thomas Sharpe and his sister, Lucille, investigated by a private detective (played by Burn Gorman who will always be Owen from “Torchwood” in my mind) and finds information that make him insist that Edith’s heart be broken so she does not pine too long for Thomas. Thomas does this in the masterful stroke of her attacking her novel. He gets mean, basically she her characters have no realism or true emotion, just the mimics of characters from other books. Harsh, dude! Harsh.

As this is a horror story, Edith’s father then dies in a violent and mysterious way, leaving Thomas a chance to apologize and marry Edith. There are only two things in this movie that bug me. 1) a dog get murdered. 2) When Thomas begs the forgiveness of our hero, he talks about a sting that connects his heart to hers. This is line clearly paraphrased from Jane Eyre and Edith, as a writer and reader, should have recognized such a cheesy line.

Arriving at Allendale Hall cuts down on Edith’s writing as she is a new bride in a haunted house with a psychotic new sister-in-law. There is one scene were Thomas asks her the fate of her main character and she honestly tell him that she doesn’t know - how a writer cannot control completely the decisions their characters make. I’m not going to give away all of the jumps and ghostly entities, but I want to go back to the theme of Edith as a writer.

In climax of the film, when Edith discovers she is trapped in a Bluebeard plot of greed and incest, Lucille attempts to force her to sign over the last of her inheritance to the Sharpes. As this battle of wills takes place, Lucille proceeds to BURN EDITH’S MANUSCRIPT! Bitch! Oh no! She did not! Edith proceeds to stab Lucille in the shoulder with the fountain pen her father gave her. You get it? It’s like a metaphor or something.

The film ends with Edith writing the tale of Crimson Peak, revealed to the audience in form of a published book. So, she’s finally a published writer after all. Happy ending. Right.

Not my image- Belongs to Universal Pictures

Mary Shelley: Movies about Writing

Now to go from the batshit to the attempts at historically accurate on the same topic. Mary Shelley was a movie I never saw before this because I heard it actually wasn’t that accurate (for example, only 6 minutes into viewing I noticed that they completely removed Fanny, the third Godwin sister which is so unfair).

As this one is more about Mary’s life, it has a larger cast than the other movies I watched. Elle Fanning play the titular character who has already begun her attempts at writing even before meeting Shelley (attempts which her father criticizes as unoriginal). Bell Powley is Claire Clairemont, Douglas Booth is Shelley, Tom Sturridge is Byron, and Ben Hardy is Polidori. Since the night in Switzerland is only a part of this film you also see Mary’s best friend Isabel (Maisie Williams), her father (Stephen Dillane), and her despised step-mother (Joanne Froggatt - who outside of Downton Abbey always seems to play antagonists). Thomas Hogg (Jack Hickey) gets to be in this one too who was a friend of Shelley’s.

The movie starts with Mary sent away to Scotland when she and her step-mother butt heads more than usual. She and Isabel share a love of the supernatural and a bond since both lost their mothers at a young age. The house welcomes Percy Shelley and Samuel Taylor Coleridge to recite their poems at parties. The attraction is instant and yet no one is shocked by their flirting. Shelley shows up at Mary’s home in London to become a student of Mr. Godwin and discuss the scandalous ideals of Mary Wollstonecraft. Let the philosophizing begin!

Mary takes a break from her own writing when Shelley shows up and still doesn’t pick up a pencil when Shelley’s wife makes an appearance. When the pair elopes, they of course take Claire with them. This more than any other film focuses on how close Claire and Mary were. This is heartbreaking since the real women fell out in the last few years of Mary’s life. Despite the lack of writing on Mary’s part, she and Claire are devoted to reading and supporting Shelley’s own attempts to be published. When Mary finds out that she’s pregnant, she worries about being a mother and that she’s moving further away from her goals of writing. There is also the whole Shelley wanting to bang Claire thing and thinks Mary should be free to bang his friend Hogg that gets in the way of Mary’s new relationship. Then Lord Byron enters the picture.

After the death of their first child and an escape from Shelley’s debts, they go on the fated trip to Geneva. Here the story will seem familiar. Once more, the second child William is written out, but the manipulations of Lord Byron’s are left in. The opium, the drinking, and the free love commence. Polidori is used more as a talking head who befriends Mary and acts as her sanity in the midst of Byron and Shelley’s “creative process”. Oh hey, this movie does talk about the connection between the painting “The Nightmare” and Mary’s mom.

The ghost story competition is used as high point where both Byron’s cruelty to Claire, the death of Shelley’s wife, and Mary’s renewed interest in writing all come together on one dark night. Polidori is picked on for his Vamyre novella so Mary doesn’t present her book idea, still Byron says he “looks forward to reading her work someday”.

Something I will give this film a lot of credit for it how it actually shows how science and the death of her children, not just ghost stories, inspired Frankenstein. The movie also deals in her own depression and the doubts of a teenage girl trying to build her own life. They give her more independence from Shelley, a realization that she loves him, but her own autonomy is more important than his philosophy and excuses for behaving however he wants.

More importantly, the Mary Shelley movie is more about her writing her book than any other film about her and her depressing life. She has a period of being cut off from Claire and Shelley in which she uses all of the pain she’d experienced in a short life to write the tale of the lonely creature. This also leads into the tale of the publishing which in itself was depressing. Just like in real life, it took her a year to find a publisher and Shelley had to write a preface meaning lots of people then thought he’d secretly written it. There is a nice outburst from Mary about how she wonders the meaning of writing her great work if she can’t have credit for it. It’s a fair question. Is is more important just to be in print or to get credit?

BFI Films owns this image… I think

Gothic: Movies about Writing (Copy)

And now for something completely batsh*t.

Long before I ever actually read Frankenstein, I was weirdly knowledgeable about its creator, Mary Shelley. And therefore, when I was flipping though late night television long ago and probably watching channels I wasn’t supposed to be, I discovered a young Natasha Richardson running panicked down a hallway while Julian Sands made out with Gabriel Byrne. They addressed each other as Byron, Shelly, and Mary, so naturally I kept watching. What I had stumbled upon was 1986’s Gothic directed by Ken Russell, a man who had to have been high most of the time (and if he wasn’t, the inside of his brain must’ve been a scary, brightly colored place).

This is meant to be a horror movie, but the monsters are pretty obviously the result of a bad trip.

There are several films that attempt to capture the idea of Mary Shelley winning the famous “let’s tell ghost stories” night against Byron, Shelley, and John Polidori (more about them later), but this is the only one that really focuses on the amount of opium likely ingested that night. This is NOT A CHILDREN’S FILM. Hell, I don’t this film is probably appropriate for most adults.

The madness open with Percy Shelley rowing Mary and her step-sister, Claire, to the shore of Byron’s villa. The moment he exists the boat, ye olde fangirls chase Percy up the lawn i hopes of tearing his clothes as a souvenir. You know, that whole poets being the rockstars of their day comparison. I don’t care how popular, I don’t think anyone every squeed at a poet. Sorry poets.

The characters/historical figures are established by extremes in the first 8 minutes. Byron is a lustful rogue who instantly makes Mary uncomfortable. Percy is a ridiculous child who just wants the attention of those around him. Claire is a wild thing determined to keep up in her recent and abusive affair with Byron. John Polidari, Byron’s person doctor, is just weird and uncomfortable with a sense of being both as lustful as Byron yet sexually harrassed by him (everyone man in this is established as bi from the get-go). And finally Mary, the quietest and most sensible of the group.

They decide to play a game in the giant house where the director fills the set with obvious sexual allegories, clockwork figures (that are very obviously people in costumes) and annoyed servants. The game is ended abruptly with Percy crawling out on the roof in the midst of a lightning storm and reminding Mary of her father’s favorite theories about electricity.

Drunk, high, and in hopes of an orgy, the group starts to read aloud from a book of ghost stories (while Percy makes out with Mary and feels up Claire at the same time…yep, you read that right). The stories instantly show Parallels to Mary’s future such as doom for Percy near water and the loss of a child. It feels like most movie versions about this night like to do this, Make it seem like Mary cursed them all for tragedy by writing Frankenstein. Nevermind that this whole group suffered from mental illness that was added to with booze and opium.

Byron decides they should “conjure” a ghost which Mary is unnerved by due to her own desires to bring her recently stillborn baby back to life. Even though they declare that they will make up their own ghost stories you never really see this - just more orgies, Claire having a seizure, Byron ordering a half-naked maid to pretend to be his half-sister, and Mary realizing that Percy is infatuated with Byron.

Here, I finally make a writing observation besides the poet thing. Percy Shelley is portrayed in Gothic as both being fascinated and attracted by Byron, but also as if he wants to be Byron. Sometimes writers think that by mimicking the behavior of their literary idols it will improve their craft. You know those people who only use a typerwriter and drink rum because Hemmingway did the same. Or only use a quill pen and hide oneself in a room because Emily Dickinson was a shut-in. Or pine after a girl named Laura because that’s what Petrarch did.

From that point, the movie 45 minutes of nightmare fuel involving more sex, miscarriages, boob eyes, near suicide, mud baths, philosophical conversations about death and homosexuality and religion, and Frankenstein’s creature following Mary around the house until she sees an image of her son William dead (which really did happen). The characters argue whether this is all the result of their minds or a creature of the night.

The end of all of this crazy is the idea great literature and horror comes from nights of great f*&%ed-up events. A part at the end involving modern tourists informs the audience that from Polodoiri’s obsession with blood and Byron came the novella the Vampyre and Mary’s insistence to bring back the dead came Frankenstein.

Once again, a movie about writers relies on the idea of their biography being directly linked to their works. Only in this case, it involves a lot of Julian Sands being naked and, at least for me, that does not inspire much in the way of literary genius.

By the way, despite my sounding so critical of this bizarre film, I do own it.

I’m too lazy to check who owns this. Just don’t sue me, please.

Muppet Christmas Carol: Movies about Writing

“Storytellers are omniscient, I know everything.” So sayeth Gonzo the Great - I mean, Charles Dickens. The blue furry Charles Dickens who hangs out with a rat.

Now, I really do know A Christmas Carol like the back of my hand. I memorized the opening passage about door nails and coffin nails when I was a kid because it made me laugh - you know, like most eleven year olds. And this is pretty much my favorite version (in close running with the 1938 version and the 1951 versions) and is actually pretty close to the original novella (they cut out Bob’s oldest daughter, Martha and Scrooge’s sister Fan, but pretty close nonetheless). This is one of the only times the writer of the screenplay actually bothered to read the name of Scrooge’s former love, Belle. Most screenwriters skip that part and leave her nameless or give her a generic British name like Alice or Mary.

This film, for those who’ve never seen it (WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU??), if full of jokes about Gonzo/Dickens being able to time each event as he narrates the story. His narrations come straight from the original text which is someone better sounding from Dave Goelz (the voice of Gonzo) then from the pompous Brit in the ‘51 version. However, Gonzo also has to constantly prove that he really is the author to Rizzo the Rat who finds this form of Dickens too unbelievable. “Hoity toity, Mr. God-like-smartypants.”

Still, I like the idea that even though Gonzo is Dickens, even he doesn’t know everything that’s going to happen. Characters can surprise their creators, even when the creator is being played by a blue furry, hook-nosed whatever.

I really don’t have much more to say here as I am very distracted right now. I mean, Michael Caine is signing with Robin the Frog. Where else could you possibly see that?

Mistletoe Inn: Movies about Writing

Here we are again. Another holiday season and another round of mass-produced Christmas movies staring white TV actors who weren’t doing anything that week. I could get on my soapbox about these films and how they are not my thing, but instead I’m going to point out that after working in a bookstore for 12 years, I’m finally experiencing something by writer Richard Paul Evans. Nothing against Evans, I’m just not a big Christian fiction reader. But does this movie movie fit perfectly into this blog theme? Surprisingly yes. Like very much yes. Like I kinda hate how much I associated with parts of this movie. There was a long, hot shower after I finished watching.

This one is about Kim (Alicia Witt) who has been working on a romance novel for a long time, feeling like it’s not ready yet and will not allow others to read it except her dad (a fact which causes her boyfriend to break up with her, saying he wants to be in a relationship with another “real writer”).

Okay, Hallmark! I feel personally attacked. How dare you! Just because some of us writers want to make sure things are just so and might do 6 or 7 rewrites then spend nearly 2 years in editing does not mean we are not “real writers". How dare you question.

Kim goes to a writing retreat made up of a series of workshops. There she meets Zeke, a writer who uses a typewriter that he claims is the same model Hemingway used, and they proceed to insult each other in a lackluster meet-cute.

I hate the Hemingway typewriter cliche, by the way. Other famous writers used typewriters! You don’t have to idolize the rum-guzzling, narcissistic embodiment of toxic masculinity. Why can’t a writer in a movie ever once say “I use this brand of typewriter because Maya Angelou used it” or how about Douglas Adams or Mark Twain or. . . I confess I looked up a list of famous authors who used typewriters for this rant.

Amazingly, Mistletoe Inn doesn’t get you drunk according to the rules of the Hallmark Christmas Movie Drinking game. Just tipsy. Not that I tried it…

Kim makes friends with another writer, Samantha (Lucie Guest) who has been to the conference before and helps Kim be judgy towards her ex-boyfriend who is also at there. The ex-boyfriend of course uses all of his allotted dialogue to keep reminding Kim that she’s not a serious writer. Samantha also scolds another author (I didn’t catch the character’s name) who tries to make all of the new people feel like crap who have not being published yet. I’m sorry to say, but this felt like the most realistic part of the conference to me. There’s always at least one published snob ready to bring other people down and shatter their confidence.

The workshops Kim attends included a really good quote from a visiting editor. “This is a safe space for ideas. Writing is brave work. Ridicule is the tool of shallow people. Don’t be one of the shallow people.” Damn, Richard Paul Evans! Who hurt you at a writing conference? Whoever it was I hope they saw your first bestseller. I’m not a fan of your books, but damn dude! Mad props to whatever you survived at one these workshops.

The other quote I liked came from Zeke when he tries to show Kim how to handle the criticism of crabby, overly critical publishers and agents. This was inspired by him convincing her NOT to sit through a lecture by a notorious dream-killer (yep, been to those lectures before. My favorite part is when you ask a specific question and they manage to insult you without answering the question). “Every tiny victory along the road is worth celebrating. . . . that the point of writing is not be discovered, but rather self-discovery that hopefully other people can enjoy.” I’m not sure if that comes from the original book or it comes from the teleplay writer Michael Nourse, but DAMN!
As this is a Hallmark movie, Kim and Zeke fall in love over a course of snowball fights, warm romantic dinners, and more writing exercises. I mean literal writing exercises. That’s not an innuendo. I actually made a squee noise when Zeke tries to give her constructive criticism (legit, constructive criticism about how a first draft always needs tweaking). She takes this way too-hard, but again, I think she doesn’t understand what a FIRST DRAFT is! Case-in-point, I repeatedly called one of my finished first drafts “the turd” and my boyfriend said I should work on a second draft so it can at least be a “gilded turd”. I always go to Kira Shay and Sidney Reetz first because we’ve been sharing writing ideas since we were in high school. This is totally related to how the movie’s main theme about trusting the people who share your work with, but also being willing to share.

I’m going to end this one here, but other than the highly predictable romance sub-plot, I didn’t hate this one. Fine Hallmark. You won this round.

Image property of Hallmark. Also, they’re both writers. Why does he get to hold all of the writing materials

In a Lonely Place: Movies about Writing

Time for a depressing one, but it’s a good one.

First off, who likes film noir? I do! I do! And who like Humphrey Bogart? Psh. Who doesn’t like Bogey!

In a Lonely Place features Bogart as a Hollywood screenwriter named Dixon Steele struggling to create a big hit as he did in his heyday. Dix is presented as the typical academic artist of the 50s, rather broody and hot tempered balanced with a sarcastic humor and a sickness of the Tinsel Town B.S. Despite being presented as having a certain moral code, Dixon is also revealed to be violent both to men and women. He’s under orders to adapt a popular novel, but the idea of having to read something he considers trash depresses him. He invites a young hatcheck girl who has already read the book to his place simply so she can summarize the novel for him and save him some trouble. And the night is revealed to be exactly that. The young Mildred gives him a dramatic retelling, drinks a ginger ale, then leaves to catch a cab which Dix pays for. Before she goes, they have a talk about her love life, as Mildred broke a date to be at that innocent storytelling event. Dix points out that she’s not in love with her would-be beau.

“Are you a mind reader?”

“Most writers like to think they are.”

Then, poor Mildred ends up murdered and Steele, under suspicion, asks his neighbor to confirm that he never left his apartment after the girl left. Gloria Grahame plays the pretty blonde neighbor Laurel Gray. This is the start of a tense, but passionate relationship between the pair. Between her and the murder, Dix delves into his work for the first time in a decade. Laurel acts as his typist and secretary, making sure he eats and sleeps between hours of writing. I wish I could do that, sit for twelve hours straight, but just sitting for that long messes with my brain. I don’t know how Bogey’s character could do it and write something decent. Maybe that’s why he’s a genius?

Now for some gross trivia. Grahame was married to the film’s director Nicholas Ray. She would eventually leave Ray for . . . his son! There was a marriage between her leaving Ray and marrying junior, but . . . She met this guy when he was a teenage boy. Just creepy.

Okay, I guess I should get back to the film and writer/suspect played by Bogart.

Dix has a friend who is policeman named Nicolai (played by Frank Lovejoy who usually played some kind lawman including in one of my favorite films - House of Wax 1953). Dix explains to Nicolai and his wife how he imagines the killer may have strangled Mildred, a scene which sparks the writer’s imagination and creates a sinister grin on his face. Still, he stands by his innocence stating, “I assure you I could never throw a lovely body from a moving car. My artistic temperament wouldn’t permit it . . . You see, we so-called creative artists have a great respect for cadavers. We treat them with the utmost reverence. Put them in soft beds, lay the out on fur rugs, leave them lying at the foot of a long staircase, but we definitely could never throw them from a moving car as though they were cigarette butts.”

This movie speaks to the idea of the secretive and anti-social personalities that writers can cling to. Dix is viewed as a genius, but a rather sick genius and the question of his role in Mildred’s death becomes the primary theme of the story. Any writer can tell you to steer clear of their browser history, but before the internet, writers got their sources from the horse’s mouth, experience, and observation.

Therefore, when Dix obsessive writing and the realization that he’s being tailed by police begins to effect his mental health, Laurel loses confidence in her resolve that he’s innocent. Violence, anger, and the lack of another suspect let the audience also wonder about Dix. The relationships also bring up interesting points about artistic temperament and how it can effect people surround said artist. There are those who seems to know the best, healthiest boundaries like the cop, those who throw themselves into the artist’s life with little thought to their own mental well being like Laurel, and those who simply don’t get it like some of the actors and other Hollywood big shots portrayed. I’m not going to give away whether he did it or not, but I will say this is a good lesson to all writers. Sometimes anti-social behavior can be . . . complicated.

New Girl (Tuesday Meeting & Lillypads): Movies about Writing

This brings us to the end of the “New Girl” blogs by looking at two episodes from the final season. The season takes place three years later with Nick and Jess returning from a European book tour, Cece and Schmidt raising a precocious girl named Ruth Bader Parikh-Schmidt, and Aly and Winston are pregnant (which makes Aly very grumpy).

In the episode Tuesday Meeting, Nick is in the middle of a writer’s block. His latest book is not meeting with the high standards expected by his publishing company, but he’s trying to cover that up with new social media shots and using a great deal of fake confidence. All of this bravado is replaced by Nick burning his manuscript after his editor tells him to start a new series.

Nick and Winston run into Schmidt whose daughter hasn’t slept in days, meaning Schmidt and Cece haven’t slept in days. Nick is in search of new ideas outside of the Pepperwood Chronicles. The friends try to rebuild his inspiration by telling Nick that he wrote good quotes in his idea notebooks when really they stole the first thing they found from the Communist Manifesto.

In a Three Men and a Baby moment, they all work for hours trying to get Ruth to fall asleep. Meanwhile, Jess and Cece are going to a lunch where CeCe keeps falling asleep and Jess is considering leaving her new job because it’s nothing but busy work. Nick tries to tell Ruth a story at her request and he starts giving colorful versions of childhood memories. He decides that this will be his new book.

In Lillypads, the main plot is a delightful romp of attempting to get Ruth into a prestigious preschool. Seriously, this whole thing is a brilliantly written example of how amusing yet terrifying children can be.

Nick’s plot line involves him going to the bar that he used to own in order to write. In order to meet his deadline, he hired a man to punch him in the face if he doesn’t have 20 pages by a certain time. Of course, he found this gentleman on Craigslist and Winston points out that he would have punched him for free.

Winston comes to Nick for help with being on the stand as a police detective then realizes that he’s given Nick a way to procrastinate. Winston makes a nice speech here.

“Nick, you procrastinate when something is important to you, because deep down, you don’t think you’re good enough to get it done . . . So, of course when you get the opportunity to write something about your own life, the first thing you do is choke. You know how I know? Well, because for some reason, I’m your oldest friend. So I hope you get punched in the the face today. I really do. And then maybe you’ll finally see that you are good enough to be everything you want to be.”

I’m just gonna leave that nice thought there.

New Girl (Fives Stars for Beezuz): Movies about Writing

When we left the on-going saga of the “New Girl” characters Nick and Jess, Jess had runaway from Nick and Nick was finding new success being a writer. Spoilers ahead. And here we go.

This episode involves Jess about to tell Nick she wants to give their relationship another chance, but at a reading of his book he tells fans that the two main characters based upon him and her will never get together. His audience of teen readers are instantly crushed as he goes into an explanation about how adult relationships are complicated and he can’t force second chances between characters based on real people.

Heartbroken by his explanation, Jess pretends she is not back in L.A. and hides out at the house of Schmidt and Cece. She makes plans to move away and be away from the complicated adult relationship. She also get involves in the Winston and Aly B story about contacting Winton’s dad. “You can move with me to Portland!” Jess tells them and Winston responds with a resounding no. “Portland hella white”. All of this goes on through the chaos of discovering that Cece is pregnant and everyone accidentally found out before Cece.

Meanwhile, Schmidt goes with Nick to meets an editor and publisher interested in the Pepperwood Chronicles. The editor is more willing to make the deal if Nick kills off Jess’s character in the next book, a moment that makes Nick run to find the real-life Jess.

The episode does have a happy ending for what no one was sure would be the show finale (they get one more season). But I’m more focused on the interactions between Nick and the publisher that signs him. Their first encounter is very unprofessional and Nick downright rude.

Then when they have the meeting in the man’s office, Nick tells him in no uncertain terms that all of the publisher’s ideas are bad and asks if he’s ever done this before?
Yet, in the final season they are in business together. Pepperwood as a series became so popular that Nick’s publisher and his husband accompany Nick and Jess on European book tour! How? How would that possibly be a thing? How would any agent, publisher, or editor ever once allow a writer to speak to them like that and in up in business together for three years? I thought this show was supposed to take place in the real world, not cuckoo-bananas writers do whatever they want world.

Image property of Fox

Lucifer (High School Poppycock)

For those unfamiliar with the supernatural crime television show “Lucifer”, it’s loosely based on the Neil Gaiman DC comic character featured in the Sandman. But here, Lucifer (played by the swoon-worthy Tom Ellis) is a consultant to an L.A. detective named Chloe Decker (Lauren German) in a murder of week formula.

In the episode entitled “High School Poppycock”, a famous YA author has been murdered and the manuscript of her final novel of her popular series is missing. As this is a murder mystery I will warn that there are SPOILERS AHEAD!

Lucifer and Decker discover that novels were based on people and experiences the author witnessed in high school set in a dystopian future. This is very clear in that the woman did not even change the names of her former peers in the books. They decide to attend her high school reunion and see who could have been bitter at being used as mass produced drama or who knew that the author was overcoming at block at the time of completing the final book in the series, an ending her publisher stated was going to be full of battles and epic action.

A humorous moment comes in Detective Decker reading the series for insight and being hooked. Her character is former child actress who never had her own high school experience and she is sucked in by the angst of love triangles and petty feuds. She can’t help but allow her love of the characters to effect how she views their real-life counterparts at the reunion. That’s right. Chloe discovers fandom. The episodes does a good job with this concept, stating how the inspiration for the characters feel about their place in the books and how the people who were left out felt. There is even a major plot point involving fan fiction. Oh fan fiction. How I miss thee. Wait, what? Who said that? Not me.

Meanwhile, Lucifer is obsessed with finding out how the deceased author overcame her writer’s block, believing that her technique will help him his issue of helping kill the Biblical Cain (long story). He’s told that the afterword of the manuscript included the tale of the author’s return to productivity and inspiration. Therefore, he has a little more interest in finding the missing series finale than finding the actual killer.

After witnessing the real life drama of the people the book was based upon at the high school reunion, Chloe decides that maybe she didn’t miss much in her adolescence. She and Lucifer also come to the realization that the people included in the novel found therapeutic outlets by seeing themselves through the author’s eyes and the eyes of the fandom. As it turns out, the agent from the publishing company had murdered the author when he discovered that her ending was not the action-packed Michael Bay finale he wanted. Instead, she wrote something heartfelt and character based. Therefore after he killed her, he destroyed the only copy of the manuscript with intentions of replacing it with something a fanfiction author created, then kill that author as well.

Beside the murder - HE DESTROYED THE BOOK! Lucifer is ready to kick his ass angry by the loss of what he thought would help him, but also angry that something this woman worked so hard on was burned up.

In retrospect, the episode discussing the passions of fans and the inspiration behind popular work can be seen as. . .

You know what. Nope. He destroyed the ONLY COPY OF HER BOOK. I’m done.

image belonging to Fox and Netflix

Mask of Dimitrios: Movies about Writing

Mask of Dimitrios is the original film of a writer living out their stories. I discovered this film on TCM during a Peter Lorre phase (a perfectly normal phase for a young woman in her late teens) and was automatically interested because for once, the poor actor with the bug eyes was not playing a secondary character or the villain. He is the hero of this story and his character is the writer I’ll be focusing on.

The whole thing starts when mystery writer Cornelius Leyden (Lorre) is approached while on vacation in Istanbul by a man who is both a fan and a member of the local police. You find Leyden sitting alone at a party just watching the people and not engaging. I love this. He’s supposed to be a famous author, yet he has enough anonymity to still act the way most authors would act at a party. Then a conversation starts with Colonel Haki (Polish actor Kurt Katch . . . playing a Turkish man . . . Yes. Movie casting be messed) saying how much he’d like to write a book and Lorre looks a little like he want to escape right then and there. But Haki brings up the recent death of the infamous criminal Dimitrios Makropoulos and asks Leyden if he’s like to know more of the sake of his writing.

Peter Lorre and Kurt Katch. Image property of Warner Bros.

Leyden is eager, but discovers his first shattering of reality when Haki shows him Dimitrios’s corpse which had been found exposed to the elements on a beach. “It isn’t quite what I thought it would be,” he says uncomfortably as the death wounds are shown off. Despites his squeamishness at a real death, Leyden declares that Dimitrios would be a fantastic basis for a character and decides to track down more details of the man’s life for a new novel.

You know I love research so even in a film where the fictional writer must go through European records and interview unusual characters using charm he saved up for such occasions makes me happy. Lorre even dons glasses and pulls out all of the please and thank you’s of a man needing favors from other people. I try to imagine Lorre’s Casablanca character squealing, “ Reeeeek! Help me, Rick!” while wearing glasses and it really would have detracted from the scene. The research even takes him to meet his subject’s former girlfriend, a rather worn looking young woman named Irana Preveza (Faye Emerson) who paints a manipulative yet charming hired assassin in Dimitrios. The other characters add other political crimes to the criminal’s dossier. Leyden seems rather naive in finding nothing wrong in all of these spies and thieves telling him dangerous facts.

The character fits with how an author does not always match their subject matter. While Leyden write popular detective stories full of murder and mayhem, the writer is a soft-spoken, somewhat humorous person (although he always seems to be laughing at a in-joke with himself), who wishes there were kinder people in the world. He is also a rather overly logical fellow. Upon walking into a grand house, he go instantly to introduce himself to the cats. When a gun is waved at him, he grumbles that he’s tired and wants to go to bed.

My favorite quote in the whole film is when another character is shot, Lorre says like a bewildered child, “He was my friend. He wasn’t my friend, but he was a nice man.” This sums up the character well.

Enter Sydney Greenstreet as Mr. Peters, the character that will turn a research trip in a full blown mystery. Greenstreet and Lorre made many movies together, usually where they were both villains. In this case, Mr. Peters is a rather jolly smuggler who isn’t convinced that Dimitrios is dead and wants the writer’s help in tracking him down.

Most writers, especially of genres such as fantasy, science fiction, horror, and mystery, are not equipped to do what we put our characters through. If I had to face some of the monsters I put in my novels I would simply pee my pants and let it eat me. That’s a part of this movie. Leyden is presented as a little out of touch with reality and by the end he has to take charge and be brave. Also, when it is all over, he has to still write the novel he set out to do. After all, if you are put in mortal danger for a project it’s a good idea to finish it.

Peter Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet as a strange duo. Property of Warner Bros.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Skyfire Cycle & Return to Skyfire)

NINE - NINE! For this blog, I’m combining two episodes from my favorite show (since they are really one long plot line) “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”, for those who have never seen this show, it’s the quirky comedy of a group of Brooklyn detectives.

Within the first of these episodes, Sergeant Terry Jeffords (played by the greatest fictional president of all time, Terry Crews) is excited that their latest case involves his lifelong favorite epic fantasy author, D.C. Parlov (guest star Fred Melamd). Parlov, author of the Game of Throne-esque SkyFire Cycle, has received death threats, but Terry is more excited finally tell the man how much he has meant to him since childhood. Terry tells Jake Peralta (the immature showrunner detective played by Andy Samberg) that as a young man he sent a letter to Parlov and received a kind and inspiring response that he based much of his confidence on.

Parlov is the publishing version of an aging rock star, attracting much debate at the same time as still attracting hot, young women. “He pulls, Jake!” Terry insists. The author is more interested in the publicity the whole situation is creating for his new books than the actual thought of his own life being taken by a disgruntled fan. The death threats sent to the author co-inside with an announcement that a formally thought male dragon character is in-fact female, stirring up bro anger.

SPOILER ALERT:

It turns out the death threats are coming from Parlov’s former assistant whose handwriting matches the inspirational note that shaped Terry’s life. At first Terry is devastated that his connection to Parlov was fake, but Jake convinces him that the source of the words don’t matter, just that Terry is an amazing human being.

The second episode featuring Parlov takes place in the following season and is called “Return to Skyfire” in which Terry, Jake, and Detective Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz) have to attend a fantasy fan convention and find out who leaked Parlov’s latest novel onto the internet. Jake has joined Terry in his love of the novels having read them in previous episodes, however Rosa is less than stoked when she discovers that her signature look is basically the cover of every steampunk novel.

Despite the betrayal and general jerk behavior of the author in the previous episode, Terry and Parlov stayed in touch over the last year. This has inspired Terry to try writing a fantasy novel himself, which Jake sends to Parlov. He then reads it himself, discovering that Terry’s first literary attempt stinks.

Parlov’s rival, author Landon Lawson played by Rob Huebel, also has his latest work leaked and the two men become more insistent that the Brooklyn PD find the mole involved. However, Parlov also tells a star eyed Terry that his first draft is being sent to his publisher, Jake realizes that the authors are lying and leaked their own novels.

There are 3 themes that come up in these episodes. First - Fandom can be hard. Everyone is surprised when the muscular Terry turns out to be a huge fantasy nerd, but they do quickly embrace this fact. Rose even ends up buying a steampunk novel under Terry’s influence. Even though there is that brief suspension of belief among his co-workers, they accept that Terry likes what he likes.

Second - kill the author. Even though Parlov turns out to be a mega-douche, Terry and Jake still love the books. Sometimes, it’s difficult to separate a writer’s work from their personality or real world opinions (cough cough Rowling cough). Yet Terry is unwilling to give up a series that meant to much to him, instead compartmentalizing the author and the series within his own mind.

Lastly - first time writers. Terry’s first draft of his first novel is described as awful. But Jake points out that Terry can get better. And that’s always a good thing to keep in mind.

Mank: Movies about Writing

David Fincher’s fictionalized tale of Herman Mankiewincz writing the script for Citizen Kane. This is not the first movie I’ve seen about this process (I sat through RKO 281 some time in high school and didn’t like how they depicted Marion Davies) nor am I the best person to tell you whether this movie is hard follow because I watch way too much TCM (that includes their documentary serious about movie moguls). What I can tell you is what it’s like to watch Mank as a writer.

The film focuses a lot on Mank’s (played by Gary Oldman) personality and alcoholism in the Hollywood world purchased by William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance). By the way, this movie present Hearst’s long-time girlfriend Marion Davies in a way that showed her the way I like to imagine her - a little screwed up, a little suppressed, but overall a kind and fun-loving person. Amanda Seyfried nailed it in my opinion.

Image Property of Netflix

Okay, back to Mank himself. The struggling screenwriter, once a golden boy in Hollywood, has been given the opportunity to write the first draft of a magnum opus by rising start Orson Welles (Tom Burke). The catch is he won’t get credit and has been isolated in a desert cabin with sixty days to finish the epic film. Some people will say the Welles and Mank wrote it together, but I can’t help believing this version more (even though I know it’s not historically accurate). The idea is that because Mank has been blackballed by his own studio for his controversial drunken rants and not siding with the studio’s political views, no one will object to him being fully paid if he has no credit (make it look like he’s not working). On top of all this, Mank has recently been in a car accident, leaving him bedridden with a secretary (Lily Collins) to help him write.

Why, you may ask, has been sent into exile for this writing endeavor? For the deadline, naturally. Have you ever tried to get a writer who isn’t a journalist to meet a deadline? Do it. I dare you. Go up to a friend whose a writer, give them an idea, and say, “Could you give me a short chapter within the next seven days?” I almost always guarantee that it will become eight day at least. Artists - am I right?

Welles takes no chances and has deprived Mank of his family, his friends, proper alcohol (he has booze, but it’s drugged so he falls asleep after 1 bottle), and, thanks to the accident injuries, the ability to go outside easily. The movie delves into how Hollywood worked at that time, really focusing on how media can influence politics and how studios controlled their people. Mank is a sarcastic voice of reason and truth, making jokes to Irving Thalberg while criticizing him in the same breath. Hell. Hollywood still probably works like that (minus Thalberg). All of this honesty and drunken verbal vomit/literal vomit has left Mank without much work, his bosses being more concerned about punishing him than if he is still a good writer.

Welles credits himself for Mank writing one of the best things he’s ever written, not realizing that with the help of his secretary, Herman found ways to get back into his normal albeit destructive process. This is also important watching it as writer. Everyone has their own process and if you take that way, you can’t expect their best work. However, as I said, Mank was extremely self-destructive allowing both alcohol and guilty memories to destroy his brain. I don’t recommend his old school idea of a writing - men at typewriters with too much whiskey and not enough respect for the opinions of their intelligent wives. Which is my final thought. Fincher doesn’t glorify this behavior like some toxic-masculinity ridden Hemingway biography. He shows regret, pain, the effects on people around Mank, and how destructive is still destructive no matter what kind of art it produces.

Image Property of Netflix

To Walk Invisible: Movies about Writing

PBS TIME!!!

To Walk Invisible is another biopic about the four Bronte siblings (a likely more accurate portrayal than the previous movie I watched). This one presents the four in a both codependent yet tumultuous relationship which all seems to go on completely under their well-meaning father’s nose (played by Jonathan Pryce). Quotes from letters to and from the sisters add to the realism of the movie.

Flashbacks reveal how the four were once so close and imaginative, yet the signs of their adult personalities are still there. The main plot starts with Branwell (Adam Nagaitis) and Anne (Charlie Murphy - no, not the Charlie Murphy who once played basketball against Prince) coming back home from positions after Branwell had an alleged affair with the wife of their employer. At the same time, a depressed Charlotte (Finn Atkins) and a fed-up Emily (Chloe Pirrie) are also back home after attending a school with practical questions of what will become of them when their father dies. Branwell is as he always is, a drunk who cannot commit to a path in life and is constantly bailed out by their father. Meanwhile, his three sisters both pity him and fear what their lives will be like when he will be in control of the family finances.

This brings the writing and publishing into play. That’s right! This film is actually about the women as writers -not made-up love triangles or scenes of pining out windows. Charlotte, having been inspired by a drunken rant by Banwell, decides that the three women should publish poetry under male names in an attempt to earn some income.

At first, Emily is appalled by this idea as her poems are private and she flies into a rage when Charlotte reads them without her consent. Anne is the peacemaker between her sisters and is happy just be writing. Still, Anne hate the idea of being credited as men and wishes they could just write anonymously. Charlotte and Emily insist that if anyone suspects that they are women, their writing will never be judged fa

The movie isn’t without it’s drama. The awkward love between Charlotte and her father’s curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls is somehow even sadder without the grand love triangle knowing their lives together would be so short. Branwell’s depression, love life, and abuse towards his family aren’t shown as everyone constantly catering to him. Instead, Emily chases him from the house with anger while Charlotte continues to plan ways for them to secure their own income. Emily is shy and secretive, yet the closest to Branwell. She is the one who does not wish to ever reveal herself, is the most critical of their brother, and the one who cleans up many messes. Anne is still left as the constant “third sister”, the one just on the outskirts who keeps everyone else taken care of. She’s even the one who suffers the most publishing wise. She is also the one who feels the most guilt and emotion over Branwell as he reaches new lows. *By the way, I finally read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and it’s fantastic. I actually like it better than Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights.

The publishing process of the mid-1800s shows how for a first book, the women had to pay to have it published, but still received the proof in the mail (just like now). I imagine contracts, terms of profits, and marketing were quite different, but some of the initial steps really haven’t changed. It also shows the hurt of publication rejection with that added realization that if the three sisters can’t be published they might not be able to survive after their father dies. They also cover topics of publishing fraud, unreliable editors, and subtle fame.

The movie imagines the issues that come with writing under pen names and trying to keep it secret in a small town when Charlotte’s The Professor is rejected but the agents agrees to print Agnes Grey and Wuthering Heights. It also includes the idea of the Charlotte finally telling their father about Jane Eyre’s success in hopes that it will alleviate their father’s worries. He is proud of them and I have no idea if that would be how such a scene played out. This scene is also revealed that their pseudonyms are an attempt to protect Branwell’s feelings who never managed to write his own novel, even as Branwell falls into further debt and ill health. There's a difference to be shown here between professionals and family ties.

Overall, this is a much better version of the tale of the three writers although it end abruptly with post-scripts of their lives and little insight into their short lived lives after Branwell’s death.

Owned by BBC. Emily (Chloe Pirrie), Anne (Charlie Murphy), and Charlotte (Finn Atkins)

Twilight Zone (A World of His Own): Movies about Writing

Oh “Twilight Zone”! How do I love thee! Let me write a blog of one of my favorite episodes instead of counting the ways (because math is bad). Let me present “A World of His Own” about Mr. Gregory West, a playwright who gets very into his work and uses a dictation machine for recording his character development. In order to talk about how this episode relates to the personality of writers I am going to have to give BIG SPOILERS.

NO SERIOUSLY - SPOILERS AHEAD! I WARNED YOU!

Rod Serling fading away from reality (CBS owned image)

First off, this is a Richard Matheson episode so that might be partially why it is one of my favorites. It also features an adorable Asian elephant, but that’s not really important to this blog. Gregory West (Keenan Wynn) is having a comfortable and loving time with the sweet Mary (Mary . Then his wife, the stylish Victoria (Phyllis Kirk) see him and Mary cuddling on the couch only to storm into an office where only her husband exists. No Mary and no exit she could have sneaked out of.

What continues is a conversation about how writers dream up characters that are real to them; a conversation that turns out not to be practical not philosophical. “They [characters] become so strong, that sometimes they take over the whole story,” Gregory explains to his wife and adds that one of his earliest successful characters walked into the room one night when he was working. It turns out that when he describes a new person into his tape recorder, the fictional character comes to life in his office and gives him inspiration for his plays. Then, all he has to do to send them back into his imagination is cut the tape and burn it.

This is the origin story of Mary (and others in the episode as well), but he has difficultly getting his wife to believe this as she plans his commitment. And in the case of Mary, he has created a woman who fulfills his sentimental needs that his high fashioned wife neglects. Still, she has a mind of her own and questions her role in Gregory’s life as he keeps creating and destroying her.

Overall, this episode all about the imagination of a writer and how tempting imagination is over reality. More than that, it is an idea of using the power of imagination responsibly. Where Gregory could rewrite his life with every character he could ever want, he only uses it as a way to keep from being lonely. And yet, instead of finding a woman in the world he creates his partner to fit ideals he has learned through out his life. Most writers start this way. They start as children daydreaming about different lives surrounded by different people. And yet Matheson presents this idea in the form of a full grown man and established playwright. This adds a little humor to the scenario. It begs the questions of how many of us would spend time with our characters as flesh and blood instead of just the voices in our heads.

New Girl (Socalyalcon vi): Movies about Writing

Nick is preparing for the Southern California Young Adult Literature Conference and Jess is helping him. I wanted to do this episode as a blog especially because conferences, library appearances, and conventions are the indie-published author’s bread and butter.

Nick spends too much time deciding what he’s going to wear for an outdoor, tented event. I’ve never done that. Never ever. Ever. Okay, I have, but I live in a state will unbearable weather. You need to pick a top that will breath, but not show the sweat of the 110 degree weather.

The look of this made-up convention is legit. Rows of booths with single tables and different color schemes with people milling about, some in costume. As is it 2021 and there has not been one of these events in almost a year for me, I got weirdly nostalgic looking this over-crowded TV mimicry of what is essentially a chunk of my life.

What the TV show does not reveal is the strain of selling in an environment with people who are all in the same boat as you. There’s the conversations, the elevators talks, the short pitches, and the awkwardness. The wonderful, business awkwardness.

Image owned by Fox

New Girl (Young Adult): Movies about Writing

Let’s power through some more of these Nick as an author episodes of “New Girl” for the month of January. This episode has a lot going on (Schmidtt is hiring an assistant based on pretentious qualifications, Cece is starting the moving process, and Winston finds out his cat has been cheating on him with another family), but A-plot involves Jess trying to get her students to treat her the same way they did as a teacher now that’s she’s their principal. She finds in when she overhears several junior high girls discussing their love of Pepperwood after reading the copies Jess left in the school library. Quick note - again, how are these books surviving a single reading as we know they were just printer pages glued into cardboard?

Nick is going through writers block, yet is not welcoming the idea of catering to teenage girls. Then, when the young ladies express why they love his book, he gets excited about writing once again. However, Jess has to come to terms that her students want to discuss some heavy and adult subjects around her because of the book’s content. Wait. Why did she put copies in her school’s library? Are there angry parent phone calls? I feel like there would angry parent phone calls.

As a writer watching this episode, I get how the excitement of these young fans breaks Nick’s block. However, I don’t really agree with him bouncing ideas for future books off of them. That could get into some legal gray areas like fan fiction does.

As for Jess’s experience through this, she becomes “too cool” because she’s not the member of school staff who is roommate’s with the kids’ favorite author. Of course, she loses all authority and has to punish Nick and his tween girl fanbase. Nick then convinces the students to apologize for their behavior. This isn’t so much about writing, but I feel this is good lesson about dealing with teenagers.

Image belongs to Fox

New Girl (Glue): Movies about Writing

In the next episode in the saga of Nick Miller, writer, we find Nick in the attempts of self-printing. I am going to keep this one very short because otherwise my rants about the sheer ridiculousness of it will go on until doomsday.

Nick receives a publisher rejection and falls into despair. Reagan suggests self-publishing and printing the book himself after she finds a bookstore to sell them. Not in a normal, send to a professional printer and order a set number of copies way. Nope. That’s just too easy for a sitcom. Jess and Nick decide to MAKE THE BOOKS THEMSELVES! This involves a lot of glue that they get high off of the fumes from and then silliness is abound and sitcom shenanigans continue in their scripted sitcom ways.

I’m not focused on the shenanigans. I’m focused on the reality of this entire freakin’ scenario! Let us begin with the idea of a local bookstore agreeing to sell a book through a phone conversation and then requesting thirty copies! No bookstore would request THIRTY COPIES of a first-time author’s work unless it was part of a publishing/agency deal and no publisher or agent would take that risk with a first time author. No consignment allows for thirty copies. Especially from a small, local operation. They can’t afford to lose that much shelf space. As the owner of the bookstore saying in the episode, “Please, buy things. We’re dying.”

Let me explain the reality of the consignment process for those writers who have not delved into this yet. It usually starts with a contract that includes a long list of rules and conditions. These conditions generally includes a length of time they are willing to carry the title, information about what they will do with your unsold copies (do they get sent back to you, do they clearance them out, is there an expense for you to come get them, etc.), and how much they make off of the sale’s price of each copy sold. This document will then ask you to give all of the book’s information like the title, summary, author’s name, publication date, and ISBN. I don’t want to be condescending, but my point about the ISBN is going to come up again later, so I’m aware that most writers know what that is yet I’m going to explain it. Also that was a really long sentence that I’m not planning on fixing. The ISBN is like the social security number of a book. Only your title has that specific number and it is number you purchase or your publisher purchases for you as a part of your book. No book is legitimately published without out and technically does not exist in the sales world if it doesn’t have one.

This imaginary consignment of Nick’s book is also including a reading of the book the same night as the deal was made. What bookstore is going to ask for a reading from a new author that they have never met AND request that reading be the same day as the consignment? In the words of the tenth Doctor Who, “WHAT?!” You need time to advertise that crap! To build an interest and get people to come to the reading. Plus, most small bookstores don’t ask a new author to do a local reading until they’ve seen the book. Maybe we’re suppose to assume there was a cancellation becuase realistically no one should be coming to Nick’s unplanned, unadvertised, unknown book reading.

Now for the actual assembly of the book, a process as I stated previously Jess and Nick do themselves using printer paper and glue. HO-LY SHIT IS THIS UNREALISTIC!!!! The first time I saw this episode, I needed a drink. Upon re-watching, I need a sedative.

First, they literally just printed thirty paper copies of what looks like a 800 page book! That would cost more than just sending it to the printers. Plus, did the check their margins? Widows and orphans! DID THEY TURN OFF THE WIDOWS AND ORPHANS! I NEED TO KNOW THIS FOR MY OWN SANITY (see Sidney Reetz’s formatting guide if you are uncertain of what I speak). How are the pages staying together? They didn’t do them in folded chunks like a real book. It just looks like a stack of paper. Did they glue every sheet of paper together at the edge? Or did they just straighten the stack and glue the whole thing to the (what looks like) card stock cover?

Oh and let us discuss that cover. They have a drawing of a lobster in either crayon or colored pencil (it’s actually a good drawing, but it makes the book look more little kiddy or like one of those business books that are trying to trick people with common sense disguised as jargon). Then they have pasted on the title, the spine, and Nick’s name. The back cover is blank. No blurb (how will anyone know what the book is about?), publisher, and NO ISBN! How will the book be sold without an ISBN? No bookstore would take this! Nick would barely be able to sell that book out of the back of a creepy van without an ISBN! I mean, he could try, but most readers aren’t into creepy van purchases.

I said I’d keep this short so I’ll stop ranting now. Nick sells his first book to a 12 year old (then remembers that he wrote a graphic sex scene), Jess looks at pop-up books while high, happy ending, blah blah blah. Plot line to be continued.

New Girl (The Cubicle): Movies about Writing

Time to continue the tale of NIck Miller of the sitcom “New Girl” and his attempts at becoming a published author.

When last we left our slacker hero, he’d returned from New Orleans with his first completed manuscript about detective Julius Pepperwood. The episode entitle “The Cubicle” involves Nick trying to convince his girlfriend, Reagan, to actually read this finished product. There are of course other things happening in the episode. Jess is feeling guilty that her current boyfriend has to pay for hospital bills for an accident that was technically her fault. Cece is running her modeling agency from the loft living room (yes, she and Schmidt bought a house but they spend most of season 6 renovating it). And Winston accidentally recruits Cece’s only client for the police academy.

The episode starts with Nick suggesting he use Cece’s new client to be on the cover of his book and everyone agrees that the male model would make a great Gator. Reagan then asks why no use a real gator. The table gets very gaspy as they realize that she hasn’t read the book or she’d know that Gator is Pepperwood’s best friend… and a man, not a reptile. Winston declares that she must clear the next 24 hours. Nick says it’s no big deal, but the rest of the roommates peer pressure Reagan into take a hard copy of the novel and start reading.

Nick tells her, “Don’t feel any pressure to like it, even though I spent 7,000 hours writing it.” I tried calculate this into days which would mean he spent several years on it. This would he mean he was probably working on it off and on since season 2 (which is a common practice for me and several writers I know). Or the number was an exaggeration and I did math for nothing.

Anyway, he’s clearly nervous about her reading it and she’s clearly not very keen on reading it. They look for ways to put off her quiet time with the giant novel by helping Jess with the medical bill issue. Eventually, she goes back to reading and Nick starts by staring at her the whole time. Realizing he shouldn’t be doing this, he exits the room, then instantly comes back in when he realizes Jess is fighting with her boyfriend in the living room. When comes back to the bedroom where Reagan is reading she’s fast asleep with very few pages of the book turned. He then goes to hide in Cece’s cubicle and is joined by Jess.

“I’m taking the gin with me, though. Alcohol is kind of a cubicle for the insides.”

“Nick, you’re like a drunk Maya Angelou.”

“Not the first time I heard that.”

Nick and Reagan finally discuss her falling asleep on his book and she confesses that she’s never like fiction. But she also tells him that she wants to keep trying to read it. Nick agrees to read some of it out loud to her and she smiles, saying she’d like that. It’s a nice compromise where she still shows interest and he is hopefully able to do some editing (this isn’t a judgement I’m just always looking for ways to multitask).

This whole episode was about caring about the opinions of significant others and coming to terms with the artistic aspects of sharing. For me, it’s easier to have a stranger read my work then someone I love. Of course, I still want that person to buy my work. Let’s not be crazy here.

Image belongs to Fox… or Disney… or someone