New Girl (House Hunt): Movies about Writing

Continuing the journey of Nick Miller from New Girl (for the start of this plot line go back to the blog New Girl: Eggs).
This episode is all about changes of setting in adult life and a minor plot of it involves how those changes can lead to a successful writing endeavor. So yeah… This will be a short one.

While Jess watches her friends move on with their lives being serious long distance relationships and buying houses (hence the title), she struggles with the realization that (spoiler alert) she is not over roommate Nick. Nick has been away in New Orleans with his girlfriend Reagan (played by Megan Fox and I was weirdly impressed). When he shows up at home a month early, he’s excited to tell Jess something. Feeling far too awkward for excited attitude she flees. This is then followed by the usual sitcom shenanigans.

By the end of the episode, Jess decides she can avoid Nick forever when he reveals that he was writing 200 pages a day “by hand” in New Orleans (then the wind blew the pages away so he started over on a computer). And so Nick finally finished his first legitimate book in season 6 of the show.

The point I want to make in this episode and why I’m including it in this blog can be broken into 2 ideas. First that Nick was inspired by the change in scenery to finally finish something he started several seasons earlier. This is sometimes true for a specific book or even some writers. The other is - his pages blew away and HE STARTED OVER. That’s always the woooooorrrrrrrrsssssssstttttttt. It makes you feel like giving up and wanting to blow something up at the same time. Something big. That would would make a loud bang. But the show pointed out how he started again and learned that maybe he should back up files on a computer (but I don’t trust computers so I generally also back them up on a usb drive and send them in an email to friends…but that’s just me).

The Man Who Invented Christmas - Movies About Writing

Time for some more Dickens! Most of my friends know how I adore Dickens as a writer (but am conflicted with a few of his actions as a person like how he treated his wife). But this film a micro-biography. A look at an isolated time of his life long before all of that. I’m talking about when he wrote A Christmas Carol, a book I love so much I can recite it. Do you want to hear the open paragraphs about “dead as a doornail”? No. Oh. Okay. Then I guess I’ll just keep typing then.

The Man Who Invented Christmas is about the few weeks in which Dickens (played by Dan Stevens) worked to write, lasting holiday story in the midst of bankruptcy and dealing with his irresponsible father (played by Jonathan Pryce) who wants to be a part of his family life once again.

Before I get too far into the this blog, I do want to point out the only inaccurate historical detail in the film that drove me absolutely insane. John Dickens, Charles’s father, buys the family a pet raven as a sign of goodwill and holiday cheer, in the winter of 1843 when he’s writing A Christmas Carol. Here’s my issue with it. The real Dickens family had their pet raven years before that. Grip, the beloved pet raven, is featured heavily in Dickens’s 1841 novel Barnaby Rudge (which, yes, I’ve red. I’m that much of a fangirl plus I REALLY love ravens). Grip died that same year and Dickens replaced him with Grip II and eventually Grip III. These second and third ravens were not nearly as clever and fun as the original Grip and the children didn’t care much for them, but Dickens himself felt that ravens made the best pets and wanted to set an example. This had nothing to do with his father. Even so, I wish the movie had made a reference to the original Grip. the beloved raven that Dickens made a central character in one of his books (granted one of his hardest to get-through books but . . .)

Off my historian soapbox I get. Back to the film. There is so much I could say about this one involving the writing process and the life of an author. There’s Dickens facing ruin after his last two books didn’t sell well. There’s his weariness at facing the criticism of other writers like William Makepeace Thackeray (you know, the guy that wrote Vanity Fair). There is the way Dickens observes and takes notes on names and events around him in search of inspiration. The idea of deadlines keeping an author on task. And of course there are the little distractions in the midst of writer’s block like playing the concertina accordion. I think I need an accordion. But let us get down to writing A Christmas Carol itself and how it’s portrayed in the film.

The movie jumps between the reality of Dickens writing, the flashbacks of his troubled childhood, and his imaginary interactions with Scrooge the character. He draws upon the men he meets at his charity lectures and on the streets of London to develop the old miser, using direct quotes he hears from a “self-made” businessman who believes the poor would be better off dead. He is equally inspired by the supernatural Irish tales he overhears a maid telling his children.

When his publishers doubt that they could print such a book in time for Christmas, what is considered a minor holiday in Britain at this time, Dickens declares that he will self-publish. This is totally true. Dickens really did believe that Christmas should encourage charity and giving and he wanted this new book to inspired people in time for that holiday. Therefore, he printed it at his own expense (which he didn’t even do in a cheap way when he insisted that his book be a hardcover with a gilt title). By the way, Dickens aficionado Simon Callow (see the Unquiet Dead blog) has a cameo as the book designer Leech. Charles’s friend John Forster (played by Justin Edwards) advises him against his, but still goes along with the idea. Historian note: Forster was well-known in his own right as a newspaper literary critic. I don’t think he was Dickens’s business manager like the movie shows, but they were close friends and he owned several original manuscripts that Dickens gave to him.

The best parts of the film are when Dickens interacts with a Christopher Plummer Scrooge and the other characters of his novella portrayed by the people who inspired them. This includes how Tiny Tim came from the illness of his nephew Henry Burnett Jr. (the son of his older sister and a popular singer, Fanny, a name also used in A Christmas Carol for Scrooge’s kind sister). Sadly, in reality both Fanny and Henry Jr. would die in 1848 so their being included in the movie feels rather bittersweet.

Most authors do have a way of speaking to their characters or at least being forced to listen to them. However, I’ve yet to have Christopher Plummer show up in my office. Maybe I’m doing something wrong.

Image belongs to Parallel Films and Rhombus Media. Dan Stevens and Christopher Plummer as Dickens and Scrooge respectively

Christmas in Connecticut: Movies about Writing

I know this might seem like a strange choice, but I love this movie and it is technically about a writer. Now, please keep in mind I am talking about the 1945 feel-good-while-there’s-a-war-going-on picture NOT the remake that Arnold Schwarzenegger directed.

This is about a woman name Elizabeth Lane, played by the amazing female icon Barbara Stanwyck. She is such an icon that I can spell her name correctly every time, where as every time I’ve typed “Connecticut” in this blog I’ve needed to double check it. Lane writes a wildly popular home and cooking article for a magazine all about her quaint Connecticut farm life with her husband and new baby. She gives detailed recipes that make cooking sound romantic and fun.

The problem is Elizabeth Lane ACTUALLY lives in an urban apartment, dresses in the latest fashions, does not keep house, does not have a husband or baby, and can’t cook. All of her recipes comes from her Uncle Felix (S.Z. “Cuddles” Sakall) who owns/runs a top-rated restaurant. Quick soap box side note: The movie is from 1945 so of course all of the main characters are white. However, something I noticed as an adult is how the director inserted a little scene of Felix, a Hungarian man who struggles with English at times, goes to his waiter Sam (played by Emmett Smith, an African American actor who spent most of his career playing train porters and jungle tribesmen) for definitions of words he doesn’t understand. Sam gives him an exact definition and origins of the word and I can’t help feeling like this was a little bit of a screw you to the racist standards of the time. Okay, tangent done! Back to the story.

Lane is forced by her publisher (Sydney Greenstreet) to invite himself and a soldier, named in the tradition of WWII propaganda homespun Americana, Jefferson Jones (Dennis Morgan) , to her house for Christmas. Feeling like her job and the job of her editor are at stake, Elizabeth finally accepts the marriage proposal of wealthy architect friend, John Sloan (Reginald Gardiner) who REALLY DOES have a farm in Connecticut. And then the usual comedic foibles take place complete with mixed-up borrowed babies, pancakes on the ceiling, and jokes about a cow’s rump. Through all of this, Elizabeth is falling in love with the soldier, but wants her publisher to think she’s married to Sloan (who keeps trying to sneak a judge into the house so they can be legally married before Christmas).

Images belong to Warner Bros.

As writers go, one thing that stands out to me in this is how all of Elizabeth’s fans remember what she wrote in her column better than she does. She writes for a serialized publication and includes details that even she can’t keep track of for her made-up life. I love this as a writing detail, because first is shows an example of fandom and second it show how writer sometimes can’t remember what they wrote.

There is also how she writes about cooking using her uncle’s recipes. She says that someday she’ll learn to cook and Felix tells her that she won’t like it. He points out that she will discover that it’s not the same as how she writes about it and better to stick with cooking on the typewriter. As far as stereotypes of 40s women go, this is important. She is a writer, not a domestic person, and Felix knows this. He doesn’t try to change her or push her to be the good little woman. He knows that’s she should just keep writing, because real cooking would not make her happy. I associate with this because every time I have to cook anything that takes longer than 20 minutes, I think “I could be using this time for writing. Ug. If only I didn’t need to eat to live. What a waste.”

Barbara Stanwyck at her typewriter

Doctor Who (Unquiet Dead): Movies about Writing

What? A Doctor Who episode about Charles Dickens! Okay, twist my arm.

For those you are clearly not friends with me, Doctor Who is the longest running science fiction show about a time traveling alien who can regenerate and collects companions for the many adventures. Oh. I just made it sound creepy. Well. . . it is British therefore the budget on some of the special effects are creepy in their cheapness.

“The Unquiet Dead” is an early episode from show’s revival the mid-2000s. The Doctor (played for a single season by Christopher Eccelston, remember him) and his new companion Rose (Billie Piper before I found she had been a pop star) arrive in Victorian England during the holiday season in time to see Charles Dickens do a reading of his classic A Christmas Carol. Dickens is played by Simon Callow, a Dickens aficionado who has played the role before on the lives stage.

Dickens, by the way, really did travel the country doing live readings throughout his life. He loved the theater and believed that drama helped sell his books. However, this particular reading is interrupted by the figure of a blue-face old woman who is revealed to be a walking corpse.

As this is Doctor Who, the dead woman is not a zombie, but a body inhabited by a gaseous alien in search of a host. The alien race has taken residence in the gas lamps of a funeral parlor, the owner and maid of which are at a complete loss as to how to cover up the incident. The maid, played by Eve Myles (which is a another Doctor Who tangent I could go off on), has a connection to the aliens (the Gelth) through her sixth sense abilities.

Dickens insists on helping with the mystery, at first declaring it all illusion. Dear old Boz may have written about ghosts, but didn’t really believe in them. He questions whether his lifetime of work was truly the change he wanted it to be if the world was so much bigger. He tries to stick to his sense of reality as he points out his objections to spiritualists of the era. Authors and celebrities were often against the popular mediums of the day using tricks to make people believe they could speak to the dead. These performers were seen by many as taking advantage of the grieving.

The episode focuses a lot on the connection between the maid and the Gelth. Still, the writers made sure to repeatedly show the intelligence of Charles Dickens. Once he does accept the reality of the Gelth, he understands the concept of beings from another world pretty quickly. The Doctor repeatedly praises Dickens’s brilliance, but he does take a moment to criticize the “America” scene from Martin Chuzzlewit (which really is fair - Dickens writes about 1800s USA as if it’s a third world country). Dickens takes offense to the single criticism which is less than fair.

Instead of going into more and spoiling the whole episode, one last note on Charles Dickens depicted in this television show. The show does like so many time traveling shows do and expression Dickens’s desire to use the adventure as inspiration for his latest novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood. But the most significant is the quote when thinking like a writer in the below image.

Christmas Getway: Movies about Writing

This is not meant to insult anyone, but Hallmark Christmas movies are not my cup of tea. Sure, they were a cute, guilty pleasure to watch with the moms when this trend first stared WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL. But it’s now been twenty years of the same formula being released under twenty-five different titles each year. I get that they are mindless, non-anxiety causing entertainment, but come on! No one needs hundreds of these things. Calm the hell down, Hallmark! Also, when are they going to start incorporating some other December holidays like Kwanzaa and Hanukkah? Where’s “Have a little Imani in Me” or “The Man who came with Dreidel ”? I want one completely based around Yule where the characters fall in love while burning crap and dancing naked in the snow! But no. That’s not Hallmark’s demographic. I’m not Hallmark’s demographic. So… this will probably be painful.

I was already off to a great start when I was only two and a half minutes in when my boyfriend heard the music and dialogue from another room and accusingly shouted, “Are you watching a Hallmark movie?”

I picked Christmas Getaway because it’s about a travel writer (a subject I haven’t explored in this blog yet) and it stars Bridget Regan who I remembered from “Legend of the Seeker”. The plot involves her going to write about an old fashioned American Christmas in a town called Pine Cove. Pine Cove appears to be a mountain town where affluent white people in perfectly fitted winter coats. At the same time, a widower/divorcee (maybe I should have been paying more attention) played by someone named Travis van Winkle has come to Pine Cove in order to give his daughter and mother a special Christmas. I know these characters must have names, but I haven’t learned any except that the single father is Dad.

The movie got an ominous feel when the little girl goes to play outside and her dad calls out that he loves her. He says it like it’s a goodbye! Is she coming back? Don’t go out that door, little girl! Your father has clearly set up rabbit snares to get out of the way! And then he will have all of the Christmas cheer to himself (insert evil laugh). Oh wait, the kid survives.

And then, oh no, the two main characters have been accidentally booked into the same cabin and there are no other places available! Who could have possibly seen that coming? Anyone who saw any other Hallmark movie. That’s who.

The writer tries to start on a book she’s been playing with about her travel experiences and all of the world traditions she’s experienced, however she is distracted by the warm glow of family bonding created by the father and daughter. She decides to use them as the central point of her “old fashioned Christmas” article. They go to cut down their own tree at a farm that let’s people do that. . . without signing a waiver first.

This followed by ice skating, decorating, cookies, making snowmen, gingerbread house building, and other montage worthy events set to generic holiday music. Like one song would stop, then another would instantly began. I started to have retail PTSD. The idea of all this happy memory making is that the writer has worked every Christmas on assignment (which she technically still is so. . . what was the point again?). I guess that she’s with people? But honestly, I’d imagine a travel writer who knows so many traditions from other countries probably got invited to a few strangers’ holidays before that. I seriously can’t imagine that she was in a place like Italy at Christmas and didn’t get awkwardly invited to someone’s house for dinner.

The travel writer’s boss/best friend says that the writer and the single dad clearly have a thing because “you can’t fake chemistry”. This quote made me laugh out loud as it feels like what the director of every one of these movies has to scream at the actors on set.

Eventually all of this jaunty public domain music and holiday sap inspire the travel writer to. . . you know . . . write. Personally, if I had a paid vacation to a cabin the woods with hot chocolate I might get some writing done too. That is, if my allergies don’t try to kill me like the last time I tried writing in a cabin in the woods. I think I did more dreaming about writing in my antihistamine haze, but we saw a bear!

Okay, back to the movie. The writer expresses how shThers feeling inspired to finish the book by settling in one place for a while. Of course, she tells this to the eligible single father before they (gasp) nearly kiss. Side note:They still haven’t kissed! There’s 30 minutes left of this thing? uggggg, but my squirrel instincts want to look at interesting shinies. Bored!

Therefore, let’s wrap this up. Guy loses girl through misunderstanding. Girl decides to get guy anyway through magic of Christmas. I think a car had the safest spin out on an icy road EVER. Blah blah blah. Back to the writing stuff. Turns out the trip was a ploy by the main character’s boss/best friend so she could take a break and get some emotion back into her writing. That was nice, but the rest of unbelievably sap-tastic and I’m going to go throw up now. It will be festive. I promise.

Knives Out: Movies about Writing

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.

New Girl (Pepperwood): Movies about Writing

Time to continue the sage of Nick Miller’s writing career on “New Girl”. If you are wondering what I’m talking about, check out the previous blog New Girl (Eggs).

In this episode, Jess is feeling triumphant when one of the adult students in her fiction writing class finally comes up with some decent (albeit repetitive) imagery. At first Nick scoffs at this saying, real writers don’t need classes or need to read (which is why he has yet to write anything decent). He also calls the story “amateur hour” due to the simplistic font. This made me laugh and took me back to the simpler time. When I was twelve and trying my first hand at writing a novel, I stuck mainly to Time New Roman, but there were so many pretty fonts to be used in-between. Comic Sans, Papyrus, Baskerville, and Chiler all must have looked like they were trying to gang up on the reader and shout “Boo” with the way these random fonts appeared. Sigh.

Nick reads this student’s story and instantly feels concern when he realizes that the violent description of the main character stalking then killing a large-eyed deer is talking about Jess. She rights this off as him being dumb so Nick does the Nick-thing and comes to her class. He announces himself as “Julius Pepperwood, ex-cop, ex-marine, from Chicago”.

Before going on I should point out that this episode isn’t so much about the writing process as it is about finding inspiration for writing. As usual, spoilers ahead.

Property of Fox

After Nick makes a murder board of drawings the student has of a large eyed deer covered in blood, Jess gets upset that he’s going ruin the only relationship with a student she currently has. The pair go to the home of this student using less-than-stealthy techniques. They are instantly freaked out by the man’s mysterious locked shed and large duffel bag. Of course, this leads to hilarious misunderstandings, discovering that the student is actually working on a graphic novel and Jess had the look he needs for the victim character.

At the end, Nick actually starts writing a new novel based on their investigative teamwork - about Julius Pepperwood, zombie detective and his partner Jessica Night. This is going to be the basis of the rest of Nick’s work throughout the show and lead him to a successful writing career (hey, it’s a TV show and it could happen).

The common theme between both the writing student and Nick is the idea of taking inspiration from life, then learning when it’s TOO CLOSE TO LIFE. Nick even states that the character of Jessica Night is a “work in progress” suggesting he’ll make her less like his real-life friend as he goes (he doesn’t, but the point is the inspiration).

Some writers love taking directly from life. Some like taking directly from experience. And some like amalgams, drawing inspiration from various people and experiences to help create something original. Even in a zombie detective novel, real life experience or observation needs to be drawn upon to make a good story.

Of course, as Nick points out, Zombies don’t really need detectives since they are already dead. Work in progress.

Auntie Mame: Movies about Writing

Auntie Mame is one of my favorite films of all time so this blog was probably just an excuse to watch it again. This 1958 film isn’t entirely about being a writer, but the subject does take up the entire third act of the plot. Auntie Mame the movie is based on a book by Patrick Dennis and then a popular play. The stories are mostly fictional, but he wanted to make them sound true so he used the character’s name as a pen name (the author’s real name was Edward Everett Tanner III and Auntie Mame was loosely based on an actual aunt he had). Just to show how this was a runaway hit, the book was written in 1955 and by 1958 they already had a major motion picture.

First, the main story: Patrick Dennis (played by Jan Handzlik, then Roger Smith as older Patrick) is sent to live with his Bohemian Auntie Mame (Rosalind Russell the fabulous) after his uptight alcoholic father dies. The nine year old is exposed to new words, bootleggers, fancy parties, New York actors, Asian culture, modern art and philosophy, how to make a good martini, and other ideals considered eccentric in the late 1920s. However, despite it being an odd environment for a child, his aunt adores him, lavishing attention and time on the youngster.

This surprises all of Mame’s friends who have never seen her ever-changing interests so focused with so much love. That is, until her deceased brother’s lawyer demands Patrick be sent to boarding school. Mame is forced to agree and cannot fight against the lawyer when the stock market crashes. In the midst of the Great Depression, the fun-loving Mame gets a job and from there more antics ensue. I’m not going to give away the whole middle part of the story, so let’s just skip to the part where she become a writer.

Because this is the last part of the film, there will be some SPOILERS! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

After the accidental death of her husband, an oil tycoon with a heart of gold (one way you know this is fiction), college-aged Patrick wants to keep Mame distracted with a new project. With the help of family friends Lindsay (a publisher played by Patric Knowles) and Vera (an actress played by Coral Browne) they set-up Mame with a Dictaphone, typewriter, and personal secretary, the frumpy and naive Agnes Gooch (Peggy Cass). Agnes is at first at a loss to be thrust into the eccentricities of the Mame Dennis life, begrudgingly calling herself the “sponge”, but eventually grows envious of all the excitement she has never experienced herself. Lindsay declares the book will be a bestseller, however Vera is an immediate skeptic, pointing out that Mama has “never finished a postcard” so how could she finish her own autobiography.

This brings up my first “writer observation” in this film. Patrick wants his aunt distracted from her loss (and probably a bit from his social life) therefore he sets up everything he thinks she will need from the get-go, including hired help to keep her on-task. Personally, I would feel weird having a woman following me around, writing down my every word, but maybe it’s different for rich people. Either way, he tries to keep her excited for her new project and not make it seem like a chore to just keep her from being a mourning widow. There is also the check-ins from Lindsay to keep Mame on track. I love writing check-ins, the guilt of when I haven’t met my goals makes me work harder.

Joining Mame and Ages is a collaborator, which is really a fancy word for in-house editor in this case. Enter poet Brian O'Bannion (Robin Hughes), an attractive Bohemian in his own right. O’Bannion’s pretentious style of creativity is really more of an excuse for him to hang around Mame’s apartment drinking her fancy alcohol and eating her fine food (among other activities hinted at, but not stated out-right; must keep to the Hays Code you know).

O’Bannion is THAT GUY - all creative circles have one. Fellow artists, you know what I’m talking about. THAT GUY is the one who says things like “court the muse” with complete seriousness. THAT GUY is one who finds any writing style not his own to be “drab”. THAT GUY who criticizes anyone who uses a specific style of notebook or band of pen. Even as a child watching this movie, I did not like Brian O’Bannion. As an adult, I can only tolerate this real-like counterparts in short doses.

Eventually, Mame also gets tired of O’Bannion, realizing that he isn’t doing much to help her work and pouts when he doesn’t get his way. I never really understood the idea of having hired him since Mame’s character is well-read and cultured. They could have had one of Lindsay’s editors looked over the book with her. This is what they probably ended up doing after Brian disappears following a night on the town with a drunk Agnes - a plot line which is better for you to see in the movie than have me relate to you.

The final observation I want to make on the process of Mame writing her book is how proud everyone is when it is finally published. When Lindsay show up with the first copy, Mame announces, “Look everyone! I’m in print just like Edna Ferber!” This is a good joke on being excited about publication as Ferber was a famous screenwriter, member of the Algonquin Round Table humor group, and a PULITZER PRIZE WINNING AUTHOR. Sometimes just being published makes you feel like an instant success.

Image belongs to Warner Bros. Here’s Mame (Rosalind Russell), Agnes (Peggy Cass), and Brian (Robin Hughes) in the writing process.

The Muppets (Bear Left then Bear Write): Movies about Writing

Anyone who knows me is well aware of my adoration for this group of cloth characters and their brand of humor. It only stands that I would have one of these blogs using one of their many enterprises. Sadly, this is from one of the shorter live Muppet shows (which you can blame the Mouse for the per-emptive cancellation - I really don’t get why Disney bought the Muppets when they don’t use them for anything good).

For those who missed this one: “The Muppets" was a late night, mockumentary sitcom about a late night talk show hosted by Miss Piggy and produced by her ex-boyfriend Kermit the Frog, think of it as “30 Rock” meets “The Office”. The other Muppets plays supporting roles as the shows writers and staff (save for Statler and Waldorf who sit every night in the audience making fun of the show for some traditions must be upheld). This concept also gave them the opportunity to easily insert human guest stars such as Elizabeth Banks, Dave Grohl, Mindy Kahling, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, and Joseph Gordan Levitt. The plots were mostly satirical humor, but the relationship between Kermit and Piggy actually was used for a small amount of drama that somehow worked in the format. But greatest of all was the use of Uncle Deadly as Piggy’s wardrobe manager and shoulder to “hi-ya” to.

Quick side note: Uncle Deadly, who those who don’t know, was a character created for the Vincent Price episode of the original “Muppet Show”. He was meant to be suave and creepy. Re-imagining him as a fashion guru was possibly the best idea the writers of this show had because the further you get into the episodes, the more amazing his lines are. To this day, the Uncle Deadly twitter account gives biting fashion advise and lets claws out.

Image property of Disney - Uncle Deadly with Gloria Estefan the penguin

This episode focuses mostly on Kermit and Fozzie Bear. Fozzie’s job on the show is to warm up the audience with jokes, then announce Piggy’s entrance, but he wants to be a part of the writing staff (which is led by Gonzo, Pepe, and Rizzo). Kermit spends the first first minutes of the episode avoiding Fozzie because the bear has written a skit so bad, he doesn’t even know how to spin it a form of constructive criticism. Most of all, he’s worried Fozzie will want the stinker script performed on the show. In hopes of sparing his friend’s feelings, Kermit lies saying that Fozzie should take time to flesh out the skit into a movie script because he thinks would make a better motion picture.

Fozzie, out of trust and love of his friend, takes this advice literally and quits the show to work on a movie full time. Kermit reveals the truth in hopes of getting Fozzie to take his job back, but this also backfires. Fozzie becomes determined to prove Kermit wrong and that he can write a fantastic film by going into the woods with no supplies. His logic is that bears should be inspired by the great outdoors.

Interestingly, while all of this is going on the actual writers on the show are having a conversation about whether the President lives in the White House or the Wide House, to which Gonzo responds that if they’re having this talk, maybe they shouldn’t be writing political humor. A write what you know joke! You don’t hear those too often.

SPOILERS ALERT: In the end, Kermit tells Fozzie they will put the skit on the air, pointing out that they can edit and work on it together to make it camera ready (and not stink). This is what Kermit should have done in the first place. Constructive criticism people! Never just tell a writer that something sucks. These are artist. Artistic personality can be broken very easily. There have been times I’ve thought of wandering into the woods and stealing campers food in justification of my own work that other have told me was bad. Okay, not quite that, but I might try it next time. You can just outright reject something, especially a first draft. There is always something good within a piece of writing that could be worked on.

And now - back to watching the Muppets.

Image property of the “Mouse”. Here’s Fozzie and Kermit discussing the script at Rowlf’s bar

The Shining: Movies about Writing

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir: Movies about Writing

Time for a movie about creative collaboration! Except that this one is about a writing project between a recently deceased sea captain and a Edwardian widow.

First, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is a part of a film education by my mom from a young age. I highly recommend it if you like character studies and unusual ideas of love. Gene Tierney plays Lucy Muir, a woman who feels suffocated by the family of her late husband. In a bid for independence, she uses money from a mine her husband invested in and moves into a seaside cottage with her maid and daughter (played by Edna Best and Natalie Wood respectively). Before even renting the house, Mrs. Muir discovers that it’s haunted by the previous owner, Captain Daniel Gregg (Rex Harrison), who has made it his afterlife’s mission to scare people away from his home. He’s bitter that his accidental death by gas was ruled as a suicide and wants to keep his swarthy, uncouth ways even with women in the house (there’s a lot of argument about the language he uses).

Instead of being frightened, Lucy finds her new living arrangements fascinating and calls out the ghost in an attempt to reason with him. Captain Gregg is equally fascinated by her quick responses and the demands she makes of him - a spirit. Their shared love of the house also allows them to start understanding each other, although Lucy still demands that the Captain not allow himself to be seen by her daughter Anna (by the end of the movie you find out that he broke that promise constantly in order to tell Anna marine-time stories at bedtime).

Before I go on with this and get to the part of the movie about books, writing, and publishing, I want to point out something strange to me. Several years ago a company reprinted the book by R.A. Dick which was the basis for the film. Naturally, I read it. And I did not like it! This very rarely happens that the movie was better but- Holy crap! THE MOVIE WAS BETTER! In the movie, Lucy craves independence and could survive on her own and the captain fosters that within her. At the same time, she very logical about her life. She loves her daughter and mourns her husband who was a good man, although she never really loved him, and wants her life to be on her own terms even with a ghost in the house. The book had this as a main idea at first, but as it kept going, she was constantly fighting with her son (a character left out of the film), almost abandons her life for a man she barely knows, and goes back to being passive about most decisions she makes. I did not like Lucy in the book, where as in the movie she was someone I admired as little girl. The movie was better. So there.

Back to the plot! Lucy finds out that her investment is no longer paying out and is likely the lose the house. Captain Gregg, deciding he wants her to stay, declares that they will write a book together based on his life experiences. His confident that his time at sea was sensational enough to become a bestseller and supplement Lucy’s income.

Their collaboration on the book is what I want to discuss first. It involves a great deal of the captain dictating while Lucy (whom he calls Lucia) types and gives criticism. This involves her having to use language she disapproves of (a mysterious 4 letter word that she declares conveys a meaning that she has never had to use a word for). Each time he gives an action, she will ask him questions, beta reading as they go.

Most collaborations involve both parties creating, but since she is essentially the ghost writer for the ghost Lucy is in the role of editor. Her comments and questions help keep him on track and make the story of his “unvarnished life” clear to a reader who has never met him (and never will since he’s dead and all). He tells her to “change the grammar all you please, but leave the guts”.

Writing and editing as you go is hard, but it’s but easier when there is another person in the room. The only problem with this is that when it’s time to argue about plot or sentence structure you are right there in it. You can’t take some breathing room. The difference her is that two fictional characters are falling in love as they write a book together and learning about each other. Most people who agree to collaborate on something already know one another and have an idea of each person’s styles and preferences. And even then collaborators argue. The movie make this whole process seem so nice and full of friendly banter. It’s the only “creation” they can have together and therefore the writing process is romantic endeavor. I have never found the writing process particularly romantic. More hair pulling. But, hey Hollywood. You do you.

Lucy takes the book to a publisher who refuses to see her, believing she has written a cookbook or something equally “feminine”. Enter the rake! George Sanders shows up as a children’s book author named Miles Fairley. He helps her get in the door as a way to flirt. Of course, when the publisher at last reads the manuscript Blood and Swash, he is instantly taken with it and reads it all in one sitting (because that’s realistic). He still doesn’t believe she wrote the book and Mrs. Muir doesn’t correct him and they credit it to the pseudonym Captain X.

This idea that women or people of specific backgrounds only write one genre is still around today. Most people expect a book written by a woman to be romantic which is why so many fantasy and science fiction writers use pen names that are male or simply made up initials.

Even Mrs. Muir thinks she must have dreamed the book when she questions her own sanity about the captain’s ghost. For how could a good Edwardian lady ever write anything so scandalous!

Gothic: Movies about Writing

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.

Crimson Peak: Movies about Writing

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

The Addams Family (Morticia, the Writer): Movies about Writing

In the early to mid 1960s, TV families adhered to strict code. “Ozzie and Harriet”, “Leave It to Beaver”, and even “The Beverly Hillbillies” expected the nuclear American family to be made up of perfectly groomed children and a husband and wife to always sleep in separate beds (they were also all white, but that’s a rant for a different day). Their culture ad worldview never went far from the picket fence surrounding their manicure suburban lawn. Then came “The Addams Family”. Unlike the Munsters, they were not monsters but humans who lived a supremely naive and happy existence believing the world to be as excepting and strange at them (sorry, Munsters fans, but I always found them to be kinda snobby). Besides being the first TV family where the mother and father slept in the same bed (however they were forbidden from ever showing both people in the bed at the same time), the Addams clan generally showed kindness to everyone they met. The problem was that their ideas of kindness were often misinterpreted.

One reason why I love re-watching the original TV show is because of the relationship between Gomez (John Astin) and Morticia (Caroline Jones). They are both dedicated stay-at-home parents (when told the children will have attend school Gomez declares that he’ll be lost without them) who are madly in love, but also share and discuss almost everything as equal partners. The only time this doesn’t happen is when it’s to create a comedic foible of a plot like Morticia thinking their broke because she mishears Gomez on the telephone and doesn’t want him to know that she’s worried. Morticia is a housewife, but she is also an artist, an amateur botanist, knows fencing and modern culture, and is highly intelligent. Gomez never does the “no wife of mine” routine, instead acting as her encouragement. However, as Morticia really runs the house and Gomez relies on her for most things, I think the writers ran into issues keeping this subtle. TV at the time said the “man was the head of the house”. I imagine that had to start writing more to keep this sort of free thinking in check and it shows how a story like the episode I’m about to summaries comes about in retro TV.

SPOILERS AHEAD

“Morticia, the Writer” is an episode in the second season where they revisit an upset from the very first episode - fairy tales. The Addams Family is appalled that the killing of sweet dragons and the oven roasting of hospitable witches could be allowed in children’s books. Morticia decides she’ll write new fairy tales to offer as a school reading alternative. She sets up a writing space and typewriter in the cave located under the Addams’s home. I like this cave. It comes complete with a lever for turning the echo on or off and a creepy cousin who just lets out a joyful, crazed laugh when addressed. Mortiicia declares it’s the closest thing they have to a lonely garret (note: the house does have a garret, but it’s where Lurch the Butler apparently does clay modeling).

This episode makes me think of NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month - Look it up if you’re out of the loop). Morticia kicks Gomez and all other distractions out of the cave, determined to meet a deadline she has set for herself. She doesn’t leave for food, sleep, or making out with her husband. She states, “all work and no play gets books done” - Seriously, I want to ask Stephen King if that’s why he put that in the Shining? Gomez observes that Louisa May Alcott must have looked this obsessive when writing Little Women. Sort of a strange book for an Addams to reference, but they are a cultured, well-read family. Plus, Alcott wrote a lot of thrillers and short ghost stories in her career so it actually makes sense when you think about it.

Morticia actually finishes her first novel in 2 days, 10 hours, and 37 minutes. My jealousy know no bounds. I can barely finish my 50,000 words during November (and that was before I had a full time job). At first, Gomez is his usual supportive self, clearing their shelves of Dickens and Gibbon to make room for everything she is going to write. Then, Uncle Fester (played by former child star Jackie Coogan who had an interesting life) points out that if she becomes a best seller, she’ll go on book tours and Gomez won’t be able to go along when the children are in school.

He is furthered worried when Morticia only takes a 10 minute break between books and, of course, wants to use that time to tell Gomez about her novel “Cinderella, the Teenage Delinquent” (which I want to read). In a moment of weakness, Gomez is convinced by Uncle Fester to change the novel so all of the traditional fairy tale elements are put back in. They believe that this will cause the publisher to turn down the book and his marriage will be saved. Gomez does feels guilty, but still continues to do it. This is possibly one of the most anxiety ridden plots of anything about a writer. Stop editing without the authors final say! It feels like watching your favorite book be waterdown and rewritten as a movie (I’m looking at you - Ella Enchanted the movie!).

The publisher shows up at their house to praise Morticia for the book she doesn’t realize Gomez changed. Excited about being in print, Morticia gets back writing by having her dinner served on TV trays (I love a good TV tray - I should note that I don’t own a kitchen table) and not seeing Gomez despair over what he did. Then the publisher returns to show her the first copy and Morticia is finally able to read what was published.

Thinking it was the editors at the publishing company she declares, “Mr. Boswell and his hired assassins have ruined my work!” I love this lament. I think I’ll say it the next time Microsoft Word tries to autocorrect me.

Gomez does finally fess up when copies of the altered book really do wind up in Wednesday and Pugley’s required school reading. Mortica chooses to see this as proof that the “only thing publishers will print is junk”. I won’t comment on that line. I’ll just leave it right here for all of you authors to enjoy.

Image copyright of MGM and 20th Century Fox. Caroline Jones as Morticia Addams

Family Guy (Brian Writes a Bestseller): Movies about Writing

I’m going to assume everyone knows the premise of the adult cartoon “Family Guy”, but just-in-case the basic idea is a series of random events occurring to Peter, his wife Lois, their teenage son Chris, their emotionally abused daughter Meg, their British-accented baby Stewie, and their pretentious talking dog Brian. It’s been on for years, I promise you. Most of the characters are voiced by creator Seth McFarlane so I’m not going to give you the whole cast list. You can look it on imdb.com if you’re curious.

“Brian Writes a Bestseller” comes from season 9 (see I told you it’s been on for a long time). An ongoing theme has been Brian the dog wanting to be a professional writer. The episode opens with his only published work, a drama with a plot suspiciously similar to the film Iron Eagle entitled Faster Than the Speed of Love, being sent to him. His publisher has given up on the novel and mailed 300 boxes worth of copies to the author. The joke about his failure goes a step further when Stewie realizes the copies of the book are packaged within shredded additional copies of the same book. At least, Brian declares defeat and swears he will give up writing.

First of all - ouch! What kind of contract did he have with this publisher? I know it was all a gag for opening of the episode, but. . . oh man. Just ouch.

In a fit of rage, Brian complains how all of the “crap” on the bestseller list is currently self-help fodder that he could churn out in three hours of writing time. Stewie (who I would like to remind you is a devious baby with a thick U.K. accent and several doomsday devices in his toy box) happily encourages Brain to try this writing exercise. Brian finishes Wish It, Want It, Do It in 3 hours and 27 minutes, referring to it as a “big steaming pile of book”.

Off topic, but I have referred to some of my books in their first draft phase with similar monikers. There’s one my boyfriend and I still call “the gilded turd” because upon first edit I discovered it wasn’t AS BAD as I originally thought - but still not great. He’s never actually read it. He just calls it that based on my own self-criticism and complaining. . . and I never told him the real title.

In case you can’t tell from the episode title, Wish It, Want It, Do It becomes an immediate success after it’s published by Penguin (for you book nerds, there’s a sex joke about the Big Five company about 4 minutes into the episode then again right before the 11 minute mark). Brian hires Stewie to be his overzealous publicist. It takes no time for Brian to become a nightmare celebrity who takes out all of his aggression on Stewie. He also tries to use his fame to hit on women, but mostly it creeps them out. Yes, human women. The dog dates human women - mostly blondes. Don’t. . . don’t think about that one too hard. Either way, you get where this episode is going. Let’s move on.

Personally, I’ve yet to have the opportunity to become a garbage human being thanks to fame, but I can relate to the idea of writing to a trend in hopes of building a name in the business. This concept is something all established authors tell you not to do, but everyone tries it anyway. I’ve know people who have tried to ride the vampire trend, the werewolf trend, the erotica trend, the historical romance trend, etc. What happens most times, is the writer gets bored because it’s not the story he or she wants to be working. Now, if it’s something that can be churned out in 3 an a half hours and published without editing and published without edits, that’s different. But that’s also why “Family Guy” is a cartoon.

New Girl (Eggs): Movies about Writing

Time for another TV show - “New Girl”. I’ll probably do a few blogs about this one as I have quite a few comments about various episodes.

For today, though, I’m just focusing on “Eggs” from season 2. For those unfamiliar with the show: it’s about a quirky teacher named Jess (Zooey Deschanel), who lives with recovering douchebag/OCD overachiever Schmidt (Max Greenfield), former Eastern European basketball player/idealistic weirdo Winston (Lamorne Morris), and eternal screw-up bartender/potential love interest Nick (Jake Johnson. Other regulars on the show include Hannah Simone playing Jess’s model best friend Cece, who Schmidt pines for, and occasionally Damon Wayans Jr. as Coach, a former roommate uncomfortable with Jess’s outward displays of emotion. Not sure if Coach is in any of the episodes I’m going to be covering here - by Damon Wayans Jr. is hilarious in this show. Just saying.

The episode itself is about being an “adult” and a sense of creation. That description makes it sound semi-deep, but you’ll see what I mean. The whole thing opens on Jess and CeCe toasting their gynecologist friend and her wife announcing that they are pregnant. Nick sits with them, getting steadily more uncomfortable as the discussion turns to how many eggs the women have remaining and chances of getting pregnant being more difficult after 30. The main plot of the episode becomes about Jess freaking out that she’d going to miss the chance to be a mom. In addition, there’s a whole side plot about Schmidt banging his boss (Carla Gugino) which is funny, but really has no bearing on this blog. Apologies to Schmidt’s gross plot line.

The other large event within the episode Nick being inspired to finally write the zombie novel he’s been talking about for a long time. This burst of energy comes from him seeing Winston at his new nightly radio station job, amazed by how responsible and “take charge” his friend suddenly is within his own life.

Here is one of the best writing jokes in the episode is placed. Nick accuses Winston in doubting his ability to finish a novel. Winston replies “Sometimes I get the feeling that you don’t want to write.” The audience is treated to a flashback of Nick with scraggly facial hair subtly pushing a laptop to the floor and throwing his hands up in defeat when it breaks.

This is a truth of writing. One of the hardest parts is STARTING. Just sitting down and staying focused to complete an entire plot. Scene will come to you and there will be this feeling of invisibility. Then, you hit a wall. More experienced writers will usually skip that wall and continue with what they can to keep the pace going, returning to problem areas later. But when a lot of people write a first novel, they the let the walls block them completely. I like that show was trying to make a joke about both what a slacker Nick is, but also how difficult starting a large project can be.

Winston promises to be the first to read Nick’s novel and attempts to encourage him by saying “Just sit down and write!. You ain’t Hemingway.” . Nick misinterprets this as needing Hemingway-like adventures in his life for writing (said adventures starting with doing research, because Nick knows very little about Hemingway). His answer to this is to drag Winston to the zoo while shouting “real life experience” and taking shots from a flask, dubbing it “writing fuel”.

Quick shout-out to Winston in this episode. Besides being my favorite character on the show (just watch an episode where he tries to do a jigsaw puzzle - it’s amazing), Winston is the only other character besides Jess who is really good with emotions. In this episode, despite that he should be sleeping days for his new job, he goes with Nick on this unrelated-to-zombies zoo journey because he wants to show support. Luckily, I have Sidney Reetz and Kira Shay for this and generally they provide me with non-Hemingway related booze and encouragement (because I’m allergic to whisky and I think Hemingway was an ass).

Eventually, Winston calls out Nick for just being “drunk at the zoo”, messing with his “adjusted schedule”, and being scared of actually finishing anything. This results in Nick staying awake for 14 hours typing up “Z is for Zombie", his first finished novel which includes the dedication “To Winston, have a nice summer”. Winston declares it is the worst thing he ever read and Nick admits that the word search he included in the novel has no words in it.

Still, the roommates all declare that they are proud of Nick for at least finishing the damn thing. Winston starts to read it allowed, and like many first first drafts, it’s awful. Actually, it’s even worse than most first drafts, but everyone has to start somewhere.

Overall, I’ve said most of what I wanted to say about writing how it’s depicted in this episode already throughout this blog, but just to repeat - boo procrastination, yay encouragement, and don’t put crossword puzzles in zombie novels until they have something to do with the plot.

Image owned by Fox

Castle (Flowers for your Grave): Movies about Writing

I know this isn’t a movie, but I wanted to take a break from the long, melodramatic biopics and watch something quick and fun. Why the first episode of the TV series “Castle”? Why not? Nathan Fillion is my favorite space cowboy and sometimes I just have to watch him…in a respectable manner of course.

First of all, I know that the crime TV genre is very over done, yet continues to be popular. This blog isn’t about the overarching trope of prime time detectives with a gimmick beloved by everyone’s mom. This blog is about how writers are depicted and viewed by me (because it’s my blog, after all) and it just so happens that the gimmick of “Castle” a struggling crime writer who gets to do police ride-along to cure his writer’s block. I should also point out that I own every season on DVD.

Looking beyond the moral and legal implications of a writer without proper training getting to be on the front lines of homicide cases, Castle is also a comedy. The two leads and all side characters are fantastic, witty, and acted with honesty and charm. Again, I own the DVDs so naturally I liked it for more than Nathan Fillion, but he was the reason why I started watching.

The episode opens with Richard Castle (Fillion) enjoying the spoils of the final book in his popular “Derek Storm” series, having killed off his stale yet popular character. At the same time, Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic - great name, right?) and her department investigate a series of crime scenes that have been copied from the pages of Castle’s books. To help profile the killer, Beckett contact’s Castle at the perfect moment that he is nine weeks behind on his new book.

While on the case, Beckett is disappointed that Rick Castle is narcissist party boy and Castle is disappointed when the case seems to easy to solve. What? Even real life needs a twist - as his bestselling author poker buddies tell him. Also, damn it, James Patterson! 12 years at Barnes and Noble and I can never escape you! Not to be a spoiler, but, surprise! Castle is write. They almost arrest the wrong guy. I won’t give more detail than that so I don’t get a bunch of angry people who still haven’t watched this episode that aired in 2009.

As a writer, Castle actually covers a lot of emotions and habits that are quite realistic. Not the wealth. Him being filthy rich and living in a fancy New York apartment supporting a famous actress mother and an Ivy League eligible daughter is the most unrealistic thing after him being made a police consultant.

Writer’s block is a true epidemic and they don’t cover it in any conventional emotional training. Losing motivation and wanting to tell a story is draining. Anything that makes you want to write again is like being given a free, giant ice cream sundae on a hot day. I don’t blame the character for wanting to chase the high of turning Beckett into a character.

The amount of knowledge Castle has to be working in homicide is based around the research he had to for each book This is seriously realistic. Nothing sucks a writer in faster and take them off on a tangent like research. Writers can become near experts on a topic in search of realism in a book. After that, the hard part is deciding how much of this juicy new knowledge is usable within a story.

Image property of ABC. You know, ABC - AKA Disney. PLEASE DON’T SUE ME! I throw myself upon the mouse’s mercy!

The Barretts of Wimpole Street - Movies About Writing

This is a fictionalized tale of how famed poet Robert Browning fell in love with aspiring poet Elizabeth Barrett, Barrett is depicted as a kind woman of intelligence, but poor health and, along with her siblings, is trapped in a household under the thumb of an emotionally abusive father. It was made once in the 1930s, but this is me talking about the 1954 version.

The Barretts of Wimpole Street is also about how writing gives people an escape and brings them together. The overbearing Mr. Barrett, played by John Gielgud, refuses to provide the healthy environment his favorite daughter Elizabeth (called Ba by the family), played by Jennifer Jones, to overcome lifelong illness. He keeps his daughters and sons in fear of his whims and their love for Ba seems to be the only thing that gives them some courage to argue with their father. The obsessive behavior Mr. Barrett shows towards his invalid daughter gets downright creepy at times.

Being bedridden, every knows about and encourage’s Ba’s poetry, even her doctors and the household staff. The movie sprinkles her poems between scenes so this writing acts as the narrator, showing that the film makers respected their subject as a poetess, not just a good dramatic topic.

Ba corresponds with local poet Robert Browning (played by an over zealous Bill Travers) for writing advice. Eventually, they fall in love first through letters then by Browning insistently coming to visit her. The movie still insists how being writers is so important to the pair and how Browning wants her continue to be a poet even as his wife.

Spoiler alert: A very true historical moment in the movie is Ba’s doctors insistence that as she shows more strength she needs to get away to Italy. There was a belief that dry air and warmth helped with tuberculous. Naturally, when her father refuses to let her go, it’s Browning who takes her Italy through elopement. And bring her dog, Flush, without question.

Hopefully the Brownings leaned Italian

In reality, I really did admire Barrett Browning because she was a woman who was confined to a bed for much of her life. Yet even from that position, she used her smarts and later her fame to fight against the oppression of women, child labor, and slavery. Of course, what really endeared her to me was her love for her dog, Flush (first I watched this I was probably 10, but that dog is so sweet).

Something that this melodrama gets full marks on it the idea of seeking criticism especially (in the same theme as Devotion) as a woman in a time when it was hard to be taken seriously as a writer. But in this case that criticism comes a healthy, mutual, and equal relationship between Ba (Barrett) and Browning.

In reality, Elizabeth Barrett Browning did not become famous until after her death, despite her husband’s support and promotion. Once again, society questioned whether he secretly wrote or heavily edited Elizabeth’s work. Despite knowing this truth, as a movie about a writer I love how everyone encourages her (save for her dick dad, of course).

Property of MGM

Dreamchild: Moveis about Writing

I’ll keep this one brief as it is more about how writers can effect those around them who inspire them than it is about the writer himself. Dreamchild was a small budget 80s film produced by Verity Lambert (see history of “Doctor Who”) telling a fictionalize account of an elderly Alice Liddell Hargreaves visiting the United States from England for the 100 year birthday of Lewis Carroll, the man who wrote Alice in Wonderland for her and her sisters.

First, so get 3 things out of the way.

First: Yes. I sought this movie out as a child and I have read parts of the book it is based on. I desperately wanted to see this because I knew the a lot of the known history of the Liddell family and Reverend Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) and because the film includes some of the most amazing Jim Henson Creature Shop creations of all time! These puppets are full size, moving versions of the first book illustrations and they are gorgeous, genius, and the stuff of nightmares. I saw a photo of the Mad Hatter and I knew I had to find this movie as a kid.

Second: Let’s get the historical accuracy out the way right now. The film shows Mrs. Hargreaves and her ward, a teenage girl named Lucy, being wined and dined at the expense of Columbia University for the centenary celebration. In reality, 80 year old Alice Hargreaves was escorted by family members including a younger sister who is not included in the film.

Third: I will not be giving my personal thoughts or known theories of Charles Dodgson’s sexuality or why he was friends with children. I’m focusing on how the movie depicts him. And even that will be… a little difficult to explain.

Dreamchild jumps back and forth between 80 year old Alice Hargreaves (Coral Browne), an extremely proper English lady confused by the fuss over Alice in Wonderland, and 10 year old Alice Liddell (Amelia Shankley), a slightly bratty, but spirited girl who enjoys the friendship she and her sisters share with the Oxford mathematics professor Charles Dodgson (Ian Holm). Elderly Alice begins to be haunted by memories of her friendship with the stammering, shy grown man from her childhood. She watches a romance unfold between her orphaned ward Lucy (Nicola Cowper) and a former reporter (Peter Gallagher) who steps in as Mrs. Hargreaves agent when various advertisers want to use her status as the “real live Alice” to sell their products.

Alice’s flashbacks start with simple afternoons of telling her mother how Dodgson confides in her as a child and how he loves her, to which her older sister explains that he loves them all and they all enjoy his silly poems and photography. These simple memories start to warp into scenes from the novel in which elderly Alice is scolded, questioned, and berated by the Mad Hatter, March Hare, and the Caterpillar (all performed by the Henson creature shop).

Spoiler alert: Eventually, Alice comes to terms with her memories, realizing how she shied away from Dodgson’s feelings of love for her. No where in the film are these feelings acted upon, but they are shown through the grown man’s staring at Alice intently, him attempting to asking Alice about marriage, her own awkward feelings about him wanting her attention especially as she grows older, and Mrs. Liddell burning his letters to Alice when she’s too old for appropriately hanging out with him. In the end, she comes to terms with the idea that he did love her, but regrets that she was not kinder to him or cherish the story he wrote for her more dearly.

As this being a film about a writer, it shows two aspects of the process. The first, a primary theme is how if a book becomes famous that it can effect the people involved. Alice felt like the girl in the book was never truly her, but as her memories return she realizes that much of the character truly was inspired by her and her sisters silly, yet childlike logic. Still, as an adult she hated that people wanted her to BE Alice. She hated the idea of anyone expecting her to have really dreamed of a fantasy land. Proper English ladies do not follow rabbits, after all. In truth, the real Alice Hargreaves did sell her original copy of Alice’s Adventures in wonderland when she was a grown woman and sometimes seemed to resent being asked about “Lewis Carroll”.

Dodgson himself is socially awkward and does better with communicating with children than adults. From what I understand of Lewis Carroll, this is fairly true. Although he was child photographer and had many “young friends” who he wrote the Alice stories for, the movie focuses on the way he created the first concept to amuse the Liddell children on a boating trip. He is so wrapped up in their smiling, amused faces he doesn’t care that he is keeping the party from their tea (a true crime in Victorian Britain). But the movie is also about the sensitivity of a writer. He wants Alice to keep the copy of Alice’s Adventures Underground all of her life and is proud enough of his work that he recite it after publication. The film makes sure to include a part of quote:

“Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.”

This sums up Dodgson as a writer well in Dreamchild. He was disappointed in the idea of Alice growing up and not enjoying his stories any longer and he hoped that she wouldn’t forget. No writer wants to be forgotten if their work had a specific audience.

RIP IAN HOLM who did a great job of being kinda creepy, but not TOO creepy in this movie.

Images copyright Thorn EMI and MGM distribution. Don’t sue me. Pretty Please

Devotion: Movies About Writing

First of all, understand that 1946 was NOT concerned with historical accuracy. This melodrama spent more time on building “woe is me” moments than it did researching the Bronte family. My boyfriend gave it the alternate title “Devotion or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Tuberculosis”.

Second, I’m not really sure what induced me to watch this movie for the first time in years. I didn’t like it as a kid and I didn’t find much to recommend it now.

The story focuses on the idea of the 4 Bronte siblings in an artistic rivalry and, more heavily, on a made-up love triangle between Emily, Charlotte, and (spoiler alert) the man who in reality became Charlotte’s husband. One historically inaccurate piece is the Bronte Sisters being told by their aunt that with all of their worry about novels and poetry, they’ll never get husbands. At the time this story takes place, they would have been in their mid to late 20s Pssh! That’s old maid status in that time!

Devotion stars some of the greats at the time trying to earn some Oscars - Ida Lupino, Olivia de Havilland, and Sydney Greenstreet. I’d mention Paul Henreid, but he gets so over-the-top sometimes that this was NOT his best work. Just saying.

That’s not to say the film doesn’t show some merits of the Bronte’s as artists. The movie opens with a title card staying how 2 of 4 Bronte kids were geniuses - which I find as a big ole F*$@ YOU to Anne Bronte. Okay, I confess I’ve only read a little of her poetry, but I have been to her grave in Scarborough. I feel like they wouldn’t have given her a nice tombstone and an icon on the tourism map if she’d been a lousy writer. I also know that The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is considered one of the first great feminist novels - which I know because my friend had to write a paper on it during university and she told me all about it during lunch over several days.

The movie also addresses some of the struggles for writers at that time, starting with the lack and expense of paper. Emily and Charlotte fight over wrapping paper at the start of the film because they both want to use it for writing something long that would use it all up. They also discuss the patronage needed in an artistic field if you want to eat on a regular basis or the need for thankless jobs like being a governess. However, the need for male pen names because of society’s problems with women writers at the time is glossed over.

Devotion wastes no time in reminding its audience that the only brother, Branwell Bronte was an alcoholic painter, depicting him as a bully to Anne, in need of Charlotte’s guardianship, and constantly under Emily’s criticism yet dependent on her. Luckily the movie leaves out some patriarchal theories that was actually the author of all of his sisters’ works (I’m looking at you fictional character played by Stephen Fry in Cold Comfort Farm!).

Cold Comfort Farm: Here’s Fry’s character Mybug asking Kate Beckinsale’s character Flora Post if she believes “women have souls”. Image property of BBC Films - don’t sue me. I’m an avid Doctor Who and PBS Masterpiece fan. You need me as much as I need you, BBC!

Devotion does cover where inspiration comes from for a writer, but it does this poorly and obvioulsy. Anne and Charlotte are both so disgusted by their employers as in their governess work, it is supposed to be the backdrop of Jane Eyre and Agnes Grey (which I own and might finally read after all of this). And a derelict house left abandoned on the moors gave Emily the idea for Wuthering Heights. All three of these ideas are credited by historians, by the way, but the movie makes it very obvious without any detail. I don’t feel like inspiration is always obvious, but sometimes worms it’s way in and we realize later where the idea came from.

Some things I do like in the film from a writing point-of-view includes the praise and fears of the siblings, but again this is handled in an over-the-top way. All 4 have a certain amount of jealously towards each other’s talents, which can happen even at the same time as loving someone else’s work and desperately wanting to succeed. But that want for mutual success is lost in the movie to the constant head turns and near swoons of despair.

The same goes for the need for critical analysis and praise of their work. Emily especially is shown as more secretive and protective of her writing. Anne is willing to just keep trying with a sort of blind optimism. Charlotte is the one who seeks the help of professionals that could get her published and defends her own work with logic. She’s the one overjoyed when famed novelist William Makepeace Thackeray gives them praise.

I don’t know if these are the actual personalities of the women, but this does cover three of the major personalities of many writers I know. I’m a little disappointed that my personality matches more of Emily Bronte’s reactions in the film. Wuthering Heights is not my favorite Bronte book. Jane Eyre is. Duh. But the thing is - the movie claims that this supposed love triangle was where the emotion within Wuthering Heights came from, proving that the screenwriters never read it. The point of Wuthering Heights is how toxic people can be and call it love not how 2 sisters should fall for the same boring dude.

Still, the part of this movie that bugs the crap out of me is the idea that the Bronte sisters could have never written of love and loss the way the did without experience that include a ridiculous unrequited love, a single man to be the object of 2 sisters’ affections, and the poorly filmed dream sequences of betrayal. In the end, Devotion reduces their lives to stereotypes and tragedy.

Poor Bronte’s.

Devotion: Arthur Kennedy as Branwell, Ida Lupino as Emily, Olivia de Havilland as Charlotte, and Nancy Coleman as Anne as the Bronte siblings playing on the Yorkshire Moors. Image property of Warner Bros. Don’t sue me please! All you’ll get is a collection of Funko pops and empty notebooks too pretty to write in.