Sandpoint Film Festival Win for Root Bound

Screenwriter Mary Jane Honegger (left) and director Rebecca Cook celebrate after their big win at the Sandpoint Film Festival at the Sandpoint Film Festival.

It doesn't get any better than this!  Last night, surrounded by family and friends (including three of my fellow bloggers), I watched my first screenplay touch an audience.  For me, the laughter was just as exciting as the applause and wining the first place Audience Choice Award was icing on the cake. (Just a note - we won first place, not second as was incorrectly announced at the festival.)

I met many wonderful, creative people at various festival events during the weekend am especially grateful to Rebecca Cook for sharing the weekend with me and helping me through the dreaded experience of being called onstage.  Our executive producer Robynn Sleep's gracious gift of her charming  family Pend Oreille Lake cabin was a delight and made a wonderful weekend even better.

Never, never, never, never give up. - Winston Churchill

Holy crap! I'm a screenwriter!

Each morning I pull a small slip of paper out of a Quote-of-the-Day box that was a Christmas gift from one of my sisters.  On the paper is a positive quote that, more often than not, strikes a chord within me.  A recent quote read, “Never, never, never, never give up” – Sir Winston Churchill.

Once again, the advice fit.  After years of false starts, “Root Bound,” the short screenplay I wrote in 2009, will premier at the The Sandpoint Film Festival on November 2.  The only reason this all-volunteer film made it to the festival – tenacity.  We never, never, never, never gave up.

Writing is most often a solitary profession, but once a screenplay goes into production, it becomes a team sport that is exciting, confusing, remarkable and frustrating – all at the same time.  The trick is to find a good team, and I certainly found one with the kNIFVES (Northwest Independent Film & Video Entertainment Society) members and Rebecca Cook and her legion of amazing filmmaker friends who volunteered their time and talent to the project.  I might have written the words, but these amazing people brought my words to life. 

We have been in post production since July and the challenges continued right up until the festival deadline – but we made it thanks to our hard working editor, Seth Mead, who gave up sleep (and almost his job) to finish “Root Bound.”  Together with Seth’s eye for detail, DP Joey Stageberg’s special touches and Rebecca Cook’s direction and support, the finished product is something we can all be proud of. 

My youngest son once told me that a fellow kindergartner – a girl – had punched him while they stood in line.  His interpretation of said assault: “Holy crap! I have a girlfriend!”  My interpretation of this weekend’s premier of “Root Bound?”  Holy crap!  I’m a screenwriter!”

Several years ago a Hollywood screenwriting professional told us (a room full of wannabe screenwriters who paid dearly to hear his words of wisdom) that Hollywood doesn't need any more 60-year-old retirees who think they can write a screenplay. As I happened to be exactly 60 that year, his words hit a nerve with me ... and I did give them some thought ... then I went back to work on my dream of becoming a screenwriter.
  

Never, never, never, never give up.   – Winston Churchill

Free Kindle Book offer from G.T. Rees
Gabe Rees, an occasional guest writer on Writing North Idaho, and a fellow North Idaho writer, is offering a free Kindle book promotion on Saturday, November 2.  Find out what happens when the IRS comes for the family nut farm.  Don't miss your chance to read "Protect Your Nuts" by G.T. Rees!

http://www.amazon.com/Protect-Your-Nuts-G-T-Rees-ebook/dp/B00DHPLD06/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383090545&sr=8-1&keywords=protect+your+nuts

Symbols of Halloween-Write about Holidays

Masked bandits on the hunt for candy

Unmasked, the bandits return exhausted with their loot.

Parents and neighbors beware. Halloween is here again! Another night for fun and laughter and lots of adventures to write about. Parents and grandparents, your children and grandchildren will love to read about them as they grow up and spend time together with you remembering. Holidays in peoples' lives create bonding and community with family and friends as most other days rarely do.

Halloween, like other holidays, has symbols that represent what the day means to us. I have often wondered why we developed the tradition of masks and jack o lanterns for Halloween (hallows eve). Strange. Okay. Masks I could understand. Sure it's fun and exciting for people, especially kids, to scare others and growl at people who won't know who they are. Yes, there is safety in anonymity. You won't know who the person is until s/he is willing to take off the "mask." Kind of like life, don't you think? Lots of us put on masks when we don't want others to know who we are. Besides, it's fun to pretend we are someone else.

But jack o lanterns? Why pumpkins? Except of course that Halloween is in fall and the pumpkins are plentiful and ready to pick at that point. They are easy to hollow out and carve. Actually pumpkins also seem to be rather popular in fairy tales: "Peter, Peter Pumpkin eater, had a wife and couldn't keep her. He put her in a pumpkin shell and there he kept her very well." You remember Cinderella who went to the ball in a transformed pumpkin (coach).  And then there was Pumpkin Head in the Land of Oz. And the pumpkin in the Grim fairy tales. But a carved face and lights in the pumpkin? That made no sense to me.

So I decided to check on the internet to see how the tradition of jack o lanterns came to be. To my astonishment this is what I found:

Some people say that jack o lanterns originated in Ireland (late eighteenth century) where the Irish hollowed out turnips, mangelwurtzel, and beets, and carved grotesque faces on them to represent spirits and goblins. October 31 (Halloween) - November 1 (All Saints Day) was known as Samhain and it was thought of as the time that spirits and fairies were particularly active. Apparently turnips were hollowed out and turned into lanterns to light guisers (disguised people) on All Hallows Eve. Some say that the lanterns represented Christian souls in purgatory or the undead. Others say that they were set on windowsills to keep the evil spirits and vampires away.

The story of Jack-O'-Lantern, a thief, who made a pact with the devil not to take his soul, was told and retold in different forms all over Western Europe. In most versions Jack dies and he can neither be admitted into heaven or hell. He begs for light and the devil throws him an ember that will glow forever. Jack carves a turnip and tosses the ember inside to light his way endlessly as he wanders the earth.

Wow! Now that's a story. But did you notice how often I said, "Some say---" or "Others say---?" In plain words the jack o lantern became a myth and a symbol, and each group of people modified the story as it served them best when they retold it. It reminds me of playing "telephone" when I was young.And that's how symbols are born.

So writers and readers, try something different this holiday season. Is there something you wish to teach your children or others? Create symbols (metaphors) by slightly changing and emphasizing certain areas of your stories. Take a different perspective than you usually do. Create a "parable." Write the stories down, and share them with others, such as your children.
More on how to do this on Friday November 1st in my next blog.

William Shakespeare---Wise Sage or Plagiarist?

I have always considered William Shakespeare (1564-1616) to be a wise sage and my favorite playwright, probably from as early as the fifth grade. Growing up in a country school in Central Canada, we began reading and memorizing Shakespeare from a very early age. Then we repeated his passages many times throughout the year, using them to validate our own thoughts and writings.

I remember writing an essay on As You Like It in high school and enlarging on what I considered Shakespeare's most wise of passages, "All the world's a stage, and men and women merely players." Those words felt so true to me in those adolescent years. I started looking at the world as a stage and me as one of the performers. Amazing. In that process I could finally separate myself from what seemed like the life and death emotions I felt during those difficult years of hormone changes and teenage angst.

I had always thought of Shakespeare's writings as completely original. "What an incredible mind to think up all these new but wise sayings," I used to say. It was not until later on in college and beyond, that I learned some facts that troubled me. Were all the plays we attributed to Shakespeare really written by him? No one seemed to know. And were his ideas and writings really original?

This is what I discovered over the years:
Shakespeare like many of us read a lot and used his knowledge of Greek and Roman classics and philosophers to create his works. Sometimes Shakespeare borrowed his plots down to the fine details. He borrowed several of Geoffery Chaucer's poems as sources of his plays. (Most of you will know Chaucer, 1340-1400, as the one who wrote Canterbury Tales.) Then there was Plutarch (46-120 AD). a Greek philosopher, who wrote Parallel Lives. The book became the source for Antony and Cleopatra and Julius Caesar. Shakespeare copied whole passages from the work, making only small changes. And the greatest source for his images and symbols was the Bible.

So did Shakespeare plagiarize other authors? I looked up the word in the dictionary. The word plagiarize today means to appropriate passages, ideas, and thoughts of another author and represent these as your own original works. So, as we define it today, yes he did.

But let's think for a minute. Don't we all get our ideas from our readings, the culture, and the beliefs we encounter everyday? How many original ideas are really out there? I am writing a book called How to Cope with Stress after Trauma for veterans and families. The book is a compilation of healing steps I have used for many years with clients. But where did I get those ideas? Yes, from my readings, my classes, my clients, and the people around me. I certainly can't say I have not plagiarized ideas and thoughts although I don't remember where I first heard about them.

Then what really makes Shakespeare so unique? Why are we still fascinated with him and his works? Most of us have favorite plays and passages even today, several hundred years after he lived. As I have become older and hopefully wiser, I have become more realistic and less judgmental in my views. What I see now is an amazing artist and writer, who after the rigid Middle Ages and during the beginning of the Renaissance looked into the hearts of humans and wrote those older plots and passages in such a brilliant way, with such emotional complexity (e.g., Hamlet, Macbeth), that all of us still identify with his characters and their feelings. He saw people (even the monarchy who were often considered to be like gods) as humans who made mistakes and needed forgiveness. He portrayed both the dark and the light side of all of us. That was his true genius. And even though he plagiarized some passages and plots, he wrote his plays and sonnets, combining words and images in such a way that people all over the world resonate with his works
.
William Shakespeare indeed is a wise sage.


"Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment.
Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds, or bend with the remover to remove."
-Shakespeare

 

Wow! If only I could write as well as he did.

"The Incredible Depth of Green"

Transatlantic, by Colum McCann, is described as "masterful and profoundly moving," by Kirkus reviews. With skill that transcends life itself, McCann weaves together these threads:

Newfoundland: 1919

Two aviators, Jack Alcock and Arthur Brown set course for Ireland in a Vickers Vimy. Hoping that a transatlantic crossing would help to heal the wounds of the Great War, they fly into the cold and dark in a craft made with wood and linen.

Dublin 1845-46

Fredrick Douglas, visits Dublin while on an International Lecture Tour. He finds support for the Abolitionist cause among Irish Quakers. He sees poverty, starvation, filth and disease the likes of which shocks a former slave. He bears witness to the scourge of famine.

New York 1998

Senator George Mitchell departs for Belfast leaving a young wife and newborn son at home. The son of an Irish American father and a Lebanese mother, he is sent by the request of the President of the United States, to apply his capable hand to the tiller, and to steer the erratic, explosive and fragile peace process to a safe harbor.

How does Colum McCann whose considerable talents won him the National Book Award, for Let the Great World Spin, manage to connect these events? He employes the perspective of generations of women, all descendents of Lily Duggan, an Irish servant in the household hosting Frederick Douglas.

Transatlantic is a tale so beautifully written, it has an hypnotic quality. Here is one passage:

"The north below, is stunned with morning sunlight. Patches of bright yellow on the mud flats. The fields so wide and grassy. Lake and water meadow. A silver estuary and a huge lake. One small cloud, cast out by the herd, limps away to the west. The plane banks and the city of Belfast appears, always smaller than he expects it to be. The high cranes of the shipyards. The maze of the side streets. The soccer pitches. The flats. The fretful desolation. Then out over the fields again, the incredible depth of green. He has never quite seen the lans so bright before: a clear day through the morning clouds. He is used to its gray edges, its laneways, its high walls. They pull in over Lough Neagh. A vague sadness on touchdown, a tensing of the throat.

On the grass below, the shadow of the plane is squeezed down to its own size, then is gone. Welcome to Belfast Interntational. Contents in the overhead bin may have shifted during flight."   P.121

From an interview in NewStatesman, Colum says, "What could be worse than be called an historical novelist? It's the idea of becoming an alternative historian that really interests me: an historian of the smaller moments. It's a privileged position for the fiction writer, one that opens up a lot of pores- and sometimes wounds as well."

Ireland is a nation of story tellers, singers and poets. A scant few stand above all others: Colum McCann is one.

Family Sagas and the Stuff of Legend

 Gone With the Wind,
 Tara

Margaret Mitchell,

1900-1949

Tolstoy wrote: “All happy families are alike. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Of all the countless words stemming from Tolstoy's prolific pen, this statement is one of his more famous and oft' quoted lines. 

When I think of this depiction of family life, my mind casts about. Did I come from a happy family? Am I creating a happy family? What constitutes an unhappy family?

When I read Tolstoy's statement the first time, I was still in high school. His words had the ring of truth. I knew some unhappy families, and the sad moniker was more evident in childhood. To this day, I can think of certain houses, walking in, catching my breath and feeling scared. Like a cloak protecting children, the fear was a filmy layer I sensed at once. When I think back to these unlucky homes, I recall the thick silence and an awareness of my beating heart. I felt pity for whomever it was who brought me into this house. There would be an air of tyranny. I would know of an issue too. We had somewhat of an understanding of every marriage in our old neighborhood. I do not know how. I recall that I listened to adult conversations by the hour; I found them fascinating. If I sat very still and remained quiet, I could hear more delicious details. When I heard the phrase, “little pitchers have big ears,” I would sit back on my heels, disappointed to know that I was about to be sent out of the room.

I became aware of family traits at an early age because we were always hearing about whom we took after. I knew the good and the bad from both sides of the family, and where those traits became evident. Life seemed to be a game of genetic ninepins. Good traits were pointed out, and failings all had something to do with ancestry. There was disagreement among the ranks. Nevertheless, with all of our faults combined, we were unabashedly happy. Imperfect, zany, optimistic, risk takers, competitive, generous and compulsive; we seemed to have a never-ending penchant for drama.

Writing a family saga involves events in the character's lives over time and generations. We get involved in political families, famous families, royal families, and powerful families, loving all that is familiar and unique. We root for them, get exasperated by them and generally want to see the family triumph over all adversity.  When setting out to write such a tale, a lofty ambition indeed, we must first decide if they are a patriarchal, or a matriarchal clan. Did they slip along the way, and climb back up again, or did they devolve into a great mess? Do hurts and stings have a lasting effect? Are they a family who can bounce back from adversity? Can they go from an unhappy family to a happy one? Is there an offshoot? Is there a villain, or a hero? Are they the stuff of legend? Will the third generation squander the efforts of the first? Will predators destroy them? There is no end to the possibilities of a great family saga. 

Pictured above is the desk where Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone with the Wind.

In no particular order, I have supplied a list of  family sagas I have read and loved:

Fall on Your Knees, by Ann-Marie MacDonald, 

http://www.amazon.com/Fall-Your-Knees-Oprahs-Book/dp/0743237188/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381351055&sr=1-1&keywords=fall+on+your+knees

Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott,

 http://www.amazon.com/Little-Bantam-Classics-Louisa-Alcott/dp/0553212753/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381351146&sr=1-1&keywords=little+women+by+louisa+may+alcott#reader_0553212753

Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell,

http://www.amazon.com/Gone-Wind-Anniversary-Margaret-Mitchell/dp/1451635621/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381351406&sr=1-1&keywords=gone+with+the+wind 

One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez,

http://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Solitude-Gabriel-Garcia-Marquez/dp/006112009X/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381351532&sr=1-1&keywords=one+hundred+years+of+solitude 

East of Eden, by John Steinbeck,

 http://www.amazon.com/East-Eden-Oprah-Book-Club/dp/0142000655/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381351609&sr=1-1&keywords=east+of+eden+by+john+steinbeck

House of Spirits, by Isabel Allende,

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=House%20of%20Spirits

The Godfather, by Mario Puzo,

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Godfather&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3AThe+Godfather 

Roots: The Saga of an American Family, by Alex Haley,

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_5?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=roots&sprefix=Roots%2Cstripbooks%2C264&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Aroots 

A Perfect Fall Day, and Apples

   Today was a perfect fall day. I had the luxury of idle time and sat out on the back deck in a cushioned, comfortable chair.  The air was crisp, the sky brilliant blue. However, my  thoughts weren't of the lake in view or fir trees all around , but of apples.

  Apples and fall go together like spring and chocolate bunnies or summer and corn on the cob. I  remember  when I was a grade school student at St. Rose of Lima , my mother packed a red apple every day in my metal lunch box. Apparently mom believed in the old adage , 'an apple a day keeps the doctor away' .  And dunking for apples and candied apples were always a hit come All Hollow's Eve.
                                       

   While sitting under a cool sun, and enjoying the silence about me, I thought of paintings I had seen by famed artist's  Van Gogh and Cezanne,  and how their  still life images brighten the soul. Then  I wondered about writers and apples. Of course the first, and most famous story about an apple is found in the book of Genesis 2:7 when God tells Adam and Eve not to eat the forbidden fruit. Then Johnny Appleseed came to mind, a legendary character who went about the land planting apple seeds. And a poem by Robert Frost

After Apple - Picking

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward  heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough

   Apples are like a sweet tonic to me, when I was just a little girl and didn't want to eat vegetables , my Grandpa Austin would tell  me , whatever food I objected to, was applesauce , then I'd  happily eat what was on my plate.  Through the years it became a family joke, whenever  something was served for dinner I thought I didn't like, someone would say, "It's applesauce" .

    Edgar A. Guest writes in his poem The Apple Tree

There 's nothing damn has builded with the
    beauty or the charm
That can touch the simple grandeur of the
     monarch of the farm.
There's never any picture from human
      beings brush
That has ever caught the redness of a single
      apple's blush.

    Just as the artist portrays the image he/she sees,   like the beauty of the apple, with paints on  canvas,  perhaps as writers, we can do the same with our words. The next time you see an apple in a bowl or on the ground, fallen from a tree,   take a closer look, then describe its essence in prose or story, to reflect the  sweet memory it invokes.