The Further Writers Group Adventures of Third World Girl

Just like the projects in my life, my writers group has entered this weird holding pattern. Instead of the weekly, different participants every seven days, the group has gone back to the infinitely more sane bi-weekly schedule but there's the same volatility in its make up.

I have no idea who'll show week to week. Sometimes it feels like it's just me, the group leader, and a background cast. This kind of makes for vastly different chemistry session to session which I find frustrating because the quality of the feedback is unpredictable.

Last night for example, we had a new addition...let me call her The Holder-Forth. She's the one in the group who has to tell you she's read for contests, knows A-list actors, and inform you of how they do it in "the business". The thing is she was whip smart and gave good feedback and I really hope she returns but she bugged me in one particular, all too familiar way.

Allow me to illustrate.

My script, unsurprisingly, is set in my home country because it's the Little Movie I Want to Direct and I figure the only hope I have of getting it made is to call on every bit of goodwill I've managed to accumulate on the island. Holder-Forth seized on the script's concept and started to wax poetic about the kinds of conflicts I might be exploring seeing as the story involves a girl based in London returning to her island home. "I imagine there'd be quite a contrast between her life in London and on the economically depressed island of Barbados."

I bristled but I let it go. What I really should have said is tell me more about my economically depressed island, Holder-Forth. Do they have houses or does everyone still live in mud huts? It turned out I didn't have to invite her to do so, however, because later on in the feedback she expressed a level of perplexity at why all the characters in the movie didn't know each other. "They live on the same island, right?" she said.

I gently tried to explain to her that my particular island, the "economically depressed island of Barbados" actually had more than a quarter million people on it and therefore not all the characters in my movie know each other. It was possible for people to be strangers and meet for the first time. She shrugged and said, "I'm just telling you what the perception in Hollywood is."

So now I know.

Some days more than others I think I need to hurry up and write my goat racing comedy on an economically depressed island where everybody knows each other because Hollywood would totally get that and then I could sell out and go live in Cobble Hill.

My Writers Group Is Broken... Somebody Moved My Cheese

My Writers Group A, the one I chose over the surly semi-pros, is broken. It's the victim of the establishment, of resources, of change.

Some background. Last February, in keeping with one of my 2008 resolutions, I joined a professional group for women filmmakers because they had an active writers group. I did this because:
a) writer moms need the occasional trip out to converse with grown ups and...
b) there is no quicker way to tell where the work isn't working than hearing it read aloud.

About halfway into the year though the writers group wobbled. First I got a last minute e-mail from a the filmmaking organization that a writer's group meeting the following day had been canceled. Than I got an e-mail from the group leader saying that she wouldn't be leading the group anymore. She was leaving the city. On the dot org's website the status of the writers group changed to "on hiatus."

Down but not out, I joined a group of older pros but it never took. A writers group is more about chemistry than credentials and Writers Group B (they of the fancy snacks) never really worked out. Which was just as well because Writers Group A returned.

And so 2008 had a happy Hollywood ending... until 2009 began.

In January of 2009 the professional group for women filmmakers I joined announced it was being folded into a larger professional organization. Great news, in theory. The new parent org has great resources, connections, workshops but we now meet at the org's offices and there are two writers group leaders and it's weekly instead of biweekly. In short there are a smorgasbord of changes and many old familiar faces have not survived the jump. Meanwhile, some of the new faces seem a little rattled at the varying quality of the feedback.

The worst part of the change for me is meeting in the organization's office. The office reminds me of the non-profit I worked at when I first moved to New York. Carpets. Fluorescent lights. The communal printer. The Filemaker Pro. There's even a cantankerous officer who glares at us as we come in and leave, constantly eyes the clock and bitches about us not having a key. (Are we supposed to have a key? Hey, I don't know. I just write here.)

Also, there's little continuity in our new group. Participants change week to week. One day there'll be eight people with twenty pages, the next there'll be two of us, starting an hour late because...well it's an office with a computer we have access to and there's e-mail to check, coffee to make, pages to print, cantankerous chicks to appease.

Finally the organization's office is in the "officey" part of town: the pox upon the city that is Midtown. Our old meeting spot was in Columbus Circle, with Central Park just a stone's throw away, Carnegie Hall down the street, the walk to and from the subway requiring a stroll past 5th Avenue store displays. Now I stroll past... closed delis. (sigh)

What will happen in the end? I don't know. But the magic is gone. My writers group meetings have turned into the job I grudgingly tolerate, the medicine I have to take to make my sick script better.

Back to Being a One Group Woman

So after months of agonizing, of trying to decide if and how to break it off with Writers Group B, I did it by phone.

Originally I joined two writers groups in order to get twice as much feedback but it's just too hard, too much commitment. And while Writers Group B came with great credentials, its spirit wasn't right...or perhaps I should say its spirit wasn't right for me.

It was too regimented and yet, strangely, too social. Lots of structure in the ordering of the meetings, exercises and chit chat. The Writers Group A leader once mentioned the perils of meeting in a group member's home and I got to see them up close as the sessions sometimes devolved into the "thank you so much for opening up your home to us, Madame Group Leader" patter. And Madame Group Leader is incredibly generous, giving and successful so it is kind of a thrill (you look up while you're blabbing on about your script and her Emmy shines down upon you), but I never felt totally comfortable.

Anyway, I thought about going on the break up date. Showing up for the last meeting, offering incredible feedback, being the life and soul of the party before mentioning to Madame Group Leader that I wouldn't be coming back but I couldn't rouse myself to that level of artifice. Instead, I called and unable to get her left a message on her voice mail. I know it's the coward's way out but I made the call as fulsome as I could cause it would be dumb not to leave the door open for the future.

Writers Group A might disintegrate again.

The weird thing though is I'm still on her e-mail list so I get word of all the meetings and holiday parties. It's like seeing the ex when you go out all the time and thinking, hmmm....he still looks pretty good.

Another Thing I Love About My Group A Writers Group

So another thing I love about my Group A, Monday night writers group...

When we finish our sessions, I walk past Carnegie Hall to get to the subway. And because of the time it is, more often than not, a show's letting out. The sidewalk is buzzing, mostly with young kids all dressed up in their fancy dresses and bow ties, giddily snapping loads of photos out in front.

And all I can think of is that old joke.
"How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
Practice, practice, practice."

And I feel good about the hours I've just spent taking apart the script and bouncing ideas around with some pretty cool, very generous women.

Cheating Updated...Is it Still Good For You?

After an absence of two sessions, I made a return to the writer's group I'm cheating with. I had planned to go to prove to myself that I can "keep options open" but the decision was cemented thanks to an e-mail from the group leader who pretty much said, "Do you still want to be a part of this... because I've found a couple new people." It sounded to me like emotional blackmail so of course I shot off an e-mail saying "see you later tonight!"

But doggone it, this outside group is so high-maintenance, man. I kept thinking that my other writers group, Writers Group A, they of the laid-back, meet in public, "I scribbled out my synopsis during my lunchbreak" writers, don't have a fit if you miss two sessions. Also, you don't have to RSVP a day in advance...or bring snacks. Though you are welcome to share gum. There are none of those exercises and that free-write crap I loathe.

But I'm doing this thing now where I'm trying to say yes to things I would usually say no to. I mean, I don't need to be part of two writers groups but the theory behind it is that I'll write twice as much and get feedback on two scripts instead of one. Also, Writers Group B savaged the opening pages of the social drama screenplay I'm working on so although it would be easy to slink away convinced they don't get my "genius", I like to think tough criticism of something that clearly doesn't work is exactly what I'm looking for. Plus, I don't want to be that "writers group parasite" that hangs in there long enough to get their work thoroughly workshopped and then disappears off the face of the earth.

Anyway, I show up to Madame Group Leader's loft about ten minutes late and a very strange thing has happened to Writers Group B. It is an entirely new group. The only familiar face is Madame Group Leader. She explains to me that one of the regulars can't make it this week but that the other three have flaked completely. She makes a face as she says flaked, as though she can tell that I am a higher caliber of human being serious about my writing. But instead I panic...did I miss my window to flee?

However, thanks to the housecleaning, the sessions have become less social...which I like. I want my writers group to run like clockwork, allowing me to dive into work, get done and trek back to Brooklyn prontissimo. But unfortunately there's still too much stuffing in the bird. When we finish the opening exercise and go directly to reading pages I grin inwardly because I think, ah, at last they've finally dumped the sucky free-writing. However, a few minutes into the table read, Madame Group Leader says, "Oh no...I forgot the format. We'll do the free-writing after. Remind me if I skip it in the future."

Next thing you know we'll print an agenda. Yep, I chafe against all this structure. I hate writing exercises. What is this pretentious writers block thing? I don't understand people who don't know what to write about. I understand procrastination. I am the queen of that country but I'm not going to be helped by writing with an egg timer. I will be helped by the total annihilation of the internet... but that's another story.

Also, the new problem is, the group is now populated by different types of writers...two or three fiction chicks. This week, I'm just in time for a novelist to read the first two chapters of a book she's working on. It's got some charm and I suddenly hanker after the short stories currently languishing on my flash drive, but I don't want to be tempted into them right now. I want to work on screenplays. I want to learn from other screenwriters. I want a community of people struggling with exactly what I'm going through.

Still, I guess I'll return next time. I feel bad about being the last of the original generation left standing... but my heart just isn't in this anymore.

Writer's Group Update: Burnout

Like I said it was bound to happen. Labor Day did it. One unavailable Monday thanks to the holiday and now the groups are suddenly meeting the same week. (The showdown hasn't happened yet because one's temporarily gone Tuesdays instead of Mondays, but it's coming. It's on the horizon like D-day.)

I love the community of groups, I do...but I can't take two nights in a row of listening to scripts and providing sensible feedback. And I hate being gone from home consecutive days. I don't think that's just mommy guilt talking. I realized in the crazy grant week that I actually like putting the Chicklet to bed. Yeah, I grumble when I have to do it every night but when I have a break, I miss the hell out of it. Singing songs. Counting sheep. Looking at the stars through our skylight.

So the first inkling of what decision I'll probably make dawned last week when I skipped Writer's Group B, a.k.a. the semi-pros. Why did I do this?

1. Loyalty first, I suppose. I only chucked Group A when I thought they were folding.
2. Affinity with the all-lady make up of Group A.
3. I prefer Columbus Circle to the Lower West Side (hello Daffy's and Universal News!) and
4. The Group B script is a mess and depressing the hell out of me and I'm starting to wonder if I can really write dark social dramas or whether I shouldn't stick to being Li'l Miss Sunshine.

I tell myself it was just one session and what I'll probably do is alternate the two...but we'll see.

True Confession: I'm Cheating on My Writer's Group

I belong to two writers groups that meet biweekly. This is a luxury for someone always complaining about not having enough hours in the day. I have to travel to the city, with the one hour commute both ways that entails in order to share pages.

It happened by accident. About a year ago I was looking for a group to join, partly to reconnect with writers like in the old grad school set-up and partly to get out of the house...I work from home with the 2.5 year old. When I see daylight up ahead I run for it.

I joined this writing group affiliated with one of the film groups in the city. Writers Group A meets in a public space in the city, has great, friendly non-professionals and is run by this astute earth mother type. I learned so much testing pages and hearing them read. And then about four months into it, I get an e-mail from the earth mother saying the biweekly meeting's canceled and that she'll no longer be running the group. What's more, we get a notice that the group is on hiatus. I fall into a paroxysm of grief. But I'm on page 30 of my rewrite...I need to get through my draft. (Yeah, yeah, it's all about me.)

So when I hear murmurs of another group starting up with one of the one-time attendants of Writers Group A, I'm there. But it feels weird to dump pages on them from the middle of the script so I bring in something else, a new social drama, which Writers Group B tears apart. Writers Group B is run by quasi-professionals, from a cozy loft on the West Side. Unlike Writers Group A where you can bring in pages every session, you have to sign up to read in Writers Group B, though no one ever seems to want to sign up. Writers Group B is far more social than Writers Group A. There's a person assigned to bring munchies for each session and I'd bet about 45 minutes goes by in chit chat, writing exercises I'd rather not do, and interaction with the resident dog.

Then out of the blue, Writers Group A resurfaces. Earth mother returns and having only been to a couple sessions of Writers Group B, I go back to the old fold. And it's good. The sunny musical comedy is well received. I get great suggestions for how to make pages work better. And I know the fact that the script is in semi-decent shape is a result of having workshopped it for the last couple of months with cool, unpretentious Writers Group A...but I still feel the need to prove myself to Writers Group B. I like their toughness...the professor who rolls his eyes as he says, there's no tension. I miss that in the over polite industry world that never tells you your work sucks to your face.

Right now, of course, I'm putting off making the choice. I love them both. The West Side artist's loft with the gourmet snacks and cynical semi-pros who never seem to want to bring pages, and the energetic group of largely unproduced writers who meet in the public space where you have to speak up because the guy's cleaning the tiles with that floor vac, and where out of your eye you can catch the homeless man taking a nap on two chairs pushed together. But at some point I'm going to have to give up one. They will clash...I will get caught... and I will have to choose.

I ain't got a clue what to do.