Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

While I probably still credit Steinbeck and Dickens for sending me down the road to crazy writerville, I must admit that Maya Angelou is the writer who taught me the most about the vivid, colorful way that people talk on the page.

I first read “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” in high school and I loved it so much that it was the first adult book that I actually read twice. If I remember correctly I finished it and started reading it again straight away. It was that good!

Rich, layered, funny, sad and sometimes completely weird, Angelou’s characters (which were mostly based on real people from her life since it was a memoir) and their distinctive voices literally popped off the page. It was, and still is, a truly amazing read.

Even if that was the only thing she’d ever done, something tells me we’d still be celebrating Angelou today. But, luckily for us, Angelou was so much more than a writer and a poet and the bold, fascinating way she lived her life should be an example for us all. There will never be anyone quite like Dr. Maya Angelou. So, thank you for the inspiration, the words and most of all, the priceless life lessons you shared with us along the way. RIP sweet lady…

Happy 200th birthday, Mr. Dickens!

I know it was like, two days ago now, but, it’s never too late to celebrate the birth of one of my favorite writers of all time. So, happy belated 200th birthday to Charles Dickens.

I haven’t read nearly as much of his work as I should, but, I will say that Dickens is second only to John Steinbeck in the way he has influenced my writing. Wait…on second thought, John Irving had a pretty big impact on my writing style as well, but, he’s kind of a modern-day Dickens in my book, so, I don’t always count him. Sorry, dude.

Anyway, aside from the many vivid, iconic characters Dickens created over the years, what I love most about his work is that he knew how to milk a story for drama. And like many writers of popular fiction (and some of my favorite fellow screenwriters) Dickens’ work was chided by critics for not being substantial or meaningful, as if writing a really great page turner was some kind of crime. But, lemme tell ya, the complexity and beauty of his strongest stories is truly something to behold.

You can’t just casually flip through Dickens, man, you have to pay attention. To everything! Hell, that’s half the fun of it. The strange names, the larger-than-life characters, the diversions that seem pointless at the time but pay off, sometimes hundreds of pages later in genuinely shocking ways — pay careful attention to that swarthy convict on page seven, dear reader, because he just might turn out to be your secret benefactor on page three-hundred-something! — I mean, love him or hate him, you gotta give Dickens credit for being a master of structure. My head spins just thinking about him outlining something like BLEAK HOUSE…yikes!

And best of all, Dickens didn’t just dazzle us with cool plot twists for the fun or it. No way! These twists and turns of fate had meaning and impact and made us root for his characters even more. I think that’s what makes so many of his books so damn cinematic. There is so much description and beauty and humor and pain and pathos on every page that they literally read like movies.

Oy, I could go on about Charles Dickens for days, but, seeing as I have a toddler to feed and, you know, pay attention to and stuff, so, I’ll stop here. Happy birthday, Mr. Dickens! Ooo, and thanks to Google for the awesome Dickens Google Doodle on Tuesday. So cool!!

When in doubt…write!

My favorite screenwriting teacher in college gave me some very good advice one time. He said that when life gets hard and shitty and it seems like there is no good outcome anywhere on the horizon…real writers, true writers, just keep writing.

Blowhard producer hated you last draft? Keep writing. Studio exec passed on your spec? Write another one. Writing partner who you thought you knew after working together for ten-plus years totally screw you over? Fuck em, and get to work on something else.

Not only is this is a totally simple solution to the age old problem of writer’s angst — in case you haven’t noticed, we’re a pretty obsessive, neurotic lot — but, it actually works. Stewing over slights perceived and otherwise is greatly overrated, my friends. The best way to feel better after getting screwed or rejected or whatever is to write something new. Even if it’s only an angry “fuck-you-letter” that you’ll never send, the simple act of putting words on a page is healing.

And you don’t have to be a screenwriter either, real writers (even real bad writers) just feel better somehow when they write. So, let your pens flow, amigos. And if you’re not ready to make lemonade out all the lemony bullshit that’s been flowing your way lately (sorry, back to myself again) then at the very least, you can write about it. Or not. Hell, write about something completely different.

The important thing is to just keep writing. Ever. Single. Day.

Amen…

Happy 70th birthday, Krzysztof!

Well, guess who didn’t fall asleep on her own again tonight? Yep. I sat in there with her for two-plus hours, but, she didn’t actually fall asleep for real until I left her screaming and crying in her crib and headed to my office to blog. Oh, the joys of parenting…

In any case, now that I have a few minutes before sleep completely overtakes me I can blog a hearty happy birthday message to the late, great Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski. He would have been 70 years-old today and not only did he make some of my favorite films of all time, but his unique visual style and beautifully-interwoven storytelling techniques have informed everything I’ve written or wanted to write since I first saw his film “The Double Life of Veronique” way back in the early 1990’s.

Simply put, the man was a genius who died way before his time…makes me wonder if he had kids that kept him up all night too? Ha! Either way, Kieslowski completed at least two other masterworks before his death in 1996, the groundbreaking “Three Colors Trilogy: Blue, White, Red” and his indelible, early-career masterpiece, the ten-hour TV miniseries,“The Decalouge”.

If you haven’t seen any of his work yet, today is a great day to start. Celebrate the mad genius tonight by watching one (or if you have time, all) of his films…you will not be disappointed. Seriously, there was no one like him.

Oh yeah, on their Facebook page today, the cool cats at the Criterion Collection posed an interesting question by basically asking which title fans preferred: “The Three Colors Trilogy” or “The Decaloque”? Makes you wonder if their cooking up a cool Criterion reissue or two, huh? I couldn’t chose, but if I had to, I’d probably vote for “Decalogue” just because it has the least cool of the versions already on DVD. But, wow, the thought of them both coming out again via Criterion is kind of badass too. I can just imagine the cool box art…wow!

Happy birthday, Krzysztof, we miss you…