In The First Person

Rouge Waver Steve Axelrod returns to us once again with a fun first person essay. Please, Wavers, stretch your muscles and write something other than scripts. If you'd like to write a 500-750 word first person essay and see it on the Rouge Wave, contact me and if I love it, you're good to go.

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Mutant Powers for Grown-ups, #1: Epiphany Man

Here’s a question: what’s the most annoying thing about a annoying person? It’s not necessarily what they do. It’s what they think about what they do. It’s their attitude. A standard piece advice for beginning fiction writers is that the villain should always believe he’s the good guy. There’s a reason for that. The villain actually does believe he’s the good guy. That’s the creepiest thing about him.

We’ve all known the obnoxious motor-mouth who actually believes she’s ‘a good listener’ despite the fact that she hasn't shown a heat-lightning flicker of interest in anyone else’s life in decades, and can keep acquaintances on the phone literally for hours with the operatic drama and traumatic details of her own. One of these people marched into my apartment twenty minutes after I had found out that my father died, stared at the shell-shocked group on the couch and started talking about her day at work. When my girlfriend explained the situation, this lunatic said “Oh,” – just a little pot-hole in the road to swerve around --and then re-launched: “So, anyway, the all the cooks hate me and they won’t give me my orders and then I have to explain that to the customers, I mean without seeming rascist or whatever, and when I try to talk about it I just get the cold shoulder. The one guy? His name’s Raoul? He actually had the nerve to say …” and on and on.

We just stared at her, dumbfounded.

And I realized that this woman had no idea of how she sounded, or what we were thinking at that moment, or to be more inclusive, who she really was: her nature, the truth of her character. Alcoholism is not the only mental disorder whose primary symptom is denial.

One of these Olympic level marathon talkers accidentally heard an answering machine tape of a phone message – not even a live call, just a message, in which he was going on and on, ceaseless as a cicada, tedious as a cricket, subtle as a woodpecker – and he was appalled.

But it was soon forgotten, that’s the point.

The only lasting value to that brief moment of clarity was it made me realize what the coolest mutant power would be. Not shooting beams from my eyes, or levitating objects, or growing metal claws out of my fingers. No, my power would be much more devastating. With a single blast I would make people see themselves with absolute clarity. Not who they think they are, but who they really are. On top of that they would get some vivid consensus flash of the way other people see them. The jerk who thinks he’s admired and efficient and envied … kind of a Renaissance man, actually … gets the blast and suddenly realizes, not for a second like the friend with the phone message, but permanently, as an absolute reconfiguration of the synapses, that he is in fact an inept blowhard, a bully and a fool; that people despise him and laugh at him behind his back. That his name itself has come to be a kind of joke, a slang word for an incompetent bungler who thinks he can do everything perfectly.

Iceman can encase you in a block of hardened snow; I think my power would be far more paralyzing.Cyclops can hit you with a bolt of sheet energy from his eyes; but you can recover from that attack.

Once you realize the truth, there’s no going back. Remember the first time you saw the flash in the upper right hand corner of the movie screen just before the reel change? Someone had to point it out to me. But now I always see it, and I always will.

Maybe my victims will take this knowledge and change. Maybe they’ll just get some kind of aneurism and collapse. Maybe they’ll spend a year or two whimpering in the fetal position. There’s no way to tell – I can’t predict that.

Hey, I’m just the messenger.

The classic Twilight Zone ending to the story of this power is that I blast someone, they move unexpectedly and it turns out they were standing in front of a mirror. The blast ricochets right back at me and I see I’ve turned into a pompous, power-crazed tyrant, myself.

So I never unleash the power again. Too bad, because the world could really use it.

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In The First Person

Sorry for my relative absence lately, Wavers. The Creative Screenwriting Expo is going on right now, at the LA Convention Center, and all hands are on deck at The Script Department booth where we are showing movies, handing out green apples and doing altogether too much laughing. People like to come back to our booth again and again and tell us about their classes, their projects and their pitches. Our booth is always mobbed and I love it.

There are over nine volunteers who are helping out at our booth at this huge event and I am grateful to each and every one for helping communicate to attendees of the event that The Script Department is unlike any other script coverage service out there because we are a company by writers and for writers with a very personal, collaborative touch, unlike the vaguely hostilely-named-aquatically-themed, cold corporate entity that is our competitor. Suffice to say there's a new fish in town because anyone can call themselves the "industry leader" - that's just ad copy.

The fact is that this town is all about relationships. And we have great relationships with our writers - unique individuals who appreciate personal attention and encouragement, as well as great relationships with agents, managers and producers looking to be introduced to those writers. We're like the E Harmony of script coverage services. Crazy business model, huh?

I'm just saying - the shark should be looking over its pectoral fin right about now.

Aaaanyway. So in lieu of me blathering on (albeit entertainingly) about something entertainment related, I present a lovely first person essay by Steve Axelrod:

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I don't know whether to refer to this as a 'wake up call' or a 'reality check' or maybe just skip the cliches altogether and present the facts.

For the last few months a thriller I wrote has been haunting the atrium of the Creative Artists Agency, ringing ever more faintly, like someone’s lost cell phone. I was just hoping someone might find it behind the potted ficus tree before the last bar ran down. But that begins to seem more and more unlikely.

Still, some people there like the script, and they’ve been trying to get clients interested in making the movie. If enough of them commit, the people who get in-house projects financed there could go out and get the money for the production. It’s an odd situation. I’m not a CAA client. I suppose I might become one eventually, if some creative ignition happens. But for the moment my script is as anonymous as a Shaker quilt.

We were given a list of possible directors and then watched as each one took a different movie. It was like reading Ten little Indians, except that nobody died. Most of them never even saw my screenplay. There’s not much incentive to read some unknown’s work when big stars and Academy Award winning writers and studio deals with big paychecks beckon. Finally the only one left was Peter Weir. When I first saw the list it never occurred to me that they might give him my project. He’s in a different class than the others. He's an authentic artist, a giant. I couldn’t imagine he’d be interested in my paltry adventure story. The last thing remotely like a thriller he did was Witness and this was no Witness, even I could see that. But I amused myself with some wary moments of hope as the weeks wore on. Finally he passed, as I had always been pretty sure he would.

What did he choose to do instead?

Well, he’s making film out of William Gibson's Pattern Recognition, a book I read last year when I was looking for something edgy and engrossing. Fascinating book. With a script by David Arata who wrote the screenplay for Children of Men, one of the best adaptations of all time. Even P.D. James said it was better than the book. I've read the book and she's right. The whole climax, where the hero and the last pregnant woman on earth have to infiltrate the hellish immigrant detention camp to reach the coast and their rendezvous with 'the human project', overwhelms the mundane final moments of the novel.

So --I'm supposed to compete in that league?, asked the house painter from Nantucket.

I don't think so. I don't get to be ball boy in that league. So that's today's humbling tale of Hollywood.

As a fan I'm looking forward to Pattern Recognition. As someone who doesn't believe in portents and signs, I'm not taking this as the big blood red sky-writing message (SURRENDER DOROTHY) that it seems to be. I'm more used to the other OZ paradigms. For writers, Hollywood is full of them: the poppies and the flying monkeys, the friendly munchkins and the angry trees.

All the quotes feel chillingly familiar: “Off to see the Wizard” (or is it the Head of Development); “Bring me the broomstick (or the next unnecessary free revision) of the Wicked Witch of the West.” And don’t forget that old favorite, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”.

Of course it ends with “There's no place like home” as you flee back to Kansas and tell yourself it was all a dream. But I did that 20 years ago. And I'm still dreaming.

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In The First Person

La La Land
by Julie McDowell

What is it about LA that makes it so alluring? The glam? The glitz? What is it that draws people back time and time again? After all, LA is the home where the Barbie Dolls roam, with rich men who play with money all day. I moved to LA on a simple premise which our dear friend Jiminy Cricket sings so nicely:

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you

Los Angeles. The City of Angels. The city of dreamers. Where little wooden dolls become real boys, where the stars you wish upon become the stars you walk upon, where a nobody becomes a somebody, where dreams really do come true. Like every young girl, I dreamt big. Oh, to become a princess, to bite into a poisonous apple only to have my prince come rescue me. I wanted to become part of the magic, the fantasy. To live amongst those who created anything and everything, bound not by time but only by their desire to dream.

I’ve lived in LA for several years now and I’ve bit the poisonous apple, met Prince Charming, as well as the Wicked Witch of the West, and I’ve loved every minute of it. LA is like an adult Disneyworld. Within this great amusement park lay many diverse lands full of wild rides. From the hippies in Topanga Canyon to the hipsters in Silver Lake, from the groove in Venice to the beat in Hollywood, from the Bentley driving gents in Beverly Hills to the bling in the hood, one can delve in to any fantasy they like. It’s where the black sheep come to graze patiently waiting for their moment of inspiration, the moment where they realize that not only can they become white but that they can fly.

All over the world people are accustomed to tradition, to falling in line and adapting to their environment, to settling, to giving in, to living in reality. “Come down to earth,” “Get your head out of the clouds,” people say. What does that even mean, “living in reality?” Is not my reality that which I choose to make it? Of course, there’s The Golden Rule to live by. But what about the silver one sprinkled in fairy dust that allows you to dream big and live happily ever after? True, there are those who cut off their toes in order to find the right fit to a glass slipper. But they only end up on the arm of a millionaire older then their grandfather, having dinner at Maestro’s Steakhouse, waking up to a great big rotten pumpkin with seeds of self-hatred. Then, there are those who live honorably and courageously, who get their hands dirty and clean the cinders from the fireplace. Those who work hard, never losing sight of their dream, until one day the glass slipper comes knocking on their door.

From San Diego to northern California, from Italy to New York, I’ve been fortunate to live in some beautiful places. Each area has its own unique gifts to offer. However, every time I run off to explore some place new, there’s a force that brings me back. LA is the city of dreams. Sure, one can dream in any town, Philadelphia, Boston, Paris, or Wasilla, but LA is the city where one’s dreams come alive. It’s the cherry on top of the American Dream. The Promised Land. It’s saddling up one’s horse and riding out west to stake one’s claim and search of the Holy Grail. Only in this town the grail isn’t found in the hands of Harrison Ford. It’s found in the eye of the dreamer.

Everyday I wake up leaving one dream and stepping into another, inspired by the notion that anything is possible in LA. I know that at one moment an idea is formed, and the next it can be seen dancing on screen. True, I have grown from that young girl understanding now that in fantasy exists both the dream and the nightmare. For an artist cannot paint in merely black and white. It is in this mystical city that all shades are exposed. I find that only here can I delve into such a range of life. The yin and yang, the light and dark, the comedy and tragedy. It’s the duality of this town that entices me. Like Dante’s Divine Comedy, I can travel through both the depths of hell and the peaks of heaven to find my prince and live happily ever after.

Maybe it’s the mystical Santa Ana winds that blow in every fall from the desert, maybe it’s the way the mountains meet the ocean on that crystal clear day, or maybe it’s that last martini I had up on Sunset Plaza. There’s something in this town that stirs my soul. I hate to love it, but I do.

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If you would like to submit a first person essay to the Rouge Wave, write something terrific, keep it between 500 and 750 words and send it in for consideration.

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A Day in My Life

Ah....Halloween. Day of masks and ruses. And candy. The day before the day before the carved pumpkin starts to collapse and smell weird. Five days before a historic election and two days before the time change. It's a time to reflect and to ....okay I think I've pretty much milked that dry.

So I spent yesterday finishing reading and covering a FANTASTIC novel for Seed Productions. The main character was unforgettable as he introduces himself as a thinking man, entrepreneur and murderer. I think I signed some kind of non-disclosure something or other a couple of years back when I started reading for them so I'm not supposed to talk about what properties they are looking at. But geez, it was amazing. The trick with covering a novel is that one has to then indicate, in the notes, whether this property might make a good movie. Difficult thing to assess, since the narrative in a novel is significantly more complex than a script, and buried deep and twisted around so much internal character stuff. So one has to pluck that narrative out like the thread of a sweater and ask if that narrative is: adaptable, original, interesting and accessible to a wide audience, castable and of course, one must muse upon the expense of the whole thing. I gave this one a big thumb's up but did note that it would be expensive due to exotic locations and this falls under the category of Important Movie (aka Oscar bait) rather than a Friday night blockbuster, necessarily. I hope Seed pursues the property and that if they don't, someone else does, because I'd go see this movie in a red hot Hollywood minute.

I also cleaned my desk yesterday - I actually work at a funky dining table which sits next to two huge, old fashioned windows (in my very old place). I found, at the bottom of the stacks, no less than six scripts from casual acquaintances (to be defined as: neighbors, people I meet at events, etc.). These are scripts that they want me to peruse quickly. No such thing as perusing quickly. I did eliminate about three very quickly by doing the read-3-pages-while-standing-up-with-coffee test. I hate when I say yes I will give a script a quick look when in fact I always have so much else to do. I wind up feeling guilty and the scripts gather dust. My paying clientele has to come first. At the end of a long day of reading other stuff and administrating my business (which in fact is really three businesses) the last thing I'm in the mood for is - another script. And really nice dude I met at the Fade In Pitch Fest - you know who you are - you had a great pitch and I said I'd look at the script and it passed the read-3-pages-while-standing-up-with-coffee test and I know I said oh no biggie when you mentioned your script wasn't bound - but it is a big, fat bummer - if you bring scripts to events, three-hole punch and put brads in it!!

I also deal with business stuff on a daily basis. Answering approximately oh, these days even with my assistant running interference, 20 to 25 emails a day. Sending my bio here and there, figuring out where The Script Department booth will be located at the CS Expo and how many volunteers will be a the booth when and getting all the materials ready for that. Putting together class descriptions for an event in June 09. Fielding requests to announce or publish stuff on the Rouge Wave. Following up on scripts I am getting read on behalf of my clients at agents and managers. Dealing with the various bank accounts associated with my business(es). Making calls about ad buys past and present. And about 9,000 other things which are too specific to be of even mild interest. But you don't care about that stuff. It just keeps me quite busy is all I'm sayin'.

Which is why my favorite thing to do is to sit down with a script and a cup of coffee and a pen and just read quietly. I'm not really making decisions or judgments in that moment; I just read and let the pages fly by and absorb what I'm reading. I stop and make small notes but I think it's best for the story if it just flows like a river while being read. I make the judgments and comments later, when I'm done and I shift into note-giving mode. I really feel it's a luxury to sit and read scripts versus juggle the other, more odious things I mentioned above. And thankfully, these days I don't have to read three scripts a day so I am relaxed when I read now and give each script my all. When I used to do only production company reading I got into Reader Mode which is go, go, go, go and one gets jaded, burned out and exhausted. As I have said on the Rouge Wave many a time - this is who is reading your scripts if you don't have me read it first, so just know that. No use beating that horse again, you all know how I feel about the wisdom of getting notes before you throw your script into the lion filled colosseum of bored, tired, cranky-ass readers.

And then there's my personal life. (Insert long, uncomfortable moment of realization here).

The lines between my business and my personal lives are so blurred they are almost indistinguishable. My friends are my colleagues. Dinner, drinks and get-togethers always turn to scripts, the business, this or that agent or manager. I stay up very, very late at night since that's when I can catch up on emails and make decisions about things in a more thoughtful way. Those of you who may have gotten an email time-stamped at 2am know this about me. I also don't ever schedule anything - NOTHING - before 10am because I'm not really, truly awake until then. On those rare, awful occasions when I do have to be somewhere before 10am you'll notice I am quite pallid and inarticulate.

I can't figure out why my TiVo isn't recording all of the shows it's supposed to. I'm excited to vote this Tuesday. I left the fridge open again last night and the porch light is too high for me to fix myself. There's laundry in the dryer and six scripts staring at me and three important phone calls I have to make today. It's Halloween and I'm dressed as me - thinker, writer, entrepreneur, decider, mother of two and mother to many, a lover of movies and a lover of writing. Happy Halloween.

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In The First Person

Only a Motion Away
by Donna Matias

During my early years, up until I was 7 or 8, it seemed like I didn't see my dad very much. He was in the Navy, which meant he was always on a ship somewhere and we were always moving to the port city where his ship was stationed. The only saving grace was that we always lived in coastal towns, which probably explains why I can't stand to be inland for any significant period of time without feeling boxed in.

As I recall things, I would attend school for a year, then the movers would come and pack our things and carry them away in a big van. We'd leave a day or so later, taking a long road trip to our next destination. It never made sense to me that although we took our time and stopped at all those Rest Areas and famous sights, by the time we'd arrive in our new home we would still have to wait weeks for the movers to bring our stuff. In the meantime, my dad would hang around a bit and help us get settled, but eventually we'd say goodbye to him and not expect to see him for a very long time. He always remembered our birthdays and he wrote lots of letters, all of which I've kept.

Once, when we had been living in the great state of Washington for about nine months, my sister and I rode our bikes down the hill to a local Esso convenience store/gas station. We were looking over the candy aisle, trying to decide on a purchase when I saw a dark-skinned man with thick black hair enter the store. I stared at him for a moment, not believing my own eyes. Then I pulled on my sister's sleeve, drawing her out of the aisle where the man couldn't see us. When I found a place of safety, one where we could see the man but he couldn't see us crouching near the Q-Tips, I pointed to him and said to my sister, "I think that's our dad."

She looked, and eventually agreed. We watched him for about a minute, perhaps less. Time always seems to distort itself during surreal moments. Our spying had grown too risky as he made his way around the aisles, so I said, "Let's get outta here!" We remained crouched and, when we saw our chance, made our way to the door. Then we ran out to our bikes and rode home like bats outta hell.

My dad came home shortly thereafter. We hugged and kissed him and told him we were happy to see him. But for some reason, we never mentioned that we already knew he was home.

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In the First Person

Made in China
by Adam Hong




Big.
How big?
If every man, woman, and child in China spit southward simultaneously the entire Southeast Asia will be wiped out.

I was too young to understand my uncle’s metaphor, but that was some image. Gross! But powerful nevertheless. Only recently that I’ve connected his joke with China’s power, its population represents more than 1/5 of the world’s – one out of every five people in the world lives in China, not to mention millions more scattering around the world. Like my uncle.

Like most Asian Americas he has a love-hate relationship with his ancestry. He loves Chinese food, authentic, homemade Chinese food, not Panda Express. He was an amazing cook – “was” because I think he’s losing his piquancy to aging – give him an egg and he would whip up beautiful golden delicious egg drop soup in a flash. He hates everything else from China, anything made in China that is. Truth is made-in-China means less in my family’s dictionary. Anything easily broken, faded, stretched, synthetic, odorous, contaminated, and most recently poisonous. Let’s put it this way, if my families said my writing is made in China, I would be devastated, especially the odorous attribute. Ironically, my uncle is not exactly a big spender. He’s thrilled to get a bargain and ecstatic when things are free. The opposite would drive him mad. He once disputed over his water bill for a year, only giving in when the utility company turned off the water and charged him with a penalty and required a security deposit to reinstate the service. Since then he turned off all the water in the house, except for the kitchen and the master bathroom. He sank three red bricks in the water tank of a Canadian-made toilet, which the manufacturer assures a disposal of one gallon of water for each flush. Who needs a whole gallon of water to flush if half gallon could do the job? He often jokes that his invention is truly made in China, not for the cheapness context, but the practicality. So he has a dilemma. He doesn’t want to deplete his bank accounts for quality products, and he doesn’t want anything made in China either. That’s my uncle. Wait. It’s my neighbor. My teacher. The mailman. My dentist. It seems that everyone faces the same dilemma. Eventually economy wins. Just take a trip to your nearest super Wal-Mart and you’ll see all solutions provided by the Chinese in one stop. There you can shop, eat, be entertained, fill prescription, and, as your heart desires, wed your beloved in a white and pink decorated wedding chapel while waiting for your car to be serviced. The Chinese clearly see our demands for quantity not quality. They are eager to please the world. In preparation for the Olympics, China has a long list of etiquette that the Chinese must comply with. One of them is to stop spitting publicly.

They will get even bigger.

How big?
Let’s hope that they don’t start spitting again. Toward us.

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In the First Person

Here is a lovely first person essay by a Waver I'll call "M" about the power and the healing writing has provided in his life:

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Stories are the salve that soothes the wounds of the world.

As the child of lost-in-the-bottle alcoholics, my sole escape from a home of heartbreak was through breathless reverence of my favorite characters as they overcame both inner pain and outer obstacles.

I drew strength from their courage and hope from a hero's ability to rise above and discovered real empowerment by expressing my own story as wild adventures through times of darkness to triumph.

But as I grew older and more overwhelmed by life's tricky path, I began to lose sight of the light that had guided my way - my love of stories, and how creating them made my life better.

Nicholson was right; sometimes you can't handle the truth, at least not without help. A kind writer named Terry (thank you, Mr. Rossio) turned my eyes toward the starry-eyed trap opening far below me.

I stopped writing for five years to prevent my fall.

When I came back, I came back strong for one reason; I rediscovered my love of story. How it shapes us. Binds us. Heals us, through joy and laughter and tears. If we do it right, through all of these!

Story flows through my blood again, and I could no more stop its course than I could give up breathing. Every day I can fashion a world from words is another day I can create in a world of decay.
Sharing the wonder of well-told tales by mastering the process of crafting them is my keen interest, because the healing we receive from stories that uplift and sustain hope even as the world's weight cracks the rafters above us proves that great stories mean something.

My goal is simple - to write stories that help others feel as I do.

****
Thank you, M, that was a beautiful piece of writing. If you would like to submit a short first person essay to the Rouge Wave - about anything, really - contact me HERE.

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Rouge Wave First Person Essay

Talented writer and Script Department client Patrick Hoeft sent in this lovely first person essay that you sports fans might enjoy:

AT LEAST I GOT THE POSTER

It's January, 2006 and I beam as I watch the seconds fall off the clock and my beloved Seattle Seahawks advance to the Super bowl for the first time in franchise history, "Oh yes, I will be there."

I arrived in Toledo, OH Saturday, February 4th. This is where I should have started believing in foreshadowing. I took my bags up to my room and was going to have an early dinner. I entered the lobby to find 30 Pittsburgh Steelers fans waiting to check into the hotel. One of them noticed me in my favorite Seahawks hat and screamed, "Seahawks fan!" Like sharks smelling blood in the water 30 people I had never met before in my life “booed” me. The noise was so loud that it was echoing off of the ceiling. These aren't 20-year-old kids these are men and women in their 40s and even 50s.

I decided to start my Sunday early by traveling the 60 miles and arriving in Detroit about 10:00 AM. I headed for the stadium to see if anyone might be trying to get rid of tickets early as I still needed one. Since there were no tickets to be had I decided to do some shopping and get out of the cold. I went into a small shop selling Super bowl memorabilia and bought a Seahawks Super bowl poster.

The thing that amazed me, and that I hadn't accounted for, was the amount of Steelers fans that made the 300 mile trip from Pittsburgh. They were equally as brutal as their counterparts in the hotel lobby. I gave as good as I got.

Throughout the day I was the little engine that couldn't, as I realized that there was a lot more demand for tickets than supply with all the friggin' Steelers fans around.

I'm sure I was a pitiful sight as I heard the roar of the crowd at kickoff from outside the stadium. I was exhausted, cold, dejected, angry, disappointed, and generally having an extreme dislike for Steelers fans.

I tucked my head between my legs and drove the 60 miles back to my hotel. I closed out the dismal day as the lone patron of the hotel bar, drowning my sorrows as the Seahawks lost the Super bowl.

The next day I climbed on a plane and headed home a beaten man. The only redeeming value of the weekend was my stinking little Seahawks Super bowl poster. I pulled the poster out of the package and unrolled it.

My wife rounded the corner and said it looked like fire was going to shoot out of my eyes as I stared at the Pittsburgh Steelers poster. I thought fire was a good idea and just as I was about to go outside and set that thing ablaze my 3-year-old son saw the poster and said, "Wow, cool poster daddy!" I put it up in his room where it hangs to this day.

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Rouge Wave: In the First Person

Rouge Waver Maria Clara Mattos submitted this lovely, descriptive first person essay and I thought it was really great:

When I sometimes get tired of myself

By Maria Clara Mattos

Today is one of those where I am so tired of being me, so terribly dog-tired of my thoughts, the only thing I can imagine giving me a break, a vacation, a breeze would be… brain switch! Aren’t there people you admire just because they’re so different from you? You see them as practical, go-getters, doers. Me? No. Sometimes I think I think too much. See? I think I think. Isn’t it hyperbolic? I think I wanted to be a person who thinks of something and simply does it. Who doesn’t think of something, then think of the ifs and whys and hows and whens and gets lost with all this thinking and can’t go ahead with the plan of having a script rewrite finally done, or can’t decide what to write about today or even what to eat for lunch. It’s not that I don’t like myself or my thoughts and all. I kind of like them. What bothers me is the thinking. I mean, if I could create a schedule for my thinking, maybe it would already be fine. Something that went like “today I’ll think about this” and do whatever it is that’s related to that thought. Tomorrow is another day; it’s the day of new thinking. And so on. I have friends who do that. If they were fine with it I’d trade brains with them. Not forever. No. Just for a few days, weeks or months. Just to get a different perspective on my own thoughts. Yes, I’d still be me, I’d still have my thought files preserved, but, when approaching them, I’d be using someone else’s experiences, life records, words, analogies, humor - or the lack of it… no, I’d never trade brains with a humorless person, I’m sorry, that’s a primary condition. But when it comes to thinking about that, well, isn’t that exactly what writers do? Switch brains with a character? Don’t we have to open a new file in our brain to be able to speak as somebody else, to live a life we invented? To fall in love with somebody we’ve never seen or met or talked to? Maybe this is what all this thinking is about. The many characters screaming to come out, to be given a chance to choose my lunch, my steps, the books I read, the parties I go, the places I visit, the lines I deliver. Be it in real life, be it in fiction. Be it a screenplay, a first person essay, a novel, a note to a friend, a message on someone’s answering machine, blog, cellphone. Today we can live different lives even when we’re not writers, actors, or just crazies. There are avatars, dating sites, websites, virtual places where you can be whatever you want. Choose the color of your hair. Your name. The nature of your speech. Your diet. The way you approach life. Only we, writers, have done it forever. Over blank pages.

I guess I’m not tired anymore.

***

If you too are a "thinker junkie" check out Eckhard Tolle's The Power of Now. It's helped the Wave-inatrix a ton.

If you would like to submit a 500-word first person essay to the Rouge Wave, just email me HERE and if you've written a pithy, evocative, entertaining piece you will definitely see it on the Wave.

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In The First Person

Happy Sunday, Wavers everywhere. Today for your reading pleasure, we have a first-person essay by Rouge Waver Steven Axelrod. Read and enjoy but let us not forget to VOTE for your favorite one page scene as the voting continues.

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My son Nick graduated from high school today, and I was stunned by the ambush of emotions. They came at me from too many directions at once. I grasped just bits and pieces of it at first: the tug of suspense when Nick as crossed the stage to pick up his diploma … as if something might happen to screw it up, as if the diploma itself might be blank. I know other people felt the same way: I made the joke with a few of the parents I knew, and saw the nervous smile of recognition on their faces. Then came the relief. It was over, we did it, he made it.

Later, I said to my Mom, “No one else knows what this feels like.” And she said, “What about me? I’ve been through it, too.” Then she said: “For twenty years you’ve been putting yourself last; now you can finally put yourself first. You can finally do what you want. But what is that?” And I had no idea. But I feel like some huge changes could begin now; as if I had graduated, not Nick.

But even that isn’t all. Nick’s graduation unplugs me from a whole community that I didn’t even know I cared about. I knew these kids, and through them their parents and through those families the real life of the island I lived on and the town that had somehow, almost against my will, become my home. Now that living connection is gone, too. The next bunch of kids will be strangers to me; the next crazy teacher won’t be my problem. So this rite of passage isolates me. It makes me feel my age. I finished my fiftieth year, my first real novel and my children’s high school careers all in the same week. That’s a lot of endings.

It was disorienting: the secret core of my identity had become a technicality. Of course I’m still a parent and always will be. But my job is complete. This is the moment we were striving for. And I’m happy about it, just like I’m supposed to be. Still, the sadness under that triumph is all around me. I feel displaced, like an executive forced into early retirement, but given a seat on the Board. My status may be the same, but my daily life will be permanently diminished.

My brother Peter came to Nantucket for the graduation, and he walked into the house with a bag of groceries a few minutes ago. Mom stood up as he came in and I asked her, “Why did you get up?” She said, “I thought Peter needed help.” He just looked at her with a patient baffled smile (he has no children). He said, “I’m fine Mom,” and started unpacking the food. She sat down again, and I said, “I guess that’s a look I’m going to have to start getting used to.”

She nodded a little sadly. “Yes,” she said. “But you never will.”

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In the First Person

Wishful Thinking
by Adam Hong

I would be lying if I say I remember how my grandmother died. But hearing the story so many times, in so many points of view, I have my take on her death. In all versions, I had something to do with it. In mine, I killed her, not intentionally, of course, because I was barely two years old.

I was born with a cleft lip, a birth defect that had kept my grandmother away for the first twenty months of my life. I was too young to be ashamed of my deformity, but my poor mother was the topic on everybody’s tongue. A month after my surgery to fix the cleft lip, almost two years after I was born, I met my grandmother for the first time. She was hovering her crumbled face over my crib, squinting her clouded eyes at me and introducing me to her ill-fitting dentures. I was sure my freshly stitched lip was the focal point of her attention. She was a seventy-one-year-old woman who was built and looked like a sharpie -- husky, squarish snout, and all skin. As she leaned closer, close enough for me to count her grays sprouting out of her bottomless nostrils, her skin hung forth and dripped off her face like melting wax. Something had dripped off her face, and strung from the split where her lips supposed to be. I let out a horrific scream and defenselessly grabbed hold of the skin from her neck, pulling this liquid dispenser out of my way. She jerked her head back, lost her balance and hit her head against my mother’s dresser. She was in coma for two weeks, and died the day I had the stitches removed from my lip.

That is how I tell this story. My mother, however, has different version each time she recalls the past.

“Don’t underestimate the power of your wishful thinking,” she nodded her head and claimed the death of my grandmother was a direct result from her deep desire for her to drop dead. “Sometimes if you want something bad enough, it will happen. But how it happens is in the Lord’s hands.” Then she continued on to the death of my father in an auto accident, a year after my grandmother’s. “See, my son, when you were born I was only twenty-nine years old, and there already were ten of you. In ten more years there’d be twenty of you. That is a scary thought, isn’t it? So I prayed and prayed hard, praying for my fertility come to an end, for my womb dry out like a desert. I prayed in my sleep. I prayed when your father on top of me. The Old Lord finally granted me my wish, but not without his wicked power. Instead of answering my prayers in the simplest way, he took your father away in an instant. Don’t underestimate the power of your wishful thinking.”

If that is true, mother, I completely understand your motivation.

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And that, Wavers, is one helluva 1st person essay by a very talented screenwriter. It starts off with a shocking claim and it segues into some personal, painful truths. That, my dear Wavers, is how it's done. In 500 words, Adam took us on a journey which was relatable and compelling. Great work, Adam!

If you have a completed 500 word 1st person essay or would like to take a crack at it, please submit HERE.

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In the First Person

By Rouge Waver Diane Stredicke

I still have trouble calling myself a screenwriter.

I walk into my writing group every other Tuesday which meets in Times Square and we have to go around the table, introduce ourselves, and, of course, the introduction starts with, "Hello. My name is. And I'm a screenwriter."

You see, I've never actually been paid to write a screenplay. And because long ago I equated what you do with what you get paid for, when someone asks me what I do, I immediately fall to the thing which pays my rent, buys my food, supports my family.

I recently attended a film festival. A script I wrote won an award. And the whole day at the festival was spent introducing me to others as a screenwriter. As the day wore on, I got used to the title. My real life, my real job, slipped into the background. It helped that I was on the other coast. The coast where they actually make movies. The coast whose entire identity is caught up with movie making. There, everyone writes movies. There, everyone seems to be an actor, a director, a producer or a screenwriter.

It was amazing how easily it slipped off my tongue.

"Me? I'm a screenwriter."

And no one asked me what I do for a living. No one asked how I pay my rent. It was my secret for the day. There was no separation between those paid, and those unpaid. We were all writers. Together. Being celebrated.

On the plane, flying back to my reality, I secretly hoped that some unsuspecting average Joe would ask me, "What do you do?" I was ready for them this time.

But no one did.

No one looked at me while I flipped through a script. No one payed attention while I worked on a script in Final Draft.

I was just like everyone else on the plane. A working stiff. Doing what I do. To live.

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1st Person

Just a few days ago, I invited Rouge Wavers to work those writing muscles and submit a first person essay (500 words, max) to the Rouge Wave. Some Wavers may know that first person is how the Wave-inatrix got her start, oh so many years ago. And you all must know by now that I hold it be self-evident that writing in many styles and for many venues is a must for a well-trained and toned writer.

What is a first person essay, anyway? Uh, well, it's right in the name. It's written in the first person. First person - or personal essays - can vary in length from 500 to 1200 to 2500 words and up. Most publications ask for 1200 words.

A good first person essay should do a few things: It should have a really great, evocative title. It should stay within the word count limit (a reality in this format), it should have a clear beginning, middle and end. It should wind up with a sentence that summarizes the theme and the point and it should have some "take-away" value - some meaning that the reader can use. You know, tips, inspiration, resources - something that leaves the reader a better person when they're done.

You may be asking yourself - what in tarnation does first person essay writing have to do with movies, screenwriting or the Rouge Wave?! Nothing. And everything. The Rouge Wave is a blog dedicated to more than inspiring, entertaining, informing and occasionally riling screenwriters. It is a place where we talk about screenwriting primarily, but it is also a resource to keep you in shape physically, emotionally ands spiritually for the marathon that we are all running. As people and as writers. Writers write.

But, as per usual, I digress.

Reading great essays is a real pleasure, and something that the Wave-inaxtrix adds as a regular part of my fiction diet. The Sunday New York Times magazine is a great source of first person essays as are many other great publications. Best American Essays is a great place to really start exploring essay writing for those of you who are curious or already big fans.

Let's give a big Rouge Wave congratulations to Jennifer, our first featured Rouge Wave 1st Person writer!

A FEW DEEP BREATHS

By: Jennifer Thomas


I started a new project.

And *gasp* it's not a screenplay!

It's a children's novel. I have all these whimsical thoughts throughout my days caring for children and I finally sat down to write.

And I almost forgot how to write something that's not a screenplay!

It took a few moments for the freedom of words to rush in, but golly I had a lovely time using every inch of my imagination this afternoon folks. Really, really great! I wrote what I thought, what I envisioned. I didn't get caught up in the screenplay woes:

Am I being too literary?
Am I directing?
Describing too much?
Describing the wrong way?
Setting up a major plot in the first 10? The first 10 are so important?
Is there enough white space?
Am I telling and not showing?

...I just wrote.

And I wonder if this is how a pro feels when they write a screenplay.. Do you think that they feel the same ease of writing? That they don't think about all these rules and exceptions and confusions and conventions...they just write? And they trust their own voice, and find peace and calm in screenplay structure.

And then I realize that…

1) They probably all have their moments of self-doubt.
2) They still manage to finish scripts they are proud of..

So, I set aside my magical, whimsical children’s story. And I open up Final Draft. And I stare at my script. The one that I said I’d finish months ago. The one that’s stuck on page 58. The one that I started with exuberance and excitement, until my inner critic got a strangle hold on me.

I take five very deep breaths…

And I just write.

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All right, Wavers. How did Jennifer do? You can leave constructive comments here on the RW. Cast well-aimed marshmallows, not stones, for you may be next. And quite honestly, kudos are in order because for the most part, Jennifer has written a very nice essay here.

Rouge Wavers interested in toning and firming those writing muscles can submit first person essays for consideration HERE.

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