"Oh spare me, Clark, I know your brand of family fun. Tomorrow you'll probably kill the desk clerk, hold up a McDonalds, and drive us 1000 miles out of the way to see the world's largest pile of mud!"

Tales from the Script this week looks at a lesson learned from the script I gave notes on.  The descriptions - scene and action - really popped.  I mean seriously.  I noticed it, and my wife noticed it.  She then was supportive enough to draw a direct comparison to my writing.  That's no kidding around; her feedback is honest and extremely helpful - devoid of most sugar coating.

The point made was that my scripts still read like novels.  I am very descriptive, but in a wordy way.  This author accomplished in a line what I struggle to cram into four.  A script is like those sketches that are just a couple strokes and then your mind fills the rest in.  A novel is more like a mural - never ending splashes of color with [often] excruciating detail.  The key is to pick the most important element of the scene - the one with the most VISUAL impact, and use that to describe everything.  It's something I have to practice or my scripts will always be slow reading and tedious.  It makes me wonder if I should just stick to novel writing.  But then I look at the unfinished novels and think, "Probably not a good plan.  I've actually finished screenplays."

I made startling connection this morning between stories and life.  In my mind I specifically used the word

"scripted" as a metaphor for how we planned activities during our vacation and how certain people want certain other people to think, act, and feel a certain way.  Real life is full of things not working out quite right - it's why real life isn't usually good for stories - but the caveat is, and it was demonstrated in the script I was talking about earlier, but if you script it to be perfect, there is not enough drama.  The trick is making things hard for your characters, but then making the right things work out.

So what does the typical family vacation script look like?  Let's just say that I think each of us, deep down or close to surface, can admit that there's a bit of Clark Griswold inside that would take as many hostages as necessary to make everything perfect.

"Look, Jessie. You can't plan who you fall for. It just happens. I mean, look at... Posh and Becks"

Before I talk about today's "Tool of the Trade", I'd like to point your attention to something that is most definitely NOT a necessary part of my writing.  The python.  Especially of thechild eating variety.

What is part of my toolkit are great people.  For this discussion, let's define great people as calculated risk taking doers.  They don't theorize, they don't nay-say, and they don't rest on their laurels.  They get it done when nobody else does.  They are often called lucky and usually are the focal point of a great deal of jealousy.  Many people don't like them claiming that these people are arrogant or assertive but I suspect that what is really driving those negative feelings is self-examination - and seeing where we come up short.

Before you totally disagree with me, I know that some people are just horrible to be around and we both know people that the other of us wouldn't care for, but that isn't what I'm talking about.  There are also lucky people but I think that if more people were willing to latch onto a possibility, take a chance, and go for it, we'd see there were a lot more lucky people in the world.

I enjoyed a wonderful dinner with a mature entrepreneur last night.  He has made hay pretty much everywhere and lives very comfortably.  We were laughing because he's retired about six times but says you can only play so many rounds of golf before you need something else to do.  (I can only make excuses about not completing my writing projects so many times before I'm not really trying anymore.)  He then told a really neat story about my 2nd cousin who has dreamed of being a professional soccer player for about ever.  I remember when he made a college choice based on soccer and how much discussion ensued - "You're crazy for doing this.  Nobody plays professional soccer."

But some people do.  He's now in Guatemala playing for a Manchester United farm team.  There aren't a lot of people playing professional soccer when you look at a global population of 7 billion, but there are some.  They're the people who don't just say, "Man, I want to bend it like Beckham and then marry a Spice Girl."  They're the people who put the hours in to practice, they fight family and friends and people they don't know who say, "You'll never make it.  Be real."  I have little doubt in my mind that he'll leave the minor league and play for a major European professional team.

What about you?  What are you doing?  Are you serious about this writing thing?  I mean really serious?  I know you're talking up a good game, but are you a doer?  I don't think it was luck that got my short story accepted for publication last month, I think it was confidence combined with work - I believed it was good enough that someone should read it and I researched appropriate markets and then read the submission guidelines VERY carefully.  I'm not any luckier than you at all - I sent out three stories and had two rejections.  An incredible average that will only go down.

I'm looking out at the ocean and can't see the other side.  There were only a handful of people with the courage to set out across it.  Watching the waves beat back the shore it's easy to see why so many people gave up or didn't even try.  That's okay - less competition for us.

"You know, it's just like a dead person to say something like that."

Be inspired by where you are.  I can't stress this enough.  As a writer this is true figuratively (as for everyone) but also quite literally.  Everything we produce as writers is based on sharing an experience - whether real or imaginary - with someone else.  The goal of that sharing to is to inform the reader of that place/event/thing in

Talk about being completely there.

the most complete way possible without putting them to sleep or at least yawning and saying, "I get it already.  I'm reading something else."

I've read some remarkable essays over the years.  Now they are usually called "blog posts" unless they are specifically being marketed.  I've also read some really good news pieces.  In Wired, you often find essays filled with news or are biographies - but only the important bits.  I'm actually just realizing how much biography is in Wired.  I'm not really a big fan of the biography.  I've read a few but they don't usually interest me that much, few focus exclusively on the interesting things people have done.  My biography would be pretty dull except for maybe four places.  I'm having a blast but you wouldn't think it was very interesting.  If you did, I'd have to get a restraining order against you , Mr. Stalker.

History is different - tell me all you want about a person as he and significant history interact.  Just don't spend a chapter on the childhood dog.  Sure, the writing is great and I'm glad he played fetch, but unless the dog tried to drown him, what's the point of it in my life?  Don't mean to be rude, just pointing out how the reader thinks.

What a rabbit trail.  Sorry.  The point is, you should be engaged, fully, wherever you are, whether you plan to report it or not.  Let it inspire you because the place, your feelings, the things you say, hear, and think will all find their way into making you a more interesting and authentic author.  Not a writer?  No problem.  You'll be less of a bore at dinner parties.