You Writ Good Fr Me!

"You did me business ethics propsal for me I need propsal got approved pls can you will write me paper?"

The author of that cringe-worthy sentence paid Ed Dante $2,000 to write a business school research paper for her. He did and she graduated with an MBA.

For a truly jaw-dropping look into Ed's world of writing for hire, check out this article from The Chronicle of Higher Education.

A man approached me once to write a law school admissions essay for his brother in India. He offered a whopping $50. I refused, saying the most I could do was edit his final draft after he wrote it.

When he finally gave me a draft to edit, it was a disaster. Rambling statements, incomplete sentences, and incoherent arguments. I corrected the spelling and grammar errors and returned it, though upon reading this article about Ed Dante, I feel dirty even having done that.

Though I took the $50.

Fiction Black Friday: NaNoWriMo Sample, Part 2

Click here to read NaNoWriMo Sample, Part 1

Her sister’s voice now came from the doorway. “You’re not wearing any shoes.”

Calista looked down. Her socks were starting to soak through with melted snow. Her crying paused for a moment as she contemplated how she didn’t notice the cold, even as she wiggled her wet toes encased in fake wool. Grief was a powerful thing, she thought. She turned to finally face her sister, who stood sour-faced in the doorway.

“I had to get out,” Calista said.

“Don’t be so fucking dramatic,” Jen snapped, and she closed the screen door between them, leaving Calista out on the patio. Calista watched as she walked away, unraveling the scarf around her neck. Cashmere, she thought, or pashmina at least. Jen had great taste in fashion. She was just a horrible sister.

Calista looked back out at the yard. There were memories here too, but at least outside she could breath. The vegetable patch where her parents had nursed their crop every spring and summer. The lilac trees that had conveniently served as first, second, and third base whenever needed. The tiny fence her parents had put up to keep the neighbor’s tree leaves from blowing into the yard and becoming their problem. So many details in one stretch of land. Her land now. Hers and Jen’s.

She closed her eyes and listened for the sounds of home. The familiar white noise of her small town neighborhood. So different than the constant sound of cars and dogs from her apartment in LA. Here, the sounds were of trees rustling and doors opening and closing in the neighborhood. The occasional dog barking. Everything was smaller here. Less. Except the memories.

The sliding door opened again. Calista turned and saw her sister standing in the doorway, fighting back tears. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. Would you please come inside now?” Jen was angry and annoyed. As if Calista were standing in the snow in order to spite her sister, to force her to show her emotional cards. Everything was an attack against her in Jen’s world, she was so filled with resentment. Calista had learned long ago not to attempt to reason with her sister in moments like these. Jen was wholly unreasonable most of the time. Calista had learned to just deal with it.

Red Carpet Sophomore

My first turn on the red carpet was a disaster. I didn’t know how to stand, my face was shiny despite my excessively expensive makeup job, and I had stupidly decided to pair $10,000 worth of borrowed diamonds with $14.99 shoes from Payless Shoe Source. Jezebel said I looked like I’d walked out of Forever 21. I was the walking definition of clueless.


My second red carpet attempt at the CAPE Soiree last week was still a bit clunky, but a vast improvement compared to my first. I Googled tips on how to pose and practiced in front of a mirror. I shopped for my dress more than a week in advance and matched everything to it meticulously. I addressed every detail of my look, right down to the acrylic French manicure. And I looked and felt better because of it.

Yes, getting your picture taken by photographers can be a silly part of the business. Talent is what matters, right? How well you look over your shoulder at the flashing cameras is irrelevant.

Still, this is an image-based business and how you’re seen can be just as important as your craft. It’s all part of playing the showbiz game. And while part of me would love to scoff at red carpets as superficial, shallow parades of ego, the other part knows that self-publicity is part of this world and it doesn’t hurt to get in some practice now. Angelina Jolie makes it look so effortless, but she’s been practicing since she was 10.

So now that turn #2 on the red carpet is under my belt, I look forward to the next. Maybe next time I’ll try looking over my shoulder.

Fiction Friday: NaNoWriMo Sample, Part 1

My first NaNoWriMo experience, otherwise known as my return to fiction, was a beautiful mix of creativity and pain. I failed to reach the 50,000 word goal with my novel writing, but I did complete approximately 19,000 words. Pointless drivel, in my opinion, but perhaps I'll let you be the judge. Here's a small snippet of my would-be novel...

The house was like a museum. A museum of pain. Heartache, limitations. Everything preserved in time – not only the furniture and décor, but the emotions. The opinions about every painting on the wall, the judgments of every bedspread, the guilt over the smudges on the wall and cracks in the counter. The details of how the house looked before this iteration. Before the new dining room and family room had been added. Before the bathroom had new linoleum. Every day that was lived in that house was sealed in time. Humming with history. 30 years of memories and it was so loud, it nearly deafened Calista as she walked through the rooms like a ghost.

Calista hadn’t lived in this house for a long time. As soon as a driver’s license had afforded her precious freedom, she’d begun her escape. College in another state, then work. She hadn’t lived here since high school. She’d gone from being a resident to a holiday visitor, never staying longer than week in its clutches.

She’d moved on. Yet now, standing in the room that used to be hers, the bulletin board on which she’d tacked calendars and Ice Capades tickets still hanging on the wall, she realized that she never had. The house mirrored her every move. Contained it, held it until this moment, when she could see that the house had always been with her, even when she was away. It had always been home. But now what would it be? She had no idea.

Calista heard the garage door open with an all too familiar moan. Her heart choked with grief as her mind flew to the inevitable, irrational thought. It’s Dad! The garage door rattled to a halt and Calista began to cry. Her father could never open that garage door again. He was gone. The sound had been just another memory in this house circling her throat like a vice. She had to get out.

She walked out of her room, through the kitchen, and toward the back door just as her sister Jen came in from the garage. She didn’t have time to say hello – she was on a mission. Bounding down the two steps to the family room, her hands nearly crashed into the sliding glass door as she struggled to undo the lock with her gloved hands. The heavy plastic switch slipped helplessly from her fingers as she grabbed at it. She heard her sister behind her.

"Hello? Walk right by me, why don’t you?"

Calista tore off her gloves, flung them to the linoleum floor, twisted the lock and heaved open the door. Another quick snap and the screen door slid open. And she rushed out onto the snow-covered back deck. Free. She gasped for air and cried, wailing like the child she’d just become again standing in the house she grew up in. She held her instantly ice cold fingers to cover her face as she wept, the tears flowing across her skin like hot silk.

Click here to read NaNoWriMo Sample, Part 2

Tools of the Trade: A Library Card

I carry all the essentials in my bag – keys, phone, and my library card.

As an actor, there will be times when you need to read a play to find a monologue or watch an episode of a TV show for an audition. Netflix and Amazon are great resources, but they cost money, and you need to save your pennies for classes and filling up your gas-guzzler.

Your local public library is all free, all the time. Maybe you haven’t stepped foot into a library since the days of college research papers and study groups. If this is the case, I invite you to rediscover the stacks at your nearest branch. In addition to books, libraries can have DVDs, music CDs, audiobooks, and magazines. The resources at the public library are an actor’s best friend, saving you time and money in your pursuit of art.

Say you have an audition for Romeo and Juliet. Get a free library card and you can borrow a copy of the play to read, find a Shakespeare monologue in a monologue book, and rent the Leo & Claire movie version to see their interpretation. Don’t forget to pick up a book of helpful tips for auditioning for Shakespeare and the audiobook version to listen to in the car on your way to your audition.

I’ve also watched previous features from a director I’m about to meet and entire seasons of TV shows as research. Once I auditioned to play a Japanese war refugee and found an Asian accent for actors CD the day before. It got me a callback. All this in a one-stop shop just around the corner.

Now go get that library card...

Fictionless Friday: Confessions of a Short Film Failure

Of all the projects on my creative to-do list, the one item that inspires the deepest feelings of panic, procrastination, and general malaise is the short film script I need to write. Actually, I have two on my list. One for an actress who wants to collaborate with me but is likely to run off and win an Academy Award any day now, so I need to hurry if I want to make it happen. The other is for an actor’s collective that I was supposed to deliver a month ago.

When I showed up at our last meeting empty handed, another actor guffawed in surprise. “And you’re a writer!” he teased. “I know!” I laughed in response, smacking myself comically on my forehead. Though inside, I was lashing myself on the back with a whip in total despair.

Short films are worthy artistic endeavors for so many reasons. They can be self-produced star vehicles. Opportunities for experimentation and education before embarking on a feature-length project. Exercises in different methods of storytelling. Basically, a great way to practice, practice, practice.

And yet I can’t get myself to think in short film mode and work on these scripts. None of my ideas can be wrapped up in 5-10 pages, and those that can feel flat and uneventful.

Perhaps it’s because mastering the art of writing short film feels like the exact opposite of the skills I’m trying to master as a television writer. I’m attempting to create a series with long-running arcs, character conflicts that can go back and forth for multiple seasons, and a world rich with an endless amount of stories to tell. A short film, by contrast, is a beginning, middle, and end, lickity-split. How exactly do I do that?

The worst part of having this block when it comes to writing short films is that the deceptive simplicity of the task creates a whopper of a self-doubting train of thought. If I can’t even write a 5-page script, how can I call myself a writer?

I have a friend who has ideas for short films all the time. He calls and tells me about his latest idea, and the next time I see him? Boom – he’s written it! Then I read it. Boom – it’s gold! 10 pages of genius and it’s only his first draft. Color me defeated.

How’s this for a short film idea? Self-flagellating writer can’t think of anything to write a short film about. She frets about it for a month with no tangible result. In the end, she blogs about it and vows to work on it tomorrow.

The end. For now.

Novice Novelist’s NaNoWriMo Notions

I’m writing my first novel this month.

Ambitious? Definitely.

Presumptuous? Perhaps.

Possible? Absolutely!

You see, I won’t be doing it alone. I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month (abbreviated as NaNoWriMo), an annual project that encourages and supports writers to write every day in November toward a singular goal – a 50,000-word original novel.

When I contemplate meeting this challenge, I go back and forth between thinking it will be an effortless flow of creative mojo or a guilt-drenched exercise in futility. 50,000 words in 30 days breaks down to 1,667 words a day. Considering my usual writing pace, that’s just under 2 hours a sitting. That shouldn’t be that difficult - I spend as many hours a day catching up on Hulu and DVR.

Until you consider the days I get invited to dinner with friends after work or the days when I feel about as creative as a tree stump and drown myself in Netflix Watch Instantly instead. Distractions that will hold painful consequences this month. Skipping just one day will mean 4 hours of writing the next. Hours will pile up like a dam if I’m not careful. This will be a solid exercise in discipline for me.

And really, that’s the most exciting part of NaNoWriMo. The goal is not to write 50,000 brilliant, ready-for-Kindle words that inspire and move even the coldest of hearts. The goal is just to write. No time for the inner critic to get in the way here. Even with a day job, I know I have plenty of time to write. This month, I challenge myself to give that time to myself and leave all distractions behind.

Plus, there’s plenty of inspiration from which I can draw. Last year, 32,178 writers successfully met the NaNoWriMo challenge. If they can do it, I can do it. And a slew of authors have had their NaNoWriMo works published, including Sara Gruen’s exquisite novel Water for Elephants,which will soon be seen as a feature film starring Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson, and Christoph Waltz.

So here I go. I don’t even know what my novel will be about, but I’m ready and excited for the adventure. If you've done NaNoWriMo before, please leave your inspiring words of experience (or cautionary tales) in the Comments. See you in 30 days!