Ellyn Oaksmith's Blog - Posts Tagged "screenwriting"

In the late 80's and early 90's I attended the American Film Institute and subsequently worked as a screenwriter. I was represented by a man who now runs, arguably, the most powerful talent agency in America. We were both young and ambitious and he got me access to some of the most powerful movers and shakers in Hollywood. My writing sample, "Secret Lives," was well received, granting me the odd privilege of being Screenwriting Flavor of the Month. I met a lot of very interesting, smart, nice people.

It's the weirdos I remember. One woman, who has since written an expose about all the horrible people she met in Hollywood, spent the entire one hour "pitch" meeting opening and shutting the large, hand-carved teak doors to her office with a remote while I talked to her nervous, apologetic assistant. Another producer repeatedly asked me if his Southwestern themed office, which looked like an upscale Taco Del Mar, was "tacky." A Star Wars office, he felt, would be more dignified but worried that he would look like a mere fan, not a player. It was very difficult, he informed me, to keep up appearances, since his wife was taking him to cleaners for sleeping with his assistant. A different assistant, (who is probably now a studio head) posed as a producer while his boss was in Toronto. He promised to buy my script. When his boss returned she met with me, alone. "He's a liar and I fired him. But if you write a script about the first man to attend Smith College, with a lot of nudity and shower scenes, we'll buy it."

My most memorable meeting was in a very dark, large office with an elegant, slim older producer. He smiled tiredly at me, closed his eyes and asked me to talk about my hometown, Seattle. "I'm so sick of this business. So sick of LA. Why don't you go home? You can write anywhere." Turns out, he was the smartest man I met.

Disclaimer: This isn't about old boyfriends. My Hollywood boyfriends deserve their own blog because there were a couple decent artists types and a lot of stock Hollywood characters. Bad guys who cared more about their wallets than the cat they'd just run over while checking their teeth in the mirror. So what is this about?

What I did wrong Career Wise in Hollywood. Number one: I believed my hot shot Hollywood agent. Agent X, (last I heard he's the president of one of the top 3 agencies. I won't say which one,) was sending me on so many meetings, with so many famous producers and their underlings that I complained I didn't have time to write and was running out of money. Agent X implied, very strongly that his big agency had a slush fund for struggling writers. Ha! Let me say that again: Ha! I was the dumbest cowboy-boot wearing hick from Seattle (okay, not Montana but it was the late 90's and that was part of the uniform: levi's, navy blazer, white shirt and the boots.)

When I did run out of money (my apartment manager, the former, possibly current Heroin addict who never left his room had his wife who couldn't pronounce my name yell up the hall in her South American accent: "E-leeen, come talk to my husbeeend") and called Agent X, I was mysteriously passed on to Agent Y, who said she'd never heard of any money for struggling writers. And no, I couldn't talk to Agent X. He'd gone onto bigger and better things.

I can't blame Agent Y because she was probably nursing knife wounds from Agent X, who clearly had a brilliant career in Hollywood ahead of him. When asked if he'd read my script, a touching story called "Secret Lives" about a family dealing with the death of their oldest son based on my own father's large Catholic family, he said yes, looking me right in the eyes. A second later he averted his slightly reptilian eyes and said "I can get you in to meet Sherry Lansing." And he did.

There was nothing wrong with Agent X not reading my script. He was fresh out of the gate and didn't have time to read everything. He relied on reader's notes, just like everyone else in Hollywood does. But what Agent X probably knows now is that it's better to be honest with writers because they know your name and can blog, tweet and tell your clients, the Famous Movies Stars what a dirt bag you are. His clients probably already know that but they don't know the body count from his past. Writers keep track of that kind of thing. We take notes and have long memories.

The other things I did wrong in Hollywood was not believe in my own story. When I tried to write for Hollywood -- I stunk up the place. No surprise there. I knew it would happen but I was running out of money. Almost everyone outside the Kardashian family knows what that feels like. A sex tape just wasn't in the cards for me. I high-tailed it for home, fired bewildered agent Y who said "We're always here for you." HA again.

My dad got me a job as a cook on a fishing boat where I could work 2 months on like a crazed weasel and take 6 months off to write, work out, travel a little and then ---- drum roll please -- attend a cocktail party where I met my future husband. Said future husband said "You work on a fishing boat?" I said no, I am a writer. He asked, "You work on a fishing boat?" I said "I'm leaving in 2 months for another contract."

Very early into my contract on said fishing boat Future Husband called on the ship to shore radio. I was called, bleary eyed from the galley to take said call. In front of the Skipper, the first Mate coming on duty, a deck hand covered in snow/rain/fish guts standing at the open wheelhouse door, my future husband said via satellite radio, "If you quit your job and fly home I'll take you to Hawaii."

I put the radio to my shoulder, and looked at the grizzled, possibly drug-addicted captain of the fishing vessel and said "Can I quit?"

He laughed, took another drag off his cigarette and said, "For a dude?"

I said, "No, this is serious."

He coughed and I thought about how much money this phone call was costing my budget conscious future husband. After a flem-filled moment the Skipper nodded. "If we can get someone into Dutch to take over your contract."

I just managed not to burst into tears. Just.

36 hours of galley-scrubbing, eager-packing, setting the ship's stores in order and saying goodbye to the crew whom I either adored or hated with a passion, I was on an Alaska flight to Anchorage, then Sea-Tac to spent the rest of my life with the man waiting, in those pre 9-11 days, at the gate.

Final lesson: Everything works out but leaving Hollywood earlier would have probably been a good idea. I could avoided at least 2 or 3 excruciatingly bad dates.

If it weren't for book club I wouldn't have finished this amazing book so let's be thankful for books clubs. They might be a hotbed of gossip and sometimes you read books that seem like a total waste of time but John Irving is one of my favorite authors and this might be his best. A Prayer for Owen Meany and The Cider House Rules are, to me, much more accessible. They aren't, like this book, teaming with so many nuts jobs that you long for a simple, charming character. But this one, about half way into the book turns into something else.

It's a powerhouse of both story and message because these characters are almost un-Godly in their strangeness and yet, that is the point. They are as flawed and strange and downright creepy as much of humanity and in the end, you end up loving them. This is a tight wire act that few writers can achieve. I myself, as a writer, tend to write characters that I'd want to hang out with because I do hang out with them, in my head. Mr. Irving has created people so uniquely outrageous that this book shines very brightly by the end. It's a beacon of hope for humanity in the face of terrible, Hitler-strength mayhem and destruction and guess what? The good guys win. But not with out some horrible losses. Don't give up on this book. There is a paragraph at the end that states more eloquently than I ever could, why I write. Mr. Irving doesn't know me and yet he saw straight into my soul. He's in a class by himself.

On New Year’s Day around 20 years ago, in Dutch Harbor Alaska, I boarded the M/V Arctic Enterprise, a large fishing processor. I had flown up after signing a 2 month contract with the Arctic Alaska Corporation. My sister, Liz, was beside me. She was waiting to hear about law school. I was a writer looking to pay off my student loans and develop a writing life that didn’t include endless meetings in Los Angeles.

The Chief Engineer of the vessel saw us board the boat from the vantage of the wheelhouse. Snowflakes fell lazily down from a steel grey sky. Beyond us stretched the icy waters of the Bering Sea and some of the most profitable and dangerous fishing grounds in the world.

The other people boarding the vessel for their contract were from vastly different backgrounds. My sister and I were from private colleges and in my case, had a graduate degree. We were clean cut, enthusiastic and in the eyes of the Chief, who said, “Oh boy, those two think this is Outward Bound,” completely unprepared for life on a fishing boat.

The boat was older, well-used but perfectly safe thanks to one of the finest Chief Engineers ever to grace the ocean. We were to work 16 hours on, in the slime line, gutting and packing fish. In our 8 hours off, we would eat 2 meals, take a shower and somehow, on a rolling, turning, groaning boat, sleep.

Given that lots of people turn up in Dutch Harbor thinking they can easily make their fortune, the Chief’s estimation was dead on. Not only were we “Greenhorns,” we were women, a rare commodity in Dutch Harbor and on fishing boats. Some old timers even considered us bad luck.

My sister, whose previous work experience involved counseling those in crisis, worked her way into the part-time position (in addition to working in the factory) of “house mouse,” doing laundry, stamping roe bags for sale to the Japanese.

Everyone loved her. Not only was she a hard worker, she found ways to make the factory workers lives a little easier. She joked around with them constantly, taking special care with their laundry and made it her business to help people. When the cook had what I can only call a well deserved nervous breakdown half way through his contract, she suggested that I at least get a chance to cook one meal, as a tryout. If I worked out, the Skipper would save time and lots of money. We wouldn’t have to tie up at the dock, burning through cash, sitting out the season waiting for a replacement.

My tryout recipe was, stupidly enough, taken from the Silver Palate Cookbook. I used prime cuts of chicken that should have been saved for several meals, bottles of lemon juice I would kick myself later for dumping into a marinade. The shaking, chain-smoking, jabbering cook watched me prepare Lemon Chicken for a crew of men whose tastes ran to plain stew, biscuits and gravy and under-the-sea Jello salad, (a dish I’d never heard of and would try, later, with little success, to prepare.)

Amazingly, the Skipper, who had the same taste as his crew, promoted me to cook. I learned to listen to the crew, posting a sheet and pencil asking for favorite meals, most of which I’d never heard. I borrowed cook books from other boats cooks who took pity on me.

I’d been raised in a family of gourmet cooks, which was a liability with this crowd. I made stews without vegetables, thick white gravy with lumps of sausage, invented Chicken Cordon Bleu on a bun, which everyone loved. I was generally admired not for my ability to master down home cooking but my willingness to kill myself trying.

I was even hit, during a bad storm, with a flying ham. I was locked in freezer. I saw a man jump from his bunk during a nightmare wearing nothing but a pair of leopard print skivvies. I watched from the galley during a storm while a deck hand had his shoulder set by the Chief, who received directions from the doctor on call via radio satellite.

My sister lasted out her entire contract. They weren’t able to find a replacement for me so I ended up working for 4 straight months on the same boat, rarely seeing daylight, piling up checks and redefining, for all time, what being exhausted meant.

Later, once I’d rested in Seattle, I signed on for 2 more contracts. I flew to Alaska for 2 months of cooking at sea and wrote, traveled and lived reasonably well for the six months I had off. Eventually I paid off all my student loans and a portion of my future husband’s. I helped contribute to the purchase of our first home.

Working in Alaska is extreme living and moments of unbelievable beauty. I will never forget the playful Dahl porpoise swimming alongside the vast hull as it sliced the water or the Aleutian Islands sloping into the improbably bluest water.

I met people I would have otherwise never encountered: strong, intelligent people and misguided fragile people with vastly different lives and goals. That New Year’s Day, when we stood on that ramp, was the beginning of a test that ultimately, my sister and I both passed.

(My sister got into UW Law School. She also married the Chief Engineer.)