When We Tried To Be Deviants

Deviants at In Color Film Festival

6:45 pm, Saturday

The Paramount on Film Row

701 W. Sheridan in OKC

I first signed the rights over for my novel, Deviants, almost three years ago. Melissa Sue Lopez devoured a preview copy of the book a few months prior and was a fireball of enthusiasm. In her heavy, yet endearing Mexican accent, she chattered away about her grand ambitions for a feature-length film while I tried to imagine how this sprawling character study could be reasonably condensed into 90 minutes. I’d never before envisioned Deviants as a movie, but I was curious to see what the director/producer could accomplish with her limitless supply of gumption. A year before, I’d been an extra on one of her other films, Shutter Mind, and it was easy to get sucked in by her spirit and energy

So, we dove headlong into the project.

I can’t tell you how many script revisions we went through, but it was an exhaustive attempt to tame the story into a watchable film. I edited and re-edited that script more than any novel I’ve ever put out, but it just wasn’t working. The story was too big. When too many doors closed on us in Hollywood and beyond, we tried rewriting for television, but the momentum was gone. After succumbing to the parade of polite rejections, I stepped away from the script and Melissa sculpted the test footage into a short film so that the hundreds of hours she poured into Deviants wouldn’t be for naught.

She tried. No matter what else can be said for Deviants, Melissa gave this project her all. It was just the wrong story for the wrong time and it was set in the wrong state. She got scripts into the hands of some serious heavy-hitters in the film industry, landed some impressive talent for the cast and crew, but the money just wouldn’t materialize.  To be honest, she got us a lot closer than I really ever thought she would and commend her for her incredible resolve.

But I should have warned her that Deviants was doomed long before she arrived, back when it was still just an idea for a novel. I’d meant the book to be an elaborate apology to my wife(now ex-wife). It was an extended metaphor, me taking stock of my part in our damaged marriage. Deviants is fiction, but the pain within was and still is very real to me.

The novel was initially picked up by a New York publisher. They fell on hard times and had to give up the project. Literati assumed the title, but it underperformed even though I was certain that it was the best book I’d ever written. Do I still believe that? No. It has some of my finest writing, but the storytelling was emotional and sloppy. The book was also the final wrong in my doomed marriage. A part of me hates it for all it represents. Spiritual toxic waste. Writing and re-writing and re-writing the script with Melissa continually reopened the very bloody wounds of the greatest love of my life. So far. Let me tack that on the end of that sentence. Yes, my greatest love so far.

So, I haven’t seen the short film in its entirety. Melissa is good at what she does, so I bet it’ll be wonderful.  I may go to the debut, but maybe not. If I skip the opening, it isn’t any kind of rebuke of the short film or of Melissa, but rather me being unable to face the emotional wreckage on display in Deviants.