The start is the worst place to start. Does that make sense? The blinking cursor on the blank page. Pulsing, expectant, impatient. Type and backspace. Type some more and correct a spelling error. Break. Coffee. What next?!
It was the summer of 2002 and I had just finished my first full length screenplay. I loved talking about it. I loved every minute thinking about it. I loved writing it, and I loved the fact that I actually finished it; all one hundred and twenty pages. “What now?”, I thought. The answer to me at the time was brutal and devastating; “I need someone to read it.” Why? Feedback! I need to know it’s good. Why? Well, it’s a screenplay and a screenplay is a movie, crafted into words, that doesn’t achieve realisation until the director shouts, “action”, for the first time on set.
“Shit!” I have written two full-length and four short screenplays. Two of the shorts were developed into movies. I studied film at university. I participated in a full length feature. For a long time I thought I wanted to get into the film industry, but my aspiration passed and I moved on. Ireland is a small country and the film industry is even smaller. More importantly, was it any good and, more importantly, was I any good?
A former colleague of mine, John, shared with me the fact that he had written three screenplays. I knew he was passionate about films from our countless conversations on the subject, but I was still surprised with his seemingly casual disclosure. Why was I surprised? Because he hadn’t mentioned it before, and he knew that I was desperately trying to write one, and I wondered why he had;t let me read one. I was younger at the time, in my early twenties and naive. To me, the film industry was a million miles away, yet here was a friend of mine who had ventured some of those miles towards it. Why hadn’t he told me before? I didn’t ask him that question, I asked him another instead, a conversation killer; “can I read them?” His answer surprised me more than his initial revelation; “No.” A sourly delivered, dark and broody response.
His answer to my following question, “why not?” sent me into a tail spin and after that I don’t think we ever spoke about screen writing again; not even when I finished my first play. The reason I couldn’t read his scripts was that he had destroyed them; burned them. As he described with a wry smile, “I stacked them up on the hearth, covered in lighter fluid and tossed a match on top.” They weren’t saved on a hard drive or a thumb drive because he had used a type writer, not a word processor but a type writer, and a manual one at that.
When I asked him why he destroyed them he mellowed a little. I guess it was because I was genuinely dismayed To this day I do not know why he did what he did. Was it fear of rejection, or a lack of faith in his own ability? Only John knows.
Don’t forget Fabian
