July 2005
Wednesday night. 1:37 a.m. Until 1:34, I had been staring at the ceiling and listening to the meth addicts upstairs vacuum for what must be the thirteenth time this week. Oh, what I would trade for lethargic, pot-smoking Pacific Northwest neighbors who passed out at 8:00! But it wasn’t the vacuumeths that woke me. And sadly, it wasn’t the beeping of my phone, alerting me to a middle-of-the-night text-message from Matthew McConnaughey, who’d be the only person I’d pick up for. My sleeplessness was a severe case of test anxiety: on Wednesday morning, I turned in a rough draft of the outline of my first Veronica Mars episode, “Blast from the Past,” which I was co-writing with Phil Klemmer. I lay awake all night imagining the margins filled with red-penciled remarks like “this sucks,” and “WTFWYT?”
When I got to work, the outline had not been returned to me. Rob called me and Phil. “Belben. Klemmer. The Champagne Room.” I followed Phil into Rob’s office.
“What’s up? Did you get your nipples pierced?” I joked.
“No,” Rob said seriously. “I want to show you the empty spot on my desk where your outline should be.”
I froze. “It’s almost done,” I stammered. “I gave a draft--”
Rob laughed. “I’m just giving you shit,” he said, and proceeded to play a video for a band he wanted to use on the show.
***
But the pressure wasn’t off. When I finally did get the outline turned in later that day, and skipped out the door for a relaxing night on my saggy IKEA sofa, I’d been home and halfway through a cold post-work beer when the phone rang.
“Cathy? It’s Rob. Do you have a minute?”
Immediate oh fuck sensation—the blue-lights-in-the-rearview-mirror, “SEE ME” on the English final, “We need to talk,” sensation. The boss was calling me at home. The only time a boss had ever called me at home was when someone died. Rob didn’t sound sad. He sounded scoldy.
I gulped at my beer. “Um, yeah.”
“I just read your outline,” he said. “You can’t just change the story that we agreed on in the room.” He pointed out that an entire scene was missing—a series of beats that we’d mapped out in the room that somehow hadn’t made into my outline.
Fucking Diane, I thought. She’d seen my outline before I turned it in. Jesus, she’d insisted that I show it to her. And somehow, remarkably, she’d managed to catch a couple of formatting errors and reword a few sentences, but she hadn’t noticed an entire scene was missing? I was frustrated—was it sabotage or just a misunderstanding? I took another gulp of beer. Probably sabotage.
I hadn’t consciously changed anything, I told Rob. “I can barely talk at the writers’ table—I’m going to have the guts to change the storyline?” I’d just gotten confused, I told him, about what we’d finally decided to include (we’d talked through about 87 versions in 6 days). I left out the part about how Diane and I had gone over my outline before I turned it in to him, and how she hadn’t pointed out the missing scene. I didn’t mention that the writers’ assistant’s notes for the day had been incomplete. Instead, I made a funny joke about blowjobs, hung up, and revised the outline.
***
Writing a script is incredibly different than the type of writing I’m accustomed to. When I write short stories or articles, I’m the Rob Thomas of my own little universe: I get to pick the topic, the words, and the structure. Here, we start as a group. When it’s time to break a story—meaning that at least three of us aren’t assigned to a script and there’s a deadline looming, Rob rounds us up (usually by shouting, “Coffee up, motherfuckers!”_ and we trickle into The Room to toss around around A-story ideas, figure out where we need to go with various subplots, and determine which characters (i.e. actors) we can include in the episode.
Once we eliminate the ridiculous and the banal and agree on an A-story, we hammer out the beats together. This can take a week, depending on how complicated the story is and how many technical glitches we have to work out. A bottle episode—one that is filmed entirely on our sets in San Diego to save money—limits the plot. All of the action has to take place at the Mars’ apartment, Neptune High, Keith Mars’ office, the sheriff’s department, or Java the Hut, where Veronica works. This sounds like a wide range of locations, unless the plot calls for Veronica to track a missing classmate to a Bajama resort.
Breaking an A-story means deciding on each plot point, and determining how the Mystery of the Week will ultimately be resolved. And it must be resolved—there are no “To Be Continueds” in Veronica’s world. And there are also no dues ex machinas, either, no matter how many of the writers graduated with English degrees. Veronica has to figure things out herself, and she has to do it cleverly within 42 minutes, using her brains and high-tech equipment, and it all has to fall within the realm of the possible. A talking garbage can can’t whisper, “Hey, look in here,” to Veronica. She can’t find secret golden tablets or trip literally over clues. Rob insisted on this—and the show is strong and brilliant because of it—the solutions must rise organically from Veronica’s own ability to analyze and investigate.
Breaking an A-story means dividing the plot points into five acts—the cold open, which is the teaser portion of the show that precedes the title sequence, and then four acts that are separated by commercial breaks—each act ending with a cliff hanger that beckons the audience back to the sofa after the ads for condoms or Britney Spears’ fragrance. After an A-story is broken, the various subplots are broken—the B and C stories that deal with relationships between characters and developments surrounding the season-long mystery.
Once these decisions are made, and a tri-color, five-part, point-by-point story line exists, the project is turned over to the individual or pair of writers assigned to the episode. They construct a one-page summary and submit it to the network for approval, then write a detailed, 25 page, act-by-act expository outline of the show. Outlining takes another week, as the writer(s) and Rob haggle over scenes, words, and ideas. Once Rob is satisfied, the outline goes to the network, and via conference call, they ask questions and express. Final decisions are made, and then the episode “goes to script”—meaning that the writers are charged with creating the actual dialogue—channeling the voices of teenagers, gang members, and detectives.
The best part about going to script is that the scriptwriters are free to work wherever they please. “I type in one place, but I write all over the house,” Toni Morrison said, and so I’m writing while I lounge by the pool, take a mid-afternoon nap, call friends, and go for my nightly walk. I can take my laptop to the tiki bar and drink mai tais, as long as I post my work to the public folder at the end of the day and ultimately, deliver an episode that satisfies Rob, the UPN executives, and Veronica Mars fans around the globe.
The hardest part about writing the script is that even though I was executing a story designed by a group, and one which must please an enormous, diverse audience, I still felt personally attached to the words and ideas that I used. For about the billionth time in my life, I was advised to grow thicker skin. The X’d out portions of my drafts weren’t judgments about my character or my talent—they were business decisions about what appealed to our sponsors, our producers, and fans. I learned, slowly and with the aid of pharmaceuticals, that life is too short to stress out because someone would rather hear Veronica described as “notorious” than “renowned.”
***
My confidence about writing wavered daily, but it did grow stronger. And so did my attitude about life in Hollywood. In the book Personal Village, Marvin Thomas suggests establishing connections in your community by visiting businesses and gathering spots at least seven times to become a regular. So that means I wasn’t just the random crazy lady hobbling around the block in sandals she never should have worn on a three mile walk. I was a community fixture, waving at my friends in the Little Shop of Whores as I limped by, my pals at the three head shops in the stretch of Hollywood Blvd. between Cahuenga and Wilcox, and the guy in the plaid mini-skirt who camped out by Orson Welles’ star.
I never carried a camera and I didn’t have Oscar statuettes falling out of my pockets, so I was never mistaken for a tourist, but the real tourists did stop me and ask for directions. I helped two teenage boys who wanted to know where they could find the stars of “some cool people, like Dave Chappelle.” I had to break the news that a) I don’t think Chappelle has a star yet and 2) the stars aren’t organized in any sensible way, let alone by how cool people are. I pointed out James Brown’s star. They didn’t know who James Brown was, forcing me to do this little “you know, the guy who goes YEOW!!!” impersonation. They just looked at me. Thank God I’m not here pursuing an acting career. Channeling the voice of an eighteen-year-old white girl is so much easier.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Hollywood, Week 9: SFX: Sounds of the City; Sounds of the City of Subdued Excitement
August 7, 2005
"NOISE, n. A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization." –Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
I’m excited to be visiting Bellingham this weekend, if for no other reason than I finally got one and one-thirds’ decent night’s sleep. Between my collapsing IKEA bed with its 6-inch mattress, Stinkē’s frequent cries for attention, and my stress-induced insomnia, I’ve been sleeping about eight hours a week, rather than eight hours a night. Oh yeah—and did I mention the noise?
If you’ve ever seen the Baz Luhrmann production of Romeo and Juliet—the one with Leo di Caprio and Claire Danes set in Los Angeles—you’ve had a sound bite of my life in the city, except without the iambic pentameter. In Bellingham, the whiz of helicopter blades meant that someone was being rescued by the Coast Guard out on the bay or St. Joe’s was transporting a patient to Seattle via medivac—and in either case, there was a solid chance you either knew the victim or had heard the story from a friend on the BFD. In LA, helicopters are as ubiquitous as drunk people pushing shopping carts…
…And I still haven’t acclimated to the sound of their whirring blades overhead. I awake almost nightly to sirens screeching down Sunset Boulevard, followed by the echo of news copters. I got out of bed Tuesday at one a.m., roused by sirens and choppers, and turned on the news, expecting to find reports of a plane crash on Hollywood Blvd. But there was nothing but the “ordinary” programming—half-hour infomercials for Girls Gone Wild videos and re-runs of shit like Logan’s Run and 21 Jump Street.
The worse noise I’ve encountered has been the cacophony that erupts above my head nightly. At home, my neighbor was a sweet and thoughtful woman who rarely flushed her toilet after ten p.m. Oh, there were those weeks she clunked around on crutches, but she was recovering from foot surgery, for God’s sake, and it was conscientious clunking. I could sense she was making an effort to move as infrequently as possible. Here, the anonymity of living amongst 3.8 million people gives my neighbors license, apparently, to conduct themselves like complete assholes.
I could live with a loud stereo or the occasional reverberations of a drum set. But the sheer randomness of the noise upstairs reminds me of those psychological experiments where rats were driven bonkers by unpredictable stimuli. A person could habituate to, say, a half-hour riff on an electric guitar at 6 p.m. every night, or wall-pounding sex on Thursdays at ten. But my neighbors in apartment 501 are completely unknowable. Some days, I hear nothing. Other times—and I so wish I were making this up—they are vacuuming at three o’clock in the morning.
And then there’s the hammering, which has made me go all Veronica Mars on them. Who are these people that must hammer stuff at two a.m.? I’m scared to turn them in to the management—they know where I live, after all—and I’d rather sleuth around for awhile myself before tattling to the landlord. WWVD? I’d like to think she’d be sensible and call the cops the next time it sounded like bodies were being tossed around, but that wouldn’t get great ratings. Besides, a complaint about a noisy neighbor would never make it through LAPD triage. Unless there’s a hostage situation, or a scenario equally likely to get good news coverage, the LA cops aren’t coming to my house.
Veronica would definitely go for something with more visual appeal—more dramatic attention. Something that would appeal to the demographic. She would creep around and take photos with her state-of-the-art digital camera with the wide-angle lens, for example, and she’d probably use her connections with the sheriff’s department to identify the offenders and torment them with late-night phone calls or unsolicited Chinese food delivery. There’s a good chance she’d assume a fake accent or dress up in costume or some other crazy shit that people on TV are always doing. The only person I know who’s done either (actually, both) with any success is my friend Ryan. Need a friend to act as the concierge at the Icicle Inn in Leavenworth? He’s your man. Unfortunately, he’s not here to help me, so I can’t hire him to pose as an Austrian pizza boy and send upstairs to check out the floor-pounders.
I’m terrible with accents, and all my good dress-up clothes are stowed in a tightly sealed box in the back of my laundry closet in Fairhaven, so I’m out of luck as far as those options go. The best I can do is sneak around, hope to catch a glimpse of the noisemakers, leave falsified “letters from the management” taped to their door, and hope for the best. I did creep up to the fifth floor a couple of times hoping for a sighting, but saw nothing. I paused in front of their door long enough to realize that 1) they hadn’t installed a reverse-fisheye-peep hole à la Cosmo Kramer, and 2) now they know who I am, so further surveillance efforts are heretofore risky and stupid. I’m back to sleeping with my headphones on and returning to Bellingham for a solid night’s sleep when I can afford it.
Which I got, mostly, this weekend. I spent the weekend in my real house in Bellingham with two-thirds of my lifelong gang of gal pals—6 of the 9 women with whom I’ve had a sisterly relationship with for going on 28 years. And the sound effects were fabulous. I can’t imagine a life without Carol’s laugh or Michelle’s drama or Sheri’s calculator or the peace of Dana’s quiet, stoic voice, or the sound of Susan scrubbing something. Sorry to wax all corny on you, but I cherish this family, and I wouldn’t trade all the Hilary Swanks or Steve Guttenbergs in the world for the connection we have.
Despite the lack of sleep and the craziness of L.A. noise, there are sounds there I will welcome when I return tomorrow to my temporary Hollywood home. Waking up to Johnny Cash in my CD-alarm clock, singing “Ring of Fire,” the cha-ching of the cash register at the bookstore downstairs, Stinkee’s howls for attention, the dee-da-la-dee-da-la-dee of my cell phone, delivering a voice from Bellingham or Boise, Lake Samish or Lynnwood. Bright Eyes’ “Road to Joy,” –no matter who’s singing it--the sound of the fountain and the rustling bamboo in the courtyard outside my bedroom. And, perhaps most of all, the whirring of the engines and the clunk of retracting wheels as flight 411 lifts off the Burbank tarmac, into the sky, away from the strangers, and back here, to the only home I’ll ever really love.
"NOISE, n. A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization." –Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
I’m excited to be visiting Bellingham this weekend, if for no other reason than I finally got one and one-thirds’ decent night’s sleep. Between my collapsing IKEA bed with its 6-inch mattress, Stinkē’s frequent cries for attention, and my stress-induced insomnia, I’ve been sleeping about eight hours a week, rather than eight hours a night. Oh yeah—and did I mention the noise?
If you’ve ever seen the Baz Luhrmann production of Romeo and Juliet—the one with Leo di Caprio and Claire Danes set in Los Angeles—you’ve had a sound bite of my life in the city, except without the iambic pentameter. In Bellingham, the whiz of helicopter blades meant that someone was being rescued by the Coast Guard out on the bay or St. Joe’s was transporting a patient to Seattle via medivac—and in either case, there was a solid chance you either knew the victim or had heard the story from a friend on the BFD. In LA, helicopters are as ubiquitous as drunk people pushing shopping carts…
…And I still haven’t acclimated to the sound of their whirring blades overhead. I awake almost nightly to sirens screeching down Sunset Boulevard, followed by the echo of news copters. I got out of bed Tuesday at one a.m., roused by sirens and choppers, and turned on the news, expecting to find reports of a plane crash on Hollywood Blvd. But there was nothing but the “ordinary” programming—half-hour infomercials for Girls Gone Wild videos and re-runs of shit like Logan’s Run and 21 Jump Street.
The worse noise I’ve encountered has been the cacophony that erupts above my head nightly. At home, my neighbor was a sweet and thoughtful woman who rarely flushed her toilet after ten p.m. Oh, there were those weeks she clunked around on crutches, but she was recovering from foot surgery, for God’s sake, and it was conscientious clunking. I could sense she was making an effort to move as infrequently as possible. Here, the anonymity of living amongst 3.8 million people gives my neighbors license, apparently, to conduct themselves like complete assholes.
I could live with a loud stereo or the occasional reverberations of a drum set. But the sheer randomness of the noise upstairs reminds me of those psychological experiments where rats were driven bonkers by unpredictable stimuli. A person could habituate to, say, a half-hour riff on an electric guitar at 6 p.m. every night, or wall-pounding sex on Thursdays at ten. But my neighbors in apartment 501 are completely unknowable. Some days, I hear nothing. Other times—and I so wish I were making this up—they are vacuuming at three o’clock in the morning.
And then there’s the hammering, which has made me go all Veronica Mars on them. Who are these people that must hammer stuff at two a.m.? I’m scared to turn them in to the management—they know where I live, after all—and I’d rather sleuth around for awhile myself before tattling to the landlord. WWVD? I’d like to think she’d be sensible and call the cops the next time it sounded like bodies were being tossed around, but that wouldn’t get great ratings. Besides, a complaint about a noisy neighbor would never make it through LAPD triage. Unless there’s a hostage situation, or a scenario equally likely to get good news coverage, the LA cops aren’t coming to my house.
Veronica would definitely go for something with more visual appeal—more dramatic attention. Something that would appeal to the demographic. She would creep around and take photos with her state-of-the-art digital camera with the wide-angle lens, for example, and she’d probably use her connections with the sheriff’s department to identify the offenders and torment them with late-night phone calls or unsolicited Chinese food delivery. There’s a good chance she’d assume a fake accent or dress up in costume or some other crazy shit that people on TV are always doing. The only person I know who’s done either (actually, both) with any success is my friend Ryan. Need a friend to act as the concierge at the Icicle Inn in Leavenworth? He’s your man. Unfortunately, he’s not here to help me, so I can’t hire him to pose as an Austrian pizza boy and send upstairs to check out the floor-pounders.
I’m terrible with accents, and all my good dress-up clothes are stowed in a tightly sealed box in the back of my laundry closet in Fairhaven, so I’m out of luck as far as those options go. The best I can do is sneak around, hope to catch a glimpse of the noisemakers, leave falsified “letters from the management” taped to their door, and hope for the best. I did creep up to the fifth floor a couple of times hoping for a sighting, but saw nothing. I paused in front of their door long enough to realize that 1) they hadn’t installed a reverse-fisheye-peep hole à la Cosmo Kramer, and 2) now they know who I am, so further surveillance efforts are heretofore risky and stupid. I’m back to sleeping with my headphones on and returning to Bellingham for a solid night’s sleep when I can afford it.
Which I got, mostly, this weekend. I spent the weekend in my real house in Bellingham with two-thirds of my lifelong gang of gal pals—6 of the 9 women with whom I’ve had a sisterly relationship with for going on 28 years. And the sound effects were fabulous. I can’t imagine a life without Carol’s laugh or Michelle’s drama or Sheri’s calculator or the peace of Dana’s quiet, stoic voice, or the sound of Susan scrubbing something. Sorry to wax all corny on you, but I cherish this family, and I wouldn’t trade all the Hilary Swanks or Steve Guttenbergs in the world for the connection we have.
Despite the lack of sleep and the craziness of L.A. noise, there are sounds there I will welcome when I return tomorrow to my temporary Hollywood home. Waking up to Johnny Cash in my CD-alarm clock, singing “Ring of Fire,” the cha-ching of the cash register at the bookstore downstairs, Stinkee’s howls for attention, the dee-da-la-dee-da-la-dee of my cell phone, delivering a voice from Bellingham or Boise, Lake Samish or Lynnwood. Bright Eyes’ “Road to Joy,” –no matter who’s singing it--the sound of the fountain and the rustling bamboo in the courtyard outside my bedroom. And, perhaps most of all, the whirring of the engines and the clunk of retracting wheels as flight 411 lifts off the Burbank tarmac, into the sky, away from the strangers, and back here, to the only home I’ll ever really love.
Hollywood, Week 10: Does This Blog Make My Mouth Look Big?
August 16, 2005
Back in the day, when I was freelancing non-Pulitzer-worthy gems such as “You Go Girl” and “The Body Farm,”[1] I made almost no money, but there were definite perks that I miss. When I wrote alone, I could do it at my own pace. No one was waiting for my article about the local art store to show up for a 5 a.m. deadline. And while editors tweaked a word here and there or edited a little for clarity or length, rarely did they request much revision. It was “free” lance writing after all—I did it for almost free and felt free to do what I wanted.
Writing was a lot less stressful when I was doing it as a hobby rather than a job. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy the writing than I’m doing now, just that it’s very, very different to create something under a deadline, within specific parameters, in a particular voice, for an audience of millions. Fortunately, I consider stressing out something of a vocation, having pursued it vigorously since primary school. (If only they’d had Zoloft for children in 1974, maybe that “greater than, less than” unit in 2nd grade math wouldn’t have been so traumatic).
For those of you who doubt that stress is a job, take the Belben Challenge: lie on your back in a darkened room during the eight hours you’d otherwise be sleeping, and just stare at the ceiling. Toss, turn, and fail to find a comfortable position, no matter how many soft cushy pillows you pile under your head or how sweet the twenty pound cat curled at your feet. When your shift is over, arise from the horizontal, and chant my mantra: I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry. Proceed to the office. Now be witty, congenial, efficient, and original for the next eight to ten hours. How’d that work out for you?
When I first got here, when we were still breaking the stories for the beginning of the season, I had a casual and comfortable getting-acclimated period that I might have mistaken for normal day-to-day operations. Ding Dongs in the staff room? Ordering out for lunch? Pop-a-shot contests? Two-hour work-out breaks? Yee-ha! Ten weeks later, I’ve learned that, o.k., these things exist, but they’re perks that balance out the hours of intense room-time and untold quantities of individual, locked-in-an-office writing time. In my old life, I left work at 3 p.m.—2:45 if it was a Friday and the boss wasn’t looking. Those were the days. Last Thursday, I left VMHQ at 7:00 after tinkering with the script for 12 hours. The only time I ever left my teaching job that late was back in 1990, when I had to stay after school to finish reading the chapter of Of Mice and Men I was supposed to teach the next day.
Turning in an outline or draft of a script is the scariest part of this job—not the blank page, but the empty hand. Sitting at home, typing comfortably, surrounded by lovable pets and beer and all my favorite junk food, taking mid-afternoon naps to recharge the batteries—these are things I do with ease and pleasure; this is writing. Can’t think of a line for Veronica? Must be time to order pizza! Stumped about how to segue into a sex scene? Inspiration arrives in a margarita and a dose of The Daily Show. Once the typing is done—that’s when the real work begins for me. Tom Petty had it right—the waiting IS the hardest part.
“Expect nothing,” Alice Walker wrote. “Live frugally on surprise.” I armed myself with this reminder last Monday night, just after setting out work clothes—a tank top in a my power color (pink) and shorts that make my ass look smaller. I spent a short portion of the night riding the wave of relief—the script is done, at least in the technical sense—it has a beginning, a middle, and an end—yippee. I knew not to come in Tuesday morning expecting to see it covered in happy face stickers and unabashed raving about my unparalleled wordsmanship. I knew to be prepared for red Xs rather than hearts and stars. I knew to enjoy a night of relaxation and confidence-reinforcement before I had to face whatever appeared on the RT version of Episode 205 and begin work on the next draft. And then the phone rang.
You know that feeling you got back in high school when your parents found an empty beer bottle in your room and just left it sitting on your desk without saying anything? Or the gut-dropping sensation of spotting red and blue lights in your rear view mirror? This is what it felt like with the boss called me at home—Oh, shit. The only other time a boss has called me at home was when someone died. Fortunately, the call wasn’t as dire as I’d feared—a scene was missing due to a communication error and needed to be written in. Not that I felt good about the screw-up—far from it. But considering the plethora of other horrible things that could have happened, this was about a 2 on the horribleness scale, rather than a 10.
Arriving at work the next day to face the screen and the script, I reminded myself that I’m here for a reason and it’s not to spend my days and nights wound up in a tight little sleepless wad of anxiety. I’m here to make the most of an incredible opportunity, to suck in the adventure and the fun, to meet new people and go new places and be a part of something strange and exciting. I’m here to learn. And so I opened my computer and poised my fingers above the keys. I took a deep breath and whispered my new mantra. I’m doing the best I can.
[1] BUST, October 2006.
Back in the day, when I was freelancing non-Pulitzer-worthy gems such as “You Go Girl” and “The Body Farm,”[1] I made almost no money, but there were definite perks that I miss. When I wrote alone, I could do it at my own pace. No one was waiting for my article about the local art store to show up for a 5 a.m. deadline. And while editors tweaked a word here and there or edited a little for clarity or length, rarely did they request much revision. It was “free” lance writing after all—I did it for almost free and felt free to do what I wanted.
Writing was a lot less stressful when I was doing it as a hobby rather than a job. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy the writing than I’m doing now, just that it’s very, very different to create something under a deadline, within specific parameters, in a particular voice, for an audience of millions. Fortunately, I consider stressing out something of a vocation, having pursued it vigorously since primary school. (If only they’d had Zoloft for children in 1974, maybe that “greater than, less than” unit in 2nd grade math wouldn’t have been so traumatic).
For those of you who doubt that stress is a job, take the Belben Challenge: lie on your back in a darkened room during the eight hours you’d otherwise be sleeping, and just stare at the ceiling. Toss, turn, and fail to find a comfortable position, no matter how many soft cushy pillows you pile under your head or how sweet the twenty pound cat curled at your feet. When your shift is over, arise from the horizontal, and chant my mantra: I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry. Proceed to the office. Now be witty, congenial, efficient, and original for the next eight to ten hours. How’d that work out for you?
When I first got here, when we were still breaking the stories for the beginning of the season, I had a casual and comfortable getting-acclimated period that I might have mistaken for normal day-to-day operations. Ding Dongs in the staff room? Ordering out for lunch? Pop-a-shot contests? Two-hour work-out breaks? Yee-ha! Ten weeks later, I’ve learned that, o.k., these things exist, but they’re perks that balance out the hours of intense room-time and untold quantities of individual, locked-in-an-office writing time. In my old life, I left work at 3 p.m.—2:45 if it was a Friday and the boss wasn’t looking. Those were the days. Last Thursday, I left VMHQ at 7:00 after tinkering with the script for 12 hours. The only time I ever left my teaching job that late was back in 1990, when I had to stay after school to finish reading the chapter of Of Mice and Men I was supposed to teach the next day.
Turning in an outline or draft of a script is the scariest part of this job—not the blank page, but the empty hand. Sitting at home, typing comfortably, surrounded by lovable pets and beer and all my favorite junk food, taking mid-afternoon naps to recharge the batteries—these are things I do with ease and pleasure; this is writing. Can’t think of a line for Veronica? Must be time to order pizza! Stumped about how to segue into a sex scene? Inspiration arrives in a margarita and a dose of The Daily Show. Once the typing is done—that’s when the real work begins for me. Tom Petty had it right—the waiting IS the hardest part.
“Expect nothing,” Alice Walker wrote. “Live frugally on surprise.” I armed myself with this reminder last Monday night, just after setting out work clothes—a tank top in a my power color (pink) and shorts that make my ass look smaller. I spent a short portion of the night riding the wave of relief—the script is done, at least in the technical sense—it has a beginning, a middle, and an end—yippee. I knew not to come in Tuesday morning expecting to see it covered in happy face stickers and unabashed raving about my unparalleled wordsmanship. I knew to be prepared for red Xs rather than hearts and stars. I knew to enjoy a night of relaxation and confidence-reinforcement before I had to face whatever appeared on the RT version of Episode 205 and begin work on the next draft. And then the phone rang.
You know that feeling you got back in high school when your parents found an empty beer bottle in your room and just left it sitting on your desk without saying anything? Or the gut-dropping sensation of spotting red and blue lights in your rear view mirror? This is what it felt like with the boss called me at home—Oh, shit. The only other time a boss has called me at home was when someone died. Fortunately, the call wasn’t as dire as I’d feared—a scene was missing due to a communication error and needed to be written in. Not that I felt good about the screw-up—far from it. But considering the plethora of other horrible things that could have happened, this was about a 2 on the horribleness scale, rather than a 10.
Arriving at work the next day to face the screen and the script, I reminded myself that I’m here for a reason and it’s not to spend my days and nights wound up in a tight little sleepless wad of anxiety. I’m here to make the most of an incredible opportunity, to suck in the adventure and the fun, to meet new people and go new places and be a part of something strange and exciting. I’m here to learn. And so I opened my computer and poised my fingers above the keys. I took a deep breath and whispered my new mantra. I’m doing the best I can.
[1] BUST, October 2006.
Hollywood, Weeks 11 and 12: Karma Repairs and Story Problems
August 29, 2005
For the first time since I was toilet-trained, I won’t be going to school in September. For 32 years, I’ve spent my life in the care of educators—parents, teachers, colleagues. There’s a lot I miss about the going-back-to-school rituals—the new clothes, boxes of books to be unpacked, a new Tolkien-themed READING: MAKE IT A HOBBIT bulletin board to put up in the library. More than anything, I miss the routine. There was comfort in knowing precisely when the work day began and ended—there were no questions about My Time and The Man’s Time. Flag salute at 7:55, lunch at 11:50, I-5 at 2:59:59.
Each day this week, we spent six to seven solid hours in the Writers’ Room, breaking the story for episode six. By 5:30 or 6, the writers’ table was an archaeological exhibit of the day’s efforts: littered with empty coffee mugs, candy wrappers, used-up dry-erase markers, and take-out containers. It’s a testament to both our intensity and the occasional periods of collective mental paralysis we experience as we sit silently, all six of us equally stumped by a glitch in the plot, relieved only by Barq’s and Starburst. For long stretches we sat zombie-like, willing a solution to appear out of the ether. I cursed myself for not having read—or remembered—more books. Surely the answer was out there in some true-crime book or detective novel that I’d read and forgotten. If only I could sneak away to quickly skim The Stranger Beside Me or Helter Skelter.
Among the story problems that did get solved this week was the completion of the production draft of the episode I co-wrote with Phil Klemmer. This is the version which, having cleared Rob, the network, and the studio, is sent to San Diego to the production crew, who will read it and begin securing props, locations, and wardrobe. Over the next few weeks, this draft will change—we might need to add Back-up to a scene, or change the location of a conversation, or remove references to brand-name products. All of the characters’ names have to clear our legal department. Databases are searched to determine if a name is common enough (like Anna Johnson) to be used without repercussions, or if it is too rare (like Bartholomew Quimperhead) and might be the subject of a lawsuit if the real owner of the name freaked out and didn’t want to be portrayed as a whiskey-guzzling Jazzercise™ teacher with pierced nipples.
Reading the production draft was a bit like recalling a weeks-old dream—there were large portions I remembered writing, but some words had been altered, or lines clipped, or scenes combined for cost efficiency or to accommodate a change that had been made in the previous episode. I found myself rejoicing when I read a line that appeared in the production draft exactly as I’d written it—a little cheer of “yippee! that didn’t suck!” arose in my throat. 99.9% of the time, my co-writers improved on whatever lame turd of an idea I originally produced, and I feel humbled to work in the presence of people whose grasp of language and story is so much snappier and smarter than my own. (This one time, in BFE, I was one of the funniest people I knew. Now I’m Susie-Not-So-Sassy. Can you say Little Fish, Big Pond?).
Work has become much busier as episodes go to production and the first airdate (Wednesday, September 28 at 9pm on UPN) approaches. Rob is often called away to choose music or attend casting sessions, so we come in early to get time with him at the table. The writers’ assistant and I have been assigned the task of updating parts of UPN’s Veronica Mars website (www.veronicamars.com) –we’re writing the “Case Files” section, which is basically a recap of the episodes from last season, written in Veronica’s voice. It’s actually a very fun project, but it requires squeezing in moments to re-read scripts and devoting my evenings to watching my decaying videotapes of the show, which really cuts into my RU the Girl viewing time.
As the show is filmed on location in San Diego, DVDs of the day’s taping are delivered to our office each afternoon. These “dailies” offer a unique window into how TV gets made. Each scene in a script is filmed again and again from different angles, and the scenes are filmed out of narrative sequence—all of the school scenes are shot, then the scenes at the bordello (just kidding), then the scenes at Mars Investigations, etc. The editing crew later pieces them together in correct order and so that the perspective shifts to focus on the character who is speaking. Multiple takes also insure that the best delivery of a line makes it into the final version, and allows the editors to eliminate mistakes—Rob laughing in the background, for example, or an actor fumbling a line or sneezing. Watching the dailies makes me appreciate just how much work and talent are required to produce a quality TV show. It’s an amazing, labor-intensive process.
When we’re not at the table, I work alone in my office, my ears plugged, my headspace filled with the voices of Veronica, Logan, Wallace, Duncan, Keith, Sheriff Lamb, and the other imaginary people who make up our world. It’s tough work—sometimes I can’t even channel my own self, let alone a dozen make-believe identities. But it’s fun work, too, despite the occasional—and sometimes audible—frustrations. One of my co-workers overheard me sigh one day while I was writing and asked, “Why the heavy sigh? You’re living the dream life!” I am living a dream life, that’s for sure—a surreal and strange expedition out of the ordinary and into a whole new world, where there is so much to learn and laugh and think about, that sometimes it’s all I can do to remember to stop and breathe.
For the first time since I was toilet-trained, I won’t be going to school in September. For 32 years, I’ve spent my life in the care of educators—parents, teachers, colleagues. There’s a lot I miss about the going-back-to-school rituals—the new clothes, boxes of books to be unpacked, a new Tolkien-themed READING: MAKE IT A HOBBIT bulletin board to put up in the library. More than anything, I miss the routine. There was comfort in knowing precisely when the work day began and ended—there were no questions about My Time and The Man’s Time. Flag salute at 7:55, lunch at 11:50, I-5 at 2:59:59.
Each day this week, we spent six to seven solid hours in the Writers’ Room, breaking the story for episode six. By 5:30 or 6, the writers’ table was an archaeological exhibit of the day’s efforts: littered with empty coffee mugs, candy wrappers, used-up dry-erase markers, and take-out containers. It’s a testament to both our intensity and the occasional periods of collective mental paralysis we experience as we sit silently, all six of us equally stumped by a glitch in the plot, relieved only by Barq’s and Starburst. For long stretches we sat zombie-like, willing a solution to appear out of the ether. I cursed myself for not having read—or remembered—more books. Surely the answer was out there in some true-crime book or detective novel that I’d read and forgotten. If only I could sneak away to quickly skim The Stranger Beside Me or Helter Skelter.
Among the story problems that did get solved this week was the completion of the production draft of the episode I co-wrote with Phil Klemmer. This is the version which, having cleared Rob, the network, and the studio, is sent to San Diego to the production crew, who will read it and begin securing props, locations, and wardrobe. Over the next few weeks, this draft will change—we might need to add Back-up to a scene, or change the location of a conversation, or remove references to brand-name products. All of the characters’ names have to clear our legal department. Databases are searched to determine if a name is common enough (like Anna Johnson) to be used without repercussions, or if it is too rare (like Bartholomew Quimperhead) and might be the subject of a lawsuit if the real owner of the name freaked out and didn’t want to be portrayed as a whiskey-guzzling Jazzercise™ teacher with pierced nipples.
Reading the production draft was a bit like recalling a weeks-old dream—there were large portions I remembered writing, but some words had been altered, or lines clipped, or scenes combined for cost efficiency or to accommodate a change that had been made in the previous episode. I found myself rejoicing when I read a line that appeared in the production draft exactly as I’d written it—a little cheer of “yippee! that didn’t suck!” arose in my throat. 99.9% of the time, my co-writers improved on whatever lame turd of an idea I originally produced, and I feel humbled to work in the presence of people whose grasp of language and story is so much snappier and smarter than my own. (This one time, in BFE, I was one of the funniest people I knew. Now I’m Susie-Not-So-Sassy. Can you say Little Fish, Big Pond?).
Work has become much busier as episodes go to production and the first airdate (Wednesday, September 28 at 9pm on UPN) approaches. Rob is often called away to choose music or attend casting sessions, so we come in early to get time with him at the table. The writers’ assistant and I have been assigned the task of updating parts of UPN’s Veronica Mars website (www.veronicamars.com) –we’re writing the “Case Files” section, which is basically a recap of the episodes from last season, written in Veronica’s voice. It’s actually a very fun project, but it requires squeezing in moments to re-read scripts and devoting my evenings to watching my decaying videotapes of the show, which really cuts into my RU the Girl viewing time.
As the show is filmed on location in San Diego, DVDs of the day’s taping are delivered to our office each afternoon. These “dailies” offer a unique window into how TV gets made. Each scene in a script is filmed again and again from different angles, and the scenes are filmed out of narrative sequence—all of the school scenes are shot, then the scenes at the bordello (just kidding), then the scenes at Mars Investigations, etc. The editing crew later pieces them together in correct order and so that the perspective shifts to focus on the character who is speaking. Multiple takes also insure that the best delivery of a line makes it into the final version, and allows the editors to eliminate mistakes—Rob laughing in the background, for example, or an actor fumbling a line or sneezing. Watching the dailies makes me appreciate just how much work and talent are required to produce a quality TV show. It’s an amazing, labor-intensive process.
When we’re not at the table, I work alone in my office, my ears plugged, my headspace filled with the voices of Veronica, Logan, Wallace, Duncan, Keith, Sheriff Lamb, and the other imaginary people who make up our world. It’s tough work—sometimes I can’t even channel my own self, let alone a dozen make-believe identities. But it’s fun work, too, despite the occasional—and sometimes audible—frustrations. One of my co-workers overheard me sigh one day while I was writing and asked, “Why the heavy sigh? You’re living the dream life!” I am living a dream life, that’s for sure—a surreal and strange expedition out of the ordinary and into a whole new world, where there is so much to learn and laugh and think about, that sometimes it’s all I can do to remember to stop and breathe.
Hollywood, Week 15: This Writer’s Rooms
September 23, 2005
The Writers’ Room and The Writer’s Room:
A mix-up in the availability of one of our actors means that the story we just broke last week is now going to become episode 9 instead of 8. This means we had a week to break a whole new A-story, write a one-pager, draft an outline, and put together a 50 page script. John and Dayna were already at work on episode 9 and Diane is working on 7, so that left me, John, and Rob to whip up something brilliant. It might sound easier to have three people on the project, but writing is one of those endeavors that just gets more complicated with more people. It’s like driving a car—one driver can do a good job, and it might be nice to have a map-in-hand passenger assisting with navigation, but if you both try to steer, there’s bound to be an accident.
Monday was one of the best days I’ve had at the writers’ table—everyone was in a good mood, (although the guys were almost giddy, for some reason and at one point, the women just looked at them—Phil bouncing on his special back-support chair, Rob spinning his wedding ring around the table like a top, John doodling madly on his legal pad—and thought we’d stumbled into an ADD support meeting.) Empowered by my Rosie-the-Riveter WE CAN DO IT undershirt, I felt more confident than I have in a long time and pitched more ideas than ever. Maybe not good ideas, all of them, but at least the crew knew that I wasn’t just sitting there with a bowl of jello in my cranium.
Tuesday, we awoke to a thunderstorm. Stinkee howled all night, I slept periodically between 11:13 and 12:47; 12:52 and 3:11, 3:45 and 5 ish. The rain pounding outside—what my friends in India might call either an impending or receding typhoon—meant the roads were slickened with long-dormant oil and commuters were exercising their brakes and horns with adolescent abandon. A grey sky, windshield wipers awakened from months-long hibernation, and long, curly hair that frizzed on contact with the outside air. I was in heaven. Home again, home again, jiggity-jig.
Alas, the writers’ room bubbled less. Monday’s frivolity gave way to Tuesday’s weather-induced gloom. We looked at each other, some snappishness occurred, ideas withered in the humidity. Driving home, I fondly recalled the Olden Days, when I left work on a rainy day cheerfully anticipating an afternoon nap, a comforting glass of Merlot, and a night of crafts watching a romantic comedy.
Wednesday, we reported to the table at the ungodly hour of 8 a.m. to hash out the beats for the A, B, and C stories of episode 8. Although John Enbom and I (BelbEnbom) will be credited with the script, the labor was divided between me, Rob, John, and Diane, with a previously-written scene by Phil thrown in for good measure. I began Thursday in my office, coffeed-up and intense, and sequestered myself there for seven hours to produce 6 pages of outline for the as-yet-untitled script while the others did the same. By quittin’ time, we’d put together an outline. It feels like finals week. I took myself out for sushi and enjoyed the calm before the storm…Monday we’ll get the RT version of the outline back, and the ulcer inducing stress will begin again.
The Hotel Room
My friend Anna said, when I told her about my upcoming weekend in Vegas, “It’s like you’re at summer camp!” I don’t know where the Coggans were sending their children, but at Camp Don Bosco, we were lucky to go on a day trip to the river, let alone a weekend excursion to Las Vegas.
Here’s the backstory: Veronica Mars employs, on retainer(ish) a local P.I. WHOSE NAME I CAN’T SAY FOR SECURITY REASONS. This fellow, who I’ll call “Sam,” is called upon to inform us when we have technical questions, like how to hack into a school’s grade program or the best method for impersonating a federal agent, or whatever. He’s also an active member of the World Investigators organization, a group that happens to be holding its annual conference at the MGM Grand this weekend. And they’re happily sponsoring a Veronica Mars contingent of one: me. So I’m off at the ass-crack of dawn today to mingle with the mysterious. I’ll keep you posted.
The Green Room
Weirdly, the dude who books guests for The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson (nightly at 12:30 on CBS, following Letterman) happened upon an article about my (mis)adventures in The Bellingham Herald. He contacted Warner Brothers, they contacted me, I signed some paperwork that will probably put me within auditing distance of the IRS, and now I’ll be appearing on Ferguson’s show to talk about the strange segue from high school librarian to Hollywood TV writer. At least I hope that’s what we’re going to talk about. It’s entirely possible his researchers dug up some embarrassing tidbit from junior high, like how I cried in home ec when I had trouble sewing the little green pickle-shaped piece of felt on my hamburger-shaped pillow or something.
At any rate, they’re sending a car to pick me up for the taping on Tuesday at 4 p.m. THEY’RE SENDING A CAR! I’m pretty sure the only time a car has been sent to pick me up was when I drank too much at a party and my friends were afraid I’d skid over someone’s family on the way home. They’re doing my hair and make-up, and the woman who made those arrangements assured me, “they’re very good…they won’t make you look like a hooker.” Well, damn. Imagine the book I could squeeze out of that: from high school librarian to TV writer to internationally known, televised prostitute. At any rate, if you want to see me talk about my sewing skills or how my fan letter to Rob Thomas led to a new career or if you just want to see whether or not I really look like a hooker on TV, I’ll be appearing Tuesday, September 27, at 12:30 a-friggin-m on CBS.
The Writers’ Room and The Writer’s Room:
A mix-up in the availability of one of our actors means that the story we just broke last week is now going to become episode 9 instead of 8. This means we had a week to break a whole new A-story, write a one-pager, draft an outline, and put together a 50 page script. John and Dayna were already at work on episode 9 and Diane is working on 7, so that left me, John, and Rob to whip up something brilliant. It might sound easier to have three people on the project, but writing is one of those endeavors that just gets more complicated with more people. It’s like driving a car—one driver can do a good job, and it might be nice to have a map-in-hand passenger assisting with navigation, but if you both try to steer, there’s bound to be an accident.
Monday was one of the best days I’ve had at the writers’ table—everyone was in a good mood, (although the guys were almost giddy, for some reason and at one point, the women just looked at them—Phil bouncing on his special back-support chair, Rob spinning his wedding ring around the table like a top, John doodling madly on his legal pad—and thought we’d stumbled into an ADD support meeting.) Empowered by my Rosie-the-Riveter WE CAN DO IT undershirt, I felt more confident than I have in a long time and pitched more ideas than ever. Maybe not good ideas, all of them, but at least the crew knew that I wasn’t just sitting there with a bowl of jello in my cranium.
Tuesday, we awoke to a thunderstorm. Stinkee howled all night, I slept periodically between 11:13 and 12:47; 12:52 and 3:11, 3:45 and 5 ish. The rain pounding outside—what my friends in India might call either an impending or receding typhoon—meant the roads were slickened with long-dormant oil and commuters were exercising their brakes and horns with adolescent abandon. A grey sky, windshield wipers awakened from months-long hibernation, and long, curly hair that frizzed on contact with the outside air. I was in heaven. Home again, home again, jiggity-jig.
Alas, the writers’ room bubbled less. Monday’s frivolity gave way to Tuesday’s weather-induced gloom. We looked at each other, some snappishness occurred, ideas withered in the humidity. Driving home, I fondly recalled the Olden Days, when I left work on a rainy day cheerfully anticipating an afternoon nap, a comforting glass of Merlot, and a night of crafts watching a romantic comedy.
Wednesday, we reported to the table at the ungodly hour of 8 a.m. to hash out the beats for the A, B, and C stories of episode 8. Although John Enbom and I (BelbEnbom) will be credited with the script, the labor was divided between me, Rob, John, and Diane, with a previously-written scene by Phil thrown in for good measure. I began Thursday in my office, coffeed-up and intense, and sequestered myself there for seven hours to produce 6 pages of outline for the as-yet-untitled script while the others did the same. By quittin’ time, we’d put together an outline. It feels like finals week. I took myself out for sushi and enjoyed the calm before the storm…Monday we’ll get the RT version of the outline back, and the ulcer inducing stress will begin again.
The Hotel Room
My friend Anna said, when I told her about my upcoming weekend in Vegas, “It’s like you’re at summer camp!” I don’t know where the Coggans were sending their children, but at Camp Don Bosco, we were lucky to go on a day trip to the river, let alone a weekend excursion to Las Vegas.
Here’s the backstory: Veronica Mars employs, on retainer(ish) a local P.I. WHOSE NAME I CAN’T SAY FOR SECURITY REASONS. This fellow, who I’ll call “Sam,” is called upon to inform us when we have technical questions, like how to hack into a school’s grade program or the best method for impersonating a federal agent, or whatever. He’s also an active member of the World Investigators organization, a group that happens to be holding its annual conference at the MGM Grand this weekend. And they’re happily sponsoring a Veronica Mars contingent of one: me. So I’m off at the ass-crack of dawn today to mingle with the mysterious. I’ll keep you posted.
The Green Room
Weirdly, the dude who books guests for The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson (nightly at 12:30 on CBS, following Letterman) happened upon an article about my (mis)adventures in The Bellingham Herald. He contacted Warner Brothers, they contacted me, I signed some paperwork that will probably put me within auditing distance of the IRS, and now I’ll be appearing on Ferguson’s show to talk about the strange segue from high school librarian to Hollywood TV writer. At least I hope that’s what we’re going to talk about. It’s entirely possible his researchers dug up some embarrassing tidbit from junior high, like how I cried in home ec when I had trouble sewing the little green pickle-shaped piece of felt on my hamburger-shaped pillow or something.
At any rate, they’re sending a car to pick me up for the taping on Tuesday at 4 p.m. THEY’RE SENDING A CAR! I’m pretty sure the only time a car has been sent to pick me up was when I drank too much at a party and my friends were afraid I’d skid over someone’s family on the way home. They’re doing my hair and make-up, and the woman who made those arrangements assured me, “they’re very good…they won’t make you look like a hooker.” Well, damn. Imagine the book I could squeeze out of that: from high school librarian to TV writer to internationally known, televised prostitute. At any rate, if you want to see me talk about my sewing skills or how my fan letter to Rob Thomas led to a new career or if you just want to see whether or not I really look like a hooker on TV, I’ll be appearing Tuesday, September 27, at 12:30 a-friggin-m on CBS.
Hollywood, Week 16: She Gives Good Story
October 3, 2005
In case you’ve ever wondered, writing doesn’t come any easier when lay your head down on the keyboard and repeat Everything I write smells like ass. I know, because I tested this out on Friday, when I reported to my office at the (now-considered-early) hour of 8 a.m. to finish the sections of episode 8 (“Ahoy, Mateys!”) that I’m responsible for. As mentioned last week, four writers per script screws things up in a too-many-cooks-spoil-the-broth way. By the time we’d delivered the conjoined beast to Rob, the name of a main character had more spellings than Quadafi, we’d repeated or neglected key points of the plot, and the entire conglomeration resembled the end of a game of Telephone.
Writing a script looked a lot easier than it’s turned out to be. The pages are mostly white space, after all. The word count for a 50-page screenplay is about 10,000 words—less than a fourth as many words as are contained in regular prose on the same number of pages. It’s amazing this makes my brain hurt as much as it does. A screenplay is just people talking, and I’ve certainly never had a problem with that. The trick is that so much more has to happen in so many fewer words. It’s like trying to decorate a Beverly Hills mansion with a school teacher’s salary. Everything would be so much easier if Veronica could just hop in her Mystery Machine and stumble around a haunted inn for a rainy night before ripping the mask off Mr. Jeevish! The hotel’s proprietor! Who would’ve got away with it if it hadn’t been for Veronica! Instead, she actually has to think her way through every problem, and be witty, clever, smart, and sexy in the meantime.
Fortunately, I had a week full of diversion to keep me from crumpling up into a ball under my desk. On Tuesday, I made my TV debut on The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson, which was a fun, if slightly surreal, experience. The day before the show, Michael, the guy in charge of the guest line-up, called to “pre-interview” me so that I’d have an idea what I’d be asked on stage. Prior to this, I’d also been sent an 8-page dossier about myself that had been collated by the show’s research underling. All of the information he’d gathered was from the internet, the newspaper, and my blog. How bizarre to read about myself in the third person: “Belben’s home life remains unsettled. She reports a fair amount of turbulence with her new upstairs neighbors” and to see that the notes in the dossier had been footnoted—in one case, to define “ants-on-a-log” for Ferguson. Perhaps they don’t have this delectable treat in Scotland. Too busy eating sheep innards, maybe.
The Late, Late Show appears at 12:30 a.m. on CBS, but it’s taped at 5:30. They sent a car to get me—partly courtesy, partly just to make sure I didn’t get lost or fail to show up—and then they stationed me in a dressing room as big as my bedroom, complete with a TV, a mini-bar, a huge gift box full of Bacardi, a copy of Pat the Bunny (long story) and a card from Craig Ferguson, welcoming me to his “wee dark show.” Trent-the-make-up-guy powdered me up, the stylist Michelle fluffed my hair, and the wardrobe guy double-stick-taped the hem of my jeans so I wouldn’t fall and break any more teeth.
Besides me, there were two other guests on the show: actress Maria Bello, who’s currently appearing in A History of Violence, and Jason Segel, who’s on the TV show How I Met Your Mother. Maria Bello never set foot in the Green Room (yes, it really is green), but me, Jason Segel and our entourages (mine included two reps from Warner Brothers and my agents and I’m only calling it My Entourage to be obnoxious), watched the show on a large screen TV and snacked on the Craft Services spread. (Also, not to be a tattle-tale, but Jason had two beers, too. I only had a half a glass of wine to calm myself down a little bit).
Just before it was my turn to go onstage, the sound guy hooked me up to a microphone. The hairstylist had warned me that I would become “quite intimate” with him, as the mike cord goes down the front of one’s shirt, but he was a perfect gentleman. Actually, I wouldn’t have minded if he hadn’t been. As you, and the rest of the late night TV viewers United States, now know, I haven’t had anything resembling a date since I’ve been in Los Angeles. They perched me on two footprints just offstage, and once Ferguson introduced me (“Cathy Billbun from Billingum, Washington”), I made my entrance, gave that lame little TV-wave that y’all saw, hugged Mr. Ferguson (yummy!) and sat down in front of the audience of sounds-like-a-thousand-but-is-really-about fifty people. (And no, I don’t know who the especially vociferous whoo-ee person was. I think they plant a couple of people to act excited like that, otherwise everyone else would just be thinking, as I took the stage, WHO?)
Remarkably, I wasn’t that nervous. It was much more nerve-wracking to watch myself on tape later. Besides, it’s not really like I had to say that much. Obviously, the guests on these shows are pretty much just foils for the hosts. Don’t get me wrong, Ferguson is funny and completely gracious, but you may have noticed that his listening skills could use a little polish. Fortunately, I have some life experience with people who interrupt constantly, so it wasn’t that hard to just sit back, laugh, and not worry about finishing my answers.
Now that I’ve had my five minutes of fame, I’m back to work, trying to think up brilliant A-story ideas to pitch as soon as we’re finished with the whirling morass we’ve written ourselves into with episodes 7, 8, 9, and 10 all being under construction at once—and out of order, thanks to the mix-up in actor availability that required switching 8 and 9, and the fact that episode 10 is being written by close friend of Rob’s who lives in Texas.
In case you’ve ever wondered, writing doesn’t come any easier when lay your head down on the keyboard and repeat Everything I write smells like ass. I know, because I tested this out on Friday, when I reported to my office at the (now-considered-early) hour of 8 a.m. to finish the sections of episode 8 (“Ahoy, Mateys!”) that I’m responsible for. As mentioned last week, four writers per script screws things up in a too-many-cooks-spoil-the-broth way. By the time we’d delivered the conjoined beast to Rob, the name of a main character had more spellings than Quadafi, we’d repeated or neglected key points of the plot, and the entire conglomeration resembled the end of a game of Telephone.
Writing a script looked a lot easier than it’s turned out to be. The pages are mostly white space, after all. The word count for a 50-page screenplay is about 10,000 words—less than a fourth as many words as are contained in regular prose on the same number of pages. It’s amazing this makes my brain hurt as much as it does. A screenplay is just people talking, and I’ve certainly never had a problem with that. The trick is that so much more has to happen in so many fewer words. It’s like trying to decorate a Beverly Hills mansion with a school teacher’s salary. Everything would be so much easier if Veronica could just hop in her Mystery Machine and stumble around a haunted inn for a rainy night before ripping the mask off Mr. Jeevish! The hotel’s proprietor! Who would’ve got away with it if it hadn’t been for Veronica! Instead, she actually has to think her way through every problem, and be witty, clever, smart, and sexy in the meantime.
Fortunately, I had a week full of diversion to keep me from crumpling up into a ball under my desk. On Tuesday, I made my TV debut on The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson, which was a fun, if slightly surreal, experience. The day before the show, Michael, the guy in charge of the guest line-up, called to “pre-interview” me so that I’d have an idea what I’d be asked on stage. Prior to this, I’d also been sent an 8-page dossier about myself that had been collated by the show’s research underling. All of the information he’d gathered was from the internet, the newspaper, and my blog. How bizarre to read about myself in the third person: “Belben’s home life remains unsettled. She reports a fair amount of turbulence with her new upstairs neighbors” and to see that the notes in the dossier had been footnoted—in one case, to define “ants-on-a-log” for Ferguson. Perhaps they don’t have this delectable treat in Scotland. Too busy eating sheep innards, maybe.
The Late, Late Show appears at 12:30 a.m. on CBS, but it’s taped at 5:30. They sent a car to get me—partly courtesy, partly just to make sure I didn’t get lost or fail to show up—and then they stationed me in a dressing room as big as my bedroom, complete with a TV, a mini-bar, a huge gift box full of Bacardi, a copy of Pat the Bunny (long story) and a card from Craig Ferguson, welcoming me to his “wee dark show.” Trent-the-make-up-guy powdered me up, the stylist Michelle fluffed my hair, and the wardrobe guy double-stick-taped the hem of my jeans so I wouldn’t fall and break any more teeth.
Besides me, there were two other guests on the show: actress Maria Bello, who’s currently appearing in A History of Violence, and Jason Segel, who’s on the TV show How I Met Your Mother. Maria Bello never set foot in the Green Room (yes, it really is green), but me, Jason Segel and our entourages (mine included two reps from Warner Brothers and my agents and I’m only calling it My Entourage to be obnoxious), watched the show on a large screen TV and snacked on the Craft Services spread. (Also, not to be a tattle-tale, but Jason had two beers, too. I only had a half a glass of wine to calm myself down a little bit).
Just before it was my turn to go onstage, the sound guy hooked me up to a microphone. The hairstylist had warned me that I would become “quite intimate” with him, as the mike cord goes down the front of one’s shirt, but he was a perfect gentleman. Actually, I wouldn’t have minded if he hadn’t been. As you, and the rest of the late night TV viewers United States, now know, I haven’t had anything resembling a date since I’ve been in Los Angeles. They perched me on two footprints just offstage, and once Ferguson introduced me (“Cathy Billbun from Billingum, Washington”), I made my entrance, gave that lame little TV-wave that y’all saw, hugged Mr. Ferguson (yummy!) and sat down in front of the audience of sounds-like-a-thousand-but-is-really-about fifty people. (And no, I don’t know who the especially vociferous whoo-ee person was. I think they plant a couple of people to act excited like that, otherwise everyone else would just be thinking, as I took the stage, WHO?)
Remarkably, I wasn’t that nervous. It was much more nerve-wracking to watch myself on tape later. Besides, it’s not really like I had to say that much. Obviously, the guests on these shows are pretty much just foils for the hosts. Don’t get me wrong, Ferguson is funny and completely gracious, but you may have noticed that his listening skills could use a little polish. Fortunately, I have some life experience with people who interrupt constantly, so it wasn’t that hard to just sit back, laugh, and not worry about finishing my answers.
Now that I’ve had my five minutes of fame, I’m back to work, trying to think up brilliant A-story ideas to pitch as soon as we’re finished with the whirling morass we’ve written ourselves into with episodes 7, 8, 9, and 10 all being under construction at once—and out of order, thanks to the mix-up in actor availability that required switching 8 and 9, and the fact that episode 10 is being written by close friend of Rob’s who lives in Texas.
Hollywood, Week 17: Boys and Toys
October 12, 2005
"It is in games that many men discover their paradise." -Robert Lynd
I can’t speak for the rest of the TV industry, and I’m too lazy to do the research right now, but the staff of Veronica Mars is peopled predominantly by males. There are six writers and their assistant, an office manager, Rob’s personal assistant, and nine post-production people who edit the film sent north by the San Diego crew. Of these 18 people, five are women; the rest are boys.
Please note that I did not say men. Although they sprout facial hair and are presumably decorated with the other male accoutrements, the penis-encumbered folk with whom I work are unashamedly boyish. And I love them for it—and not in a Mary-Kay-LeTourneau-7-years-at-Purdy kind of way. I love that they are playful and fun, in a way that the women that I worked with back in Burlington were. They have an energy and camaraderie and goofiness that make working at VM a bit like being the one sister in a family of Brady boys. On crack.
Because we work in close quarters for up to ten hours a day, sharing three meals, a kitchen, and bathrooms, the group begins to resemble a family of sorts—complete with all the sunshine and shit that accompany any collection of people thrown together mostly by chance. If someone has a fight with their wife or really bad gas or a skull-splitting hangover, we’re all party to the suffering. By the same token, when Rob’s daughter stands for the first time, or John buys a house or Dayna takes a fabulous trip to Ojai, we all get to celebrate.
Working with 13 “men” is a bit like having a baker’s dozen of brothers—they tease us about our hair, leave the fridge door open, use our bathroom and stink it up, and complain about the way we park. They can’t close a cabinet door to save their lives, or refill the coffee maker, or load a roll of TP. However, they do burn CDs for us, diagnose weird smells made by our cars, advise our pre-date clothing options, defend us when we’re romantically wronged (“I will hate for you!” one Y-chromosome-bearing co-worker told me after my heart had been squished), and are never stingy with the praise when we appear on national TV (“You looked fantastic!” my boss told me).
They are strange creatures, these professional brethren. I have yet to appreciate their passions—Keira Knightly—huh? and when someone wrote “Jessica Alba’s ass” on the weekly grocery request list, I could only scratch my head. And then there’s Ahundo, the bewildering, never-ending dart game that consumes virtually every moment of downtime for the boyfolk. The magnetic gameboard is stationed on the wall immediately outside the women’s restroom, so the ovary-enhanced have to pass through what I call the Sausage Gauntlet to attend to our needs, and on more than one occasion, I’ve been booed and/or hit in the nose with a dart for emerging from the restroom at precisely the wrong moment.
Ahundo is specifically designed to exclude women. At least that’s my hunch. For one thing, it employs a complex and impenetrable set of rules, accompanied by an even more complicated score-keeping system involving more math than I’ve cried about since ninth-grade algebra. The players have offensive nicknames that mock their a) ethnicity b) genitalia c) sexual prowess or d) all of the above. Play involves loud exclamations of delight/angst, dancing and/or collapsing on the sofa, and employment of The Tampon of Anger, which, as its name suggests, is a cardboard-encased tampon that is hurled to the ground by a player unhappy with his throw. Ahundo has absolutely nothing to do with, or attract, women.
The best thing about working with men is the music. Although I have female friends who are musically inclined-slash-gifted, there are few women with whom I actively dish about new bands. I rarely trade CDs with anyone except my guy friends. None of my female pals, as far as I know, has 15,000 songs loaded on her computer’s shared drive, as does my boss, Rob. Working in an environment with men, being able to talk about music is almost as useful as being able to talk about the designated hitter rule or the neutral zone trap or Jessica Alba’s ass. I have nothing to say about baseball, hockey, or The Female Buttocks (except that mine are too dimply), so it’s helpful that I’ve read the latest reviews of Death Cab for Cutie and Apollo Sunshine and My Morning Jacket. I burned a Derby CD for Rob last week—because he had never heard of them—and felt like I’d earned a ticket into the club. Please excuse me for a moment while I shave my newly sprouted chest hair.
The truth of the matter is that I feel as at home with the guys at VM as I’ve ever felt anywhere. Maybe because growing up on Azalea Place, I was surrounded by families of boys. My first best friend was Kevin Porter. I learned to ride a bike on Craig Knudsen’s hand-me-down. I played Advance-and-Retreat and rode on the back of a motorcycle long before I owned a Barbie camper. I learned to throw a spiral and knew what a first down was before I owned a baton. And then I owned baton and lasted only one session in the Rosettes before I wanted to leave and go build a fort in the woods somewhere.
I like to think I have the best of both worlds now—like my mother and my grandmother, I appreciate sports but also have a knack for baking and crafts (please, let’s not talk about sewing). Like my father and my brother, I love music and exercise. Like so many men and women in my biological family, I am devoted to words and ideas and books and laughter. Surrounded as I am, at VMHQ, by brilliant, funny women, and talented, hilarious men, I am aware that these worlds have converged—the art, the science, the sports, the sounds, the words and the wisdom—and I have, for the time being, an amazing and unusual new family.
"It is in games that many men discover their paradise." -Robert Lynd
I can’t speak for the rest of the TV industry, and I’m too lazy to do the research right now, but the staff of Veronica Mars is peopled predominantly by males. There are six writers and their assistant, an office manager, Rob’s personal assistant, and nine post-production people who edit the film sent north by the San Diego crew. Of these 18 people, five are women; the rest are boys.
Please note that I did not say men. Although they sprout facial hair and are presumably decorated with the other male accoutrements, the penis-encumbered folk with whom I work are unashamedly boyish. And I love them for it—and not in a Mary-Kay-LeTourneau-7-years-at-Purdy kind of way. I love that they are playful and fun, in a way that the women that I worked with back in Burlington were. They have an energy and camaraderie and goofiness that make working at VM a bit like being the one sister in a family of Brady boys. On crack.
Because we work in close quarters for up to ten hours a day, sharing three meals, a kitchen, and bathrooms, the group begins to resemble a family of sorts—complete with all the sunshine and shit that accompany any collection of people thrown together mostly by chance. If someone has a fight with their wife or really bad gas or a skull-splitting hangover, we’re all party to the suffering. By the same token, when Rob’s daughter stands for the first time, or John buys a house or Dayna takes a fabulous trip to Ojai, we all get to celebrate.
Working with 13 “men” is a bit like having a baker’s dozen of brothers—they tease us about our hair, leave the fridge door open, use our bathroom and stink it up, and complain about the way we park. They can’t close a cabinet door to save their lives, or refill the coffee maker, or load a roll of TP. However, they do burn CDs for us, diagnose weird smells made by our cars, advise our pre-date clothing options, defend us when we’re romantically wronged (“I will hate for you!” one Y-chromosome-bearing co-worker told me after my heart had been squished), and are never stingy with the praise when we appear on national TV (“You looked fantastic!” my boss told me).
They are strange creatures, these professional brethren. I have yet to appreciate their passions—Keira Knightly—huh? and when someone wrote “Jessica Alba’s ass” on the weekly grocery request list, I could only scratch my head. And then there’s Ahundo, the bewildering, never-ending dart game that consumes virtually every moment of downtime for the boyfolk. The magnetic gameboard is stationed on the wall immediately outside the women’s restroom, so the ovary-enhanced have to pass through what I call the Sausage Gauntlet to attend to our needs, and on more than one occasion, I’ve been booed and/or hit in the nose with a dart for emerging from the restroom at precisely the wrong moment.
Ahundo is specifically designed to exclude women. At least that’s my hunch. For one thing, it employs a complex and impenetrable set of rules, accompanied by an even more complicated score-keeping system involving more math than I’ve cried about since ninth-grade algebra. The players have offensive nicknames that mock their a) ethnicity b) genitalia c) sexual prowess or d) all of the above. Play involves loud exclamations of delight/angst, dancing and/or collapsing on the sofa, and employment of The Tampon of Anger, which, as its name suggests, is a cardboard-encased tampon that is hurled to the ground by a player unhappy with his throw. Ahundo has absolutely nothing to do with, or attract, women.
The best thing about working with men is the music. Although I have female friends who are musically inclined-slash-gifted, there are few women with whom I actively dish about new bands. I rarely trade CDs with anyone except my guy friends. None of my female pals, as far as I know, has 15,000 songs loaded on her computer’s shared drive, as does my boss, Rob. Working in an environment with men, being able to talk about music is almost as useful as being able to talk about the designated hitter rule or the neutral zone trap or Jessica Alba’s ass. I have nothing to say about baseball, hockey, or The Female Buttocks (except that mine are too dimply), so it’s helpful that I’ve read the latest reviews of Death Cab for Cutie and Apollo Sunshine and My Morning Jacket. I burned a Derby CD for Rob last week—because he had never heard of them—and felt like I’d earned a ticket into the club. Please excuse me for a moment while I shave my newly sprouted chest hair.
The truth of the matter is that I feel as at home with the guys at VM as I’ve ever felt anywhere. Maybe because growing up on Azalea Place, I was surrounded by families of boys. My first best friend was Kevin Porter. I learned to ride a bike on Craig Knudsen’s hand-me-down. I played Advance-and-Retreat and rode on the back of a motorcycle long before I owned a Barbie camper. I learned to throw a spiral and knew what a first down was before I owned a baton. And then I owned baton and lasted only one session in the Rosettes before I wanted to leave and go build a fort in the woods somewhere.
I like to think I have the best of both worlds now—like my mother and my grandmother, I appreciate sports but also have a knack for baking and crafts (please, let’s not talk about sewing). Like my father and my brother, I love music and exercise. Like so many men and women in my biological family, I am devoted to words and ideas and books and laughter. Surrounded as I am, at VMHQ, by brilliant, funny women, and talented, hilarious men, I am aware that these worlds have converged—the art, the science, the sports, the sounds, the words and the wisdom—and I have, for the time being, an amazing and unusual new family.
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