• personal letter (3 pages or less) telling something about yourself and your writing inspirations and aspirations
• a resumé (and given that I've been self-employed and/or SAHD for something like 17 years now, I gave that useless document all the respect and seriousness it deserves, which is to say "just slightly less than none")
• a list of non-journalism writing and/or film credits (I listed some writing stuff, but the bulk of my writing these past 17 years was contract copywriting and way too boring to rate specific itemized mention)
• a list of completed screenplays (which looked more impressive than I expected)
• a short one paragraph or perhaps half-page bio statement
Right now, I have all but that damned bio completed, and that one is driving me nuts. Every time I try to start, I am overwhelmed by the sound of Steve Martin's voice in the opening to THE JERK—"I was born the son of poor black sharecroppers..."—and then I get bored and go eat a handful of CheezIts and stare at the backyard.
I am perfectly fine to talk about myself... but only on my own terms. So long as I am allowed to make light of things and make the tragic seem laughable and the laughable seem tragic and the triumphant seem moronic and vice versa, and so long as I know that the audience is understanding the ridiculous joke of it all, then all is well and I can have fun.
But ask me to stand up straight and seem serious about a subject so totally undeserving of such stick-up-the-butt seriousness—me thinking seriously about me and then seriously reflecting upon that seriousness seriously—and my first and deepest instinct is to drop trou and behave badly.
Time for more CheezIts.
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bored by serious discussion of serious self-reflection B
3 comments:
Then don't write it in all seriousness. Write it the way you'd write it if it weren't for the Academy. Just write. How do you explain you to people who don't know you?
Should be a whole lot easier than writing a Nicholl worthy screenplay, I should think.
Good luck.
Oh, I'm sure you'll manage this one just fine, eventually, AggieB. You know how to do it, you do this kind of stuff all the time -- it's just a little harder when you're so familiar with the source material. Cull out everything irrelevant and go with the flow on the rest.
When you're done, I'd be interested to read it.
How do you explain you to people who don't know you?
Usually via a complicated combination of eyebrow gestures, interpretive dance, and hand to hand technique.
Biography completed. All files and materials sent.
That'll learn 'em.
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B
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