Don't, don't, don't let's start

Not long after this was posted (Saturday, September 02, 2006), I saw some friends and Travis said something along the lines of how my blogs were making him want to open a vein. I guess I was a little bleak. But not sure I'd change a word in this. Not that I've re-read it closely...

Through very little effort of my own, I'm considered an expert in my tiny little world in two categories.

One is screenwriting, partly because I've acquired some minor acclaim within that discipline, and partly because my pal Kevin Williams (a professional educator) signed up to teach a night class on the subject some years ago and then bailed out, asking me to cover for him, and I've since been "the screenwriting teacher," a title with which I am more than a tad uncomfortable.

The second category is parenting. I have a child, and in the world of slacker artists and feckless ne'er-do-wells I inhabit, just having an acknowledged child is a huge rarity. Seriously, I can't think of a half-dozen people in the local film community who have kids, it's freakish.

Anyway, enough hapless suckers seem to think that I'm the expert on these two subjects that I've been asked my opinion on numerous occasions, friends wanting to know what it's like, what they need to do to get into my exalted position. And my response is always the same.

Don't.

Seriously, if you can avoid it, don't.

Screenwriting, it almost goes without saying, is a thankless profession. You get blame, but never praise. Truth be told, that division is probably about right. Screenwriters can screw a story up, but if a movie's good, it hasn't a lot to do with the screenplay. If you remember a line from a movie with great fondness, odds are good that everyone else remembers that same line, too, because it's rare. And, hell, it's more than likely that it's the delivery you dig, not the line -- the word "groovy" doesn't float any boats unless it's Bruce Campbell saying it.

But then there's parenting. Having a child is supposed to be the most wonderful thing in the world. Ask any overweight girl in the dawn of adolescence, with access to a greasy jerk her parents haven't met. Children make you complete. But it's not really like that. Kids are expensive, kids take up all your time, kids keep you from doing the things you really should be doing with your life. The sacrifices you make honestly don't outweigh the good stuff, not most of the time.

Look, if the last thing the world needs isn't another screenplay, that's only because the last thing this world really needs is another child.

Screenwriting isn't making movies. Screenplays aren't art. (And don't get me started on how if Shakespeare's plays are art, why can't screenplays be? When we start making movies in one take with a single wideshot, before a live audience, then we can talk about screenplays as art...) And making babies isn't parenting.

I love my child, more than anything in the world, and more than anything you'll ever love (unless you have your own child). He's wonderful. And I love some of the stories I've written, too (although none as much as the movies I've made).

But if you have to ask me, the answer must be no, for either of those subjects. You only do it if you must. Only if you absolutely must.

Otherwise, get a dog and a camera.