Black Sheep

This is my Kenneth the Page bobblehead. He has not left my side since he arrived one week ago. I have to be careful with him because bobbleheads are fragile. I think they should make a Kenneth the Page action figure. Then I could easily drop him in my handbag and carry him everywhere. I mentioned this to my therapist. She gave me a worried look.

This week at work I was so bored that I spontaneously started writing a short story at the bottom of a Job Hazard Analysis form. It was full of clever dialogue that I wanted to get down before I forgot it. I copied it into an email and sent it to myself so I can have it on my home computer and continue working on it. Then I deleted the text from the JHA. Cause that would be awkward if I turned it in with that seemingly random dialogue at the bottom. Thursday as I waited for the day to end, I tried to do some actual work so I wouldn't just spend the whole afternoon working on my story. I managed to make it almost to 4:30.

Unfortunately the weekend is already more than half over and I've yet to pick up the threads. I guess I'll go do that now. Come along Kenneth!
.......

It's the next day and after 2 hours last night, I did very little to be excited about on my story. What ends up happening is that I split my attention between writing that and writing this, so that I do neither very well. I was cramming things in that I had in my mind before I forgot them, but with no art whatsoever. I will probably never get back to fix it.

Sometimes when I'm watching 30 Rock, which takes place in part in a comedy writers' room, I think how nice it would be to work in a writers room like that. Then I remember that I do sort of work in a writers' room (tech writers) and how dull it is. Completely different world obviously. But one thing is universal, the torture of being around people trying too hard to be funny. We definitely need some levity around that place. But I fear it's hopeless. So I curl up into a little ball, put in my earphones, and retreat from the world. Last week I read Fred Stoller's account of his year writing on Seinfeld; how nerve-wracking it was to always be fighting to get one of your ideas used. The competitiveness with the other writers. The recrimination and self-loathing. Though I could probably deal with it for $2000 a week.

I'm reminded of my own failed attempt at sitcom writing.  I took a class called "Writing for Sitcoms" at UCSB. We got to look at scripts from some current shows and our class had to create what's called a "spec script" for Cybil, which was a show back then starring Cybil Shepherd and Christine Baranski. It was actually a well written show. I have no idea how our script turned out, if we even finished it by the end of the quarter, and what if anything I contributed to it. But the thing I remember from the class is that writing for an established show has some benefits because the characters already exist, they have past history to draw upon. Some shows have what's called a "Bible" that compiles all the aspects of each character, things they've established in previous episodes, so that anyone writing for that character doesn't have them doing something they would never do. Of course there are some characters who are allowed to act completely contrary, as they develop, often because flashbacks are used, or there is an unreliable narrator, and you can't take events at face value. This is certainly true for Kenneth Ellen Parcell as well as some of his cohorts. In any case, having a character bible as rich as Kenneth's doesn't make writing for him a piece of cake. I find it incredibly difficult to stay in the head of a character I haven't created. This is why I don't write much fan fiction. I've tried some for In Plain Sight, because Marshall Mann and Mary Shannon seem like they must be so fun to write for. But I failed miserably at that. So so miserably. It makes me think that I'm not at all smart, not at all funny, not at all good at writing. Makes it even worse because I'm not good looking either. I'm supposed to take solace in my interior monologue, but it does nothing but break me down. Great. Now my therapist will scold me. Stupid inner monologue.