Back to Bagdad

Yesterday I had breakfast with my producing partner who was in town from Los Angeles. I have decided to let the original Made Crooked stand on its own and to make a new different film next Spring instead of remaking MC with a Hollywood cast. This is not news to my partner. He's been busy with other stuff and isn't the type to get anxious about this sort of stuff. He had seen a treatment for another script that he liked. He's the kind of guy that will get excited when it's time. He has a lot of faith in my writing and my ability to crank out scripts. For which I'm very grateful. It's nice to have someone so centered and accomplished believe in you. I told him how Last Tango has been haunting me. That I wanted to figure out a way to keep our principal cast small and bring actors up from LA for short supporting stints rather than ensemble work. I said I couldn't work on it right now anyway, because I need to get some editing done.
I didn't plan for it, but it happened anyway. Almost as soon as I said I couldn't spare the time for it, a new story went to work on me. It rattled around my head for most of the day yesterday, mostly feeling derivative of Last Tango. In the evening I sat down and made some notes, just to get it out of my head. The notes took a little more shape towards a treatment than I would have thought possible. I had to force myself to recall I wanted to stay close to Last Tango as the story took its own form. I worked on it again this morning. I told my wife the story. It continued to work on me as we strolled down to Junior's and back for brunch.
Then I did something I haven't really done before. I went to the library and checked out a few books that qualify loosely as research material for the script. I have to say how much I love our central library. It's so beautiful. Almost everything I ever want is on the third floor. Everytime I make the long climb up the cool marble stairs I wonder why I don't spend more of days there. I wish there were more people reading books than trying to get on a computer, but there's still plenty of books. I walked out with pile of them today.
Usually I do any necessary research on the internet in the interest of getting the script finished as fast as possible. Another thing I do is tell myself the story in terms of what might best fit the three-act structure. I resisted doing that this time and allowed myself to explore my recall of the influential events and some of their sense-memories. I allowed myself to explore and honor whatever came to mind. No logic to follow. There's no script to plug them into. I can enjoy the free-association for awhile. There's no hurry. I can trust the process. Slow and steady.
I came home and read in the back yard for the rest of the beautiful summer day, pausing to play catch with Henry, to push June in the swing and to listen to Maisie's conversations with her imaginary older sisters.
All I'm willing to say about the story is that a conversation that I had with my father one night many years ago has never left me and has become the fuel for this story's beastly fires.

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