You do not need to take a class with a “rock star” to be creative. This faith in the magical ability of experts to transform lives is ironic in our secular  society. Gurus, rock stars, life coaches, Oprah – they can make you change. Most people don’t go to a priest for career advice yet believe that taking the workshop of a famous person will cure their creative funk.

I was thinking about this after reading comments by a talented photographer friend of mine, Mary Kate McKenna. She was writing about “rock star” wedding photographers and their high-priced workshops:

REALLY tired of newbie photogs (I still consider myself a newbie in the industry!) doing workshops for other professionals, charging a lot of money, with no real business skills and embellishing the amount of money they make in the industry. Before attending a “rockstar” workshop, do your research.

Take a class with them and, the promise goes, you can be as successful and creative as they are. You can be a rock star, too, as long as you copy their methods and approach. They’re selling a dream, one that you can buy into just by plonking down your Visa card.

Taking a class is easy. It’s certainly much easier and safer than actually trying to be a rock star on your own. That path is risky and dangerous. By taking a class, you indulge in your dream but just a little bit. You go off for a weekend, absorb the lessons of the master, and then return to your life.

And I suspect that’s where it ends for a lot of people.

I see the same thing in screenwriting. There are many, many famous screenwriting gurus that you can take classes with. They have their own trademarked systems, reducing drama to quadrants with required steps. Storytelling is broken down, like diagramming a sentence.

So easy, your screenplay will just write itself, right? No. The screenwriting biz is another big industry selling a dream, the fantasy that a screenplay will make you rich and famous.

I wrote a screenplay, Mount Pleasant, that won the Film DC Screenwriting Competition. I did not become rich and famous but it was a tremendously rewarding experience, one that led to interesting opportunities like working with the DC Shorts Film Festival. But the rewarding part for me was writing the script.

For winning the competition, the DC Film Office sent me office sent me to LA to visit the set of the West Wing, during the final season. That was a great experience but, when I wrote Mount Pleasant, I had no idea that this was in the future. I wrote the script because it was a story I had in my head. I wrote it without any idea of where it would lead.

The problem with rock stars is twofold:

1. The focus on the reward. Workshops focus on an illusory dream of creative life. You will be rich and glamorous. The wedding photogs I know love their jobs but work awfully hard. They spend their weekends crawling around on ballroom floors, trying to get the perfect shot. And a workshop on writing would, if I had it my way, stress the solitary nature of the craft. Writers spend most of their day alone, in front of a computer.

2. Ceding authority to experts. Creativity is an act of rebellion. Aren’t all the millions of books, films and photos already in existence enough for you? What makes you think you have anything to add? The first step in your rebellion should not be slavishly following the teachings of some maharishi.

I wrote Mount Pleasant with the barest of screenwriting education. I had written short stories before and originally thought of the story as a novel. The screenplay format had always puzzled me but, after trying out Final Draft, I got it. I read books on screenwriting and started writing the script. I got stuck a few times but, after putting the script down for a few months, kept at it. I wanted to see it done.

My advice is simple. Do it yourself. After all the classes, once the guru has moved on to another city, it’s going to be just you. For some people, that’s inspiring. For many, it’s terrifying.

To write that screenplay, take that picture, or create that sculpture, you do not need to take a class with a rock star. You just need to get started. Invest your time and money in yourself, rather than some high-priced guru.

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The DC Shorts Screenwriting Competition is a different kind of screenplay contest. What makes it unique is that the winner receives $2,000 toward turning their script into a film. The film also automatically gets in into the following year’s DC Shorts Film Festival.

This alone makes it worth the time of any aspiring writer. However, even if you don’t win the competition, it’s a worthwhile entry fee – all scripts receive feedback from judges. And if your screenplay is a finalist, you get to watch it being performed by actors, in front of a live audience in Washington, DC (pictured above).

As a screenplay judge for the DC Shorts Screenplay Competition, and as a screenwriter myself, I’m going to tell you exactly how to win this contest.

I hate to say it but the rules are important. They exist because we want great short films that can be produced in DC, ones that audiences will stand up and cheer for.

Most important rule – your script can’t be longer than fifteen pages. A script fewer than ten pages would be even better.

As stated on the DC Shorts web site:

Scripts are scored by each judge for strength of plot, originality, writing proficiency, ability to be produced on a budget of less than $10K, ability to be successfully read, performed, and understood by a live audience, and other values.

Your script will be judged by each one of the criteria listed above. What do we mean by them?

Strength of Plot – Story is conflict. With less than fifteen pages to work with, you must introduce your main character and their dilemma immediately. We don’t have time to get to know them – we must discover their problem in the first couple of pages. Then you must figure out a way to resolve it.

Originality – Everyone knows what happens in a romantic comedy, how the characters meet cute and are destined for one another. What’s your twist on this familiar genre?

Writing Proficiency – DC Shorts screenplay contest judges are writers themselves. Don’t annoy them with clichés, with bland lines of dialogue, with overwritten descriptions. And certainly don’t include typos, misspellings or other mistakes.

Ability to Be Produced – We’re talking low-budget. No special effects. No explosions. One or two simple locations, like a coffee shop or a bedroom. No crowd scenes or exotic costumes. Keep it simple and let your story do the work.

Ability to Be Successfully Read and Performed – Finalists get a table-read in front of an audience, who picks the winner. Write dialogue that actors want to perform, that audiences will thrill to hear. I suggest reading it aloud yourself or with friends. Act it out and see how it plays.

Other Factors – Judging is, by its nature, subjective. We read a lot of scripts so, above all, we want things in correct screenplay format. Extreme violence or sex may put off some judges. Stories that are racist, misogynist, homophobic or badly written certainly will. And it’s called DC Shorts, so we have a preference for scripts set in Washington.

What doesn’t matter is… who you are. Judging is blind. We don’t know who wrote what. Anyone can win this contest.

You can do it. Fewer than fifteen pages, a couple of locations, some interesting characters, an intriguing situation – c’mon, you could write that over an evening.

Early Deadline – March 31
Regular Deadline – May 15
Extended Deadline – May 31

Submit your script online at DC Shorts.

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It’s the end of the year, and the end of a decade. What were my favorite projects of 2009? What did I have the most fun working on?

Murder in Ocean Hall

I can’t help myself, I like to write fiction. People have asked me how I could leave my job and then spend countless hours alone, in a coffee shop, writing a novel. I’ve offered advice on setting a schedule and being committed, but the truth is that writing a book is a huge sacrifice and something that you must really, really want to do. And something that you must enjoy doing more then anything else.

DC Shorts Film Festival

This year, I made sure to really enjoy the festival, not only as a screenplay contest judge but as a participant. For the first time, I was in town for all the parties and saw some great films, including Funky Prairie Boy. What’s great about DC Shorts is that you get to meet filmmakers and other creative folks in a very relaxed, friendly atmosphere. And with the Screenplay Competition held a month after the main festival, I got to enjoy both events. The funny thing about being a volunteer is that if you show up and prove to be reliable, you get given all sorts of other interesting duties. For DC Shorts, I’ve been a film judge, screenplay competition manager, executive judge, film panel moderator, assistant emcee, furniture mover and event photographer – anything for the cause!

Transparency Camp

“One time, at Transparency Camp…” Embarrassing, I know, but Transparency Camp was really a revelation for me. Having worked in government, I firmly believe that it should be more transparent and accountable, which was the focus of the event. The most interesting part was the format – it was an “un-conference” where the participants devised the agenda and put on the presentations. And it was free. That’s a tremendous development, because most web conferences cost thousands of dollars and feature sitting in cold rooms looking at PowerPoint presentations from various experts. By contrast, the un-conference format enables tapping the knowledge of the group in a democratic and open session. Plus, free beer!

Pink Line Project

The end of the year found me embarking on a new project – interviews with artists and other interesting DC creatives for the Pink Line Project. These are people who are risk-takers, who go out and start film and theater festivals. I think that everyone is creative and with my interview series I hope to encourage others to write that book or make that painting.

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The music industry had its Disintermediation Moment with the advent of Napster. Once consumers discovered the power of acquiring individual songs, rather than whole albums, the days of the $16.99 album CD were doomed. Lawyers shut down Napster but could never put the genie back in the bottle. The music business, where “thieves and pimps run free,” according to Hunter S. Thompson, was forced to cut a deal with another rebel, Steve Jobs. An industry that once condemned the idea of “ripping” songs from CDs to computers has turned to iTunes to save their sliding profits.

Newspapers were early adopters of the web, launching some of the first web sites and online services, such as the Washington Post’s Digital Ink in 1994. Early efforts made the mistaken assumption that people would pay for content – despite being surrounded by a sea of free information. For more than a decade, newspapers have tried to use the web to support a business model (money from classified ads goes for reporters, buildings, paper, trucks) that’s been undercut by Craigslist and others. It would be better if they adapted to the medium like the Huffington Post or Politico.

Back in the 1980s, movie studios tried to stop the development of the VCR, arguing that the devices enable copyright infringement. Though they lost, they continued their efforts, athwart the flow of history, as they sued DVR makers, as if they had learned nothing. Meanwhile, consumers have moved on, and watch clips and whole movies online.

And now it’s the turn of the book industry.

I’ve been reading a lot about e-books and the Nook, both as an avid reader and an author. I wrote a book, Murder in Ocean Hall, have an agent and am looking for publisher.

However, I also work on web sites for a living so the slow print publishing world seems really outdated to me. Why does it take a year for a book to go from an author to a bookstore? I could publish my book on Lulu and start selling it immediately.

Why are there so many gatekeepers involved? Why do writers get such a small (10%) royalty on their titles? Why do so many writers have to do their own marketing, despite the fact that publishers claim that’s what they’re for?

The argument seems to be that this is the way we’ve always done it. The book publishing world seems little changed, a Mad Men environment of stacks of manuscripts, Manhattan offices and boozy lunches. I would love a noontime martini but like the manual typewriters and flirtatious secretaries of Sterling Cooper, that world is long gone.

The price of e-books today is subsidized by Amazon and others. Publishers would like to charge much, much more than the standard $9.99 for e-books, arguing that they have high costs. This makes no sense – when you have perfect, unlimited digital copies of something, the price has to come down, as anyone who’s bought an album or song on iTunes knows. Consumers are saying that e-books should be comparable in price to paperbacks. That’s what its worth to them and book publishers need to adapt if they’re going to survive.

The fact that the publishing industry takes such a big chunk of the price of a book really seems like an argument against it. If so much of the cost of a title pays for execs and marketing campaigns, then why have a publishing industry at all? How is this model any different from the music, film and newspaper industries – all middlemen and gatekeepers have been rendered irrelevant by the Internet.

Without such high costs, books would be cheaper for readers and writers would make more money. My thoughts were really crystallized by this wonderful blog post by Joe Konrath. In it, he breaks down the amount of money he makes off e-books he sells through his publisher and those he sells on his own. He gets more money from titles he sells himself. And readers get more works to chose from and at a cheaper price. Konrath is meeting the demand of the market and making a better living than he would if he used a book publisher.

What value do book publishers add then? Are they not just standing in the way of more books at lower prices for more readers?

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I’ve been involved in DC Shorts almost since the beginning. I volunteered with Jon Gann, founder of the festival, and  was a film judge for a couple years. Me and other volunteers watched and rated the hundreds of submissions that came in. We used a clever online system to do so. One key trait about DC Shorts is how professional and well organized it is, from top to bottom.

The next year, I was a screenplay contest judge, where I read short scripts that were submitted to the festival. We then did a live reading of the finalists at E Street Cinema; the winner got money to turn their script into a film.

In 2008, I was the DC Shorts Screenplay Competition Manager. In addition to reading lots of scripts, I got to work with writers, actors and a theater director to put on a show at the Navy Memorial. The finalists had their scripts read, with various degrees of acting and blocking. Jon appointed me to be “bad cop,” to make sure that the writers followed the rules, to keep it fair. We said no props or music to focus on the words in the script.

The six finalists of the DC Shorts 2008 Screenplay Competition were:

• The Note
• Shiva
• Two Lines and a Stick
• Taco Mary
• Geronimo’s Last Ride
• Last Drag

Dealing with bunches of actors in a theater is not something I ever really wanted to do. I’m more comfortable writing, hidden behind a laptop. I honestly considered breaking my own leg to get out of it! Or at least faking an injury. Despite this, it was really a wonderful experience, one of those challenges that you really learn from.

How it worked was that the writers all got to select actors from a pool that Jon provided. The actors were local, pulled from people Jon knew and Stonehenge, the open casting session held annually in DC. Some of the writers (most of whom were from out of town) talked to the actors beforehand. Others just selected people based upon a packet of headshots that they got to select from. Some of the actors appeared  in more than one script reading.

The writer and their cast first met the day of the reading. We provided them a meeting room at the Navy Memorial for them to rehearse in. We held rehearsals all day long,  so each group had time of their own. Tables were pushed aside in the conference room as we watched, American Idol style. They would generally read out the script first, then the writer would offer their feedback. Certain lines would need to be stressed; the delivery was wrong on others; tone it down on this part. Writers who had made short films or plays were more comfortable in giving direction to the actors.

A very talented theater director, Linda Murray from Solas Nua, was there to help them stage the reading. She provided advice on choreography, how to arrange the actors on stage to highlight what was happening in the script. The actors also pantomimed actions in the script, like eating and smoking. I learned a lot from watching her, about how move people around on a stage to make things more interesting. Lots of simple old theater tricks.

I was there as timekeeper, rules enforcer and DC Shorts problem-solver.

No props, no music, no costumes. Questions about props came up frequently. I was strict on this point. People asked about costumes – I said they had dress in normal clothes. The only thing that slipped by me was one woman’s red wig – I honestly thought it was her real hair. Additionally, there was a lot of concern over the microphones and microphone stands in the auditorium. It turned out not to be an issue, for the acoustics were good enough (or the actors loud enough) that mikes weren’t needed for the most part. Several of the actors came from the theater and could really project.

Jon wanted a simple reading. But, inevitably, if you bring actors, they will act. They performed the scripts, as if they were doing a play. Some of the performances that seemed rather broad in the rehearsal room really worked on stage.

One writer and their group seemed to be heading toward failure, at least in the rehearsal room. They weren’t listening to their inexperienced writer. Evidently, they continued to rehearse all afternoon and got it together, putting on the funniest performances of the night.

Like I said before, I’m not a theater person. I’m a writer and was unprepared for the inevitable drama of opening night, even if it’s just for a reading of short screenplays. The group that had the theater before us ran late. One of the writers lost their scripts. They had to be retrieved from the garbage at the last moment. An usher got stuck on the Metro. She burst into tears before instantly recovering as I said not to worry about it. The folks at the Navy Memorial were extremely helpful but they couldn’t figure out how to play the video introduction to the reading.

I was most concerned about having it run on time, without long breaks. We had all the actors and writers sit in the front row of the theater, so they could easily get up when their turn came. Stands and stools were quickly rearranged as each group performed. The theater was about mostly full and the audience seemed to really enjoy the show.

And, afterwards, they got to pick the winner. Using a telephone voting system (again, like American Idol), they chose Taco Mary by Mary Novak.

With money from DC Shorts, she then went off and made her movie. You can see Taco Mary at DC Shorts on Sept 10 at 10 PM, Sept 12 at 9 PM and Sept 13 at 1 PM.

And come see the drama of writers and actors at the DC Shorts Screenplay Competition Reading on Oct 17 at 7 PM.

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Where’d you get the idea from?

I originally planned to write a much different book, something much more serious and literary. It’s a manuscript that I’ve worked on for three or four years and exists on my laptop as a mix of disparate scenes and ideas that have never quite come together. The novel that I had in mind was a much grimmer story, about DC during the summer before 9/11. The book is about people chasing success, unaware that their world is about to be undone.

Finishing that big serious book was my plan. It’s why I decided to leave my government contractor job.

However, I had been thinking about genre fiction (mysteries, science fiction) since they’re supposedly easier to get published. At a screenwriting conference, I heard a mystery author, Andrew Klavan, say that the best way to break into Hollywood was to write a novel. I’ve written a bunch of unproduced screenplays (including MOUNT PLEASANT which won the Film DC Screenwriting Competition) so this idea made a lot of sense to me.

I’ve been writing my whole life – short stories, screenplays, articles – so the thought of writing a novel wasn’t too daunting. It’s a just a series of short stories, I told myself.

About the same time, Ocean Hall opened up at the Smithsonian. NOAA, the government agency I worked for, had supplied artifacts, videos, photos and text for the exhibit. My boss and many of my coworkers had contributed to this project. I had been hearing about it for years.

And I was pretty familiar with the subject matter, having been the Web Site Manager for NOAA Ocean Explorer. I was the project manager and managing editor for the site.  I worked with underwater explorers from around the world, publishing their stories and discoveries on our web site.

So, at my going away lunch, I joked that I was going to write a book called, “Murder in Ocean Hall.” Everyone thought this was pretty funny.

The idea for the plot – an arrogant bastard is killed and he’s so disliked that suspects are many – actually came from an idea I had for a short film for the 48 Hour Film Project. The idea didn’t fit for 48 Hour but it stuck around in my brain. 

The plot amused me, and the idea of using all I had learned about ocean exploration from three years at NOAA really appealed to me. Since the book would be set in DC, I could also satirize the city I had come to love and hate. 

So, as you can see, Murder in Ocean Hall takes experiences and ideas from my life, as well as things I’ve learned, to create a brand new story. In other words, “write what you know.”

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How Phony is Shepard Fairey?
There’s a fine line between art and plagiarism. 

Apple Store Design Hits a Glass Wall Again
Who is the Old Georgetown Board and why are they holding up Apple coming to DC?

How Will We Survive Battlestar Galactica’s Radioactive Future?
Some practical suggestions.

Christian Bale, Hero of the Set
I find this a little hard to believe – a movie set being terrorized by a DP?

Writers Need to Promote Their Books
Seems obvious, but just because you’re published, it doesn’t mean that your work is done.

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Really a great concept that is well-executed. The first part of the second act lacks tension, but otherwise the script is tight.

Second acts, in films and in life, are really tough. A second act is halfway through a movie when things start to drag or they introduce some wacky twist and you start to wonder about the film. It’s a fair criticism of Eurabia. When I wrote the script, I knew the beginning and I knew the end but the middle parts were a bit hazy. In parts of it, I was definitely feeling my way along, trying to figure out what was going to happen. Second act weakness is a common problem for scripts. I’ve revised Eurabia several times already. I can see the problem in the second act but am not sure how to fix it yet. The detail about “lacking tension” was helpful criticism because it highlighted what needs to be fixed. And here were their Reader Suggestions:

Consider upping the threat that he faces with releasing this ‘weapon’. Because he knows exactly where and when, the tension lessens. Possibly making the release a little less predictable might add some tense moments. May not be right for your script, but something to think about or play with. This is somewhat nit-picking, but this script is so close.

This is a note referring to the end of the script and a choice the main character has. It’s another good suggestion. Eurabia goes along in a very linear manner to a confrontation that’s talked about earlier in the script. Everyone can see it coming. Maybe it would be better to derail the train before it gets to the station. It’s an interesting idea. Overall, I was really pleased with the Writers On The Storm Screenplay Competition. The contest was administered professionally, the coverage was useful and the overall experience was a positive one. I’ve been on the other side of the table, as a judge for the DC Shorts Screenplay Competition, so I know how difficult it can be to plow through massive quantities of scripts of varying quality and still provide serious coverage of a script. With more than 1300 scripts, Writers on the Storm has done herculean work.

Check out the Eurabia Coverage (PDF) from Writers on the Storm.

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For the ASA competition, 130 Quarterfinalists were selected from the 1,400 screenplays submitted. Their entries will be judged again and the top scores will advance to the semi-final round. Semi-Finalists and Finalists will be announced in late May 2008.

Eurabia is a disturbing look at a possible future. The year is 2028. America has lost the war on terror. Europe is now “Eurabia”, a continent under the grip of radical Islam. But the CIA has a secret plan to use a biogenetic weapon to change the course of history.

From the abandoned streets of New York to a Paris ruled by imams, this political thriller follows an unwilling hero as he’s forced into a plot to change the world. Like most Americans, Roland wants peace after a devastating war with radical Islam. However, with an upcoming cultural exchange program with Eurabia, Roland is in a unique position, one that the CIA wants to take advantage of to introduce their new biogenetic weapon. This weapon changes the brains of radical Islamists, to make them tolerant and open-minded.

Roland is blackmailed into carrying this weapon to Eurabia. He doesn’t intend to use it – he expects to find common ground with a traditional Islamic society. Instead, he finds an oppressed people, ruled by a corrupt and violent elite cloaking themselves in the Koran. He develops a love interest, Gillian, and watches helplessly as she and her daughter are abused. Amal, a wise mentor, guides him toward a final confrontation with the rulers of Eurabia.

One has to just look at today’s headlines to see the timeliness of my story. I wrote this controversial script to explore the ideas and conflicts of our time – freedom, security, paranoia, individual rights, globalization and progress.

Read an excerpt from Eurabia.

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