The other day I was working on my literary novel, Triad, and I had a little meltdown. I realized that it had been two years that I had a chance to work on this book and I was only 20,000 words in. How could I have so totally wasted two whole years? I should have been able to at least finish this novel, or update the other two that were finished but just needed editing. I felt useless, lazy, irresponsible.
And then I remembered something - I have finished 3 screenplays in the last two years. The first one, Words for Water, was a semi-autobiographical story about a young girl in the early seventies who gets dumped by a surfer. She ends up dating a Vietnam veteran and gets her life back. The second was based on a short story I had published a few years ago, Donegin Takes on the God of the Sea. (Published in Epiphany Literary Journal in Dec. 2011). Donegin was an angry kid from Chicago whose mother dragged him to St. Augustine where he almost drowned trying to learn to surf. In my screenplay, Resurrection Dreams, Donegin was rescued by the ghost of my hero, the Seminole Indian Warrior Osceola. It turns out that Donegin feels so out of place because he's lost his heritage, the Seminole Indian heritage that so many people lost when they were thrown out of their homes in the 1800s.
These days, it's hard for an old white lady to write about a Seminole Indian. I don't want to usurp anyone else's heritage. But here's the deal - I heard about Osceola when I was a kid in Ft. Lauderdale, frustrated by having been moved from a place I felt at home to a new place where I felt lost. As that pathetic, sickly kid (me) learned to adapt to and then love Florida, I read a book called "The Unconquered Indian" and became fascinated by Osceola. As described on the Amazon page:
"Osceola brave, ruthless and smart adopted Seminole who led his people during the Second Seminole War (from 1835 to 1838 although some Seminoles continued to resist until 1858). Greedy for Florida land, the U.S. government shredded treaties, forcing the starving Seminoles first onto a swampy and barren reservation and then, via the Removal Bill of 1830, into a legislated union with the Creeks,in Arkansas. Osceola was a traditionalist -- yet he adopted Western military tactics; a complex and religious man who "disliked bloodshed and wanted peace"unrepentant, he insisted on dying in full-dress uniform. Historical tale of a skilled guerrilla fighter, an account of a war during three Presidents which cost 40 million dollars."
I didn't know all that when I first heard about him. I did know that he refused to surrender, that he was considered "The UnConquered" and that he was captured under a flag of truce, one of the sleaziest moments in our American history. Throughout my life in Florida, I kept running into plaques and signs about him in various places in the middle of forests, swamps, and various preserves, describing his fearlessness.
When I was taking chemo and radiation treatments, I was told that sometimes it helps to imagine someone fighting your cancer cells for you. So I would say to myself, "Osceola comes out of the woods and confronts those evil cells. He smashes them, chases them away, refuses to give up." And I survived, using my totem. And I was happy to discover that one of my long ago relatives was a Seminole Indian.
Anyway, I thought writing a screenplay about Osceola would be less like usurping another culture, because I could imagine real Seminole actors playing Donegin and Osceola. So I stopped writing this as a novel and turned it into a play.
The last one was a play on the amazingly talented but unfortunately defective musician Gram Parsons. I believe I saw Gram Parsons sing with Emmylou Harris when I was very young. And as someone whose family had some severe issues with alcoholism and drug problems, I could sympathize and empathize with his problems. This screenplay was pretty easy to write. I know that getting to use the music will be impossible. But you know, you can't just stop writing something you have your heart in just because it might be difficult to produce. It's still a complete screenplay and if nothing ever comes of it - oh well. I am still done.
When I was younger, people told me I had to pick something - be a poet or be a novelist. Write short stories or write essays. You can't do it all. Yes, you can. The thing is, I've never been able to NOT write. Writing happens to me whether I plan it or not. This morning I was sitting sweaty exhausted, trying to get up enough strength to finish mowing the lawn in the 90 degree heat and a poem came to me. Just like that. I copied it onto my phone, thank God, so now it belongs to me. I used to think I'd remember these things, but I don't have that faith anymore. Write 'em down somewhere, even if it's on a napkin or the back of your hand. And if you want to get rich, go into some other field but writing.
But for me, creating something is richness. That's all I need.
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