Apologies for being a little late in offering a Happy New Year! The holidays were fun/busy/fruitful for our family, and I hope the same for you too.
So Blair shared with me an exercise that she had done with her therapist that both of us really liked. We talked about our successes that we’re proud of, and things we would like to work on for this new year. Not necessarily venting disappointments or lamenting what we wished we could have done, but celebrating the successes we did see
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Sharing my wins is not something I’m very used to. Sharing success has mostly felt too self-indulgent/exalting to entertain, BUT, last year I feel like I finally did some things that are worth honking my own toots about, and if I’m doing it, maybe it’s cool enough for you to do too. It might even make you feel nice about yourself!
An indeterminate amount of time ago, I had decided a goal of mine was to see my name in print as a byline to an article, physically printed in a publication. Never before had I participated in publishing—not for the school paper or yearbook, I’ve never written for a local newspaper or visitor’s guide—I’d successfully avoided the typical entries into career writing, yet I yearned for anonymous readers from a publication I didn’t have to distribute myself.
I was recently reminded by a friend in the industry that the likelihood of becoming published in a reputable regional magazine from having been published merely one time previously on a very niche online blog is highly improbable. And yet, this is what happened.
I had originally pitched my Unsolicited Kayak Instructor story to Austin Monthly, and after weeks of silence, I pitched it to a couple of paddling blogs when NRS’ Duct Tape Diaries responded. After some light editing, I was asked if I would like to be compensated with a check for some money (I think it was a little under $300), OR if I would like a gift card to spend with the company for almost double that money. Reader, regardless of the amounts of money involved, this was an exciting decision to make.
At the time, I didn’t feel like I needed any paddling gear that I would find use out of the store credit, but more importantly, for my first paying writing gig, I thought that a check for dollars that could be transferred to my bank account would feel a few degrees more legitimizing.
I continued to pitch various stories to other media outlets with very little success until…
A few months later, I wrote about That Time Roy Bedichek (might have) Killed His Neighbor, and that’s when I got a phone call from Austin Monthly. Since then, I’ve been regularly contributing to the magazine, and seeing my name in print.
Last year also saw me completing my first draft of a feature length screenplay! I consider this to be a significant achievement. This work is by far the longest I’ve ever come close to completing, at 166 pages (though, the formatting of a script increases your page count as there is a lot of ‘white space’ between action, dialogue, etc.) This project allowed me to research some topics that I’ve found interesting but haven’t trapsed beyond surface level understanding, and the project presented some unique challenges that I think I solved in equally unique ways.
To provide an example, the Lewis & Clark Expedition is a story that has a lot of male representation, and not much female representation. BUT—when I would mention the project to someone who had even a vague recollection of the expedition, a lot of people would exclaim about Sacagawea. And rightly so, as I believe, along with most of the historians I’ve read on the subject that the success of this expedition rests mostly upon Sac’s shoulders.
There are a lot of misnomers and misinformation about her out there. Depicted as the legend ‘pointing the way’ for her grateful crew, Sacagawea may have retained some memory of the lands they were crossing, but her actual contributions were much more significant than wayfinding. Born Shoshone but taken prisoner in childhood by Hidatsas, Sacagawea and a lesser recorded Shoshone (possibly a cousin?) were traded away by the Hidatsas to Toussaint Charbonneau (some records indicate they were exchanged through a gambling loss).
So as Lewis & Clark are spending their first winter in the Mandan Villages, they meet ‘famous’ trapper/explorer Toussaint Charbonneau (he was like Daniel Boone before Daniel Boone, like he had a reputation for being a tough, cool guy) and his two Shoshone/Hidatsa wives, one of which is pregnant, teenage Sacagawea.
Aaaanyway, she gives birth to Jean-Baptiste “Pomp” Charbonneau while the Corps is still camped for the winter and she joins her husband, infant in tow, with the Corps, up the Missouri River six weeks later.
The humor of this comes from the irony that the Corps was not seeking Sacagawea or anyone like her when they were looking for help to cross the Rockies. They were looking for a male interpreter to help them communicate to the tribes of the area to trade for horses that will be necessary to make the portage from the Missouri River Valley to the Columbia River Valley.
On the trip, Charbonneau turned out to be a dud. He didn’t have a firm grasp of the languages the Corps needed help with, and completely useless on the water (causing multiple events which Sacagawea would have to painstakingly correct), Charbonneau largely undid much of his legend, and now the route is adorned with statues of his wife and child, and I don’t think anyone knows what Ol’ Charbo looks like.
Aside from being a woman carrying a baby-- a symbol of peace/nonviolence to most spectators of the era, Sacagawea picked up all of the slack left by her bumbling husband and then some.
The humor (and tragedy) in this story is undeniable, and I think I captured a good amount of it in my screenplay. When I’m engaged in writing for the screen, I feel a sense of ease and contentedness. Like I’m finally doing the thing I’m supposed to do. It is easy for me to access the blissful ebullience of the almighty “flow state” when I’m logged on to my free screenplay formatting SAAS account.
I know this kind of self-actualization can be corny, if not dangerously obnoxious, but I felt really lost for a long time. I’ve had a lot of jobs and a few career journeys, and most of it has felt like …being left-handed surrounded by a bunch of right-handed power tools… I believe my gift to humanity is heal through laughter. I want to provide this to as many people as possible, in the most impactful was as possible.
Lastly, I had one of the most significant depressive episodes of my life, and I learned and grew from it, so considering that a lil win too.
Thank you for indulging in my vulgarity of sharing some personal victories. That was more fun for me than I would like to admit, and I highly encourage you to write down your personal victories to annoy your friends with too.
So what are we working on for this year?? How do we build on the momentum from our success last year? Well, I’ve already started on the very beginnings of a new screenplay! So far, I have most of an outline and I’m having fun with some character descriptions.
But I can’t stay away from Lewis & Clark for too long. Towards the end of November I got it to a point where I didn’t know what else to do with it. I’d been sharing parts of it with a screenwriter’s group, and was receiving enthusiastic, yet unhelpful feedback. “Make the funny parts funnier…”, “make this character’s reaction bigger…”, “what if they’re gay?!?” etc. So as I await some more focused feedback, I’ll be here punching keys for you fools.
But that’s my shit. I didn’t want y’all rolling into the New Year nekkid, gird yourself with thine words, please. Take some inspo, share some positivity.
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