Writing Buddies

I have mentioned before that I rarely show my writing to anybody, but there are two people to whom I regularly show my compositions, and those are my two friends Katie and Stuart. These two friends have been very important to my writing process.

Katie and I began writing together when we were fifteen. We had been friends for two years already, but in our tenth grade honors English class, we were given an assignment to write something based on the story of the Fischer King. Out of our possible options, we chose a news program. We began writing and didn't stop, even after the project was turned in and graded.
Four and a half years later, we have a feature-length screenplay that's crazy and quite funny.

How has Katie helped me? Well, I'm usually pretty serious in my writing process, as I suspect she is, but with Crosse's Time, we both threw away our restraints and would spend hours IMing each other ideas, which we would immediately incorportated into the story. It was like improvisational writing. She's supported my craziest ideas, and I like to think I've done the same.

Stuart and I began to work together, writing-wise, in about eleventh grade, perhaps sooner. I know he proof-read a play I wrote and I read a lot of his poetry. As the years went by, we began to exchange more and more writing, and soon those collaborations turned into movie collaborations. We write scripts both together and separately and then act in them for our film company, Enscribe Studios.

How has Stuart helped me? By being blatantly yet gently honest- he tells me what works and what doesn't and he also helps me with the guy's point of view. When I was writing the period film Requited (which we're filming this summer), I was trying to figure out how I wanted it to end- happily-ever-after or not so much. I ended up deciding on the latter and at one point in the writing process, needed a guy's point of view on it. We had some very interesting discussions as to what an audience of guys and girls alike would accept. Some of the stuff I presented didn't work for him and a few ideas he had didn't work for me. It's been cool to have the different perspective.

I very much value my writing buddies and hopefully we'll keep up the work we've been doing well into the future :)