The thrill of joining a writers group (Part 2)

It's a superpower. Cape optional.

Missed Part 1? Here’s a handy link.

Three months after arriving in Los Angeles, I won a screenwriting competition.

The Duke City Shootout, as it was called, was held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, somewhere I’d never been but was about to get to know very well.

There was an open call for short screenplays, the organisers chose seven to be shot in seven days and mine was one of them.

I saw the notice and spent a feverish 48 hours writing Maconie’s List. The premise was that a lonely woman hires a hitman to take her out on her 40th birthday only to change her mind when she gets asked out on a date. Unfortunately, her assassin has OCD and once he writes something on his to-do list, it has to be done.

I’d just returned to LA from a trip to the UK where I’d been my aunt’s best woman. In fact, I was asked to give a speech at the dinner. It was my third turn at the wedding mic, and that in turn inspired another feature-length screenplay, Best Woman.

In the States, many places have separate laundry rooms and so I was alone with four washer/dryers, feeding quarters into one of machines, when my phone rang.

I yelped and threw the quarters everywhere on hearing I’d been selected and that in a few short weeks, I would be flown to NM to direct my short film. I was to be given a crew of around 35, plus a producer, a PA and anything else I needed to make the film happen.

It was insane, and quite possibly the best year of my life. I don’t say that flippantly. Having the chance to be creative, work with amazing people in a beautiful part of the world and see a script of mine come to life on the big screen was a thrill like no other.

Almost immediately, I was plunged into a world of script meetings, rewrites and production meetings.

Directing on set with Maconie’s producer, the incomparable Lesley Woolfman

What I learned in that moment is that collaboration is key to the process, as is allowing people in. By that, I mean to allow your work to flourish, you must share it with others.

This can come as quite to shock if you haven’t done it before. Sharing your most personal work has the potential to be one of those fever dreams where you wake with the weird feeling that you’ve been speaking naked in front of a crowd of people (No? Just me then).

Spending time in writers group meant that I was used to sharing my work and hearing critique. It also meant I was able to fight my corner when I needed to.

For instance, Katherine, my lonely 40-year-old protagonist, eventually dies but the script editor the festival assigned to me wanted her to live and speed off into the night with Maconie, our buff hitman. Yoiks.

I said no, and stuck to my guns. I knew it was a dark ending but the short was a black comedy. I loved the unexpected twist.

Being part of a writers group gave me the confidence to stand up for the premise of my movie and pull together the ability to articulate why.

My confidence in the ending was compounded when a woman came up to me after the first screening and said “I am your character Katherine. I never see myself in movies but I did tonight. Thank you.”

That was a moment, I can tell you. She essentially was telling me she felt invisible. Katherine was many women writ large.

All an artist wants is for their art to resonate. People sometimes say, ‘If it affects/helps one person, it’s been worth it…’ And that night it did for her, and the few others who also sought me out for various reasons.

Because we had only seven days, of which only four and a half were shooting days, the shoot-out between Katherine and Maconie needed some tidying up. I flew back to Albuquerque a few months after the initial shoot to recut the movie and add some special effects. The director’s cut, as it was called, was shown at the Santa Fe Film Festival.

There was a most surreal moment at the festival, post-screening, when I was interviewed on a panel alongside the incredible actor Alan Cumming (he’d been presented with their Maverick award). I remember sitting there thinking: “How the hell did I get here? A year and a half ago I was editing the Which? Good Food Guide.”

Immediately afterwards, I was hired to write, direct and produce another short and by the time that came to an end, I realised I had to start my own writers group. If nothing else, it was imperative to keep the momentum going.

I placed an ad on Craig’s List - the only way to buy, sell or find back then - looking for writers who were grappling with a project, and needed a safe space to share their work. It was time to do some serious cheerleading.

I also wanted to share my ideas and get regular feedback. I was writing a new screenplay and needed to be held accountable

As a journalist, I’ve always been good at getting the job done. You literally cannot miss a deadline. But workshopping stories and bringing new pages to the table every week for critique is an exceptional way to keep any creative writer on their toes.

And if you think that writers groups are for people who are on the way up, then think again. Most of the writers you see credited on-screen will most likely belong to some kind of similar group. And from a social POV it’s a brilliant way to find like-minded folks.

To paraphrase, my advertisement said something along the lines of ‘No time wasters. This is for people who are serious about their writing. If you decide to join you must commit to turning up every Monday night from 7pm-9.30pm. And bring snacks!’

Quite a few people enquired but on the night four women turned up. Everyone got on great but one of them seemed very nervous.

The next week three turned up. That made four of us in total. We never saw the fourth girl again but that was okay, we had the perfect number.

For the next two years, every Monday evening, the same three women would turn up a my apartment with their new pages and yes, you guessed it, snacks.

Everyone was given an equal 30 minutes to share their work be it a totally new project or rewrite.

They would read their pages, we would talk about it, give critique (never criticism) and I’d always end the session with a few motivational nuggets and words of writing wisdom.

I loved the camaraderie and the fact I had to produce work to share every Monday.

We’d describe our projects and hand out pages to read. For me as a screenwriter, this meant assigning characters, and the job of narrator, to someone in the group. We’d then read the new scenes aloud. Because we did this every week, we became familiar with each other’s work, and that made it easier to not just read but also to offer critique.

Most of all, we all felt as if we were pushing our projects forward. Visceral progress was being made every week.

And of course, the snacks were always incredible. You can’t have a writers group without snacks (the one rule that will never change). There were always grapes. Sometimes, there was wine. Basically, grapes in all forms were welcome.

It was never dull. I lived in Atwater Village, a then-sleepy district about 30 minutes drive from Hollywood. One night everyone had to make a run for it as raccoons ransacked my bins. Earlier, I’d found three loitering outside my front door. Gave me the shock of my life, so I warned everyone to be vigilant when they walked through the garden. Another time a coyote had been seen in the area.

I also had possums try to squeeze in through the cat-flap and skunks sniffing around - although thankfully, that’s all they ever did. It was steam-punk Disney in that place.

As time went on most of our projects were finished and deals were made.

The film I wrote in that group, the aforementioned Best Woman, placed high in the Academy Nicholl Fellowship screen-writing contest. These are the people who hand out Oscars so this was officially a BIG DEAL.

On July 30, 2013, an email popped into my inbox:

Dear Lisa,

Congratulations!  You have reached the Quarterfinal Round of the 2013 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting. By doing so, yours is one of only 372 entries to advance beyond the First Round.

With 7,251 scripts entered and nearly 1,100 entries submitted by past quarter/semi/finalists, the initial round was more competitive than in any previous year. You may have an inkling of this already if you’ve been following the reader comment excerpts posted on the Academy Nicholl Facebook page.

To give you an idea of the selection process, Best Woman was evaluated by three judges drawn from a diverse group of local film professionals. After the top two scores were tallied, the highest scoring scripts advanced to the Quarterfinals.

It was a fantastic nudge into a fairly impenetrable industry. The Academy sends the shortlist out to all the production companies and managers in town. This was a huge thrill for me and kickstarted a lot of interest in my work.

As crazy as it sounds, a famous actress attached herself to the project and for a while, it looked as if things might fly. However, making movies requires the stars to align in ways you can only imagine and shortly after our meetings, she ended up signing a contract to work on a show overseas. That show became a huge success and she didn’t have the bandwidth to produce as she ended up filming in Europe for a few years.

It was a huge shame but that script was borne out of my brain and birthed in my writers group. I was immensely proud.

No writing is wasted. You simply don’t know where it might go. But having the weekly support no doubt helped me write a better script.

So here we are in 2024 and The TEN is my way of reaching out to you. *waves*

Bringing together a community of writers here is my dream.

I want you to be able to get to the place where you can write the words ‘The End’, sit back in your seat and smile at your marvellous achievement. Because believe me, it is an achievement like no other.

You may be writing alone but you don’t have to be by yourself.

And that, my fellow creatives, is the ultimate thrill of the writers group.

Lisa