by John Scalzi
AW
Swell.
(stands up again)
Thank you for wasting a large portion of my day. Nice to meet you.
DENISE
But you and I have something in common.
AW
Besides the wasted afternoon?
DENISE
(crossly)
Look, I didn’t come here to get a close-up look at a freak show. I already have my first husband for that. I came here because I think I understand your situation better than you think. I had writer’s block too. A bad one.
AW
How bad?
DENISE
More than a year. Bad enough for you?
AW
Maybe.
DENISE
I think I can help you with yours. Because whether I believe you or not about your characters being actually real, I think my own writer’s block situation is close to what yours is now.
AW
If you don’t believe what I’m saying, I don’t see how your situation could be like mine.
DENISE
Because we both had characters we’re scared to do anything with.
AW
(sits back down, warily)
Go on.
DENISE
For whatever reason, you have characters you’re scared of killing or hurting, and it’s blocking you. For me, I had characters who I couldn’t make do anything critical. I would push them to a crisis point in my stories, but when it came time for them to pull the trigger—to do something significant—I could never get them to do it. I’d devise all these ways to get them out of the holes I spent chapters putting them into. The way I was doing wasn’t good. Finally I froze up completely. I just couldn’t write.
AW
But that’s about you—
DENISE
(holds up hand)
Wait, I’m not done. Finally, one day as I was sitting in front of my laptop, doing nothing with my characters, I typed one of them turning to me as the writer and saying, “Would you just fucking make up your mind already? No? Fine. I’ll do it, then.” And then he did something I didn’t expect—that I wasn’t even wanting him to do—and when he did it, it was like a huge flood of possibilities broke through the dam of my writer’s block. My character did what I was afraid of him doing.
AW
Which is what?
DENISE
Having agency. Doing things that even if they were disastrous in the long run for the character, was still doing something.
AW
Trust me, agency is not a problem with my characters.
DENISE
I didn’t say it was. But my characters were also doing something else. They were rebelling against something.
AW
What?
DENISE
My own bad writing. I wouldn’t do for my characters what they needed for me to do—be courageous enough in my writing to make them interesting. So they did it themselves. And by they, I mean me, or some part of my writing brain that I wasn’t willing to connect with before. Maybe that’s something you need to do too.
AW
Wait. Did you just call me a bad writer?
DENISE
I didn’t call you a bad writer.
AW
Good.
DENISE
But I’ve watched your show. Most of the scripts are pretty terrible.
AW
(throws up hands)
Oh, come on.
DENISE
(continuing)
And they’re terrible for no good reason!
AW
(leaning forward)
Do you write scripts? Do you know how hard it is to work on a weekly deadline for a television show?
DENISE
No, but you do. Let me ask you: Do you really think you’re making a good effort? Remember, I’m reading your blog. I’ve read you make excuses for the quality of your output, even when you pat yourself on the back for the speed you crank it out.
AW
This doesn’t have anything to do with why I’m blocked.
DENISE
Doesn’t it? I was blocked because I knew I was writing badly, and I didn’t have the courage to fix it. You know you’re writing badly, but you give yourself an excuse for it. Maybe that block is telling you the excuse isn’t working anymore.
AW
I’m not blocked because I’m writing badly, goddamn it! I’m blocked because I don’t want anyone else to die!
DENISE
(nods)
I believe that’s your new excuse, yes.
AW
(standing up again)
I thought I was wasting my time before. Now I know. Thanks ever so much. I’ll be sure not to use your name when I write this up on the blog.
DENISE
If you actually do put it on your blog, use my name. And then ask your readers if what I’ve said makes sense. You said you wanted their help. I want to see if you’re really interested in that help.
ANON-A-WRITER WALKS OUT.
And that’s how I completely wasted my evening tonight, listening to a woman who I thought might actually be helpful to me explain how I’m a bad writer—oh, wait, not a bad writer, just doing bad writing. Because there’s a distinction with a difference.
And no, I’ve never said my writing for the show was bad. I said it’s not Shakespeare. I said it’s not Emmy-winning good. That’s not the same as bad. I think I’m honest enough about myself that I would admit to bad writing. But you don’t stay on a writing staff for years if you can’t write, or if all you write is bad shit. Believe it or not, there is a minimum level of competence you have to have. I have an M.F.A. in film from USC, people. They don’t just give those away. I wish they did. I wouldn’t have had student loans for six years until I caught my first break. But they don’t.
My point is, fuck you, Denise Hogan. I’m not your cheap entertainment in L.A. I came to you with a real problem and your solution is to crap all over me and my work. Thanks so much for that. One day I look forward to returning the favor.
In the meantime, enjoy the Internet knowing how you “helped” me today. I’m sure they’re going to love it.
AW
* * *
So, that was a reporter from Gawker on my cell phone. She told me that they figured out I was Anon-a-Writer based on what I’ve been writing here, like how my show was on basic cable, it was an hour-long show, it’s been on for several seasons, it’s a show where a lot of people get killed, and that I’m a USC alum who got his first regular gig in the business six years after graduating.
And also because once I named Denise Hogan, they went on Facebook and did an image search on her name and found a picture of her dated today, at a coffee shop in Burbank, sitting with a guy who looks like me. The picture was taken by a fan of hers with her iPhone. She didn’t come up to talk to Denise because she was too nervous. But not too nervous, apparently, that she couldn’t upload the damn picture to a social network with half the population of the entire wired world on it.
So that’s the story and Gawker’s going to be posting it in, like, twenty minutes. The chipper little Gawker reporter wanted to know if I had anything I wanted to say about it. Sure, here’s what I want to say:
Fuck.
That is all.
And now I’m going to spend the remaining few hours as a writer on The Chronicles of the Intrepid doing what I probably should have been doing the moment all this shit started: sitting on my couch with a big fat bottle of Jim Beam and getting really fucking drunk.
Thanks, Internet. This little adventure has certainly been an eye-opener.
Love,
Apparently Not-So-Anon-a-Writer, After All
* * *
Dear Internet:
First, I’m hung over and you’re too damn bright. Tone it down.
Oh, wait, that’s something I can fix on my end. Hold on.
There. Much better.
Second, somethin
g important’s happened. I need to share it with you.
And to share it with you I need to go into script mode again. Bear with me.
EXT — FEATURELESS EXPANSE WITH ENDLESS GROUND REACHING TO THE HORIZON — POSSIBLY DAY
ANON-A-WRITE—aw, fuck it, half the Internet already knows anyway: NICK WEINSTEIN comes to in the expanse, clutching his head and wincing. ANOTHER MAN is by him, kneeling casually. Some distance behind him is a crowd of people. They, like the MAN near NICK, are all wearing red shirts.
MAN
Finally.
NICK
(looks around)
Okay, I give up. Where am I?
MAN
A flat, gray, featureless expanse stretching out to nowhere. A perfect metaphor for the inside of your own brain, Nick.
NICK
(looks at MAN)
You look vaguely familiar.
MAN
(smiles)
I should. You killed me. Not too many episodes ago, either.
NICK
(gapes for a second, then)
Finn, right?
FINN
Correct. And do you remember how you killed me?
NICK
Exploding head.
FINN
Right again.
NICK
Not your head exploding, though.
FINN
No, someone else’s. I just happened to be in the way.
(stands, points over to the crowd, at one guy in particular)
He’s the guy whose head you blew off. Wave, Jer!
JER waves. NICK waves back, cautiously.
NICK
(stands, also, unsteadily, peering)
His head looks pretty good for having been blown off.
FINN
We figured it would be easier for you if you didn’t see us all in the state you killed us in. Jer would be headless, I would be severely burned, others would be dismembered, partially eaten, have their flesh melted off their bones from horrible disfiguring diseases. You know. Messy. We thought you’d find that distracting.
NICK
Thanks.
FINN
Don’t mention it.
NICK
I’m assuming this can’t be real and that I’m having a dream.
FINN
This is a dream. It doesn’t mean it’s not also real.
NICK
(rubbing his head)
That’s a little deep for my current state of sobriety, Finn.
FINN
Then try this: It’s real and taking place in a dream, because how else can your dead talk to you?
NICK
Why do you want to talk to me?
FINN
Because we have something we want to ask of you.
NICK
I’m already not killing any more of you. I’ve got writer’s block, because of you. And I’m about to lose my job, because of the writer’s block.
FINN
You’ve got writer’s block, yes. It’s not because of us. Not directly, anyway.
NICK
It’s my writer’s block. I think I know why I have it.
FINN
I didn’t say you didn’t know why you had it. But you’re not admitting the reason why to yourself.
NICK
Don’t take this the wrong way, Finn, but your Yoda act is getting old quick.
FINN
Fine. Then I’ll put it this way: Denise Hogan? She was right.
NICK
(Throws up his hands)
Even in my own brain, I get this.
FINN
You’re a decent enough writer, Nick. But you’re lazy.
(motions toward the crowd)
And most of us are dead because of it.
NICK
Come on, that’s not fair. You’re dead because it’s an action show. People die in action shows. It’s one of the reasons it’s called an action show.
FINN
(looks at NICK, then points to a face in the crowd)
You! How did you die?
REDSHIRT #1
Ice shark!
FINN
(turning to NICK)
Seriously, an ice shark? What’s even the biology on that?
(turns back to the crowd)
Anyone else randomly eaten by space animals?
REDSHIRT #2
Pornathic crabs!
REDSHIRT #3
A Great Badger of Tau Ceti!
REDSHIRT #4
Borgovian Land Worms!
NICK
(to REDSHIRT #4)
I didn’t write the land worms!
(to FINN)
Seriously, those aren’t mine. I keep getting blamed for those.
FINN
That’s because you’re the senior writer on the show, Nick. You could have raised a flag or two about the random animal attacks, whether you wrote them or not.
NICK
It’s a weekly science fiction show—
FINN
It’s a weekly science fiction show, but lots of weekly shows aren’t crap, Nick. Including science fiction shows. A lot of weekly science fiction shows at least try for something other than mere sufficiency. You’re using schedule and genre as an excuse.
(back to the crowd)
How many of you were killed on decks six through twelve?
Dozens of hands shoot up. FINN turns back to NICK, looking for an answer.
NICK
The ship needs to take damage. The show has to have drama.
FINN
The ship needs to take damage. Fine. It doesn’t mean you have to have some bastard crewman sucked into space every time it happens. Maybe after the first dozen times it happened, the Universal Union should have started engineering for space defenestration.
NICK
Look, I get it, Finn. You’re unhappy with being dead. So am I. That’s why I’m blocked!
FINN
You don’t get it. None of us are pissed off at being dead.
REDSHIRT #4
I am!
FINN
(to REDSHIRT #4)
Not now, Davis!
(back to NICK)
None of us except for Davis are pissed off at being dead. Death happens. It happens to everyone. It’s going to happen to you. What we’re pissed off about is that our deaths are so completely pointless. When you killed us off, Nick, it doesn’t do anything for the story. It’s just a little jolt you give the viewers before the commercial break, and they’ve forgotten it before the first Doritos ad fades off the screen. Our lives had meaning, Nick, if only to us. And you gave us really shitty deaths. Pointless, shitty deaths.
NICK
Shitty deaths happen all the time, Finn. People accidentally step in front of buses, or slip and crack their head on the toilet, or go jogging and get attacked by mountain lions. That’s life.
FINN
That’s your life, Nick. But you don’t have anyone writing you, as far as you know. We do. It’s you. And when we die on the show, it’s because you’ve killed us off. Everyone dies. But we died how you decided we were going to die. And so far, you’ve decided we’d die because it’s easier than writing a dramatic moment whose response is earned in the writing. And you know it, Nick.
NICK
I don’t—
FINN
You do. We’re dead, Nick. We don’t have time for bullshit anymore. So admit it. Admit what’s actually going on in your head.
NICK
(sits down, dazed)
All right. Fine. All right. I wrote my last script, the one we used to send everyone back, and I remember thinking to myself, ‘Wow, we didn’t actually kill anyone off this time.’ And then I started thinking about all the ways we’ve killed off crew on the show. Then I started thinking about the fact that for them, they were real deaths. Real deaths of real people. And then I started thinking of all the stupid ways I’ve killed people off. Not just them being stupid by themselves, but everything a
round them too. Stupid reasons to get people in a position where I could kill them off. Ridiculous coincidences. Out-of-nowhere plot twists. All the little shitty tricks I and the other writers use because we can and no one calls us on it. Then I went and got drunk—
FINN
(nodding)
And when you woke up you went to do some writing and nothing came out.
NICK
I thought it was about not wanting to kill people. About being responsible for their deaths.
FINN
(kneeling again)
It’s the fact you weren’t acting responsibly when you killed them that’s eating at you. Even if you hadn’t written our deaths, all of us would have died one day. That’s a fact. I think you know it.
NICK
And I gave you bad deaths when I could have given you better ones.
FINN
Yes. You’re not a grim reaper, Nick. You’re a general. Sometimes generals send soldiers to their deaths. Hopefully they don’t do it stupidly.
NICK
(looking back at the crowd)
You want me to write better deaths.
FINN
Yeah. Fewer deaths wouldn’t hurt, either. But better deaths. We’re all already dead. It’s too late for us. But each of us have people we care about who are still alive, who might pass under your pen, if you want to put it that way. We think they deserve better. And now you know you do too.
NICK
You’re assuming I’ll still have a job after all this.
FINN
(standing again)
You’ll be fine. Just tell everyone you were exploring the boundaries between fiction and interactive performance in the online media. It’s a perfectly meta excuse, and anyway, no one’s going to believe your characters actually came to life. At most people will think you were kind of an asshole with this thing. But then some people think you’re kind of an asshole anyway.
NICK
Thanks.
FINN
Hey, I told you, I’m dead. No time for bullshit. Now pass out again and wake up for real this time. Then get over to your computer. Try writing. Try writing better. And stop drinking so much. It does weird things to your head.
NICK nods, then passes out. FINN and his crew of redshirts disappear (I assume).
And then I woke up.
And then I went and powered up my laptop.
And then I wrote thirty pages of the best goddamned script I’ve ever written for the show.
And then I collapsed because I was still sort of drunk.
And now I’m awake again, and hung over, and writing this crying because I can write again.
* * *
And this is where I end the blog. It did what it was supposed to—it got me over my writer’s block. Now I have scripts to write and writers to supervise and a show to be part of. It’s time for me to get back to that.
