There are a few things in life that I know for sure:
9 to 5 jobs aren’t for me.
Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder.
The Beatles recorded the best songs in the history of popular music.
If there is a puddle anywhere in the vicinity of where we are, my children will find it.
Elvis is everywhere.
If I decide to sleep in one of my neighbors will mow their grass at 7 am.
Jesus loves me.
Thanks to my Mammaw Patsy’s recipe, I make the best sweet potato pie on the planet.
Children and Sharpie markers do not mix.
I will be the person the crazy person in the checkout line decides is their new BFF.
It’s okay to be yourself. Yourself is pretty cool.
Every scrap of paper and envelope with a phrase or poem I’ve written will be found one day and I will be the modern Emily Dickinson.
The last thought has stayed with me the last few days. Dickinson had fewer than a dozen out of 1,800 poems published in her lifetime and posthumously became one of our most celebrated American poets. While I’m not primarily a poet (save for my vicious haiku), I have had about as much success as a published writer as the Belle of Amherst, so far anyway.
As I’ve pondered this: my love/hate relationship with writing and the difficulty an undiscovered author has getting one of the publishing houses to look at a manuscript, let alone getting having an audience of readers (unless Oprah happens upon your book, then look out); I’ve come to a realization. I should have been a screenwriter.
Here’s a haiku for you.
Oprah, read my book
it’s a love story, kinda
it’s one girl’s story
Okay, so I’m thinking the one industry where you can garner an audience and have your name in front of millions is in film. Granted, people wouldn’t be reading my work, at least it would be out there. And if it was good enough for F. Scott Fitzgerald when went broke, then heck if it isn’t good enough for Kerry Branton Faler. Hell, I don’t even have anything to sell out to. Fitz was a brilliant author, I’m just a girl who can write a decent sentence every once in a while.
And besides that, you don’t have to be brilliant to be a screenwriter. What am I talking about — you don’t have to be mediocre these days. Have you seen what’s making it to screens near you? For the life of me, I can’t figure out how I can get published, and yet I see trailers for Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus. It’s a real for real movie. I’m not making this up. It stars Lorenzo Lamas and Deborah (Debbie) Gibson and some big ass sea creatures. Don’t believe me? Fine. Here’s the trailer.
Yeah.
That’s a movie. Someone named Jack Perez is the writer and director. That’s right, he wears two hats on this film. Two.
I’m going to self-publish something and I’ll direct the heck out of the movie, too. I’ll star in the movie! I have no acting experience, but neither did Debbie Gibson and she’s in the big ass shark vs ginormous freakin’ octopus movie! Maybe I should switch genres and write science fiction. I could write about aliens and monsters and stuff. As long as the aliens and monsters have inner dialogue and anxiety.
kerryfaler.blog 