Yom Kippur and Hana

A little Yiddish Proverb, and may your prayers too be turned to blessings this Yom Kippur weekend.

“Prayers go up and blessings come down."

Re Yom Kippur and the screenplay. What a graphic way to lead into Hana's life story. This special day for Jews, both religious and secular, is the holiest and most scared of days in the Jewish calender. A day of atonement, a day of repentance. A 25 hour fast. It's often called a Day of Awe.

How can Hana atone for what she did eighteen years ago?

Here is where the film story could start:

Holocaust survivor Hana, long since given up on her faith, but cannot give up Yom Kippur like many other Jews, leaves the synagogue (which she only visits on this day each year), and strolls awkwardly, she has a hip problem, in the autumn sunshine in Paris.
Suddenly she stops short, bewitched by the hauntingly beautiful sounds of a young violinist busking. Hana slumps onto a cafe chair which faces a pretty leafy square.

Yom Kippur.
The Day of Atonement.

In seconds Hana's transported into her turbulent past. The music opens her inner world . Gripping her sketchbook in both hands, she relives the abduction of her granddaughter Samira.

How could she possibly have colluded in this terrible act?
How can she ever make amends to her estranged daughter?

Meeting the demon.

Dear Meg, I was re-reading your e mail (wakened again early, rigid, with more nightmares about the usual...).
You said: "What we think and what we believe, we attract... the interconnectedness of all things."
It seems everywhere I turn these days I meet people who have been in the situation I'm in now, which, as you know, I've absolutely dreaded for years.

Their stories have always turned out, for the grandchild, like my worst nightmares. I come across these many stories in the unlikeliest of places. Very much NOT seeking them out, they suddenly they appear in front of me, like black specters. Different locations. Different characters. Same story. I cannot free myself of the chill sense of impending doom FOR THE CHILD."

I received this email from a dear friend this morning.

Whist replying to it I though for a moment.. oh this was going to be my screen writing time today.. and... well..I zapped that though pretty quick.

And guess what? Her email is going to be my teacher for today!

My film is all about healing unimaginable loss... healing the loss of a child to three generations of Jewish women: to grandmother Hana, to daughter Shifra, and grandduaghter Samira who will break the pattern.

This email graphically demonstrates the real life depth of despair a grandmother has for the impending loss of her grandson to a step mother.

My friend has manifested breast cancer as a result of this challenge.

She will testify to this.

She must find a way to change her negative fearful thoughts into positive ones. I believe all illness grows hungrily on fear beliefs.
My friend must to learn to trust 'the bigger plan,' or she will shrivel up inside and die to her herself metaphorically, and maybe physically too... which is exactly the point artist Anabel, now renamed Hana, has reached when we meet her in the film at the cafe in Paris.

Riddled with osteoarthritis, Hana can barely hold a pencil now. She's hit rock bottom.
Desperately damaged by the 'loss' of her daughter Shifra to Bolivia ( though misunderstandings, furious rows, and prolonged projections) she also carries the guilt of collusion in the abduction of her granddaughter Samira.

Unknown to Hana, she is about to experience two life changing events. Meeting the Shaman...and meeting her long lost granddaughter for the first time.

"The interconnectedness of all things."

Without complexities or pride

Anabel, now re named Hana, the grandmother in my screen play.

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way.”

Pablo Neruda

This is how I feel about my screen play characters.

Wednesday 5 October

The blog started yesterday !

10.36. Will check-in again in about an hour. First writing task today: Introduce the audience to (grandmother) artist Anabel, a 60 year old French holocaust survivor.

The scene, a chic cafe in Montmartre Paris,(tables on pavement), 1990. Anabel approaches the cafe with an unsteady walk... high heels or flat shoes or something else? She sits down and summons the young waiter... coquettishly, authoritatively, rudely ? What does he look like?
Anabel unloads her bag...what kind of bag... and places her skecth book on the round iron table. What does the skecth book look like? Does she unload pencils or a pen?
Her coffee arrives... what kind of coffee, or is it a brandy, or a coffee and a brandy ?
She's not interested in the other customers. They're arty but not bohemian, colorful, chic. A few are writing journals, some are reading newspapers, others are chatting or people watching.
There's a poster on the cafe door advertising a new cabaret singer Sasha. She looks uncannily like a younger version of Anabel.

First check-in this morning: 11.36.

I'm trying to communicate with Anabel though these sketches I made years ago. I'm pretending they are hers, and trying to find out what she's saying 'though' them.

Next check-in 2pm. Task, create the following scene:

Anabel is joined at the cafe by two women friends, one old one new. Whilst Anabel visits the restroom, the old friend tells the other a shocking secret about the Jewish artist's dark past.

15.00. Had lunch and the usual summer siesta. Still hot here during the day in souther Spain.

So, Anabel's in the loo and her friends begin to talk about her.

New friend (NF): "She's a bit off today isn't she ?"
Old friend (OF): "Yes."
NF : What's wrong with her?
OF: Well...well... I thought you knew?
NF: Knew what?
OF: What ? You don't know ? Didn't I tell you recently ?
NF: No you didn't! What's wrong with her ?
OF: Well, I'd say she's bi-polar. She has terrible days, and some days, as you know. she's very excitable.
Pause. New friend is shocked.
NF: I thought that was just a thing young people got ?
OF: No.
NF: So... what's it all about?
OF: ....the war.
NF: Oh God, but that ended thirty five years ago! She was just a kid then.

Ah, I think this has to be a mother and daughter, not too friends.

So, mother (M), and daughter(D) continue this discussion:

D: Mum, why are you so ... so protective of Anabel, she's a nutter!
M: Sadie, Anabel is not a nutter!

Then the mother tells the daughter the story of Anabel walking out of Auschwitz aged ten, the only member of her family to survive. Inside her small blue coat is stitched the illustrated diary of her mother.

Starting Today.

Right. No more procrastinating. This blog is going to become my best friend for the next few months. My daily reality check. My bench mark, now that I've decided to chart the progress of my newly resurrected screenplay.


Here's what's been going on with the screenplay so far.

After struggling with writers block for many, many months, on Saturday the block dissolved.

How ?

During Jurgen Wollfs online marathon writing ( coaching) day I sussed it. His inspired suggestion turned out to be a magic wand !

I'd got stuck because I felt the guy who'd agreed to coach me with my script ( at my request), turned out to me a miss-match. Jewish Jason was serious, insightful and soon became scary . He rated the story , highly I think, but I felt he didn't encourage me enough. He wasn't generous with encouragement. I bloom around any kind of generoisty. He asked me to turn the story upside down and look at it differently. I did. It seemed like a good idea at the time. So I shot off on many fascinating tangents, but soon came back to a tangled base , more stuck than ever before.

Not long after followed a damaging inner collapse. An unstoppable slow avalanche of chaotic negative thoughts . The Inner Critic, The Doubter and the Self Saboteur had their heyday.
I told myself I'd given my 'baby,'my project away, that I'd lost ownership of my ideas.
I'd slipped into thinking Jason 'knew best.'
That's when I felt my script had been abducted.

I think I've been locked into this belief for at least six months.

Also, alas, alas, alsa, a new problem surfaced. I really couldn't decide whose story it was now.
Was it still the artist daughter Shifra's story, my original idea, or was it the Holcuast survivor artist grandmother Anabel's? Or was it the abducted eighteen year old granddaughters Sasha's story, who would learn about her missing past though her mother's and grandmother's sketch books ?

Like an illness, this block had crept up on me silently.

On Saturday, during this massive action writing day (see info below about this ) after feeling the block more acutely than ever, Jurgen replied to my short SOS email. This is what he said :

'I know this may sound weird, but I think it might help to visualise the script as a baby and decide and let it know that you're going to protect it from harsh criticism from now on. That doesn't mean you can't get feedback, but you'll be careful to get it from people who are constructive and encouraging.'


This hit the spot..

I hugged my book ( in which I wrote the synopsis of the film 3 years ago).
I cuddled it.
I embraced it.I walked around the house with it under my arm.
I went to bed for a nap holding it close to my heart.

When I got up, I had my story back. We were reunited !

Oh BLISS and JOY ! We really were reunited.
Then the next block pooped up!

Dear Jurgen I write in another email. How can I possibly tell Shifra's, Anabel's Rueben's and Sasha's complicated back-story?

'Finding characters who have the right to ask questions' Jurgen said, 'often does the trick.'

Bingo. Of course. Why didn't I think of that ?

Then a flood of new ideas arrived. I also remembered how wildly excited I'd been about using animation in the sketch books. Taking one beautiful sketch on a single page and animating it, this could also explain the back story.

Last night a Jewish friend in California told me she's discovered a pile of her dad's old family tapes. I don't like Skype she'd said. We were Skyping. I like to listen and imagine. When we were kids, she continued, my dad used to put a tape recorder on the dinning room table when we were all together and record the family celebration, whatever it was. When I listen to the tapes now, Naomi told me, I can visualize everything. I can practically smell the food. Wow, I though. Another original device for explaining a back story.
For 48 hours I was reeling with excitement.

Now it's Tuesday and time to start writing!

I've decided to check in with myself every hour, and set small targets.

Pat on back : Well done for creating this new blog in one hour twenty minutes.

Comment from Inner Critic: No comment.
Comment from Inner Doubter: No comment.
Comment from Self Saboteur: Out of office on extended leave.
Comment from Higher Help: FANTASTIC!

For info about Jurgen's work visit: www.http://yourwritingcoach.com/

His newest book is "Creativity Now!" published by Pearson--it shows how to overcome blocks, be more creative, and turn ideas into action.

..................

For info about my travel memoir and more background re the screenplay, visit www.drawnbyastar.com