Anyway, I'm on my one hundredth and fifteenth circuit, which means that so far this evening I've walked just over two thousand metres. I think better when I walk, and New York being New York, it's safer to walk inside than out. There isn't much furniture in the apartment. I'm not really one for furniture. There's a built-in wardrobe at the end of the bed, which is all the storage space I need. There's a chair, an overstuffed leather armchair which is sagging and which creaks whenever I drop down into it, and there's a wooden coffee table on which I put the typewriter. That's it. The entire contents of my apartment. A bed. A chair. A table. A typewriter. It's all I need. Writer's write, and you don't need a roomful of Italian designer furniture to get the words down on paper.
That's what I am, a writer. I write, therefore I am.
I don't tell people that I'm a writer, not any more. I used to, I used to tell anyone who'd listen that I was a writer and that one day I'd be rich and famous, but they'd always ask the same questions - had I been published, had I written anything they might have read. So then I'd have to explain that I write screenplays, not novels, that I prefer to work in film rather than the printed page. So then they'd ask what films I'd written and I'd start to explain how it's a tough business to break into, that it's all about contacts, about getting your work read by the right people, and then their eyes would glaze over and I could see that they thought I was full of shit. So I don't tell people that I'm a writer, in fact I don't tell them what I do. It's not their business, right?
The pacing helps me think. It puts part of my mind on auto-pilot while the creative bit gets on and does its own thing. I'm halfway through this screenplay about a waitress who falls in love with a Mafia hitman. I've done the first act, the set-up, but I'm having trouble with the second act. I can hear the voices of the characters, I can picture them, but I don't know how to take the story forward.
It's not writer's block, I never get blocked, I just need a flash of inspiration, and if I walk long enough, I'll get it.
I'm also working on a thriller called Checking Out, a sort of Die Hard in a Las Vegas casino. It's set in the biggest hotel in the world, a two thousand room medieval theme monstrosity which is preparing for its busiest night of the year - New Year's Eve. The manager receives a letter cobbled together from newspaper headlines from a killer who has struck at two other hotels on previous New Year's Eves. The killer warns that he plans to kill again, this time at the medieval hotel. The owners of the hotel aren't sure what to do - shutting down the hotel and its casino will cost them millions, and the police say that they cannot guarantee the safety of the guests.
The hotel's head of security is not up to the job, so the management calls in an outside security force. Because it's New Years Eve, most of the city's security firms are busy - the only one they can hire is run by a group of oddball Vietnam veterans. The management has no choice but to hire them. Their mission - to identify a serial killer from among thousands of revellers. At eleven thirty, the manager of the hotel is called to the phone. It's the serial killer, telling him that there is a body in one of the suites, along with a message. The manager, and the Vets, rush to the suite where they find the body of the head of security and a stack of high explosive. There is also a message warning that there is a huge bomb hidden in the hotel which will explode at midnight unless ten million dollars from the casino is taken to the roof. There isn't time to evacuate the hotel. The money is taken to the roof, and a helicopter arrives.....can the Vets thwart the killer and save the hotel? Or are the Vets themselves behind the scam? I've only just started it but it has a good feel.
The only problem is that there are too many heroes, and the studios seem to be going for single hero movies with one big name, Bruce Willis or the muscle-bound Austrian. It's a problem, but not insoluble.
I've written eighteen screenplays, and no, not one has been made into a movie. It's not that they're not good enough, it's just that they haven't been read by the right people. I've spent hundreds of dollars on postage but so far I haven't reached the ones who can give a movie the green light and cut through all the studio bullshit. It's just a matter of time. The scripts are all registered with the Writer's Guild so that no one else can rip off the ideas, all I have to do is to keep trying.
It's the secretaries that are the problem. They open all the mail, and they get thousands of screenplays a month, most of them written by talentless no-hopers. They don't know that mine are different, that I have the gift, that I can write, but they're just secretaries so they put me on the stack with all the rest. The stack gets higher and higher, a few get read, but most of them are thrown away. It's the fault of the secretaries. It doesn't matter whose name you put on the envelope, it has to go through the secretary. There's only one way to bypass the studio secretaries and that's to get an agent because an agent can deal with the studio executives direct. If an agent sends a screenplay to a studio exec, it gets read. That doesn't mean it's a sure-fire sell, but at least it's going to be read.
They might only get through a few pages, because these people have the attention spans of threeyear-olds, but at least you've got over the first hurdle.
So, do I have an agent? No, I don't. And why don't I have an agent? Because to get an agent to read your stuff you have to get by - a secretary. I've written to dozens of agents, sent them countless copies of my work, and not one of them have had the decency to send me anything more than the standard letter of rejection. Not that I blame the agents. I don't think they even get to see the letters, let alone the screenplays. It's the secretaries, their primary function in life seems to be to block anyone who shows the least bit of creative talent from making it to the top. It's like there's a conspiracy, a conspiracy of talentless nobodies who resent those with ability and who are determined to do all they can to keep them down. Well, they're not going to keep me down. No way. There's nothing they can do to stop me. Nothing.
I catch a cab over to East 89th Street. It's a pleasant enough day but a bit chilly so I'm wearing a heavy wool suit and brown loafers and a dark brown tie. Plain and simple. Nondescript. It's the camouflage that lets me get in close. A guy in a suit doesn't look like a threat. He looks clean,
wholesome and middle class. Hang around outside a building looking like Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver is just asking for trouble, right? So I put on a suit and I put the screenplay in a black leather briefcase and I'm all set. It's a comedy set in Arthurian England. Knights in armour, fire-breathing dragons and a gay Merlin. I've sent it off to half a dozen studios but I couldn't breach the secretarial wall so I'm going to go right to the source. I read in Variety that Mel Brooks is in town and I know he's got an apartment at 50 East 39th so I figured I'll hang about outside until I catch him going in or out.
It's an impressive building, all right, I've been there before. Tommy Tune, the choreographer,
has got an apartment in the same block. I don't stand right outside the entrance because that'd be a dead giveaway. I spend my time walking up and down slowly. Pacing. I don't mind waiting.
Most people think that time spent waiting is wasted time, but for a writer it can be a Godsend. It gives you that most precious resource - thinking time. I've worked out some of my best plots waiting outside New York apartment blocks.
Mel Brooks has one of the best comedy minds in the business, and I know he'd be just perfect to direct my movie. Chain Male, it's called. And there's a part in it that's tailor-made for him. In fact,
I wrote it with him in mind. I know that if he reads it, he'll love it. And with his name attached to the script, it'd be a sure-fire sell. He did Robin Hood: Men In Tights, so he's sure to like the fact that it's about knights.
The doorman appears in front of me, looming over me like a storm cloud about to break. “Can I help you?” he asks. His voice is the sound of grating metal.
“No,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Are you waiting for someone?” he says.
“No. Is there a problem?”
He sneers and I get a glimpse of nicotine-stained teeth. “Yeah, there's a problem. You're pacing up and down outside my building.”
“Your building?”
“Yeah, my building.”
“You don't look like a man who owns a hundred million dollar building.”
“Huh?”
“This is a public street, I'm within my rights to walk here.”
He snarls. “You ain't walking. You're waiting.” He looks at the briefcase. “You serving something?”
“What? Like lunch?”
“Like legal papers.”
I shake my head. “No. I'm not here to serve legal papers.”
“So maybe you'd do us both a favour and move on.”
“I don't think so.”
He stares at me in silence and I see his hands clench and unclench like he wants to take a swing at me. He won't, I know, because it'd be more than his job's worth. A doorman brawling in the street isn't good for a building's image. No, he isn't going to hit me, but I can see he's annoyed. I smile. The boyish smile, the smile that says I'm a good guy, that I haven't a bad bone in my body.
It seems to enrage him even more, which is just what I'd intended.
A Federal Express van drives up and the driver gets out with a parcel. The doorman's head swivels as if it's on castors. He has no choice. He has to go and take the package.
“Off you go,” I say to him, my smile widening.
“I'll be back,” he says.
You can't help laughing at the line. That's the best he can do? That's so typical, the little people learn all their lines from the movies. They're not capable of original thought. That's why they're little people and I'm a writer. He strides over to the delivery man and practically snatches the parcel out of his hands. He looks over his shoulder at me as he walks inside the building. I can see that he's going to be trouble so I decide to try again later.
I walk across Central Park, deep in thought. One of the screenplays I'm working on is a thriller,
and as I walk, head down, I run it through my mind, like playing a video. That's how I write, I play the images again and again until they feel right and then I put them down on paper. This one is called 1-900. I've only just started it. The opening shot is of an office, and we hear a woman's voice. The voice is deep and sexy, and she is talking dirty to a man on the phone. She is telling him what she wants to do to him as the camera pans slowly to her legs. She has great legs, and we hear the woman describe herself: blond, busty, soft lips etc, as the camera pans up. Then we see that she's not pretty at all, more a Kathy Bates type middle-aged woman, slightly overweight with mousy hair and plain features. Her name is Betty and she is a telephone sex operator, talking dirty on the phone to paying customers. Her sexy voice, and an ability to tell men what they want to hear, has made her one of the most successful operators in New York. The camera pulls back and we see the office is full of women, some young and pretty, others old and plain, all of them talking dirty on the phone. It's an efficient, highly-profitable operation, and Betty is one of the company's biggest earners. She has a stable of regular customers, and handles many new callers. The woman who runs the business knows that once a caller has heard Betty, he tends to be hooked. Callers usually want to meet her, but Betty always refuses, knowing that her looks don't match up to her voice.
A new caller, who gives his name as Frank, begins to talk about hurting her, and she plays along, knowing that that's how some men get their kicks. She isn't worried, she knows that it's only fantasy, but gradually Frank begins to sound more psychotic, until he describes to her how he's like to torture and kill a woman. She hangs up on him, earning a reprimand from her boss who tells her that she's supposed to keep them on the line as long as possible: the longer they stay on, the more they pay. A few days later, Betty reads of a sex killing in the paper, and to her horror she realizes that it's exactly as Frank described. Later that day, Frank calls her and says that he did it for her.
Betty calls the police, who refuse to believe her. Frank calls her again, and tells her he plans to kill another girl. The victims he selects are just as Betty describes herself: busty, blond and pretty.
After the second killing, Betty speaks to a young Homicide detective investigating the murders.
He's fascinated by her sexy voice and arranges to meet her that evening. Of course, he doesn't recognize the frumpy woman who turns up, he is expecting a sexy young girl. You can picture him approaching a pretty girl he thinks is Betty, and then how his face would fall when he actually meets her. He cuts the meeting short, and asks her to keep in touch if Frank calls again. Frank does call Betty again, and she tells him that she wants him to go to the police. He gets angry and says he'll kill her next. In a bid to calm him down, she has verbal sex with him, but when she's finished he insists that he still wants to kill her. Betty calls the detective, who finds himself turned on again by her voice, even though he knows what she looks like. He finds himself flirting with her on the phone. There are two Bettys: the real life one and the fantasy Betty on the phone. The detective is confused about his feelings, but Betty isn't - she is strongly attracted to him.
Frank waits outside the office where Betty works. One of the girls who works there looks just like Betty describes herself and Frank follows her home and rapes and kills her. The following day he rings up to speak to another girl, but finds that Betty is still alive. He threatens her, and she calls the detective. Realizing that she's now a potential victim, he offers to protect her. He is even more turned on by her voice, but when he meets her again later that night his ardour cools. Betty realizes she isn't going to get anywhere with him, until she turns off the light and they're in darkness. They talk, he is turned on by her voice, and they end up in bed. She, not surprisingly, is very vocal, and the sex is great. In the cold light of the morning, the detective is totally confused: