Hi-Way Haven, A Place for Writers
Fall 2006
"Maybe every person in the audience is an idiot. But all together, they're a genius."
—Billy Wilder, screenwriter, director
Email me your favorite writing quotes for sharing in The Haven's next newsletter!
 hiwayhaven@yahoo.com Hi-Way Haven 529 Hermes Avenue Encinitas, CA 92024 760.815.4341 For directions to The Haven, click here |
• Expert
one-to-one coaching and script analysis with Vera
Cacccioppoli • Writing workshops |
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Contents ©2006 |
Screenwriters and other crative writers can arrange for an intensive screenplay or manuscript analysis, and one-to-one coaching, with Vera Caccioppoli...
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Founded in 2004, Hi-Way Haven is A Place for Writers created by the author, screenwriter, and writng coach, Vera Caccioppoli. The Haven offers writers of all skills and ages on-site access to resources, private tutorials, script analyses, manuscript analysis, workshops, seminars, readings, networking, an excellent selection of books on writing and the writing life, and special events with visiting authors.
The Haven is Open
by Appointment Only.
Please Call Us Today—
760.815.4341
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The Haven's Founder, Vera Caccioppoli, MFA Herding cattle, instead of writers... |
Howdy Partners!
That’s lingo left over from my summer vacation, spent as a “wrangler-in-training” on a ranch in the Colorado Rockies. Not only did I ride horses and learn to throw a rope around a moving target (very useful for a mother of three 10-year-old boys)—I worked on a real cattle drive. I helped move 62 pair of cattle (that’s 124 doggies, each with a will of it’s own) to greener pastures. Those greener pastures, while only 15 miles away, happened to be on the other side of a mountain. After 10 hours in the saddle, in 100-degree heat, rounding up countless strays, all wranglers, horses, and cattle arrived safe and sound. And exhausted.
(Screenwriters: Remember the film, City Slickers? Maybe that adventure vacation you’ve been attracted to would make a good idea for a screenplay!)
Something else I learned herding recalcitrant bovines: some cattle can be just as stubborn as some writers I know. (Yeah, you know who you are. ;-) For those of you who had a little hiatus, whether you herded cattle or sipped piña coladas on the beach, I hope to see you back soon. Summer is over, and now is the time for renewed commitment and fresh starts!
When people learn that I make my living as a writing coach, they’re intrigued. They’re familiar with coaches for athletes, actors, students and even politicians, so they’re curious to know how I work with writers and what writers are able to achieve when they have a private coach.
This summer I had coffee with Mary Curran-Downey, the San Diego Union-Tribune columnist. Mary wound up writing a nice little piece about how I coach, This Mid-Wife Helps Writers Deliver Words
To share more on what I do in my role as a writing coach, I’ve put down some thoughts for this newsletter:
One-to-One Coaching for Writers: How it Works
Working one-to-one with other writers is the very heart of my practice. And my passion. Helping writers complete their novels, screenplays, and memoirs gives me a deep satisfaction. My passion for coaching writers also informs my work in the other two parts of my business: the Haven’s screenwriting workshops, and the intensive critiques of finished novels, screenplays, and memoirs that I provide.
In my 20-plus years of being a writer and helping other writers to write, I’ve learned that one-to-one coaching works equally well for all writers, whether beginners or seasoned professionals. Think about it: The New York Yankees still have batting and pitching coaches for their multi-million dollar players, right? Alex Rodriguez didn’t decline any further coaching when he signed the richest contract ever for a baseball player, did he? Good coaching is wanted and needed throughout a dedicated professional’s career—whether a writer, or a shortstop, or a CEO.
Yet there’s no getting around it: writing is solitary work. However, working with a writing coach gives you a partner in the process of creating. This I believe: Every writer can and will be more productive (and suffer fewer hangovers ;-) when they work with a good private coach.
A good private coach is a writer’s Top Secret Renewable Energy Resource, providing encouragement, direction, alternatives, shared experience, and most importantly, someone to be accountable to. (More on that later.)
I’m not a big fan of lists, but in the interests of brevity, here’s a partial list of how a good coach helps a writer—
As a writer, where are you? Wherever you are, that’s where we start. We talk about you, and your work. We assess your current project, from story to theme to structure.
Where do you want to go? How productive do you want to be? How many hours per week are you willing to devote to your quest? Want to finish that novel by Christmas, or your next birthday? Together we develop what I call an “Intention Contract,” complete with a time line, and intermediate deadlines and checkpoints along the way. This Intention Contract with yourself, and with me as witness and partner, is a powerful way to keep you moving toward your goal—and making your dream a reality.
Being accountable is at the root of every successful creative person’s strategy. Think about it: In our daily lives, when we don’t show up when and where we’re supposed to, people know it. To get us all to show up, we receive consistent validation—usually in the form of a paycheck. Not so with the creative act of writing. Because we are not accountable to anyone else, it’s far too easy for us to give in to the temptation of going golfing or surfing during the 3 hour block we’ve set aside for writing. “Who’s gonna know that I didn’t write today?” Well, if I’m your coach, the answer is me! I’m going to know, and more importantly, I’ll care. Being accountable to me will help keep you on track to your goal.
You choose how often you want to meet with me for working sessions. You send your pages ahead of time and I’ll have read them and prepared feedback and response for our session. This is the heart of what I do, it’s how you and your coach combine your creative energies. And it’s where so much of the benefits of working with your own private writing coach come from.
We all encounter tough spots, often it’s in the middle of our book or the 2nd act of our screenplay. Sometimes we’re tired of even looking at the thing. Sometimes we’ve lost our vision, our hope, and we can’t seem to get going again. This is another way a coach is vital. Your coach can help troubleshoot your story problems, or reasons for your writer’s block—and offer ways to overcome them. A coach has a strong relationship with you and your project. As your coach, I hold fast to your visions and enthusiasm, even when you my falter.
Want to know if coaching is really working? The proof is in the writing. A great thing about having a coach is that you know constantly whether it’s working or not, because you are overcoming the obstacles as they arise, and moving toward the goal, which is always the same: Completing your project. You’re writing more pages. You’re writing better pages! Your coach is helping keep you on task, keep you doing the work, writing the pages, and honoring your intention. Many coaching clients have told me that the greatest encouragement they get is simply seeing the continual progress they are making.
This is true: Nothing happens until you complete your project. Only then do you have a told story, and one that only you could have told. Only when your novel, screenplay or memoir is completed will you experience the true and deep and lasting thrill of success. And that’s why you’ve chosen the difficult challenge of being a creator, isn’t it?
Joseph Campbell had a wealth of beautiful advice and encouragement to offer creators like you—those who have chosen to make the Hero’s Journey—
- A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.
- The adventure of the hero is the adventure of being alive.
- It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.
- The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.
Getting Coached
One-on-one coaching is an amazing and rewarding process. Think about it: if you’re out of shape, you might hire a personal trainer who would work with you to assess your current level of fitness, discuss your goals, help you map out a plan of action to get you to those goals—and then by motivating, supporting, and coaching you through your journey, help get you to your goal. And all of that is exactly what a writing coach brings to your writing project, and career. If you have any questions and want to learn more about how the process would work for YOU, call me at 760.815.4341 or e-mail me.
Other Feature Presentations at The Haven—
Getting Covered
Do you have a completed screenplay? Before you do anything else, you should have it professionally “covered.” (Covered is Hollywood speak for an intensive and close reading, critique and feedback.) If you would like to discuss having a script covered, please call me at 760.815.4341 or e-mail me.
Screenwriter's Workshop
Every 1st and 3rd Wednesday 7:00pm — 9:30pm
Are you working on your first (or 21st!) screenplay and looking for insightful peer readings, responses, ideas, support, instruction, encouragement, inspiration—and FUN?
This ongoing workshop, lead by veteran screenwriter and writing coach Vera Caccioppoli, MFA, will help you convert your idea into a professional, well-structured screenplay ready to submit to film studios, agents, producers, and production companies.
Beginning and advanced screenwriters will benefit from working together, reading and responding to one another’s work, creatively exploring real ways to apply the tools and techniques of screenwriting to their own work—while receiving the encouragement, fellowship, and honest critiques that only
colleagues-in-arms can provide to one another.
• Just $20 for each 3-hour session, and you pay only for the sessions you attend
• Simply reserve your place in any session by calling me at 760.815.4341 or e-mail me.
From our last newsletter...
Summer 2006
When it comes to screenwriting, my favorite motto is, “Arrive late. Leave Early.”
(This motto has also proven itself when applied to certain social functions I’ve attended.)
When we arrive late, and leave early, each scene is dramatic. If we arrive too early in a scene, there’s a lot of what I call “cranking” going on. Cranking means the screenwriter is wasting a lot of her precious white space having characters cranking out hello’s, introductions, pleasantries, and backstory. Writing dialogue looks simple. But it ain’t. Remember that a page of your screenplay equals a minute of screen time, and the average movie is 100 minutes long. The screenwriter has only 100 pages to tell a fully realized, complex story with intriguing, deeply developed characters in life-altering situations.
The trick is in the dialogue. Dialogue is truthful deception.
Yes, dialogue must sound like believable human conversation, but without the "fluff". And effective dialogue must also reveal character, create complex tensions, demonstrate dynamic interaction between multiple characters, move the story forward, reveal subtext, and never, ever be boring.
The screenwriter who writes dialogue that does ALL of the above—and not just one or two of the above—will be able to play with the big shots in Hollywood.
Now, back to “Arrive Late. Leave Early.”
Never be the guest who hangs around too long, like the smell of bad fish. A scene should never meander to a stop. I believe the last sentence a character speaks in a scene should be powerful and resonate. When done well, this is what I call “exiting on an upbeat,” and not dragging your butt out the door.
This is some of what we cover in The Haven’s popular screenwriting workshop, offered on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month. Working on real scripts with other screenwriters never fails to inspire and motivate everyone to finish their scripts! Because nothing happens, until you finish your script: No submissions, no contests, no $40,000 one-year options by Matthew McConaughey’s production company.