Two years ago, give or take, I found myself on a meditation retreat in Sri Lanka, at a place called Nilambe. If Vipassana meditation is a Buddhist Boot Camp, Nilambe was more like a Buddhist Summer Camp. One of the many memorable experiences - or low grade obsessions - concerned a monk who was there during my sit. He was a heavyset Sinhalese man. I don't know where he came from, and we never spoke, not least because the atmosphere at Nilambe was kept mostly silent, but I found myself observing this monk. Morning meditations began early, and the Monk (who I nicknamed Fat Buddha) almost always came late, and, taking his seat on the high spot of reverence, seemed to fall promptly asleep. Out of the corner of my eye (not being myself anything close to fully diligent) I would see him leaning against the wall. He seemed very happy.
During mealtimes his food was brought to him by the practitioners from the local community, who would bow and smile gracefully.
I remember thinking two things.
1) How do we even know if the fellow is really a monk?
and
2) Nice work if you can get it!
Keep in mind that all of the conclusions (if you want to call them that) of said observations are highly subjective, and may not be at all based in reality.
At some point in the ten day meditation I sat in my room and jotted by candlelight a story outline into a handmade paper journal. Then life got busy again - visits to make, a journalism fellowship, another guidebook, another and another and another, stories, relationships and so forth. The journal sat in the bottom of my backpack for a year or two.
In April of this year I spun the yarn off the top of my head to a filmmaker friend, who offered me great encouragement, even going as far as to suggest some principal actors who might fit several key roles. In May I got back to the states, and in June I got cracking on the script.
Last week I finished my first draft, and, shortly thereafter, registered it with the Writer's Guild of America under what has been for months the working title, Spinning Karma. This is the one sentence plot-line, what you'll see in some future edition of TV Guide:
Desperate to rescue his failing Buddhist sect from obscurity, a misguided monk engineers a phony repression scenario that quickly spins out of control.
At 150 pages, the first draft is far too long for a comedy screenplay. Which is why I the morning finds me in a hotel by LAX on the third day of a 3-day Screenwriting Course given by John Truby. Two thirds of the way through the course and I've already more than gotten my money's worth. Far more. But more about this later. I need to check out of this sterile & over air-conditioned room and make my way down to day three of the seminar.
So Time to clock in, spuds. Tonight I will ride to Santa Monica and park myself there fore a few days and get down to the nitty gritty.
1 rantbacks:
wonderful, keep at it.
Post a Comment