CS Daily Archive > Son of a Pitch > 04/22/04

Write, Now

By David Michael Wharton

There's a million different reasons to write. It took cancer to help me find the best reason in the world.

Mea culpa, I confess. As a writer, I have, on occasion, used the phrase "His blood ran cold." I know, it's a clichéd phrase, overused and robbed of most of its power. But now, that phrase crackles with renewed vigor, because for the first time in my life, I completely understand what it means.

On March 9, 2004, my doctor's office called me at work and told me that it was very important that I come up to the office. Right away. Given that I'd been to the doctor only the day before about pain and swelling in my left testicle, I knew that this kind of summons could mean nothing but bad news. When I hung up that phone, my blood ran cold. And damn if that isn't one of the most accurate phrases ever put to paper. I sincerely hope it's a sensation you never have to experience.

The rest of that day is pretty much a blur, but I do remember the first words out of the doctor's mouth when he came into the room. "This is going to be tough." Just like that, at the age of 25, I was diagnosed with testicular cancer.

The lengths I'll go to to skip out on a few weeks' worth of deadlines, right?

The ensuing month has seen me through more doctor visits than I can count on hands and feet, two surgeries (one minor, one as major as they get), and a week laid up in the hospital. As it stands now, I've lost a testicle and a mess of lymph nodes, gained a fascinating collection of abdominal scars, and managed to come out of it all cancer-free and with my lovely head of hair still intact. The next five years of my life will consist of monthly checkups to make sure The Big C doesn't try to sneak back in for a return engagement, but, for right now, I'm a cancer survivor.

They tell me the souvenir t-shirt is in the mail.

Let me make one thing clear. This isn't going to be the column equivalent of a Hallmark movie of the week. I'm not here to inspire you with the uplifting story of my survival. I haven't come down from the mountain with a message from God, benevolent space aliens or William Goldman. By and large, the lessons I learned in my trek past death's door won't mean nearly as much to you as they do to me, so if it's all the same to you, I'll reserve my tearful recollections for my upcoming memoir, The Ball's in My Court (Or At Least It Was a Minute Ago).

What is relevant to you, me and cousin Joe is what the experience has meant to me as a writer. One of my dreams for this column is that it become a communal experience, a rallying point for all of us out there who are making a run for Hollywood, damn the odds, to take a moment and realize that we're not alone. Already, in the few weeks the column has run, I've gotten an amazing amount of email from you fine folks, almost universally supportive. That reaction has been far beyond anything I could have expected, and it's why I'm writing this in the first place. Quite frankly, it'd be a lot easier for me to explain my absence with a few throwaway sentences and then get back on track with the original plans for this column. But a lot of you made the effort to reach out and support me in my infancy as a columnist, so I figure I owe you guys better than that.

Chances are, some of you who are reading this have dealt with cancer, whether you've fought it yourself or watched somebody you care about fight it. Chances are, some of you have lost somebody you care about to it. It's a cruel and ugly bitch, and unfortunately, not a rare one. But even if you haven't had to dance with the Big C, every writer out there has had to face some huge, daunting, life-changing event. And if you haven't, buckle up… it's just a matter of time.

Not that I'm suggesting tragedy is peculiar to those with a creative bent, mind you, but one of the things I learned along the way is that our process of coping isn't covered in the Five Stages of Grief. In amongst the denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, there's a whole other process going on. We're soaking up every moment of discomfort, anger, terror and sorrow, digesting each new frustration and running the whole mess through the filter of our talent. A tragedy for a writer, no matter how painful, is more than just an experience -- it's a story.

I remember being shocked when I'd met up with my parents to break the news to them -- one of the more stressful and emotional nights I've ever experienced -- and I suddenly realized that some small corner of my brain was, for lack of a better term, taking notes. Even amongst trying to process all the emotions, some part of me was still analytically watching how my family reacted, how my wife reacted, how I reacted, and storing it away for future use. During my hospital stay, even during the most drug-addled or uncomfortable parts of my post-op recovery, I'd still find myself taking note of the mannerisms and procedures exhibited by the staff. That off-kilter way of consuming the world as grist for the fictional mill is, I suppose, one of the peculiar qualities that makes one a writer as opposed to an auto mechanic. But before now I'd never had occasion to see it at work in dire times. It is, I suppose, that same mental filter that keeps regurgitating variations of Stephen King's near-fatal accident into his post-accident works. I don't plan on working cancer survivors into every story I write from now until the end of time, but I do know that I'm suddenly a helluva lot more qualified to write characters who are faced with the specter of their own mortality than I was two months ago. Plus, with all the medical jargon I've been on the business end of, I figure I've got at least one good ER spec script in me.

But the surprises didn't end at hospital checkout. A friend of mine joked that it'd make a great chapter for the memoirs if I used my homebound recovery time to polish my screenplay, and then landed my first sale and never had to go back to the day job. Which, sure, sounds great to me, even if I'm not holding my breath. And after a near-death experience, it ought to be easy, right? I ought to be on fire with the inspiration that comes from skating close to the abyss. My first act once I got home from the hospital should have been to plant myself in front of the computer and start sweet-talking the old muse.

Unfortunately, my first act once I got home from the hospital was to park my ass on the couch and watch ludicrous, eyeball-rupturing amounts of bad daytime television. No trauma-inspired revelations or bursts of creativity. I remember thinking to myself, as I watched my seven-hundredth consecutive episode of Cops (you'd be amazed how many times per day that show is on, and it's only slightly less addictive than crack), this wasn't fair! I'd been through the crucible, and this was supposed to be easier now! That's how it works in the movies! Procrastination ought to be the furthest thing from my mind -- right?

And, quite frankly, it could have gone on like that. It would be the easiest thing in the world for me not to be writing this right now. Playing the Cancer card tends to buy you leeway from even the hardest-hearted of editors, and I could probably have talked my way into several more weeks of unproductive convalescence.

But at some point I realized something. If friggin' cancer didn't grant me the divine fires of inspiration, the divine fires of inspiration probably ain't coming. Maybe all we've really got is a choice, a daily choice, to decide what matters. Unpleasant though the circumstances behind it were, I'd been given a blank check in the amount of nearly two months work of paid disability leave. I could either spend it watching crappy TV and sleeping all day long… or I could grab hold of the opportunity and wring every last drop of potential from it. And I guess that's a pretty damn good metaphor for life in general, isn't it?

Maybe sixty years from now my writing will have amounted to little, and I'll look back and wish in retrospect that I'd spent this time just watching more episodes of Cops. But I doubt it.

Last week, Jim Mercurio talked about choosing the life you want to live. I'd like to add an addendum to that: choose the life you want to live… before life chooses for you. I've still got a lot of stories I want to tell, and I'm gonna use the time I've got to tell as many as I can. That's the life I choose. No regrets.

How about you?

Next week: I get back into the swing of things with the column I would have run way back when, about the agony and the ecstasy of starting a screenplay.

David Michael Wharton is a regular contributor to Creative Screenwriting magazine. When not watching DVDs or otherwise procrastinating when he should be working on his screenplay, he has been known to write for the likes of UGO Screenwriter's Voice and Comic Book Resources. You can email him, especially if you're deposed African royalty looking to secretly transfer millions of dollars into an American bank account.

.

From the Trenches (Monday)
Working screenwriters discuss in their own words a particular aspect of screenwriting, from the mechanics of writing to the personal and professional impact that writing has had on their lives. > VIEW ARCHIVE

The Art of Craft (Tuesday)
Screenwriting experts discuss how to approach various aspects of writing and the writing life. A mini-seminar each week from the people who write the books and teach the classes. > VIEW ARCHIVE

Expert Witness (Wednesday)
A panel of experts assembled to provide the facts about the screenwriting business. Readers will be able have their questions answered by an agent, producer, entertainment attorney, and WGA representative—and without paying that 10% commission. > VIEW ARCHIVE

Son of a Pitch (Thursday)
A weekly tutorial on how to write a script. Each week deals with a different element of creating a script, with the ultimate goal to provide a step-by-step instruction manual for new writers. The guide for this is a writer just diving into screenwriting himself, who asks the pros questions any new screenwriter would have about this brave new world. > VIEW ARCHIVE

Weekend Read (Friday)
Film, book, web site and technology reviews from a writer’s perspective. How can these items help a writer on his or her journey, or make that journey more enjoyable? > VIEW ARCHIVE

DVD Review of the Day (Every Weekday)
DVD reviews from a writer’s point of view. What aspects of this script and features of this DVD illuminate the writing, development, and storytelling process? > VIEW ARCHIVE