Today's Reading
People always tell me that my books would "make a great movie." And I always answer, "Or a terrible one." It was my stupid joke and now I'm paying for it.
Don't put things into the universe that you don't want coming back.
Anyway, filming's almost over, and I don't have script approval,2 so it's too late to do anything about it. But for the record, the original dialogue was much better than the lines Emma and Fred were delivering at the beginning of this chapter.3
"Well," Shawna says, "anything you say on mic goes into our headsets. So we can hear everything."
"We could all hear it, headsets or no," Emma says with a laugh. She's holding an empty Champagne glass in her left hand. Normally, the Champagne in a scene is colored water, but knowing Emma, she's figured out a way to sneak real Champagne on set.
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2 My film agent assures me that no book writer gets script approval, but I should've asked for it anyway. Don't ask, don't get.
3 The mystery was better, too, though I knew it would be changed to fit into a movie format.
It's the sort of thing we would've planned together until recently. Now she goes to Fred first, which is as it should be, but I already miss the intimacy we had.
Emma is that Emma, by the way. Emma Wood, who commands $5 million a picture.
We grew up next to each other in Venice Beach, and Emma's the reason I got a publishing deal. And, more relevant to this particular story, she's playing me in the movie. I mean, not actually me, but Cecilia Crane, my alter ego.4
"I spoke the truth," I say to Emma as I pull a face she's more than familiar with. "Sue me."
"I like to avoid litigation wherever possible," Emma says sweetly as she rises and walks to my table with grace. "But I'm sure David will be very happy to hear your thoughts about the script."
She means David Liu, the screenwriter of this shit show. I mean the movie I'm very happy is being made.
"Surprisingly, he's proven unreceptive to my notes."5, 6
"You don't say?" She smiles at me again as she reaches down and grabs my hand, pressing a folded piece of paper into it like we used to do in school, passing notes in the hallway with our special handshake.
She taps my palm three times in rapid succession, our code for keep this to yourself, and I slip the paper under my place setting. I give Emma a questioning look, but she's already turned away and gone back to her seat.
4 Quick primer: Cecilia Crane is the protagonist of When in Rome. She meets a private investigator named Connor Smith on vacation in Italy and ends up working with him to solve a series of robberies and, eventually, a murder while they conduct a whirlwind romance. The book was loosely based on my own trip to Rome ten years ago where I met the real Connor Smith and we solved some major crimes.
5 "Notes" is the Hollywood term for, well, notes on screenplays. In Hollywood, everyone has an opinion on your writing, and the screenwriter is expected to incorporate all of them.
6 Not my notes, though. David didn't even acknowledge the multiple emails I sent him.
"Anyway, the thing is," Shawna says, doing that thing again where she hops from foot to foot, "we need to wrap in time for the party? And Simone would like to bring this in on time and on budget?"
That's been Simone's refrain since day one of filming: "We're bringing this plane in on time and on budget." And while it's annoying to hear over and over, I don't blame her for this.
She's a female director. She only gets one shot.
So maybe I should cut her some slack? The sisterhood and all that.
Ha ha. No.
And okay, before you judge me, I was prepared to flip the page and start over, but Simone started calling me "The Writer" on day one and that was that.
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