I wrote the novel during NaNoWriMo 2013, and just now looking back at it. In the way that we look back at pages, so, the rewrite is to film. Novel is always easiest for me in many ways, because scripts are like haiku poems in a way. Anyway this book is intact at 50,000, and I wrote it over in Wattpad that year. So it is set in 1981, in Los Angeles, much of it. It’s a love story that has a tragic end, and is a Greek Tragedy in true Aristotle’s Poetics style. Here goes!
xxoo!
Adrienne
You can see the novel here: https://www.wattpad.com/28740536-where-i-laid-me-down-to-sleep
Where I Laid Me Down To Sleep
c. Adrienne D. Wilson all rights reserved
1 EXT. CAROUSEL SANTA MONICA PIER. DAY.
The carousel, empty, spins in black and white, fast, then slowing to a stop. Music, poignant and soft. An adult woman stands on a pier, alone, she is 50ish. We hear this voiceover, in a male voice, character is Tim speaking.
Sometimes staying alive is the hardest thing that you will ever have to do. Love can kill a person. Too much love or the wrong kind of love, or not enough love. That’s what I know now. And that’s what almost happened to Natasha Evergreen. She almost died.
2. EXT. CAMERA OBSCURA SANTA MONICA. DAY
TASHA 50 stands inside the Camera and spins the giant plate like magic looking at the landscape. Suddenly she sees herself at 22, locked in a kiss with JOHN SANDMAN on the pier, arms around each other, deep in love. She spins it again and sees herself with her mother as a young girl about to go to college.
3 INT. TASHA/MOTHER APT. BARRINGTON. DAY
TASHA 22 and her MOTHER 50 argue in apartment on Barrington. Tasha is in her second semester at JC, studying Art. Her mother thinks college is a waste of time. Tasha has quit her job and moved home, broken up with first love to go to school. A dream she wants to fulfill, on her own.
MOTHER
What good is this education going to be, anyway?
TASHA
(sighs)
It’s what I want, Mom.
MOTHER
Life isn’t always going to be about what you want, Tasha. Mine hasn’t been.
TASHA
(sighing – very frustrated)
I know, Mother
Tasha makes for the rooftop balcony to get some air, thousands of birds cartwheel through the puffy Spring clouds and the massive towers glisten silvery. She can breathe. Her mother follows her to the balcony.
MOTHER
You have got to stop wearing your heart on your sleeve. You have got to stop being such a dreamer.
TASHA
(shakes her head, looks down at her wrist where a magic heart seems to float above it)
Okay, Mom. But, I’m so excited.
MOTHER
What good is school going to do for you, anyway?
TASHA
It’s going to be everything.
MOTHER
Where are you going to work?
TASHA
I’ll find something part time.
MOTHER
You have always done just what you wanted, Tasha.
TASHA
No, I haven’t.
MOTHER
Yes, you have.
Adrienne Wilson 