novel – Adrienne Wilson

HEART OF CLOUDS – SCREENPLAY – 23

Posted on June 10, 2022 by Adrienne in Adaptation, Novel, Heart of Clouds, Screenplay, Screenwriter

Heart of Clouds

by Adrienne Wilson

*adaptation of my novel to FILM

(for Walter Halsey Davis, of the SB Writers Conference)

*note on sound for Christina, scene in bath with too many pills –

INT. CHRISTINA BATHROOM. TUB. Ghastly Brittle White Light

Christina slumps in the tub, she has swallowed so many pills, she is senseless. Memories of Jax and she, happy, at work, the absence of Jax. She does not know how to go on. She manages to get up, and stumbles to her bedroom. Looks at her wedding dress. Camera lingers on her hands smoothing the fabric, symbolism of the lace. She holds it up to the mirror, studies her face, fallen, all hope gone. Everything gone.

FLASHBACK

Christina and Jax eloping, her mother’s face a mask of cruelty.

CHRISTINA MOTHER

Don’t expect any help from us, Christina

You made your bed and now you have to lie in it

one of mine, an image of Christina, mood as she is at lowest ebb.

Christina manages to fold the wedding dress, replaces it in layers of tissue paper, before she collapses on the bed. She swallows the last of the pills.

TEENIE

Finds her mother passed out, in bed. Teenie is scared, when she cannot rouse her.

Mom wake up.

(in tears)

Mom

(whispers in her mother’s ear)

Mom wake up.

Takes her mother’s hand and notices a tiny freckle. Christina’s hand is ice cold.

Mom wake up, please

Please Mom

(close in on Teenie’s tears falling on her mother’s hand)

Please mommy don’t leave me alone

Teenie places on of her hands on her own heart, and another on her mother’s heart, barely beating under the thin bathrobe.

TEENIE

Heart I need you to speak to Mommy

I need your heart to talk to my heart, Mom

Please talk to my heart Mom

CHRISTINA

(eyes fluttering)

TEENIE

Mom I was so worried

CHRISTINA

(tears, seeing her daughter, blurred as through gauze)

Oh honey

TEENIE

I love you so much Mom

CHRISTINA

I love you too

You’re my little girl

You’ll always be my little girl Teenie

Always and forever

You mean everything in the world to me

TEENIE

(wraps her arms around her mother)

The two of them lie quietly in the brilliant white light, no longer garish, we pull back until two small figures, in the light

INT. GRANDPA/GRANDMA JESS. KITCHEN. WARM GOLDEN LIGHT.

Grandma Jess, bustles in her old fashioned kitchen cracking eggs for omlettes. She is making three different kinds, their favorites. She’s been so worried about Devlin, and so glad to see the pup and effect it has had on the boy.

GRANDMA JESS

He has such a sweet soul Jess. The dearest boy in all the world.

GRANDPA JESS

(reading the paper)

How’s that pup doing this morning, son?

DEVLIN

(smiling and laughing, cuddles pup)

He’s great. I think he’s going to chew up everything I own though. All my shirts.

GRANDPA JESS

(bursts out laughing at the antics of pup squiggling)

DEVLIN

Guess what I named him?

GRANDPA JESS

I knew you’d figure out a name pretty soon Dev

DEVLIN

Brownie

GRANDPA JESS

Well son, I don’t think I could have come up with a better one myself. He does resemble a brownie doesn’t he?

DEVLIN

(hands the pup to his grandfather)

GRANDPA JESS

(pup squiggling and licking his face, chews his shirt collar)

A pup is a pup is a pup. And this pup has all the energy in the world

DEVLIN

Today is going to be his first day at the beach. Grandpa

GRANDPA JESS

Guess you have to get him used to it, son

GRANDMA JESS

(brings out a little red collar and leash for Brownie)

I thought red would make a good contrast to his fur. Think he’ll like it?

DEVLIN

It looks great Grandma. Your first little collar Brownie

(Devlin tries it on him, while Grandma Jess finds two dishes for water and the pup’s food)

GRANDMA JESS

He’s such a little dear isn’t he?

GRANDMA JESS

All right my dears, what sort of omlette would you like this morning. We have spinach and cheese or mushrooms and cheese or just plain cheese, or nothing at all except egg. What shall it be?

DEVLIN

Cheese for me

GRANDPA JESS

Spinach and cheese

GRANDMA JESS

(secretly teaching Devlin how to cook)

Devlin will you help me with the spinach?

(uplift, happy music, as the two of them make the omlettes, a golden sizzle)

DEVLIN

(begins to tell his grandparents about Teenie)

I met a girl on the beach the other day

A really special girl

(hugs Brownie on his lap)

I can’t wait to show Brownie to her because I think she might love him too

GRANDMA JESS

Why Devlin, that’s wonderful

What is she like son?

DEVLIN

I think she might be an artist. Or a writer. She was crying the first day I saw her

GRANDMA JESS

Do you know why?

DEVLIN

Sort of. She sort of told me how sad she was since her dad had been gone

GRANDMA JESS

Where did he go?

DEVLIN

She said he had to leave the village to search for a job

He used to be a reporter for the paper, Grandpa

GRANDPA JESS

(loud sigh)

I’m surprised that industry is still in business in America, after what they have done to all those poor people. I’m sorry to hear that son.

(shakes his head back and forth)

Making a little girl cry because her father had to leave town to look for another job

GRANDMA JESS

I’m glad you met a new friend Devlin. What else have you found out about her?

DEVLIN

Not too many things so far, she has beautiful hair, though

You should see the way it looks when the sun shines on it

GRANDPA JESS

(smiling ear to ear looking at Grandma Jess, twinkling)

It sounds like the day I first saw your grandmother, Devlin. I had my harmonica with me that day, though. I thought she had the prettiest smile I had ever seen.

GRANDMA JESS

Oh Jess, let the boy finish his breakfast now

She sounds like a very nice girl, Devlin. I’d love to get the chance to meet her.

GRANDPA JESS

(winks at Devlin)

GRANDMA JESS

When you get to know her a little better maybe she’d like to come for dinner?

DEVLIN

Okay Grandma. One of these days maybe I’ll ask her. I want her to meet the two of you, too. But first I just want her to meet Brownie.

GRANDPA JESS

(smiling)

You go on then son

DEVLIN

(cradling the squiggling pup, pulling on Dev’s collar)

I’m not going to have any shirts left at all

(the three of them laughing)

We’re going to my castle. You’ll see Brownie.

*to page 158 in novel, Chapter “Chances”

HEART OF CLOUDS – SCREENPLAY – 18

Posted on June 3, 2022 by Adrienne in Adaptation, Novel, Heart of Clouds, Screenwriter

Heart of Clouds

by Adrienne Wilson

*novel adaptation to FILM

*page 113 – Chapter “Seachange”

EXT. OCEAN WAVES. VOICEOVER. BLUE WHALE

BLUE WHALE

As Teenie Alexander made her way to the sea hut, she had no idea that she was part of something much much larger. How could she have known that eons ago an ancient turtle had foretold her birth. That she would be the last girl on the planet who could speak the Language of the Heart. The thing of it is, we just never know what we are going to grow up into, do we?

EXT. BEACH. MORNING. SUNNY

Teenie walks down the beach to the sea hut as the ocean brims with sea creatures dipping and diving, alive. She stops to collect shells along the way, marvelling at the sea glass.

Teenie parts the seaweed curtain, climbs in and sees that Devlin has left her a red rose on top of the abalone shell.

TEENIE

(opens Dev’s note)

He wrote the word LOVE, just like I did

(presses the rose to her heart)

Close in on her hand writing these words:

If I thought of something that could show the language of the heart what would it look like?

Teenie begins to draw in her journal, and decides to write Devlin a special poem

TUT

(floating offshore watching)

(Close in on his ancient eye and flippers moving, as he watches Devlin walking down the beach)

They are the last two humans who know the secrets of the heart

MONARCH BUTTERFLY

(flies near Tut)

Tut, he’s getting closer

DEVLIN

(walking down the beach skipping stones)

I wonder what she will say?

TUT

Grandfather, I kept my promise, as I told you I would

DEVLIN

(notices all the plastic bottles on the sand)

This is just like my dream. It’s so ugly I can’t stand it.

TUT

(ancient eyes fill with tears at the sight of Devlin)

TEENIE

(watches Devlin skipping stones as he pauses on the beach)

Out to sea, the ocean is alive with dolphins swimming toward the two of them, and flying fish, and sparrows watching to see the two of them meet

*to page 119 in book Heart of Clouds

HEART OF CLOUDS – SCREENPLAY – 12

Posted on May 26, 2022 by Adrienne in Adaptation, Novel, Art Direction, FILM, Heart of Clouds, Screenwriter

Heart of Clouds

by Adrienne Wilson

(for Walter Halsey Davis, of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference)

*chapter “Seadreams” p. 81

EXT. DRIFTWOOD HUT. MORNING. SUNNY.

Teenie is amazed to see that there is a seaweed curtain like a door. She parts the curtains and enters, captivated. Finds Devlin’s note in the abalone shell after shaking it to and fro. She hugs the note to her heart, rocking back and forth, listening to the sounds of the ocean.

TEENIE

(speaking softly to horizon, out to sea, to islands)

Dad I think you would like this boy

FLASHBACK

(Jax and Teenie the day he told her about writers and hats and they had shopped for one)

JAX

Every writer needs a hat Teenie

PRESENT

Teenie pulls the hat down, smiling and remembering her father. Unfolds Devlin’s note carefully, sees his signature, marvels at how much he said on paper. Close in on her face, reading intently, absorbing each word.

TEENIE

Pulls her journal and pen from pocket and begins to write back to him

*establishing EMPATHY

Teenie answers each line he has written we close in on his words, then hers.

Hi, Teenie

I’m really glad you left me this letter, because I really wanted to meet you

Hi Devlin,

thank you for writing this really long letter back to me. I really wanted to meet you too from the minute I saw you that day on the dunes, but it was like you ran away before I could say hi.

That day I saw you on the beach you were crying and so I didn’t want to bother you, even though you were in my secret driftwood castle.

I totally wondered if you built this sea hut, ever since I saw you. Nobody here ever built one of those like you did. I didn’t realize it was a castle though, until today when you added the door!

I’ve been really missing my old friends and that’s how come I wanted to be friends with you. I’ve only been here about two months and school is going to start pretty soon. I’m going to be in eighth.

I’m going to be in eighth, too! Maybe we’ll be in the same classes and stuff. I’m sorry that you miss your friends from back home. Do you like living with your grandparents? It must have been really hard at first, Devlin. It must have been really hard to move here and then have to start all over and make new friends. Right before school starts too.

I was like thinking you were my age too – but I wasn’t sure. It looks like you really miss your Dad a lot.

I do really miss my Dad, Devlin. He’s been gone for a really long time now and that day you saw me crying it was about him. I just missed him so much and it seems like nothing is any fun without him. He and my mom lost their jobs and he used to be a reporter for the newspaper in the Village. He worked there my whole life. He’s gone because he had to go south and try and find a new job. We had to sell our house too, and move. Sometimes I look up at my old house and I just get so sad walking by it. It’s that big white one on the hill. That pretty house.

Your mom sounds kind of cool – like she cares about the ocean a lot. It’s my favorite place too.

My Mom totally cares about the ocean, Devlin. She keeps on watching the news though and she is so worried about The Wave coming that she just sits there most of the time all day long in front of the TV. The doctor told me she had something called a “depression” and they gave her a whole bunch of pills to take. She doesn’t even seem like my Mom anymore, sometimes.

I hope we can meet again sometime

I hope we can really meet each other, too.

Sometimes it’s really hard to talk to anyone about how I really feel. Do you ever feel like that?

Devlin Underwood

Sometimes I do feel like it is pretty hard to explain my feelings to people, Devlin. It was like this summer when it got the hardest. My Dad was the one I talked to most. I could tell him anything and it was like he just understood me. It’s totally easy to talk to you though in a letter and I don’t know why, even. It just is.

Love, Teenie Alexander

TEENIE

(sits looking at what she has written to Devlin for a long time, exhales softly)

Dad you told me writers were always outsiders. Remember when you got me this hat?

EXT. DEVLIN’S CASTLES. LOON POINT. SUNNY.

*Images from location at Loon in magic hour light

EXT. DEVLINS CASTLES. GOLDEN LIGHT. ATOP BLUFFS AT LOON.

Devlin has been watching Teenie from above, sitting crosslegged atop the bluffs, in his castle, unbeknownst to her, watching. He has his uke and harmonica with him.

*core musical theme plays, sweeping sound

Devlin watches Teenie leave the driftwood hut, and walk in the waves with her pant legs rolled, until she rounds the bend out of sight.

DEVLIN

(softly out to sea)

Maybe we can really meet each other soon, Teenie

Close in on his hand drawing a heart in the sandy blufftop. He draws the letter T inside it.

(picks up his uke and plays a song his grandfather taught him)

(hawks circling, images of dolphins out to sea, seals)

*to page 87 in novel.

HEART OF CLOUDS – SCREENPLAY – 4

Posted on May 14, 2022May 14, 2022 by Adrienne in Adaptation, Novel, Screenwriter

Heart of Clouds

by Adrienne D. Wilson

Adaptation chapter 4

Apple and Feather

(for Walter Halsey Davis, of the SB Writers Conference, my teacher)

INT. PRESENT TEENIE KITCHEN. DISMAL BLUE LIGHT.

(Teenie sighs in frustration)

Takes apples from the basket one by one, thinking of her father and better times. She rummages through the kitchen trying to find what she needs for the pie. Draws a list up, in her notebook. Close in on her hands with the apples, startling red and green. She shines one on her jeans, it glistens like a ruby.

(in handwriting)

we close in on her handwriting what she needs for the pie

FLASHBACK. JAX. OLD HOUSE KITCHEN. MAGIC HOUR LIGHT

(we see Teenie and Jax baking a pie together, he teaches her to cut the apples, they fall into flower shapes, smiling and laughing. Close in on his face, full of love for his daughter.

TEENIE

Mom do you feel like helping me?

MOM……….

CHRISTINA

No, honey, I don’t

TEENIE

Please?

CHRISTINA

Teenie I am trying to watch the news

TEENIE

But, Mom…

CHRISTINA

(sharply, angrily)

Teenie

CHRISTINA

Another species just went extinct, Teenie

The Wave is on its way now

TEENIE

Mom can we just make this pie together

Mom…….

FLASHBACK. TEENIE’S OLD HOUSE. DAY

Teenie and her parents having to move, throwing everything out, including all her childhood toys, FOR SALE sign on the house

CHRISTINA

What are we going to do, Jax

INT. PRESENT. TEENIE KITCHEN. DISMAL LIGHT

TEENIE

(Teenie whispers to the apples)

I just want to make the pie Mom. I just want things to be normal again.

Teenie begins to cut the apples into flowers, while her mother sits wrapped in grey on the sofa, eyes glued to the television, she makes the pie, rolling out the crust, shaping it for Mr. Honeygarten. The apartment kitchen has such a sad atmosphere she can barely breathe. She touches a golden locket, her father’s picture inside. Close in as her hand opens it, heart shaped. Smiles at his face.

EXT. DRIFTWOOD HUT. MORNING. SATURATED LIGHT.

(Devlin, puzzled, at her note, wonders how he can answer)

FLASHBACK

Devlin and his father, and his grandparents at the funeral for his mother.

*location SB Cemetary at Butterfly Beach

A plain pine coffin, flowers. Close in on all their faces. Devlin’s father with his arm around the boy. Tears. Devin stoic.

EXT. DRIFTWOOD HUT. PRESENT.

DEVLIN

How am I supposed to answer a question like that

Maybe she cries in private like I do

Devlin takes off down the beach running – long shot as we pan, seabirds scattering before him. His arms are outstreched like a birds wings, almost a dance against the waves near his castles, where the red tails roost. We see them against the sky twirling and gliding, riding the currents.

(Devlin finds a feather)

DEVLIN

(screams into the wind)

This is who I am. I’m going to leave this for her.

INT. DRIFTWOOD HUT. BRIGHT SATURATED LIGHT

(Devlin smiling)

He pockets her note, and the origami bird, smooths the sand around the abalone shell, and replaces the stones in a stack. He scoops sand in the shell, and places the feather there for her. We see him walking through the waves, in his jeans pant legs wet to the knees, in the seafoam.

(to page 32, in my book)

Heart of Clouds screenplay

Posted on May 9, 2022May 9, 2022 by Adrienne in Adaptation, Novel, Screenplay, Screenwriter

by Adrienne Wilson

adaptation from my novel, chapter three

(for Walter Halsey Davis)

EXT. DRIFTWOOD HUT, MORNING. SUNNY LIGHT

Teenie sits in the hut, marveling at the abalone shell, and her origami bird, while a seal dips and dives in the waves, watching her. She draws a little puffy cumulus cloud shape with a heart inside, and the words, “Who are you?” for Devlin, thinking of the boy, and that he must have left the beautiful shell. She decides to leave this for him, in a stone stack, and we see her combing the beach to find three stones, then carefully tucking the note and tucking it under the second stone.

EXT. MORNING, VILLAGE. SUNNY

Teenie rides her bike through village on way to Mr. Honeygarten’s Victorian to ask for apples. Mellowman, his Golden Retriever barks and clowns around at the old picket fence in happiness to see her again.

TEENIE

(smiling and petting his head, through the fence)

Mello, Mello, Mello

A jay comes to a screeching landing on the old fence, looking for peanuts near them.

TEENIE

Mr. Honeygarten are you there?

HONEYGARTEN

(calls down to her, from a window)

Just a minute dear, let me get my staff

Well hello, Teenie, How very nice to see you again

Mr. Honeygarten I was wondering if I might be able to have some of those apples on your trees. I want to make a pie.

(We close in on his eyes, crinkling at the corners, face breaking into a warm smile)

HONEYGARTEN

You do? I see. Well suppose you help me pick them, I seem to have plenty to spare this year.

TEENIE

I want to share it with you Mr. Honeygarten

HONEYGARTEN

Oh my, I haven’t had an apple pie for a very long time

TEENIE

Neither have I. Not since Dad left.

HONEYGARTEN

You must miss him very much Teenie

TEENIE

I do, every single day

HONEYGARTEN

Well let me see, we’ll need a basket and a ladder. How about if you go around to the garden shed and collect those for us and I’ll meet you by the trees.

INT. GARDEN SHED. DIM LIGHT

Teenie enters the shed, full of all the old seed packages and clay pots and tools and almanacs Mr. Honeygarten had collected over the years, brushing cobwebs aside, to get to the trug and ladder. Swallow’s nests cling to the eaves outside. She and Mr. Honeygarten both make their way to the trees, with Mellowman at his side.

HONEYGARTEN

(eyes follow a red tail hawk circling overhead, as he makes his way through the tangled grasses to his trees)

Melloman, look!

(dog’s eyes follow the bird)

EXT. APPLE TREES. DAY – SUNNY

Teenie picks twenty of the apples, and carries the basket to his porch, returns ladder to the shed.

HONEYGARTEN

Will you have some tea dear?

TEENIE

Can I make the pie first?

HONEYGARTEN

All right. Why don’t you take that old basket with you?

TEENIE

Thank you Mr. Honeygarten, I’ll be back this afternoon. I hope the pie will cheer Mom up.

MONTAGE (flashback)

Teenie’s parents Jax and Christina are seen dancing at a potluck at “The Village Crier” the town’s newspaper, during happy times. We see a “For Sale” sign on the shuttered building. Teenie rides through the village, looking up at her old house.

TEENIE

Mom, I have apples! You should see them.

CHRISTINA

(pulls blankets up around her, wan smile from the couch. The TV news blaring on and on about climate change and animals going extinct)

TEENIE

I’m going to make pie!

EXT. DRIFTWOOD HUT. MORNING.

Devlin at dunes, approaches the hut, sees Teenie’s footprints on the sand. Sandpipers and gulls flurry along the beach. Pulls harmonica from his pocket and practices blowing out some tunes. A huge gull perches on the seahut.

DEVLIN

Too much plastic in the sea right now, it’s not good for you.

Devlin climbs into hut, and sees the Origami bird and the shell, and the three stacked stones Teenie left him. He finds her note.

DEVLIN

(whispers)

“Who am I” How am I ever going to explain that to her?

Chapter one

Posted on November 1, 2018November 1, 2018 by Adrienne in My books, novel

AngelChristmasGraphicsFairy1 fairygarden:cover2 The Fairy Garden

by Adrienne D. Wilson

Nanowrimo 2018

”

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden“

The night was so dark it seemed all the light was gone, except for the little moon like a lantern that hung in a small corner of the sky. Everything was gone. Every last dream.

It was on nights like this that Francoise felt she had lost all ability to cope. She took a sip of the brandy Pierre had loved. Sleep was impossible. If only Pierre were with me, I’d feel safe, she thought. He was gone. He was gone in the way that death takes all things that we love eventually. In life the moon is the only constant thing, or the sun, or the tides on the sea, or the waves of grass that glint and shimmer. The songs of birds, the flowers pushing up and open from the dank earth. All things return to this in the end, like the great hum or the great silence as the clock ticks round and round.

Courage, she thought. I will need courage to go on, in this darkness.

Little did she know that it would be the face of a child that would give her that.

Abigail LeNotre was the most curious child Francoise had ever seen. She was only eight, and she was in a part of life that Francoise had long forgotten. The part where everything is still to be discovered and learned. The part where magic still exists. Francoise was in her eightieth year, and you can imagine all that she had seen and known of life by that time.

Francoise had forgotten about fairies. Or perhaps she had forgotten the time she had known about them as a child, herself. It’s just that she hadn’t thought of them in so very long. The brandy calmed her. In the morning she would have to begin the process of dealing with all of Pierre’s things. The funeral was past. His garden had died. These were things of the adult world, not the world of Abigail.

It seemed to Francoise that her heart was as fragile as a petal in the way that time and love soften one. All of the things that she and Pierre had done together. Memories across years of time. Abigail hadn’t known loneliness yet. But she was lonely.

“My parents are allergic to animals,” she had said to Francoise, over the garden gate.

“They are?”

“They never go outside.”

The Fairy Garden

Posted on October 22, 2018October 22, 2018 by Adrienne in Design, My books

fairygarden:cover2 Really happy about Nano this year.

I think I might write the book here in WP on my blog.

It’s just easier!

❤

Anyway I made a cover for it and found a really beautiful quote for the frontspiece by a

writer I read as a little girl.

That was “The Secret Garden” – so this is going to be for 8 year olds, or the child in all of us.

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

AngelChristmasGraphicsFairy1

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