From Death Springs Life

Defying Gravity was initially written as a short in 2001. I remember sitting down and banging it out in less than a week. Usually, when writing a screenplay, I try to follow the three act structure with all its turning points, midpoint, climax, etc. I begin with an outline and generally stick to it, with allowances for brief bursts of productive creative deviation.

But I have no recollection of spending any time planning or outlining DG. I sat down, started with page 1, and just kept going. I have no idea where the characters came from. They just appeared, and the story fell in place around them.

I could tell you how I got the idea for every one of my other screenplays. Black Belt Biker Bimbo Babes started as a catchy title. Honeymoon on the Run started as a dream snippet when I woke up one morning ... What if a woman woke up in a Las Vegas hotel room, newly married to the guy in bed next to her, and no recollection of who he was or what happened? (And no, this never happened to me. Although I did wake up in a Las Vegas hotel room once, newly married, and filled with dread. The dread was because I did recognize the guy next to me.) I also wrote a suspense-thriller based on a kidnapping case that had been in the news. My romantic-comedy Ghosts with Issues was inspired by a visit to a Maine lighthouse. And so on. Every idea had an identifiable genesis.

I believe Defying Gravity arose from a single snapshot of my life. My mother passed away in 1998. I was devastated. The first time I visited her grave, I could not even process the consuming grief. It was almost surreal. It was like watching a movie about someone else. Look at that poor woman standing at her mother's grave. But no, this was real. There is the headstone. There is the grass. And there is my mother buried underneath the grass. I knealt down to touch the stone, and I was immediately distracted by the weeds. Weeds! How dare they! This was my mother's grave! I had a vision of my mother at her favorite pasttime ... kneeling in the soft dichondra of her front or back yard and weeding. I saw the canvas gloves, the knee cushion, the sun visor, the white bucket. I could hear the sound each weed made as it hit the bunket. Plunk! The weeds on her grave were a personal affront - to me, to her, to the grass, to the entire cemetery. I started yanking them out. I wished I had the little hand weeder. Then I would have had something to do, something that would allow me to spend hours in the company of my mother, and occupy my hands so that my heart would not ache. The cemetery was peaceful. I wanted to live there.

But that's crazy. Who would do something like that?