I finally figured out the bee thing



I wrote about sticking those bees on the way to work, I wrote about the strange feeling that bees had a message for me. I’ve finally realised what this bee thing was all about. No dramatic revelation, no bees flying through the window to whisper messages in my ear. Just a passage from a book I like.

Whenever I’ve been stuck writing a screenplay, okay, whenever I write a screenplay (I always get stuck) I reach for Syd Field’s Screenwriter’s Workbook, which will have a trick for getting things moving, it regularly helps me turn some idea into a script on the page.

I read the book cover to cover once more than a decade ago, but since then I’ve only dipped in to it to follow the exercises and refine my film’s structure. I haven’t had much call to look at this book for years, but I’ve been screenwriting for a few months and been glad to use it.

There are bits that seem to help and bits that I always ignore. I would never write the first ten pages before I’ve planned the whole story on index cards. I often try to write the four page treatment, but I prefer scrawled notes on a structure sheet. I’m a huge Syd Field fan but I’m not a blind follower of his ideas.

So, I enjoyed a wonderful holiday day today, no work, the kids at school or childminder, I used the whole day to write. I was looking at the Syd Field book for something and I noticed a page about a bee in his bathroom. This was an odd few paragraphs of philosophy in a book that  mainly deals with the nuts and bolts of screenwriting.

Mr.Field said he was taking a bath and there was a bee stuck in the bathroom and slamming into the window again and again. The window was open a few inches away, so all the bee had to do was  notice the fresh air and find escape.

I laughed at myself when I read this passage because I realised what I’d done. I’d taken Syd Field’s bathroom moment of bee magic and half remembered this, I’d passed it off as my special bee thing.

This bee kept bashing away at the window and Syd Field  realised something about his life, he said he’d done the same thing many times. The bee was trying to make something work that just wasn’t working, it was pursuing it’s cause  intently, holding on to life, resisting change. Mr.Field said he’d done this in work and in his writing

I suppose it’s a human thing. Everyone bashes into windows sometimes. The bee, Syd Field, and me.

Syd wrote, “I thought… Bee, just stop what you’re doing. It’s not working. Admit it, face it, confront it, deal with it…  Angry, I focused on the bee. Like magic, the bee stopped, resting on the glass. Silence. I held my breath, afraid to move. Then the bee arched back, felt the stream of fresh air through the open window, and was gone.”

Syd Field goes on to describe this profound moment. I think those paragraphs, read long ago, must have hung around in the dusty corners of my mind.

Now they inspire me to want to fly out of the window and write screenplays. I’m toying with stockpiling my holiday days, maybe even taking a month of unpaid leave in the summer. Doing whatever I can to find fresh air in the garden.

I’m planning a poker film right now (along with another project) and I think I’ve found the magic of  an online poker film with  a big story. It would be brilliant if my poker film was made as that would fulfill my dream and might also do great things for the company I love.

So yes, my moment of life inspiration comes courtesy of this man.

In the bath.

*     *     *

I turned into our road on the way home from a research trip to the library and I saw a shiny silver balloon. It drifted around on the road, the helium must have been running out and the weight of the string seemed enough to hold it to the ground. Then a gust of wind caught the balloon and it flew into the air, higher and higher until it was out of sight.

Shiny silver balloons were the other thing I stuck on tube station posters on the way to work.

I know I can always find time to write in my spare time, I know I shouldn’t take this dream too seriously… I know  selling a screenplay is about as likely as a bee flying to the moon.

I know that and I want to give the bee a space helmet.

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