Screenwriter’s Panel at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (2016)

Review by Zachary T. Parker. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, 2016.

I came in that morning

Excited and cheerful

But when I walked out

I was rather quite fearful

You see what transpired

During that Screenwriter’s panel

Assured me in ways

My grades surely can’t handle

Oh good god why!? Why did they say?

“If the deadlines in a few weeks, I’ll do it in a day!”

Each writer making me laugh with their smart ass comments

I don’t need enabling, I need to be despondent!

You see, a rich procrastinator I am

The internet my butter, Netflix my jam

But my toast is not toasted until moments before

I need to get my essays printed and my ass out the door!

My aspirations to be a writer

Are often spoke

But set my own deadlines?

That’s a hell of a joke.

So when Kaufman did speak of putting off every piece

Of making his genius seem stupid and cheap

I did start to panic, I do much the same!

But I’m not writing the scripts that put other scripts to shame!

It’s astounding to me, my vision is blurry

He wrote Anomalisa in a terrified flury!?

But the story was so perfect, the characters so real!

How do even great writers possess this Achilles Heel?

So then I went home and stared at a blank page

My mind quite confused and filling with rage

But then a great idea suddenly came to mind

My creative review: All Rhymes.