Before I get to today’s blog…

Thinking about doing more with your writing? Why not join me in Paris June 2-7 for my Masterclass in Screenwriting? Come be part of a dynamic community of writers and literary agents to learn, to write, to network, to energize your literary goals—and just to have fun in the City of Light!

The Paris Writers Workshop is the longest running literary program of its kind. This program offers 6 masterclasses by renowned authors, each a specialist in their field—and I’ll be teaching the Screenwriting Masterclass—in English, of course.

The workshop will be held at Columbia University’s beautiful Reid Hall campus in the heart of literary Paris—Montparnasse.

Registration is now open: https://wice-paris.org/paris-writers- workshop

We’ll have a great time getting your story ideas off the ground!!

Beach Movies—The 80s

August is ending and there’s one more movie I want to talk about—Beaches. This is a film that starts on a beach and ends on a beach… hence, the title. Unlike the old Beach Party movies, it’s not filmed ON the beach the whole time—the film goes to many venues—but the idea of coming back to a beach mirrors one of the themes of this story, about coming back to friends.

Bette Midler plays CC, a wanna-be singer and Barbara Hershey plays Hillary, a soon to be lawyer. They meet as kids on a beach and become friends—vowing to keep in touch. And over the coming years they do, writing letters, calling, and eventually living together in New York City while CC works at her singing and Hillary finishes her law studies. Hillary’s straight-laced and CC’s wild and crazy—but they are the best of friends.

Over the years there are fights, they grow apart, they get involved with the same man, they come back together… and then Hillary gets sick.

This is a film about friendship. So how does the beach fit into it?

Unlike The Way We Were where the beach is a place for superficial people, in Beaches the beach is a place where everyone’s equal. Two little girls on the beach at the beginning of the movie can become friends because the beach is the big equalizer. Everyone’s wearing a swimsuit or shorts, everyone’s doing the same stuff—making sand castles, eating hot dogs, playing games, etc.—and it’s a place where you let your guard down. It’s a place where real intimacies can begin.

It’s funny that when CC and Hillary are in the ‘real’ world, that’s where the trouble begins. They were fine as kids on the beach and at the end, they’re fine as friends at Hillary’s beach house as she’s [spoiler alert] dying.

It’s at that beach house at the end where they look out at the limitlessness of the ocean that who they are and what they mean to each other is said and felt. It’s as if the beach itself is helping them to really come to terms with the specialness of their friendship.

There’s something about the limitlessness of the ocean that I find inspiring. I don’t think my writing is any better than when I’m sitting in front of the ocean, that view of the unending water stretching out before me, as if my thoughts could float along it, as if all ideas are possible, as if anything can happen… as if I have the chance to write something without limits… as the ocean itself seems to be without limits.

Next week, a little more about limits and oceans and writing something new… that’s YOU writing something new… So next week, the final blog on beaches.

See you in September!

Copyright © Diane Lake

27Aug17

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com