HOW DID THE MEMOIR-WRITING PROCESS DIFFER FROM WRITING A SCREENPLAY?
It’s harder! People are always surprised to hear that the ridiculously skimpy stripper memoir was a challenge to write. But to be frank, when you write a screenplay, it’s really a skeleton, and you’re going to have cameras and actors and a director adding color and substance, turning it into a whole new animal, whereas prose is a one-man show. It’s all gotta be on the same page. So I find writing prose more mentally taxing. At the same time, in a screenplay, you have to be more efficient, have a better grasp of narrative economy, and you have to be able to express more with fewer words. Each is challenging in its own way. Each is fun in its own way. For me, writing essays, prose and fiction is a great way to be self-indulgent. I really just love to open a blank document and spew, whereas with a screenplay I have to be more judicious. DID WRITING CANDY GIRL HELP YOU WRITE JUNO? WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM WRITING A MEMOIR? Writing the memoir might not have helped in terms of mechanics, but
