Lena Waithe was born in Chicago, Illinois and is a graduate of Columbia College Chicago where she studied Writing & Producing Television. She has worked on The CW's Girlfriends, The Secret Life of Bees, Notorious, and I Will Follow in various capacities. She is a staff writer on Nickelodeon's How To Rock, writer of the viral video Shit Black Girls Say, director of short films and web series including Save Me, Body of A Barbie, and Toy, and she is the co-founder of the newly-minted Table Read Initiative at Writers Guild of America, West. She will make her feature film debut as a producer with the upcoming independent feature Dear White People.
Lena on...
The ProcessMy process is pretty simple. I just sit at my desk and focus. I have a small office that I work in and a special leather chair. Whenever I sit down, my brain just knows it's time to go to work. Now that doesn't mean I don't go on Facebook or think of a particular song I haven't heard in a while and go on YouTube and watch the video, but it all sparks ideas in my head for witty dialog or an interesting way to describe a character. The reason writers are so easily distracted is because we're always looking to be inspired by something. So my process includes walking around, flipping through magazines, watching my TV on mute, showering. I get a lot of great ideas in the shower. I'm not the type of person that can say I'm going to write for three hours and just do it. That's not my thing. I write as long as the ideas are flowing, and when they stop all I can do is hope I wrote something good. So then I can go back later and rewrite it a bunch of times until it's great.
SatisfactionHearing it out loud. Or having someone read it and they tell me they saw themselves in it. When someone really connects to something you wrote it's the most satisfying part of the process, because writing is a lonely profession. The only time we know it's worth it is when an outsider responds to the work. It's also satisfying when someone I look up to reads my script and they tell me they liked it. There's nothing better than that.
KnowingHonestly, I was in the fifth grade and my teacher told me she looked forward to reading my papers because the stories I told were so entertaining. She said I wrote the way I spoke, and that was a skill most kids my age didn't have. It was a turning point for me. It made me realize that I was good at something. At that moment I was a writer. And because I was always in front of the TV watching everything from "Murphy Brown" to "Cheers" to "The Cosby Show" I just combined my two loves and started focusing on becoming a television writer. It's all about doing what you love, and then figuring out a way to get paid for it.
Inspiration
Bill Cosby. He represents true storytelling. Spike Lee. His first batch of films literally changed the course of my life. Whoopi Goldberg's one woman show. When I saw it, I knew the power of one person telling the same story from five different perspectives. She's a genius.
The First TimeI did a table read of a feature I wrote. It was mostly just a group of friends coming together so I could hear it out loud, but it was mind blowing. There's nothing like hearing actors interpret your words. And if it's good, it'll be an unforgettable experience. It was a great day, and I'll never forget it. The best part was the dialog we had afterward. Folks talked about the characters, what was missing, what moved them, and what they wanted more of. It was an educational experience as well as a spiritual one. And the feeling never changes. I have another table read coming up for something I've written and I'm just as nervous now as I was then. The minute you don't have butterflies in your stomach is when you should reevaluate your career. It's a scary thing to show your work to a room full of folks that might not like it. But that's a part of being an artist. Everyone's not going to love your stuff. But the goal is to always keep striving to make it better.
AdviceI've gotten a lot of good advice over the years. But I guess I wish someone would've told me that not doing what everyone expects of you is critical. In this town it's hard to stand out. So you should always go against the grain. Try to be as unique as possible. Don't ever do what someone else is doing. The sooner you know this, the sooner you'll get noticed. I always tell artists, the only responsibility you have is to tell the truth. If you do that, everything else will fall into place.
Dear White People
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