So the spring before graduation I applied to and was accepted by Columbia University’s film school.
When I saw how much it all cost, though, I changed my mind. I already had a gazillion student loans, and I couldn’t bear the idea of taking on any more debt. I kept writing for magazines and gradually started to inch closer to Hollywood and the glam life I felt I was destined for.My first job after college was assistant to the entertainment editor at Essence magazine. I wrote profiles and film reviews, and a year after graduation, an interview with director John Singleton led to my writing a behind-the-scenes account of the film Poetic Justice. After that, I joined the staff of Premiere magazine, interviewing actors, producers, and the like.What I learned at Premiere is that, in Hollywood, the screenwriter is the lowest form of life. A script, unlike a novel or even a Pulitzer Prize- winning non-fiction book, is not considered a work of art to be admired reverentially. A script is merely a jumping-off point, an outline, and everybody – the director, the actors, the producers, the studios – gets to put their two cents in and change it however they see fit.

As a journalist, I liked that for the most part what I wrote appeared as my editors and I agreed it should.Living in LA, I met so many screenwriters who never knew the pleasure of seeing their story on the big screen in any way that resembled what they wrote. Producers and studio executives function like Roman emperors, throwing the script into the arena, then bringing in writer after writer to face down the beast known as the “writing process” The Flintstones, for example, used more than 30 writers. I heard these stories, and my ego said, “I’ll never stoop that low.” I pitied any writer naive and greedy enough to take the movie business seriously.However, this posturing lasted about five seconds when my literary agent, Sandy Dijkstra, called to say that producers were interested in optioning – ie buying – the rights to make a movie of my first book, Mama’s Girl. “Really?” I said, trying to sound as if a call from Hollywood was about as exciting as the Sanford and Son re-run I was watching The truth is that my stomach was in knots.

Not only because I was sick with desire – imagining fame, fortune, invitations to potluck dinners at Brad and Gwyneth’s – but because at that point, I hadn’t even written the book.Mama’s Girl began as a magazine article about the relationship between my mother and me – about how different we are, particularly because my mother grew up as a poor Caribbean immigrant and I, with all my post-civil- rights-movement privileges, had become a college-educated member of the black middle class. I wrote about how college and economics had separated us (my own mother called me an “Oreo”) and how we eventually bridged the gap. Sandy suggested I expanded the piece to a book proposal.Due to Sandy’s diva-like status as an agent, several publishers wanted the book, and a mini bidding war broke out, pushing the book to auction. It was this auction – based on my 25-page proposal – that prompted the first calls about film rights.

It certainly wasn’t that these producers were moved by my prose; there wasn’t even a manuscript.Over the last few years, Hollywood has increasingly looked to books for movie ideas. Most studios have scouts in New York who let them know what the “hot” books are. And if you’re a best-selling writer such as Michael Crichton, John Grisham or Terry McMillan, you can find yourself fielding offers of millions of dollars for books you haven’t yet written.I was flattered that my idea had provoked such interest I was also terrified. I had a contract that said I owed Riverhead Books 250 pages in 12 months, but I was so preoccupied with whether they – Hollywood – would deem it worthy, I couldn’t think straight.During the first few months, I had numerous false starts This isn’t interesting, I worried There’s too much thinking, not enough scenes, I told myself They won’t like it. I was confused about what my task was.I was getting paid to write a heartfelt, literary story, but a screenplay would have to move faster, be snappier and intellectually lighter than the book my publishers wanted. My loyalty, my obligation, I finally determined, was to my publisher.

And as I dug deeper into the incredibly difficult job of making narrative sense of a highly personal story, I knew that I owed it to myself to tell it as plainly and truthfully as I could. So what if my little book would never get me onto the Disney jet or earn me tickets to the Oscars?Writing a book – unlike making a movie – is solitary and often lonely. And there was a lot I didn’t want to write about – my father beating my mother, for instance, or my mother’s comments about my white friends I spent a lot of time at the computer crying. But I eventually got it all down, if not exactly as I had imagined, still in the best way I knew how. And when I held in my hand the manuscript pages, as thick as a small telephone directory, I felt a rush such as I’d never experienced in my life.The book was scheduled for publication, and once word got out that there was an actual manuscript, Sandy heard from CBS, from Fox, from Oliver Stone’s company, and Demi Moore’s. Although none of this guaranteed a deal, I let myself dream again.