Hey, welcome to the screenwriting life. I'm Meg Lafour. And I'm L'Orian McKenna.

We are professional screenwriters. We've worked together as a team and separately.

We've worked on studio and indie films, live action, and animation, from my work on Inside Out and

Captain Marvel.

To my work in Pixar Story Department on Up, Brave, and Inside Out.

We are here to share our insights on the craft of screenwriting and also the life

had to not only survive the ups and downs but thrive.

We want to help you become the best screenwriter you can be and to reassure you

that you are not alone on this journey. Hey guys, welcome back to the screen writing life.

You know, on our show, there may be no topic we discuss more than lava.

And we've never done an official episode before, so this is it.

You know, and normally right now we'd go to our Adventures in Screenwriting,

but we just dropped a bonus episode checking in after our summer vacation,

so check that out. We got into some really interesting stuff over there not just about the travel log of our vacation, but more about how it affected us and what we were up to while we were away. But today, Lava. Okay, so first for those who don't know,

I've told this story on the show, but just in case people don't know where it comes from.

I was working with a friend of mine whose script was had a special needs kid in it. He is a special needs kid. I have a special needs kid and we were digging in trying to make it more emotional and I said to him well tell me about your son let's just don't worry about the script for a second, just tell me about your son, let's dig in. But everything he said kind of stayed on the top level about the work they were doing with him, the schooling, picking a school, what kind of therapies.

And I said, okay, well, I'm going to tell you about my son.

And I told him about the time that I was in target with my son at the time he was like eight or ten and he pissed himself and then had a meltdown in target and I had to get him into the women's room and all the ladies are looking at me like why are you bringing this boy child in here and he starts to scream because he is feeling the embarrassment of being there and then I'm realizing shit I don't even have anything for him to change into how am I going to get out of here to buy pants to bring them in and I just had this moment where I was like God I just I just wish you could be normal and it was just a fleeting thing,

but now I'm crashing down into shame

that I even felt that because of course I love my son

and I love him just as he is.

And I kind of went even deeper and deeper

...