Tinker Lindsay '74 (Writer, HECTOR & THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS)
By Khurshid Velji
Tinker Lindsay ’74, co-writer of the screenplay for the film Hector and the Search for Happiness, was recently in Toronto for the film’s North American premiere at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. Although Lindsay had a busy schedule, just before she attended the premiere, she made time to meet with a group of Harvard Alumni from Harvardwood and the Harvard Club of Toronto. It was an honor to meet with her personally and celebrate her accomplishments.
Lindsay graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard with a B.A. in English and American Language and Literature. She was a Phi Beta Kappa member and an editor for the Harvard Crimson. She also completed the Radcliffe Publishing Procedures Course.
Lindsay entered her sophomore year with an optimistic eye towards a variety of majors, from Social Relations to Government, but studying the syllabus found she only felt passionate about courses in reading and writing. An “English and American Language and Literature” major was born. She also joined the Crimson, notably serving as editor during the 1973 college protests over the bombing of Cambodia, and learned Transcendental Meditation, later becoming a teacher of the technique. This need to balance outer and inner realities has marked her work ever since. While she discovered that her writing temperament was not suited to the objectivity required for journalism, her time on the paper was invaluable.
Today, Lindsay is an accomplished screenwriter, author and conceptual editor. But the path to this point was neither straight, nor easy.
When it comes to her professional calling, Lindsay considers herself to be a “late bloomer.”
“When I was a student at Harvard, one of the most painful experiences for me regarding writing was one of the best experiences.”
She was admitted into a small seminar on non-fiction writing using fiction techniques mid-year, and overheard fellow classmates questioning that decision, based on her first essay. Crushed, she set aside writing for over two decades.
During that time, she married Ned Beatty, an American actor, had two children, started a school, and travelled the globe, storing up experiences she could draw from when she returned to writing, once her children were grown up. Her first attempt followed the shocking murder of an acquaintance. “I knew what I was supposed to do. I had to write about this. It seemed like the only way to make sense of it.”
Reminiscent of her Harvard days, Lindsay noted that she began writing a book of non-fiction, The Last Great Place, using fiction techniques. “It was the novelization of a true crime.” Although she did not get that book published, this was her first ‘dip’ into writing. Then came some trying times, as her marriage fell apart and she felt that her life was falling apart. Her second book was a memoir, The Sound of One Heart Breaking, this time written to make sense of the dissolution of her marriage. Lindsay joined a writer’s group, and found herself drawn to writing screenplays -- perhaps inevitable, as she was living in Los Angeles. She needed to support herself, but felt stalled as to how to proceed.
Lindsay went on a self-retreat to try to understand what was stopping her, and found a decades-old wound. The fear of exposure, the fear of having people not like what she was writing: that, she realized, was stopping her. She set out to conquer that fear. She asked herself more hard questions. “What kind of stories do I want to tell?” “Am I willing to tell them no matter what?” She made a list of people who were willing to help her. “I had to be willing to write truthfully and to align myself with likeminded people that could help me. I had to be willing to allow myself to take risks and to feel the fear.” Her mission was to tell stories of personal transformation and hope.
Doors soon started opening up. She found mentors and she was invited to work on a screenplay for a story of the Buddha, right in her wheelhouse of tales she wanted to tell. She started to collaborate with writer/director Peter Chelsom, first as a consultant, and then as co-writer. Hector and the Search for Happiness, another modern hero’s quest story, is one of the results. About five years ago, bestselling non-fiction transformational author Gay Hendricks asked Lindsay to conceptually edit his first draft of a mystery novel about an ex-Tibetan monk working as a private investigator, again right up her alley. Editing turned into co-writing, and she became the co-author of The Rules of Ten detective series. Hay House Publishing will publish The Fourth Rule of Ten in January 2015.
Lindsay has always been an avid reader and writer, and finds story-telling fascinating. In fact, she prefers to say that she is more of a story-teller than a writer. “Story-telling, whatever the genre, is very anarchic in its own way and a means of shifting people at a deeper level than teaching them or telling them. The more powerful the story is, the more possible it is to change people’s points of view or deepen their experiences of things.”
The First Rule of Ten is, “don’t ignore intuitive tickles, lest they reappear as sledgehammers.” When asked to explain this further, Lindsay said that when the protagonist, Tenzing Norbu, went against his intuition, unfavorable things happened, but when he followed his intuition, he solved the mysteries. Speaking from her own experience, Lindsay observed that “in the past I think I was less willing to listen to my intuition.” Now, “there are moments when it’s unmistakable for me…if I don’t listen to that voice because it’s inconvenient, scary or it’s not perhaps the popular move or it’s a move that I know will lead to discomfort rather than comfort…if I ignore it, it comes back in a different form and if I follow it, then red lights start turning green.”
When asked about advice to aspiring writers, she believes strongly that “you should feel the joy or fear or terror of your characters because you are then allowing yourself to become them when you are writing.” Lindsay thus encourages students to have a conversation with themselves, to find out what kind of stories they are drawn to. Then, “you can bring that passion to your writing.” She also suggests joining a writer’s group.
In closing, Lindsay commented: “I have to make sure the process is enriching. It’s about not clinging to the result. The process is the experience. If I can be fully engaged in the process, then I can let go and I am much less likely to be devastated if the result isn’t what I wanted, which often happens, especially in Hollywood.”
With regards to her latest accomplishment, Hector and the Search for Happiness, Lindsay again emphasized her deep personal involvement and its impact: “writing a movie about happiness changed me and it was an extraordinary experience.”