I often search the webernet for articles and interviews by and about authors authoring things. I am finishing up a deep edit of a screenplay I've been working on for a while. It is a frustrating task. I kind of like the idea (and have invested a lot of time developing it), but it feels pretty flat. Out of frustration, I spent a little time in the morning yesterday scouring articles and interviews wherein authors I enjoy vent poetic about their work. Reading about the process of writing is interesting to me, even though it is very much the case that I will never be as rad as any of them.
Discipline is the key. When you're disciplined (and have the ability to knock out 10,000 words or so in a day), shaving off a thousand or two in an edit isn't much of a problem. When you're not disciplined, those words, no matter how useless and lame, are needed. Michael Chabon, in one of the webernet intercles summed up the importance as such: Louis Pasteur said, "Chance favors the prepared mind." If you're really engaged in the writing, you'll work yourself out of whatever jam you find yourself in. I get this. I makes sense. Even when my writing is subsubpar, the simple act of doing usually produces something interesting. Now, interesting doesn't necessarily equal good, but it is a lot better than a lot of things... like torture and night terrors.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
I think I may loosely base my next story on the life of Frank Churchill. Churchill was a Disney songwriter who blew his brains out at the piano after composing the score to Bambi . He started as a theater pianist in Ventura. As the story goes, it was said that he had grown depressed over Walt's constant criticism of his writing, though I think I read somewhere that it may have had something to do with the weight of love lost and the death of a few friends. Whatever the case, it seems ripe for sweet, dry, melancholic short fiction with peppered elements of the fantastic. I might have some final scene wherein he offs himself after composing "Reality is a Shadow."
Thursday, May 15, 2008
I just finished up my first bit of short fiction in quite some time. It was really rewarding and I look forward to continuing the process. I love collaborating, but it can get a little trying at times. The short was about an old man with super powers. He is at the end of his life and quite contemplative in regards to the nature of his gift. His abilities have had their place in his life, but they really haven't given him any advantage and he is quite close to death. I think it might make a good movie. My goal was basically to try and write a bit of minimalist short fiction with fantastical elements. Though the writing may well blow, I think I put together something sort of interesting. Maybe. If I had my druthers, the superhero grandfather would be played by a more subtle Lee Marvin in one of those tough guy gets sensitive for his last role before death things. Paul Newman might also fit the bill quite nicely.
Friday, May 9, 2008
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What makes a man to wander?
What makes a man to roam?
What makes a man leave bed and board
And turn his back on home?
Ride away, ride away, ride away.
I am going to see The Searchers at the Archlight next Wednesday. The Stan Jones ballad that plays during the opening credits (sounding as if it was recorded by ghosts in a cave) is as affecting on my aesthetic as any bit of literature or film. The song, as sung by The Sons of the Pioneers, acts (along with "Blue Shadows" and "Don't Fence Me In") like a statement of purpose for the characters in most if not all of my work. I'm not saying this homage should be any sort of validation for my work (good, or most likely bad), rather that its weight is such that it is impossible to erase from my subconscious. The chiseled sunburnt face of the song's unnamed "Protagonist" (Ethan Edwards), ought to be enshrined as a monument somewhere along the Navajo Trail: the monument should be carved in red rock as a totem pole maybe... stacked high with the tortured mugs of Rabbit Angstrom, Antoine Doinel, and Alexander Portnoy... examples of lost boys grown... of men who held fast to the belief that "reality is but a shadow of the dreams we dream."
Thursday, May 8, 2008
I've taken about a week's sabbatical from Heroes and Villains to write a short story about a grandpa with superpowers. The story is loosely based on my grandfather, though the man's personality is more how I might perceive myself at that advanced age. It's incredibly narcissistic, to be sure, but I've really given up trying to write characters that are interesting and original. I'm still debating as to whether or not I'll post the story here when I'm finished, though I'm really pleased with how it's going and really do prefer the genre. With prose, I can direct, I can make the decisions about what the characters say and do... for better or (most likely) worse, that which happens internally and externally is completely up to me. It's very freeing.
When finished, I may turn it into something more- a full length screenplay or a short maybe. I've several scripts I'm working through, so it may have to wait for a time. I'm not sure why, seeing as I'm not on any real deadlines... I guess I just don't want to interrupt the natural order of the progress of things. I'd thought of using some old family super 8 footage from the sixties and seventies in a sort of docufictiony thing... the images may be interesting as a sort of backdrop for this story... we'll see.
As far as the natural order of the progress of things goes... when this is finished, I will dive back into Heroes and Villains (which is a prequel to Kinetivision). It is our goal to try and shoot it on a shoestring later this year, but I need to start cutting the fantastical elements in order to make it work. When this is finished (or this draft at least) I may write another short story or TV spec before launching into either the goldrush in modern day LA thing, or the Satchel Paige in the Dominican deal, both of which have been written in the past... I've also got a thing about a Marty Robbins-esque cowboy singer who gets his ideas from his own muderous escapades... I could also revise some weaker things that I've written in the past... Maybe I'll deticate some upcoming posts to these projects. I'm not sure, we'll see.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
INTERVIEWER
Do you feel that there are certain themes which are basic to the American experience, even though a body of writing in a given period might ignore or evade them?
ROBERT PENN WARREN
First thing, without being systematic, what comes to mind without running off a week and praying about it, would be that America was based on a big promise—a great big one: the Declaration of Independence. When you have to live with that in the house, that’s quite a problem—particularly when you’ve got to make money and get ahead, open world markets, do all the things you have to, raise your children, and so forth. America is stuck with its self-definition put on paper in 1776, and that was just like putting a burr under the metaphysical saddle of America—you see, that saddle’s going to jump now and then and it pricks.
You can read the whole thing here...
