Plans for 2016?

It's that time of year again, I reckon, to mull over my plans for the upcoming year.

I'm going to continue to work to develop my filmmaking skills--my goal for the new year is to become more proficient at writing, shooting, and editing video.

I've also decided to spend some time plugging the gaps in my knowledge. I plan to pick a particular subject and spend at least a couple weeks learning as much as I can about it. I don't expect this to make me an expert in whatever it is I'm learning about, but it should at least give me a basic understanding of it. Who knows--I may learn something I can actually use in a script or something. At the very least my broadened understanding of the world will enrich my life in ways that can't be predicted. So I tell myself, anyway.

Since it's been in the news so much lately I think my first research topic will be Islam. I've already got several books about the history of the religion, as well as a copy of the Koran, and all of which I've read--I think I'll re-read those, and look for new material.

After that, I'm not sure where I'll go with my curiosity. I'm still mulling over the possibilities. I'll probably wind up making a checklist. The only qualification is it can't be something I've already spent a lot of time learning about--like the history of the Roman Empire. It has to be something new, something I haven't been exposed to all that much before.

And it can be anything, not just something that's on the news a lot or that I should have learned in school. That sort of opens the door to all sorts of stuff, I guess.

Yeah, I need to make a list. Oh, well. That'll be my goal over the next few days.

Anyways, for the one or two of you who read this, have a happy new year, stay safe, and have fun!

Post L.A. trip and holiday wishes . . .

I just realized I haven't posted anything at all since my return from LA, so here goes:

Once I was out there I completely forgot to make any videos. I apologize for that, in the unlikely event anybody out there was looking forward to it. I was too busy enjoying myself, though the weather wasn't LA-like--it was cold and windy the whole time. I think the wind is normal, though the cold is a bit unusual.

Anyway, while there we went to the Getty Art Museum and grounds. Twice. It was wonderful--I actually got to see, up close and personal, some Impressionist paintings by Degas, Renoir, and others. Also got to see Van Gough's Irises painting--which is one of my favorites of his works. Absolutely beautiful.

If you're going to LA you must make sure to visit this place. Parking is $15, but the museum itself is free. If you don't want to spend any money be sure to avoid the gift shops, because they have all kinds of beautiful and interesting things there that you'll want.

We also went to Universal Studios, and I can heartily recommend that, too. Be sure to take the tour--they actually make it a ride instead of just, "That's where such-and-such TV show was shot, this is where such-and-such movie was filmed . . ." Granted, the added attractions are a bit silly, but it's still fun. The Harry Potter section will be opening very soon--it looks wonderful, too.

My goddaughter and her mom, my dear friend Rox, are huge Disney fans, so we spent a couple of days at Disneyland--we spent the night at the Disneyland Hotel, which was pricey, but beautiful and comfortable. I flat out don't do roller coasters or other rides like that so we missed a lot of my goddaughter's favorite rides, but since they actually live there and have annual passes they'll be going back to hit those themselves soon.

We also saw the American Ballet Theater's production of The Nutcracker, which was my first experience with ballet. I enjoyed it--it was expertly staged and performed, with a few unexpected innovations in the choreography that I won't give away here except to say they were surprising but brilliant.

I enjoyed it and, as soon as my wallet and scheduling permits, would love to go back. Hopefully on my return trip it won't be quite so cold.

Creatively, I just finished the screenplay for Too Many Tonys and registered it with the copyright office and the Writer's Guild. As soon as I get the registration number back from the Guild I'm going to enter it into a contest I found on Script Pipeline.

Next up, I'm starting development on a new feature film project I'm calling Child of the Moon. It's an urban fantasy. At this point I'm fleshing out the basic story, and searching for an ending. Once I get the ending I can actually sit down and write a treatment for it.  After that will come the first draft of the script.

I'm also editing a project I shot just to learn how to use Apple's Final Cut X software. Maybe I'll wind up with a short, finished show that I can upload to You Tube or something, but I doubt it--since this is a learning exercise, it probably won't be anything I'll want to share with the world.

Anyway, I hope the two or three of you who read this thing have a happy holiday and a safe and prosperous new year!

The week ahead . . . and a little bragging . . .

My beautiful and perfect goddaughter, Talyan, has been cast to appear in an episode of one of her--and her mom's--favorite TV shows, Criminal Minds. She's already began shooting. Of course I'll post it here when the air date is scheduled, so the one or two of you who sometimes read this can watch it. Yes, I'm very proud of her.

That's the bragging mentioned in the title.

It just so happens that I'm heading out to Los Angeles in the next few days to visit Talyan and her mom. She'll be done shooting by the time I get there, so I won't get to go on-set with her, but I'm cool with that. It's going to be a blast.

I'm planning to shoot a video of my trip and edit it together when I get back into sort of a documentary. This is mostly for the practice--I may never show it to anybody, depending on what I come up with. Of course I'll be taking a ton of stills, too, especially of our overnight trip to Disneyland. I'm going to ride the monorail! I've always wanted to do that . . .

I've been rereading this screenplay I wrote a while back, Too Many Tonys, and I've been a bit shocked to discover that, to me, anyway, it reads really well. I remember not being all that happy with it when I finished the first draft, but now, coming back to it after putting it down for a month or so, I'm forced to conclude, "Not bad . . ." There are one or two things that need some more work--a couple of the characters are still a bit off, and I'm not completely happy with the ending--but, overall, not bad, if I do say so myself.

What I'll be doing over the weekend is using Power Point to come up with something kind of like a storyboard (thanks to my old friend Regina who mentioned that when I told her about this--I hadn't thought of it that way until she said something!). This will be a little different from the usual storyboard, though. Typically, a storyboard is created for a director to figure out camera angles and camera movements--this one will be more to help me find areas of the story that aren't working, or could work better. So, I'll create a series of slides representing the scenes in the screenplay, then step through them, in the hope that any false notes will be revealed to me as I sort of watch the movie in my mind with the aid of the slides.

When I'm done I'll also have something other people can look at to help me pitch the idea to them, too. Two birds, one stone.

Of course, I've also got the usual things in store for the weekend--laundry, mostly. Also, it's championship weekend in college football so I'll be watching the games. Or at least have them on while I'm working on the movie thing.

It's shaping up to be a really pleasant weekend, in other words.

On the implementation of my fiendish plan . . .

I know, it's been a while since I've posted anything. For anyone who may have noticed, I apologize.

I've been quite busy, actually. I mentioned a while back I was going to get into filmmaking, and to that end I bought a camera--a Canon EOS 70D. I also got an iMac so I can run Final Cut.

I've never been all that into photography so I've got a lot to learn there. I'm getting there, mostly through trial-and-error, which is the best way for me to learn anything.

I've always been a PC-guy so it's also taken me a little time to get up-to-speed on the iMac, but I think I know enough now to get by. I'm using it to type this, actually. I have to say, this huge Retina 5 display is amazing.

One gripe I have, though, is with whoever writes the "Help" documentation for Apple's software. Trying to figure out how to create a master in Garage Band only brought up a definition of what a master is, not instructions on how to make one. Fortunately I could resort to Google to find an article that explained it. Still, it's really frustrating.

Final Cut is the software a lot of people in the film industry use to edit video, which is why I made the substantial investment in this new computer--as well as for the software, which also ain't cheap. I'm going to make this little film starring some toy dinosaurs I have--I've already recorded the dialog using Garage Band, and now I'm going to create the video and edit it using Final Cut. Maybe I'll make the final result available on You Tube or something, or maybe not. It depends on how happy I am with how it turns out.

I also managed to register with the Writer's Guild and copyright a script for my short film, "Niobe," today. So even though it's a holiday I'm not just sitting around eating and watching football.

So, after I finish fooling around with my toy dinosaurs I may shoot one or two more little films featuring those guys before moving on to filming something with actual people in it.

Of course, with the holiday I've got some time off from work, and I'm going to use that to work on this short film. I need to shoot the video portion, edit it and associate it with the dialog I've already recorded, put it all together so that it makes a witty and entertaining little film.

Or trash the whole bloody thing and start over. Either way, I will have learned something!

Sovran (Draconian)

Draconian Sovran

It's always a concern for me when a vocalist leaves a band that I'm really into.

Such was the case with Draconian--I was broken-hearted when Lisa Johansson left, as her amazing voice was one of the reasons I started listening to them in the first place.

In my experience many bands decide to go in a different direction when replacing a vocalist, but fortunately Draconian decided to stick with what was working. New vocalist Heike Langhans has a voice very similar to Lisa's, and this is a very good thing.

The first track, "Heavy Lies The Crown," sets the tone, and when Heike's vocal began I felt a great sense of relief. It was beautiful and powerful and full of drama, which is exactly what I was hoping for, and, indeed, demand from this band.

The remaining tracks are what I've come to expect from this band, which is a Very Good Thing. Their previous albums have raised the bar very high in my book so to have my expectations met with this one is almost mind boggling.

The song "Rivers Between Us," (featuring guest vocalist Daniel Anghede) is a bit of a departure for them--it's a little more romantic than their other material, but it's haunting and beautiful. Check out the video here. This tune has managed to finally dethrone Within Temptation's "Let Us Burn" as my favorite, and it's currently in super-duper heavy rotation on my personal playlist.

All-in-all, this one is well worth the wait. I give it an A+ and highly recommend that you click the link at the top and buy it. Now.

In Search of Citizen Z.E.D.

Two types of movies that I lose patience with very quickly: time travel, and "found footage."

So, needless to say, a project that came to me a while back, and which now has a title (see above), is both a time travel story and a "found footage" one.

I'm really excited about it, because I've finally managed to think up a story that I think will address a couple of issues that I think are important, and do so in an engaging and entertaining way, without becoming preachy.

Beyond that, I don't really want to say much more right now. It's still in the early stages. Next step will be to write a treatment for it, and that will require some more thought.

In the mean time I intend to focus on this idea for a short, "Niobe," which I will begin plugging away on as soon as I post this update.

I've finished the first draft of Two Many Tonys and I'm letting it sit for a little while, as I work on these other things. By the time I come back to it hopefully I'll be able to read over it with fresh eyes and know what changes need to be made--beyond those that resulted in me changing my mind about some things as I was banging it out.

So, I'll be plotting and writing "Niobe," treating In Search of Citizen Z.E. D., and trying not to allow any more projects crowd my already limited attention. It's not easy. For some reason I've been coming up with other ideas that I really like, and older ideas I've had are sort of waking up and clamoring for my attention, too. One of the curses of doing what I do, I guess.

Anyways, time to work on this short thing, and hopefully manage to pound out something that'll be both engaging and under twenty minutes or so in length.

And watch football. Because I just can't help myself.

Projects on deck, in queue, and at bat . . .

Okay, a more normal posting from me now, about what I've been up to lately.

I'm maybe 2/3 of the way through the alpha draft of a screenplay for a mystery that I'm calling Too Many Tonys. I call it an alpha draft because it's not quite together enough to be considered a first draft. I've changed my mind about some key plot elements and I'll have to straighten all that out with a rewrite later. Right now, if somebody besides me read it, it wouldn't make much sense, because of that.

Once I get to the "Fade out:" for that project I'm going to put it aside for a couple of weeks to work on a short project I'm calling Niobe. It's more of a drama, and I don't expect it to be longer than 10 script pages. Maybe less. It's going to take some intense concentration on my part to get it down to that short because I've got a lot of story to tell and I'm not giving myself much time to tell it. It'll take some thinking to get it down to that length without making the story seem choppy. I'm also planning, eventually, to shoot this one myself, which is another consideration. That won't be until sometime next year, though, at the earliest. I'm not going to be setting this one aside--I'm going to focus on it until it's done.

Then, once I'm done with that script, I'll jump back onto Too Many Tonys and begin the rewriting process. Within a couple months hopefully I'll have this baby to the point where I can copyright it and register it with the Screenwriter's Guild.

After that, I've got another short project I want to do--this one is more horror than anything. I'm calling it Inside, and it's based on my own song of the same title. I plan on shooting this one myself, as well. I'm expecting it to be around 10 pages or so in length.

By that time I should be ready to start on this project that, right now, has me a bit intimidated. I don't have a title for it yet, but it'll be a science fiction piece that involves time travel. Yes, I know I've said I hate time travel stories, but this is such a good idea . . . anyway, it's one of those stories that could really make some statements I feel need to be made, and be entertaining at the same time. It's also going to take some intricate plotting, and the pacing is going to be especially tricky. It's one of those things that'll either be great, or really suck. There won't be any in-between.

Then there's another drama about a preacher with something to hide, based on a short story I wrote years ago, that I think would make a decent little movie.

At this point it gets a bit nebulous, but I do have some things I'm considering--most of these would require me acquiring the movie rights so they'd fall into the area of pipe dreams at this time:

• A prequel to the Predator movies
• An adaptation of Michael Moorcock's The War Hound and the World's Pain
• An adaptation of the Karl Edward Wagner and David Drake novel, Killer
• A romcom about a couple who has been living together for over a decade deciding to get married--and the Queen of England winds up attending the wedding (due to various and sundry hijinks and escapades . . .)
• A "bitter home boy" story set in a small Southern town I'm calling Misery Creek.
• A horror movie set on a space ship

Of course, all of this is subject to change. Hopefully I'll live long enough--and somehow find the time and money--to do all this. We'll see . . .

Hopefully this will clear up some of the confusion . . .

I was chatting with my goddaughter the other day, and we were discussing movies that are out now and which one, if any, I should see. She suggested Pan. I told her that I don't particularly care for Peter Pan.

She was aghast, and horrified, and thought I couldn't love her anymore because she adores Peter Pan. I told her that, first of all, I don't hate  Peter Pan, it's just not something I care for. Also, she is free to continue loving it all she wants, and I'd even watch the movie with her if she wants. I also explained that I don't expect her to like the same things that I like, and she's free to watch or read or listen to whatever she wants, as long as she enjoys it.

She accepted this and was overjoyed that we might get to see Pan together.

My goddaughter is 11 years old, and even she could grasp a concept that seems to elude an awful lot of people these days.

Choice:

 the act of choosing : the act of picking or deciding between two or more possibilities: the opportunity or power to choose between two or more possibilities : the opportunity or power to make a decision: a range of things that can be chosen

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/choice

See, I've been seeing all these memes on Facebook posted by people who oppose abortion about how it's the first step in eliminating people who may oppose those in power. It's just another tool for keeping people down. This from mostly people on the far right.

Of course, for something like this to work, abortion would have to be mandatory. There would be police officers rounding pregnant women up to force them into clinics to have abortions. While I've seen that happen in other places in the world, I just don't see it happening here anytime soon.

See, what gets their dander up is choice. They don't seem to understand that just because you can do something, it doesn't mean you must do something. If something is legal they seem to think it's mandatory.

This is one of the tools in the lunatic fringe's toolbox. They did the same thing with marriage equality--skipping right over the fact that all it does is give gays the right to marry each other, and making it seem like it's required now, for everybody, or will be in the future.

The folks who buy into this seem to have problems grasping that concept. It's not just politically, either--if you don't like the movies they like, or the food, or whatever, they think there's something wrong with you, not that you just don't care for it.

So, here's my deal. You can marry who you want, you can go to whichever church you want, you can believe politically whatever you want, you can read whatever books or see whatever movies you want. The fact that I may disagree with you is not a slap in your face, and the fact that you may make decisions that I wouldn't make is not offensive to me.

But when you decide that you know what's best for me, and use lies and misinformation to try to limit the choices I can make simply because you don't like them, it's a step too far, and then I will get offended, and I will say something.

So, please, understand what the word choice means. Use it in a sentence. Try to apply it in your daily life.

If you still don't get it I know an 11 year old who could probably explain it to you.

The Visit, directed by M. Night Shyamalan

M. Night Shyamalan's latest film, The Visit, compares favorably to his more successful efforts, The Sixth Sense, and Unbreakable, though it is a bit of a departure from those two earlier films.

The basic plot is a teenaged sister and brotherr, Becca and Tyler (Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould) are sent to visit their grandparents by their mom, (Kathryn Hahn), while mom takes a trip with her boyfriend. Since mom has been estranged from her parents for years, the two kids have never seen their grandparents, and know very few details about them.

Of course, all sorts of strange things happen, and the suspense builds until the kids find out exactly what is really going on. The film is presented as a documentary filmed by Becca, who is a budding filmmaker, and that is something you'll need to keep in mind as you watch it.

Like The Sixth Sense, there is a twist that will change the context of the story. Unlike that other film (which is on my list of all-time favorite movies, btw), the twist here is quite sinister. The Sixth Sense is an even better movie if you see it while knowing the surprise at the end. I'm not sure I can watch The Visit again, knowing what's really happening.

Shyamalan made some odd choices as far as his staging goes--many of his shots have all of the activity in the shot going on to the left of the screen, with nothing at all on the right. I'm sure this was deliberate, and possibly it was his way echoing what was going on in the plot--by the end of the film staging was a lot more traditional, and we also know a lot more of what was going on with the story.  I'm sure that the conceit that it was supposedly shot by an amateur filmmaker had some bearing on it as well.

Performances were solid all around, and the film has the look you would expect from Shyamalan, with a gorgeous color palette and interesting contrasts. There are plenty of shocks and scares, and, while the ending isn't quite as satisfying as I'd like, it was still wrapped up nicely.

I'd recommend it. See it, at least once.

On a side note--I was a bit disconcerted, during the previews, at the number of movies that were "based on a true story." I find those incredibly tedious. I don't mind films based on true stories per se; it's when they are marketed that way that I find them annoying. Why? Because an awful lot of people forget about the "based on" part and just assume that every shot, every word of dialog, every bit of action, is what really happened. Uh, no. Don't ever use a narrative film to help you decide how you feel about a historical event, because chances are an awful lot of it was just made up to fit whatever narrative the filmmaker wanted to relate.

Okay, those are my thoughts about The Visit. Have you seen it? If you did, what did you think?

How to eat an elephant

I've made some personal decisions over the past week or so that I'd like to share here.

After going through a good bit of personal struggle, I've decided that I'm just going to give up writing fiction. There are reasons for this decision that I'm not going to go into right now, but it's the best way for me to go.

I'm going to concentrate on films now. For the next few months I'll be working on writing screenplays and treatments. During the next year or so I'm going to begin accumulating the equipment and software I'll need to start shooting and producing my own films.

Which means I'm about to get into directing, which is something I have no clue how to do. I'm going to start small, maybe shooting a short film or a music video or something, and hopefully work my way up to bigger stuff.

Until I start investing in this rather expensive new hobby, though, I'm going to educate myself as much as I can.

I've got a lot to learn. I don't have a great deal of time. Most people who get into this do so when they're a lot younger than me--most filmmakers at my age at least have a ton of short films under their belts by now. I'm going to take it a little at the time. I used to have a manager at my day job who was fond of saying, "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at the time." Which means, even if the task is monumental, it can be done if you just break it down into smaller, more manageable, tasks.

For example--I'm working on a screenplay for a crime drama, and the plot is going to be a bit complicated. There's a mystery at the heart of the story and those are always tricky.

So, I started by breaking it down into broad, basic statements that outline each act. Then, I develop each of those a little more, giving a bit more info, and going into some detail about the ending. This is the treatment, and having the basic outline is very helpful. Just remember not to go into too much detail unless you must--you need to spell out the ending because that's what any producers who are interested in the project will want to see, but a lot of the smaller details of the plot can be referenced broadly or even omitted entirely.

To give you an example, here's my own outline for a movie I know you're familiar with, my personal all-time favorite, Alien:

• Act I: The commercial towing vehicle Nostromo lands on the planetoid LV-426 to investigate the origins of an alien radio transmission. One of the crew is infected with a parasite. Back on-board the ship, the parasite erupts from the crewmember and escapes onto the ship.
• Act II: the parasite has grown to enormous proportions, and it begins grabbing members of the crew and taking them away for reasons unknown.*
• Act III: Warrant Officer Ripley escapes the Nostromo using the emergency shuttle, and blows up the Nostromo in the process, after the creature kills the two other remaining crewmembers..
• Act IV: Unknown to Ripley, the parasite has taken refuge on the shuttle, too. She manages to expel it. She makes an entry into the shuttle's log before climbing into the stasis tube to go back to suspended animation and hope someone finds the shuttle.

See? Of course, there's a helluva a lot more than that, but this is a pretty decent summation, I think. Now you can take each act and expand it, giving more detail, working out the plot. It should be no more than a page or two when you're done. Then, you start writing the thing itself, where you finally start worrying about the details, but only for the particular piece you're doing.

Easy peasy, right? Well, it helps. I'll be taking the same approach toward learning my new hobby, directing, too. One bite at a time.

So, that's what's going to be eating up all my time and money over the foreseeable future.

*To get a pretty good idea what the xenomorph actually did to Dallas and Brett see Ridley Scott's 2003 director's cut. You owe it to yourself.

My top five film list

I'm planning to get quite a bit of work done on this screenplay thing this weekend. So, right now I'm indulging in a time-honored tradition of all writers, everywhere--I'm screwing around with something trivial to put off getting into something important.

So, I decided to post my top five films, along with my thoughts about each. I will reiterate that, on my list, while numbers 2 - 5 will change positions depending on my mood (but it'll still be the same five films), #1 has consistently been #1 since I first saw it in the theater in 1979, and I don't see any upcoming films that have the potential to dethrone it.

So, here you go:

1. Alien. There. I said it. Anybody who knows me will tell you I'm obsessed with this movie, and they'd be right. The sequels--not so much, really. Why? Because the characters are relatable, the setting looks and feels authentic, the creature is terrifying. It's a film that has an agenda--to scare the hell out of its audience. It succeeds. It's a perfect organism, with no fear, no remorse, no delusions of morality. Everything about it is perfect--the film score sort of puts the viewer in a place of unease from the opening titles, the soundtrack is disconcerting throughout. The pacing is perfect. The cast doesn't spend any time winking at the camera like in so many other horror movies--they take it seriously, allowing the viewer to buy into the idea that the stakes are life-and-death. And, yes, this is a horror movie, with science fiction trappings, but still, its primary bloodline is horror.
2. The Sixth Sense. People seem to consider this a scary movie, or a horror movie, and I don't really see why. Sure, there are ghosts, but they aren't very scary. It's actually a touching, beautiful story of a young boy and his mother adjusting to life after his father leaves them. I watched this with my eleven-year old goddaughter recently and she didn't find it scary, though she loved it. She also got to see me cry, as I always do, at that scene near the end, with the boy and his mom in the car. When he says, "Grandma says she saw you dance," the waterworks switch on for me. Dammit. Every time. One reason I love this movie is because it's even better when you watch it after you already know the big surprise at the end. Watching it again, knowing the big secret, will reveal a lovely, sad, touching story of a woman mourning her husband, unable to move past his murder. Beautiful performances all around. I know he has his detractors but I like Bruce Willis in a role like this. He was wonderful. As was everyone else.
3. Citizen Kane. This is the only movie on my list that I don't actually have in my collection. I realized that yesterday and promptly ordered the 70th Anniversary edition on BluRay. Considered by many critics to be the best film ever made--I wouldn't go quite that far, but it's a damned fine effort, especially considering it was Orson Welles's first feature film. Welles knew nothing of making movies when he got the gig with RKO to make five of them, so he was learning as he went. He and his brilliant cinematographer, Gregg Toland, found a way to shoot a deep background shot where both the foreground and the background are in focus. The screenplay, by Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz, tells a compelling story of Charles Foster Kane, a man whose life story bears a striking resemblance to that of William Randolph Hearst. It's not one of those movies that'll put a spring in your step and a song on your lips--it's kind of a downer. But it's one of those that, if you say you love movies, you have to see at least once.
4. Casablanca. Yeah, another black-and-white movie. This one mixes a dark sense of humor with a gripping story. When you watch it, remember the context of the time in which it came out--it was 1942, and the war in Europe was far from decided. Keep that in mind in particular during the "La Marseilles" scene in Rick's café. That one scene is my favorite in any movie anywhere. It'll get your blood to pumping. It's also an example of an economical scene, too--it shows why Victor Laslo's followers are willing to die to protect him, why the Germans were so afraid of him, and why Ilsa was so in love with him. It's also a dramatic f@ck you! to the Nazis. My god, I love that scene so much.
5. The Godfather. A great example for writers to use when learning their craft. How much exposition to you absorb during the first, say, ten minutes or so? You aren't even aware of it, even though quite a few times you have a character who is just explaining what's going on. It's so interesting you don't care. Brando's performance shows why he was considered one of the greatest actors ever. Duvall was wonderful, as always. Pacino was great, able to handle the dramatic evolution of Michael from an honest citizen and war hero to the head of a major crime family--trust me, there aren't many actors out there who could pull something like that off. Diane Keaton turned in a performance of great subtly, too, as a deeply religious woman in love with Michael, even though he becomes someone she considers a monster before the end. I'm not as big a fan of the sequels, though the second one is very good, but see this one, anyway.

Okay, I think as soon as my copy of Citizen Kane gets here I'm going to have a film festival!

So, what would your list be?

Progress report and randomocities

I've decided what I'm currently doing with my screenplay Yod-17 shouldn't really be considered a first draft.

Yes, it's a screenplay, and a draft per se, but I know that the final draft will have little resemblance to what I'm doing now. All I'm doing is telling the story in screenplay form. Basically, I'm just laying it out, and when I'm done I'll write a treatment for it, since I'll finally know where the story is going. After that I'll begin the first rewrite, which I will then consider the first draft.

To me, this is the most organic, natural way to do it. Others may have other methods. This is what works for me. I'll do a rewrite, let it mellow a while, then do another one. Then another one. Usually after four rewrites, maybe five, it'll be in good enough shape for me to consider letting other people look at it. I hope to be at that point by the end of the year, maybe early next year.

There isn't any hurry, really. Any timetable I have is one I'm imposing on myself.

One reason I'm doing this is to have a script I'm completely satisfied with available to submit to contests, or to use as an audition for any screenwriting jobs. I have a couple of others but both of those have strings attached to them so I can't be sending them out willy nilly for people to look at. The only other script I had was a pilot for a TV show that I've mentioned here in the past--a series I'm calling Strange Aeons. I just submitted that one to a screenwriting contest, so it's kind of tied up right now, too, for a while. Anyway, it'll be nice to have some finished work available that I can actually show to people if I want.

Here's an example of a writing exercise I indulge in sometimes, just for your amusement. I went out to breakfast this morning, taking with me the Orson Welles biography I'm currently reading. At the IHOP I made eye contact once or twice with the gentlemen sitting at the booth next to mine--he was also eating alone. He had his newspaper, I had my book, to keep us company.

In another booth across from us sat another man, also alone. He had no book, nor did he have a newspaper. When I first noticed that I thought maybe he was waiting on someone, but no. He placed his order and the waitress brought his food, which he ate, looking straight ahead as he did so.

For some reason I find this fascinating. I usually have to be doing something while I'm eating--reading, doing a crossword puzzle on the app on my phone, watching TV, something is keeping me company. To me, this is only natural, and I think most other people are like this, too.

Am I wrong? What do you think this man's story is?

On being critical

I've ordered a couple of books that should serve as an introduction to film and literary criticism.

This is in keeping with my decision to educate myself with the language of filmmaking, to fill the gaps in my knowledge of the art and practice of writing and making movies. It should be interesting, and give me some needed perspective on my own efforts to write screenplays.

We'll see. At the very least I will have learned something. In the mean time I'm still working through my two volume biography of Orson Welles, fascinating in and of itself. Welles is still a young man at this point--I'm still pre-Citizen Kane--and I bet he was an exhausting little scamp to associate with when he was that age.

My first draft for Yod-17 is still coming along. I'm almost halfway through it now. When I finish it I'll put it aside for a while, and work on another project I'm pretty excited about. The new project is a novel I'll be co-writing with my best friend. She's crazy busy but hopefully she'll be able to find the time to contribute to the project. She's a very good writer herself, and she's also a forensic psychologist, so hopefully this will turn into something we can convince someone to publish.

We'll see. In the mean time I'm going to keep reading, writing, and watching. And hoping.

Yod-17

I'm going ahead and giving you the working title for my latest screenplay (above) because it'll tell you absolutely nothing about what it's about.

Yes, I hate the title, but it was all I could come up with and I have to call it something. So, I settled on this.. Hopefully something better will suggest itself to me as I get deeper into the first draft.

It's basically a ghost story set on a space ship--which, I am well aware, is also an apt description of my favorite film of all-time, Alien. This is sort of an homage to that film, without being a rip-off of it. It is to be hoped, anyway.

The first draft is coming along pretty well, I'd say. I'm almost at the end of the first act, which is almost the point at which I can say I'll probably finish it.

It's unabashedly a horror story with science fiction-ish trappings. The basic, underlying motivation for this is to scare the ever-loving shit out of the audience. That's really all I want to do with this bad boy.

What else have I been up to? I've been indulging myself in another, new passion, and that is film.

Yes, I know I write screenplays, but I've never spent much time thinking about the language of film, the history, the context. Over the past few weeks I've developed an obsession about this subject, and I've been working to fill the gaps in my knowledge.

To that end, I watched the entire series, The Story of Film, on Netflix, and I heartily recommend it to you, too, if you are so inclined. I'm also planning to watch some classic films I haven't seen--today it was Taxi Driver. And I'm going to make an effort to see some newer films, now showing at my local theater--last week I saw Trainwreck, which I enjoyed a great deal and also recommend to you.

Reading material is Simon Callow's two-volume biography of Orson Welles, someone I've always found fascinating but knew very little about. I'm sure my library will contain several more books on influential filmmakers or history and critical analysis of films ere much longer.

I'm having fun, and seeing possibilities, getting inspiration from what I'm learning, and finding all sorts of interesting material to use to bore the hell out of anybody unlucky enough to be in close enough proximity. I'm sure I'm about to become a major hit at parties. If I ever went to any.

Anyways, that's what I've been up to, over the past few weeks. How about you?

Soggy 4th of July randomocity

Looks like we're going to get a little rain today. By 'a little' I mean three or four inches in an hour or so. Yes, the downpour is a comin' . . .

Which means it'll be a while before I can go out and pace around the neighborhood while I ruminate over this new project I've given myself.

This is going to be a horror/science fiction thing--see how I put 'horror' first? That's because it'll lean more in that direction than the other. It's going to be a screenplay. I won't got into detail except to say it's kind of a monster movie/haunted house story set in space. Kind of like Alien--it's going to kind of be an homage to that movie, actually. As well as to all those 50s monster movies that helped to warp my psyche into it's current shape.

A couple of things I need before I can get started, though:

• an ending
• a title

It's weird but I at least need to have an idea of what the ending will be before I get started. And I have to call it something. I've got an idea for a working title that I'll probably use--I hate it, but hopefully something better will suggest itself when I start banging away.

Which still leaves me without an ending. I suppose the best thing for me to do is to start working on a treatment and worry about it then. In fact, that is what I'm going to do. Or at least get started on today, in a little while.

That's my plan for the holiday--working on a treatment, and laundry. And hoping not to get washed away with the persistent downpours headed my way.

It's been a while since I've posted, so I want to say congrats to all my gay friends who can now legally marry in this country. It's a long time coming. There's still a long way to go but it's a good start, I guess.

So, stay dry if you're in my area today, have fun, and create something today.

It's been kind of a rough week

There's very little more depressing than discovering that one's heroes are mortal after all.

Two people I've admired for years, and who are at the heart of many a good memory in a long and dark time for me, have died this week.

One is Christopher Lee. Seeing his movies when I was a kid made quite an impression on me, and led me down the path I've been following ever since. He awakened a love of horror in me, one that is still strong and healthy to this day. I didn't know until years later about the incredible life the man lived. Look it up, if you're unaware. You wouldn't believe me if I went into it here and if you hadn't heard already.

The other is Dusty Rhoades. Yes, that Dusty Rhoades, the pro wrestler, real name Virgil Runnels. Yes, there was a time when I was a devoted wrestling fan, and Dusty--aka The American Dream--was at the heart of a lot of fun memories I have from that time. I know people disparage wrestlers, but I have a lot of respect for the ones who reach the top of that game and stay there for a prolonged period. That requires a strange mixture of charisma, verbal skills, and athletic ability.

Granted, the Dream wasn't an impressive athlete, but he was a master at manipulating crowds. Give him a microphone and an audience and he'll have that audience doing whatever he wants them to do. If he'd ever gone into politics he'd be a force to be reckoned with. He had a way of connecting with ordinary people, a way of communicating that he understood the struggles the common people have to go through to live their lives.

And he was all too aware of how people perceived him, and used that for some of the funniest moments I've ever seen on TV.

Anyway, one of those men dying, followed quickly by the other, was a one-two punch that I wasn't ready for this week, and I've been kind of down in the dumps for a few days. Of course, there are other factors at play, too, but you don't care about those.

I've managed to keep banging away on the first draft of this novel, too. I may be onto something with it--there are aspects that I find very interesting. At this rate I should be done with the first draft by the end of the year. Maybe even sooner, if I get on a roll.

Yeah, I'm digging Netflix now

I've been binge watching a new show on Netflix--Sense8. From the minds of J. Michael Stryznski, and the Wachowskis--and if you don't know who those people are, search IMDB.com and come back afterwards.

It's a fairly new phenomenon--it's a show that's designed to be binge watched. There's no way something like this would work in a one-episode-a-week format. I'm not saying you need to sit and watch the entire thing in one sitting, but I do advise you do three or four episodes per session.

For a long time I resisted getting Netflix. I didn't think I'd ever watch it, and, to be honest, I don't as much as other people I know. But there are shows there that aren't available anywhere else, and there are vast wastelands of nothing on regular cable TV, so it helps.

Anyways, should you feel intrigued, one caveat--you need to watch this show. You can't just have it on and sort of check in on it every so often while you do something else. If you do that you'll be completely confused.

Also, there is this moment in episode four that is the epitome of excellence in scriptwriting. All I'll say is it involves the Four Non-Blondes song, "What's Going On?" It was perfection. It literally and figuratively hit all the right notes. If you haven't been paying attention you won't Get It.

I'm sorry, but stuff like that, artistic perfection, makes me giddy.

As far as my own work is concerned, I've decided to adapt a screenplay I wrote a while back into novel form. This was the very first screenplay I ever wrote and it never quite worked--now that it's sort of laid there in my subconscious for a while, marinating in my life experiences and hopes and nightmares, I'm hoping it now has aged into a certain piquancy. We shall see. I just started it so it'll be awhile before enough of it emerges so I can decide if I'm just wasting my time with it (again) or if I have something this time.

So, that's what's going on with me. You?

Remembering . . .

I've been seeing all sorts of remembrances here and there, observances and commemorations of those who died in service to their country. I've seen articles written by veterans, angry that people seem to use Memorial Day to mark the beginning of summer, and that's about it--a day to head to the beach or cook out. Here at my apartment complex they've opened the pool, which they do every Memorial Day weekend.

I'm not a veteran, and don't have any close friends or family who are veterans, but this day does strike a chord with me. Here's how I think we should honor those who died.

Remember what they died for. What they really died for. I'm not talking about the buzzwords the politicians use, like "freedom" and "security." Remember who was pounding the drums to go to the war in the first place, and how they've treated those who came back from it, and whose bank accounts have grown obscenely because of it.

Honor the dead by questioning the motives of those who want to start new wars. Look at who is in favor of it, and what their connections are to people who would benefit from a war--arms manufacturers and defense contractors. How are people who aren't so hawkish treated? During the whole Iraq fiasco I was shouted down constantly when I said that the people who seem to be so desperately in favor of the war would make tons of money off of it, and the evidence that Saddam was involved with al Quaeda was sketchy at best and I felt like we were being lied to. My patriotism was questioned and there are people who do not speak to me to this day because of that. Even though it's turned out I was right, and every day there's even more evidence that, if anything, I understated the case. It was much worse than I imagined, and I was imagining pretty bad.

Make sure, before you decide you support a war, that there is convincing--and I mean convincing--evidence that it's necessary, that we have definite goals in mind, and that we'll take care of the veterans who are wounded, psychologically as well as physically, when they come home. If the politicians and pundits say we can't afford to do that, then we can't afford to start the war in the first place, regardless of our motives.

In short, the best way to honor the dead, I think, it to make it harder for the politicians to start new wars to create more of them.

The suture removal story

I'm just going to leave this here so I can point people to it when I want to tell them this story. Because, while at the moment it's topical and amusing, it probably won't remain that way.

Okay, I had minor surgery a few weeks ago to remove a basal cell carcinoma from my scalp--see my previous posting about that little adventure. At the time, the doctor who performed the surgery told me that he had resigned from that practice, so when I came back to have the stitches removed it would be a different doctor.

Fine with me. Let's just get this over with.

So, three weeks later I return to keep my appointment to have the stitches removed. As I enter the office building where the dermatology practice was located I noticed that the doctor who had performed my surgery had his own practice in the same building. I figured, oh, that's why he resigned, to start his own practice.

I've worked in the health care industry for over a quarter century so I know that some doctors change practices as often as they change underwear. In short, no biggie.

I continue on to the other end of the building where my doctor's office was located. And they're closed.

Not closed for the day. Closed as in out of business.

So, I'm standing there, with these bloody damned stitches in my head, wondering how in the hell I'm going to get them removed. For a medical practice to just close without making arrangements for their patients or even letting them know is sort of the ultimate in uncool behavior.

I went back to the front of the building and dropped in on the doctor who had operated on me. He happened to be up front when I came in and he remembered me, and had his staff work me in. He also told me the other practice had closed a week earlier and they hadn't bothered to tell anybody. He was exceptionally nice about it. His nurse removed my stitches and he did an exam--no further signs of cancer, nothing to worry about--and we had a little chat about his former employers. He was as unhappy with them as I was.

So, I got extremely unlucky and got equally lucky right afterwards, which is sort of how things work for me.

So, if you came here because I mentioned the suture removal story and you wanted to know what it is, this is it.

Another hole in the head and randomocity

I think I mentioned a while back that I had this horrid mole on my scalp.

In case you missed it, remember that episode of Angel where these demons were implanting their larva into people, causing them to grow a third eye in the backs of their heads? It kind of looked like that, except I couldn't actually see through it. It caused the lady I get to shave my head to freak out.

So, I decided to go to a dermatologist to get it removed. Which they did, after telling me that it didn't look like a mole. Of course, they sent it off to have it biopsied and it came back as basal cell carcinoma.

I know a lot of people freak when they hear the "C" word. Fortunately for me I've spent years working in the health care industry so I was already pretty much aware of what BCC is so I was cool with it. Kind of.

Really, if you just have to pick a particular cancer diagnosis then that's the one you'd want. It's not all that aggressive and doesn't metasize like other cancers. It's slow growing.

So, I had to go back to the dermatologist to get what's called Moh's surgery, where they excise tissue from around where the carcinoma was, examine it under the microscope to see if they see any cancerous cells and if they do, they come back and take another, slightly larger section, until they get a section that is clear, or free of cancer.

Luckily for me they only had to take a couple of sections. Unfortunately they had to take enough tissue so make stitches necessary. The doctor said he had to go really deep, which means he probably got down near my skull.

I hate stitches. And, while they had numbed my scalp so that I didn't even feel it when the doctor removed a good-sized hunk of meat from it, I did feel it when he put that first stitch in. Yow! It wasn't so much that it hurt--though it did, a little---but the really odd feeling I got when it tightened the skin on my face slightly. Unpleasant. Extremely so.

But the carcinoma is all gone and I go back in a couple of weeks to get the stitches removed. I can't keep a bandage on them because they're in my hair--no way a bandage will stay there. If I'd been thinking I would have gotten my head shaved before the surgery. Anyways, I'm keeping the stitches soaked with antibacterial ointment, and drying them off when I step out of the shower, and so far no problems.

And I've ordered a couple of really stylish hats I'm going to start wearing. Fishing hats, I've always called them, though I've never owned one before. These are designed to protect from the sun, and since they have a brim that goes all the way around so it'll protect the skin on the back of my neck, too.

I guess the lesson from all this is: if you have a mole that is particularly ugly, or that bleeds and scabs over and then bleeds again, get to a dermatologist to have it looked at. And protect yourself from prolonged exposure to the sun.

So, I'm going to live. And, in a couple of weeks--though it seems like a hundred years--I'll have these damned stitches out of my scalp!

Sometimes you just need to dive right in . . .

I try to be one of those writers who meticulously plans, outlines, plots out, etc., a story before I start writing. I really do. And I admire those who work that way. It's got to be a lot less nerve-wracking to already have the road mapped out before you get into the car.

I've tried. Oh, lord have mercy, I tried. I can usually get about half-way before I just decide, to hell with it, and turn that key.

So, I started a screenplay for a movie version of my idea, Harvester of Faces.

And, so far, it's coming along surprisingly well. As I'm writing things occur to me, characters, story situations, and the like, as if my subconscious has already plotted out a lot of it before I even get started. Which may actually be the case--in my experience it usually works that way.

Will I manage to finish this thing? Who knows? So far I'm pretty happy with what I have. Hopefully, the momentum I've established will be enough to propel me all the way to the end.

For the record, though, I did sit down and plot some things up. A lot of the back story had to be sorted out so I could have the motivations for all of the characters. That really helped, too. Stuff that I thought was superfluous but would be nice to have is now essential. I thought I was going to need to eliminate on of the central characters but it turns out that she's essential to the story, which is good, as she's the reason I'm writing this in the first place.

Anyway, so far, so good. I got bogged down on this thing when I tried it as a novel. Hopefully, as a screenplay, it'll lose enough fat to be more manageable.

As I say so often, we'll see.

How Hannibal restores my faith in the future . . .

For those of you who don't know, the TV show Hannibal is based on the novel Red Dragon, which is book before The Silence of the Lambs in Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lecter series.

As you can imagine, the subject matter is on occasion gruesome and hard to watch. However, when I was chatting with a friend the other day I mentioned how this show makes me hopeful for our survival as a species. My friend--being very perceptive--knew exactly what I was talking about, but I thought maybe I should expand on that idea here.

Each episode of the show is intense, well written, and exceedingly well directed and acted. Every frame is lit beautifully, even the scenes of unbelievable cruelty. Every aspect of the medium in which the story is told is used effectively and entertainingly--not just the images on the screen, but the sounds. I imagine writing an episode of this show must be exhausting because so much care is invested in every line, every single shot.

The ratings haven't been great and the show was on the bubble for a third season renewal, but apparently someone at the network that airs it believes that it should get at least one more season and it was renewed a few months ago. Season three begins airing this summer.

This was after it survived the same situation at the end of season one.

This is what gives me hope for the future--the show was renewed mostly because of its artistic merits. How often does that happen these days?

It's even more delicious if you have read the books--and if you haven't, I highly recommend that you do.

Anyway, it does show, on occasion, that quality does mean something in this world. Still. Not very often, but every now and then.

Look it up on Amazon Prime if you haven't seen it, or even, like me, if you have. I'm rewatching it now and enjoying it as much the second time around as I did the first.

You owe it to yourself.

The muse sniffed and snorted and hiccupped . . .

I've decided that the new project I mentioned earlier is going to be a film, not a novel.


I've got a nifty new laptop, a nifty new office chair, and a nifty new script-writing software package. Hopefully all this will encourage me to park my ass in my nifty new chair and use the nifty new software to write this thing.


We'll see. I've been working on a treatment for it, laying out the story and the character names, that sort of thing. I'm maybe a third of the way through it. I'll be trying to finish it over the next few days, then refine it a few times--this document doesn't need to be perfect because I'm the only one who will see it. It'll serve as the basis for the treatment I'll be showing to people down the road, but this one will be too long for that sort of thing.


The title I've given it for now is Sector 5. I'm not in love with it and I'm hoping a more gripping title will suggest itself down the road, but I have to call it something.


So, now all I need is the ending. That's what I'm going to be mulling over for the next few days.


I'm excited about the prospect of writing another screenplay, though. I think I enjoy that more than writing prose. Films and novels are such different media, with different priorities, that it's kind of refreshing to move from one to another. I'll probably spend the next few years alternating between the two.


Anyways, that will be my life, over the next few months. I'm looking forward to it.

The muse coughs!

I finally have the next project I'm going to be obsessing over for the next few months.


It's a novel. No, I don't have a title for it yet, which is one of my problems--I just can't start on it without knowing that I'm going to call it. I also don't have an ending yet, which is another problem--I need to know where I want to wind up before beginning the journey.


It's going to be a horror novel with science fiction overtones, set on a spaceship in the distant future. Yes, it'll be Alien-like but hopefully that's where the similarities will end.


It's an idea I've had for a while, actually, but it was lacking one important thing--I didn't have the monster that was going to terrorize my intrepid band of explorers. The idea for one finally came to me earlier today, and it's a doozy, I think. Should scare the holy crap out of most of the people who read this thing.


So, I'll be mapping this thing out, thinking about it, plotting it out over the next little while, before I sit down to write it. I've got most of the cast of characters thought out, and I've actually written down their names and a little bit about who each character is. I've got the Universe they'll call home developed, the rules thought out, the culture and the conflicts all mapped out.


The muse coughed, and I listened, dammit! At least, I hope that was a cough . . .

Chilly Saturday night randomocity

I've been thinking about making music again.


It's been a while but that urge is starting. Problem is, the music I want to make will require a female vocalist--and, what's more, a vocalist with a really specific type of voice. I don't know anybody like that--or, rather, I don't know anybody like that who I could persuade to work with me.


What I need is someone with a sort of smoky, rough-edged voice. Think Melissa Etheridge.


If the muse gets more insistent and I just have to do something, I'll just record the instrumental tracks and worry about the vocals later. I do need to come up with some lyrics, though, as well.


Ah, the problems creative types have.


It's cold here, but not as cold as my internal thermometer seems to think it is. I hope I'm not turning into my dad, who kept the thermostat at his house at 80 and would have cranked it up higher if we'd let him.


Nothing new going on with me, as far as writing goes. I think The Sorcerer's Daughter is as ready as it'll ever be to start submitting, but the publisher I want to get first crack of it isn't taking submissions for another few months. So, that has to sit.


I really need to be thinking about another project. I've got a couple of ideas but nothing that has seized my attention yet. Something will, eventually, I'm sure.


I guess part of my malaise is the idea that football season is nearly over. It's going to seem like years before it starts up again.


Speaking of football, the Superbowl is a week from tomorrow. My prediction? Seattle - 24, New England 21. No, I'm not putting any money on it, and no, I don't especially care who wins. I've got not particular love for Seattle, and (unlike lots of other people I know) no particular dislike for the Patriots.


Just give us a good game, guys. That's all I'm hoping for.

A writing exercise

I just thought of this today. I'm sure I'm not the first one to come up with it, and I don't ordinarily care anything about this sort of thing, but this may be a good way to kick start some ideation.


Go to a place where there are a lot of people--preferably people who don't know you. Like a mall, or a park. Watch the people around you, and pick one or two out and come up with a story to fit with what you see them doing.


Here's the rub, though--don't use this as the starting point of the story, or even a scene in the story. Instead, use this as the ending for the story.


Say you're at the mall and you pick some guy sitting in the food court sitting alone, eating cheap Chinese food and reading a science fiction novel--probably me. How would this person sitting here, reading a book and eating, make a suitable ending to a story?


Yeah, it's not easy, but that's where creativity comes in. Maybe this person has agoraphobia and this is the first time he or she has left home in years. Maybe this person just separated from his or her spouse and is contemplating a long life of eating alone, with only a book for a companion. Maybe this person lives in a house full of children, most of home are shrieking and shouting as they play, and being able to sit alone and eat and read a book undisturbed is a triumph of the human spirit.


Anyways, give it a shot, let me know if you come up with anything interesting.

A question for my writer friends . . .

Yeah, I'm still sick. Stayed home from work today. I'm hoping if I take it easy today I'll be able to resume my regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.


In the mean time, while I wait for the meds I took to kick in, I thought I'd ask this question of any writers who happen to read this--to what extent do you feel a reader should be allowed to interpret your work?


For example, take my story, "Warden," published on this blog if you are so inclined to look for it. The story is about duty, and about how jumping to a conclusion can lead to tragedy. Set in the distant future, light years away from earth. Yes, it was my attempt at a "hard" science fiction story, and let me tell you, it is hard. Anyway, I was pretty happy with how it turned out, and the one or two others who have read it have given me complements on it.


Which is well and good. But what if someone read it and told me it resonated profoundly with them, because it's about dealing with grief and adapting to a life without a loved one. To my mind, while there is a little bit of that, it's not what the story is about. However, who am I to scold a reader who found comfort and enjoyment in the story, even if he or she saw something in it that either isn't actually there or which was outside of my intent?


Once you make a story, poem, song, whatever, available to the general public, you are at the mercy of its sometimes bizarre and inexplicable interpretations of your work. I've known writers who get really angry when someone--to their minds--misinterprets their work, even if they loved it.


Now, I could see this in some circumstances. If someone took my little story as an embracing racial purity, for example (which it certainly does not do), or eugenics (ditto), or glorifying war, and he or she loves it for that reason, that would be a bummer. That might actually hurt my feelings, as those ideas are so outside of the intent of the story I'd feel like maybe I failed as a writer if people get that from it.


But what if someone just sees my story as in the example above, about grief and acceptance and toleration? While that was also outside of what I was trying to do, I don't think I'd get all that worked up about it.


So, how important is it, to you, that your audience interpret your work the way you want it interpreted? How would you feel if people enjoy your work, but don't seem to understand it? Once the work is made available for anyone to experience, are your responsibilities as an author now done and it's now the audience's job to define and interpret the work?


I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts.

Influenzal Randomocity

Yes, I'm sick. I'm guessing it's the flu.


I've felt poorly the past several days but it never seemed to get any worse. No better, either, though. Yesterday, though, it finally reached a point where I had to leave work. I came home and died for most of the afternoon.


I'm still feeling it today. I'm up and around because I have things I must do, but as soon as those things are done I'm collapsing again. Hopefully I'll be back to sufficient strength to go to work Monday.


I did make a decision, though, as to what skill set I want to cultivate in this new year. I've always admired those artists who can meet someone and quickly draw a sketch of them. I've decided this is something I want to be able to do, too.


How am I going to do this? I may look at some books and videos for guidance, but mostly I'm going to develop this skill by practicing. A lot.


I tried this before and didn't get very far, and I finally figured out why--I was sketching the faces of people I actually know, people who are important to me. That sort of put too much pressure on me to get it right, I think. Now, I'm going to practice by sketching celebrities, people I don't know personally, and I'm having a little more luck with that.


I mean, if I sketch Johnny Depp, say, and I screw it up, I won't feel like I let him down in some way, since I don't actually know him. But since I know what the man looks like I'll be able to tell if it's not a good likeness.


My first subject is this alternative model I follow on Facebook--"alternative" in the sense that she has tattoos and piercings, and dyes her hair freaky colors. Anyways, to me she is almost superhumanly hot so I don't mind spending all this time looking at her lovely, lovely face while I try to capture her beauty in my sketchbook. No, I don't know her personally, but that's kind of the point. The first few pics I did were pretty bad but I just turned the page and started on another one.


Anyway, that's my goal for the year. I'm going to get much better at this over the next few months, I can guarantee it. Eventually I'll be able to draw people I actually know and have it actually look like them. Instead of looking like some sort of freakish mutant with huge eyes and lips.