The Hive
The official blog of science fiction / horror author Terence West.
William Gibson Blog
Famed author of Neuromancer and Johnny Mnemonic: The Screenplay.
The Word Foundry
Joe Clifford Faust's "blog of a working writer: tracking writing projects, musings on the
creative process, occasional side trips into music, media, politics, religion, etc."
A Writer's Diary
By Cynthia Harrison, who has the good sense to quote Virginia Woolf: "The truth is that writing
is the profound pleasure and being read the superficial."
The American Sentimentalist
"Never has any people endured its own tragedy with so little sense of the tragic." Essays by Mark W. Anderson.
Screenwriting By Blog
David C. Daniel writes a screenplay online. "I've decided to publish the process as a way to push myself through it.
From concept to completion, it'll be here."
SeanAlonzo.com
Official site of occult fiction author Sean-Alonzo, exploring symbolism, alternative
history, philosophy, secret
societies and other areas of the esoteric tradition.
Crafty Screenwriting
Maunderings of Alex Epstein, tv scribe, about life, politics, and the tv show I'm co-creating.
Stealing Heaven From The Lips Of God
Writer & Artist, Dee Rimbaud reflects upon politics, religion, art, poetry, the meaning of life,
the nature of God and why toast always lands butter side down on carpets.
The Writing Life...
"An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's." J.D. Salinger
"All my best friends are writers and are dead." A friend over beer, Berkeley, winter, 1959
"And it came to pass that all the stars in the firmament had ceased to shine. But how was anyone to know?" The Half-Life Conspiracy
Sunday, April 30, 2006 Slow day Got a good start, another morning of writing in the coffee shop, but then the rest of the day seemed to get piddled away. Almost caught up on school chores, should finish tomorrow. Tuesday I go in early to collect poems for the summer review, getting them off the hard drive of our poetry editor. Eager to see what he put together.
4/30/2006 08:09:00 PM |
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Saturday, April 29, 2006 Cherryholmes Family Bluegrass Band Here's the most exciting bluegrass band I've heard since Side Saddle. They appear up in Washington this summer; I'd love to get up and see them!
4/29/2006 03:36:00 PM |
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Personal heroism, institutional dysfunction When I was a young man, I thought literary art had a noble function: by creating narratives that made people feel and think deeply about difficult events, the writer could spare the reader the necessity of living those terrible moments literally. This, of course, was youthful idealism. I hadn't yet realized that we don't even learn the lessons of history, from actual events, let alone learning anything from fictional creations. Part of the human condition is a perpetual reinvention of the wheel. Our imaginations are pathetically unrealized as tools of survival.
This is why a narrative "based on a true story" is considered somehow more important, more real, more dramatic, than fiction in today's sadly literal culture. As any screenwriter knows, such a story is certainly easier to market. Imagine, for example, if United 93 had been made before 9/11 as one of those "what if?" dramatic stories that come our way from time to time. How many would be as moved by it as so many are today? How many would see such a "prediction" as a kind of wake-up call? Not many.
I saw United 93 today and its power is undeniable. Yet my primary response to the film was not sadness but anger. This story is driven as much by institutional dysfunction as by personal heroism -- indeed, the reason the passengers take affairs into their own hands is that no one else is coordinated enough to do anything for them. Layers of bureaucracy made a quick response to this historic emergency impossible, just as it did again in response to Katrina, and unfortunately may do so again. We've created such sophisticated structures of technology and chains of command that nothing can get done in a hurry.
Historically, the frustration of such social and political ineptitude often leads to centralized leadership -- and to fascism. Mussolini made the trains run on time, remember? We are now in such a condition of dysfunction, all the frustrations available for seeding centralized autocracy in the name of getting things done. Whether we escape the frequent narrative line of history, whether we can learn how to act quickly to emergencies without sacrificing freedom in the bargain, remains to be seen. But United 93 is a powerful dramatic statement not only of personal heroism but of profound and troubling institutional failure. We buried the victims but the institutions are still here, and when Katrina came, their response was no better.
Keep on truckin' An early morning of writing on the AlphaSmart in a coffee shop. Two student scripts I want to read today. More lawn work, to finish up and have things in order for a few days. Maybe a movie later today. I'm eager to see United 93 but Harriet isn't sure about it. I may see it alone tomorrow. Maybe something else today. She wants to see Thank You For Smoking.
The novel is going well. I'm pretty sure this strategy will stick. It's complex, the kind of complexity that looks simple once it's all together, and I suspect the rewriting process later will be long and difficult, but this draft stage, with its vignette structure, is relatively direct because I can always change the order of the vignettes later. I'm writing them as they come. I have three narrative strands to work with, and I'm moving between them, but how they fit together finally is something I'll worry about later.
The main thing is, after the start I decided to throw away, this one feels much better. At this early stage, the novel is more erotic than I envisioned it, but that's okay. Nothing is set in stone yet. I'm letting it come as it comes (is that a pun?).
Friday, April 28, 2006 Over the hump? I think my new story strategy for the novel is going to work. Frame action, short vignette chapters, moving around in the decade time span of the story, including both action in the lives of the two main characters and scenes from the play the protagonist writes about this mutual experience -- that is, one of my themes is the interpretation of events into scenes in literary or theatrical work (since much of this story is autobiographical, I am doing the same thing as my protagonist!). The opening moment is, the protagonist, a playwright, has written a play based on a marriage a decade after the divorce, and the ex-wife learns of this and sues the theater company, hoping to stop its opening. The play, as it turns out, is flattering about the shared experience on which it is based, but this doesn't matter. So we have the actual marriage to deal with, the interpretation of it in the play, the different interpretation by the ex, and how this conflict is resolved and whether the play opens or not. At every level of this story, I can draw on personal experience, though not always in the same context. If done right, it's layered, complex, suspenseful and sexy. We'll see how it turns out. (Since I need to call it something here, I'll call it Marriage, though this is not the title.)
4/28/2006 10:29:00 AM |
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One book wonder? How interesting are authors who write a fine book -- then go quiet. Harper Lee, the subject of Today In Literature, for example. Or Leonard Gardner (Fat City). They write an extraordinary book and pretty much go silent after that.
4/28/2006 08:26:00 AM |
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A glorious day shaping up May get our warmest day of the year, pushing 80. About time! 70 begins my comfort zone.
I like the new start on the novel, this may work out. Hope to get pages done this week, although I also have some student scripts to read.
Today my major task is catch-up with the lawn. Take out my Chris Connor and friends ipod and the trusty push mower and have a leisurely afternoon workout.
Tomorrow plan to see United 93. Eager to see this film.
Thursday, April 27, 2006 Oops Throwing away my start on the new novel and starting over. It's too leisurely, too slowly paced. I need to create a more compelling package for what I want to do. I did a 3-act worksheet on the story and may have something workable. I'll write following the strategy and see how it goes. Going to try to use a frame structure, the main story between the bookends.
4/27/2006 10:57:00 AM |
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Office hours To the university bright and early today for a full day of one-on-one conferencing with students. Exhausting but valuable.
Harriet got home safe and sound -- and exhausted herself. Full of grandmotherly wonder about her new grandchild.
I don't get a break till 2 -- but don't start for another hour and a half, so maybe I can get a tad of writing done.
4/27/2006 07:23:00 AM |
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Wednesday, April 26, 2006 Ho hum, more plagiarism Another incident of author-as-thief and getting paid royally for it:
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Coed author's apology for copying falls flat with publisher
By DINITIA SMITH THE NEW YORK TIMES
A day after Kaavya Viswanathan admitted copying parts of her chick-lit novel, "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life," from another writer's works, the publisher of the two books she borrowed from called her apology "troubling and disingenuous."
Monday, Viswanathan, in an e-mail, said her copying from Megan McCafferty's "Sloppy Firsts" and "Second Helpings," both young adult novels published by Crown, a division of Random House, had been "unintentional and unconscious."
But in a statement issued Tuesday, Steve Ross, Crown's publisher, said that, "based on the scope and character of the similarities, it is inconceivable that this was a display of youthful innocence or an unconscious or unintentional act."
He said that there were more than 40 passages in Viswanathan's book "that contain identical language and/or common scene or dialogue structure from Megan McCafferty's first two books."
Ross called it "nothing less than an act of literary identity theft."
Meanwhile the weather has turned gray and my mood with it. But I'm caught up with my teaching chores. Trying to get the house in order for the wife's return tonight after two weeks of bacheloring, which is considerably more messy than it usually looks around here.
And the lawn already needs attention again. A mowing lasts about three days. Friday, I guess.
4/26/2006 02:01:00 PM |
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Tuesday, April 25, 2006 Breathing room Temporarily caught up on teaching chores, which will end this afternoon when I pick up new script pages. Hard days tomorrow and especially Thursday, with one-on-one conferences all day.
Did a bit of writing this morning, the first 8 pages of a new screenplay, a collaboration with a former student, and still stumbling around the opening of the new novel, trying to get the unusual tone and point of view right. It'll come.
Waiting for summer Did a lot of home owner chores this gorgeous spring day. Have the pond/fountain about ready to go. Got the deck table up. Also managed to do some editing chores, accepting three personal essays and rejecting two screenplays for the review. Harriet returns Wednesday and it's about time.
4/24/2006 04:53:00 PM |
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Wanderlust Woke up to another gorgeous spring day and felt like grabbing the dog for a day trip to the coast. Then I realized how many chores there are to do around here, and that rain is forecast tomorrow, so I'm being the good homeowner today. First up, cleaning out the pond and getting my Kaypro 2x water fountain up and running for the season. If I accomplish this alone, it will be a day well spent.
Sunday, April 23, 2006 Spring Actually beginning to feel like spring here in Puddle City, may hit 70 today. Feeling better but being careful. Did some leisurely lawn work, got caught up on online student scripts, time to get out into sunshine with the dog.
4/23/2006 12:24:00 PM |
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Saturday, April 22, 2006 Wordstock So I find myself at our major book festival for only two hours when I'm in the men's room throwing up. Whether this was caused by a bug I picked up or a reaction to official literary culture has not yet been determined. At any rate, I promptly left.
4/22/2006 05:37:00 PM |
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Friday, April 21, 2006 On "being a writer" There are many ways "to be" a writer. Writing can be a job, like being a janitor; writing can be an avocation, like being a priest. It can be all things in between.
Today, I consider being a writer rather like being a priest, which is to say, it is the focus and substance of my way of being in the world. My "God" is, well, I suppose I would call it literary coherence, according to my own vision of the world, my sensibilities, my ability to communicate what I feel and mean, which I am able to do much of the time (this was not always so). But in the past, I've had employment as a writer, both as a freelance journalist and, my last 9 to 5 job (more than that, of course), as managing editor at Oregon Business Magazine (over 20 years ago now). Interestingly enough, it was the conflict between writing as employment (managing editor) and writing as vocation (playwright, at the time) that forced me to choose between conflicting ways of "being a writer." While at the magazine, where I edited and also wrote features for each monthly issue in an under-staffed, over-worked environment common to small magazines, I discovered that when I went home at night, the last thing in the world I wanted to do was write. Therefore, my playwriting suffered immensely. I wrote myself out at work and while I wrote many features I was proud of, this was writing outside-in, like an employee, not inside-out, like an artist. I was making good money "as a writer" but I also was frustrated because I wasn't writing much of the work that mattered to me most. I was able to change this when I received a substantial literary grant -- seed money for a transition, if you will. The very next day after learning I received the award, I gave my notice at the magazine. I entered a much less secure, more stressful life as a more or less full-time playwright, and eventually I had to supplement my income with freelance journalism work, but I was happier and my playwriting flourished, especially after becoming playwright-in-residence at a theater company, which guaranteed a production of a new work of mine each season. A playwright's heaven. But none of this would have happened if I hadn't quit the magazine job. I sometimes wonder if I would have quit without the seed money of a grant -- I like to think so. I was becoming pretty frustrated. The grant, of course, made the transition financially less stressful than it would have been otherwise.
This came to mind after reading the two comments yesterday, at least one from a beginning writer, and also after an especially invigorating class yesterday, brainstorming new work by my students. There are so many ways to "be a writer" that one of the first tasks of the beginner is to try different forms of writing and ways to be a writer. There are perfectly happy journalists in the world. I wasn't one because I really wanted to be a playwright. I found it easier to be both when playwriting came first, journalism second, and not the other way around.
The great challenge of writing, of course, is paying bills. Work is the curse of the writing class ha ha. If your inclinations are toward the artistic modes of writing, I suggest using writing as a primary income source may end up causing conflict in your time management the way it did with me when I was at the magazine. The great American poet Wallace Stevens, after all, was an insurance man. Poets, of course, have the luxury of knowing they'll never make any money writing poetry. The rest of us, novelists and script writers, can always dream of striking it rich with a serious work that also finds a large audience because now and again this happens. I don't worry about "fame and fortune" the way I did when I was younger, though I still experience frustration that I don't have a larger audience than I do. At the same time, audiences and critics are fickle. The same local critics who praised my work so highly in the 1980s did not give me the time of day two decades later when I was writing superior work (as measured by international, i.e. non-local, success). I especially recall a play that was a finalist for a prestigious prize in Ireland that totally bombed here, raked over the critical coal in mean-spirited reviews. Fascinating, really. When I became a judge myself for various literary competitions, I realized what a crap shoot the whole prize and grants games are. My tastes were the determining factor, not any inherent quality in the world. It's a relative business. The "secret" is to place the right material in front of the right judge at the right time, if winning a competition is your goal.
So writers can't worry about this stuff or they'd go nuts. You have to do your work for other reasons. For your own reasons. For me, now, it's simply the way I am in the world. The way I breathe in the world. It's really that simple. This is not a good thing in many ways -- more than one ex-wife has pointed out to me that I'm married to my work -- but I believe it's an accurate description of what it means to me "to be a writer."
4/21/2006 08:06:00 AM |
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Thursday, April 20, 2006 Another belated classic I didn't realize the point made by this opening paragraph in Today In Literature:
On this day in 1912 Bram Stoker died. Though the author of some twenty books, Stoker is known almost exclusively for Dracula, published in 1897. The novel brought little fame or fortune in Stoker's lifetime, and raised few eyebrows; modern critics find a "veritable sexual lexicon of Victorian taboos," or "a kind of incestuous, necrophilous, oral-anal-sadistic all-in-all wrestling match."
I thought Dracula had been famous forever. Full story.
Melville has interesting things to say about writing a classic, knowing you've written a classic, and yet being ignored or ridiculed for writing it. He says this in his novel Pierre, or The Ambiguities, written just after "his classic" Moby Dick, which was this popular author's great failure in his lifetime. It totally bombed. But he knew what he had written, and so in the next book included a narrative line about a genius who writes a classic work and is ignored. Interesting stuff.
This, by the way, was the novel I wanted to write my Ph.D. thesis on when I entered graduate school. At the time, Pierre was dismissed as the incoherent babbling of a man having a nervous breakdown. I thought it was as good as Moby Dick and wanted to say so. Unfortunately, a grad. student at the Univ. of Michigan beat me to it, publishing his thesis on Pierre ahead of me. That's when I practically had a nervous breakdown. I ended up dropping out of school but quickly returning as a writer, now on an M.F.A. program. I always assumed M.F.A. meant not Master of Fine Arts but Mother Fucking Artist. You can quote me.
4/20/2006 07:29:00 AM |
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The next book, script, story, etc. A few years ago I had the good fortune to be in the audience for "An Evening With Edward Albee," listening to the great playwright chat with a host on stage. Of the many wise things he said about writing, one has really stuck with me. He was asked what he considered to be his best play. With a shocked look on his face, suggesting the answer was obvious, he said, "Why, the one I'm working on now. Otherwise why would I write?"
Most writers, unless they are hacks, would agree with this, I think. I certainly do. I may have set aside Mistress to begin the new one because it wasn't developing into "my best novel," especially following Kerouac's Scroll, which several early readers consider high on my list and which I believe may be my best work of fiction. But the new one, early on, offers all the risks and challenges that "the best" demands. Maybe I can't pull it off but it makes more sense to try than to write something "ordinary." It's been many years since I've written just for money. (Commercial writing, of course, has its own parameters and demands.)
I'm hesitant to share the working title of the new one because anyone who knows me could easily guess its autobiographical roots from the title -- and some feelings may get hurt. I've had this happen in the past. Ex-wives don't like to show up in my work ha ha. Well, it can't be helped. Really. A writer's life is his best material, always. In this case, the story is highly fictionalized and layered in challenging ways but the root emotions have been with me for decades. It belongs to the same family of work that brought forth "The Half-Life Conspiracy," perhaps my favorite play, and even the recent road story (there the protagonist is in his 70s -- here, it may be the same guy in his 20s.)
Each scenario is possible; each has happened before.
Three white, privileged, arrogant, racist jocks isolate a stripper in the bathroom at a party and brutally rape her.
A black, poor, struggling mother, who works as a stripper to raise her kids and go to college, becomes angry and/or marginalized enough at a party to “lash out” and make a false accusation of rape.
Many people have chosen one scenario or the other without waiting for evidence, following their biases and predispositions. The DA, in the middle of an election, has used the case to grandstand, muddying the waters, cause enough to boot him out of office. The case should be decided on the physical evidence, of course, of which precious little has been made public. A brutal rape should leave DNA evidence but the initial results found none, favoring interpretation 2. To suggest this, of course, is to be labeled a racist by the supporters of interpretation 1. Two arrests have been made and in each case $400,000 cash bail paid, which does not win friends among the poor citizens of Durham.
If 1. wins in court, supporters of 2. will scream “cover up!” and if 2. wins in court, supporters of 1. will scream “framed!” This is a lose-lose situation. Welcome to America in the 21st century.
4/19/2006 06:53:00 AM |
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Tuesday, April 18, 2006 New focus I usually don't set aside projects that are going well but I'm doing that with my novel, Mistress. I have the first of three books in draft, a good place to pause. The next book, an intensely personal story and somewhat of a companion piece to Kerouac's Scroll, won't let me rest, and I no longer have the luxury of knowing I have time to do both. The new one is risky and adventurous in its narrative style, both attractive to me. I wrote the first page today and fell right into the unusual "voice" of the piece, which cemented the change of plans. I can pick up Mistress later if I have time. But first things first. So a new project is front burner till the summer.
4/18/2006 10:13:00 AM |
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Monday, April 17, 2006 So far, so good Going over a writing exercise I gave my class and so far am delighted with the results. Some strong screenwriting skills being shown early on. Of course, the usual problems are evident as well but they are easily corrected. Some inventive plotting and strong unusual characters are what impress me. Hope this means it's an unusually strong class. We'll see.
The Mariners had an 8 a.m. (west coast) game with Boston that was supposed to be on the radio but for some reason isn't. So I'm getting updates on the net. The Mariners are play competitive ball so far, which is nice to see. Hope they continue being competitive all season. It would be a great job for a young fan to do the Internet updates for a ball game.
Sunday, April 16, 2006 Progress Believe I have the road story script in pretty good shape. Lots of attention to my students tomorrow.
4/16/2006 04:26:00 PM |
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Saturday, April 15, 2006 Nice indie Here's a film with a new take on over-used material (the teacher-student love affair).
4/15/2006 10:55:00 PM |
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First rate film This German film is not easy to watch, capturing with gritty realism all the mayhem and madness, inanity and insanity, surrealism and stupidity, suffering and more suffering, of Hitler and Germany's final days of the war in Berlin, with his secretary, who survives, being a major character. Barbarism is such a constant in the human story, such a "natural" addition to human history, that surely it's wired into our condition or we'd have gotten rid of it centuries ago. Perhaps it's a fierce survival tool that outlived its usefulness but didn't drop out of evolutionary development. When a culture "progresses" beyond it, becoming peace loving, the culture eventually falls in defeat to the "new barbarians" who haven't taken a dislike to war. The hungry rise to defeat the comfortable by whatever means necessary. And so it goes. Since we don't learn a damn thing from history, and never have, the problem must be biological.
4/15/2006 06:12:00 PM |
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What progress? From a qualitative perspective, I see little that has improved in the half-century I've been observing the world as more-or-less an adult. In my parents' generation, and a good deal in mine, a family had a single breadwinner, usually the male, and yet could buy a house, take vacations, and send the kids to college. Two full-time incomes can't afford that now. Is music better? Hardly (the Great American Songbook goes back decades)? Books? Not really. There are many quantitative improvements (we live longer, etc.) but damn few improvements in the actual quality of life.
4/15/2006 12:22:00 PM |
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Fringe benefits Received my first royalties check for my recent screenwriting text, and it's more than I expected, which is always nice. Now and again the mail delivers the surprise fringe benefits of the writing life. And other times, disappointments of various degrees. Both extremes are common in our zero-sum universe.
4/15/2006 12:19:00 PM |
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Up and at 'em Got an early start, taking the dog to a park at 6:30 a.m., getting coffee, coming home to watch a documentary on the Homestead Strike. Two things I want to get done today, both with scripts. Tomorrow I'm dedicating to editing (review) and teaching chores. Monday back to writing. Get reading in both days as well.
A morning ball game to watch (silently) as I work. Gray, wet, chilly out. Where the hell is spring? Already the lawn needs attention (it looked so good a week ago!) but too damn wet to do anything today and the forecast isn't encouraging.
Friday, April 14, 2006 Nobby's Decided to treat myself to breakfast out but didn't want to take the time to drive all the way across town to Nobby's, my favorite spot for breakfast, where I've been going for almost 30 years. Stopped by nearby Fat City, my #2, but there was a line waiting, so I drove a bit farther to #3, a sprawling 1950s kind of restaurant.
Hoping to get a lot of writing tasks done this weekend, including rewriting the current script. Also to catch up on reading. Man, I'm behind. Only a bit of student work to look at this weekend.
Harriet is enjoying her grandmotherly visit in D.C., sending me daily reports. It's a good thing for her to do.
A cold front approaching. Spring still isn't here to stay. Gray, wet, cold outside right now. Portland weather really sucks.
4/14/2006 10:11:00 AM |
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Thursday, April 13, 2006 Aristotle's Poetics for Screenwriters I like this thin book and am very close to selecting it for my fall class. I also am thinking of using Casablanca. We'll see.
4/13/2006 03:31:00 PM |
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Adaptations Mostly a teaching day but I did get some script writing done this morning and a bit more during office hours now, closer to finishing up the adaptation of the novel. Adaptations are so much harder than original stories! My draft is a mess but I'm only a few sequences from the end, I think. Then I can step back, throw all consciousness of the novel out the window, and let the story find its unique way, in essence telling the same "story spine" two different ways. Already much is different but I suspect too much from the novel is still dirtying the waters of clarity. Simplify, simplify, simplify! A fun process, actually.
A student just dropped by to say he found a DVD of Citizen Ruth and loved it. Alexander Payne's first movie, and it's a real gem. An extraordinary accomplishment, in fact, to turn the abortion issue into an intelligent comedy. I love the movie. I love all of Payne's films, in fact. Perhaps my favorite "young" director.
4/13/2006 02:54:00 PM |
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The Death of Discourse I've started a fascinating book. From the prologue:
Ours is a system of free speech -- free from old notions of discourse. For us, expression is no more or less than the speech of our daily experiences. The sight, the sound, indeed the feel of robust expression is a thing of joy in the carnival of life we call modern mass culture. To communicate with uninhibited liberty, to talk in the vernacular of the popular culture, to express that culture's tastes, is the way of free speech in America. It is often speech for its own sake, speech in the service of self-gratification, and speech that is essential to the raison d'etre of a commercial entertainment culture.
This, then, is an analysis of "soundbite culture" and what we've lost within it. Far from stodgy, this book by Collins and Skover is an engaging read. No doubt I'll have more to say about it later. (What I don't like about the book, however, is its price: $40 for a 400-page paperback!). More information.
4/13/2006 07:30:00 AM |
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Tuesday, April 11, 2006 Baching it Take Harriet to the airport before sunrise tomorrow, sending her off for two weeks in D.C. with her new grandkid. So Sketch and I will be left to our own devices. Mainly it means making more noise when I get up at 5 a.m. or so.
I'm very close to finishing the screenplay draft. I'd like to do that this week. Then get back on the new novel and hopefully finish a draft before the term is over. It's doable, being a short novel. I'd love to start the summer with a blank slate, which is to say, completed drafts of everything, so I can begin new projects.
This new classroom I have, with all the tech stuff already embedded in the room, encourages me to show more film scenes than usual because I can do so spontaneously and without dragging equipment to the room. Hence I'll likely show the opening minutes of The Boys From Brazil today to illustrate visual storytelling -- a gripping opening with almost no dialogue at all. I hope I get this room again! In the future, I'll try requesting it, though this is no guarantee I'd get it. Makes things so much easier.
Another draft... ...almost done, the screenplay based on the road novel. Boy, is it simplified! I need to look at it whole once the draft is done and make sure it's working on its own new terms. Quite different since so many layers are eliminated. Fascinating process.
My first adaptation, many years ago, was commissioned, an adaptation of the famous novel Man's Fate for the director/screenwriter who wanted someone to write his first draft for him before taking it over. He was in the East, expecting to secure the rights and also doing some production design, looking for locations. In the end, he didn't get the rights, which he thought he'd had in the bag. So the exercise was for naught but I learned a lot. Now that I think about it, this was my second adaptation, the first being my own stage play Waitresses, which became Ruby's Tune.
4/11/2006 12:35:00 PM |
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Good company At a website called OperaStuff, under a heading "operas with their own websites," you'll find ... Dark Mission by John Nugent. Not bad company to be in. Check it out.
4/11/2006 12:24:00 PM |
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It's a fast world From the news wire:
LOS ANGELES - An 82-year-old woman received a $114 ticket for taking too long to cross a street. Mayvis Coyle said she began shuffling with her cane across Foothill Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley when the light was green, but was unable to make it to the other side before it turned red.
She said the motorcycle officer who ticketed her on Feb. 15 told her she was obstructing traffic.
"I think it's completely outrageous," said Coyle, who described herself as a Cherokee medicine woman. "He treated me like a 6-year-old, like I don't know what I'm doing." ... Others, however, supported Coyle's contention that the light in question doesn't give people enough time to cross the busy, five-lane boulevard.
"I can go halfway, then the light changes," said Edith Krause, 78, who uses an electric cart because she has difficulty walking.
On Friday, the light changed too quickly even for high school students to make it across without running. It went from green to red in 20 seconds.
The intersection I use to cross Barber Blvd. to the park-and-ride is such an intersection. I start when it says Walk and before I have halfway across, the yellow caution starts blinking, and I barely make it across before it turns red.
4/11/2006 09:11:00 AM |
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Monday, April 10, 2006 Morning adventure Our second vehicle is a Toyota van with over 200,000 thousand miles on it. I drive it mostly but only about 1000 miles a year, to the store, to the park-and-ride to catch a bus. Early this morning I dropped it off for service at the same mechanic who's cared for it for 15 years. This meant a long bus ride back -- which is always an adventure because the city is just waking up. On the final leg, in a round-about neighborhood bus, I overheard a long conversation between two bus drivers, filled with detail I'll use in my work I'm sure. One of the great things about riding the bus is that it's full of material, particularly regarding voice and dialogue. So much to steal and use!
4/10/2006 09:30:00 AM |
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Sunday, April 09, 2006 Dogs and Beethoven At the end of the opera event last night, each of the five soloists did an encore with a humorous song. My favorite put to music this poem by Billy Collins:
Another reason why I don't keep a gun in the house
The neighbors' dog will not stop barking. He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark that he barks every time they leave the house. They must switch him on their way out.
The neighbors' dog will not stop barking. I close all the windows in the house and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast but I can still hear him muffled under the music, barking, barking, barking,
and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra, his head raised confidently as if Beethoven had included a part for barking dog.
When the record finally ends he is still barking, sitting there in the oboe section barking, his eyes fixed on the conductor who is entreating him with his baton
while the other musicians listen in respectful silence to the famous barking dog solo, that endless coda that first established Beethoven as an innovative genius.
--Billy Collins
All five songs were hilarious. A fine night (unfortunately, 1/3 of the house was empty for the single night performance of art songs. My favorites were by Mahler.)
4/09/2006 08:05:00 PM |
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Good day Lots of writing done this morning. Then caught up on a lawn work. Caught up! Looks great -- for about three or four days, then it'll look scraggy again.
Tonight is a repeat of a decade-old interview with an Army colonel who claims the Roswell crash was real and that he worked on alien artifacts and technology from it. Either he belongs in the loony bin or the government is covering up in a major way. Drama any way you cut it.
4/09/2006 01:53:00 PM |
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Saturday, April 08, 2006 Opera An opera event tonight, a program of arias by junior company members, the ones usually in the chorus. Be good to hear some new talent.
I accepted a libretto by a playwright who lives in Oregon for the drama section of the new review. Going to try and find the composer and see if music files exist or at least a score, but I like the libretto and accepted it "as writing" first.
Can't say I got much done today, other than various chores and editing tasks, but can't say I mind either.
My new class at the university is in a very high tech room, where I sit at a console and control every imaginable tech hardware at a touch screen, even the screen comes down automatically. It's a huge auditorium for the 25 of us, which is a tad weird, but I love the convenience of it for playing DVDs and tapes. My first time in this room but I think I'll request it in the future, which doesn't mean I'll get it. But maybe one term a year I could.
Almost decided to use Aristotle's Poetics for Screenwriters in the fall. Sideways again -- I think that's going to become standard because the shooting script is so much like a spec script, which is rare -- it's a great model for students. I might add a classic script, like Casablanca or Chinatown for its story value (the writing/format style would be very different from current spec script fashion). Also thinking of making a course pack of all the various handouts I distribute through the year. Yet don't want to put too much financial burden on the students either. I think my book is a tad overpriced but I still use it ha ha.
The coach of the women's Army NCAA basketball team died of heart problems at age 28. She was a former jock herself. Incredible. You just can't depend on a thing, especially seeing the sun rise in the morning.
Have two collections of O'Neill plays coming. Time to look at them in sequence. Lots of ambitious reading projects ahead! Most for the summer when I'll have more free time.
Chores Off on a few writerly chores, one of the joys of the profession ha ha. You get to waste time and feel like you're "at work" at the same time! Post office, supply store, etc.
4/08/2006 11:19:00 AM |
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Salinger's flight, or why The Catcher in the Rye never became a film Today In Literature focuses on J.D. Salinger and the circumstances of his flight from Hollywood. See complete story.
4/08/2006 04:16:00 AM |
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Novelists win It should surprise no one familiar with copyright law that the Da Vinci Code plagiarism case was decided in favor of the novelist. The summary: "There is no copyright in ideas," said Mark Stephens, a lawyer specializing in media law and copyright issues. "It's just about how words are expressed. If the verdict were in favor of the plaintiffs, the judge (would) have rewritten the law of copyright."
There are, of course, extraordinary consequences of this for screenwriters. In no form of writing are "ideas" pitched so widely before they become "expressed" into particular copyrighted material.
4/08/2006 03:56:00 AM |
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Friday, April 07, 2006 Don't Come Knocking Critics and viewers haven't warmed up in general to this movie, written by Sam Shepard, but I love it. Using a wonderful marriage of the deadbeat dad and cowboy mythology themes, this serious comedy is full of honesty and soft spoken wit and damn funny scenes of our human comedy. It is a story about "the west" to the core, which may be why eastern critics don't get it. They don't seem to believe characters like this actually exist -- and in the west, they are everywhere. The mother in particular bothered a lot of critics, that she can be so low key about the return of a son after an absence of decades, but the character is Esther, my late buddy Dick's mother, in the flesh, the same keen-eyed reserve, the same soft wit, the same quiet survival skills. This is the best recent film about "the west" that I've seen. Love it! More information.
4/07/2006 08:45:00 PM |
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101 Best Screenplays WGA has announced its list of the 101 best screenplays of all time. The top ten:
1. CASABLANCA Screenplay by Julius J. & Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch. Based on the play "Everybody Comes to Rick's" by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison
2. THE GODFATHER Screenplay by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola. Based on the novel by Mario Puzo
3. CHINATOWN Written by Robert Towne
4. CITIZEN KANE Written by Herman Mankiewicz and Orson Welles
5. ALL ABOUT EVE Screenplay by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Based on "The Wisdom of Eve," a short story and radio play by Mary Orr
6. ANNIE HALL Written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman
7. SUNSET BLVD. Written by Charles Brackett & Billy Wilder and D.M. Marshman, Jr.
8. NETWORK Written by Paddy Chayefsky
9. SOME LIKE IT HOT Screenplay by Billy Wilder & I.A.L. Diamond. Based on "Fanfare of Love," a German film written by Robert Thoeren and M. Logan
10. THE GODFATHER II Screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo. Based on Mario Puzo's novel "The Godfather"
Simplicity Another beginning screenwriter virus is making everything more complicated than it has to be or should be. One of the best defenses of "simplicity" I've seen is in a fine small book called Aristotle's Poetics For Screenwriters, which I'm seriously thinking of using in my class in the fall:
"Dramatic story works very much like a pop song. When a singer sings a song with the refrain, "There goes my baby," no matter how many minutes the song drags on, we are consistently focusing on the simple plot of the song, that the singer lost his girl. Because the song's plot stays simple, we can concentrate on the emotional impact it's supposed to have on us. The same goes with movie stories."
Rockford turns 78 I practically grew up on James Garner. I was a teenager by the time my parents brought the new furniture called "TV" into our home (they were tired of my fleeing to a neighbor's to watch it), and Maverick immediately became a family favorite. Later I became a Rockford fan. I've seen them all many times, I think. Garner is still kicking around and getting acting gigs, but I still like him best as Rockford, followed closely by Maverick.
Thursday, April 06, 2006 Three favorite writers Gilbert Sorrentino ("The Moon In Its Flight"), Evan S. Connell ("Mrs. Bridge"), John Guare ("Atlantic City").
4/06/2006 03:55:00 PM |
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Grass & rain This is the time of year when I mow grass between stretches of rain, and I managed to do some of that before coming to the university, apparently just in the nick of time. And the grass grows in a sprint these days. It's all I can do to keep ahead of it with my push mower. Of course, with the power mower, untouched for a couple years now, longer grass is not so large an issue -- but who wants to de-evolve to using a power mower?
Usual beginning topics in class today, format, structure. Might show some scenes from Capote (the opening) and Atlantic City (the ending).
Rewrote the 60-odd pages of the novel-based screenplay this morning, taking out the narration and tightening up scenes. Also, on the bus ride today, I thought of the action for the last half of the story. I already knew I didn't have time to clone the novel's actions, that I needed something more focused. I do believe I found it.
I remember my first screenplay, which was commissioned, based on a stage play of mine, and how hard it was for me to change things. My patient producer had to give me on the job training while paying me, and it took half a dozen drafts before "I got it." My first draft was like the stage play: only three characters! The play has one set but for the film, knowing I had to "get outside" ha ha, but I added a couple externals in my first draft. What a mess. What a failure. In the end, I added important characters, new plot points, many new locations, the only thing that stayed the same was, ta da!, the spine of the story.
Eugene O'Neill Taped and finally watched the recent PBS American Masters documentary on O'Neill. Quite good. Inspired me to do a belated rereading of his work, which goes on the list of my ambitious re-reading projects (doing the Rabbit novels at the moment). Little interest to read "new" work these days, beyond my editorial chores. "My" reading has become focused on re-reading the masters.
Rewriting Made a great improvement on the script in progress by removing a narrative voice. I used it because I was lazy: the novel on which the script is based is in the first person, so a narrative voice was a natural extension of the same point of view. But the story easily can tell itself through action -- and more strongly. Still working on the first sixty pages, rewriting.
4/06/2006 07:48:00 AM |
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Wednesday, April 05, 2006 Plagiarism wars The latest on the plagiarism front:
Angry French scribe claims 'Syriana' plagiarized
By Shiraz Sidhva Tue Apr 4, 9:42 PM ET
PARIS (Hollywood Reporter) - A French screenwriter living in Jordan has sued Warner Bros. Pictures, George Clooney's production company and writer-director Stephen Gaghan, alleging that their film "Syriana" plagiarized entire scenes and characters from a script she wrote several years ago.
Stephanie Vergniault's case comes up for hearing Monday at the Paris High Court, said her attorney, Jasna Hadley Stark. The filmmakers are being sued for 2 million euros ($2.4 million) and damages, Stark said.
Executives at Warner Bros. France said they were aware of the case but declined comment. A spokesman for Warners in the United States said, "While we have not seen a copy of this suit, we believe it is without merit and (we) will defend our position in court."
"I live in a part of the world where we have no access to the latest films, and I would never have seen 'Syriana' if a friend of mine based in Los Angeles hadn't alerted me," Vergniault said Tuesday.
"I saw the film entirely by accident, and I'm still in a state of shock that someone of the caliber of Stephen Gaghan could stoop so low. At least 15 to 20 scenes of the film -- the characters and how they develop, creative elements, the entire structure -- has been lifted directly from my script. I couldn't stop screaming when I first saw the film in a movie hall in L.A. First I thought I was going crazy, seeing my work on the screen, and then, when I realized what had happened, I was furious."
Vergniault, a specialist on geopolitics in the Middle East, claims that she worked on a script titled "Oversight" from 1997-2003, registering it with the French copyright body SACD in September 2004 and copyrighting it in the U.S. a month later. The script tells the story of a former CIA agent who is reassigned by the organization to reactivate an underground network in Afghanistan for the benefit of an American oil company.
"I have read the book by former CIA agent Robert Baer that is supposed to have inspired the story, and there is nothing in it that remotely resembles the scenes taken straight from my script," she said.
Clooney received an Academy Award last month for his supporting role in the film, while Gaghan was nominated for his screenplay. He originally sought eligibility in the adapted screenplay category, but the Academy switched him to the original screenplay race.
Upon learning of the switch in January, Gaghan said he did veer from Baer's memoir, "See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism," and conducted a great deal of original research that he incorporated into the script, but still considered it an adapted screenplay.
In the news An amazing thing happened: two teams I rooted for won -- and on the same day. From the AP:
Too young to fear the pressure and too experienced to succumb to it, the Terrapins won their first NCAA women's title Tuesday night, coming back from a 13-point deficit to force overtime and beat Duke 78-75. ... Sexson drove in five runs and Kenji Johjima homered in his second straight game to lead the Seattle Mariners over the Angels 10-8 on Tuesday night.
In Hollywood, the theory is that audiences don't like to be "confused," hence the disappointing opening weekend of "Slither": "I think that because it was comedy-horror instead of pure horror is where the problem lay," Brooks [producer] said. "It's the first comedy-horror in a long time, and maybe the marketplace just isn't ready for comedy-horror yet. It's difficult to think of other explanations." (Reuters)
4/05/2006 02:49:00 AM |
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Tuesday, April 04, 2006 Office hours A bit of writing done this morning, enough to realize that the new screenplay I'm working on -- based on my road story novel -- is a real mess. I'll have to make more major changes than I thought but I'll blunder forward to the end and figure it out during the first rewrite. I swear, adaptations are so much harder than original stories.
Visits with a few of last term's students who stopped by. Always nice to see them. Ah, youth! and all that ha ha.
Tomorrow an early dentist appointment, and I pass Nobby's on the way home, my favorite spot for breakfast, so I might as well stop by. The rest of the day should be mine. Nice spring weather today -- if it lasts till tomorrow, time for lawn work again. The grass grows like crazy during a wet spring.
4/04/2006 03:57:00 PM |
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Spring term Syllabus ready, class list ready, I'm ready. Seeing my wife off on a day trip this morning, then I'll write most of the day before going to the university mid-afternoon. Come home in time for the end of the women's NCAA final. UCLA got dismantled last night. The better team won. Seattle, on the other hand, could have won their opener but made a mental mistake and later were unable to score with the bases loaded and nobody out. Baseball is the perfect game for spring. Leisurely.
4/04/2006 08:30:00 AM |
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Monday, April 03, 2006 Baseball At the opening of the Mariners game today, I heard perhaps the best rendition of the Star Spangled Banner I've ever heard, performed by the Navy Vocal Quartet. No frills, great harmonies. God, I hate it when vocalists butcher it and use it as a show off platform for stupid vocal histrionics, which is typically the case. Makes me want to go puke somewhere most of the time. This was class and first rate all the way. Love the rare performance like this, makes it actually sound like an anthem. I taped it I was so moved.
Opening day reminds me of my article The Last Slow Dance about baseball, published almost forty years ago in Northwest Magazine. Not much has changed since I wrote it -- the sport is still a wonderfully slow dance.
4/03/2006 02:55:00 PM |
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Babbling on the AlphaSmart Reflections after a wake:
After I got out of the Army, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I still was about 5 years away from "deciding to become a writer." I knew I wanted to return to school but not as a math/physics major as before. I worked for a year, decided to major in philosophy, later changed my major to history, and still later to literature. Helping move me toward lit was a terrific teacher, the late J. Robert Trevor, who later became a good friend. I recall a moment in Trevor's class when I discovered an aptitude for literature. We were discussing a poem by e.e. cummings that ends "the most who die the more we live" -- and the class was having a difficult time explicating this and the poem. I finally raised my hand and gave an explication that Trevor later told me as "brilliant," though mostly I recall babbling about the fragility of life. (I'd lost some good friends in the Army when their spy plane was shot down by the Russians, though of course this was all covered up.) But I saw how my original interest in philosophy and all the "deep questions" were also the focus of much serious literature.
All this comes to mind because of the weekend wake/funeral. I learned a lot this past weekend. I learned that I miss being around folks, like Lynne, with whom I can have five-hour conversations. I don't do this with many, and almost none of my old conversational-buddies are alive today. I also learned how much I've changed compared to my old drinking buddies, with whom I now have little in common, the real common denominator of booze extracted from the relationship. With drunks, you join them or ignore them. (I actually use drunks lovingly here.) There was one remarkable moment at the wake when I was standing with my wife and two ex-girlfriends. Talk about a layered past. I was happy to be married to my wife. A good thing, too, ha ha.
When it's my turn to be the subject of a wake, I hope folks just read from my work. But who knows what will happen. I don't lose any sleep over it. I don't want a fuss -- I just want more readers! Typical writer.
But, all in all, despite the glory days of the 1980s, despite all variety of past adventures (a period when I always wore a white tuxedo to my openings), I'm in my best time of life -- despite out-living almost all of the people who really matter to me. My writing is strong, I almost always am able to write what I set out to write, work I am proud to have done, and really that's about all I have control over. When my time comes, I'll be pissed because surely I'll be in the middle of "my best work yet" etc. If I lose my faculties before my life, then I'm going to need some help, perhaps, to split the scene because I have no desire to sit around vegetating, not for a moment. If I can't write, I'd better at least be able to read, and if I can't read, see you later, alligator.
I didn't think I'd make it this long with my physically self-abusive past, so I have no idea how much time I have left. I try to live the old cliche, this day is the last, but most of what I'm up to needs more than a day obviously, but it's always about putting one foot after the other. I enjoy the hell out of the day, or not, in direct proportion to my focus on my imaginative life as opposed to the political world that surrounds me, about which I find nothing encouraging, the right and the left equally idiotic to me. The small things matter -- going to the market, buying gas, going to the library, mowing the lawn, taking the dog for a walk -- in the world more than the large issues to me. I love "doing chores" and chatting with the lady at the deli or the clerk at the store. These are my adventures into the world these days. Most of the time I'm in the world of my head, my imagination, which are joyous times indeed. I love my working life, and more now than ever before. That's the blessing of my "old age."
All the same, it's nice to have somebody compatible to hang around with, and I dearly miss Dick and Ger, my two best buddies for so many years. I doubt if they can be replaced. Lynne, with whom I had a great Saturday afternoon, is practically family (allowing for incest, since she's also an ex-lover), I've known her 40 years. She's written songs for my plays and we're often on the same wave length. There are a few other folks in LA I feel that way about because we have so much history. That's the key, having a lot of history together. I no longer have that in Portland since Ger passed away.
Hence my quip, I'm at the age where my best friend is a dog. This is not as bad as it may seem. In the rhythm of my life, I may be exactly where I should be. There's a time for being a social animal and a time for being private and more contemplative.
Well, classes begin tomorrow. Back into the university rhythm. I'm ready. Today, taking it easy -- watch some of the Mariners home opener, then root for my alma mater UCLA in the NCAA final.
4/03/2006 01:05:00 PM |
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Perils of the theater "On this day in 1957 Samuel Beckett's Endgame was first performed, in London, in French. Waiting for Godot, had premiered in 1953 and become an international sensation, but Beckett could find no one in France willing to risk their theater on a new play which featured one character who could not stand, one who could not sit, and two others unable to come out of their garbage cans." Read the full story at Today In Literature.
4/03/2006 09:17:00 AM |
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Blues etc. My late soul brother's oldest son, Brad, has a blues/soul band called Smokin' Mojo. They do some good numbers. They started a website, which is here, with a few selected tunes. I especially like "Tore Down" and I don't much like their version of "Runaway." Brad plays harp and is first rate. He sings most of the leads (not "Runaway"), and they also have a good female vocalist, whom they should give more work. They do well up there in God's Country (northern Idaho).
4/03/2006 09:11:00 AM |
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Gatherings for the deceased A gathering at Diana's houseboat yesterday for a funeral/wake, moments of remembrance and sharing. As happens at such occasions, I saw many folks I haven't seen for a while, including old drinking buddies, ex-girlfriends, and scattered acquaintances from my journey through Portland. It was short and quiet as these affairs go.
Afterwards we had time to kill before taking Lynne to the airport. Walked around Washington Park (had the dog with us) and later stopped for an early dinner at Yen Ha, a Vietnamese restaurant on the way to the airport. I got home in time to see most of the second half of UCLA's remarkable shutdown of LSU and a shot at Monday's championship against Florida. Gonzaga must be thinking, that could have been us.
Hard to believe school stops up again tomorrow. Hardly a break at all. But it will be spring term, usually a good one.
I had TiVo record the games yesterday, guess I'll take a peek. Gray and cold outside again. Where is spring?
4/02/2006 08:23:00 AM |
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Saturday, April 01, 2006 Yesterday A full day yesterday! We began with a visit with our tax accountant, from which we left with big smiles. My friend from LA, Lynne Fuqua, came to town for Diana's funeral today, and we connected up at noon and spent the next five hours wandering around Portland, from downtown to northwest, gabbing the while and catching up. A great time! I had tickets to a Mariners game (in town) last night, which was a sell out and a sell out in the stadium here is a mess because the facility sucks so much. I left during a rain delay after three innings, when all the Mariners starters were taken out. I was soaked by the time I got home, with two long walks involved (bussing it). I crashed early.
Today we pick up Lynne for the funeral. We'll take her to an early dinner and to the airport by six. Lynne, who is 50 (which is impossible to imagine since I've known her since she was ten -- we even had a scandalous (to some) affair when she was in her 20s, but we get along better than with any other ex), is in good shape mentally and physically, it seems to me, thinking about going back to college for her degree and taking piano lessons to improve her self-taught skills. She's a very talented vocalist and songwriter -- but has always been, well, lazy about sharing her talent. She's written songs for several of my plays and is the most remarkable songwriter in that regard I've ever worked with. I remember asking her for a song for my play COUNTRY NORTHWESTERN and a few days later getting three, all first rate. I ended up changing the play so I could use them all!
Lynne is in LA because her sister and extended family are there but she doesn't like it much (her favorite city is SF) and may move eventually, though she also likes the security of the job she has at a college down there now. One of my favorite people. A great five-hour conversation yesterday. I don't get many of those any more.
4/01/2006 08:25:00 AM |
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_The Writing Life