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
Wednesday, May 31, 2006 Something to look forward to A great story, that I've worked on as a hypertext off and on in recent years, is the controversy surrounding Tchaikovsky's death. From the wire:
Andrew Gans, Robert Simonson Playbill.com Wed May 31, 3:41 PM ET
Peter Shaffer, the Tony Award-winning playwright of Amadeus and Equus, is working on a new play about the life and death of Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the playwright's agent confirmed.
Shaffer's latest work concerns the "circumstances surrounding the composer's mysterious death in 1893," according to the New York Post, which first broke the news. The composer of Swan Lake and The Nutcracker supposedly died of cholera; however, there are rumors that he may have taken his own life when faced with the threat that his homosexuality would be exposed. His suicide may have been covered up by his brother Modest, also a gay composer.
The New York daily reports that the Shubert Organization is very interested in Shaffer's latest work. In fact, Shubert President Gerald Schoenfeld told the Post, "Ever since I heard he was writing it, I've been waiting for it. . . A new play by Peter Shaffer is a major event. We await it with open arms." The Shubert Organization had great success with the 1974 production of Shaffer's Equus. Said Schoenfeld, "Equus was a pivotal event in [the Shubert Organizations'] history."
The office of Robert Lantz, which represents Shaffer in New York, said the play is still unfinished and has not yet been read by anyone.
Schaffer is a master playwright -- this should be first rate. And now it's a project I don't have to go back to, although the narrative strategy in hypertext is surely different from the story Shaffer will tell.
5/31/2006 04:18:00 PM |
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Finding a new home One of our summer chores is starting the search for our next, and final, home. We'll start with area retirement centers. Most offer a free lunch and tour, so we'll start doing that. Two things we need not every place will offer: accepting our small dog; and enough room that H can have her art studio. I can write anywhere I can set up my computer & keyboard. We'll consider retirement centers, apartments, condos. Something will turn up. Of course, also has to be something we can afford ha ha.
5/31/2006 02:55:00 PM |
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Limited edition I'm still marketing Kerouac's Scroll but also want Dick's two sons, to whom it is dedicated, to get copies -- a perfect use of Lulu! For a mere $20 investment, and about an hour of computer work, I produced two professional looking paperbacks, one for each of them. Sent off this morning. To avoid confusion, I renamed it Hooker & Bear. At my age, and not knowing how long the grace of the gods will continue (on what seems to me to be an incredible run, actually), I don't like to leave loose ends dangling for someone else to take care of if I can take care of them myself while I'm still able. Glad I got this taken care of.
Haven't hit the student scripts yet. Conferences all day tomorrow, so obviously I have to read them all today. I'll get it done. Nice to see their progress now.
5/31/2006 10:09:00 AM |
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Tuesday, May 30, 2006 Advice Had lunch with a young writer who wanted to pick my brain, sort of, about the writing life. Never know what to say. It's so personal and so different for everyone. I've had the advantage of experiencing most modes of writing -- making my living at it and not, having a period of great press and flattery, having a period of invisibility and marginality, winning awards and not getting awards -- and each mode has advantages and disadvantages. In many ways, I've never been "happier" as a writer in terms of my relationship to my work -- but at the same time, I've never been more invisible or marginal, at least out of cyberspace. I've never written better and never received less "official" recognition for it. The bottom line is, writers write. In the end, it's a kind of existential decree. I write, therefore I am.
5/30/2006 04:12:00 PM |
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Breathing room To the office early to catch up on student scripts. Done. 5 hours now before I pick up a large stack of drafts for my final comments before their submissions for grades, and reading them will occupy my Wednesday. In the meantime, for the rest of the day here, I'm working on Bedrooms & Bars, grunt work largely. I can see the novella changing from the play before my eyes. Once it's all re-told, I'll look at it more carefully during the first rewrite.
5/30/2006 11:31:00 AM |
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And now the news... Nothing is more depressing and disheartening than listening to and watching the news. What an endless sequence of human irrationality, depravity, atrocity, betrayal and stupidity! It's a wonder we've survived this long. Thornton Wilder had the perfect phrase for it in his wonderful play about human history, The Skin of Our Teeth. Somehow we've always muddled through. I don't think we're worse than we've ever been (alas, not better either) but that the media saturation is so much greater today that we're more bombarded with the news than ever. Bad news is always more dramatic than good news, which is why it's hard in this culture to write drama without conflict. I've almost stopped reading the newspaper -- I still read the Sports and Entertainment sections -- and I record the TV news now in order to fast forward through most of it. I'm much more interested in what's going on in my mind than in the world. I surprise myself more than the world does. Thus I'm less boring, less predictable, than the world is.
5/30/2006 05:19:00 AM |
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Monday, May 29, 2006 Memorial Day The war that killed Dick, my best friend, was the Existential War. It's hard to imagine that was over 7 years ago. We quit drinking the same year, 1993, but Dick didn't take to sobriety very well -- perhaps because he was so young when he started, having grown up in a logging town. He was drinking before he was a teenager. I really didn't start until college and especially in the Army.
Sober, Dick stopped almost everything he loved because he associated the thing with drinking: he stopped listening to jazz, stopped dancing, stopped going out much. He became a workaholic, and not a very happy one, in his mortgage business in Idaho. He only lasted five years after he quit.
I miss him. Writing Kerouac's Scroll started out as a tribute to him but ended up something else since the characters found their own lives and no longer were the two of us, which is par for the course. Still, a lot of the sentiment of our friendship remains in the book, if the characters and actions are different. I fear when his sons read the book, they'll think it's about us -- and obviously won't recognize their father. I'll try to convince them differently but I've learned that readers read what they want to read.
Hats I have a collection of hats, mostly baseball-style caps. I have them from colleges in my history, like Portland State and UCLA; teams I root for, like the Mariners and Seahawks; businesses I have a connection with or affection for, like the Lewiston Railroad Company, The New Yorker, or Three Moons Media. I also have vanity hats, like Librettist and my latest, shown here.
It's interesting the comments I get on this cap. "Is that your prison number?" is my favorite. Some think I'm from NY and it's a public school number. Almost no one outside of campus recognizes it as a Library of Congress book number.
For the record, it's the LC area of my archive in Special Collections at the University of Oregon. But I prefer saying it's my prison number.
5/29/2006 12:31:00 PM |
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No holiday Today will be a long day devoted to students. I did manage to get a short writing session in early this morning. If I get some breathing space this afternoon, and the weather cooperates, overdue to get back out in the yard for lawn chores.
5/29/2006 05:32:00 AM |
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Sunday, May 28, 2006 Mississippi Ave. Spent a pleasant afternoon listening to acoustic music, mostly European, in a tavern on Mississippi Ave., only a few blocks from where "Sally" and I lived in 1967 during the year in which I became a writer (that is, took myself seriously and, in 1968, began to publish in literary magazines). The neighborhood was run down and predominantly black when we lived here. Now it's the latest "bohemian" area of the city, full of funky clubs and coffee shops and second-hand stores. When I returned to Portland in 1978 for a much longer stay -- three decades instead of one year! -- the bohemian section was in northwest. "This is the way Greenwich Village used to be," my NY agent at the time told me when she visited. "Hope it never changes." It did change, of course, got gentrified, and now is full of upper-end restaurants instead of funky taverns, boutiques instead of second-hand stores. After NW, the bohemian atmosphere moved across the river to the Hawthorne district in SE, which in turn had its own make-over ... and now it's in north Portland.
5/28/2006 06:55:00 PM |
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Producers Never in a zillion years could I be a film producer. This morning I received my semi-annual call from the producer in LA who's been trying to get Earthly Desires to the screen for what seems like forever. Our last chat, some nine months ago, he was optimistic of directing it himself in Canada this summer. Well (naturally) this deal fell apart, some of his money backing out at the last minute (how many times has this happened to a script of mine? Five or six?), and now he's back to point zero. He called to renew his option for yet another year for a token payment. No problem. I'm not doing anything with the script, and he loves it (more than I do). He's been working so damn hard for so long, I'd like to see him put it together. We may finally meet when I go down to LA this summer.
5/28/2006 12:44:00 PM |
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Progress More editorial work on the review this morning. Man, it's a ton of grunt work to put this together. Tomorrow is dedicated to online students to catch up on.
5/28/2006 11:32:00 AM |
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Harriet's first solo exhibit Harriet has had several careers: costumer at a theater company, roaming Head Start worker, women's studies professor -- and now, since retirement, artist. Her first solo show is upcoming.
5/28/2006 07:04:00 AM |
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Saturday, May 27, 2006
The Da Vinci Code Perhaps the longest-winded thriller in the history of film, full of endless conjecture and explanation, signifying nothing. Actually there's a decent concept in this story. But it's a Flash Gordon movie. If you take yourself seriously, as here, you're in deep trouble.
P.S. Later on TV I caught a bit of Enemy of the State, which is a gripping thriller. The difference? There I care about what happens to the protagonist. In Da Vinci, I really don't care what happens to Tom Hanks or anyone else, except I wish all of them would shut up.
5/27/2006 08:13:00 PM |
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Coming this summer I've changed my mind about adapting my play Bedrooms & Bars to a jazz opera. I'm going to do a new musical project instead. However, I am going to adapt it to a novella and collect it with a few new stories, all of them dark (and uncommercial) -- and I've been fiddling with a cover idea I rather like. Much work to do on this before it comes out, and the Sally novel remains front burner, but this is mostly grunt work, not new creative work, so I can work on both simultaneously through the summer. It will be a very slim volume, less than 150 pages, I think. Pretty dark.
5/27/2006 12:01:00 PM |
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Progress Put in a strong morning on editing chores for the review. About time. Will try to do more later after a break to remove the spots before my eyes.
Thursday, May 25, 2006 Dark Mission from Lulu Rec'd the coil-bound piano score from Lulu -- excellent! First class. Such better quality than from the copy center last year -- and with the fine cover I designed (if I say so myself), this becomes very inviting, makes you want to sit down at the piano with it. I'm very pleased with Lulu -- this even cost less than from the copy center. And this is one of the more user-friendly commercial sites I've seen on the net. They are doing things right here. Delighted thus far!
5/25/2006 02:28:00 PM |
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Fragile Hanging in. Absolutely must hold class today, so I'll take it easy all day, though I do have some prep work to do. I've got 4 days off after I get through today if I need them.
5/25/2006 08:02:00 AM |
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Wednesday, May 24, 2006 Still not right Felt better this morning but worse as the day progresses. Back to bed.
5/24/2006 12:48:00 PM |
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Illness Took ill yesterday afternoon, had to cancel class. All I could do to get home without passing out. Slept seven straight hours! Feeling a tad better ... back to bed.
5/24/2006 02:32:00 AM |
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Hyperdrama Email today from a recent MFA who during his studies wrote an analytical paper about hyperdrama, quoting from some of my work in the area. Wants to write hyperdrama himself now and wrote to pick my brain, more or less. I told him here's everything I know on the form.
I've had seven hyperdramas produced, rather astonishing actually. It was my passion from the late 80s through most of the 90s. My great achievement in the form, by my lights (Chekhov's The Seagull), is the only one I've written that remains unproduced, and it's difficult to imagine how it ever could be produced. You'd need an estate or a very creative set designer. Yet, a hyperdrama about Orphelia was produced in a castle in Germany, so why not? At any rate, I also told him I am too old to have the energy for such complex narrative and production challenges any more and am eager to pass to baton on to younger madmen like himself.
5/23/2006 02:28:00 PM |
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Endurance I'm in good spirits considering the ol' agent's hammer yesterday. I've been at this so long that success or failure makes absolutely no sense to me and certainly has little or nothing to do with my own assessment of what I'm up to. I've had glory days and gutter days and none seem to have much to do with me and more to do with whoever makes the assessments that create the outcomes. And history clearly demonstrates nothing that happens in the literary world today necessarily means anything down the road. We do what we do for our own reasons and we endure. There are advantages and disadvantages of success early in a career, as I had: you get validation and confidence quickly, but then as you mature and get better, yet find yourself no longer fashionable, well, you marvel at how fickle and empty the whole "popularity" gig is. I think the worst thing that can happen with success if that you start believing your good press clippings, which happened to me for a while. Now I don't get any press to worry about it ha ha.
I feel blessed that I'm healthy and fortunate to be doing my best work by far. Those are two facts, no matter what anyone else thinks.
5/23/2006 09:43:00 AM |
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Monday, May 22, 2006 Rejection connection My agent, make that ex-agent, didn't give a rat's ass for my road story novel. Well, my ego is like the finger tips of a guitar player. Lots of thick dead skin from being pressed on so much. I'd already figured out what to do next a month ago. Onward.
5/22/2006 09:40:00 PM |
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Head v. Heart Some projects are head-driven, others heart-driven. The latter, in my life of work, are more rare but more personally important -- and, by my lights, usually better and more powerful works. "Heart projects" from my past are Country Northwestern, Sad Laughter and The Half-Life Conspiracy (plays -- note that a play about the life of Moliere can be heart-driven!); Emmett's Gift, Kerouac's Scroll and The Deadly Doowop (novels); "The Sextant," "The Idaho Jacket," "Presenting the Annual Interracial Pig Roast" and others (short fiction).
Heart projects have strong autobiographical elements. I'm at an age where heart projects matter more to me. Hence I dropped a good head-project in progress to pick up Sally..., a heart project that suddenly demanded attention even though some of this ground has been covered before (in Half-Life and Scroll). Head projects aren't "bad" and some I rank at the top of my game (Love At Ground Zero and Famililly, for example) but they feel less essential to me now.
I have an ambitious head project, a black comedy set in the old west, ready to go, research done, story line close enough to begin writing -- but I wonder now if I'll ever do it. After Sally... I find my ambitions turning away from fiction and to dramatic musical projects, which take longer than text alone and time is exactly what I may not have a lot of. I pick my projects carefully now, including dropping one going well for no other reason than that something more personal shoved its way into line.
No matter how much time I have left, if I'm lucky enough to pass while in the middle of a project, I can go out writing, which is what writers should do.
5/22/2006 08:04:00 AM |
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A sucker born every minute... ...seems to be a major principle driving the Internet. Several times a week I, like you no doubt, have the opportunity to become a multi-millionaire. I hear from African heads of state, widows of dictators, presidents of international lotteries. This morning came a slight variation on the usual theme:
Hello,
It is with heartfelt hope that I write to seek your co- operation and assistance in the context stated below. I am Mr. Robert woody, a lawyer. I am the personal accountant to Mr. Neal Walker, An American; who was a contractor, and a businessman.
On the 30th day of October 2000, my client, his wife and their only daugther were involved in a plane crash of egyptair flight 99 in which all occupants of the plane died. My client {Walker} deposited as family belongings in the sum of Thirty million USDonly (30,000.000.00) with the hope of transferring it to his country as soon as his contract expires. You can visit the website for more information on http://news.bbc.co. uk/1/hi/world/americas/502503.stm Since his death I have made several enquiries to his Embassy to locate any of my clients extended relatives, but this attempt so far has been unsuccessful.After these several unsuccessful attempts I decided to look for a foreigner who is willing to help claim this fund, hence I contacted you.
The intention right now is for you to stand as the Next of Kin of my deceased client. This becomes imperative as the bank has just given me a deadline to provide one, or the money will be declared dormant in accordance with the bank's policy.
All legal documents to aid your claim this fund and to prove your relationship with the deceased will be arranged. Your help will be appreciated with 30% of the total sum. All I require is your honest co-operation.
I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. Please accept my apologes, keep my confidence and disregard this email if you do not apprecite this proposition I have offered you. However, if you wish to help me actualize this,do get back to me so I will let you know what is required of you.
Best regards,
Robert woody,
Sorry, I have to pass. Money corrupts. P.S. There are freeware spell check programs to help you out.
5/22/2006 07:51:00 AM |
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Life & Art Sally... is an autobiographical novel in the sense that much of its action spins off personal experience. Yet, of course, it is fiction. Here's a comparison:
Somehow the ex gets a hold of the script, hates the play and never speaks to me again
By my lights, the play was flattering to her
Art
Protagonist is deliriously happy
Wife changes sexuality
Protagonist is miserable
Years later he writes a play about it all
Ex sues theater company to stop opening of play
Protagonist and ex meet again, trying to negotiate a settlement
Undecided resolution: does play go up? is there a trial? what happens to the couple?
Actually the play shut-down theme comes from another personal experience: Rajneesh lawyers sent a letter to the New Rose Theatre just before we opened Christmas at the Juniper Tavern, claiming the play was insulting to them and threatening to sue everyone associated with the production if we opened. It was a bluff but almost worked: a single-mom actress became terrified and quit. She only came back when the theater attorney promised her free legal representation. This became a very big deal once word was out (almost as big as when the Oregon State Fair banned a Labor Day production of my play 1934: Blood and Roses, which created such a statewide outcry they had to reverse themselves), and the attorney general of Oregon offered his services free as well! Lots of great publicity. We opened and nothing happened.
In the novel, the protagonist is hung up on a shared experience while they were camping, how this apparently means so little to the ex. Was the experience actually shared or was he hallucinating? If shared, how can the ex dismiss the past, regardless of what happens later? Is meaning always determined by present context?
My narrative strategy is non-chronological: already, in forty pages, we have several perspectives. We get into the story at the moment the protagonist learns the ex is in town, trying to close the play in rehearsal and to prevent it from opening. We begin flashbacks about their meeting and life together. We get snippets from the play, interpreting some of these moments. So there are three threads: the past relationship; the present encounter; the play that interprets the past. These I'm trying to weave into the rope that pulls us along.
What makes writing this especially fun -- yes, that's the right word, though it may seem like a strange one -- is that the issue of the protagonist is my issue, the question of interpreting the past. In life, we had our extraordinary time together -- by my lights. Was I hallucinating? If not, does it mean anything?
The ending will reveal itself. I'm going with the flow, which is what I like to do in a first draft. Sink or swim. I can think it all out once I have something concrete to think about. In the ending, anything is possible -- including murder. But I doubt if it will get this extreme.
I think the last scene in the book will be the first full description of the special shared experience. Maybe he does kill her. Then remembers the special moment. Then dials the police. The end. We'll see.
Sunday, May 21, 2006 So far, so good After over five hours of surgery, Barbaro is hanging in there. Having grown up near Santa Anita, I'm a racing fan and am rooting for him.
5/21/2006 08:10:00 PM |
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Unauthorized productions Something playwrights must watch out for are unauthorized productions of their plays. This has happened to me twice that I know of and probably much more than that.
The first instance was a tad comical. I was living in Maryland at the time and visiting Virginia Beach. On a kiosk I saw a flier for a one-act play of mine -- that very night! Naturally I went. It was a starving theater basement production, which means I probably would have waived royalties anyway, but the principle irked me. They claim to have written the magazine where the play had been published and received permission there.
The other was recent, just a year or so ago. I was searching for something or other on the web -- and found a flier for a play of mine about three years ago in a cafe in NYC! Now any NYC production is big on the resume, though I'm too old to care about resumes -- yet again, I would have liked to have known about it. The cafe apparently no longer exists. I had a cast list and did manage to track down an actress who now was in grad school in Texas and got the lowdown, another starving theater production.
I bet there are hundreds of unauthorized productions of plays by living American playwrights every year.
(Ah, another time: I saw an ad for an upcoming hyperdrama of mine. I called the producer and asked if he knew about my contract: I got a flat rate of $1000 for every 3-week run of the play. They were so committed by that time, they shelled up. Lucky I saw the ad!)
5/21/2006 06:37:00 PM |
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Front burner project Here's a cover I imagined for the novel-in-progress. Hope to finish the draft this summer but it has a complex narrative structure, which may cause problems ahead. We'll see! So far it's a blast to write.
5/21/2006 06:31:00 PM |
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Book review Done and emailed. Writing Drama, a French classic available for the first time in English, is the best book of its kind, period. Everything anyone would want to know about dramatic theory is here, well organized, sensible, almost 600 pages -- the best reference book on the subject. The other was The Screenwriter's Manual, at last a contemporary reference on format and writing style.
Free slate till the next batch of books they send me.
Need to spend much time tomorrow on the review! Not worried about my own writing these next several weeks. I'll have all summer to catch up. I think I can finish a draft of Sally..., though I have other musical projects cooking as well.
Memories of Ramblin' I first did my Woody Guthrie show "Ramblin'" at Artquake in Portland, in a huge tent filled with hundreds of people. I think it was probably my largest audience, though a couple of college performances later may have been as large. On the other end of the spectrum, I did it for two in Bend at a fund-raiser for an alternative newspaper; and for zero one night in Canon Beach. It happened this way. I got a call in mid-week to ask if I could fill in for a weekend cancellation at the Coaster Theatre or whatever it's called, I said sure. Friday and Saturday night shows. I was working at the magazine at the time, so rushed to the coast after work. Friday night -- nobody showed! I did a sound check for Saturday (I got paid anyway, so it wasn't a big deal) and walked out -- and saw the marque, which said "Cancelled" in big red letters. They forgot to put up the new show! They did Saturday morning, and we filled the house that night.
Another memorable non-performance was at a central Oregon resort. Damn good money, and they wanted a 30-minute version. I had built the show in modules: I could do any 10-min. increment up to the full hour show. Well, the guy before me, doing a slide show of the SF earthquake, never got off stage. The poor M.C. kept coming to me, can you do 20? 10? Should we run late? I confessed, look, as long as you are paying me, I can just go to the bar and have a very good time, thank you very much, so I never did do the show. Of course, I spent a good portion of my fee at the bar.
One of my favorite gigs was in Eugene, upstairs in a cozy room with stuffed furniture, above a coffee shop. Small house of about 50. Very intimate. They booked me for a weekend, it filled up, so I stayed on weekends for several months, then got tired of the drive from Portland.
I did the show from LA to Seattle and most west coast points in between. With Jim Wylie, our best gig was at the Newport Performing Arts Center. Probably this.
Did it at the lunch room of a mill. Did it on the 4th of July in Orofino, Idaho. Did it at a lodge overlooking the Columbia River. At too many schools to mention.
It's funny how this all started. I wanted to apply for a grant as a playwright to the Metropolitan Arts Commission. They didn't fund writers at the time. But a poet I knew got a grant. What's up? Oh, he said, they funded my readings, not the actual writing. I didn't tell them I hadn't written the poems yet! So what could I perform? Woody Guthrie! I got the grant to perform it, having given them a tape of a few Guthrie songs I did. Amazing. Then I listed all the songs I knew and the ones I needed to learn. I got Guthrie's journals and copied all my favorite passages. I put everything in piles according to subject. My first script was for a three-hour show. About this time I'd seen a wonderful one-person show by an actor whose name I can't recall about Jack Kerouac. Wonderful -- except it was two acts and should have been one. The material got repetitive. Same with Guthrie, I realized. I was determined to hack this sucker down to one hour so I could do it without intermission. It was hard but I persisted. God bless the chain saw!
I got the grant for ten shows. These were so successful, the Metropolitan Arts Commission called and asked me to apply for an extension -- and by the way, off the record, you didn't ask for enough money, we'll give you twice what you got the first time. Wow. After that, I booked it myself, sometimes passing the hat, sometimes getting upfront money, from a little to a lot. During the 80s I took it everywhere I could think of.
Nice to have a CD for the memories, although adding Wylie didn't happen till I resurrected it in the 90s.
5/21/2006 10:02:00 AM |
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Deadline day Well, I've put off my review till the last minute. This morning I must write it, period. The good news is, I'm reviewing two books I think highly off, which makes it more enjoyable to write. Only 1000 words. Should be able to crank it out in an hour or two.
At school this is a relatively easy week, the calm before the storm. Weeks nine, ten and finals week are the tough ones.
Inspection copies of the opera score and Guthrie CD in the mail. Eager to see how they turned out.
5/21/2006 06:24:00 AM |
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Saturday, May 20, 2006 Fragile dreams Barbaro won the Kentucky Derby so impressively, he appeared to have a real shot at winning the Triple Crown, which a horse hasn't done in almost thirty years. But then he broke a leg at the start of the race.
Fans were crying in the grandstand as the unbeaten 3-year-old was loaded into an equine ambulance and taken away, his injured leg in an inflatable cast.
Dr. Larry Bramlage of the American Association of Equine Practitioners said Barbaro suffered breaks above and below the ankle.
"It's a serious fracture. This will require pretty major surgery. ... Keep your fingers crossed and say a prayer," he said. "His career is over. This is very life threatening. Under the best circumstances, we will try to save him as a stallion."
Woody Guthrie fans My Guthrie show on CD (on 2 CDs, actually) is not for sale. However, downhome true-believing Guthrie fans might be able to persuade me to share a copy. At least it's worth a try.
5/20/2006 07:45:00 AM |
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Chores A weekend devoted to deadlines. First, a book review for Creative Screenwriting magazine, due in email tomorrow. Should be able to get most of it done today. Also, lots of catchup editing chores for the review, which has a deadline only three weeks away now. A busy weekend! Gloomy and wet outside, just as well I stay in and work.
5/20/2006 07:36:00 AM |
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Friday, May 19, 2006 What a day But first last night. Don Giovanni was a good production but this opera lost me in the first half of the second act and I didn't re-engage until the stone man appeared. The scoundrel is off-stage forever and all I'm getting is what I already know in terms of dramatic action and though the music is nice, it doesn't rescue the stagnant story for me. Act one was great in this production, with the scoundrel wearing all white which made him more evil than ever. A few weak roles but the majors were strong.
Came home to find a large file I had sent off was not formatted right. Tried to fix the problem before going to bed, found it was too complicated for a quick fix, was back at it early in the morning and spent the rest of the morning before I had it right. Meanwhile I had made the same mistake in two other files soon to be uploaded, so I had to go and fix those, too. I spent most of the day doing grunt work at the computer.
I printed the recent draft of the new screenplay, hope to leisurely read it with the red pen tonight and see if the latest rewrite made progress.
I have a book review due Sunday, not an easy one, so I need to get most of it done tomorrow. It's raining again, so there are no outside distractions.
The end-of-term clock continues to tick. Checked out my fall classroom and it's decent. Not the great high tech one I have this term but it will do fine.
5/19/2006 04:35:00 PM |
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Thursday, May 18, 2006 Busy, busy Getting down to the wire at the university...less than a month now. A few students are still at the starting gate but most are doing nice work, some excellent work.
John came up with a good suggestion regarding publishing the opera score: two editions. Coil binding for practical use (which is where my focus was) but also perfect binding for libraries, more easily put on the shelves. At Lulu, revisions are easy, so I'll do the coil first -- the entire purpose of this is to send it to some opera directors in the northwest, the story being an NW epic -- and after that, I can switch to perfect binding so John can get it in his libraries (I can send it to a few as well). Just to get it out there. Operas are timeless, after all.
I finished a good draft of my new screenplay, rewrote it to 91 pages, which is fine. Now to get some feedback on it and polish. It's a comedy, an adult comedy I suppose I'd say. Another child of the "Half-Life Conspiracy" material, as is the novel I'm working on ... suddenly I seem to be writing a lot based on personal experiences in the late 60s, early 70s. A writer's best material is always his/her personal life. Without exception, I think.
And to the opera tonight! Last of the season, Don Giovanni. Got mixed reviews.
I heard the Da Vinci Code bombed at Cannes. I may be one of the few readers in America who didn't read the book. I tried, actually. After about ten pages, I thought the writing sucked so much that I quit. My wife liked it. There's no accounting for taste.
5/18/2006 08:03:00 AM |
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Not for sale Finally getting around to producing a CD of my Woody Guthrie show, Ramblin', a non-commercial venture. I'll give copies as gifts to a few friends and "true believers" who convince me they need a copy. I'm using the version I did with a second singer/musician, Jim Wylie. I feel certain this show will not be resurrected again. It was first done in 1979, its biggest year probably 1980 when I toured it on two grants. I resurrected it in the early 90s and last performed it in the late 90s. So it's been a while.
I'm making the CD without cost at the remarkable site Lulu where publishing/producing something like this is free if you upload all the necessary files (.wav audio, .jpg cover art to spec) yourself.
Another long day of reading student scripts in store. That's okay. Some good stuff being written. And the end of the term is near.
When my summer starts, I'm jumping immediately into music, wanting to finish up the dragging musical I've been working on. At least on my end. And to start a new musical project.
If I haven't heard from my agent by mid-June about my novel, I need to remind him it's on his desk somewhere.
5/17/2006 03:33:00 AM |
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Tuesday, May 16, 2006 Yet another example...
On this day in 1939 Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust was published. Although now ranked with F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon as one of the best novels about Hollywood, and on the Modern Library's Top 100 of the century list, The Day of the Locust had mixed reviews when it came out and was a commercial flop.
Editing To the office early to upload files for the summer issue of the review. Beginning to look good. Talked to Primus St. John, our poetry editor, and agreed to abandon open submissions (so much bad poetry is written today). Instead, he will put together special projects for each issue, submissions by invitation only. He was under an avalanche of open submissions, much too busy to handle them. This is a good way to keep him on board and guarantee a strong poetry section, though of course the section now becomes closed to many. Primus has been around a long time, with top notch skills, credentials and connections, and I trust him to do wonders with the section. Sort of his baby within the framework of the entire review.
Have a draft of my new screenplay, short at 87 pages, but I know a couple of missing necessary scenes already...getting to 90 shouldn't be a problem.
Will workshop some student scripts in class today. Pick up a pile of new scripts as well, my reading for tomorrow.
Monday, May 15, 2006 Wild goose chase A call this afternoon from the #2 son of my deceased best friend, a "kid" I've known since he was less than a year old. In his 40s now. Going on 21. A musician with many typical musician bad habits. Anyway, hard to assess his degree of sobriety on the phone, and he mumbles as a matter of habit, but what I heard him saying was that he'd gotten his "settlement check," some money due him for an accident, and he needed to get to a bank, and he needed help. Hmm. I could just see him on a bender with a fat four- or five-digit check on him. So I decided to play Godfather: rescue him, get the check, send it by registered mail to his brother in Idaho (where he also lives), and stick him on a bus home. He said he was at the 7/11 in St. John's. That's all he could tell me.
It's almost an hour drive. I got there, found the 7/11, no 40ish kid to be found. Clerk was hard to understand -- don't they hire clerks who speak English any more!? -- but apparently there was no other 7/11 in St. John's. I waited. Called his brother in Idaho and learned that he'd gotten the settlement check last week and had headed to Corvallis to party with friends. Apparently now on his way back? Or ditched by his friends? Neither brother nor I could make sense of the need to get to a bank etc. I waited, then drove around town, returned, finally gave up.
Later after I'd gotten home, a message left while I was out with the dog: he'd waited two hours, finally took a bus to a motel. Hmm. I looked on the map. Either he had wandered off when I came by, or he was at another 7/11 some miles east of St. John's, not really in the community but closer to it than anywhere else.
It's one thing to have these adventures (his, not mine) when you're young but over 40, it's time to "get a life," as the cliche goes. Older bro gets very frustrated with him. Mom, also in Idaho, is a life-long enabler.
I got a long afternoon drive out of it and a nice long chat with older brother in Idaho. And the story may not be over yet, though I rather hope this installment of it is. I have a very busy day tomorrow.
5/15/2006 08:07:00 PM |
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Strange Finally heard from John, who read my comment here about sending him email. He didn't receive any of the many, many emails I sent these past two weeks while putting together the Dark Mission material for publication. Strange. At any rate, he wrote a good intro, and the files are now uploaded. Eager to see how it turns out.
Caught up (almost) with online students from the university, still a couple of others to do. Also, John sent more musical stuff for the review, and I have some screenplays to look at. Going to be a busy four weeks! But the review comes out just about the time I get my grades in -- so a big sigh of relief will be upcoming.
Supposed to get into the 90s today! I'll believe it, and absolutely love it, when it actually happens.
Behind on my own writing but that's okay.
Aha, another project: going to make a CD of my Woody Guthrie performance with Jim Wylie. Just to circulate among friends. If you want one, holler. It's also online at the audio area of my archive.
5/15/2006 10:54:00 AM |
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Sunday, May 14, 2006 The noise of summer Call me old-fashioned but it was more pleasurable doing weekend yard work decades ago than it is today. Everyone was out to mow and rake in yesterday's fine weather, and everyone in the neighborhood except yours truly was armed with the power weapons for the occasion. I abandoned mine a few years back for the more aesthetically pleasing push reel mower and hand rake. I especially abhor the bellowing blowers that push leaves and debris around -- a real sadist invented that one. The moral, in my case, is do my lawn work during the week when the weekend gardeners are at work and their tools of noise pollution safely locked up.
Went to a boring auction event last night. Sapped the energy right out of me. The older I get, the less I can put up with gatherings that bore me. Not an interesting conversation found anywhere. I came home exhausted.
Back to the lawn today and I also have student scripts to read.
Got some good editing chores done yesterday. Have some nice musical excerpts to include with a libretto I'm publishing in the review.
I don't know what's with John. He stopped answering email and except for a recent appearance in a comment here, I'd think he'd been kidnapped by aliens, if not worse. Looks like the musical section of the review won't be as strong as last issue. However, the poetry section, our first, is outstanding, filled with many major voices in Oregon literature.
5/14/2006 07:52:00 AM |
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Friday, May 12, 2006 Feel good formula Rec'd a couple of free tickets to Akeelah and the Bee, so checked it out today. The script was a 2000 Nicholl Fellowship winner. This story pulls all the right heart strings at all the right times and is totally predictable -- and at the end, the audience applauded. The moral: certain story techniques have worked forever and still work. At least at the level of audience appreciation. This is well crafted, to be sure. But not a surprise in it for anyone familiar with how these stories work.
5/12/2006 08:06:00 PM |
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Whoosh! Whenever I have very large files to upload, as this morning, I come to the office to take advantage of the university's T1 connection. Takes no time at all.
A busy day in store catching up on home chores. All projects going well! I can use the physical activity (in moderation, of course).
On the wonders of public transportation I use a park & ride lot and hop a bus to the university. One of the advantages of doing so is that I'm often exposed to great writerly material. Today a teenaged girl sat in front of me, yapping away loudly on her cell phone, and delivered one of the funniest fifteen-minute monologues I've heard in quite a while. It was about her boyfriend being busted for drugs at school, and she used a variety of voices to play the various roles -- boyfriend, herself, police officer, teacher, various student witnesses. She didn't stop for even an "um-hmm" on the other end of the line, which gave me lots of time to study the cadence of her delivery and make mental notes for the next loquacious teenaged girl I put in a script. Wonderful material! And it's free!
I'm only a few writing sessions from finishing the draft of this new screenplay, which is a comedy. I haven't written a comedy in a while (a comedy in the adult tradition, like "Sideways" and "About Schmidt") and am enjoying the hell out of it. I should write more. Enough heavy drama for a while ha ha. Waiting for my writing partner, former student, across the country to get ready for our collaboration of another idea, his, which is damn good. But the new novel stays front burner, though you wouldn't know it this week.
This summer I'm most excited about various music projects I'm finishing or starting. Also excited about our LA trip!
5/11/2006 02:57:00 PM |
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Wednesday, May 10, 2006 Keep on truckin' A good writing session already this morning.
Warm, clear day forecast. If so, I can read student scripts on the deck. An official gesture that summer is near.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006 Office hours Still on this strong writing jag I've been on. It's a bit surreal, as if I'm possessed and barely keeping up with the transcription of the voices in my head. A bit exhausting!
H and I talked today about a summer trip we hope to make. Drive down to LA for another 70th birthday party, then take a leisurely trip back via Monterey and Big Sur, San Francisco, the wine country, the southern Oregon coast. Hope gasoline isn't much more than $3/gal. and hope we can fit this within other summer obligations.
5/09/2006 03:22:00 PM |
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Onward Another strong morning of writing. Take H back to hospital for a check up that everything is going well.
5/09/2006 09:58:00 AM |
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Monday, May 08, 2006 Made it H's procedure went fine. I got a ton of writing done in the hospital, waiting for her to finish up.
The hospital was in my old stomping grounds, close to where Oregon Business Magazine had its offices when I was its managing editor. The same restaurant/bar was across the street, where we had a very late breakfast. Another old-fashioned family restaurant that serves fine traditional breakfasts all day long. You check these places out by their hash browns and menu (must have biscuits & gravy and country-fried steak). Here, both were top notch. Put it on the list. I'd forgotten all about this place, my first breakfast there in 25 years or something. Since it was across from the magazine, we of the staff loved the bar, of course, especially the day we wrapped the latest issue.
Already into act two of the draft of a new screenplay. I think this one was more than usual potential but we'll see.
5/08/2006 03:03:00 PM |
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Energy A very productive early morning of writing -- and soon to hang out at the hospital all morning, where I expect to get more done on the AlphaSmart. Moving right ahead.
Did some research and identified nine opera companies in the northwest or close (didn't know there were so many) to which I'll send the vocal score of the NW-set Dark Mission after it's published, a complimentary copy to the artistic director. Try to get some interest in this thing. John's wonderful music deserves it.
Sunday, May 07, 2006 Hollywood v. Nobel Prize for Literature Today In Literature tells the sad, funny story of William Faulkner in Hollywood. Another WF story is a local one. He had a gig at the University of Oregon and apparently missed getting off the train in Eugene, went on to the next town, and ended up getting arrested for public drunkenness, having to be rescued by the literati to the north. I've heard this story from several sources but others claim it's a myth. Yet it's consistent with documented WF behavior, so who can say? Anybody who drinks has similar stories. I myself, on leave in the Army, was partying on the beach in Denmark one moment and in the next woke up with a lady in an apartment in northern Germany. Whatever orgy or atrocities happened, I haven't a clue, which of course is perfect for a writer -- I can make up anything and call it "autobiographical" ha ha.
5/07/2006 01:27:00 PM |
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Busy, busy Preparing the piano/vocal score of Dark Mission, the John Nugent opera for which I wrote the libretto, for publication.
Last night saw the university's production of the opera Tartuffe. Loved the choral work, some of the solo voices weren't where they should be. A clever story but somehow the music never really grabbed me.
Caught up with online students ... think with "live" students as well but need to double-check that. Need to take H to the hospital tomorrow for in-house surgical procedure, what 3 hrs for her, so I'll take the AlphaSmart and get some writing done. The hospital as office.
5/07/2006 01:14:00 PM |
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Saturday, May 06, 2006 PS3554.E3, or what's in a number? I have a collection of caps. I have a (baseball style) cap for Portland State and UCLA, the Seahawks and Mariners, The New Yorker and Three Moons Media, the Lewiston Railroad -- and some custom made caps. I have a Do Not Disturb Cap. In the spirit of Mailer's "Advertisements for Myself," a book that influenced me years ago, I have a Librettist cap. I love wearing the latter where few might know what a librettist is. If they ask, I can say something like, "I design libraries."
My most recent hat shows PS3554.E3, which is the Library of Congress number of my literary archive in Special Collections at the University of Oregon. I got this idea from a gift I received years ago, a T-shirt with the LC number of my MFA thesis, a stage play. A great graduation present! (I really wanted a "Mother Fucking Artist!" shirt but what the hell).
So I wore my archive cap into Starbucks today. The lady at the counter saw it and said, "Is that your prison number?"
"How did you guess?"
"You look like a guy who wouldn't be afraid to show the world he'd been in prison."
Me, a literary intellectual type? Very interesting! Reminds me of a profile written on me years ago (ah the past glory...) that compared me to Paul Bunyan. The muse as a blue bull? In fact, I do have a very blue-collar aura about me, which in fact makes spying much easier, and of course all writers are spies at heart.
At any rate, anyone who has been in a university library, or at least checked out a book there, ought to recognize the format of the number -- but I rather like prison number better and probably will run with it.
Derby Day "Derby Day" was a big deal when I was growing up, one of the big sporting events of the year to which my dad paid attention. Others were the Army-Navy game, the Rose Bowl Game, the All-Star Game and World Series, the Indianapolis 500 Race, and especially boxing if Joe Lewis, Jersey Joe Walcott or Rocky Marciano was fighting. Sports I love today, like the NCAA basketball tournament and the Olympics, were ignored.
But horse racing was a big deal. I grew up during a time when a drive to Santa Anita racetrack was a country drive through orange groves. I grew up during the era of Citation, who was nipped at the wire in the Santa Anita Derby (1948?) by a gray horse named Miche, on whom my granddad had bet a good amount of money, and later I named a gray cat Miche.
The Kentucky Derby and triple crown were big deals. Big enough that my first "road trip" as a teenager, hitchhiking out of Berkeley with a notion I was "on the road," was to Louisville to see the derby. Well, I got to Louisville on Derby Day but I was broke and couldn't afford a seat if any were available. My Louisville experience resulted in charity, a passing motorist offering me a ride and buying me several burgers, then putting the make on me. In my cross-country journey, I was picked up every day or two by a guy on the prowl, though none were physical or threatening once I got over the naive shock of it. I still own my journal taken on this trip forty years ago, some of which I included in my memoir.
Derby Day. I don't follow horse racing any more so haven't the slightest idea who is in the race but I never fail to watch it with some excitement. A habit from my childhood.
5/06/2006 08:12:00 AM |
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Friday, May 05, 2006 Editor Spent most of the day with my editor's hat on, both for the review and learning some book production skills I haven't mastered yet. Fascinating geeky stuff.
Good weather but another turn for the winter ahead. Not quite over the hump on the downhill side toward summer yet.
A good class day yesterday reading midterms aloud. Some very nice scripts. I'm thinking of using two short scripts from current students in the review, as a matter of fact.
Ordered my fall books. Using four: mine (Practical Screenwriting), Aristotle's Poetics for Screenwriters, Casablanca, Sideways.
Had my third blood test in as many months as the doc tries to track and correct a problem. Bad blood is the least of my worries ha ha.
5/05/2006 07:54:00 PM |
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Thursday, May 04, 2006 Hollywood Reading the best book about mainstream Hollywood (i.e. studio) screenwriting I've seen, Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder. Not about artsy indies but about commercial film storytelling -- and nothing new here really but it's well organized, clear and entertainingly presented. A quick read full of solid principles for the commercially oriented screenwriter.
5/04/2006 04:12:00 PM |
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The fickle weather Supposed to hit 80 today, then drop 20 degrees for the weekend. If I can get my midterms finished this morning, maybe I can put in an hour of lawn work before going to the university.
Expect to spend much time this weekend working on Marriage, as I'm calling the new novel here. Also on a new screenplay I'm developing with a former student. And catching up on reading etc. etc. etc. Never enough time.
Halfway through the term! It's flying. I do look forward to summer, as always. Then by fall I'm usually ready to enter the classroom again. The usual cycle.
5/04/2006 07:45:00 AM |
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Wednesday, May 03, 2006 Editing Much editing today for the review, concentrating on the poetry section. Make good headway, still a lot more to do. Also started reading midterms -- some nice short scripts from the class.
5/03/2006 08:43:00 PM |
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Tuesday, May 02, 2006 Poetry, fiction, and good energy A terrific morning! Wrote three new vignettes for the novel. I realized I'm using the same story strategy here as Connell in Mrs. Bridge, which is very high on my list of favorite novels. Also met with Primus St. John regarding the poetry section for the summer review -- he's done a terrific job collecting things from Oregon poets, it will be a very fine section indeed! Perks me up.
Think I'll step away and find a sandwich somewhere. This has been such a productive morning. Raises my spirits. (Now the trick will be to avoid the news for the rest of the day ha ha.)
5/02/2006 12:56:00 PM |
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True love? From the news wire:
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- A 33-year-old man in northern Malaysia has married a 104-year-old woman, saying mutual respect and friendship had turned to love, a news report said Tuesday.
It was Muhamad Noor Che Musa's first marriage and his wife's 21st, according to The Star newspaper which cited a report in the Malay-language Harian Metro tabloid.
Muhamad, an ex-army serviceman said he found peace and a sense of belonging after meeting Wook Kundor, whom he said he initially sympathized with because she was childless, old and alone, the report said.
"I am not after her money, as she is poor," Muhamad reportedly said. "Before meeting Wook, I never stayed in one place for long."
He said he hoped to help his new bride to master Roman script while she taught him Islamic religious knowledge.
My wonderful office To the university early today to write here instead of at home. Sometimes I like the privacy here, my cocoon against the fall of western civilization or something ha ha. At any rate, plan to work on the novel first. Caught up and ready for class today. Meeting with poetry editor at 1pm. Weather may be turning springlike again. My personal world is better off than the world at large. Onward.
5/02/2006 10:09:00 AM |
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Monday, May 01, 2006 Relapse A relapse to winter, down into the 30s tonight. I don't believe it.
A good morning of writing, rewriting, polishing the first 16 pages of the novel. I think the tone is right, the narrative in gear, asking "what happens next?" ... a good start. Onward.
5/01/2006 12:41:00 PM |
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_The Writing Life