So, another year has passed, and it's Screenwriting Expo time again, the long weekend each year where I go to feed my dreams (some might say illusions) of being a screenwriter or otherwise creative in the entertainment biz. Given my inaction toward the creative life this year, I'm starting to feel like it's more and more an illusion, which I find depressing for obvious reasons. I could say that it's been a tumultuous year, which is certainly true, but the end result is that I not only feel a side of myself unfed, but a lot more guilt than usual about it. I'm coming up on 40 next year, and while I'm not of the school that has strict ties to accomplishment by a certain birthday, I do feel a sense of youth passing by and a need to get on with it if I'm really going to give it a try.

So I've spent these 4 days finding out lots about how other people go about being writers and making movies. I now have all of the tools necessary to start doing this if I really want, tools lots of other people would dearly love to have, and I think that this is going to have to be the year I either put up or shut up. Walking back to my hotel this afternoon after skipping out on the 2 o'clock classes, I decided that I won't come back next year unless I have a completed screenplay under my belt. I think I've reached the upper limit of seminar and book-learning in this case, and need to put it into practice before any other classes here can have meaning. I also know that it's easy to just keep going to classes and buying books, spinning wheels in what ultimately becomes a painful pretense of having a writing career.

Enough already.

"They" say that having clearly stated goals is the first step toward accomplishment, so here's my goal: by next October, I want to have completed a full-length feature screenplay that is far enough along in rewrites to consider pitching. I had considered not coming back until I was ready to pitch, but that involves a lot of other emotional factors and makes it a different equation. But it needs to have been polished, and have received some feedback, maybe even a consultation already, and definitely several rewrites by the time I come back to LA next fall. Otherwise, I'll save myself the plane ticket, hotel, and registration fee and keep writing instead. I believe I have stories to tell, regardless of what may ultimately happen to them, and I want to get them down.

Period.

So, to those 5 of you who are my friends and family reading this, please remind me of this goal from time to time—ask me how it's going, what it's about, whatever. And maybe next year will be the post that says someone wants to make my script into a movie, or that I've decided to do it myself. Or at least that it's finally finished. Just one or two steps, but the inertia of how I've chosen to live my life is driving me crazy with dissatisfaction. It's time to pick a road and actually walk for a while.

Posted at 09:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Never more true. Orwell should be required reading for anyone who works with, consumes, or tries to be one of the media—in short, everyone. This essay is an excellent place to start, and bonus points for having read Animal Farm and 1984 within the last 10 years (i.e., sometime after it was required for a class). Going back to look at my copies now, since I do not score the bonus points.

Addition:

Must be something in the air—found this just a little bit later in my Bloglines feed (from Believer Magazine):

BLVR: What is the hardest thing about filmmaking?

SS: I will say, and coming from someone who’s made some of the movies and TV I’ve made, it may seem disingenuous—but the hardest thing in the world is to be good and clear when creating anything. It’s the hardest thing in the world. It’s really easy to be obscure and elliptical and so fucking hard to be good and clear. It breaks people. Because you don’t often get encouragement to do that, to be good and clear.

Posted at 02:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you want to write you must have faith in what is. You must respect what exists, because it has earned the right to exist. Of all the possibilities, of all the things that might have existed, this thing exists and you should write about it. Be fearless. Explain nothing. Justify nothing. See things as they are and write about them. Don’t waste your creative energy trying to make things up. Even if you are writing fiction, write the things you see and know.

Posted at 03:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Interesting look at the changing face of New York City. It reminds me of an essay in one of V. Vale's Zines books that chronicled the life and times of a movie theater on Market St. in San Francisco. Living in an area where it seems everything is being torn down and rebuilt, I always enjoy seeing continuity in places, and some of the photograph pairs here are stunning in showing how little some parts of NYC have changed in 60+ years. Not that I live somewhere where there are a lot of historic sites and buildings, but I can think of very few places in SJ that have stayed that identical, at least out here in the 'burbs.

Although, now that I think about it, my house is close to a century old, and I suspect many of the others in the neighborhood are similarly aged. It makes me wonder what it all looked like before the freeway ran through and the orchards disappeared—there may have actually been a cul-de-sac at the end of Katherine Ct., rather than the very short open-ended street I live on now. Might be time for a visit to the local history museums…

Posted at 12:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A great article on the transition political journalism has undergone in the last twenty or so years. It touches on many points, among them herd mind, the myth of media objectivity, and best of all, ideas for how to make it better again from those within the field. PressThink, where it's from, looks like a really solid resource for anyone who wants to self-educate on how politics gets covered and a lot of other media-related issues. [via Doc Searls]

Posted at 12:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So with all of this unemployed time on my hands, you'd think I would get more reading done. It's been a bit more than usual, but not as much as I'd secretly hoped. However, the last two nights have been completely decadent from a words-consumed standpoint. First, I devoured all four volumes of Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind, which my brother lent me. I had never heard of it, but it turns out to be a 4-part graphic novel written and illustrated by the director of Princess Mononoke, which is still one of the most profound experiences I've ever had at a movie. It was a bit hard to follow—it's black and white, and the characters all look similar due to the anime style—but the themes of human violence and ecological destruction that Princess Mononoke explored are dealt with deeply here too.

Yesterday then brought an unexpected gift (see Random Present Day at right): Walking Home: A Woman's Pilgrimage on the Appalachian Trail. It is exactly what it sounds like—a modern pilgrimage story, full of adventures, near-misses, and a cast of fellow wanderers straight out of Chaucer. It was inspiring in all the right ways, which is to say that it had a lot to say about perserverance and sticking to a goal, but equally as much about knowing when to detour and when to stop. The vignettes that author Kelly Miller paints about her surroundings, her internal and physical struggles, and the other hikers ring true and human, and there's a lot of humor along the way. Needless to say, I tore through this book in one sitting also.

All that, however, does little to make a dent in the huge reading pile that is one whole bookshelf in my room. I'd estimate that there's probably at least 50 books there just waiting for me, along with a pile of magazines by the bed. It's intimidating and luscious at the same time, a jungle of books where one might reach out and grab me at any point. How lovely!

Posted at 04:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been slowly but surely tweaking and expanding the site here. Most of the visual stuff isn't particularly obvious, but it makes me feel better and brings me several steps closer to full XHTML compliance. The content stuff, however, is here for you to look at—I've finally put up the Reviews section. Most of these were written for the newsletter of Sisterspirit Bookstore during the 4 years I volunteered there; the others were written for OutNOW!, a Bay Area gay newspaper, or for the Reclaiming Quarterly. I'm hoping to keep in writing practice by expanding the section as I read, rent DVDs, etc. One navigational note: if the review has a cover graphic, clicking it will take you to Amazon, where you can purchase your very own copy. Just a little service from me to you (and maybe someday back to me).

Posted at 10:54 PM | Permalink