(Image of Tofino, BC)
K(no)w your limitations…
Tag Archives: writing
Writer as exhibitionist
Marks for exclamation
Snow drifting
(Image property of Duncan Rawlinson; http://duncan.co/tag/snowing/)
From thousands of feet, the snowflake made its way from its misty nursery to a gentle caress of Henry’s cheek, slowly melting where ice meets the dampened skin to puddle with its fallen brethren.
Henry faces the sky, his back firmly planted in the snow bank, the drift slowly cocooning him as the crystalline waters descend, tears of boreal gods.
Flakes weave with the hairs of his beard, completing the whitening that age has yet left undone, his thinning scalp protected by the few remaining threads of a toque too old to be merely ancient.
Pedestrians trundle by, eyes held askew, muttering their disapproval as they bow their heads against the wind and cold. But he remains oblivious to their stares and sneers, in a world of his own, one with the thickening storm that swaddles him.
Henry doesn’t feel the cold they feel. He doesn’t feel the wind they fight. Nor does he feel the latex-gloved hands that lift him to the gurney as an unusually cold winter claims another life.
Fresh eyes – writing tip
Heart of Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola likes me! He really likes me!
So, no sooner do I finally get around to posting my laurels from Nashville than I find out that my screenplay The Naughty List was selected as a semifinalist in the 12th Annual American Zeotrope Screenwriting Competition, an organization run by Francis Ford Coppola (I seem to recall he was a director of geopolitical documentaries).
I had started to wonder if the screenplay was going to see any love in the competitive world…this is good!
Coming to a theatre near you (please, please, please)
So, what is the story of The Naughty List?
What would you do if you learned decisions you make every year ruin the lives of millions of children?
Oh, and your name is Santa Claus.
After a brush with death just days before Christmas, Santa rescinds the Naughty List only to learn that for some kids, the lump of coal started a life-long downward spiral. In fact, two kids—now warlords—are about to unleash hell on each other and their people.
With a loving heart and snowy balls, child-like Santa dives into the fray. But his magical meddling only makes things worse.
He greases the wheels of war. More children suffer, including a girl desperate to save her family. As his magic fails, Santa knows he must face the oncoming storm as a mortal.
One man. Two armies. Can Santa stop the madness and save a crumbling Christmas?
Belated laurels
Ah yes, almost forgot. This showed up in my in-box back in December. The laurels for my Best Animated Feature Screenplay at the 2014 Nashville Film Festival.
The winner was my screenplay for Tank’s, a story that proves even a fish in water can be a fish out of water.
Tank’s for the love!
To read the opening pages of Tank’s, visit:
Do what you want to be
University grad Xingyi Yan, 21, has taken a placard to the street in a bid to land a job in advertising or marketing. (Credit: MARTA IWANEK / TORONTO STAR)
This past week, I read an item in The Toronto Star about a young university graduate who was finding it difficult to get a job. To highlight her availability, she took to standing outside Union Station, Toronto’s main transit hub, wearing a placard.
She’s hardly alone, unfortunately, and I applaud her moxy for putting herself in the middle of the pedestrian business traffic, but I question how effective her plan will be.
The young woman is interested in a career in marketing and advertising. Unfortunately, her sign suggests she does not have the creative talent for such a job. It’s a white sign with black letters that tells me her problem, not how she’ll solve mine. Even her choice of location tells me she doesn’t understand modern marketing and advertising.
>99% of commuters at Union Station not in a position to hire
More than 99% of the people walking past her every day are not interested in her goals and cannot do anything for her. She’d have been much better off jumping online for a couple of minutes to learn the locations of all the major marketing and advertising firms in the city and camping outside their doors.
That’s what I did when I was looking for a job years ago, after completing my M.Sc. studies. I didn’t wear a placard, but I did post “Lab Technician Available” signs around the research wings of the universities and teaching hospitals around Toronto and nearby Hamilton.
And the signs didn’t just announce that I was available. They also listed the laboratory techniques in which I was proficient, and therefore, how I could help your lab.
I got a lot of interviews out of that campaign and landed a couple of job offers.
Just over a decade ago, while working for a couple of science magazines in Washington, DC, my group needed to hire a couple of writers. As one of the hiring managers, I met all of the candidates and routinely participated in the same conversation:
“I’ve always loved writing,” the candidate would gleefully tell me.
“Well, that certainly helps with this job,” I would smile. “What have you published?”
The candidate’s smile would waver.
“Well, nothing,” he or she would hesitate. “But I love writing.”
“Great. Do you have any samples?”
An embarrassed shuffle in the chair.
“Um, no,” the candidate would visibly shrink in the seat. “It’s mostly just personal writing.”
By this point, I would have been willing to look at that.
To a person, I would offer the same advice at the end of our conversation:
“I can’t say how this process will go, but if I can make a recommendation: If you want to write science, write science…for anyone…whether paid or for free. If I can’t see your writing, how do I know you can write?”
If you say that you’re dying to do something, then prove that to prospective employers by actually doing it.
I would never apply for a job as a screenwriter without several screenplays in my pocket. And I’m pretty confident that it is not enough to stand on the corner of Hollywood & Vine in Los Angeles offering my services (at least not screenwriting services).
And when you do the thing you’re dying to do, make sure you do it well.
If my screenplays are shit, why should anyone hire me? If the placard you’re using to market yourself is unimpressive, why would a marketing company hire you?
Your effort doesn’t have to be professional-grade necessarily—what individual had that kind of budget?—but if it’s not exceptional in some manner, why would I make an exception and hire you?
I wish the young student well. She has taken the first step, but has so many more to go before she is likely ready.
Sights unseen (a short story)
The waitress strode by Jerome for the third time in less than 20 minutes, giving him nary a glance as she shifted another tray of plates and a pot of decaf coffee. Jerome watched her swoosh by, hoping to make eye contact but without any luck. It’s not even like the restaurant was busy.
But then, this is the way it was for Jerome, who was still getting used to being invisible.
Being invisible didn’t come naturally to Jerome. In fact, it was fair to say that he was struggling with the idea. There was a disconnect, you see, between how he saw the world and how the world saw him.
When he looked at his hands, he saw five fingers on each. His feet both had five toes. He had legs and arms, hips and shoulders, pretty much everything that every other person on the planet had. And yet, when other people looked at him…
Well, there it was.
Nobody ever looked at him. They didn’t know he was there. He was invisible.
Although the revelation had only come to him recently—partly the reason he had yet to wrap his head around the idea—it did begin to explain a lot of things.
Why people bumped into him on the Metro. Why teachers never called on him in school. Why his parents always ignored his questions. Why women never returned his smiles.
All of these things bothered him, even made him angry. Now, at least, he understood that it wasn’t personal. They simply didn’t know he was there.
Unconsciously, he raised his arm as the waitress blew past him before disappearing into the kitchen.
Personal or not, being unseeable could be irritating.
Jerome had wondered briefly if he wasn’t perhaps dead, a ghost wandering the streets. He’d seen a movie once about a guy who only ever spoke to a young boy and slowly realized that…
Outside the window at Jerome’s left elbow, a young woman appeared to be having a stroke. Well, in truth, she was staring right at him while applying lipstick, but her mouth movements were so exaggerated that he wouldn’t be surprised to learn her left side was completely frozen and her speech was slurred.
He pressed his nose to the glass. But for the glass, she could easily apply lipstick to his mouth, one way or another. But no.
He had dismissed the idea of death because the guy in the movie had a wife and a medical practice, neither of which he had. And besides, he didn’t know any young children, boys or girls.
“I’m not saying I want a relationship,” the woman at the next table said to her male companion. “But I don’t think we can ignore the fact that we slept together after the party.”
Jerome shook his head. You heard a lot of stories like this when you were invisible. People simply had no sense of privacy.
“And we had a great time,” the guy responded, gingerly placing his hand on hers, his body tensed to flee at the first sign of reciprocation. “But the fact that we work together complicates things.”
No matter how closely Jerome sat to the next table, no matter how obviously he ping-ponged between the speakers, the conversation never became more hushed. He heard every morbid detail, and no one seemed to care.
His attention to the burgeoning telenovela was distracted, however, by a furtive motion at another table. Several feet away, an old man in torn trousers and stained t-shirt palmed a tip left on an adjacent table.
That’s not kosher at any time, Jerome thought, but especially not a couple of weeks before Christmas.
Jerome wanted to say something but then the man used the funds to pay for his own coffee before snatching a ratty knapsack from the floor.
Was he homeless?
The waitress scooped the coins as she vaulted past Jerome with someone’s bill.
Grabbing his unopened book from the corner of the table, Jerome rose from his seat and fished through his pockets.
I don’t know why I even come here, he thought. Still, it didn’t seem right that the waitress should lose out simply so a homeless guy could keep warm.
From the far side of the restaurant, Tula watched Jerome drop a few coins on the table where the old man had stolen the tip. She smiled as she bookmarked the page she was reading, the melodrama at the next table making it too hard to concentrate.
She would have liked to have complimented the man on his beautiful gesture, but there wasn’t much point in even trying.
Tula, you see, had recently determined that she was invisible.
Brain of a thousand voices
Do you become the characters you write as you write them?
Please understand, I’m not asking if you’re writing a serial killer, do you go out and take a few lives in the neighbourhood simply to get in the right frame of mind (or at least, I’m not asking you to admit it here). Rather, do you inhabit the thoughts and moods of your characters as you type/write?
I’ve often wondered what it would look like if I video recorded me writing my screenplays or novels. Do my body language and facial features reflect the inner turmoil of my characters? I know my typing does.
If I am writing people who are angry, my poor keyboard takes an absolute pounding as I act out all of the aggression that’s flowing through my characters’ actions and words. Likewise, if I am creating a scene that starts slowly and then builds to a crescendo, I find the mood of the scene is reflected in the tarantella of my fingers across the keys.
I have also noted some physical cues. The more tense a scene, the more my jaws hurt from all that clenching. My libido shifts in a love scene (sorry if that is TMI). A smile lights my face in humourous scenes. And I have actually achieved tears in particularly emotional scenes.
For the moment, I will assume that I am just emotionally in tune with my characters, but I cannot yet rule out a slow nervous breakdown.
Thus, I would love to hear other writers’ experiences in this area.
createdbyrcw 