NGC 602 and Beyond, Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team

What could be more glamorous than being a screenwriter. Just think about it; you get to hang out in Hollywood, get to meet all sorts of interesting people, get paid lots of money, attend Oscar ceremonies and maybe even you are really good (and lucky) pick up an award every now and then. Does this scenario sound a little too good true? I hope it does, because though all these things are possible, it just might be the case that screenwriting is the most difficult of  writing professions to break into.

And what is really also surprising is that screenwriting is the most regimented of all the writing professions. In fact it is so regimented that there are available software programs that create for you the basic outline of a 120 page screenplay. Remember this is the standard length for screenplays, because two hours is a good length of time for a feature film. Anything longer and your screenplay gets bounced out of the stack (at least that’s what I’ve read), but you can go a little bit shorter than the standard 120 pages and still be in the ballgame.

The Fairy of Eagle Nebula, Credit: The Hubble Heritage Team, (STScI/AURA), ESA, NASA

But alas all is not loss for there are successful screenwriters in this world. For an interesting inside look at the profession, check out these two guys here who made the grade. There names are Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio and you can find there fascinating blog here. And be sure to read their fascinating column called Throwin’ In the Towel. They really lay it on the line about what it takes to be a screenwriter. Their writing style is lively and upbeat, and their story is fascinating, for these two guys started out writing a while back. They set a goal of if nothing sold within five years, then they would “throw in the towel” and try something else. But believe it or not they slowly became successful adding such credits to their name as “Shrek”, Aladdin, Little Monsters, The Mask of Zorro and much more. Check out there blog for a fascinating look inside the screenwriter’s world from two successful writers.

Not everyone succeeds and just to get an idea of how rocky the road can get you need check out the story of a screenwriter, who almost made it. Her name is Lorelei Armstrong and you can follow her fascinating story at this site. It seems that Lorelei was a graduate from the UCLA film school who won over 10,000 dollars in various screenwriting contests, but who still could not break into the film industry as a writer. Instead she has gone the route of being a novelist and that whole adventure is discussed at another site of hers. You can also read excerpts from her novel or order the book online. The book is called “In The Face” and it is about Hollywood.

So there you are. My take on the ups and downs of Hollywood. It’s a very unique place indeed.

A Parker pen? The latest edition of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style? A brand new Mac? A whole set of Harry Potter novels?

Share with us what’s on your writer’s wish list.

I just cranked out 5,000 words today and I’m still behind.  Mustn’t stop, mustn’t stop, mustn’t stop…

(Happy Thanksgiving, Americans.  And, following quickly on its heels, Happy Rampant Commercialism Day.  Hope none of you got trampled to death outside of Walmart.  [I slept in and played around all day with my husband and child.  And typed.  Oh, mercy, how I typed.])

I’m still planning on updating this Tuesday.  Although, it does happen that Tuesday is the first day that I won’t be frantically writing so I don’t know exactly what I’ll be posting.  Probably just a whiny rant when I inevitably fail.  Tune in next week to find out!

My Favorite Book Contest Winner and DBW alumnus, Julie Ann Ensomo, shares with us her journey from being a David Sedaris fan to waking up one Sunday morning to find her mug shot, all in its two by two-inch glory, staring up at her on the Lifestyle page of a local newspaper.

How does it feel to have your work published in the Philippine Star AND winning a writing contest in just one try?
Exhilarating. I was practically on a high all day. Imagine, first time kong sumali sa isang writing contest tapos ganon na. Saya! Of course, I could do without the enormous mug shot but I guess, everything comes with a prize. Which is a blow-up of my only decent 2×2 passport ID picture on the Philippine Star website. I mean, how big is big really?

How did you learn that your essay had won?
I started buying the Sunday Phil Star newspaper after I submitted my entry. I passed it on Monday so I started buying the following Sunday. Then the next, next Sunday, I saw my mug shot on the paper. That’s it, that’s how I knew I won, first thing in the morning. Sobrang nakakagulat nang bonggang-bongga!

Why did you choose David Sedaris’ book as your entry?
I love, love, love his essays. I love his writing style, his stories, the way he tells them, his experiences and that’s probably why I chose to do one of his books. I actually would love to write like him one day. Simple pero rock.

Read more here.

We all know that children’s books are written for particular age groups: toddlers, middle schoolers, etc. What about adult writing? Certain genres seem to have become the explicit domain of one gender or another—“Chick Lit” being the most obvious.

Other books are not so obvious; yet assumptions are made. For instance, do only men read Civil War books? Are women the only readers of romance? Are techno-thrillers strictly for guys? Publishers, agents, and authors all make assumptions about the audience for certain genres.

Obviously, it’s important to know who the potential audience for a book is likely to include. But are all of these assumptions correct? Are they too limiting? Are we in fact excluding readers and potential fans because we assume they won’t be interested in a certain book, author, or subject? For example, if we tell men that they aren’t interested in novels by refusing to write, publish, and market books with them in mind, isn’t it plausible that we are actively diminishing this audience?

We think so. How about you?

Wisdom is not knowledge, or power ;

It is a child’s laughter filling your heart

and knowing life is good

It is the soft caress of a lovers touch

and knowing life is good

It is the spirit that drives the soul

and seeks the voice of individuality

It is knowing to think

before reacting

It is following your heart

and showing compassion

It is living through the darkest of nightmares

and knowing there is …. hope

~ william ~ 2006

The photo was taken by : Lyutakov Simon of Bulgaria

His photo page is at Photosight.ru

The words are my own.

Inspired by friends…

Buy this today. Great to listen to in the car and share with writer friends.

This is excerpted from my CD, The Writer’s Cave, Why Writers Write What They Do. It is available from amazon for $10. To order click here: http://www.amazon.com/Writers-Cave-CD-John-Lehman/dp/0974172847/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259259763&sr=8-7 and the correct page will automatically come up. 

The Writer’s Cave, True Stories of Why We Write What We Do, written and presented  by John Lehman

Music

BOB: Part One, THE WRITER AS VAMPIRE

Music

JOHN:  Question: Do writers sleep in coffins?

     In the old days, victims of writers, e.g. readers, were occasionally interred while still in an author-induced deep sleep.  This may have given rise to the myth from gravediggers and others who observed them emerging from coffins and crypts that literary people do sleep in coffins. So the answer is “no,” though a writer may choose to sleep in a coffin for other reasons. I understand coffins are quite dark and very quiet.

 John, excitedly.

     I get this idea for a one-person presentation. A DVD commentary on an Ingmar Bergman film, Persona, suggests that a director/writer is like a vampire. Wow, I think, the writer as vampire.  So I write something up. It begins this way:

     It’s 35 years ago in one of the Slavic countries that gave rise to the legend of vampires in the 11^th century. My first wife and I are wandering the streets of Split, Yugoslavia—an ancient Venetian city on the blue Mediterranean with white buildings stacked up its hills.

He turns to the audience.

     Come along with me.

John continues conversationally.

     I’d just left the Army and we are on the first leg of a year’s journey that will take us to Greece, Bulgaria, Italy, Austria, France, Spain, Portugal and back to Germany.

          Anyway, it’s a warm early fall afternoon and a crowd is gathering several blocks away. With our one-year-old in a carrier on my back, we hurry down the seaside street to see what possibly could be going on.

      There’s the snapshot in my memory that remains. A movie is being shot in front of an old hotel. This is intriguing in itself. But then we look past the actors and cameras and see that the man directing it is none other than…the legendary…

…Orson Welles.

John looks off to their left. His initial enthusiasm is replaced by disillusionment.

     He looks terrible. As wide as he is tall, he’s dressed in a black shirt, black trousers, and a black suit coat that he must have slept in. His hair is greasy and hanging straight over his forehead and his corpulent face is a sweaty, beet red. He seems to be tilting slightly backwards to balance his colossal weight.

     But it is the Orson Welles. Orson Welles directing!

John looks back as if they are seeing the action of the movie shoot.

     A taxi pulls in front of the hotel entrance and as the woman gets out the camera on the other side zooms in, shooting into the interior of the automobile she’s leaving.

       All this is done without any verbal direction. In fact this seems to be more a rehearsal for a scene that will be shot.

       Orson Welles is turning to the cameraman.

       My God, I am going to hear the greatest cinematic genius of all time actually tell his cameraman what to do.

     He says, with that still-sonorous Orson Welles voice coming from deep in his diaphragm as if from the bottom of a huge, empty barrel,

     “Mario, keep your eyes on the camera, these people will steal anything.” 

     That’s it?

     That’s it. Probably no one in the crowd but Pat and I understand English, but we laugh all afternoon repeating the words:

     “Mario, keep your eyes on the camera.”

     And the baby laughs too…so hard and so beautifully…

     … that during the whole rest of the trip if we want him to roll with laughter, we say…

“Mario, keep your eyes on the camera!”

Laughing.

John  returns to his own thoughts. The joy starts to dissolve.

     What an anticlimax, but looking back what could he have said that would be more memorable? For Orson Welles—known as the boy genius because of his early masterpiece, Citizen Kane—making movies for TV in Yugoslavia was probably the low point of his career.  And here was my son beginning his life…with wonderful giggles. My little boy’s laughter was his masterpiece. To his parents, he was “our baby genius.”

 When John begins again his voice is weary, more confessional.

He sighs.

     A nice story, but now, almost 35 years later, here’s why I think it fits the topic, “The Writer as Vampire.”

      As writers, we’re consumed with finding significant “meaning.” We are elated when we think we have that. But then times change. Life moves on. And what is significant changes for us.

     When I sit down to write a poem about the Orson Welles encounter 20 years later, my son is a teenager in the Air Force—neither a “teenage genius” nor an “Air Force genius,” and my wife has left me. So the cheery ending of the little memory doesn’t seem quite appropriate anymore.

      Here are the last two stanzas I come up with:

U

His shot seemed a curious choice.

When the woman stepped out from

the cab a camera entered through

a door that opened on the other

side. Did it make sense, to film

the empty  space  where  once she

had  been, leaving us to watch her

parting shape from the dark inside?

In twenty years, my wife, herself,

would go, never once looking back

on unedited footage decomposing

in the can.

U

His face was crimson with broken

veins and greased with sweat; his

voice—that voice—no longer Harry

Lime’s, but the mumbled growl of

Hank Quinlan toward his seedy end. 

What I wanted most that day, was

a shimmering globe to hold forever

dear, instead, in his voice I heard

only shards of broken glass. “Mario,”

he said, “you keep your eyes on the

people or they will steal everything.” 

And she did.

U

     I like the Citizen Kane snow-scene-in-a-glass-globe allusion, but now, my emphasis switches from watching the camera to “keep your eyes on the people.” Now I had “truth” that fit my current situation.

Consider the following scenario: a large pile of manuscripts on a table with a bunch of student volunteers reading them. One reader might be on page 2 and say “I’ve read this sentence five times and it still doesn’t make any sense.” Hypothetical reader then votes “no” on hypothetical manuscript, and moves on to the next. Now imagine that the manuscript in question is really the perfect story, the piece that would help our hypothetical literary review draw together all the disparate elements they’ve collected into a cohesive whole. In other words, by voting no, our reader has caused a catastrophe for the magazine as well as the submitter.  Is this a case of an overworked student getting tripped up in a sentence that is beautifully intricate but extraordinarily dense? Possibly. But more likely, the culprit is a bad typeface.

 There is a science and an art to typography, and while I’m not going to bore you with the details, I did want to give a few pointers:

1. Kill the Courier—Many of the manuscripts we receive are set in Courier New. Courier New typeface is known as a “Typewriter” or  “Fixed Width” font, because—amazingly—each character is the same width. It is easy to read in short bursts, which is part of the reason Courier New is the industry standard for screenplays, with their snappy dialogue and sparse descriptions. However, in prose, Courier New is bulky, hard to read, and (and this is a highly technical term:) butt ugly. If you’re sending us a screenplay (I don’t know why you’d send one in, it’s not really our line, but if you do, we’ll take a look) then by all means, set it in Courier New. Otherwise, get with the Times.
2. Get with the Times: Times New Roman, 12 pt, double spaced. Yes, I know it looks boring. It looks just like every paper you ever wrote in college. There’s a reason it’s an academic standard: it is eminently readable. Professors who have to read dozens or hundreds of papers in a very short time don’t want to see how pretty your paper is set in a decorative typeface, they want to read it quickly, grade it, and move on to the next one. Readers for literary magazines have an almost identical goal.  Times New Roman is designed to be an invisible face. Readers do not even notice it, but can instead focus on the words. The fact that it is boring is it’s greatest strength.

Well, that’s all for now, so until next time,

Happy Writing!

In my universe:

The Celts (Irish) have a legend about the fall of Satan from Heaven.  They say when God created the universe, he created three groups of angelic beings.  Satan and his angels were charged with testing creation.  Michael and his were to defend, support or uphold creation.  Gabriel and his were the heralds, to announce the goodness of creation to all. 

When Satan rebelled and was cast from Heaven, he took his third of the heavenly host with him.  As they passed through the realm of the earth, however, some of Satan’s followers had a thought, perhaps their first independent thought.  “Why should we blindly follow Lucifer into Hell?”

Those spirits stopped where they were, no longer fit for heaven, but not fully rebellious.  They were stuck, but by the grace of God, they were allowed to take on form.  Why?  Because a spirit has neither eyes nor ears nor any other apparatus to apprehend this universe.  By itself, a spirit is little more than the blind force as it is often understood to be.  By taking on form, these spirits could perceive the world and know what they were doing.  And why was that important?  Because they still had a job to do:  to test and try creation.

Though there is a continuum of spiritual beings from the greatest to the least, it is possible to crudely divide these earth-bound spirits into four types which initially would include the Titans, the greater spirits, the lesser spirits and the little spirits. 

The Titans were nature spirits in the largest sense of the word.  It was the children of the Titans who became the Gods of old that were turned in their task from testing creation to testing and trying men’s souls.  

The greater and lesser spirits were rarely found in human form, though the cold north wind might be found by sailors as a giant with an evil eye.  The Djinn, the various types of which run the scale from greater to lesser spirits, sometimes took on humanish (or ghoulish) form.  The spirits of purity were generally seen in the guise of the unicorn.  Greater Spirits in China often wore the form of the dragon.  The howling spirits of war and blood lust did appear in Celtic lands as women, but then, they had a touch of the blood of the Gods in them.

The little spirits or sprites are too numerous in their kinds to name.  There were once sprites in the air, the waters, the fire and the earth, but the sprites of the earth are the ones that are best known to most people.  In describing these, I often simplify matters by using the descriptions given in the Eddas:  There are dark elves, including goblins and trolls, and light elves, including fairies and brownies, and there are dwarfs in between, including ogres, imps and the like.  Curiously, these little ones are not immortal like their bigger, “cousins.”  Though very long lived, they nevertheless die after a time and await judgment even as mortals do.

In my universe, these little spirits often need help themselves to focus and concentrate their own spiritual power.  Thus we see wands and fairy dust and such depicted in many “fairy tales.” 

Most greater and lesser spirits need no such helps, and for the most part they are immortal, though many can be killed; but then many of these spirits are nature spirits and in their area of watch they need only a word of command like “let there be light” to affect this world.

The Gods, of course, are also limited, but it is a limit in their authority, not in their power.  As the saying goes in my time travel fantasy, “there is almost nothing the Gods cannot do.”  They can bend, shrink or expand space and time and change the course of the world simply by deciding how it must be.  To be able to do almost anything, though, does not mean they are so authorized or that it would be wise.  For one, competing Gods cancel each other out and that makes them vulnerable, even like Baldur, to die.  For two, these spirits also wish to regain Heaven (and who can blame them).  Most want to do their job well.  Some…

Exactly what wickedness in magic is will be covered two posts from now.  For the next post, I will say something about how magic came into the human race.

my halo  would have no

understood  violations

Empty  heart   for instance

If perchance  one had one

Having a look around

and filling it   would right things.

Lost

the soft down pillow is drenched with sweat and matted hair

Confused

the eyes half sealed shut with salted tears and the sand of dreams

Dazed

the muscles ache and strain to move

Fatigued

the sun burns through the window shades and pierces her brain

Clouded

trembles of a nightmare barely forgotten run up her spine

Adrift

magenta butterflies and coral fish dance to a hypnotic rhythm

Tormented

mists shroud the landscape of the room

Jaded

the knees buckle to the unexpected weight of her body

Desolate

her head cracks the floor with a dull . . . t h u m p

Mystified

a never ending barrage of questions stream through her consciousness

Chaotic

colliding with bricks and shattering into oblivion

Restless

the world taunts her with suggestions and little round pills

Blurred

feel better

Unhinged

see clearer

Dejected

what do . . . t h e y . . .  know

Placid

she drags herself up and heads for the sink

Serene

wash away life

Numb

and continue….

Wandering through the mists of Deliriums corridors,

it is easy to get lost.

Desire tempts you to open doorways to dream or despair,

and sometimes,

even destruction and death.

We continuously wander ,

searching for something.

Not quite knowing what it is,

or how to achieve it.

Is it Love, Compassion,

a sense of purpose or belonging ?

Or is it a sanity we’ve been told exists in some other person’s mind…

We keep wandering

hoping to one day clear the mist…

if only we could all survive the journey…

Mental illness, no matter if it is a mild form of depression or something much more  severe is no laughing matter. It affects almost everyone at some point in their lives, either directly or though a loved one. Sometimes it is something we are born with or develop in life. Other times it is brought about by stress or traumatic events in our lives.

Whatever the cause, people have to learn to listen and show a bit of compassion. Life is not an easy road at times and the more we can help then better we will all be.

Peace , love and enjoy a Jones ~ william

Today’s Poetic Asides prompt was “to write a thankful poem,” not surprising on this day. I like my mother’s new version of our greeting – “Happy Giving Thanks Day.”

My sheets are worn and clean; 
I feel your back pressed warm to mine.
And in your breath I hear the ocean swell.

I wondered when you would be gone,
and you responded my wonder. But you can’t
reclaim the time we spent -
the wonder of your warmth remains.

Today, I realized what makes me the most happy; my closest friends.

We have been through a lot and have shared a pretty incredible experience since our first confrontations. I wanted to take this time to thank you, personally, for everything. The arguments, the successes and failures, the moments of truth, the silences and the outlandish activities we have all shared together. There is nothing more that I can ask for in this world other than us all living successful and happy lives. You are the greatest anyone could ever wish for and thus the reason why I have no hesitation when it comes to our chill time together. It is no wonder why my relations with women seem to fail; I give all my time to you guys, art and education. And I don’t regret a thing.

And to my fellow artists whom I believe I am good friends with, thank you for all your support. It is because of you that I am on this path and enjoying every second of it. Without you, I would not be writing this. I would probably be drunk in class or at some stupid party. You guys, in a way, saved me and gave me the key to truly expressing myself and my beliefs and I would gladly do anything to help you become more successful Ted and Peter. But more importantly, you gave me a key out of the hell I was living in. Once more…Thank you. It was an honor to help with the book and an honor to paint for hours in the rain with you, Peter. I don’t think you really understand how much it means to me.

Anyways, hope you and everyone else have a good holiday as I know this was easily the best thanksgiving I have had in years.

-Mike

Hey all, I’m thankful for choice and causality.  I’m thankful for fists and open palms.  And I’m thankful for cookies.  Enjoy this special Thanksgiving story as only I tell them.

            “We have what we have,” she said with a harrumph, plopping down at the head of the table, “Isn’t that right Roy?”  Susie had that way about her; everything she said seemed like a harrumph.  It gave her every utterance a sense of finality that vexed many, but won the heart of her husband.  Now that he was dead, few people in the family still appreciated her.

            Alex looked upon the heaping plates that littered the table and momentarily considered eating meat for the sake of social ease.  The caked brown skin of the turkey didn’t look bad.  He heard it crackled pleasantly in the mouth.  Alex had never eaten turkey, but maybe this Thanksgiving would be a new experience for him.

            His values.  What of his values?  What indeed.

            “I suppose,” said Roy with a sigh.

            Alex looked across the table at Roy’s apologetic eyes and slumped shoulders.  He shrugged, as if to say, ‘you wanted to come over, this is what it’s like.’  After years of living with his mother, and then after these last few months of helping take care of her, Roy uncomplainingly accepted her edicts.

            Up the table, with a fixed stare, Susie’s eyes bore down on him.  Her knobby eighty-year-old fingers rested tentatively on the table edge, and the full weight of her frail spine did not quite rest against the chair back.  She was waiting for him to confirm her diagnosis of the situation, waiting on him as if his consent confirmed her position as queen of the household.

            “We have what we have,” Alex said finally and Susie leaned back in the chair.

            She smiled warmly at him.

            “Why don’t you cut the turkey,” Susie said, offering the knife.

            “No,” Alex smiled brightly, “I don’t eat meat, and I don’t cut it up either.  I think I’ll enjoy those delicious looking mashed potatoes.”

            Roy brought his napkin up to cover a growing smile on his face.  Susie’s eyes narrowed, but a smirk crept onto her lips.  She opened her mouth, and then shut it, choosing her words carefully.

            “Well,” she said, ending the short silence, “we have what we have.”