writing is sorrow; having had written is sublime
Colson Whitehead was born in 1969, and was raised in Manhattan. After graduating from Harvard College, he started working at the Village Voice, where he wrote reviews of television, books, and music… COLSONWHITEHEAD.COM
If I had been given a 14% chance of living to five years after my Lung GVHD diagnosis instead of a 13% chance, I would have then had to call my little self-help book HOW NOT TO DIE: In 14 Easy Steps instead of 13.
And as the additional step to keep one alive, I would have added “Get Mellow,” because I have learned throughout my years that life is stressful — it is even more so when your health fails you. One has to take action to keep it cool or the stress just compounds the damage.
In addition to prayer and meditation, I listened to many different varieties of relaxing music to get and stay mellow. However, once I found this Tibetan Bells video it became The One and Only.
It’s been a while since I’ve listened to it.
But, seeing how the stress levels seem to be rising…
It’s time for me to once again… Get Mellow.
OMMMMM
I’m not a very good writer, by which I don’t only mean it in regards to what I’ve written, but also and mostly to how I’ve written.
The act of writing pains me and I’ll pretty much do anything mostly legal I can to get myself out of it. I guess the best way to express how I feel about writing is: I don’t like having to write, but I truly love having had written.
But still, I don’t really know why I do feel the need to write except that there is some unidentified force and/or source beyond my reach and comprehension that obliges me to do so.
This is a link to the live recent Senate Intelligence hearing regarding “Russian Hacking and Cybersecurity.”
This is a murky link.
This is a link to The Sea Trials of an Unfortunate Sailor, my book about the harsh realities of life in the navy during the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell era.
What is the relevance of the murky link between the two?
Probably none.
But you won’t know for sure unless you watch the hearing to understand why the Russian hacking of our cyber space is threat to our sovereignty and read the book to understand why intolerance and bigotry is a threat to our humanity.
#prettymurkyright
Hey! How about that?!
Our good friends over at COPING With Cancer magazine featured an excerpt from my little book HOW NOT TO DIE: In 13 Easy Steps in their recent edition.
Pretty cool, no?
Yes, indeed.
You can learn more about the magazine and all the good folks there doing God’s work here.
You can learn more about my book here.
You can check out the post the book was inspired by here.
And you can learn how I feel about pink as the color of cancer here.
#cancerisjustastateofmind
#peace
So, I was thinking (yes, I understand the risks)…
But, I was thinking, just imagine if each of the 25,109 and growing followers of this humble site were to donate just $1.00 to help me fund my film LEAVE…
Just imagine how much that would be!
Keep in mind that I am a product of the United States public school system, and that, by design, my higher level degrees have absolutely nothing to do with math, so my calculations may be a bit suspect…
But I believe that if every one of the 25,109 followers were to donate $1.00 to help me fund my film, that would come to the heavenly financial figure of… [finger cipher]…
$25,109.00!
Now that there would be a whole lotta of cheeze and it would help me in a whole lotta ways in realizing my cinematic dream called LEAVE.
Now, I’m a practical man (not!), and I know all 25,109 of you donating $1.00 each to support my dream is an impossible expectation…
But, let’s consider what you get here for free 24-hours a day, 7-days a week, 365-days a year non-stop and in perpetuity for as long as our pretty yet petulant planet revolves around the sun that may help motivate you towards donating that $1.00…
You get to publish your work to the RELATING TO HUMANS feature…
You get the IABS&R…
You get occasional “PRO-TIPS”…
You get LITERARY ZEN…
You get ARTWORK?…
You get HUMOR…
You get HEALTH advice…
You get MOTIVATIONAL ADVICE…
And you get so much more.
But, even with all this free stuff created just for you forever floating around here, I understand that my hope of everyone donating even just $1.00 is an impossible expectation.
But then again…
AND SO IS THE TRIBE WINNING THE WORLD SERIES!
BUT IT’S THE YEAR OF “BELIEVELAND” BABY!
THIS YEAR, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!
WHICH MEANS, WITH YOUR HELP
LEAVE IS POSSIBLE!
…
Uhm…
Too much, right?
Yeah.
Sorry ’bout that…
Anyway…
Please donate what you can, if you can, my friends >> BELIEVE IN LEAVE.
Thank you.
Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better than it would have them? Why does it always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
#blacklivesmatter
#protestsmatter
#amwriting
#androckin’
#nin
Right?
That’s the rule, right?
Books rule over movies.
Always.
Before I got involved with this whole short film thing, I always would get indignant after watching yet another failed movie adaptation of a book I liked. And I would always wonder to myself why in the heck could they never get it write/right.
Until on a whim I decided to try my hand at adapting my short story LEAVE into a screenplay.
Right away I realized that this was going to be no easy feat.
Introspection and contemplation that serve a short story or a novel so well is basically useless in a screenplay where just about everything must be represented as action and dialogue so it can be seen and heard by the audience.
Of course LEAVE as a short story is mostly introspection and contemplation by the protagonist so right off the bat the whole structure would have to change in order to be able to show his shift of character from beginning to end.
To do this, new scenes had to be invented and new characters had to be developed and within the first writing of the story of LEAVE as a screenplay, it was already hugely different from the story of LEAVE the short story. And that was only by my own efforts.
After I showed it to an actor friend for his feedback, from his guidance it went from 33 pages down to fifteen. And yes, to whittle it down that much there had to be a significant change in story and tempo.
But really, the biggest changes to the story didn’t occur until once the screenplay was accepted by a studio and a director was found and she got ahold of it… and then several of the lead actors got ahold of it…
Talk about feedback overload. It took much effort and persuasion to maintain it as a story I recognized.
And, while we are scheduled to begin filming in two months, we haven’t yet cast the lead actor so I can only wonder what changes still might occur to it.
But you know what… the story as it is now as a near fully developed screenplay is really not that far from what it is as a short story.
It is just different.
And much, much better in my opinion.
Still, I guarantee it if you read the short story and then see the film, you will be significantly surprised by the differences that there are between the two.
I just hope you are not significantly disappointed.
But I can pretty much guarantee that you won’t be because we have an awesome crew and the cast is going to be first rate and impressive.
And I can also guarantee that from now on whenever I watch a movie that has been poorly adapted from a book that I like I will certainly be less critical and more understanding of the differences between the two and the winding and somewhat weary course that had to be traveled to get the story to the screen.
Because now I know.
And now I have only one rule regarding movies and books.
Both of them do.
Rule, that is…
Have you heard about our private Facebook Writers & Readers Group?
…and the Sailor ducked.
Ba dum bump!
#militaryhumor
Okay, just a couple of quick announcements while I’ve got your attention.
I am overwhelmed with happiness and joy now that it is Spring, and because of all the wonderful submissions we’ve received to the Relating to Humans Women’s Issues feature in celebration of Women’s History Month. We still have a week or so to go for #WHM2016 and I am still posting to the blog all submissions received to the feature.
If you’re not sure what all this Relating to Humans stuff is all about. I attempt to explain it all here.
All RTH submissions received prior to 2016 have been moved to the RTH Archives. There is a lot of compelling reading to be found there so check it out if you have a chance.
Aurelius, Zeno, and I are vibing to some Nine Inch Nails Ghost I-IV right now, in case you were wondering.
Anyway… With just about all RTH past submissions now archived, that means there is a lot of white space for you to post your work.
We all know that the early bird gets the best spot where all the book worms like to hang out, if you know what I mean… So submit early and submit often, but only submit one article or piece at a time per feature. If you want to submit something new to a feature that you already have something submitted to, let me know and I’ll archive the old so you can share with us the new.
From now through the summer months, I plan/hope to be heavily involved with the raising of funds and then the production of my short film LEAVE out in Los Angeles. Fingers crossed.
Consequently, I am not going to have as much time to spend writing stuff here for you to read, hence the awkward necessity of this awkwardness. Consequently, I am going to be looking to your submissions to the various RTH features to pull from and post to the blog. Consequently, I am going to need you all to post a lot of compelling and awareness-raising stuff up there for me to pull from. Consequently, I am going to be adding even more features for you to submit your work to.
Can you dig it?
I’m thinking new features such as: “Health Issues,” (notice how I put that comma before the closing quotes? strange how we do it that way here in ‘Merica (prounounced: mur/e/ka) when our good friends across The Pond would put them outside the closing quotes… isn’t life wonderful with all its little peculiarities like that? though, in actuality, since I’ve now added this interesting – at least to me – parenthetical aside, I guess the comma really should go after the closing parenthesis… oh well. my blog my (broken) rules.), “Criminal Justice Issues,” and although I’m a bit hesitant about this one because I’m not totally convinced it fits comfortably with the other features but we’ll see how it goes… “Relationship Issues.”
I am going to ask/require that all human-related creative submissions, such as poetry as the primary example, be submitted only to its designated creative artsy-type feature. In other words, please submit your poems, photography, flash fiction, etc. only to its specific feature. In other words, all poems submitted to the “Women’s Issues” feature will be moved to the “Poetry” feature. To me it will be more interesting to read poetry or any other pieces submitted to the artsy-fartsy type features that cover many diverse, human-related topics in one feature. In other words, I hope I didn’t confuse you as much as I just confused myself.
April is “Sexual Assault Awareness Month” so, unfortunately, there may be opportunities to speak to that very unfortunate and sadly big issue.
Let’s start identifying “Trigger Warnings” where applicable, please. I think for a place like this those are a crucial necessity.
So… that’s about it. Please start submitting away and I will move all the submissions that move me to the blog so they can move all of us into a broader, more compassionate understanding of all that’s going on in and all around this pretty yet petulant planet of ours that we all can and do and must relate to because like it or not we are all humans and we are ultimately all related.
All** cool?
Yeah…
One last thing!
Have you considered donating a buck* or two to help me get my short film off the ground? If you do, I will help you promote your book, your project, or a cause your most passionate about. You can learn how here.
And if you’re a Newsletter Love subscriber, I’ll promote your work to our dedicated, and growing, newsletter group, as well.
Right on?
Write. On!
And remember…
Friends don’t let friends drive drunk, vote for Trump… or stumble headfirst into bars.
For pain will surely ensue if they do.
*Paypal accepts just about all major global denominations.
**Yes, you’re right. I did use an awful lot of “alls” in this post for some reason.