writing is sorrow; having had written is sublime
#mysteries #suspense #thrillers
As I sit and watch the surreal press conference between Trump and Putin after their so-called historic summit, where, after recently treating our allies like dog shit, Trump behaves like a sycophantic lapdog to a murderous dictator who wants nothing more than to destroy and subjugate the U.S. of America in retribution for how the U.S. of America destroyed and subjugated his beloved U.S.S.R., I am reminded of how I felt, or better yet, how my fuzzy, nightmarish memories leave me feeling from the surreal and tumultuous times in the U.S. of America during the late-Sixties through the mid-Seventies, you know, the era of national madness beginning with the Tet Offensive through the Watergate break-ins and subsequent hearings to Nixon’s humiliating yet palliative resignation and ending with America’s humiliating yet palliative retreat from South Vietnam.
There’s a rather talkative pigheaded brute of a character in my WIP whose name is Rick, Happy, Henderson. Happy loves to philosophize and pontificate to…at?… his work partner about whatever the latest topic is he’s studying during night school as if he’s now a subject matter expert. He’s not of course and he always manages to maneuver whatever it is he’s rambling on about toward a general diatribe of how the weak with their Rule of Law and “societal norms” have managed to upend the universal natural order of might makes right, which, in the end, as he sees it, limits his ability to pick up chicks.
Been wanting to read this for a long time but now that I finally have it…
I find its presence rather… intimidating.
#prayforthetimidreaders
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
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.
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?
the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars
