Posts published in “Writing”

Hunter Application Round 2… GOU SHORYUKEN!

October 19, 2009 |

So, I like totally forgot something I wanted to talk about in the previous post. That is, I wanted to discuss my decision to write a short story or to share the beginning of a novel. I can hear your brains saying, “WHAT!?” But let’s talk about this.

In the previous post I quoted Hunter’s creative requirements, but let me put it here again in case you missed it last time.

If you’re a fiction writer, send us 20-25 pages (a short story, the start of a novel, or several short stories that total 20-25 pages). Sending more than 25 pages won’t help your cause.

I have three choices here. First is to write a short story that is between 20 and 25 pages. This seems, to me, to be the least attractive option, mainly because a lot of tweaking and pulling and shoving has to go into something to try and make it between 20 and 25 pages. What if the piece feels good and ready at 18 pages? Do you try and add two pages? What if it’s just barely scraping by at 28? Do you try and take away three pages? With the former example, you could always just add a 5 or 6 page short story and have your total come out to a perfectly acceptable 23 or 24 pages. Then you have the option of letting the work stand as is fits best, without needlessly padding. That is a fairly attractive option. Or maybe you submit four 5 page stories? That’s good too. You can show your breadth. I feel like I’ve got about 47 of those due by the end of the year, so maybe some of those will go toward this purpose.

But what about the latter example, the 28 page story that you would have to seriously cripple to make fit within 20-25? You could always argue that you should be able to remove 3 pages from just about anything and help make it better. But then you’ll find another area that needs to be expanded upon, so there are your three pages back in action again. What to do? Well, you could expand upon the idea even further until it becomes the beginning of a novel or a novella. Then you don’t need to worry about crafting your resolution into a short space. Instead you have the opportunity to focus on doing the best writing you can, which is the whole point, right? Of course you pedantic bastards out there can argue that editing a piece to meet certain constraints is part of the writing process. That’s true, but for the purposes of this application it is better to provide samples of your voice and talent, than your abilities as a copy-editor. That can come later. For now it’s about the writing.

This all got me thinking. What happens in the first 20 to 25 pages of a novel or novella? And you know what I realized? I have no fucking idea at all. That’s not for lack of reading either. I just could not tell you beyond the broadest sense—characters are introduced, settings, maybe a plot thread—what happens. I don’t mean in terms of actual plot, like Dude goes to eat pie and falls down, but in a dramatic structure sense. I suppose we can think of it in the same way as we think of films, that being that the first 20 to 25 pages of a novel or novella is the beginning or whole of the first act, depending on the length of the work. Let’s go back to my film school text book on screenwriting for a definition and description of what happens in the first act.

Act I, the Setup, joins the story at a critical moment. The main character and the premise are introduced. Approximately one-third of the way into Act I, a catalytic event kick-starts the plot or another source of momentum for the story….The First Act ends with a turning point that takes us into the Second Act.

Let’s say that a novel is 250 pages long. Sure. That’s a fine metric. If the first Act is 1/4 of the novel, that’s about 62 pages—way more than 25. Still, the three act structure is a highly restrictive mode, best used only as a guideline for what to start with and how to get your plot moving along. Most novels, and many films, don’t even come close to fitting.

Then what is the best way to understand what happens in the first 20 to 25 pages of a novel? It’s to read the first 20 to 25 pages of well written novels. Duh. My next step is to go back and read the first 20 to 25 pages of a bunch of the books on my book shelf and make note of what happens in each. I will be posting those notes here (probably) as I go along, and for discussion, not that anyone discusses anything here. For me to discuss.

Does anyone have suggestions of books they think have amazing beginnings? I can’t promise that I’ll read them, but I’d love suggestions nevertheless. Here’s an incomplete list of the books on my shelves. See anything there you feel strongly about? Do you like to party? Help a ninja out.

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Gearing up for Hunter Application Round 2… FIGHT!

October 19, 2009 |

About Writing and Writing

The open house for Hunter’s Creative Writing MFA program is coming up in just a couple of weeks. Not getting in last year was a disappointment, for sure, but it also motivated me to really kill it this year. When I was in high school, I only ever applied to one school—NYU—because, god damn it, that was the school I wanted to go to. When my utterly dismal high school grades didn’t get me in, I taped the rejection letter to my wall above my desk, spent a year at Foothill Community College, made a better film than the last time, and got in. Round 2 is for killing it. I’ve learned that much in my life.

And with that, Round 2 begins now.

It is time for me to look over last year’s work and evaluate it to see what did and what didn’t work. If I am going to make a better showing this time, and a better showing is what is needed, then I am going to have to be cognizant of my weaknesses as a writer so that I don’t let them get the better of me. Conversely, I must be aware of my strengths so that I can play to them, accentuate them, give them room to shine.

Last year, I submitted a piece I wrote called “Julian & Clive. But, before I get into what I think did and didn’t work in it, let’s look at the submission requirements for the program, yes?

2. Demonstrate talent
We’ll look at your grades, of course; but what we are really hungry for is talent, so we need to read what you can write.
If you’re a fiction writer, send us 20-25 pages (a short story, the start of a novel, or several short stories that total 20-25 pages). Sending more than 25 pages won’t help your cause.

All the fiction and nonfiction pages you send us must be double-spaced and in a twelve-point font. Poetry may be single-spaced or double-spaced.

4. Write a story about yourself
Tell us about yourself, why you write, and why you wish to come to Hunter. You’ve got 500 words to do this, so that does not mean 600 words. This personal statement might be the piece of writing that gets you into the program, which is not intended to make you worry excessively about it, but to remind you to make it real. A statement that feels fresh and true will be a treasure to those of us who read for admissions.

Clearly, the story I wrote was for section 2 above. Overall, it’s a decent story with some funny ideas and some well executed points. However, I think I tried to shove WAY too much into what ended up only barely fitting into 25 pages with some creative margins. This story could have easily filled many many more pages, and been served better for it. I had to throw out too much, keep things too brief, not allow the story to breathe, to try and fit it into the 20-25 pages allowed. There’s no space for nuance or subtext when I’m trying to hammer home this grandiose idea I had about a man’s inability to take responsibility for his own actions in such a short format, around 7500 words. Basically nothing! The characters come off as one dimensional since they are not given space to exist as anything but caricatures. A more skilled writer might have been able to pull it off, but I’m trying to get into writing school, not run the damn thing.

I tended to write the thing as if it were a treatment, that is, describing everything we see and focusing on the action. With a treatment, that makes sense, since what you are doing is describing what the movie will look like before it is even a screenplay. It’s not so great for a short story. It ends up feeling stilted and boring. If you can freely enter the thoughts of your narrator or characters at any time it makes sense, why wouldn’t you? If you can jump around through time and space as it’s appropriate, why wouldn’t you? If you can describe things, anything at all, however you want with images and references impossible to show on screen, why wouldn’t you?

I also think I tried to make the thing too fucking dramatic. This is a hole I’ve fallen into before. Some unconscious part of me thinks that good = dramatic, which is obviously not true. And not even really my strength. Quirk and humor are good. There doesn’t need to be fire and death and doom.

Finally there’s the ending. What the fucking fuck was I thinking? Jesse was right. I should have just ended it when he lost consciousness outside the burning ice cream truck. What’s wrong a little uncertainty at the end? Nothing, I tell you. Nothing!!!

This year I have a handful of things to keep in mind as I concept and write.

Keep it simple – DUH.
Stay away from dull action sequences – This isn’t a treatment; it’s a short story.
Embrace illusion and uncertainty – Fuck it, man. Not everything needs to be spelled out.
Let your characters breathe – I just need to make sure each character feels properly nuanced so that the piece doesn’t end up feeling like a comic book. I’m not writing Spiderman and my villain isn’t Doctor Octopus. There doesn’t even need to be a villain.
Allow lightheartedness – Good and funny is better than serious and dull.

That sounds like it might be a lot to keep in mind, but it’s not really. If Christians can remember 10 Commandments, I can remember 5 guidelines. Right? Right.

The other part of the submission process is to write 500 words about why you write, why you want to write, and why you want to go to Hunter. Here’s what I wrote last year.

I am a grocery store clerk, a salad bar operator, a construction worker, a real estate agent, a motion picture editor, an actor, a voice over artist, a musician, a production assistant, a web designer, and a great many other things. I am a son, a boyfriend, a brother, an uncle.
I believe in language and its power to create and shape the world we live in. I look for the darkest, most shameful aspects of human nature and draw humor from them. I find greatness in the mundane. I spend every step of my commute to and from work devising biting ways to start stories and introduce characters. I send my older brother particularly choice phrases of cynicism for amusement.

I write because losing my younger brother cemented in me that life is far too short, too fleeting not to embrace passionately. Despite the wisdom of Eastern sages, I’m not sure we get the chance to try again.
I write because there is nothing more human than to write. Whales sing. Monkeys scream. But only humans can commit their thoughts, feelings, fears, and dreams to words and share them with people they might never meet in an exchange that may last centuries.
And I write because, as part of that timeless exchange, I want to make people laugh and feel and think and remember.

I want to be part of Hunter’s tight-knit community of writers. When the speaker mentioned at the open house that only 6 students are accepted each academic year, a chorus of groans swelled in the room. Yet I was enticed. I have always thrived in small groups focused on intensive hands-on work. The challenge compels me. The selectivity excites me. But more than those things, the strong sense of community calls to me. It is a testament to the strength of the group that Hunter was able to get all the current students out on a weeknight to come talk to prospective students at an open house. Obviously you all have each other’s best interests at heart.
Most importantly, I want to work on my craft as a member of the Hunter community. Writing is a difficult, personal pursuit easily kept squirreled away from the potentially scornful eyes of the world. But, it is difficult, if not impossible, to grow as a writer without opening yourself and interacting with other people. For my part, I hope to serve my classmates as a reliable, insightful reader providing thoughtful criticism . From the faculty and my classmates, I hope to receive unflinching critique and analysis. I will strive to be an integral part of my fellows’ education and growth as writers since there is no better way for me improve my own craft. I don’t want to just be told my work is good—my mom can do that. I want to be challenged to make my work the best it can be, and I know Hunter can do that for me.

Am I serious? I thought this was pretty good when I wrote it, but now I can’t help but think that it’s the silliest thing I’ve ever put down on paper. Or arranged into bits on a hard drive. But you know what I mean. There’s a whole lot about this that could be better. But let’s distill it all into one, single word.

CONVERSATIONAL

What was I doing, delivering a eulogy? Speaking to the court? Apologizing to the family of the man I killed? Jesus Christ. How about I incorporate a little bit of my personal voice into this thing next time, huh? The whole thing sounds like shitty 6-grader poetry. I can do better.

To sum it all up, I’ve prepared a little visual reference of my intention.

In case you don’t understand, I’m Akuma (awesome) and the Hunter Application is Ryu, and I’ve just kicked the living shit out of him and a bunch of Jamaican people are dancing because it was so awesome. I don’t think I can make it any clearer.

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Amortizing Creative Expenditures

September 23, 2009 |

About Filmmaking, About Photography, About Writing, Film & TV, Photography and Writing

I’ve long contended that for each dollar I spend on a particular piece of photographic equipment I must take at least one photograph with it. So, if I spend 1800 dollars on a Canon 70-200 f/2.8L IS zoom lens, then I’d better well take 1800 photos with it. (note: I have. More than that, in fact.) It’s simple math, easily managed, and, most of all, it makes sense. I’ve written about it on here somewhere else before, I think, but I can’t find the post so you’ll have to just trust me. It has worked quite well for me as a guideline while informing new purchases and once I’ve purchased an item. Am I going to use x piece of equipment to take y number of photos or is it something I can live without? Now that I’ve purchased item z, I’d better throw it in my bag because there’s no way I’ve taken n photos with it yet. It has protected me from frivolous purchases in the past and made me think about using the tools I already have. It’s a good system. I recommend it to any photographers out there.

But photography is not my only artistic endeavor. I am also a writer (as you well know), a professional in the moving image field, and I dabble in songcraft. It occurred to me while I was walking to the Apple Store to purchase a laptop backpack—the current messenger style bag I use hurts my fucking back—that I don’t have a useful metric for justifying those purchases. No, “justify” is the wrong word. It makes it sound like I’m making an excuse for the purchase; I’m not. I don’t have a useful metric to ensure that I get my money’s worth out of an item. What sort of production quotas make sense to meet to make the expenditure, and thereby the time I’ve spent working to make that money, a fair trade? With the photography, it’s easy. I’m constantly producing. Look at my hard drives. They’ll tell you all about it. But that’s not necessarily true of video editing or music creation software. They are tools I use to create things but are not inherently productive in and of themselves. Music production software (Logic) can be used to make something from scratch. Editorial or VFX software is even more difficult because they are often just PARTS of the chain of production. Making beautiful photographs and making beautiful films are both difficult things, but photography is a much more solitary craft than filmmaking. A craftsman can make beautiful photographs all by himself, but good luck making a beautiful film all by yourself. It’s all but totally impossible.

But difficulty has nothing to do with it. The difficulty is just a challenge to the creator, a hurdle, a bump in the road.

Therefore, I propose this system to make my purchases of music and video tools feel reasonable. Consider it a challenge to myself to make the time I spend working, earning money to spend on tools, fruitful. To make the late nights and weekends at the office work toward making me a self-sufficient creator of things so that I can get myself to a point where all this dicking around IS THE JOB. Imagine that.

Guidelines for expenditures on video tools
For each hundred dollars spent on video tools, I must create at least one minute of finished footage. Dailies do not count. That’s absurd. Finished means that I’ve put time and thought into it. A finished piece is something I would not be embarrassed to show someone. I do not have to provide qualifications for rough bits in finished footage. 1 minute of footage per 100 dollars spent.

Guidelines for expenditures on audio tools
For each hundred dollars spent on audio tools, I must create at least one song or three minutes of mixed audio. Audio demands a higher creative price since I can sit and create without outside help. Audio also has two possible avenues for amortization since using audio software to mix for video is a perfectly valid use. A song is defined similarly to a piece of finished footage, that is, I’ve put thought and effort into it. I would not hesitate to post it here on The Black Laser. I do not need to qualify it in any way.

I think these are pretty useful guidelines, and will definitely help me focus my energies into short term, highly feasible goals. I’ve already mentioned plans to put together music videos, and many people know about the mystery that is Fantasies About Time Travel. I’ve also been thinking about dropping some choice Ghettotech beats under a pseudonym, like DJ Muad’Dib, MC Kwisatz Haderach, or Duncan Idaho. Bonus points for pinpointing how badly I just dorked out there.

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03 – Philip is Hung Over

June 2, 2009 |

Fiction and Writing

The alarm clock blared from across the room and Philip got up without opening his eyes, turned the goddamned thing off and collapsed back onto the bed. Then he realized he was still drunk. It was one of those pleasant post-drinking mornings where he didn’t wake up directly into a hang over, but rather that blissful middle ground where the tiredness of a late night out carousing with friends and not-friends was gone, yet the bleary minded bravado and casual sense of indestructibility remained, a calm, warm glow cast on the morning.

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The Year of 50 Short Stories and 5000 Photos – 6 months on

June 1, 2009 |

About Photography, About Writing, Photography and Writing

Today is June 1st which means it’s time for an update on my progress toward the Year of 50 Short Stories and 5000 Photos. Astute readers will have noticed that I continually update the box on the right side of this page with my current progress as I make photos or write, whether or not I post them here. What you will not know is that I have been keeping a log since January 14th of the progress I make per update. Here is the breakdown for my photographs.

Jan 14	23/5000 (0.460%)
Jan 17	152/5000 (3.040%)
Jan 19	230/5000 (4.600%)
Feb 16	354/5000 (7.080%)
Feb 21	659/5000 (13.180%)
Feb 24	1104/5000 (22.080%)
Feb 26	1202/5000 (24.040%)
Feb 28	1318/5000 (26.360%)
Mar 06	1834/5000 (36.680%)
Mar 07	1904/5000 (38.080%)
Mar 22	2013/5000 (40.260%)
Mar 23	2131/5000 (42.620%)
Mar 28	2206/5000 (44.120%)
Apr 20	2276/5000 (45.520%)
Apr 26	2400/5000 (48.000%)
May 08	2821/5000 (56.420%)
May 09	2919/5000 (58.380%)

You can see that not only has my progress been consistent, but that even early in May, I was beyond the 50% mark before half the year had elapsed. All in all, I think my progress has been appropriate and, frankly, pretty impressive. I’m surprised and pleased that I’ve stayed on track with this. Good job, Joe. Even better is that merely half way through my quota for the year, I can see and feel my photography improving. That is really encouraging and makes me want to get out there and keep making photos. The remaining 2000 (I have some on my camera waiting to be offloaded) should be a piece of cake. I will be interested to see what the final tally will be for the year.

Ok, thats great and all, but what about the other half? Let’s look at the breakdown.

Jan 14	0/50 (0.000%)
Mar 31	1/50 (2%)
Apr 07	2/50 (4%)

Ooooh. Not so good. 4% at the halfway point? Pretty fucking pathetic actually. So what’s my problem? I think I’m being my own worst enemy here. I’m getting caught in creative webs, constantly trying to write brilliant material so that when what’s coming out isn’t sparkling, I get dismayed and stop. BAD JOE! I need to learn from the photos—not every photo I take is brilliant, but every one counts. I just need to put the words down and then worry about them later. Luckily I have 6 months left, which averages out to about 2 stories every week. Totally doable. I just need not to be so fucking hard on myself with the writing and just let it be loose and creative and dark and funny and whatever. Not everything needs to be perfect. I need to remember that.

And with my impending unemployment, I will need to learn to schedule better and make time to be creative for the remaining 48. I can do it.

I will update on my progress when I hit 3/4s on September 1.

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A Life In Art – John Camp

May 26, 2009 |

About Photography, About Writing, Photography and Writing

I think this is an interesting article: “A Life in Art” By John Camp

This is a particularly inspired idea.

Of the successful artists I’ve known, I’d say that the two things that led to their success were compulsion (virtually to the extent of mental illness) to do the work, and the eventual ability to monetize the effort. Most of them never get that success—they’re finally ground down and give it up….

Both suggest that while inborn talent is of some utility, the thing that really determines success in the arts (or any other field) is simply doing it. Gladwell even suggests a standard: ten thousand hours. He suggests that if you work very hard a particular art form—art in the widest sense, including sports, music, law, medicine and so on—that you will begin to reach a mastery of it after 10,000 hours of hard work. That’s 40 hours a week (no cheating!) for five years, or 20 hours a week for ten.

Check it out. Camp has some interesting ideas about what makes an artist and what it takes to excel at your chosen craft, writing or photography or editing or whatever. It boils down, as he notes above, to being a little crazy about it. Food for thought.

But most artists tend to be somewhat reclusive, because of the “compulsion” and “10,000 hours of work” aspects of their lives. They’re not back-slappers, drink-buyers, hale-fellow types.

So selling can be one of the toughest hurdles for a real artist to clear, even those who put in their time, who are doing excellent work.

Hah! I am definitely a “back-slapper, drink-buyer, hale-fellow type”, often to the detriment of my creative pursuits. I guess I have that working for me…and against me.

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Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart

May 21, 2009 |

About Writing and Writing

By page 5 of Absurdistan, I found something that I could relate to.

Alyosha-Bob and I have an interesting hobby that we indulge whenever possible. We think of ourselves as the Gentlemen Who Like to Rap. Our oeuvre stretches from the old-school jams of Ice Cube, Ice-T, and Public Enemy to the sensuous contemporary rhythms of ghetto tech, a hybrid of Miami bass, Chicago ghetto tracks, and Detroit electronica. The modern reader may be familiar with “Ass-N-Titties” by DJ Assault, perhaps the seminal work of the genre.

Those who know me know that I have a secret love for ghetto tech in all its lustrous forms. There’s something magical in its hard-driving misogyny that I find alluring and seductive. Shteyngart’s appraisal of the form is accurate, but for further reading here is the wikipedia entry.

Yet, the more I read of the book, the more I find myself having a hard time with it. The writing is good—very good—but there’s something about it that I find a little off-putting. I know it’s supposed to be satirical, but it feels just a little too self-aware. Is that a bad thing? I don’t know. It’s just that it’s turning me off a little, so, in this case, yeah, it’s a bad thing. The Crying of Lot 49 was satirical and self-aware, but for some reason that didn’t grate on me the same way as Absurdistan does. And really, I just can’t help thinking one thing… Misha Vainberg = Ignatius J. Reilly. Think about it. It’s true.

I have more of the book to go, so I will report back once the book is finished. Who knows? Maybe it will turn around. And maybe it’s just the mood I’m in these days. It’s been known to happen.

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Bram Stoker’s Dracula, in real time

May 4, 2009 |

About Writing and Writing

I read Dracula during sixth grade. Every day we had a period called SSR, Sustained Silent Reading, where we’d sit wherever we wanted and read, silently, for an hour or 45 minutes or whatever. I remember quite clearly (an increasingly rare thing for me) sitting beneath a table on the windowed side of Mr. Williamson’s classroom with the green carpet reading my Penguin mass market paperback version of Dracula, enthralled by its revolutionary (to me, at least) format as a series of journals and letters. It blew my 11 year old mind. It was lush and suggestive, filled with horrors and darkness only ever hinted at indirectly. You never experienced the event as it unfurled, but were left to fill in the gaps for yourself based on what the characters had elected to describe in their writings, what they thought was important, how they felt about things. It turned what can be a very passive arrangement between author and reader into a more dynamic, exciting, interactive experience. Like 1898’s version of the best video game ever, but so much more because you got to do all the work. You were allowed to make the world your own. Indeed, to get the most out of the book, you needed to make the world your own, lest the experience become a disjointed, jumbly mess of conflicting view-points.

Let’s just say that Bram Stoker’s Dracula was important for me as a boy.

Today, Tiffany sent me a blog that is posting the entirety of Dracula as it happens in the book. The novel starts on May 3, and their first post is May 3. Such a cool idea. You can add it to your RSS feed and it will update you every day as the novel progresses.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula

If you get reading it, and find you can’t wait for the next chunk, you can read the entire novel for free on Project Gutenberg.

A side note, a few years after reading Dracula, they canceled SSR which is a real shame. I’m confident that, as grueling as it was sometimes to convince a bunch of post-recess 11 year olds to sit silently and read, those mandated reading periods were instrumental in the development of my love of reading and writing and my supreme respect for the power of words. There probably would never have been The Black Laser if I hadn’t been forced to read after lunch every day. Imagine a world where you delightful people would have no place on the internet to abuse your optic nerves with my black and pink layout. Horrifying, I know.

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