Paying my Debt to Adventure

Hey Jude

2010-11-20T22:33:00.000-08:00

Like a lot of people, I'm thrilled that The Beatles albums are finally available on iTunes. I've never been one for CD's, even before the MP3 era kicked in a few years ago, and so I've been gradually building my comparatively miniscule and haphazard music library almost exclusively buying songs one by one from some guy named Steve Jobs. Anyway, up until recently, one of the few artists whose work wasn't available on iTunes was probably the most popular entertainment act of the 20th Century, and at long last, I can start getting actual Beatles songs rather than others covering their songs. I'm super poor right now, so I'll have to wait until after my birthday and Christmas to collect some iTunes gift cards to suppliment my catalogue with these missing favorites of mine.

One of my favorite Beatles songs is "Hey Jude", written by Paul McCartney. It's one of those good songs to play when you're feeling depressed. It can lift up your spirits at a time when you're feeling particularly low, and for me, that's worth the $1.29 it costs to download it. In anticipation of getting this and other songs in a month or so (yes, I'm that poor), I was perusing the internets and reading up on some of my favorite Beatles songs, and I noticed an interesting note on this one.

The story McCartney tells is that the song was for John Lennon's son Julian, as at the time Lennon and his wife were getting divorced, and McCartney felt bad for the boy whose parents were splitting, and he wrote the song for him. Lennon, who really liked the song (at that point in their relationship, Lennon and McCarthy liking each other's songs was particularly rare), and he thought that the song was for him during this tumultuous time in his life. McCartney told Lennon that he had actually wrote the song for himself. Still others have speculated that the song was written for them or other people, which I suppose is common to fans of music.

We have a tendency to self-apply things in our lives with the pieces that move us emotionally. In order to establish that connection with an artistic work, sometimes we have to find a way to convince ourselves that the artist had us in mind when they created it. Not literally, but in some spiritual or metaphysical way.

As an "artist" in my own medium of writing, I utilize my own experiences and the people in my life into my writing all the time. I realize that, when it works, the passage might be a representation of myself or someone I know. But to the reader who has no knowlege of me or anyone in my life, it's possible for them to imagine that I'm actually writing about them, and in some curious way, my writing has brought me and them closer together.

Anyway, The Beatles should provide some good writing music to listen to, and hopefully give me some inspiration.

Updates on Upcomings

2010-08-25T16:30:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I posted last, so I thought I would leave an update on what I'm working on now. I've finished working on my short late-80's adventure novel series, Famous Adventurers Correspondence School, and am in the long and often trying process of attempting to get it published. I am optimistically hoping to have it ready to go out by early next year, so we'll see.

In the meantime, I'm busy working on the sequel to my last novel, The Other Side of the Gate. I've always envisioned TOSotG to be the first part of a five-part series, and given the length of the series it seemed like a good idea to start up the second book as soon as possible, despite the fact that it's not necessarily intended to be my next book published. The sequel is called The Empty Sea, and I will be posting updates on and about it as I go along. I am already well beyond the early stages of writing it, and am very excited about the direction that the story is taking me.

I hope everyone has had a good summer and is looking forward to a hopeful autumn!

Week of Films

2010-05-28T22:32:00.000-07:00

For anyone who is interested, I will be at the Phoenix Comicon this weekend on Saturday, May 29th, as part of the Squishy Studios contingent for the showing of our comedy/horror short, Zombie Team Building. I'm also going to be at the Film Stock Film Festival in Tempe on Thursday, June 3rd for the Squishy Studios showing of our 40's-era adventure comedy, Masters of Daring. If you're at one or the other of these events, try to track me down. I'll give you a prize (probably not, but if you tackle me to the ground and mug me, you might win an empty wallet!).

Word Picture

2010-05-12T23:25:00.000-07:00

As any writer can tell you, there are innumerable ways to write prose (poetry too, but that's not really in my wheelhouse, so I'll stick to what I know here). Besides genre, talent and possibly era, one thing that makes us readers prefer one author over another is their writing style. Telling a story through writing is often times very tricky, because creating an image in the reader's mind of settings, characters and events, all in a vivid yet succinct fashion, is what makes a novel unique compared to other storytelling mediums such as film or music.

I like to think there are no right or wrong ways to tell a story - yes, there really are a whole lot of wrong ways, but I prefer to consider them more specialized to the author rather than bad writing (which is why I'd make a horrible creative writing teacher or a literary critic). While some writing styles might be ... ill-advised, let's say, it doesn't mean that there is only one way to write a narration "correctly".

A few people who have read my previous work have remarked that I spend less time describing the environment of the story than other authors. I've heard nobody cite this as a complaint, but more of an observational comparison. It's true that I don't utilize as much of my word count on describing things in my story as other authors I've read. My descriptions of characters are often vague, particularly of primary characters, and my narrative often offers less of a physical description of the story's environment than one might be accustomed to. I would have to say that both of these qualities of my writing style are deliberate.

Coming, to some extent, from a filmmaking background, I am accutely aware of a story's pacing, and I am constantly concerned with a narrative dragging. Particularly in moments of high drama or action, I believe that it can really bog down a story when paragraph after paragraph are spent describing in tremendous detail in painting a word picture of events. Keeping a balance of brevity and imagery during important moments in a story is one of the great challenges of novel writing.

It's also important, I think, to notice what perspective the narrative is coming from. For my stories, it is commonly from a single protagonist's point of view, and so the narration itself should reflect that. If our hero is battling a dragon, he or she isn't necessarily going to be noticing how the creature's "blood-soaked scales are glistening in the sunlight like the sheen of a thousand polished aegis shields from a legion of soldiers marching to battle". My view would be that our hero should not be trying to figure out the most poetic metaphor for the shine on the dragon's hide - they should we worried instead about ducking its fire-breath.

In addition, it's as much for me a question of personal preference as anything. Someone mentioned that female authors tend to be more verbally descriptive, and maybe it's true (though it's hard to discount other male authors like JRR Tolkein in that respect). My own personal view as a reader is, that I've seen a sunset before - I don't need half a page of flowery descriptives to tell me what one looks like. I feel like often-times authors like to show off how poetic they can be with their writing in this way, but as a reader, I prefer to fill in the gaps with my own imagination. The real excitement for me comes from the unfolding of the story's events, and especially in the nature of the characters themselves.

Describing the characters is even more down this path for me. I draw pieces of myself in almost every character I create, but I suspect that even those closest to me don't fully comprehend what part of me I draw them from. What characters are supposed to do, in my opinion, is allow the reader to find parts of themselves to relate to them. If the reader can't relate to the character on some level, then there's no real connection between them.

Look at it this way, when you're reading a story, in your own head, what do the character's voices sound like? I know that for me, in every story I read, every character's voice, male and female, sounds like my own. If the description of their voice says that it's low and raspy, or high-pitched and nervous, or with a thick accent, it still sounds like my voice with those properties added. It's how I subconsciously connect with the characters, so that they sound like a person I can relate to on some level.

In the same vein, when I'm allowed to fill in the blanks based on some general guidelines on how a character looks, then I'm free to create an image of the character in my head that I'm comfortable with. It might be very different from any other reader's image, but that's the beauty of novels. In a movie, we're stuck with whomever the casting director thought was good for the role, whether they're right for it or not. In novels, we can custom cast every part, and build every set and location ourselves, in our own mind - if the author allows us that freedom.

Obviously, this can be taken to an extreme, as a lack of descriptions can dull our view entirely of the characters and the world. I should also add that I too like to strut my flowery pen now and again as much as the next writer. But I feel like such things are the whipped cream of the meal. A chef should add just enough garnish to offer some extra flavor, but don't go overboard, because the diner might grow sick of it.

Anyway, that's how I feel about it. I don't know how controversial such a stance would be to an established critic or professor on the subject. They might tell me that I'm wrong to suggest it, and that my writing is bad because of it. They might even be right. But an author should always write for themselves above the dictates of others, if only so that they will have at least one fan of their work.

7 Overused Fantasy Novel Conceits

2010-01-22T00:10:00.000-08:00

A few months back, I read a very good blog about fantasy novels. It captured my interest because it was a description of seven concepts that the writer felt had become overused to the point of becoming cliches in the genre. I thought it was a very good essay, and I agreed with each of the writer's points. Unfortunatly, I've changed computers since then, and I'm unable to cite them for their work here, as I can't remember where I read it. If by chance, the writer happens upon this blog, let me know, and I will gladly reference your excellent description. In the meantime, I felt like paraphrasing it, or at least my own interpretation of it.

* Endless Sequels - There's nothing wrong with taking more than one book to tell a single story. It might take 3 or 5 or 10 or more books to create a grand canvas to describe the events of a fantasy world. The problem arises when sequels are produced for the sake of having sequels. It is wearisome when a fantasy series becomes episodic, where nothing really changes for the characters or the world from book to book. Even if things do constantly change, there isn't always a flow to it, like the story is just aimlessly meandering from one plot point to another. Naturally this gripe is strictly a matter of taste, but I feel like a fantasy series really ought to have a natural cycle to it, which means that eventually, it must end.

* Historical Equivalency - Basically, this is when there are clear and decisive parallels between fantasy elements and real life ones, such as the elves clearly representing the Greeks or the Such-and-Such Empire being analagous to the Soviet Union. It's not just races and cultures either, such as if magic draws a clear parallel to, say industrialism, or if an artifact is a clear representation of a nuclear weapon. This is not to say that fantasy story elements cannot have any kind of relevance or relation to our own world. How we paint the picture in our minds is based on our own understanding of our worlds. There is simply a danger of making the comparisons too overt, and its bluntness can dull the intended effect. The trick here is to be a little subtle when dealing with real-life analogy.

* European Medieval Times - In a related note, it seems quite common for fantasy worlds to closely resemble Medieval Bavaria, Rome or England or such. Even when they don't look like Europe in the Dark Ages, they tend to take on another Earth era's charactaristics, like Arabia or China or Japan. Again, I think this has much to do with having these pre-conceived civilizations, with their cultures and architecture as a template, allows for a basis with which to set up a foundation for a narrative. Starting completely from scratch in creating a fantasy world is a daunting prospect, but if it's vivid and truly unique, I think it can be worth the effort.

* Monarchies - Almost every fantasy civilization, good or bad, seems to be a monarchy of some sort. Furthermore, just about every story seems to require at least one prince or princess as a primary character. Perhaps this naturally comes from the fantasy novel's inherent European origins. I'm not suggesting that they should all be democratic republics, but mixing it up in regards to governmental systems can really spark some life into a story. There are oligarchies and military dictatorships as well, and even monarchies can be the dominant governing structure in a fantasy world, but there is so often a sense of politics or structural hiarchy that makes a society run in some of these stories, it can be difficult to figure out how a kingdom really operates. Also, this might be my parocheal American ideals talking, but making a character a prince or a princess doesn't elevate them in my eyes.

* The Chaotic Evil Race - The last three I particularly agree with. The first one is that there always seems to be a non-human race, commonly orcs or goblins (or the equivalent), who posess a degree of intelligence, but are bestial, vicious, and irredeemably evil. This allows our good guys to be able to fight and kill them in large numbers without ever suffering the guilt of taking a life. We have no qualms about the valiant heroes after they slaughter 50 murderous orcs at the castle gates, rather than if they were 50 human conscript soldiers sent on their mission by the evil lord. War and death can be a very messy, soul-testing ordeal for characters, even if their cause is right and their intentions pure. It's much more convienent to keep from seeing their enemy as inhuman monsters than to deal with the consequences of taking another mortal life. Honestly, there's lots of character development to be mined there, but it so rarely is utilized.

* Good vs. Evil - It is a concept that is familiar to even the youngest child, and is understandable to all, but in reality, it is almost never the case that there is a side of truly good and of truly evil. My take is that no character who is unabashedly evil is ever realistic. Real characters can do evil, but they will always convince themselves that they are actually doing good, be it self-serving good or for "the greater good" of society. I always wonder why villains want to rule the world? What purpose does it serve to be in charge of everything? Defeat your enemies certainly, acquire treasure and dominate your surroundings to be sure, but the practical act of controlling everyone and everything would simply be an endless, tedious, buerocratic nightmare. As for the good guys, they were always fine with the status quo before, but they always seem to play a reactive game against their adversaries. The heros are always responding to the actions of the villains, and never seem to be the cause of the events that move the world forward into conflict. Besides which, good guys could never really be without sin themselves. Duality is a part of human nature. There's always a little good in the worst of us, and a little evil in the best. But most everyone is somewhere in the middle.

* The Prophecy - One of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite movies is: "Nothing is written." It's a philisophical concept that is not often taken to heart in fantasy stories. Contextually, it means that there is no preset destiny, and that events are all linked in a long chain as altered by the characters and the constantly evolving situation. Yet so many fantasy stories seem to be based almost entirely on some sort of Prophecy. This Character WILL Do This, And After Much Struggle and Danger, This WILL Happen. To me, this is at best, the narrative equivalent to a spoiler. If the hero is destined to succeed all along, then why should I bother reading how he or she gets there? Is it, in that case, any more than seven books filled with busywork? Moreover, it is a spiritual concept that fate is the master of free will, and one that I think a lot of people would have trouble with if they were forced to consider it. When life, real life, is pre-scripted, what really is the point of living it? We would be just going through the motions until whatever was destined to happens happens. Obviously, in fiction stories, our defaut assumption is that the hero prevails and that good will inevidably triumph over evil. Whether we're comfortable with anything short of this is really up to the personal tastes of the reader. But the outcome is already decided before it even begins, then the journey itself loses it's meaning. When I pick up a book, I'm reading it for more than just the last chapter, and I want all of those pages between the cover to count for something.

Obviously, I resort to hyperbole at times here, saying things like "all novels" and "always" or "never". When I do, I speak for the general standard of the genre, at least from my own modest perspective. Indeed, most fantasy novels I've read will avoid some if not many of these conceits I've listed (I humbly believe that my own novel avoids them all), and I've avoided referencing anything by name, because it is of course, all a matter of personal opinoin and taste. I don't know if you would agree with all or any of these that I've listed, or if you think there are other things about the fantasy genre to add that ought to be avoided. If you do, I hope you'll let me know!

Life of a Famous Adventurer

2009-12-08T00:13:00.000-08:00

I'm still recovering from National Novel Writing Month back in November, which proved to be very challenging. Still, I'm very proud to say that I successfully reached the 50,000 word mark set for the 30-day period (I did it in 28 days). Like many of my fellow marathon writers I'm sure, I sprinted to the end and felt like taking the next week off from being creative (or at least from doing any writing). This week, I'll work on some finishing touches and the novel will be finished.

This one is titled: Famous Adventurers Correspondence School. It's a humorous adventure story about a geeky 17 year old guy who wants to be somebody, and who one day finds himself getting caught up in a strange, secret organization that begins to mail him assignments in order to train him in the ways of magic, superscience, and the art of being an adventurer. It's a rollicking ride, and is considerably shorter than my last work.

I don't have any immediate plans to publish this one, as the ordeal of getting The Other Side of the Gate ready for publication earlier this year left me wary to jump back into that hornet's nest so soon. As much as I love writing, the publishing side of the business has kicked my behind so far. Still, nothing says "learning experience" like a swollen butt.

Marathon Writing

2009-10-27T00:26:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be participating in National Novel Writing Month this year for the first time. The previous three years that I've known about the challenge to write a 50,000 word novel from start to finish during the 30 days of November, I was previously unable to participate. I'm very glad to have a chance to take part this year, as I've always thought it was a great ideal to challenge oneself to write at a furious pace and a hard deadline.

It also alleviates the need to carefully scrutinize the details of the work, because it requires an average output of over 1,600 words per day for all 30 days in order to complete. As such, there's very little time for one to go back and tinker with every tiny detail. It's not a contest for perfectionists, which thankfully is far from being one of my faults. If you want to find out more, you can visit their website at www.NaNoWriMo.org.

Actually, it is a project similar to the kind I just helped complete with Squishy Studios. We took part in a 72-hour film challenge with a local group called Almost Famous Film Festival, and our comedy/adventure short, Masters of Daring, scored extremely well in the challenge, winning several awards including a tie for first place in the entire festival! We're very proud of our movie, which was a 10 minute homage to the old 1940's black and white adventure serials. If you want to view it, you can at www.normallythisweird.com.

Which brings me to our web series which is about to premiere its first episode on Halloween Night (this Saturday), on the same site. Unlike the black and white adventure short that's on the site right now, which was a one-shot deal (despite it's inherent episodic nature), the Normally This Weird pilot episode will be followed up in future months with an extended storyline. The episodes will premiere on the first of every month starting in January (there will be a making-of documentary at the beginning of December), and we're all really excited about where it will be headed.

Origins of the Story

2009-09-29T14:43:00.000-07:00

Besides my extended synopsis for my novel, The Other Side of the Gate, I've been avoiding actually writing about the book here in my blog thus far. The book has only been available for some six weeks now, and I know that very few people actually have the book at this point, much less have read it. I can't help but feel a bit self-aggrandizing to be talking about the details of a book that nobody's actually read yet. And naturally, I don't want to spoil any of the story for those who read this blog and who are currently reading or intend to read the book (which I naturally hope is everyone reading this blog - available on Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com, by the way!)

Even so, I don't think this would be considered much of a writer's blog unless I actually talked about my own writing now and then. So today, I wanted to talk a little bit about where the story of TOSOTG came from. I'll try to avoid assuming that you have actually read the book, and will also do my best to avoid spoilers as well.

I know it sounds almost corny, but The Other Side of the Gate has its origins in a dream I had. I was actually working on a completely different novel at the time, but after having a strange and incredibly vivid dream one night, I woke up and was compelled to write down as many details as I could remember. So, I got up and went straight to my computer and started typing down all the details I could recall. Before I knew it, I had spent nearly six hours typing around forty pages of notes about the dream. Much of it was actually in the dream, while other details I instinctively expanded on in a way that seemed perfectly natural to what I had envisioned.

I dreamt that I was floating on a tiny wooden boat into a bay side city made out of ceramic clay. When I got to the dock, someone wanted to buy my boat, but I didn't want to sell it because I thought I might need it. So, I stashed it underneath the pier and went into town. There, I would meet people, most of whom said that they were born here, and that people float in from the bay on a regular basis. Nobody knows why, but it's been happening for as long as anyone can remember.

I learned that there was a great stone portal at the far end of the town, which led to other worlds, but once you went through the portal, you couldn't go backwards until you reached a certain point. This made me very wary about going through it, because I had no idea what things were like on the other side of the portal (that almost sounds like a good title!). Still, I was growing increasingly frustrated about why all of these people were here, and befuddled about what I was supposed to do next.

Finally, I went back to the pier to sell my tiny boat, convinced that there was no way I could use it anymore, and once I got the pouch filled with gold coins, I went exploring some more. I found this poorer side of town where the clay brick buildings were crumbling and doorways were covered by heavy cloth sheets rather than doors. I found this are infested with these bright red, marble-sized bugs scurrying about. I also saw a girl there who was methodically chasing and capturing them. I talked to her for a while, and we quickly became friends

Shortly after that, we were being chased around by a large, foul-looking man who had a bazooka on his shoulder, and we were forced to flee the town and go through the portal in order to escape him. On the other side, we found a vast, barren desert where an ocean of sand flowed like the rolling tide.

As I put down on the computer's Word file all of the details I could recall from the dream, I would extrapolate on things that weren't actually clarified during it. Even though I found myself making up certain details, it seemed as natural as if they too were the reality of the dream, but that I simply hadn't discovered them yet. After several hours and dozens of pages of notes, I finally got up from my computer to shower and eat and get on with whatever was left of that Saturday. Even so, I found myself constantly thinking about the details of the dream and inventing new things that popped into my head, until I finally went back and continued jotting down more and more notes.

When I was finally done, I wondered if there was something useful in all of this in a story, so I spent the rest of the weekend trying to organize it into something which I could turn into a novel. I structured out the different worlds, or realms that were all connected, so that each had its own unique geography and personality, like each had its own story to tell. I tried to put together the physics and the logistics of the world, making it plausible that different communities would have sprouted up in the different realms and interacted with one another. I also built up the more fantasy elements of the world - the magic and the creatures - and tried to understand how they all interacted with one another.

I wanted the world to be wondrous, but believable. I didn't want anything to be explained away with a "because I said so" explanation, that there was a reason behind every curiosity in the world. I've always felt that, as a fiction writer, if I can lay down certain ground rules to anchor the world I'm creating to its own reality, then the reader will be able to buy into the things they read, feeling confident that I'm not trying to trick them.

I also needed to figure out who the characters were going to be. As interesting as I am, I don't think I'd make much of a fantasy/adventure hero. I won't go into too much detail about the characters here, because I'd rather save them for a different blog posting, but from the outset, I wanted to make the main characters of the story pretty young. In a general sense, I think it's easiest to relate to a young teenager in a novel than virtually any other age group. Those of us who are older can still relate to the internal transitions we underwent when we were that age, and younger readers can identify still more closely with characters in that age group. Most of all, I wanted to have characters who were old enough to live in a world that is not altogether friendly and safe, yet who were young enough to still be developing into the men and women they would one day become.

I can't say that I've never been inspired before that dream. I've captured great ideas from my experiences, from other people, and out of the ether of my own imagination. But I've never before had such a vivid inspiration for a story like that dream gave me in my life. I didn't know if it was going to amount to anything, but I resolved to put my other projects to the side to work on this one for as far as it would take me.

I figured that I would work on it for only a few days, perhaps a week before I grew tired of it and went on to other things. As a result, I started the novel on a MS Word file which I labeled under the working title of "BTW", which was short for "Brilliant Time Waster". Even after I had given the story it's real name, the file name stayed the same right up to the day when I finally finished it. I can't say for certain whether it deserves to be called "brilliant", but I know for sure now that it certainly wasn't a waste of my time.

Why We Write

2009-09-18T21:15:00.000-07:00

I've been writing for quite some time now. Ever since my 6th grade teacher praised me for my very first "novel", called Journey to Cowland (though it's possible that I misspelled "Journey"), I've found a great deal of pleasure showing off my active imagination. Art class was always my favorite in grade school, because it was the only class where I was regularly free to express myself creatively.

Now that I'm into adulthood (far further into adulthood than I care to admit to myself), I still look for new creative outlets where I can. I still like to paint and draw and work with clay, though my skill with each is extremely limited. I also have a recurring itch to learn to play a musical instrument, though I've consistently find I lack a certain discipline to make much headway (along with a bit of a tin ear). My favorite toy as a kid was Legos, and I still have a weakness for building plastic brick wonders with my surviving collection, and my room is decorated with various lumpy ceramic knick knacks and cartoonish pictures I've made over the years. This, along with a host of video cassettes and DVD's of movies I've helped make with friends, from humiliating productions as a gawky teen with dumb jokes, to a still-pretty gawky young man with somewhat more sophisticated humor.

Yet still, with all of the creative avenues available to my restless imagination, I always seemed to come back to writing. I often wonder what it is that continues to draw me to writing novels (along with the occasional short story) rather than finding other medians to express myself. I wonder if it's the same impulse that attracts every writer to it, or if it's something different for everyone. Whatever it might be, I think it's very important for anyone who is or wants to be a writer to know why it is that they write.

For me at least, the compulsion to write comes from an intense desire, even a need, to tell a story. I suppose it's possible that I selected prose writing over poetry, painting, and the other expressive arts because fiction writing is the method which I've expressed the greatest aptitude, and as they always tell you, you should play to your own strengths. Being a shy, introverted kid through most of my childhood and teenage years, I had lots of time to myself, and I often spent that time daydreaming and creating characters and worlds to escape to whenever I felt burdened by the perils of everyday life.

That need for escapism eventually led me to be attracted to books, and later to forming my own ideas into complete stories. By the time I started my novel, The Other Side of the Gate (available on Barnes & Noble.com!), I never questioned that novel writing was my favorite and most effective means of expressing myself.

For me, it isn't just a desire to tell stories, but it's also the need to find a story that I think is worth telling. Every time I start a new writing project, I will ask myself, "what makes this story worth hearing above all others?" Is there a more interesting story within this tale - another character, another subplot that overshadows the one I'm trying to tell? If so, why aren't I writing that one instead?

Usually though, I'm right on target with the story that interests me the most. It's the tweaking and molding the plot and the characters that's the fun part. That and the actual writing. When I've finished that really good scene in the wee hours of the morning, and I just have to go back and reread it again before bed, just for fun ... that's what it's all about. That's why I write.

The Wonderful World of Internets

2009-09-13T23:07:00.000-07:00

(before I begin my post, I just wanted to offer this caustic reminder that my new novel, The Other Side of the Gate, is now on sale at most of your online booksellers, such as Barnes & Noble.com. Hooray for shameless plugs!)

Besides being a novel writer, I also happen to be a part of an independent, Phoenix-based film company called Squishy Studios. I help with a lot of the writing and story-building processes with their films, which are mostly comedy shorts at the moment, though I'm clearly only a small part of a very talented group of filmmakers. There are a number of examples of our shorts available for viewing on the studio's website, so I hope you will feel free to hop over there and see them (don't worry, there's nothing objectionable there, unless you're offended by silly humor).

But before I go off and write a link-heavy post here sending you to the far corners of Internet obscurity, I thought I would muse a little about the differences I've noticed between novel writing and filmmaking. Yes, naturally, there are many differences that should be quite obvious. Chief among them is that, once a novel is done (including editing and proofreading), it is finished. Completing a screenplay, while daunting, is only the beginning of the filmmaking process (though I've personally discovered that it's usually the last point in a production where I personally feel useful).

I think many of us, back when we were younger (and perhaps even now), were taken by the prospect of fooling around with our parent's camcorder and making our own "Moo-V's". My friends and I were not exception, and the early results were about what you would expect - silly video of unedited and often incomprehensible movies with kids running around in bad costumes and even worse dialogue. I think in most cases, kids like us would have eventually dropped to movie-making kick once the novelty wore off, but it was our good fortune to have among us one who began to show some talent and more importantly, a determination to grow and become a legitimate filmmaker.

Chances are, you've never heard of Nathan Blackwell (unless I already know you and you've actually confounded my expectations by visiting my new blog), but he is a very talented writer/director with two independent feature films and several award-winning shorts under his belt. He is also my best friend, and someone who I've known for over 20 years now. At the risk of sounding sappy, it's been my privilege to know him, and I hope it will continue to be for many years to come. (pardon while I wipe away a tear)

Anyhow, in my numerous collaborations with Nathan, I have repeatedly learned how astonishingly stringent the rules of screenwriting are in comparison with novel writing. Unlike a novel, the writer isn't at nearly as much liberty to stretch or break the rules that govern their respective craft. Film scripts, at least "commercially viable" scripts, are fairly rigidly structured, and usually have requisite story properties which in a novel, are often considered to be formulaic. However, without these guidelines, a film is in danger of drifting, or even losing the audience completely.

Unlike novels, movies are above all a visual medium. They use the visuals on the screen to tell the story every bit as much as what the characters say and do. Like a novel's narration, the cinematic quality of a film will make or break it, regardless of how good the story within it might be. Novels, on the other hand, are completely dependent on the reader's capacity to imagine the scenes that it sets. That the narrative describes the scene and how it does so is at least as important as what happens in that scene. While a screenwriter can leave scene-setting to the director, the novel writer has to create a vivid picture in the reader's mind's-eye before he or she can even start to tell the story. This is probably one of the many reasons why film adaptations of books is so often hit-and-miss.

Though the time constraints can so often be frustrating to a novelist's mind like mine, the rewards of filmmaking are vast. Not the least of which is the experience of watching others view your work, and seeing their natural reaction to it as it happens. I've tried watching family and friends as they've read my written work, and it only seems to unnerve them.

It's also still possible to tell a broader story with film as well. Squishy Studios is taking part in the production of a new web series to premiere this Halloween about a neighborhood filled with a rogues gallery of curious characters, like an exiled wizard and his two children, a frustrated mad scientist and his alien wife posing as a homemaker, an unflappable scoundrel whose creepy informality keeps everyone a bit on edge, and a bemused FBI agent assigned to watch them all.

It's called Normally This Weird (you had to know that there was another link coming, didn't you?), and I'm very happy to be a part of the creative end of this particular project. After the extended pilot episode is released, we'll be releasing 6-minute episodes once a month for the next year or so, and we're hoping to make it a smashing success!

Between this, writing my next book, and promoting my current one, I'll have a lot of projects on my plate for a while. It's good to keep busy though. Besides, if it weren't involved with Squishy Studios, I would have never gotten my own listing on the Internet Movie Database!

Ah, I'm pretty new to this whole self-promotion thing, so if I'm going overboard with all of the links, someone will let me know, right?

Writing Comfort

2009-09-09T00:14:00.000-07:00

My old computer finally went kaput about a month ago. It was an old computer which I got as a refurbished discounted model, and was always tempermental. In fact, when I installed a graphics card in it a couple of years ago, I found that I could no longer get the outer casing to close all of the way. I suppose I've never been a perfectionist, so I closed it as best I could and left it as it was. Frankly, I'm surprised it took this long for it to finally die on me.

Anyhow, my inert desktop computer sits lifelessly on my desk now, in the vain hope that I might somehow Frankenstein it back to life with the power of positive thinking or something. Meanwhile, I've been working off of my mother's old laptop, which is even older, but at least it works (and its parts aren't exposed to the elements). I have, however, found it to be sorely wanting as a writing computer.

Some of the problems are just little things, and others are faults of the laptop itself, such as the fact that some of the keyboard keys won't always work unless you pound on them. One of the keys is the space bar, which doesn't always register when struck on the left-hand side. As a lefty, I'm used to using my left thumb to hit spaces, which makes typing even brief e-mails and posts like this one an ordeal. There are also ergonomic issues involving sitting posture and hand position that make extended typing on this replacement computer uncomfortable.

One thing that appears to be unique to me is that the background screen color is white. For years, I've always had my MS Word and other document writing backgrounds automatically set to a green backdrop. I just find it far easier to read from a green screen (with either black or white lettering, depending on the shade of green), which is easier on my eyes. After a while, the brightness of the standard white background tends to give me a headache, and I've been working off of my old computer and its customized settings for so long that I'd forgotten that it wasn't how all computers are set up.

I've wondered if these things are just me being hyper-sensitive and picky about my own comfort level when I write. But for me, the writing process can be very draining, and maintaining a certain level of physical comfort is what keeps me going with it sometimes. I don't know if that's just being weak or lazy - I wonder if I could write back in the olden days when it was a quill and ink bottle under candlelight that were the writer's tools. Here I am griping about the ergonomics of the portable word processor complete with easy to use deletion and copy keys, as well as an automatic spellchecker and of course, the occasional computer game to entertain me during those times when I choose not to write. I wonder what Thoreau would have done if I'd given him my Mom's laptop to write Walden with? He'd probably beat me over the head with it.

Even so, I think it's important to have a certain comfort level when you're doing some serious writing. I don't know if it's true for everyone, but most of the writers I know tell me that they have a tendency to "nest" when they write, either typing or longhand. Some of them make a whole production out of it, getting a cup of tea and/or cookies, or perhaps some mood music going, and wrap themselves up in a blanket before they settle down to write. Part of it might simply be ritual, but whatever the reason, I think one has to be comfortable in his or her own skin before they can tap that creative part of their brain.

The Other Side of the Gate

2009-09-02T23:22:00.001-07:00

I would like to take some time now to write a bit about my novel, The Other Side of the Gate. There's already a description for the book on the back cover as well as the publisher's page (conveniently linked above), but one thing about having a forum like this is that it affords me the opportunity to expand on this synopsis. Given that this is a 700-page novel (an "epic", as it were), I personally relish the chance to offer a more detailed description of the book.

It is a fantasy/adventure story following a 14 year old boy who is inexplicably whisked away to a strange world, and who is determined to find out why. His name is Daniel Weaver, and he comes from our own contemporary world (he lived in Pennsylvania), but who, in the beginning of the story, wakes up to find himself drifting along in a tiny boat. He has no knowledge of how or why this is happening, only that he finds himself floating into this strange world called "The Realms".

The Realms is inhabited by numerous strange creatures, both great and small. It is also inhabited by human beings who have settled across this new world. Some, like Daniel, were taken without warning or it seems, evident purpose, to The Realms from the place we call Earth. Many of these people, called "newcomers", have lived in The Realms for years and even decades, but all were taken to this new world when they were in their teen years, just like Daniel. Yet nobody seems to know who brought them here, or for what purpose.

Youngsters from Earth have been ferried to The Realms for so long, that whole generations have been born and lived their lives in this world. In fact, most of the human population is made up of those called Realmsborn, who have lived in this land their entire lives, and no nothing of Earth (which they call "the Otherworld"), except what they hear from stories.

Over the centuries, many small pockets of human civilization have sprung up across this vast and often dangerous world. Humans marooned in The Realms, along with their antecedents, have survived and even flourished here, still without any understanding as to the purpose of their forced migration. Magic is also a force of nature in The Realms, and takes many guises. Some humans have even learned how to harness the magical forces of this world, making formidable individuals who ought not to be crossed.

The world is divided up into sixteen different enclosed regions, each connected to another in a successive string by a series of magical portals. Travel through each realm is difficult and often hazardous, especially to the young newcomers who arrive in the simple haven of the First Realm, but who choose to venture on into the rest of the world. The decision to pass through the First Realm's gate is not to be taken lightly, as once a person crosses through it, it is very difficult to return.

During his adventures in this First Realm, Daniel finds that he has an affinity for attracting trouble. He unwittingly makes himself many enemies in the entry town of Greetingsport, but he also makes many friends as well. Among them is Eleanor, a Realmsborn girl who is the daughter of the local town's bug catcher, but who dreams one day of becoming a healer. The stringent class rules of the town's society prevent her from moving beyond her station, however - something Eleanor has learned to accept, but which Daniel finds terribly unjust.

Eventually, Daniel is forced to move on from the relative safety of the First Realm and pass through the gate to seek the answers he is looking for. Harsh deserts, vast prairies, dark forests, and who-knows what else awaits him in his travels. He is given no quest, no task to perform or foe to defeat in order to fulfill his purpose in The Realms. Instead, he is left to struggle with the question of why he is here - why any of the humans are here. It is in this mission that he devotes himself and prepares to risk everything for the chance of finding his true purpose in this world. Sometimes, however, knowing the truth is harder than being left in the dark.

The Other Side of the Gate is currently available on Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com.

A Brief Introduction

2009-09-02T01:15:00.000-07:00

Hello there. As is likely obvious from your end, this is my inaugural blog post. My name is Craig M. Curtis, and I'm a writer whose second novel, The Other Side of the Gate, has just been released. I'm very excited about this book, and I wanted to share the writing experience here with other writers and (especially) readers!

I'll be writing here about several different topics, particularly involving my story and other projects which I'm involved with. I would also like to explore a few more general notions about writing and storytelling with others here. I heartily welcome your thoughts and input as I go along, and am always happy to hear from others involved in the creative community.

In my next post, I'll be talking about my book - what it's about, and of course, how you can purchase it! (*ahem*) Until then, I'll simply bid you a good morning, day or evening - whichever pertains to your own circadian rhythm.