Reflections on 2013

I haven't posted on this blog for awhile so I thought I'd do something basic like one of my famous "Life Updates" (fame is relative, thank you).

For the most part I haven't given this blog any substantial attention because my focus has been on other projects of pressing importance (to me, anyway). Since October I have been working on the one act I submitted to the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival entitled "Meticulous," my collection of poems which were in dire need of revising, and my current adaptation of "Meticulous" into a full-length film screenplay. My goal next year is to begin submitting scripts to festivals, having them read, and experience the feedback of actual adept script readers (rejection and so forth). Namely, I have my eyes set on submitting a full-length script to the Nicholls Fellowship by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and a tv pilot script to the Austin Film Festival.

The blog, which I often use to write when there are no projects to write, has been neglected.
...

Now....for 2013.

Eh.

The year was exceptional in both disappointment and relative fulfillment. The year was tough. In my Jimi Hendrix post I noted how awful 6th grade was for me. There has been nothing comparable in misery like the year I was in 6th grade but this year was as close to that year as any one year could possibly be. It takes a lot of misery for one year to be akin or equal to the year puberty starts.

In assessing disappointment, there's a conflict in understanding issues that occurred because of one's mistakes or something beyond one's control. There was recurring issues with me that happen each year--stuff I won't divulge with great detail, but basically ineptitude at dating and proficiency at (unwanted) loneliness. Something I could control was moving out after I came back from South America, but that has been slow in my resolve.

With disappointment there comes a strength of resolve to rectify mistakes or situations and solve the problems one is having--at least that's how I approached it.

There's no way to solve my grandfather's passing, however. The man loomed large over our family as a typical--almost literary--Southern patriarch. In his passing, I fear my family has splintered deeper than with my grandmother passing (which by the way happened in 6th grade). Despite having 5 children, he made no effort towards a will or any written documentation of how to proceed with his assets. Consequently, individuals in my family began creating stakes in his assets, his finances, with each one mired in self-interest. I had no way to control this event. It's nature. People die. Nor do I have a large say in my family affairs, but the suffering will fester I'm afraid to say.

Then there's the MFA situation. Receiving rejection across the board left me embittered and sore in spite of knowing this was a possible conclusion and especially knowing how common it is. The rejections did not leave me completely exhausted of my resolve, however. Instead I reassessed the situation and contemplated whether or not I would undergo this degree if cost was a factor. The truth is, I wouldn't. The field of academic poets and professors is extremely flooded. It's a tough job market only justified by full funding in graduate studies but frankly I felt I needed a day job. Preparing a portfolio and scripts while working showed me that I can write while having a day job. Therefore I decided to adjust myself to finding a day job and study within that field. At first I thought of technical writing but it took me leaving the library to realize how much I valued that profession. I can live with the salary of a librarian--it's similar to a teacher's salary--and I found it more fulfilling than education. When I decided to earn a Master's of Library & Information Science there was a clearness in my head, an absence of uncertainty, a moment of clarity. With this in mind, I know there are several librarians who are well noted writers like Borges and Philip Larkin. Had I not received these rejections I would never have thought of the field. I must admit that now I'm a bit pensive and I do have concerns but I'm optimistic in the program I've chosen.

Speaking of rejections there's also the disappointment of continued poetry rejections I receive for work I submit. It's extremely tough to send in work and get published. I try to justify my rejections by seeing how others are being rejected as I am but it doesn't seem to alleviate any despair at the prospect of not being published. Then, in March, I did receive publication in "Deep South Magazine," which isn't a bad place to start. The publication has a readership, not typical of literary journals but literary individuals nonetheless. One poem published for 50 rejections isn't horrible. I'll take it.

There's other disappointments from the year. I had a script that was ready to shoot, a short film, but it's been held back because of my trip, finances (primarily mine), a key collaborator's other project, among other reasons. That being said it's a script that can be shot. It hasn't stopped me from writing other scripts. It also hasn't stopped me from shooting footage on my own initiative.

Really, this is key to this year compared to other years. My confidence has allowed me to bounce back from disappointments and I continue to work on who I am. I'm about 5 years behind everyone else who is successful but that gap is decreasing. Instead of letting rejection discourage me I continue to work and work. I'm now in the habit of writing something everyday and I feel absolutely unfulfilled if I write nothing in a day. There are some days where I'll throw the minimum one page a day and that's it, but I've been successful with setting up and meeting my own deadlines. I keep pushing myself and that is something I didn't do 4 years ago. In sixth grade, my failures discouraged me and ripped any confidence apart, replacing it with insecurity. It's taken me years to overcome this, years I feel I've lost, but now I'm still writing in spite of rejection and moving forward.

...

There were some highlights, some fulfilling moments. In May I did receive acceptance into graduate school for a MA in English, and I was recommended for funding. The funding wasn't wonderful and I ultimately set myself aside from the program but the feeling that I wasn't worthless was relatively fulfilling. It became meaningful when I received acceptance in the Master's of Library & Information Science program at the University of South Carolina. I like the program--it has breadth, particular in the fields of image management and medical librarianship. The distance education/online format may be a challenge, but I think if I can get internships it'll work out well.

The big event of this year, for me, was finally leaving the country to backpack in South America. To go into detail as to how much this trip meant to me would completely take over the blog. Help yourself to my South America posts (there's 9 of them) which go into greater detail. It felt like life was beating me down before this trip, but that seemed to evaporate while I was trekking in South America. More important is that it led me to meet people that gave me confidence in my wishes. I met people who were like me, in a job situation that wasn't great, who were unconventional in their desires, and yet wanted something more than the usual. It's hard to not look upon others' Facebook profiles without envy, without envy of how professional they seem in comparison or how well to do or how normal. Then again, my trip allowed me to understand that everyone has their own unique way of living. I can't live like those individuals. My urge to see more of the world, especially after this trip, is too great. My urge to write continuously is too much to let go. South America allowed me to see that, or at least be delusional enough to believe that.

...

Talking about South America is a way to end this post, and for all intents and purposes it has ended. Yet, I'm part of a coterie that relishes in the reflection of our favorite pop culture items. Consider this an Epilogue.

With all this life stuff written, I will say my life in pop culture has been mediocre--not great, not bad. Because of saving money to move out (potentially then and now certainly) or for the trip to South America, I haven't been able to fully immerse myself into a lot of pop culture. Pop culture--movies, books, music--is a big deal to me and my life so it's worth exploring to me.

With books there's so much that comes out that it's unfair to assess a year as bad or good. There was some good poetry collections by Bruce Bond, Derek Sheffield, Rae Armantrout, Maurice Manning, and Thanha Lai (Bond's being my favorite). There's great novels and story collections via George Saunders and "Tenth of December," as well as Philipp Meyer and "The Son." This year, however, I did a lot of non-fiction reading, particularly in regards to the Civil War. If there was a book that dominated my life it was "Battle Cry of Freedom" by James McPherson, and I consequently read several other material involving the Civil War by McPherson and others.

This year's music wasn't too bad for me. I love shoegaze and overdriven rock music. This year seems to point towards a renaissance of sorts for this music. My Bloody Valentine finally released a new album, "mbv," and it was spectacular. There was also Deafhaven, which I've grown to like fairly well, and No Joy's "Wait to Pleasure." Sigur Ros moved a little more to rock and seeing them in concert was quite a thrill. I also liked new releases by Beacon, Killer Mike and El-P (now Run the Jewels), True Widow, and even Kanye's new album.

Now there's movies--my love--and it was mostly disappointment. Not all movies were awful, but there wasn't anything that stood out as something that will stick with me in the test of time. It reminded me a lot of 2009, where there was good movies, but very few great movies. There are several good movies like the underappreciated (enjoyable) "Pacific Rim," "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," and "The Conjuring." There were some absolutely disappointing movies, however, like "Star Trek Into Darkness" (which isn't as half as good as "Wrath of Khan") and "Prisoners" (what a waste of time). There were great pieces, like "Gravity," "Blue Jasmine," "Frozen" (suck it), "American Hustle,"and "Mud." The film that has stood out for me, the one that keeps coming back, however, is "Upstream Color." Shane Carruth is someone extremely inspiring to me as someone who self-finances and self-distributes his films. There's something haunting about "Upstream Color" that I can't get over. If there is a film that's left a lasting impact on me, it's that one. I still haven't seen "Inside Llewyn Davis" and "12 Years a Slave," which I may see in Atlanta this week or in Athens in the first of January. There's also "Her," but that won't come out until a little later.

...

With all this mixture of disappointment and fulfillment, I have a strong optimism about 2014. There seems to be better things on the horizon personally and in pop culture. One week left and then...something lovely, right?

How Jimi Hendrix was my savior

The "savior" of my title isn't capitalized because the capitalization of "savior" refers to Christ and I'm not interested in touching any debate concerning that. Rather, "savior" refers to someone who "saves, rescues," which seems self-explanatory. What this article is about isn't necessarily the influence of Jimi Hendrix's personal life on mine, though I find his life extraordinary. This article details my experience of discovering guitar, which happened through Jimi Hendrix.

It wouldn't have happened without Hendrix, without seeing a clip of Jimi performing "Rock Me Baby" on the VHS "Rolling Stone Presents 20 Years of Rock & Roll" hosted by Dennis Hopper. I saw that video in 1999, a video given to me by my aunt who hadn't completely turned her back on the counter cultural 1960's and 1970's music of her youth (which most of my conservative family had).

In 1999 music wasn't really about guitar or about interesting guitar work (to me). There's nothing interesting in the guitar work of any member of Third Eye Blind, Sugar Ray, Goo Goo Dolls. The exposure to music I had was limited. I lived in a rural area. We had no indie record stores like Wuxtry, Criminal Records, etc. We had On Cue if one could afford the then outrageous CD costs of $25. Our family didn't get dial-up internet until 2001 and we really only got a Windows 95 PC that year. Equally important was the lack of satellite/cable television. At one point a channel called The Box came on regular tv that allowed people to request videos by Everclear, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, etc while charging them via phone costs. Consequently, my exposure to music was modest, usually mainstream music via my sister's musical tastes or radio stations like B93.7 out of South Carolina and Star 94.1 out of Atlanta.

So that "Rolling Stone" video, trivial and almost inconsequential now, was consequential to me because it was an introduction to the swath of music that existed before I was born. Ultimately, it would spur me on a quest to find interesting music.

Hendrix, though, was the main attraction. That clip may have been one minute, one minute 30. From the Monterey Pop Festival, it showed Hendrix in his prime--dive bombing, eating his guitar, blistering through the slow blues standard. I had no idea something like this existed. It was like hearing for the first time after being deaf for 10 years. Something in myself connected deeply with Hendrix, with the sound of feedback, with the electric energy.

The importance of this brief clip reverberated in a massive way. I was 10 upon seeing this, heading towards puberty, towards the cognitive level of revolting against everything. This was a sonic representation of revolution for me. Capitalizing upon this clip I bought "Are You Experienced," the 1997 reissue, and let it open my mind. Any personal sensibilities I have I probably wouldn't have had had it not been for Hendrix (the uses of "have" and "had" are deliberate, by the way).

To get on track, however, this brief clip was imperative in sending me towards art by getting me interested in playing guitar.

Seeing Hendrix automatically makes you want to play guitar. There's no getting around it. I would find objects to use in place of guitar. I had no conception of how to play guitar. I had an old Harmony hardware store guitar that I received one Christmas. I tried to figure out how to play without knowing about chords. I thought people had unique chords that differed for each song as opposed to the same chords like G, E, etc. I had one string and I would make noise on it, focusing more on how to look than how to play. Of course I tried to play left handed. When I discovered Led Zeppelin, I would find our step-ladder, fold it flat, and pretend to play "Stairway to Heaven" using the legs as the 12 string and 6 string necks of Jimmy Page's double necked guitar. I would sift through Sears and JC Penny catalogs to look at the cheap ass rip off guitars, the Harmony's. I would eventually break my Harmony, trying to emulate Hendrix, while listening to "Fire."

My father, perhaps being annoyed at how into Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and other artists I was learning about after we got satellite tv with VH1, gave in after 5th grade when I was 11. My dad was cheap and he saw through my older sister the flaw of investing a lot of money into something that might turn out to be a phase. That was fair and he decided to get me a cheap Santa Rosa guitar, a Fender acoustic knock-off, from Habersham Hardware. He wanted me to learn acoustic before electric. He argued that Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix learned acoustic before electric. He probably didn't want to hear me making horrible noise without amplification. I know this because as soon as I got the guitar I started to try and play it, with my father coming into my room to tell me to stop until I learned guitar from our next-door neighbor, who taught lessons. Wonderful.

As soon as I started taking lessons I practiced incessantly, trying to make something out of the tabs at the end of my Guitar World magazines which I started buying every month. I would record myself using cassette tapes to hear what I was doing. I had to learn six songs before my father would buy me an electric guitar. In reality, he didn't have the heart to tell me that he didn't have the money for it yet. As six songs passed I didn't get an electric guitar. Still, I fell in love. All I wanted for Christmas was CD's: the Jimi Hendrix Box-Set that had come out as the 30th anniversary of his death loomed, Led Zeppelin's Greatest Hits from 1973-1980, and AC/DC CD's. My mom threw in a Guitar World in my stocking.

In my daily life I would listen to the radio and record songs I liked, those that were hard rock but not shit like Limp Bizkit and Korn.With a project in class to do a survey I asked people their favorite artist. Mine was Jimi Hendrix, naturally, though I wavered at the time with Led Zeppelin. I would make 100 Greatest Artists lists like VH1 did, but have my own artists. I would call Rock 101 WORQ to make requests. I would use VHS tapes to record "Rock Show" at midnight, Behind the Music specials on bands I liked, etc.

In conjunction with this learning of guitar, this immersion into music, I underwent a painful period of my life. I was different and I could feel how different I was. To give an example, I remember in 7th grade undergoing a Geography BEE, a subject I knew well, and once I was in the final round with two people left the other individual beat me and everyone cheered that other person specifically for beating me. During the round when we faced off I was cheered against, with disgust in the faces of people anytime I answered one right. To feel like everyone was rooting against you felt awful. I had no comprehension as to how to deal with my obesity (I weigh the same now as I did in 7th grade) and it was a source of frustration, with insults hitting me hard for being fat. This fatness also lead to rejection in the female arena. I was secular in a school full of devout Christians who would write in my friend's and my yearbooks "Christ died for your sins" because I didn't go to church and I preferred Iron Maiden to DC Talk. Going to school in my first day my initial thoughts were "I need to find people to be in a band with me." As the year progressed it became about how to get out. Getting into fights was common and I thought about individuals I knew I might have to fight. I still remember the names of some of those bullies (though I don't think about them too often). I was depressed. Frankly, I was 11 and 12 and thinking of suicide and awful, awful thoughts. The help wasn't there from other teachers who couldn't give me the proper attention due to swelling class sizes.

Of course now, as I am a substitute teacher (and actually like subbing for this school--which has drastically changed) I have the perspective to understand a lot of people went through my similar experiences. A lot of people had it worse because they had parents who were inconsistent, parents and cousins who got them involved in drugs, etc. That being said I also see this as the beginning point of my confidence issues, issues that still exist in me. It was during this point that I began to withdraw and become miserably shy. I don't know how biological some of my problems like introversion, depression, social anxiety were. There was no way I was going to get professional help or even help from my parents.

Home life wasn't much different. My parents were in the throes of a horrible period. My father was erratic in his emotional mood swings, which usually swung to the point of anger. I was in fear of my father. He was working over 40 hours (usually 50-60 hours) and financially we were growing to more debt. I still haven't forgiven my father as to how he acted because he put his frustrations on my sister and myself. With my mother, her time was hard because her mother, my grandmother was dying. She would die of breast cancer in 2001, which devastated the family and myself. Our extended family broke apart and even now rarely keep in touch.

I survived because of guitar.

In sixth grade I had no friends. The closest person to a friend was a guy I knew who liked KISS like I did that had way shittier parents than I did. Calling him meant hearing his mom scream and him scream (I think his mom may be a registered sex offender now). Going to school was wretched because I had to deal with people I didn't like. Going home was wretched because I had to deal with my family who would yell everyday, screeching me away.

Guitar was all I had at that time. My guitar teacher, who became something of a mentor to me, wanted to know what I wanted to learn. Because I fell in love with Hendrix I wanted to learn how to play the blues. He taught me scales, blues licks, and I would go home and play these incessantly. The reason I didn't end up using a pair of scissors to stab at my arms (which happened to someone I knew who was equally depressed) was because I came home and I practiced the blues. I'd like to think my taste in Delta Blues, Chicago Blues, R&B/Soul, and even Hip Hop came from this. It's the music of outcasts who grow up in working class environments.

Guitar was constructive. It required the ability to learn, the ability to focus. It required self-discipline, practice. It was a cathartic action, a lightning rod of my frustration.

I can remember my first electric guitar. A guitar shop opened up finally in Habersham County that didn't sell awful hardware store guitars. My father bought me a Squier Telecaster, a Peavey amplifier and later I went and got AC/DC's "Highway to Hell." Throughout that day I tinkered and played with my guitar, playing so much that my dad had to come into my room and ask me to stop because it was too late. This was the pinnacle of my obsession with music and guitar.

How music went beneath other interests was something I've thought about. For one, I am a visually kinetic learner. I respond more to visual stimulation, to touching and feeling. Once I discovered movies and books that were on par with Hendrix, I suppose I drew my focus in those pursuits. Another thing was that my parents decided my sister and I were fighting too much. Much of my music knowledge came from VH1 and MTV2 which I was rabid about watching. As a punishment they set parental blocks on those channels. The parental blocks my mom set in went into effect during They Might Be Giants' "Boss of Me," during MTV2's Control Freak. I actually cried when that happened, I must admit, because I didn't feel it was fair with those blocks as those channels were my primary viewing whereas my sister had other channels she watched. This led me into ESPN which put me into football and hockey (and the football team) for awhile as well as TCM and AMC which led me to movies.

That being said, I haven't broken away from guitar. Guitar is a hobby for me, but one that I have a special love for. I eventually found friends who are almost always musicians and therefore we jam. I would learn how to play as part of a band and once over my shyness I was in a band, if briefly. I need guitar now as much as I needed it then.

Though writing is where I am at and what I've realized I am destined to do, I wouldn't have reached his point if not for guitar. My family wasn't an arts family. We didn't go to shows, barely went to movies, and music was something in the periphery. My interest was primarily history at that time, not art. Seeing Jimi Hendrix play "Rock Me Baby" helped me dive into art as a way to constructively understand my well-being. I would've never considered majoring in Theatre, writing, or anything if not for allowing guitar to teach me how important my life was.

This is important because this is what art does. Art exists because it helps individuals understand how to place value in existence, into surviving. It's why I tell people to learn instruments when I see them struggling in my classroom, or when they are making tapping noises on the desk, or showing a lack of focus. It's why I allow students to draw in class after they've finished work if they don't want to read or do worksheets (despite many teachers advising against it). Their lives will be saved through art.

My life was saved because of guitar, because of Jimi Hendrix.

How I Rediscovered the Mountains

There used to be a line I had for a possible poem that I never turned into a poem. I had the idea of creating a line where the first word rhymed with the last word. What I came up with was "Everywhere seems great when you've never been there." It was something I came up in middle school or high school. Because I remember way too many small details I still remember this line.

Getting more directly on the topic of my headline, a number of months ago my friend and I were eating at a BBQ restaurant that's local, talking about our home area. He was talking about how he couldn't believe people would actually move to where we live, in Habersham County, by actual decision, by actual thought process. He couldn't believe that someone would CHOOSE to move to where we are, a rural outpost in the Georgia Highlands.

It was interesting for him to bring this up because ten years ago, when I was 14, I never expected to be remaining here. I never had any idea what my major would be then, I had no idea what kind of career to expect or what degree I'd ultimately pursue or what university--I was looking at the Art Institute of Atlanta at the time, I believe. The economic fallout seemed so distant from that year. I had no idea that I'd be in the same county. I had no idea that I would grow to be ok with my area, to make peace with Habersham.

Inevitably I will need to find a new place to live. Eventually I will need to use an advanced degree to live somewhere like Atlanta/Decatur, or Chicago, North Carolina, Tennessee, etc. Yet, here I am. 

It's tough because I've taken the initiative to gain experiences by eating different types of food, travelling, etc. This has led me to have a clash of expectations over small things like the lack of quality restaurants or the haphazard burgers at one particular place. Still. It could be worse. 

What led to this realization is important to me because it ultimately correlated with my discovery of poetry, my true discovery of poetry. I always had poetry in my peripheral but I began to devour poetry right around the same time that I rediscovered my roots, or rekindle my love of the mountains and nature.

That began with a band.

I mentioned in my post "8 Pieces of Advice for Young Musicians" that I was in my first "band" band when I was in university. A friend of mine from Bangladesh needed some musicians for a band that would do South Asian music. I got involved as a bassist and would move on to guitar. We practiced in Buford, GA, which is 45 minutes (at least at 11AM) from Atlanta. For some reasons unknown to me I, at this time (aged 20), had never really seen the suburbs before. In Habersham there were subdivisions catered for people who wanted a second house near the mountains and such, but I had never seen the real suburbs before.

I hated it.

I hated (well, I haven't stopped hating, so hate) the suburbs. Driving through Buford with my friend (and bandmate from Habersham) we'd see the houses that littered the very private areas. We'd see how close the houses would be together, how little the yards but how substantial the houses were. The idea of Homeowner's Associations that had control over what one put in one's property, or the idea of not having a backyard or a proper front yard felt dehumanizing to me.

The opportunities to a better life were somewhere in this area...I knew that. The people I met at Gainesville State that were from Forsyth County or Gwinnett County seemed far more intelligent or had far more sense than I did. Yet, it seemed little sense to live in the home equivalent of cubicles.

With this discovery of the suburbs did the first little drops of appreciation come in for my home in North Georgia. Growing up most of my friends didn't live in areas like the suburbs of Buford. Most of our properties were surrounded by vast woods, grass, that were very unfurled and not at all landscaped.

I remember asking someone I knew in the Habersham Democrats about why he lived here. Here, Habersham, wasn't a bastion for liberals and his status in the army meant he could've lived anywhere. He came back to Habersham and his reasons were that "this was a great place to raise children."

Making my way into the suburbs led me to understand this statement. Even my bandmate/friend, who didn't particularly care for Habersham, concurred that as children we had spaces and room to explore. In my poetry I often use childhood and coming of age as themes with the forests and woods as motifs. For instance, I wrote a poem about finding out that a friend of mine was going to jail by portraying how we played in the woods, how we'd use limbs to fight each other, how we'd climb trees. Thinking of my childhood I often feel the pain that many of us do with the bruises of self-realization, yet I also notice how easy it was to play and create new opportunities to play without the plethora of toys that I could possible have.

That was the first way I re-discovered that my area wasn't horrible.

Then there was Robinson Jeffers.

Jeffers was a poet I discovered in World Lit II. My professor was a poet and she introduced me to a great extent of the poetry I read. It was in that class I started reading Pablo Neruda, with the first lines of "Leaning in the Afternoons" striking me like the first snare of "Like a Rolling Stone" to Bruce Springsteen. It was a call to arms in writing and to undertake poetry. She also introduced Robinson Jeffers and his poem "Hurt Hawks" as well as his theory of inhumanism.

Inhumanism details the idea that man is self centered, self interested, and Jeffers stressed through Inhumanism that we are not as important as everything else in nature. Jeffers's poetry detailed in poems like "Hurt Hawks" that he'd "sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk." For me, perhaps in the midst of a year that would change my ambition, I felt this to be profound. 

Around the same time I also took American Literature 1 and 2, where I digged deep into Walt Whitman, ee cummings (who I had already loved), and other poets. I also started reading John Keats and indulging in his "Negative Capability," as well as poetry from India like Kalidasa, and "The Penguin Book of Zen Poetry" which steered me into the direction of Japanese and Chinese poetry that stuck with me with its emphasis of sparse, laconic language and intimate imagery with nature. 

All of this was important because it set the course for me to restate my purpose in becoming a writer, with a particular focus on poetry. I don't know what the first poem I wrote was, but the first time I felt I could be a poet was in Creative Writing class when I mimicked Ezra Pound's "In the Station at the Metro" with a poem called "Without my Glasses." With my realization that poetry was, after all, my love, also came to my realization that the Southern landscape is my muse.

I mentioned before about the speaker at my graduation ceremony, Michael Shapiro of the High Museum of Art, talking about how we need to seek through the world to find what our muse is or what our purpose is. It was speech that had an impact on me. I thought about what do I muse about, or where is my house of musing. For Shapiro it was the art museum. For me it was the cinema, the library, and as I would discover through my poetry it was nature, specifically mountains and water. 

Through poetry I would work to excavate my surroundings and their different hues. Inspired by Walt Whitman or Basho I would walk through the woods. In this mode of thinking I ultimately found Georgia reasonably transcendent. 

As a poet I struggled as many poets do starting out, trying to figure out what to write about or what is worth writing. Often my poetry delved into loneliness, into despair, but I wasn't sure how to depict these themes. Through poetry I started to move inward within the area, hiking Tallulah Falls, Black Rock Mountain, etc, and taking lunches at Pitts Park. When my poetry began to reflect the images of Tallulah Falls, of the forests, of the coastal plain of Alabama, did I feel that I was onto something. 

Slowly I've realized the difficulty of leaving the South. Part of this is economics, but I also feel that I need the South for my writing, for my poetry especially. It is my muse. It will always be my muse.

My Script Process

It starts with scales or noodling.

That's how I think of my script writing process, be it play script or screenplay.

Most artists are interested in other artists processes regardless of medium because they both have parallels. For me I'm always interested in how musicians develop their songs, albums. The "Classic Albums" series of documentaries are always quite fascinating to me. As a musician I can't help but find parallels between playing guitar and writing, the process of working with a chord or scale and trying to find something within it. 

With a script it's slightly different because it starts with an idea, it starts with just rummaging through ideas like I rummage through chords. I'll conceive of an idea and I'll collect it, let it nurture and stick with me or fester because it doesn't feel right. 

This process began when I first wrote "The Five Stages of Baldness," my senior thesis. I rummaged through ideas and the idea of combining the five stages of grief and someone going bald was stuck in there from my friend's experience with baldness. 

I watched a clip of Ginger Baker playing drums in the documentary "Beware of Mr. Baker." Asking him about his process in practising drums he talked about beginning with warm-ups. Then, as he says, "I just play." That's how I feel when writing. After starting off with warm-ups, "I just write." I write anything. 

I just start writing a draft. Typically I'll preface this draft work with a bit of supplementary work via loglines or miscellaneous work. Miscellaneous work might be dialogue I won't include in the draft that indicates character. For the tentatively titled "Against Sparta," I wrote fake newspaper articles that helped develop the world and before the first draft I had a couple of short stories. 

After having an idea of how the story plays out I start writing, with a focus on dialogue primarily. That draft is awful and I rarely show it to anyone. It's usually inconsistent because during that draft I start to already think of what might be happening, where to take it, and just like I might change timing or tempo in a song I start changing it around. 

Then I journal. I always journal because journals are the ultimate sounding board for drafting and for ideas. I start taking down possible ideas for the characters, what to do. The original draft of "Against Sparta" actually had a male protagonist, but journaling I realized it might be more interesting to make it a female protagonist. 

Writing a script is solving a problem, it's troubleshooting. Journaling allows me to jot down ways in order to solve the problem. During "The Five Stages of Baldness" I solved my problems by using a journal as a springboard. It's important to have paper trails throughout the process. 

My second draft is where I start turning the story into something more coherent. It's the toddler part of the script process, the part where things start to form but it still wanders around. 

The third draft is where it becomes something for me and this is the draft that I start extending to individuals I trust, individuals whose criticism is specific and meaningful. Using a music analogy the third draft is a demo tape. It is starting to feel like a script but it's got some errors that need to be fine tuned.

Somewhere in the third and fourth draft processes I work on finding people to read it aloud. In a script, the dialogue needs to be out loud to be understood well. 

The fifth draft is when it should be in a shooting capacity, even if not perfect. 

How I Discovered...Movies!

I once told a one time date that English/Literature is my wife but Film is the girl next door I fantasize about.

The metaphor comes from my unfortunate lack of initiative in shooting films by myself. As my friend Kevin says, "If you wanna, you're gonna." My initiative is put forth towards writing, primarily, yet now I start to seriously work on screenplays for my love of film deserves vindication. 

It's hard to say that one discovers movies. Movies are always there. It's as if one is saying "I discovered dirt." Movies, books, and music are the triangle of pop culture. My love for each one of those angles of pop culture is explicitly vivid, whether in serious practice or hobby. Yet I discovered movies as a major part of my life very late, relatively speaking.

Much like most people's regard for each angle of pop culture is casual, so were my family's and therefore mine. My parents barely took us to see movies. I was lucky to see "Toy Story" and "Aladdin" in their original release, but I didn't see "Jurassic Park" or "Men in Black" (though I did see "Baby Geniuses"). Part of this was because in our rural community we only had one cinema and it eventually closed when I was 8. We didn't watch a lot of movies while at the house. We barely even read. I really didn't read seriously until I was in 9th grade (which is for the next post in the "How I Discovered..."). Our family...was a tv family.

Slowly I started edging out of that tv family status. It started with music but I tried to sprinkle books in there. Looking back I thought myself an astute reader. I wasn't. I didn't finish books. I didn't get a lot of accelerated reader points. If I read it was history (which isn't bad necessarily) and I still read history nonfiction yet my interest in writing seemed muted.

All of this was in middle school. Now that I am a substitute teacher I see how typical I actually was. My penchant for sports trivia and other trivial literature via The Bathroom Reader, for instance, is echoed in the 5th and 6th grade interest in reading the Guinness Book of World Records. Like many I found an interest in comic books validated by having a really cool local comic book store nearby (in Toccoa). This may not seem relevant to the topic at hand but this part is important, I feel, as a prologue to my love of story. That's really what I'm about, telling stories or figuring out how to tell a story. Comic books served the role of getting me to read a bit more and to introduce stories.

I always viewed movies as stories. I always viewed movies as a higher form of storytelling and it was through this interest of conceiving stories, story ideas, that got me into cinema. My gateway: The Godfather.

Middle schoolers are often not serious about anything unless their parents encourage them or help them. Mine didn't. I started guitar and thought it seriously until I got into football and thought I was going to play for the Chicago Bears, but that waned as I fell apart from football culture that never left me feeling as though I belonged. 

With satellite tv I had been indulging in AMC, finding myself interested in the manly sort of films a la "Bullitt" and so forth. AMC had shown a commercial for "The Godfather" to come on Monday. For some reason it was in my dreams, probably because I had seen the ad so often. I decided to watch it. On a Monday I went into my parents' bedroom, starting at 8PM and because of commercial breaks didn't stop until 12AM. This broken up, long version of "The Godfather" made me realize this was something special. At the age of 13 I had never seen anything like this and in my cognitive level I could fully understand the characters. The Corleones' Shakespearean saga, the details of their family, the lighting was staggering for me. This was a higher form of storytelling. I wanted more. 

I started sitting in front of AMC and TCM, with a little bit of IFC just watching movies. I went online and tried to find movie titles. I found AFI's list and started with that, trying to watch movies from that list. The two movies that kept me in this interest were "Annie Hall" and "2001: A Space Odyssey." I understood "Annie Hall" and felt it was beyond what I had really seen up to that time. "2001," which would become my favorite film of all time, was a bit over my head (I was 14) but I understood enough of it to be mesmerized. This became a magnificent obsession.

Using DVR I would record TCM movies like "Bonnie & Clyde," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," and I'd go to Clarkesville Video to rent the VHS copies of the AFI List (as they had arranged a case full of them). 

This was 2003 and for the most part my movie going experience had been home viewing, but I was restless. I wanted to move onto the cinema.

That year I saw 6 movies.

Most of which wasn't wonderful. In 2003, several great films came out like "Lost in Translation," "The Return of the King," "Finding Nemo," "Kill Bill," and I didn't see any of them. I did see "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "X-Men 2." I also saw "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" remake, "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," and "Daredevil." Something needed to give. Going through Entertainment Weekly's Fall Movie Preview via my friend's 6 free issue subscription I read about all these movies I wanted to see. 

What really stung was how I never got to see any of "The Lord of the Rings" movies. At the time I felt these were my generation's movies, our "Star Wars," and I missed out. I was hell bent and determined to see as many movies as I could. This meant I had to give up my comic book habit, but I started on the path of seeing in or around 30 movies every year, which has continued to this point for the most part. Having a new cinema open literally down the street from me also helped. 

My poor parents had to often subject themselves to rated R movies in sacrifice for me, and not the usual horror fest rated R movies. It's amazing how many art films are rated R purely for profanity and didn't have any nudity or violence. My dad sat with me through "Syriana" and my mom endured "Munich" and "The Constant Gardener." I think they wanted "Saw 2" more. I did force my parents to some films I'd never recommend taking parents to. My dad took me to "Team America: World Police" and had his mouth hanging open throughout the entire movie. My mom and my sister took me to see "Closer." During the online sex scene...it was awkward. 

I tried to find ways to discover new movies. Until a couple of years ago "Allmovie" was my resource. I made a list of genres that I considered my favorites like "Martial Arts," "Film Noir," and "Science Fiction" for instance, and used allmovie to list movies to watch. I would check them off as I watched them. I eventually got a six week subscription for Entertainment Weekly and I would take out ads for movies to put on my doors and walls. I did the same with the AJC's movie section which was actually quite nice with Eleanor Gillespie writing (and being a noted critic too) as well as the Ask Alan Smithee column which I would post on my walls as well. 

During this year, sophomore year of high school, I went to my first film festival: the Cine-Macabre film festival in Gainesville, GA to see the East Coast premiere of "The Toolbox Murders" from director Tobe Hooper. I also took Journalism in high school where I started writing articles about movies and became a movie critic, "Sin City" being my first (heavily censored) review. 

This was also around the time we discovered Netflix. I'd use video stores but as this was rural Georgia it was primarily chains like Movie Gallery and Video Warehouse. I was a member of both stores but their selections varied. I was wanting to immerse myself into the canon of world/art films and their selection was sparse. Most of the art film canon was on Criterion Collections. These video stores didn't have Criterion Collection DVD's because as wonderful as their packaging was they were stupid expensive and consequently inaccessible. The only way to get them was to order them on Amazon but they were $35 or $40 which seemed outrageous at the time. I remember the first time I saw Vision Video in Athens, GA I about shit my pants at all the Criterions they had. The relative inaccessibility of the Criterions led me to check out the art/world films available at Movie Gallery and Video Warehouse which meant Miramax films. Say what you will about the Weinsteins but I have a special nostalgia for the European and Asian films that Miramax would put out because you could find them at a video store. 

Every now and then a foreign film would come on IFC, which is how I discovered Almodovar, but Netflix (getting back to that paragraph) was the real discovery in some respect. The library of endless DVD's available via Netflix was breathless. I no longer had to order old VHS copies of Janus films. I could rent Criterion Collections and I did, starting off with (the actually disappointing) "The Night Porter." Many of my favorite films were first viewed through Netflix rentals, like The Three Colors Trilogy among others. 

I started charting my favorite film directors like the Coens, Tarantino, Louis Malle, Martin Scorsese, Wong Kar-Wai, Luis Bunuel. My then and still favorite is Stanley Kubrick. I remember early on in this process watching "Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures" and using that as a springboard to watch every one of his films (which I have done except "Fear and Desire"). I also started discovering countries who had a disproportionate amount of films I liked: Germany, Japan, Mexico (and South America) and tried to find directors from those countries. Even now I'll still go through phases where I'll really get into French films or Chinese films and really there's no one culture I prefer as much I just relish in the language of cinema. 

Because I was writing film reviews I started reading film criticism heavily. I found Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" and read it, taking mental notes pretty much. I started to find critics I heavily agreed with like A.O. Scott of The New York Times, which remains my primary film critic. If A.O. Scott likes it, I'll probably try and see it. Stephen Holden and Mahnola Dargis too. If I was in Buford I'd pick up copies of "The New York Times" on Friday just to read their reviews, because the Starbucks in Buford sold them.  

The apex of this was 2007 where all of this was swirling, where I had a car and a job and was starting college. I saw 42 films that year, including two of my favorites, "Pan's Labyrinth" and "Children of Men" (2006 leftovers) as well as all that is wonderful like "There Will Be Blood" and "No Country for Old Men." I took Introduction to Film with Tom Sauret who remains one of the great professors I ever had as well.

Ultimately, my film passion waned in college as I became immersed into poetry as well as theatre, as well as my lethargy. Unfortunately, my film love never translated into initiative to make movies. I didn't know shit about cameras, about equipment. I took some film courses but I was mediocre and this was because I didn't do this outside of class. I had to drop some film classes because of class and major conflicts. I took Video Production in high school, editing on iMovie and using Canon's. The work I did was ok, but I wish I maxed out on that.

Now, however, I take advantage of any chance I get to work on a film, whether doing low level work or not. For awhile I worked as an extra just to see how the process worked, asking film crew members about what they did. They all told me if I wanted to work I had to get in with IATSE. I decided to make my own films and I have shot stuff and make the Clarkesville Library promo, but now I am hell bent to write scripts. I can write and I love movies, so this is why scripts are for me. 

My goal is to have at least one short, just a short, shown at a major film festival by the time I'm 30. If I don't do that, then I'll continue at it but I'll see about the prospects of getting a Ph.D in Film Studies and be the next David Bordwell. I owe my high school, 14 year pudgy self watching "The Godfather" that. I owe it to him, that kid who would write down ideas on a scratch paper and hide it out of embarrassment, some fulfillment. 

Loglines are my best friend

If your story, script, or, hell, even poem cannot fit into a logline it's not quite where it's supposed to be.

Lately, I've been trying to conceive of some ideas for a one act play for a festival I'd like to enter. Preferably I'd like to use a work I've already put some effort on rather than completely start afresh.

Initially I thought about expanding on a one act I put about three drafts into. I have a play entitled "Patricide" that I wrote originally for the Horizon Theatre One Act competition. It was ultimately rejected, but that's how writing goes. The play dealt with a true event that cluttered with fictional pretenses. Succinctly, it dealt with my father's troubled relationship with his father, my grandfather, who abandoned the family for another woman and didn't budge even during my uncle's dying days. 

Not succinctly, when my grandfather was in his dying days by dad refused to see him or, more importantly, bring my sister (a baby) to see him. My dad never forgave my grandfather for forsaking my uncle and this brought about a short story that I kept in my mind primarily because I liked the idea of a revenge story through subtle shunning. Eventually I took this short story on for the script but changed the main character from male to female, but there was a couple of arcs that even in the third draft I still couldn't manage. With this play contest I figured I could address this to produce some written material appropriate for the festival. Consequently I re-read the last draft. 

I can see why Horizon rejected it.

The play was written to be a little more poetic for its britches and some of the details aren't fine tuned. Specifically, the stage directions aren't too wonderful. 

I've been mulling over whether to rework it or not because I'm not sure it would work. More importantly it doesn't really seem to be the festival's style or honestly...mine. I rarely have an interest in family squabbling in dramatic scripts or narratives. Plus I wasn't sure how to bring out some comedy in the script except for the husband character I created to be a goofball, but I also couldn't put a proper justification to his existence. 

Most important, or at the very least pertinent for this blog post, I couldn't put a proper logline on it.

Loglines have become my life's blood in regards to developing material. Working with loglines has allowed me to have a basic framework of dramatic action. A great script needs dramatic action. It needs an antagonist, a struggle, a character fighting for something. I knew I was possibly on to something with my latest script because I came up with a reasonably decent logline and it helped lead me into a third draft that I don't truly hate. 

In coming up with ideas with this one act I've been working with loglines. I really struggled Tuesday coming up with a good story because each story I came up with, with the intention of being really funny, was not really funny. The logline for a good comedy script needs to be funny or elicit a chuckle. Whenever I mention my script "The Five Stages of Baldness" to someone it usually brings about a laugh. I think the logline for the script is essentially "A young man goes through the fives stages of grief as he discovers he is going bald."

That was the problem I was facing in my reconception of "Patricide." It is a good title, I must confess in order to boost my ego. Yet, the logline isn't quite there yet. "A woman tries to avenge herself after her father leaves her," is WAY too dramatic. "A woman confronts her past" is a trope that isn't quite what I want. There's something in this script but I haven't reached the right logline. 

As I need to begin this script soon, I've been looking over some other material I've worked on. There's an idea that I've been wanting to turn into a feature length screenplay for the Nicholl's Fellowship or some other competition. It's about young men who rob their grandmother of her guns to resell and ultimately get hunted down by someone far too dangerous for them. There's an element of "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" in the story, but really I'm looking at portraying characters far too young for their pants, akin to a storyline in "Gomorrah" (if you've seen it you know which one). What leads me to this script is a few things.

For one, I already wrote a draft of the script, an outline, and several other supplementary material. I have some arc work and plot work to iron out, but I have an idea that I could turn this story into a play by just breaking the plot down into three scenes. The first scene would be the boys planning, the second would be the aftermath and trying to figure who is hunting them, and the third would be the confrontation of the hunter and the hunted. The idea of robbing a grandmother leaves room for some comedy and dark humor which is more up my alley. Equally important is that I already have a juicy logline.

"A pair of young men must find out who is hunting them after stealing guns from their grandmother."

This logline indicates some possibilities as a script. There is dramatic action in the hunt, the detective work of who is hunting them, and the robbing. There is a conflict with protagonists and antagonists. Therefore I think I intend to use this story to work on for this one act. My hope is to still turn it into a feature length script, which I think is feasible, so this one act will help if anything.

Now, as you could tell from my development of these stories, loglines aren't guiding everything. Yet, loglines have become a valuable tool in my arsenal. Go loglines!

How to Take Criticism (and why you should always take criticism)

When I was three I thought that eventually I would be able to see my own eyes.

To clarify, I thought that at some older stage of my life I would be able to gaze upon my own eyes as if I was someone else looking at me.

I don't know why I remember this but there's something powerful in this image. Hell, I may make a poem out of it. No less, there is an application that I have for this moment. I feel that a metaphor can be made out of this futile belief, that one cannot see one's own eyes.

As an artist there's a hope that I can measure my own work's merit without others' criticism. Yet, this isn't the case. No artist can measure his or her own work. That's why you need to be able to take and handle criticism.

So how do you take criticism?

With pen and paper, or pencil and paper, of course!

...

I do think I need to elucidate that the criticism that I'm talking about is different than say critics like Roger Ebert. Those critics handle your absolute finished work. I'm talking about individuals like mentors, fellow artists, friends who are criticizing a work in progress. These individuals are imperative to have and you need to surround yourself with these individuals...those who say "No."

When I say friends I don't mean everyday friends but individuals who intake a lot of what you write. If you're writing poetry and you lend your poems to a friend who doesn't normally read poetry then your friend's or friends' criticism isn't going to be as meaningful as someone who reads a lot of poetry and subscribes to The Paris Review.

The reason is that you don't want someone critiquing your work with "I like it" or "I hate it." There needs to be specific examples. If someone isn't giving you specific examples, then his or her criticism isn't fully valid. Granted, there's something to be said if your poetry impresses someone who doesn't like poetry, but if it is coming from a friend perhaps it's just a bit of generosity.

Let's say you found someone to critique you. You've become a screenwriter and you've kept in touch with a former screenwriting professor who knows a little bit about industry or at the very least what's artistically brilliant in screenplays. What then?

Listen. Well, read if long distance. Don't talk. Let me repeat that: Don't talk.

Don't try to defend what you put out there. It stands on its own now, if in draft form or final form. Don't defend an artistic decision. "I put that Voice Over in that moment to do diddley da" don't say that immediately after hearing a critical thought. If you're receiving a criticism about something then it means it didn't read well to an audience member. I remember directing "The Case of the Crushed Petunias" in university, with my Advanced Directing professor critiquing a scene and I tried to defend a decision to which she replied "I'm just trying to tell you what I saw!" Don't be that kid or lame artist that says "You just don't understand" because if you do then the person on the other end will say "You're right, I don't understand."

Just accept the criticism. Take notes while the criticism is taking place. Then take a day to let it set in or two days, and go back at it. That's the important thing about criticism is that for some artists it can make or break one's work. If that's the case then either your work wasn't worthwhile in the first place or you're not an artist.

Feeling strongly about something in a work is common but sometimes it needs to be let go. If you think it should stay get someone else to critique it. If two people say the same thing then lose it.

Now be mindful that the people who are critiquing you harshly are your best friends unless they are not using specific examples. If they are harshly attacking your work with no specific examples then it is not valid. They're just be ego pricks. Don't let ego pricks facilitate any decisions in your work.

You still need people who are able to say "no that doesn't work," however. The problem with several artists as they get older is that they no longer surround themselves with people who feel confident to say "No," and they have no filter.

Critics, the right ones, the ones that will bust your chops, are your friends. Use them wisely.