Category: Navel Gazing

“On the screen tonight / And when you wanna / They treat you like a prima donna”

A couple months ago, on a lark, I agreed to be camera meat in a local student film. That was an experience, in itself. I learned a lot, including the fact that there’s actually a small community of actors in the region who will come out and audition for student film productions. Makes total sense, since since there’s more than one film program in town.

And then I saw myself on the screen! Damn, it was surreal.

I was impressed by the short films I saw. Sure, they were undergrad film projects, and there were some cliches I saw that I half-expected to see going in: Mafia riffs, torture pr0n, taboo subjects, Quentin Tarrantino dialogue, and a little John Woo gun-fu action thrown in. But the creativity level was incredible, all the way around. You could tell, warts and all, that at least a modicum of care was taken (by some more than others, but such is the way of any group of people in creative endeavors) to make each film a good product.

Tough Love

No justifications, no explanations, no excuses, though I will offer that some of these things might have been answered if I brought in the amount of material I’d intended to bring in before Life Happened the week before.

For now–possibly from now on–I won’t be posting Il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo of what I brought. Every comment I got was either Scene!Win or Scene!Fail. And the Fail list is sooo much longer…

Scene!Win

  • Scene I brought was “believeable, in a weird way.”
  • The “usual” compliments (smooth writing, believable/snappy dialogue, etc.)
  • Bits were “funny.”

Scene!Fail
(From lowest to highest degree)

  • “Soda” vs. “pop” (vs. “coke”)
  • Need to give a little better sense of exactly who the protagonist, by this point.
  • Need to be more explicit about the protagonist’s feelings toward his overall situation.
  • Need to show my protagonist’s reactions to the fantasy element (good, bad, or indifferent).
  • Confusion about how I described a facet of the fantasy element. (Totally unnecessary confusion, on my part.)
  • The fucking scene doesn’t really add anything, leaving some to still ask themselves exactly what the fucking story’s really about!!

*Sigh*

Hindsight is 20/20, but I’m thinking the reason I forced myself to bring and read 830 words of fail was for the symbolic victory of having written despite the week’s obstacles. Obviously, it didn’t even qualify as a Pyrric victory. It might’ve been if I’d have been able to finish more of it–I actually had about 500 more words, but I just couldn’t get them polished in time.

I think it’s time to drag my Inner Drill Sergeant back out…

2008 Year in Review

Since I’m too chickenshit to post my yearly submission stats (I’ll do last month’s later), I’ll do this first-line-of-the-month blogmeme thing instead.

January – “Self-Esteem Issues”

February – Last year I tried to keep a running tab of submissions, rejections, and pubs.

March – Anyone have an opinion on the wisdom (or lack thereof) of writing while pursuing a (non-writing) graduate degree?

April – The editor of Six Sentences reminded me that I have a Twitter account.

May – I can’t believe I haven’t gotten to this.

June – Perhaps there was a deeper, more subconscious reason I haven’t blogged in weeks…

July –

August – This is on my goodreads “to-read” list and should be on yours, too.

(B. – it’s on my list, dude, I swear!)

September – 07:35 As usual, I’m going to spend Labor Day laboring.

October – 07:25 Back in the saddle today. ♫ blip.fm/~bgys

November – 08:09 TONIGHT! Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings!!! ♫ blip.fm/~mbbw

December – The subs period for a few of the mags I like to try closed last month.

2008 Lessons, Part I

If I’ve learned nothing else in 2008, it’s the first line of that lyric.

Studying for the first final exam that I’ve taken in well over a decade. It’s not a writing-related class, either. I’ve done harder things, but this stuff isn’t a cakewalk by a damn sight. Dunno how I’ve survived this semester, but after this final’s over, I gotta figure out a way to do it all over again after the New Year.