Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Sticking my head out of the shed
Hola, Amigos!
It's about time I pop my head out out of the shed I've been hiding in for a while. I'm still here. No bites yet for [The Obscure Opus] that's to be expected. I can expect rejections possibly going into the double digits before someone makes a call which will require me to have a change of pants nearby.
For [The Noxious Novella], I wound up going in a totally different direction and started from scratch during the last days of last year, naively believing I could have about 200+ pages churned out by Dec. 31st.
It was originally going to be a novella about an old man climbing 100 flights of stairs, each floor representing a year of his life. When reaching certain floors, he would recount particularly miserable moments of his life.
I had it all laid out, and had gotten a good amount of it done before deciding I wanted to do something different. Pour some milk on me, because I flaked. From the old man story, while working on his adolescent years, I made him as someone detached, and suddenly, I wanted to focus something entirely on this detached adolescent. From there, I decided I wanted to explore the notion of teens romanticizing death that my friend [Spaghetti Western] informed me of half a decade ago. So, I put them together, and basically, that's what [The Noxious Novella] has become now. And since its projected length is more than 100 pages, it should actually be titled [The Noxious Novel].
I project getting the first draft done by the end of the month and having my final draft done by August, then ruminate until I decide to send it no later than November 28th.
Also at [Miskatonic University] I have decided that I want to major in Multimedia with a combined major or just minor in Theatre and Film. I have enjoyed what I've seen of the courses in each programme so far, and I won't deny that I want to tell stories in as many mediums as possible, so it's only natural that I would dabble with Multimedia. As for Theatre & Film, I can do without the theatre part, but I love movies just as much as books, and during busy periods with school and work, I wind up seeing more movies on average than reading books. I wouldn't mind getting into movies some day. I mean, there was my short-lived porno career, but I would rather not discuss that now...
After seeing Charlie Kaufman's most polarizing, but (in my opinion) strongest film Synecdoche, NY last summer, I have been inspired to put getting behind a camera on my bucket list. I know, obviously ambitious, possibly even a pipe dream. Especially considering that at the moment, I can't even get a book published. The way I see it though, is that I'm still young enough to be picking umbilical cord chunks out of my teeth, so why not go balls out now before life catches up with me? Going balls out could possibly result in a smashed testicle or a torn scrotum sack, sure, but the pay off could be well worth the risk.
I know my limits, I can't save the world, cure cancer, fix a car, heat a house with a block of ice, change a diaper, or be a shoulder to cry on. I make stupid little mistakes all the time, and I would probably lose my head if it wasn't attached to my body. But what I think I can do best, and with comfort is tell a story. So, as long as a shelf of books don't drop on my head at work and give me brain damage, there will always be that to get me where I want to.
And on that note...
See everyone in hell (I promise a lot sooner next time)!
