Writer's Journal

I hope you all will forgive me, because it’ll be easier for us all if you do, considering the fact that it won’t change anything if you don’t.

Currently, my laptop is not working right.  I think I might be able to get it fixed, today.  However, I can’t really work without it, meaning that there’s no post, today.  I promise you all something special when I get it up and running.

Bringing in some people who deserve mention, and who I am hopefully seeing almost exactly a week from now:

And the Tree was Happy

This video (not reposted here, because I want you all to click on the link and drive the hit-count up) was my friend KP’s Senior Thesis in Video.  It’s a reworking of a Shel Silverstein book, if that’s any draw for you all (it should be) but if not, it’s a well-put-together, touching little film.  She talked about making the “haiku” piece I did a while ago into a short film, which I enjoyed hearing.

Molly Brooks Photography

She stole my naming pattern (kind of; hers isn’t a complete sentence,) but there’re some great photographs of baked goods, all made by the photographer.  You’ll come away feeling hungry, which is good, because it’s a website and not a restaurant.  I would wonder about you if you came away feeling full.  When I return to KC in December, I’m going to have to stage a new series of cooking battles with her; I seem to remember the last bout ending in a draw.

XbreakfastcoreX:’ Demo Reel 3/3/09

Put together by the talented Mr. Gardels a few months ago, and available on his YouTube channel.  A handful of great and inventive clips he put together while at KCAI.  I’m going to start writing a script for him in December that is supposed to be “challengingly shootable.”  Probably not going to be an issue.

(Now get out of here, I have a novel to work on.)

Hey folks; a friend and correspondent of mine did something interesting a while back–he’s using YouTube as a vehicle for distributing narrative recordings (read: 30’s style radio shows.)  The first can be found here.  Admittedly, the quality is a little low, but he’s still feeling out the medium.

((If you’ve got something interesting, a site, a video, what have you, I still need to fill up two more Fridays this month, until I get back to Cicatriz.  So, shoot me an e-mail at the address in the bar to the right; make sure you include a link.))

As I’m still in the throes of NaNoWriMo (I’ll be passing the 10,000 word mark later on tonight) I’m not posting any Cicatriz tonight.  As I mentioned last night, I hope to resume that particular story in the first week of December.

But, as I can’t very well leave you all hanging on a Friday, and I have friends who are doing interesting things, I thought it would be best to plug a few interesting things every Friday.  So, I’m going to put on a Tom Wolfe mask and point out some strange things.

So, I present you with this.  It’s a blog (Talking with your Fists) a friend of mine is writing:  he’s currently in Thailand learning Muay Thai.  There are some interesting meditations on culture shock, adaptation, and (of course) the strange, strange culture that surrounds martial arts.

None of you are looking for this now, and if I don’t post this at the moment, I’ll wait until Thursday.  No one wants that.

This looks like it might be the best sci-fi film of the year.   I know I’m a little excited for it.

It looks to be Oscar-quality, just looking at the trailer; though it might get rejected just on principle of it being a science-fiction film.   Appears to deal with themes of apartheid (why else set it in South Africa?) and the existentialist concept of “The Other.”

You can watch it in HD on the Youtube, but the window’s just too big to work on this site.

Jack Skunk (who comments more than anyone else) drew up a comic based on the firstbit of flash fiction I posted to this site.

I enjoyed it, and now I post it here for your perusal:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackskunkcollectsjunk/3666623642/

I’d watch this movie, wouldn’t you?

This is a video created by an acquaintance of mine.  It basically consists of a number of still shots of him wearing an airsoft mask and a sleeping bag while holding a gun, with a monologue about how terrible “Eragon” is interspersed with schizophrenic ramblings about zombies and cyborgs reprogramming your mind when you go to sleep.

The entire thing is intentionally done in an amateurish and sloppy fashion, which sort of explains some parts.

Someone posted this to Twitter (Perhaps Warren Ellis, I’m not entirely certain) earlier today.  It’s directed by Stephen O’Regan (a name with which I’m unfamiliar, but who I might have to look up, now) and based on a short story by Terry Bisson.  I believe I’ve read the story before–a fascinating piece, composed solely of alternating lines of dialogue.

The whole point of this seems to be to point out how absurd the very fact that our existence is, the story does so quite well, and this short film seems to do so even better, in my humble opinion.