Sunday, 6 January 2013
Friday, 4 January 2013
Not 'The End'
Got some time at the keys today and so I sat and cleared my head and did the only sensible thing I could; I wrote the bit I wanted to write rather than 'The Sticky bit'. It took me no time to find my way in, no time to find the voice I wanted and no time to get it down.
It's tough to pick a passage to place here as it's all very spoiler orientated, so I'm not going to. All I can tell you is that the end piece is nearly written, that all important, emotionally charged, final fist is flying through the air to crack the reader on the chin. I haven't landed the blow yet, but its been thrown.
How does this make me feel? Odd. I have plenty of 'sticky bits' to do, the work is nowhere near finished and yet I am hunting down the ending anyway. Is that a crap plan? Nope. I don't think so. See I need to be able to rush forward and keep writing and then go back and fill where I got stuck, not because that bit didn't work, but because I wasn't in the mood and I didn't have the time to find that mood within me at that point.
Today I knew I had roughly two hours. I knew I needed to do something that would make me feel like I was winning, like I was getting somewhere? I did that.
The weird thing is I always envisioned writing to be a process of starting at the beginning, fighting through the middle and finally getting to type 'The End.' I thought (long ago) that you would skim happily through and tidy up and clean and polish. Now I know you look back and strip and rewrite and reread and then rewrite again and fight and wonder what the hell you were thinking that day; the day you couldn't spell 'invasion' or 'Ultimate' for no good reason! I know I'll come through and use a red pen and be happy its there and look down at my work and slash the bastard to ribbons and then stitch it back together again and it'll be better.
I have people to show my work to now and I try to act all tough and 'yeah, just take a look,' but the fact is I'm bricking it when I hand it over. What if it really isn't good? What if I completely strike out and they hate it? What if they suggest changes that I dislike and what if they walk up and just go,'Yeah, it was ok.'?
I'll put on my 'I can take it face' and I'll take it.That's what I'll do.
This puppy is getting finished this month, first edit done and it's being shown. I know this now. I know because I'm close to the end and I have a need to complete. I have a desire to see those that act as though this is an unachievable goal for me to be silenced. I have a need to validate my own belief that I am good enough. I have the need and the will to win.
Today I nearly typed 'The End.' I know I am a long way from that being truth but today? Today I really believed I'd get there for the first time in what's felt like a long while.
Thursday, 3 January 2013
Worlds Within Cineworlds
I'm not a flush guy, in fact, I am pretty much broke ninety percent of the time. I don't drink, I don't smoke and I rarely have the cash to spring on the things that I'd classify as 'luxury' like a new graphic novel or that amazing trip to Amazon or H.M.V where I stock my shelves with music to write to and film that inspires me.
(In the background a violin starts to play a mournful tune, playing just for me)
Luckily I have a vice that doesn't really cost me that much and fills me right up! That vice is Cinema and due to my most excellent Cineworld Cinema card I can hit the local screens as many times a month as I like for just £14.99. AREEEBA!!!
(Sad music replaced by an energetic Mexican band playing The Automatics 'Monster')
Last year I saw a crap load of movies and I thought 'why not name and shame them?' So I'm going to. Right now!
Contraband 7/10, Haywire 8/10, War Horse 7/10, Underworld: Awakening 6/10.
Chronicle 8/10, The Woman In Black 4/10, Safehouse 7/10, Ghost Rider 2 -547/10, This Means War 6/10.
John Carter 5/10, Hunger Games 8/10, The Raid 10/10, Wrath Of The Titans 3/10, Man On a Ledge 5/10.
The Cabin In The Woods 8/10, Safe 7/10, American Pie: The Reunion 6/10,
The Avengers 10/10,The Dictator 8/10
Prometheus 3/10, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter 6/10, Brave 7/10, Ted 7/10, Snow White and The Huntsman 6/10,.
The Amazing Spiderman 8/10, The Dark Knight Rising 7/10.
Total Recall 7/10, The Bourne Legacy 6/10, The Expendables 2 7/10, Lawless 8/10, Red Lights 7/10.
The Cold Light Of Day 7/10, Raiders Of The Lost Ark IMAX 9/10, Dredd 7/10, Looper 8/10, The Sweeny 5/10.
Taken 2 4/10, Argo 9/10, Seven Psychopaths 7/10, Skyfall 8/10.
Killing Them Softly 7/10, Gambit 7/10
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey 8/10, The Life Of Pi 10/10
The rough numbers above are just based on how much I enjoyed the films, not how technically excellent they were or how clever. Obviously the Total Recall remake was not a smart cookie (watch the final reel...O.M.G its dumb) but it was incredibly fun and silly, so it gets the same mark as The Dark Knight Rising, which seems unfair I know, but TDKR really left me cold.
Now that was a very dry and dull way to present a year that thrilled me in so many different ways and so instead I want you to go back up and re-read the list while pretending I'm pulling off a T-Shirt with the films name and then another one with the rating on it in a 'We don't have to take our clothes off,' music video kind of way.
As you get to Taken 2 I run out of T-shirts and have to remove the rest of my clothes. Its getting scary as I reach for my pants and dammit! WHY THE HELL IS IT THE HOBBIT?!
FUCK THIS GAME! I'M OUT OF HERE!!!
(I have posted a pic to allow you a better idea of the what I would look like sands clothes....)
Maybe not...
(In the background a violin starts to play a mournful tune, playing just for me)
Luckily I have a vice that doesn't really cost me that much and fills me right up! That vice is Cinema and due to my most excellent Cineworld Cinema card I can hit the local screens as many times a month as I like for just £14.99. AREEEBA!!!
(Sad music replaced by an energetic Mexican band playing The Automatics 'Monster')
Last year I saw a crap load of movies and I thought 'why not name and shame them?' So I'm going to. Right now!
Contraband 7/10, Haywire 8/10, War Horse 7/10, Underworld: Awakening 6/10.
Chronicle 8/10, The Woman In Black 4/10, Safehouse 7/10, Ghost Rider 2 -547/10, This Means War 6/10.
John Carter 5/10, Hunger Games 8/10, The Raid 10/10, Wrath Of The Titans 3/10, Man On a Ledge 5/10.
The Cabin In The Woods 8/10, Safe 7/10, American Pie: The Reunion 6/10,
The Avengers 10/10,The Dictator 8/10
Prometheus 3/10, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter 6/10, Brave 7/10, Ted 7/10, Snow White and The Huntsman 6/10,.
The Amazing Spiderman 8/10, The Dark Knight Rising 7/10.
Total Recall 7/10, The Bourne Legacy 6/10, The Expendables 2 7/10, Lawless 8/10, Red Lights 7/10.
The Cold Light Of Day 7/10, Raiders Of The Lost Ark IMAX 9/10, Dredd 7/10, Looper 8/10, The Sweeny 5/10.
Taken 2 4/10, Argo 9/10, Seven Psychopaths 7/10, Skyfall 8/10.
Killing Them Softly 7/10, Gambit 7/10
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey 8/10, The Life Of Pi 10/10
The rough numbers above are just based on how much I enjoyed the films, not how technically excellent they were or how clever. Obviously the Total Recall remake was not a smart cookie (watch the final reel...O.M.G its dumb) but it was incredibly fun and silly, so it gets the same mark as The Dark Knight Rising, which seems unfair I know, but TDKR really left me cold.
Now that was a very dry and dull way to present a year that thrilled me in so many different ways and so instead I want you to go back up and re-read the list while pretending I'm pulling off a T-Shirt with the films name and then another one with the rating on it in a 'We don't have to take our clothes off,' music video kind of way.
As you get to Taken 2 I run out of T-shirts and have to remove the rest of my clothes. Its getting scary as I reach for my pants and dammit! WHY THE HELL IS IT THE HOBBIT?!
FUCK THIS GAME! I'M OUT OF HERE!!!
(I have posted a pic to allow you a better idea of the what I would look like sands clothes....)
Maybe not...
Tuesday, 1 January 2013
Writer
Scene: A car travels down a quiet motorway in the middle of the night, its speed legal, its strict adhearance to its lane undeniable. The only indication of the darkness to come being a suspicious banging coming from the boot.
Cut To: The car pulls down a slip road and continues, the banging getting more pronounced. The brake lights flash red and the car drifts to the side of the road. Out of the drivers door comes a thin, bearded, shifty looking small man in a white Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure T-shirt, a cheap pair of combat trousers stained with plaster dust and mud and in his left hand he carries a large, wickedly sharp kitchen knife.
Cut To: The boot opens with the camera pointing out to see the blade wielding streak of piss looking menacingly at the inside of the boot. The camera shows a body of a dude lying in the boot, he's wearing the same clothes, he's the same size and shape as the driver and damn, its the same man, perhaps his twin? He's staring up, terrified by the driver. He's covered in blood and shifting limply around in an attempt to find some place to hide from the maniac poised above him.
The man above looks down and smiles with contempt. There's a squeal from the boot and then the stabbing starts; brutal, visceral, deadly. The driver steps back dumping the knife beside his victims lifeless body and then draws a breath and slams the boot.
The red light floods the killers face making him look deranged and demonic. The camera closes in and he stares at the audience.
'Ever Since I can remember I always wanted to be a Writer.'
Black screen. Killer soundtrack explodes into life.
Ok, that was me doing Goodfellas and I clearly am not Ray Liotta (thank god!) but I am the man with the knife...and the man in the boot. See last year I kidnapped the guy that didn't send what he wrote off and though he thought he had something to offer he didn't think that anyone would want to be offered it. I took that guy, the guy I'd been for the last eleven years and I beat him up and made him tell me what I wanted to know and then I threw him in the boot and went for a drive.
This year I'm not just writing and I'm not just sending off in the hope of getting affectionate rejection letters. This year I'm publishing anything that the established order doesn't want. This year I'm making in roads, kicking in doors, taking names and kicking ass. In short, and to cut away any more boring clichés, I am going to succeed.
Watch me. I will fight my way to some form of success. I'm going to end the year with cuts and bruises, a gun shot wound to my ego and people are going to need to wrap me in a blanket and usher me off to the ambulance, but as the credits roll it will be undeniable.
This year I win.
Cut To: The car pulls down a slip road and continues, the banging getting more pronounced. The brake lights flash red and the car drifts to the side of the road. Out of the drivers door comes a thin, bearded, shifty looking small man in a white Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure T-shirt, a cheap pair of combat trousers stained with plaster dust and mud and in his left hand he carries a large, wickedly sharp kitchen knife.
Cut To: The boot opens with the camera pointing out to see the blade wielding streak of piss looking menacingly at the inside of the boot. The camera shows a body of a dude lying in the boot, he's wearing the same clothes, he's the same size and shape as the driver and damn, its the same man, perhaps his twin? He's staring up, terrified by the driver. He's covered in blood and shifting limply around in an attempt to find some place to hide from the maniac poised above him.
The man above looks down and smiles with contempt. There's a squeal from the boot and then the stabbing starts; brutal, visceral, deadly. The driver steps back dumping the knife beside his victims lifeless body and then draws a breath and slams the boot.
The red light floods the killers face making him look deranged and demonic. The camera closes in and he stares at the audience.
'Ever Since I can remember I always wanted to be a Writer.'
Black screen. Killer soundtrack explodes into life.
Ok, that was me doing Goodfellas and I clearly am not Ray Liotta (thank god!) but I am the man with the knife...and the man in the boot. See last year I kidnapped the guy that didn't send what he wrote off and though he thought he had something to offer he didn't think that anyone would want to be offered it. I took that guy, the guy I'd been for the last eleven years and I beat him up and made him tell me what I wanted to know and then I threw him in the boot and went for a drive.
This year I'm not just writing and I'm not just sending off in the hope of getting affectionate rejection letters. This year I'm publishing anything that the established order doesn't want. This year I'm making in roads, kicking in doors, taking names and kicking ass. In short, and to cut away any more boring clichés, I am going to succeed.
Watch me. I will fight my way to some form of success. I'm going to end the year with cuts and bruises, a gun shot wound to my ego and people are going to need to wrap me in a blanket and usher me off to the ambulance, but as the credits roll it will be undeniable.
This year I win.
Friday, 14 December 2012
Nanowrimo bit of the day.
Its been a slow climb since the sand stopped running out and due to apathy and work progress has been slow but I feel I've hit another gear and I'm looking to get near a finish point before Christmas day.
Here is today's offering for you. I figured you may miss these daft unedited updates.
It wasn't tension but excitement. It wasn't fear it was anticipation. It wasn't negative, no, it was a positive edge that filled each and every one of them and I realised in that moment that something was very wrong in the Sinner’s camp.
Here is today's offering for you. I figured you may miss these daft unedited updates.
It wasn't tension but excitement. It wasn't fear it was anticipation. It wasn't negative, no, it was a positive edge that filled each and every one of them and I realised in that moment that something was very wrong in the Sinner’s camp.
I hadn't detected any mood amongst them at all when I
was with them. They were just standing and waiting, like Christians waiting for
the gate to open and for the Lions to come.
That's it for today. Ta for reading.
Monday, 3 December 2012
Music Monday: Albums of Awesomness
That's right folks, its Music Monday again and instead of a single track list I'm coming at you with five albums that I think are amazing and if you love them even half as much as I do then we are in for a music love in!
Lets get started shall we?!
ERIC CLAPTON/UNPLUGGED by Eric Clapton
Yes, this is the MTV unplugged session and yes I could have delivered you the classic Nirvana one but no! This is something that needs to come out, stand on its own and say 'I AM AWESOME! HEAR ME...being bewitchingly acoustic.'
You get fourteen tracks and they run through Clapton's brightest and best but this is not a 'best of', nope, its more of an invite into a dimension of relaxing cool notes that sooth, smooth and remove all the stresses from your day. At points it can be depressing, heartbreaking, numbing and touching but as with that there is always a sense of infinite cool that flows through the whole album and performance.
I could hit you with some 'Tears In Heaven' or 'Layla' but instead I want to put a song on here that takes me to a different place; one I love to sit in.
As I write and carve ideas out of my head I have to hope that what I'm doing is good enough. You could say I'm powered by Tea, or even sugar (you'd be right), but actually...I'm Running On Faith.
CYPBERPUNK by Billy Idol
Its 1993 and I'm facing a Billy Idol album with a mixture of fear and interest, realistically I couldn't have been prepared for what I was about to be hit by. It's synth, rock, industrial, mesmeric madness!
Idol still hammered it with tracks like 'Shock To The System' but it was in the flow of the album that the true feat was achieved. It starts love and melodic, pumps it up, drops it down, twists around with short tracks and grips you with longer onslaughts like Adam In Chains and Heroin.
I bought the album again for the first time in over a decade as my last one was in fact my flatmates and the bastard (fucking diamond gezzer actually) took it with him when he moved out. The copy I bought after he'd gone went missing (as all the best albums do).
This arrived on my mat, I opened it and yes, I was blown away all over again. It probably isn't to everyone's tastes but it damn well is to mine!
AS IF TO NOTHING by Craig Armstrong
I was walking through M.V.C (LOL that was a long time ago) when I heard something playing above me. I thought; 'Wow, what the hell is this?' I walked right around to the desk, saw the c.d on display and bought it. I took it home, I played it, I played it again, and again, and again. I played that bastard till my player bled.
Fifteen tracks that go through mellow, haunting and beautiful and never lose their power. It's the kind of album I can bang on and my brain can switch off and by the end I've got the seed of an idea forming, the music has allowed me to slink off somewhere and just chill.
That chilled out zone can be so hard to find and if I can get some music to find it then I love it and always will. This boasts featured vocal tracks and stuff by Bono, King Crimson and Mogwai amongst others but here I give you something instrumental and amazing.
Ruthless Gravity
THE BEST OF JOHN DENVER by John Denver (shock horror)
Yes, we are going here! I defy anyone to sit with The Denver and not feel good! He was a true talent taken way to early and this here is twenty tracks of classic D!
What's my favourite? No, can't tell you. THERE ARE TOO MANY!!! This is a country King in a best of that really lives up to the name! Am I going to hit you with 'Leaving on a jet plane,' or 'Country Roads,' perhaps 'Wild Montana Skies,' or 'Annie's Song' or even 'Sunshine on my shoulders'?
Nope.
I just thank god he was a country boy...
Finally we come to a soundtrack because you know I love soundtracks from films. This week its from a film I love and the soundtrack is beguiling in its passive, cool vibe.
Seven wasn't a friendly film.
Try the album though and you get a subtle, soft, almost friendly/cool sound that has the likes of Charlie Parker at one end and Gravity Kills at the other. Somewhere in between them we find a legend at his very best, delivering a moody, soulful masterpiece.
The last two tracks on the album are instrumental score that do chill and intimidate with the threatening sense of impending doom that so characterises the film itself, brilliantly brought to us by Pitt, Freeman, Paltrow and of course Spacey, directed by one of my favourite directors of all time; David Fincher.
Ignore all that above though, sit back and let this track sweep you away.
Marvin Gaye is in the house and he has this for you...
That's it for this week, hope you enjoyed the tracks and maybe think about checking out the albums. If you have any suggestions for next week then hit me up here and I'll see what I can do.
Thanks for reading and listening.
Lets get started shall we?!
ERIC CLAPTON/UNPLUGGED by Eric Clapton
Yes, this is the MTV unplugged session and yes I could have delivered you the classic Nirvana one but no! This is something that needs to come out, stand on its own and say 'I AM AWESOME! HEAR ME...being bewitchingly acoustic.'
You get fourteen tracks and they run through Clapton's brightest and best but this is not a 'best of', nope, its more of an invite into a dimension of relaxing cool notes that sooth, smooth and remove all the stresses from your day. At points it can be depressing, heartbreaking, numbing and touching but as with that there is always a sense of infinite cool that flows through the whole album and performance.
I could hit you with some 'Tears In Heaven' or 'Layla' but instead I want to put a song on here that takes me to a different place; one I love to sit in.
As I write and carve ideas out of my head I have to hope that what I'm doing is good enough. You could say I'm powered by Tea, or even sugar (you'd be right), but actually...I'm Running On Faith.
CYPBERPUNK by Billy Idol
Its 1993 and I'm facing a Billy Idol album with a mixture of fear and interest, realistically I couldn't have been prepared for what I was about to be hit by. It's synth, rock, industrial, mesmeric madness!
Idol still hammered it with tracks like 'Shock To The System' but it was in the flow of the album that the true feat was achieved. It starts love and melodic, pumps it up, drops it down, twists around with short tracks and grips you with longer onslaughts like Adam In Chains and Heroin.
I bought the album again for the first time in over a decade as my last one was in fact my flatmates and the bastard (fucking diamond gezzer actually) took it with him when he moved out. The copy I bought after he'd gone went missing (as all the best albums do).
This arrived on my mat, I opened it and yes, I was blown away all over again. It probably isn't to everyone's tastes but it damn well is to mine!
AS IF TO NOTHING by Craig Armstrong
I was walking through M.V.C (LOL that was a long time ago) when I heard something playing above me. I thought; 'Wow, what the hell is this?' I walked right around to the desk, saw the c.d on display and bought it. I took it home, I played it, I played it again, and again, and again. I played that bastard till my player bled.
Fifteen tracks that go through mellow, haunting and beautiful and never lose their power. It's the kind of album I can bang on and my brain can switch off and by the end I've got the seed of an idea forming, the music has allowed me to slink off somewhere and just chill.
That chilled out zone can be so hard to find and if I can get some music to find it then I love it and always will. This boasts featured vocal tracks and stuff by Bono, King Crimson and Mogwai amongst others but here I give you something instrumental and amazing.
Ruthless Gravity
THE BEST OF JOHN DENVER by John Denver (shock horror)
Yes, we are going here! I defy anyone to sit with The Denver and not feel good! He was a true talent taken way to early and this here is twenty tracks of classic D!
What's my favourite? No, can't tell you. THERE ARE TOO MANY!!! This is a country King in a best of that really lives up to the name! Am I going to hit you with 'Leaving on a jet plane,' or 'Country Roads,' perhaps 'Wild Montana Skies,' or 'Annie's Song' or even 'Sunshine on my shoulders'?
Nope.
I just thank god he was a country boy...
Finally we come to a soundtrack because you know I love soundtracks from films. This week its from a film I love and the soundtrack is beguiling in its passive, cool vibe.
Seven wasn't a friendly film.
Try the album though and you get a subtle, soft, almost friendly/cool sound that has the likes of Charlie Parker at one end and Gravity Kills at the other. Somewhere in between them we find a legend at his very best, delivering a moody, soulful masterpiece.
The last two tracks on the album are instrumental score that do chill and intimidate with the threatening sense of impending doom that so characterises the film itself, brilliantly brought to us by Pitt, Freeman, Paltrow and of course Spacey, directed by one of my favourite directors of all time; David Fincher.
Ignore all that above though, sit back and let this track sweep you away.
Marvin Gaye is in the house and he has this for you...
That's it for this week, hope you enjoyed the tracks and maybe think about checking out the albums. If you have any suggestions for next week then hit me up here and I'll see what I can do.
Thanks for reading and listening.
Sunday, 2 December 2012
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