As a rule I like GPMG's (General Purpose Machine Guns).
Although I can do without the experience of having one fired in my general direction, they are a really fun way of cutting a house in half (about a thousand rounds will do it), they're heavy at about 30 pounds in weight, long and awkward to run with and the bandoliers of bullets weigh a ton too.
When I was a daft teen I did a lot of running around and firing of GPMG's. I fired them at stationery targets, I fired them at moving targets, I fired them at tanks and armoured vehicles.
It didn't make me a better person, but it was a lot of fun for a while, until getting knocked to the floor with rifle butts to the back of my head by over-eager corporals became too much like normality.
Today I watched a bunch of soldiers playing cowboys and indians on the headland, popping off blanks at each other from thirty five yards. A good metaphwoar in itself but not the point to this meamble.
Seems to me that most folks can't make decisions (difficult I know when multiple dillemmas are in play) and so they pop off blanks at random targets hoping that something will stick, hide behind lumps of rocks and then make a run for it across a piece of open ground whilst spraying bullets all over the place.
Sometimes this blog is about making decisions, sometimes it's about knob gags, peak oil, scriptwriting etc and sometimes it's actually about finding a wife.
Today it's about running out into the garden naked apart from a curly red wig and jumping up and down on a trampoline shouting 'Vive le Guerre'.
Thursday 8 March 2007
Sunday 4 March 2007
Pressure, Resistance
Have you noticed how when you are getting closer to achieving a specific goal, you feel more Resistance?
Like when you put a mobile phone too close to your speaker system. The closer the phone, the more noise, interference and squelch.
This Resistance can be used as a guiding sign of the fact that what you are about to achieve, is very important to your true purpose.
The more resistance, the more noise inside your head, the more that little voice of sabotage and doubt tries to get in on the action.
When you are writing for example, a Feature Film Screenplay, you feel this resistance very strongly and in the most unlikely ways.
Regardless of how you actually approach writing scripts, and the methods are as varied as are the writers, your overiding goal is to complete The Script and end up with approximately 90-120 pages of properly formatted A4 paper in 12 point courier.
As well as all the correct typing, you would more importantly appreciate having the initial basis for a a good story well told, that you can go back to at sometime in the future and rewrite into a much better script.
As everybody's first draft is usually godawful, with the occassional glimmer of excellence in amongst the pigswill, then it's almost obvious that at some stage of the creative process you will find one of your inner voices (the Dr. Evil one), trying to communicate with you.
Firstly when you've written X amount of pages, that voice of doom will tell you that 'there's no point continuing with it, because it's rubbish anyway and you should give up. No-one's going to want to read it/ make it etc'.
This is the tosspot that tells you to 'be realistic' (as reality is often very boring, I suggest you tell it to 'fuck off and shut up').
Then later in the process that same voice, clever little bugger that it is, will say 'Ah it's not bad, but it's not good enough and therefore you should abandon it now and do something else'.
The perfectionist voice is a horrible little turd floating on the vat of your creative juice.
Unfortunately it's also very clever and can keep manifesting itself in various formats over and over again.
It has a more subtle version of itself such as 'It's pretty good in places, but stop now and put it to one side and then have a go in a bit'.
That last one is a combination of Procrastination and Perfectionism and is a real bastard to kick, because it seems so plausible.
After all, the script isn't good enough (at this point) and if you allow yourself to be convinced that it will never be good enough, then you will quit before you've finished the script (avoid 'all or nothing' thinking like 'never' and 'I always' etc).
Even better is that one day you'll think what you're writing is absolutely brilliant and the next that what you are writing is absolute shite. And you will be wrong in both cases.
Regardless of these swings doors marked 'in and out of depair', I've completed Ten Feature Film Scripts now and there wasn't a day of writing where I didn't experience these very same emotions, inner statements and snakepits.
But regardless, I have kept going, I have completed each script and endless rewrites of these scripts and I march on, because all forms of writing make me happy.
My point to you is that if I can do it, then so can you in whatever it is that you want to achieve. You might not be interested in writing Feature Film Scripts, Copywriting, How To Ebooks etc but you might want to climb ever mountain over three thousand feet in the British Isles or eat at every Little Chef restaurant on the A1 duel carriagway.
Whatever your goal is please remember that it is 'Difficult, but not impossible'.
Like when you put a mobile phone too close to your speaker system. The closer the phone, the more noise, interference and squelch.
This Resistance can be used as a guiding sign of the fact that what you are about to achieve, is very important to your true purpose.
The more resistance, the more noise inside your head, the more that little voice of sabotage and doubt tries to get in on the action.
When you are writing for example, a Feature Film Screenplay, you feel this resistance very strongly and in the most unlikely ways.
Regardless of how you actually approach writing scripts, and the methods are as varied as are the writers, your overiding goal is to complete The Script and end up with approximately 90-120 pages of properly formatted A4 paper in 12 point courier.
As well as all the correct typing, you would more importantly appreciate having the initial basis for a a good story well told, that you can go back to at sometime in the future and rewrite into a much better script.
As everybody's first draft is usually godawful, with the occassional glimmer of excellence in amongst the pigswill, then it's almost obvious that at some stage of the creative process you will find one of your inner voices (the Dr. Evil one), trying to communicate with you.
Firstly when you've written X amount of pages, that voice of doom will tell you that 'there's no point continuing with it, because it's rubbish anyway and you should give up. No-one's going to want to read it/ make it etc'.
This is the tosspot that tells you to 'be realistic' (as reality is often very boring, I suggest you tell it to 'fuck off and shut up').
Then later in the process that same voice, clever little bugger that it is, will say 'Ah it's not bad, but it's not good enough and therefore you should abandon it now and do something else'.
The perfectionist voice is a horrible little turd floating on the vat of your creative juice.
Unfortunately it's also very clever and can keep manifesting itself in various formats over and over again.
It has a more subtle version of itself such as 'It's pretty good in places, but stop now and put it to one side and then have a go in a bit'.
That last one is a combination of Procrastination and Perfectionism and is a real bastard to kick, because it seems so plausible.
After all, the script isn't good enough (at this point) and if you allow yourself to be convinced that it will never be good enough, then you will quit before you've finished the script (avoid 'all or nothing' thinking like 'never' and 'I always' etc).
Even better is that one day you'll think what you're writing is absolutely brilliant and the next that what you are writing is absolute shite. And you will be wrong in both cases.
Regardless of these swings doors marked 'in and out of depair', I've completed Ten Feature Film Scripts now and there wasn't a day of writing where I didn't experience these very same emotions, inner statements and snakepits.
But regardless, I have kept going, I have completed each script and endless rewrites of these scripts and I march on, because all forms of writing make me happy.
My point to you is that if I can do it, then so can you in whatever it is that you want to achieve. You might not be interested in writing Feature Film Scripts, Copywriting, How To Ebooks etc but you might want to climb ever mountain over three thousand feet in the British Isles or eat at every Little Chef restaurant on the A1 duel carriagway.
Whatever your goal is please remember that it is 'Difficult, but not impossible'.
Thursday 1 March 2007
Rewriting the Rewrite
Scriptwriting is life in Slow-Motion. It's 'the long way round'.
(this is my current favourite title for my Autobiography, although 'Couldn't even get a Job writing Porno Movies' is still a front runner).
It takes a long time to learn your craft, then get better and better at it, perfecting it, well you never perfect it, but you get the idea. I aspire to be as good a scriptwriter as William Goldman ('Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' etc).
In short Scriptwriting is heroism-lite.
Over these last few weeks I have completed, re-edited, re-completed etc Two Ebooks (which now have artwork courtesy of a friend and will be ready to sell hothothot in a couple of weeks-you heard it here first, don't all rush at once).
I've also written Two NEW Treatments for Two NEW Feature Films. This week I have been a hero-lite and it excites me to really immerse myself in scriptwriting.
It makes me happy, because in the process of finding out there is a selfish brilliance that loses you in the moment of doing.
You get lost in it. That's special. How many things can you say that you truly lose yourself in and lose all track of time?
If you have such a thing, then that is a part of your true souls purpose, seek that which maketh you happy and you find what you are looking for, or something like that.
(this is my current favourite title for my Autobiography, although 'Couldn't even get a Job writing Porno Movies' is still a front runner).
It takes a long time to learn your craft, then get better and better at it, perfecting it, well you never perfect it, but you get the idea. I aspire to be as good a scriptwriter as William Goldman ('Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' etc).
In short Scriptwriting is heroism-lite.
Over these last few weeks I have completed, re-edited, re-completed etc Two Ebooks (which now have artwork courtesy of a friend and will be ready to sell hothothot in a couple of weeks-you heard it here first, don't all rush at once).
I've also written Two NEW Treatments for Two NEW Feature Films. This week I have been a hero-lite and it excites me to really immerse myself in scriptwriting.
It makes me happy, because in the process of finding out there is a selfish brilliance that loses you in the moment of doing.
You get lost in it. That's special. How many things can you say that you truly lose yourself in and lose all track of time?
If you have such a thing, then that is a part of your true souls purpose, seek that which maketh you happy and you find what you are looking for, or something like that.
Monday 26 February 2007
The Meaning of Truth (No Really)
We create our own truth, or truths, or versions of it, every time we think our way towards our respective futures.
That is why the only person we must never be totally afraid to speak the truth to, is ourself.
Wow, for a minute there I was coming over all Philosophical.
I should have swandived into a bit of Krishnamurti or the fella down the pub who looks just like him and then stared you right in the metaphorical eye and held your gaze and bluffed it.
But as I sit yer waxing lyrical looking out over the Bay into the darkness, I watch the lights of a trawler some five miles off shore, hauling in its catch.
I wonder what it is like to be one of those men, to be buffeted from high tide to low water in search of Mackerill, Prawns, Rusty Old Fridges and I wonder what truth they tell themselves when things are hard, really hard?
What truths do they say to themselves when the waves throw the boat around like a tin can and the catch is so low that they earn nothing?
Or the Gambler tearing the losing ticket angrily from the stub?
The shop girl crying into her makeup sad to be alone again?
What about you?
That is why the only person we must never be totally afraid to speak the truth to, is ourself.
Wow, for a minute there I was coming over all Philosophical.
I should have swandived into a bit of Krishnamurti or the fella down the pub who looks just like him and then stared you right in the metaphorical eye and held your gaze and bluffed it.
But as I sit yer waxing lyrical looking out over the Bay into the darkness, I watch the lights of a trawler some five miles off shore, hauling in its catch.
I wonder what it is like to be one of those men, to be buffeted from high tide to low water in search of Mackerill, Prawns, Rusty Old Fridges and I wonder what truth they tell themselves when things are hard, really hard?
What truths do they say to themselves when the waves throw the boat around like a tin can and the catch is so low that they earn nothing?
Or the Gambler tearing the losing ticket angrily from the stub?
The shop girl crying into her makeup sad to be alone again?
What about you?
Thursday 22 February 2007
Sometimes Insomnia can be a good thing
Storms lashed us from the west and south-west. The Atlantic did not like us last night and decided to show our tiny collection of houses clinging onto the edge of west Wales a thing or two.
I led in bed, the rain slashing across my window, not being able to sleep, hoping that the Outhouse Roof I had fixed yesterday was still in one piece and not somewhere over Ireland by now.
OccassionallyI'd gawp at the radioactive dials of my megabell Chinese alarm clock. No amount of self-fulfillment could help me drop off, so I got up and started reading.
I've had the Charles Willeford omnibus (Pick-Up, Burnt Orange Heresy, Cock-Fighter) in my possession for the last four years, but I had only ever read one of his previous novellas 'Kiss your Ass Goodbye', which is excellent hard-boiled neo-noir stuff.
So I started reading and lost myself in the spare functional words, grim lives, stained linoleum.
Next thing I know I'd read one hundred pages of complete immersion and then I went to sleep and into my own 'Live All Girl Revue Mabinogion!'. Marvellous.
And then I thought of Paris again, the view from the Sacre-Coeur, world-famous, thronged by tourists and looky-looky men alike, it still inspires action in me.
http://www.sacre-coeur-montmartre.com/
And then I started writing. A Treatment for an idea which has become much more than that, a strange movie that goes back to a theme that I can't seem to shake, one of FATE, Destiny.
Almost every script that I've ever written has in some way dealt with fate, even, or especially the comedies.
Fate is the hammer that strikes the bell, a displacement of unsettled ideas, a collection of fragments, something unknown that knows us.
I led in bed, the rain slashing across my window, not being able to sleep, hoping that the Outhouse Roof I had fixed yesterday was still in one piece and not somewhere over Ireland by now.
OccassionallyI'd gawp at the radioactive dials of my megabell Chinese alarm clock. No amount of self-fulfillment could help me drop off, so I got up and started reading.
I've had the Charles Willeford omnibus (Pick-Up, Burnt Orange Heresy, Cock-Fighter) in my possession for the last four years, but I had only ever read one of his previous novellas 'Kiss your Ass Goodbye', which is excellent hard-boiled neo-noir stuff.
So I started reading and lost myself in the spare functional words, grim lives, stained linoleum.
Next thing I know I'd read one hundred pages of complete immersion and then I went to sleep and into my own 'Live All Girl Revue Mabinogion!'. Marvellous.
And then I thought of Paris again, the view from the Sacre-Coeur, world-famous, thronged by tourists and looky-looky men alike, it still inspires action in me.
http://www.sacre-coeur-montmartre.com/
And then I started writing. A Treatment for an idea which has become much more than that, a strange movie that goes back to a theme that I can't seem to shake, one of FATE, Destiny.
Almost every script that I've ever written has in some way dealt with fate, even, or especially the comedies.
Fate is the hammer that strikes the bell, a displacement of unsettled ideas, a collection of fragments, something unknown that knows us.
Tuesday 20 February 2007
Just one Krispy Kreme and i'm done
A furious rain beat down upon me as I walked to the top of the hill to look out over the islands.
I sheltered under a wiseoak and watched the crows and gulls soaring on the updrafts.
I thought of Paris, a city I love the feel of and not for the fortune cookie romantic cliches but for its beauty, its order, it's cut-price cassoullet and its vibe.
I thought how I have been due to go back there to complete the mammoth walk that I started with someone who is now just a friend, where we did our usual over-impulsive enthusiasm and ended up stomping for about twenty miles until we had walked so much, that we could not stop because we literally would of seized up.
I started laughing into the wind and rain view as I remembered asking for guidance at Francois Truffaut's grave in Montmartre cemetery, touching the black marble he just replied (in a cod french accent) 'you've just got to keep going mon amee'. Thanks Francois.
So I have kept going, through the lows, lower and lowlives until I started to climb to the lip of something brilliant, just to look out and admire the scenery.
The problem with life it seems that we remember strategic moments, but we don't remember the effort inbetween, so everything seems like it was only yesterday, because memory is selective and then we say 'where did the time go?'.
It went the same way it always goes, onwards like time and tide ever-constant.
I sheltered under a wiseoak and watched the crows and gulls soaring on the updrafts.
I thought of Paris, a city I love the feel of and not for the fortune cookie romantic cliches but for its beauty, its order, it's cut-price cassoullet and its vibe.
I thought how I have been due to go back there to complete the mammoth walk that I started with someone who is now just a friend, where we did our usual over-impulsive enthusiasm and ended up stomping for about twenty miles until we had walked so much, that we could not stop because we literally would of seized up.
I started laughing into the wind and rain view as I remembered asking for guidance at Francois Truffaut's grave in Montmartre cemetery, touching the black marble he just replied (in a cod french accent) 'you've just got to keep going mon amee'. Thanks Francois.
So I have kept going, through the lows, lower and lowlives until I started to climb to the lip of something brilliant, just to look out and admire the scenery.
The problem with life it seems that we remember strategic moments, but we don't remember the effort inbetween, so everything seems like it was only yesterday, because memory is selective and then we say 'where did the time go?'.
It went the same way it always goes, onwards like time and tide ever-constant.
Friday 16 February 2007
The Cure That Won't Kill You
Now that the self-inflicted car crash of Valentine's Day is well and truly over for another year, I can put away my toys and get on with the rest of my life.
For some beautiful reason, some of you loonies out there are interested in me and my flummery and I have been contacted by some to say as much (excellent!).
To the girl who keeps sending me pictures of her arse, thank you, inspiration is nine/tenths of frustration, or something like that.
And to that dastardly couple who were having a shag on the bench at Penally beach on that night, all I can say is, you lucky bastards, where's mine?
Seriously what do you do in a situation like that? There was I walking up the steps off said beach and in plain view is two people really going at it, I honestly didn't know what to look at first.
And is it healthy for it to be bent at quite such an angle?
Getting on with it means finishing various writing/ information projects and moving forward, growing as they say, these writing projects will in turn give me much joy and a lot of money.
It also means making more movies in the capacity of director/ producer/ impressario, which means another step forward on the road to happytown.
I am currently rewriting yet another of my feature film scripts (I've written nine and a half feature film scripts, twenty short film scripts, sitcom pilots, soap opera scripts, sketches etc etc) and I have found the exciting kernel that hangs the whole thing (of this current rewrite) together.
This is akin to Sherlock Holmes sussing out where the contraband is in 'the Pearl of Death' and then being horrified by the Hoxton Creeper at the end (still one of my favourite of the Basil Rathbone S.H movies).
It is in turn frustrating rewarding and exciting. Writing is frustrating rewarding and exciting, it is a self-made fruity truth that serves the greater good of humanity. Well, my humanity anyway.
In the words of Les Dawson, 'I only do this for the luxuries in life, like bread, and shoes'.
For some beautiful reason, some of you loonies out there are interested in me and my flummery and I have been contacted by some to say as much (excellent!).
To the girl who keeps sending me pictures of her arse, thank you, inspiration is nine/tenths of frustration, or something like that.
And to that dastardly couple who were having a shag on the bench at Penally beach on that night, all I can say is, you lucky bastards, where's mine?
Seriously what do you do in a situation like that? There was I walking up the steps off said beach and in plain view is two people really going at it, I honestly didn't know what to look at first.
And is it healthy for it to be bent at quite such an angle?
Getting on with it means finishing various writing/ information projects and moving forward, growing as they say, these writing projects will in turn give me much joy and a lot of money.
It also means making more movies in the capacity of director/ producer/ impressario, which means another step forward on the road to happytown.
I am currently rewriting yet another of my feature film scripts (I've written nine and a half feature film scripts, twenty short film scripts, sitcom pilots, soap opera scripts, sketches etc etc) and I have found the exciting kernel that hangs the whole thing (of this current rewrite) together.
This is akin to Sherlock Holmes sussing out where the contraband is in 'the Pearl of Death' and then being horrified by the Hoxton Creeper at the end (still one of my favourite of the Basil Rathbone S.H movies).
It is in turn frustrating rewarding and exciting. Writing is frustrating rewarding and exciting, it is a self-made fruity truth that serves the greater good of humanity. Well, my humanity anyway.
In the words of Les Dawson, 'I only do this for the luxuries in life, like bread, and shoes'.
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