I Shot a Moose Once: 02.13

For as long as I can remember, I've found writing a cathartic, relaxing, and invigorating exercise. Jumping-jacks for the mind. The same with reading - an absolute requirement for any writer worth his salt.

A big part of writing is being frustrated. Maybe the biggest part, in fact. At least for me (and, I suspect, for most other writers, too). Aside from the purely practical aspects - ie, actually making time to sit down and hammer something out, good or bad - there are also the purely creative. These are an animal all their own. "What's the best way to say what I want to say?" "Is it worth saying in the first place?" ... and (for me), "What if someone else said this before... and better?"

Things started very simply... I used to write movie adaptations. Don't misunderstand me: I wasn't trying to adapt books into movies, I was making movies into short stories. This started at about age ten with my (then-)favorite movie, Predator. And from there Aliens (naturally). These weren't straight adaptations - I'd change the ending or hone in on characters/elements I thought were really cool, but for the most part it was all about the movie.

Not exactly "creative" writing.

Then I discovered the world of Monty Python, followed quickly by George Carlin, and I started trying to write funny little skits or poems. And after that came Woody Allen, perhaps the biggest influence on my life to that point in more ways than one. Woody Allen showed me that you could do anything in any medium, so long as you had the skill to pull it off. I'd never seen a movie where people talked to the camera, or where there were amusing little asides that had nothing to do with the story... So, naturally, these sorts of things started popping up in my stories and scripts.

(Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.)

Most of these stories have long since been lost. I wasn't exactly meticulous about saving things, and when the family computer crashed, I didn't make too strong an effort to recover them. As a point of fact: I don't really care what happens to them. It's fun to write and to see the collection I've amassed, but I almost never reread anything. Again, like Woody Allen, once it's done, I pretty much never look at it again. I'll craft and hone and finesse it for months, but once I have the thing in a finished form, that's it. I've never been big on rewriting; if I can't get it right after focusing my attention for all that time, it's probably not worth writing. Plus, it's good to learn from mistakes. Generally speaking, I start with an image or a sentence or an idea and just start writing - see where the piece takes me. One time I tried to outline everything beforehand - mapped out every "scene" and plot turn - and absolutely hated it. That was the most bland, heavy-handed piece of writing I ever did, and it was a chore to finish. That's why I like to just write and write and write and see what happens.

Although certain ideas and themes will always capture my interest (science, religion, extreme beliefs), I've always made a conscious effort to always try something new. That's another thing I admire about Woody Allen. Yes, he's definitely got a "type" of story that he prefers and is best at, but he is otherwise the most versatile filmmaker (I think) in American film history. Dramas, comedies, morality tales, slapstick, musicals, chamber plays, even German expressionism... Grant it, they've not always been successful attempts, but I admire the work ethic. The biggest pet peeve I had about classmates in film school was how many of them had already resigned themselves to certain genres - and were content to stay in those frameworks. Some people only made "comedies" or "horror films." I had success within satire, but I at least wanted to try something different. And what better opportunity than during school! ... Hence my surreal, experimental senior film that wasn't such a hit, but satisfied my own needs nevertheless.

And then I took a break... A long, long break. I didn't write a single bit of fiction for five years.

Lately, I've had an explosion of ideas. New experiments to try. Take the novellette. The story started with a single line, and the "gut feeling" that it would be about ten pages... After a while, I really dug in and tried to write something new, challenging, and exciting - not just a story, but an experience - and it ballooned into forty-five pages, including "illustrations." It wasn't just "Who was this guy and what happened to him?", but rather "Who IS this guy, and what IS happening to him?"... and how best to express that. Now that it's finally done, I see a few spots that are a little clunky and a couple sections that could have used more attention, but overall I'm very happy. I feel like I achieved my goal, so the piece is done. It's funny, it's sad, it'll make you scratch your head... Time for the next one.

I was told a long time ago that if I ever wanted to make it in the film industry, it would be by my own devices - ie, I wasn't writing blockbuster material, but might have a chance on the independent/festival circuit. This has always been true: I've never had even the slightest inclination to write a "this happened" type story. You know - page-turners, plot twisters. No, I always wanted to explore why did this happen, or to whom did this happen. (I've a great deal of respect for Richard Linklater - a filmmaker who has somehow made multiple, amazing films in which basically nothing happens. True character pieces with only a modicum of plot.) That something happened is not interesting: it's the personalities and circumstances and the ultimate reason (if any) that make it interesting... And, skill. Great writers can (and do) make the mundane sublime; bad writers, if they're to have any chance, have to be a little more desperate in their approach.

The current piece could approach novel-length. It's a very tricky bit of business. James Joyce is my favorite author, and I adore stream-of-consciousness writing - Faulkner, Joyce himself, Woolf, Beckett, Dos Passos, etc. I'm trying to incorporate this into my latest story (even moreso than the novellette, which became stream-of-consciousness after a number of diversions and vignettes), and still find a way to actually make things happen. I don't want it to simply be a collection of non-sequitor thoughts, because then what's the point? Then I've failed on all counts. No, the idea is to really get in the heads of these people but still convey a sense of time passing and events occurring.

It's been a challenge, but a fun challenge. Some really neat devices and themes at work, and I look forward to developing them further. Ideally, I could work on this steadily and finish before school starts, but that's almost guaranteed not to happen. If I'm lucky, a first draft could be done by then, but that's the best I can hope for.

Which brings me to the tricky part (I know - brevity has never been a strength)... I feel like this is an interesting and important story to tell, but I don't want the technique or the form to overshadow the content (may be past that point already). A balancing act. I tried to write this once as a screenplay, but was never happy with the outcome; eventually, I abandoned it. I love the general concept, but could never quite get the structure right. I'm starting to have that problem again. The beginning and the end are pretty clear in mind - it's the in-between that's elusive.

What's it about? I don't want to give away too much in hope that some of you may actually read it, but essentially it's about family - a minor element of the novellette, the major theme this time: how we define it, how definitions change, what it means in the technology age. Some interesting things, I hope, but ultimately you'll be the judge.

Stephen King said once that there are essentially two types of writers: those who write for an audience ("popular" literature, essentially), and those who write for themselves. Not that I completely disagree, but I think that's too simplistic. Most fall on a continuum. For instance, I cannot fathom a writer who doesn't write for himself. But I would agree that some tend to try to satisfy curiosities within rather than describe or explore worlds without.

In the end, once it's done, the author is really the least significant part. It's up to the reader - whether one or many - to figure it out.

I Shot a Moose Once

18 February 2013

Nothing New

11 February 2013

Progress Report