"1408" & S King showing the way?

Just checking in to say, of course, that I haven’t been writing on SL. I have, however, been up to my eyeballs in Icebox, which is a good thing overall. But I took a mental health evening tonight and went to seen “1408” with John Cusac, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to get some things down, and by doing so, allow this blog to not die.

I am still stuck with the same problem with audio horror. Film does the genre so much better. The ability to control the frame controls the audience’s ability to see, and by doing that, you create dark corners just out of frame that the beasties can jump out at you from. I know of no similar tool to the audio playwright.

What gives me some hope is the author of “1408” Stephen King. I recall when he became a huge name. I remember being surprised that a mere book could frighten the way a movie could. King was usually labeled a ‘cinematic’ writer for this reason. And he did it with monsters that the movies could not use any longer because they were too hack-kneed. Go back and read ‘Night Shift’ a collection of early short stories, and you’ll find vampires and mutant monsters and all kinds of bad guys who had been abandoned by Hollywood years earlier. And yet, from his pen, they took on new life. On the screen, a forty-foot bat is just a forty-foot bat. But not so when it was from your imagination. There has to be a way to do the same thing in audio. There has to be.

It was a dark and stormy night

And it was, too, on this night that I returned to the project to begin EP07. I've been writing IBRT stuff the last few days, and facilitating (I hesitate to call it 'teaching') a writer's workshop for the IBRT. Sheparding fledgling writers can be difficult, so I didn't see the possibility of writing much for the SL until tonight. Something about the good rain with an occasional flash of thunder made me think I could get started. I could. Seven has been begun, if only the first page of it. The problem, as I see it, is that this is another descent into the abyss. How to make those things interesting when there's, what, four of them? Is a challenge. For some reason, the voice in Gillian's head started envolking Lovecraft. Hmmm.

Checking in

Nearly a month has gone, and though there is little to report, I know I needed to check in. I've finished E06, meaning the series is nearly half-drafted. That's a pretty good rate considering the idea came to me at the last CONvergence (a sci fi convention I attend each 4th of July weekend) and I spent the better part of the year not writing SL. I am working on a new Icebox script. It doesn't take precident, exactly, but I have fixed deadlines for Icebox.

I'm reading a book Diane found for me called "H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life" by M Houellebecq. I have often wondered about Lovecraft and his significance in questions of religion. Here was a man with no faith to speak of who envisioned a universe that predated a creator God. His was an evil place made of dreams, the deeper their origin in the subconscious, the better. It really begs the question, is there a place, either in the physical world or the world of the mind, where God is completely absent? That might be the entire point of the SL. This is a place where God is absent. Or is he.

Checking in...

And just that. Checking in. It has been quite a while since I've written. I honestly can't remember what episode I'm on, exactly. I have finished re-organizing my office which is a kind of nesting instinct that comes up every couple of years. Thankfully, that is not something I need to worry about for a while. I posted an Imagination-X episode yesterday with a new, very short piece that was just called 'Meditation' Call it aural art without a real purpose or story. It would fit nicely inside the world I'm trying to create in SL. Maybe I'll write some tonight.

The Sands Shift

Hello all.

Yes, it's been days and days. And no, I generally haven't written on SL during them. EP06 is still in process. Yet I really don't feel lost about this. I think, perhaps, I'm supposed to be doing something else right now. Icebox is taking a lot of time, as you night imagin. And I have tackled the job of cleaning out and reorganizing my office. That might sound kind of lame, but the reality is, it's been two years since I've done anything but place paper on top of flat surfaces, planning to 'Get back to that'. And we all know what offices without secretaries look like after a while. That probably relates to SL in that some of the recording will probably take place in that office, and I need to have the place organized for both writing, and recording.

Things feel good, generally. Spring is here. I have no script for August, so I'd better get on that. I'm thinking of Scoop Sisters, give the gals something to work on. And we're working on an Icebox writer's workshop for a week hence. It's been a good couple of months downtime, but I'm feeling the need to wratchet up. Summer has always been my time to write. It'll be interesting to see how that changes with this new computer.

Finding Muse in the strangest places

After several days of nothing or next to nothing, I ran off close to ten pages tonight working in an old classroom converted for use by the local 4-H club. I was in Backus, our community center ne Junior High school. I am appearing in a community play, a history of Koochiching county set to music and verse. I kid you not. The whole thing was written by a local man, and I have to say, I am enjoying not being the one in charge. I do my one bit (midway through the first act) then I'm off until curtain call. So I found this class room and wrote and wrote and wrote.

The character of Eve is coming into her own. I'm not sure what her relationship with Gillian is going to be since the outline only required Gillian comfort her. I played with the idea that Eve could be THE Eve, banished to this strange job after her part in The Fall. I don't know though. That all seems a little hokey, and on shaky ground theologically.

Yes, I'm alive

Just writing because I should check in, put down, and let readers know what's going on.

I haven't written a word; a single damn word. Constantly confronted with requests to do more, work harder, put in time, make things work for people. None of it pays. I'll get a $75 royalty check from Playscripts and I'm happy to have it. It's the only proof that I'm a writer. Oh yes, plenty of fans in this town. Maybe that's why I'm doing SL, to create something difficult and challenging and swat off some of the flies.

IBRT is in business mode. I'm getting the itch to get to work on somehting. Had a board meeting tonight and everything spun in a new direction. I suppose it's positive. It just gets damn annoying after a while. Off we go, doing something else, still nobody offering to do actual work to help.

I will begin part six tomorrow. Heard from B. Price today. It was good to hear from him. He seemed to think Dog Watch was okay, and had some good suggestions.