Message in a Bottle

September 29th, 2010Blog1 comment

I read today via Daring Fireball that all six Star Wars films are getting the 3D treatment in time for 2012.

I think that as soon as a piece of work arrives in its final form — when it opens in front of a paying audience*, or it arrives in its final published form — the work doesn’t belong to the author anymore. It belongs to its audience. It’s up to the audience to react to it, to decide whether it’s worthy of holding onto in their memories. The work becomes theirs — and it’s a gift with no take backs, ever.

And once it is owned by the audience, it should be absolutely unchangeable by the author. Because when you love a piece of work, you love its defects as much as you love the things that are perfect about it. You love that Han shot first. You love the fact that when you think about it, you are also thinking about a specific time and place that the work belongs to. Return of the Jedi Star Wars glasses (“Made out of real glass!”) from Burger King! You think back to the person that you were when you saw it.

And the best thing is that, as an audience member, you’re not the only one that owns a piece of work. Others own it too. You’re a member of a community. And there’s a specific time and place that own it: A world that lives in your collective memories. So a great piece of work grows to become more than just the sum of its parts. It gets to be about us — we, the audience, of that place and that time.

So if you try to change the work — if you alter it, try to “add to it” or “fix it” — you threaten to take all those good things away from your audience. And besides, why dwell on “improving” an old work when you could spend the time creating something brand new?

That said, I think this 3D Star Wars thing is a bad idea.

* A possible exception is theater, because theater is, by its nature, alive and always in process — and the audience is a part of that process. But if SW: A New Hope was a play, I would never accept a rewrite where Greedo shoots first.

Output Requires Input

September 25th, 2010Blog0 comments

In order to write I need to read. I need to see things, to be plugged into the world. I need to see people — the weirder the better. These things stimulate my thinking, reminds me of why I’m writing in the first place.

A couple of years ago I was working on this ten minute play about a brother and sister; the family had fallen apart, and he had to find a way to show her that he needed her in his life. My original impulse was that he was a urban thug gang member — I’m not going to try to explain this except to say that my impulse is always towards urban thug gang members. You know me: I am from the streets.

Anyway, I couldn’t make this relationship work. It didn’t feel solid to me. I couldn’t make it move. I got stuck in the outline.

So then I watched Freaks and Geeks. This happened fairly randomly — I had been meaning to watch this show for a long time, and it finally popped out of my Netflix queue.

So I’m watching Fs & Gs and suddenly the relationship between Linda Cardellini and John Francis Daley’s characters hit me: What if the younger brother in my story wasn’t a gangster — what if he was a nerd? What if he was this nerdy kid that was trying to communicate his problems to his sister? A nerd could work — I know nerds!

It was at that moment that the short play unlocked itself. With one permutation spawned by watching FREAKS AND GEEKS, I could suddenly make it all work. It was like magic. It’s moments like these that I love — the Eureka! moment that turns everything around in an instant.

So I finished the ten minute play. It ended up being called Heartbreaker, and it eventually evolved into a full-length play called Year Zero. And if you know Year Zero, you can see how the gangster character eventually made his way back into the story in a different form.

So this is why I need to read in order to write. I’m not an engine puttering in the vacuum of space, turning things out. I need fuel. I need input in order to create output. The input can be anything as long as it jogs my thinking — mutant DNA can come from anywhere to break a story wide open. I just need to watch for it.

Minecraft: So there’s this new video game in town called Minecraft. All the cool kids are playing it so I picked it up too. You pay for it online (It’s something like 10 Euros) and you get unlimited version updates from that moment on. It’s still in a pre-beta state, but it’s totally fun and interesting — it’s my current carrot.

What it is: I’m not exactly sure. It’s part sandbox game, part building, part dungeon crawl, part first person shooter, part farming simulation. You gather resources and build stuff. So far I’ve built a little castle on a little mountaintop with a bunch of cascading waterfalls coming off of it. In the basement is a loooooong laddered shaft that goes way deep into the earth into my redstone/gold/diamond mind. And then by the castle I have a little field I’m farming, and I’m building a greenhouse with glass walls right now. It’s pretty great.

I have a feeling that this game is setting the foundations for what hosted, networked gaming will look like in the future. IE, you can come visit my world and check out what I’ve built, and then we can play Survival co-op mode. It’s like Second Life with interesting goals.

Lockdown

September 18th, 2010Blog2 comments

I’m in lockdown in hardcore writing mode. That means that I’m sequestered inside my house every day while I work. This is why I haven’t been writing any blog posts lately, even though this website is one of my only portals to the outside world. Don’t worry, I’m still in contact with friends and such, so I do see people. But in order to get things done, it’s necessary to put myself into a monastic sort of mode. Close the gates, focus.

You can cook frozen turkey burgers in a toaster oven. I learned this recently through trial and error. They turn out great as long as you don’t overcook them. I have the timing perfectly worked out.

So every day I do this: Wake up at 7 AM. Run eight miles — two full laps around the UCLA campus perimeter. Push ups, crunches, then eat an early lunch: Turkey burgers, white rice, brussel sprouts or cooked spinach and carrots, hard boiled eggs (egg whites only). Then I sit down and write/read/work. During writing/reading/working I’ll have an afternoon snack of mini-Babybels. Then I stop for dinner: I have chicken, white rice, vegetables as previously described, then I read/watch stuff I need to watch for work. Go to sleep early, then repeat.

I’m the type of person that could eat the same thing every day for weeks. I would be a perfect, uncomplaining astronaut. On this regimen I have returned to my regular “fighting weight” of 150 lbs, which is nice. I like feeling fit and coming out of the process in good physical shape.

The running really helps. While I run I listen to music associated with the stuff that I’m writing — this lets my mind wander and glom onto new ideas and solve problems that I need to solve. I still haven’t found the perfect set of running headphones; whenever I start sweating the earbuds get dislodged from my ears. I don’t think there’s any real perfect set that will ever exist.

What I’m listening to right now: Ra Ra Riot, Tegan and Sara, The Epochs, Passion Pit, The XX. The unofficial theme song for what I’m writing is “Boy” by Ra Ra Riot (iTunes link). This song encapsulates the tone of the entire project perfectly.

I also clean a lot while I’m in lockdown. I vacuum, clean the range of my stove, dust. I go through a lot of Swiffer pads when I’m writing a lot. Cleaning is an excellent break, and it keeps your mind moving forward and tidying up. Plus it’s casual day every day — right now I am wearing this Catcher in the Rye t- shirt in order to maintain a literary sensibility. Part of faking it ’til you make it involves cosplay. Every day, cosplay as a writer until you’re finally writing something.

While I’m working in this state, my self seems to disappear somewhat; it floats just beneath the surface, conveniently stowed away so I can focus. I assure you that I am not insane and I’m not on drugs right now. This documentary about my bearded craziness was not directed by Casey Affleck — it’s 100% real. If I go on Letterman and bug the fuck out you’ll know that I’m being sincere.

I don’t know if I like being in this state or not, although like I said, it’s necessary in order to get things done. One thing’s for sure: It makes a person awfully lonely and reflective, in both good and bad ways.

Year Zero and Cowboy Published by Samuel French

September 5th, 2010General0 comments

Yes yes, Year Zero and Cowboy Versus Samurai are being published by the world’s favorite one hundred and eighty year-old purveyor of plays, Samuel French. “He Deals In Plays”, as they say. So actors’ editions, licensing, and all that good stuff are now available from Mr. French, the top-hatted one himself.