THE STORY SO FAR: PART 331: TUESDAY

THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT ALL

I have been thinking a great deal about multimedia recently—partly prompted by my recent burst of screenplay writing; partly because I don’t have TV at present so am relying on my computer for entertainment; and partly because, as a writer, it’s my job to be aware of this particular world.

The growth of video is downright frightening to a traditional wordsmith like me—and sometimes I wonder whether the written word will survive in anything like its present form—or will it evolve into pictograms or something similar. However, I’m fairly confident that it will see me out, which is just fine by me. And if my difficult children do get me a headstone, I don’t want it to show a video at the press of a button—it’s the way things are going—but to be granite and inscribed with good old fashioned words saying something like:

WORDS, WOMEN & WINE

HE DIED OF EXHAUSTION

Actually, that just about says it all, now I think about it—and, no, I don’t mean to be sexist. Trust me, it covers a multitude. Inspired by reading when I was a kid, it was my ambition to have adventures when I grew up—and life has not let me down. What exactly constituted an adventure? I didn’t know—which is part of the point.

In fact, my current focus is not the survival of the written word, but lengths and formats. Supposedly, a movie’s length is based upon the endurance of the average bladder—and U.S. TV programs are based on the maximum number of ads that can be squeezed in before viewers shoot their sets—but today with Smart phones, tablets, endless recording devices and the internet, the possibilities are endless.

My preference is for a movie—if it’s any good—to be 120 t0 140 minutes, but am otherwise biased towards mini-series and part-works. I like the idea of being able to develop a story free of the merciless time constraints of a movie script.

Such thoughts apart, it is clear that there is going to be a growing demand for short programs—ten to twenty minutes long—to provide sustenance for the YouTube generation.

This is a tough one to crack well—my comfort zone is long form—but it’s a compelling challenge. Indeed, one might almost call it an adventure.

PEOPLE DON’T DIE ANYMORE: Americans seem to have a profound fear of death (yet we chose  lifestyles which kill us sooner than other developed countries). People don’t die, they “pass” or, as I read today, they “enter into rest.” This is rubbish, and is undermining that wonderful thing, the English language.

“Bring back death,” should be our cry—and personally, I intend to die. 

 

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 330: MONDAY

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE REALLY GOOD (ORDINARY) AMERICAN MOVIE?

 

I love the movies and have the sneaking suspicion that, on average, they have real life beaten hands down. I have put in “on average” to cover myself against some rather special people who may be tempted to chastise me for seeming to dismiss some wonderful moment or occasion (of which I am glad to say I have had many).

But though romance and great lovemaking are wonderful and memorable—as are one’s children (when small) and close friends, romance in particular can be exceptionally painful—whereas, where movies are concerned—the  pain, thankfully, is confined to the screen.

But enough of the preamble. What I really want to say is that there seems to be a decided shortage of the kind of intelligent, well written, well acted, tightly edited, and crisply directed movies—which an adult (and here I do not mean porn) can watch with enjoyment—and which Hollywood used to turn out in profusion; and which didn’t cost an arm and a leg to make.

My archetype is EXPERIMENT IN TERROR starring Glen Ford which admittedly had the advantage of also starring Lee Remick and Stephanie Powers and being directed by Blake Edwards—but otherwise was a routine movie. In fact, I originally saw it in black and white back in 1962 when I was at university in Dublin, Ireland. It was a compelling, and thoroughly entertaining, thriller.

I’m prompted to raise this thorny subject because I have just been reading about the apparent financial failure of no less than six enormously expensive blockbusters, and because I have been watching of the recent crop of thrillers via Netflix—for both professional reasons and just to chill out—and have been decidedly under-impressed. Mostly, the latter—even when starring well known names—are mediocre at best. And I’m being charitable.

All of this makes me wonder if Hollywood is not losing its production quality edge when it comes to movie making.

Watching a number of foreign movies and TV series—French, Swedish, British etc.—reinforces that viewpoint. The production quality of the British TV series, WAKING THE DEAD, for instance, way exceeds that of most U.S. made thrillers that I have seen over the last few years—and for sheer originality of plotting and characters, you would be hard to beat LUTHER.

I’m not against blockbusters, especially when they are of the quality of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA or A BRIDGE TOO FAR, but I’m far from sure the current trends are healthy for the U.S. movie industry—or for the viewing public.

Fortunately, Netflix’s outstanding HOUSE OF CARDS and HBO’s GAME OF THRONES (which I haven’t seen, but which is being widely praised) gives us hope. On the other hand, the programming of the mainstream networks could well induce one to find a high bridge over a hard place, and jump.

ELECTRONS VERSUS PAPER: “Nielsen reports that they have it on good authority that fiction eBook sales will overtake print by 2014. According to their Understanding the eBook Consumer July Report, Nielsen estimates that for next year, eBook sales of fiction will amount to 47 million units, some 300,000 ahead of the paperback figure and 48% of total fiction sales.”

I’m reserving my opinion at this stage. We live in very strange times where the book business is concerned.

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 329: SUNDAY

THE WORK OF THE DEVIL

Every so often, Microsoft’s Windows Live Writer—which I like a lot and use for blogging—seems to get confused by life and refuses to upload to my blog. Yesterday that happened again—to my vast frustration. On the other hand I eventually found a solution so arguably should pleased at my ingenuity.

I am reluctant to take a bow. I don’t pretend to be a computer guru—and will happily settle for software that just plain works.

Years ago, I forecast that we would reach this nirvana by 2010—(and I started trying to use a computer, after some preliminary disasters, in 1986) but it appears that I have been optimistic. Certainly, there has been considerable progresss, but I still seem to spend too much of my time advancing from glitch to glitch. That said, I get a great deal of work done by computer so I shouldn’t complain too much—and I’m deeply grateful to those companies whose software can be relied upon.

In that spirit, from time to time, I’m going to recommend software that I have used personally for a period (in excess of six months) and which I have found robust and reliable. This does not mean no glitches will ever occur—bug-free software is, so I’m told, as rare as hen’s teeth. It merely reflects my experience. After that, you are on your own.

My opening advice: Buy a Mac. Windows, despite being vastly improved, is the work of the Devil at his absolute worst.

Bill Gates, despite the commendable work of his foundation, needs to apologize to one and all for the misery he has caused by marketing an operating system that not only sucks—but which is endemically flawed because of its underlying structure. He knows this is the case, yet has never tried to remedy the problem. In contrast, when Apple recognized the limits of the Mac OS,  they bit the bullet and introduced the Unix based system that has been so extraordinarily successful ever since.

SOFTWARE RECCOMENDATION: If you are a compulsive note-taker and collector of electronic clippings—which I will confess I am—you would be hard to do better than to store your data in EVERNOTE. It is cross-platform, features EVERNOTE CLIPPER which makes saving web pages ridiculously easy, and saves both in the Cloud and on your local hard drive. Go look and play. There is a free version or you can pay. I pay. It’s worth it.

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 328: SATURDAY.

TO INVEST, OR NOT TO INVEST? THAT, SADLY—WHERE THE U.S. IS CONCERNED—IS NO LONGER THE QUESTION

The most disturbing thing about the Great Recession is how little we seem to have learned from it. The financial institutions which were the primary cause of it have been bailed out by their victims (the typical U.S. taxpayer). How cool is that if you are a banker? You can come near to destroying your own country—and the U.S.A. will pay you for the privilege. In fact, the Federal Reserve is still subsidizing the financial sector throughout Quantitative Easing to the tune of $85 billion a month.

Meanwhile, the deep structural problems that beset our economy are causing truly terrible damage on an ongoing basis—and vast human misery. Yet, there is still no sign of the grass roots outrage that might force change.

What are these deep structural problems? I shall list but a handful.

• The financialization and corporatization of the U.S. in almost every conceivable way from our daily lives to Congress.
• The abdication of most corporations from any feelings of responsibility towards their workers.
• Income inequality on a massive and steadily increasing scale.
• Unemployment, under-employment, or job insecurity nearly across the board.
• Declining earnings for most Americans. In fact, we are now back at 1995 earning power—and continuing to lose ground.
• Increasing costs for all Americans—particularly where gas, education, healthcare and housing costs are concerned. But other area have not remained inflation free. Food costs have also increased.

This seems to be a remarkably supine electorate. It is profoundly disturbing. Somewhere along the line—which broadly means over the last 40 years—corporate power seems to have pounded most Americans into fatalistic acceptance of the rankest injustices. It’s a truly miserable story.

The above chart—which I found on that superb financial site, THE BIG PICTURE—demonstrates the inadequacy of the U.S.’s investment in infrastructure (roads, bridges, rail, ports, sewers etc.). To that depressing fact should be added the unwillingness of corporate America, despite record profits, to invest adequately as well. Overall, we have a serious investment deficit.

No investment in America today—no American jobs tomorrow.

This never used to be the American Way, but clearly times have changed. And so have Americans.

King George had nothing on the abuse inflicted on Americans by Americans.

Meanwhile, this Great Nation has been busy fighting a war in Afghanistan (while giving it intermittent attention) while invading Iraq (for no good reason at all). 

We’ve killed hundred of thousands, made millions wretched, wasted trillions of dollars, put our children into debt, wrecked countries, and de-stabilized whole regions. Add in our own dead and wounded—and the misery and vast costs involved—and one cannot but wonder whether this is America’s shining hour.

We are, as others have already said, “better than this.” It might be helpful if we demonstrated this.

PUBLIC OPINION: Only 28% of Americans currently think the war in Afghanistan has been worthwhile.

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 327: FRIDAY

WHERE DO YOU PUT AN IDEA?

Writing is all about ideas—developing them (which may take years or decades) and then transferring them into written words (the really tricky part). Overall, the emergence and development of ideas is rarely a smooth process.

Ideas, especially when they emerge, are rarely fully formed—and have absolutely no discipline. They also have the disconcerting habit of vanishing before they can be corralled—or of evolving subtlety so that you retain some of the concept, but the part that made the idea special has been lost.

There are rare exceptions to this, of course—sometimes ideas emerge fully formed and are obligingly tractable—but most ideas are fragments of a greater whole (whose totality is probably unclear) and are not well behaved. In fact they can be downright squirrelly.

From a writer’s point of view, the questions are what to do with ideas while they gestate—and how to find them again. The latter is crucial. Filing is vastly easier than finding.

Personally, I now keep all my electronic clippings and notes in Evernote—an excellent program in many ways though I still prefer askSam’s search mechanism. As for the fragments that often evolve into ideas, I have decided to restart my journal despite years of failure trying to maintain one.

Wish me luck!

PHOTO: It’s my belief that one way or another, hybrid electric and electric aircraft are coming. The photo is of one of the pioneers, the eSpyder—and it is entirely electric.

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 326: THURSDAY

I’LL TELL YOU A STRANGE THING—TYPOGRAPHY, AND LAYOUT IN GENERAL, IS EXTRAORDINARILY IMPORTANT TO ME

On the face of it, it shouldn’t really matter what typeface you write in.

The meaning of words doesn’t change regardless of how they look, after all.

Or does it?

Pre-computers. the industry standard was Courier 12. Post computerization, more flexibility is tolerated where book manuscripts are concerned—but if you want to have a snowball’s chance of selling a screenplay, you would be decidedly unwise to deviate from Courier 12.

It’s clunky, and not proportional, but it is what the movie industry expects and is comfortable with. And it is worth remembering that the movie industry, for all its cutting edge technology and relative youth, is nothing if not conservative. 

I’m not a typographer, and have never been trained in layout, but I confess I’m much more comfortable when I’m working with a typeface I like, and a layout I find visually appealing.

The layout of this blog—for better or for worse—reflects  my taste. You would be amazed—or perhaps appalled—at how much work I did to achieve this simple result. 

Yes, I know both faces may be considered unoriginal—but they meet my objectives: (1) To be be clear and readable. (2) To be aesthetically pleasing.

QUOTE:

"Opinions are made to be changed -- or how is truth to be got at?"

-- Lord Byron,
British poet

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 325: WEDNESDAY

IT FEELS GOOD TO BE BLOGGING AGAIN

I regard blogging as a kind of warm-up exercise for my brain—even though I often blog in the evening after my main writing work is done. I think I temporarily stopped blogging at the beginning of June because I had the sense—in the case of the screenplay—that my main work wasn’t done, yet was determined to crack the problem however long it took; so I worked through my blogging time.

I think I was wrong in that regard. I would have been better off knocking off at a reasonable hour and letting my subconscious have a crack at it. Add in a good night’s sleep, and wonders can result.

One of the better decisions of my writing life was to decide not to plan my blogs. Yes, I know that sounds counter-intuitive—after all, I do plan my books—but the attraction of not planning is that it frees the mind and encourages spontaneity. Also, it acts is a sort of intelligence test. After all, if you can’t write a few hundred words on demand, what kind of state must your brain be in!

I would like to qualify my comment about planning books. Editors like authors to supply detailed outlines because that enables the editor concerned to exert more control over the book at the earliest stage (and editors love power).

I confess I’m not a fan of that approach because it hinders the creative process. I don’t object to writing a brief synopsis, but essentially I prefer to let the story evolve on the page. Simply put, the mere process of writing—at least in my case—seems to stimulate creativity.

Writing begets ideas which in turn facilitate the ability to write. In fiction, to give but one example, characters have a habit of seeming to develop lives of their own. In non-fiction, the description of ideas tends to stimulate other ideas.

The process is a virtuous circle but it is dependent on your writing in the first place. It may look that way, but nothing done well is easy. Clear, entertaining writing—which reads effortlessly—is hard pounding.

BOOK RECCOMENDATION: Unfortunately, Americans tend not to be introspective about the state of this Great Nation and The American Way Of Life—and the massive corporate and government propaganda that dominates our existence is near entirely successful at both distracting and deluding us. Nonetheless, the truth is out there if you are prepared to dig and put the pieces together. To that end, may I suggest Dr. Frank Luntz’s book, What Americans Really Want…Really. There are views I don’t agree with—but it is a fascinating read. And frightening. It certainly raises a fundamental question: Is our culture quite what we pretend it to be?