fairytales/ writing therapy/ Bryce Courtney

 This is from www.badcb.blogspot.ca:

May 13 Fairy tales: I was thinking about the TV show Once Upon a Time and how it's about fairy tale characters who are transported into the real world, and don't have a memory who they really are.  That's a really good show, and I think all of you guys should watch it.

I wanted to add this to my "memory/ song/ dollhouse" blog post that's all about memory.

http://badcb.blogspot.ca/2013/03/memory-song-dollhouse.html

Hansel and Gretel: I wanted to check out this TV movie that was made in 2013.  It went straight to video when I checked it on imdb.com.  I wanted to watch it because I wanted to see the modern retelling of it.  It was also horror, and I do like getting scared.  I saw the first 20min, and I didn't think it was really good.  I turned it off because I was also tired.

I then went and scanned the comments.  There are lots of bad reviews.  This is the story:

"In this modern retelling of the classic horror tale, teen siblings are enslaved by a psychotic recluse within her gruesome house of horrors in the woods."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2415464/?ref_=sr_3

I'm sure all of you heard of the movie released in the theatres called Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.  It got bad reviews.  My friend Sarah saw it and she liked it because it was bad and so over the top.  I think I'll watch it when it comes on TV.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1428538/?ref_=sr_1

May 14 Writing therapy: I have mentioned before about how I have to write about things so I can get over it and move on.  I do have to write about things so I can figure it out like why something gets me angry.

I have to figure this out.  For the past couple of months I've been thinking about this: "Why aren't I writing or pitching my scripts?"  I did have an excuse earlier this year, I was really busy with work.  Then later, I didn't have to work so much because my job didn't need me.  I decided to take a bit of break like don't take extra hours and just work 38 hrs a week instead of 44-48hrs. 

I worked one week for 38 hrs and I was kind of bored.  I went home and read the newspapers, watched TV, and write my weekly emails/ blog posts.  I didn't feel like writing my script Rain or pitching my The Vertex Fighter script. 

My dream: Fine, I'll just go back to increasing my hours at work.  I feel like something's missing.  I've been writing scripts since I was 14 yrs old.  When I was 22 yrs old, I graduated out of Professional Writing in college, and I was constantly pitching my The Vertex Fighter script for 2 yrs from 2008-2009.

I was going to pursue my dream of getting my TV script produced.  I was finally able to with a Professional Writing college diploma, a full-length script, and I was an adult.  I had my "Tracy's Blog" to showcase my writing.  I had my "The Vertex Fighter" blog in 2011.

I feel like I'm losing motivation for this dream.

Imagination: Okay, let's get myself motivated.

Cut to Tracy at home.  The phone rings.

T: Hello?
Producer: Are you Tracy Au?
T: Yeah.
Producer: Hi, I'm ______, a TV producer from the TV production company _______.  I read your The Vertex Fighter script that you sent me.  I thought it was really good.  I want to produce it.
T: What?  Really?
Producer: Yes.  So where do you want it to be filmed in?

T: Edmonton.
Producer: Okay.  So who do you want to be in the TV movie?

Blogger: The above is the most script writing I have written in awhile.  I do write, just mainly my emails/ blog posts.  The thing is I have become more of a blogger over the years.

Readership: I know my emails/ blog posts are being read by my friends, family, and people on the internet.  Lots of people read it.  Unlike my scripts, I have to pitch constantly to get a producer to read it.  I did get Writers in Residences at the Edmonton Public Library to read my scripts.

If I had to estimate how many people read both my scripts, either partially or 2 different drafts of the same script, I would probably say about 15 people read them.

May 15: So I figured it out.  I am going through a phase with writing.  In high school I wrote poetry for fun, in college I wrote short stories for my creative writing classes.  Throughout all that I was writing scripts.  Now that I graduated out of college, I pitch my scripts.  Now I'm into blogging and non-fiction.

May 16 Projects: The thing is my project/ hobby was always writing a script since I was 14 yrs old.  Now I'm 27 yrs old and I'm not doing that.  I'm always going to be a writer, but I'm more of a blogger now.  Maybe because I've been doing it too long and too much, that I lose motivation.  So maybe I need a break.

However, if a producer does call me and says he wants to produce it, I will be on it.  I will be out there producing it.

I guess I need a new hobby or project.  So how about starting my own business?  Learning something new.  Do you guys have anything I should get into?

May 20 Writer's block: Maybe I have writer's block.  The thing is I'm always reading movie and book reviews in the newspaper.  I'm always watching good TV shows and taking notes.  I'm always writing my blog.

Today was different.  I went and wrote movie reviews for Skyfall and Season of the Witch.  I also wrote an in-depth synopsis of the TV movie Storm War.

Once Upon a Time in Wonderland: I read about this new show the other day.  It's a spinoff of Once Upon a Time, but this time it's about Alice in Wonderland.  I just saw the 3 min. trailer and it looks really good.  They established the character Alice and how she has to go back to Wonderland to find her love Cyrus.  The special effects looks really good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7v8hwx2xHnM

May 21: Bryce Courtney: I found this article "Aussie author's 'practice book' became global hit" by Rod McGuirk on Nov. 24, 2012.  He was born in 1933-2012.  He was born as an illegitimate son of a dress maker on Aug.14, 1933 in Barberton, South Africa.  When he was 17, he was working in the dangerous mines in Zimbabwe.  He used that money to go to Britain to study at the London School of Journalism.

He met an Australian Benita Solomon and married her in 1958.  He worked at in advertising with US agency McCann Erikson when he was 26 and then became a creative director.

At 50 yrs old, he pursued his dream to be novelist.  The Power of One was to be the first of three "practice books" in a period of three years before taking two years to write a fourth book.  The fourth book will be sent to a publisher.

Courtney: "I was absolutely staggered when somebody wanted to publish it in the first place.  Now it's worldwide success and the fact that it's available in 12 languages still amazes me."

It became a movie with Morgan Freeman in it.  Courtney dedicated the sequel Tandia to his 3rd son Damon who died of medically acquired AIDS at 24 on Apr. 1, 1991.  It was 2 months before the book was published.  His death then inspired his 3rd book April Fool's Day about the public fear of AIDS in 1993.

He had his 21st novel Jack of Diamonds with an epilogue to his readers: "It's been a privilege to write for you and to have you accept me as a storyteller in your lives.  Now, as my story draw to an end, may I say only, 'Thank you.  You have been simply wonderful.'"

Jason Filiatrault/ Mo Yan/ Alix Ohlin

 This is from my www.badcb.blogspot.ca:

Apr. 6 Jason Filiatrault: I was reading this article called "Mars Rover tweets jokes" by Tom Spears.  It was in the Edmonton Journal on Jan. 12, 2013.  It's about 32 yr old Calgary screenwriter who writes these funny tweets from the point of view of a rover called Curiosity:

@SarcasticRover:

"Just did a science on some rock dust from Mars.  It was dusty and made of rock.  You're welcome humanity!"

"If I sent a picture back from Mars of a desiccated corpse in a Santa suit...the would scar some children probably, right?"

Here is the actual writer.  I find his tweets funny here:
https://twitter.com/jfiliatrault

Apr. 20 Mo Yan: On Oct. 12, 2012, "Nobel lit winner 'overjoyed and terrified' by Johan Ahlander.  The Chinese writer Mo Yan won the 2012 Nobel prize for literature for "hallucinatory realism" about folk tales, history, contemporary life in China.

Mo used to eat tree bark and weeds when he didn't have any money.  He is the first Chinese national to win the US $1.2 million literature prize awarded by the Swedish Academy.

There's controversy around him as his books have been banned as "provocative and vulgar" by the Chinese and then also for being too close to the Communist party.  He is 57 and grew up in the town of Gaomi in Shandong province.  His parents are farmers.  Most of his stories are set in the land of his birth.  Mo Yan is a pen name that means "Don't Speak."  His real name is Guan Moye.

"He was forced to drop out of primary school and herd cattle during China's Cultural Revolution."

Mo Yan: "But I do not think that my winning can be seen as representing anything.  I think that China has many outstanding authors, and their great works should also be recognized in the world."

Nobel says he uses a mix "of fantasy, reality, historical and social perspectives to create a world that was reminiscent of the writings of William Faulkner and Grabriel Garcia Marquez."

He has written books called Red Sorghum and made into a film directed by Zhang Yimou.  It's about farmers struggling in the early years of the communist rule.  He also wrote Big Breasts and Wide Hips and The Republic of Wine.

Flashback: As a kid, I never thought of writing a book to win an award.  I just want it to be published and read.  By having this blog, it achieves that goal.

As a teen, I wanted to write for TV and movies, but I never thought of winning an Emmy or a MTV Movie Award.  I just want people to watch it and be entertained by it.

Alix Ohlin: She is a 40 yr old writer who wrote the novel Inside.  It was nominated for the Rogers Writer' Trust Fiction Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize.  I cut out an article called "Novelist journeys inside troubled lives" by Mark Medley on Nov. 23, 2012.  Her book is about "multiple suicides, failed relationships, crumbling families, abortion, a homeless teen, and for good measure, the Rwandan genocide."

Ohlin calls her book a "quilt" because there are 3 big stories in it.

Ohlin: I think maybe for myself, as a writer, I am drawn less to spectacular events and more to the notion of aftermath, to the way that things linger, and echo, and have resonances in the later years of our lives.  Those kind of ghostly ways in which emotions make themselves felt after difficult things."

"Inside, I think, is intriguing, and unusual, and a little bit strange as a book title."  It turns out she wrote the book without a title in mind.  She thought maybe Witness.

In the book, there's a character named Mitch who said: "..witnessing the pain of others is the very least you can do in this world."

Ohlin: "I thought that's so perfect for my book, but I will never be able to separate it from the Amish movie starring Harrison Ford."

Her editor Gary Fisketjon thought of the now title.

Ohlin: "It seemed so perfectly suited to the multiple levels of the book.  Because it's about people getting inside each other's heads, often inside each other's physical spaces, and then also inside culture at various times."

She was at the International Festival of Authors in Owen Sound, Ont. when a woman who was a psychologist, wanted to talk about the broken people who are the characters in her book.

Ohlin: "I always think of that Leonard Cohen line: 'There's a crack in everything, that's how light gets through.'  In this book, a lot of people get broken, or have terrible things happen to them.  But if you went through your whole life and you never made a mistake, or you never lost anything, then surely you would be emotionally stunted."

"It means you were never connected to something in the first place.  So, unfortunately, those moments of darkness are an inevitable byproduct of living, and part of what makes up more complete human beings."

The psychologist says to Ohlin: "In our culture we think of breaking as a permanent thing, but actually the research shows that human beings are extremely resilient, and in 70% of cases people make a complete recovery."

Ohlin: So maybe in a way you don't have to be so afraid of being broken, because, actually, we do come out the other side."

I'm going to put the whole Ohlin and psychologist exchange into my inspirational quotes.

Apr. 26 Edmund White: I read this interview where Matthew Hays talks to the author, playwright, and journalist Edmund White in the Globe and Mail.  It was on Apr. 24, 2013.
EW: "All authors, their revenue streams are being reduced.  Young writers' chances of starting out in journalism are also slimmer.  The Internets impact is immense,  My students can't imagine ever paying for a book.  I always say to writers who complain about the publishing industry, 'Just shut up!  Say everything's hunky dory!'" 

"There is a whole industry in America of people who want to write, and those who teach it.  Even if the students don't end up writing, what's good about them taking the courses is, they become great readers, learning to appreciate the writing."EW: "Everyone's writing, it seems, but no one's reading."

He points out to there is so much submissions to literary magazines, but few subscribers.

Me: Well, if you submit a short story or poem to a literary magazine, you have to send in a fee.  Most literary magazines will give you a 1yr subscription if you submit a story and the fee.  I know that, because I have been researching literary magazines to submit to.

Script pitch: I sent my script to this producer last month.  This month I emailed him and asked if he read The Vertex Fighter yet.  He did finish reading it and he rejected it.  I asked him if there's any tips on how to improve it.  I then went and scanned over my script.  I haven't read it in a month.

Writing advice: He told me to read screenwriting books and watch TV.  I got the latter down.  lol.  I know the Buffy writer Jane Espenson had said to watch TV, but watch it actively.  Ask: "Why is this story line given to this character and not another character?"

I do watch TV actively.  When I watch a TV show, I take down notes on how the story progresses.  I write down my thoughts and opinions, some predictions and things I liked in the episode.

I called and left the Writer in Residence Omar a message on his office answering machine, but he hasn't gotten back to me yet.  Maybe I should spend some time on the TV production social network site Stage 32 to get myself going on.  I don't want to pitch my script.

However, I heard that once you start doing something, you will then get the feeling of it and keep up the momentum.