Saturday, May 11, 2013

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.

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