February 6, 2019
GOAL 1: READ MORE
GOAL 2: FILM BLOG: Write a review every month.
GOAL 3: ART BLOG: Write a post every month featuring new art.
GOAL 4: RAMBLING WASTREL, ETC.: Write 50,000 words of new blogging posts in 2019.
And/or 1 post/month.
GOAL 5: Write first draft of PUS MASTERS.
GOAL 6: Write first draft of THE RESURRECTION OF THE BLUE AGOUTI.
December 2, 6:53 am
Man, did I really come up with this list of writing goals almost 10 months ago? Fudge.
Let's see, after a quick glance, an UPDATE:
GOAL 1: READ MORE
I started reading MIDNIGHT MOVIE, a book by TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE director Tobe Hooper. I started it some time ago and forgot about it. Yeah, I was reading it at the cottage and we haven't been there, like, actually overnight, in a while... a couple years? Anyway, I was rooting through my backpack earlier this year and there it was, the paperback: "Oh, yeah! This!" I started reading it again from the beginning and was getting into it. There's a number of characters and the format is all first-person accounts of this bizarre take on a zombie-like plague, kinda-sorta, not your traditional zombies, more like when you get infected you go insane and destructive but there's also a physical infection and deterioration going on, too. I'm not exactly clear, to be honest. The best part, though, is that a couple conceits are that Hooper himself is a character and in the beginning, he's invited by a disreputable character to a screening at the SXSW festival of Hooper's first film, something on 16mm that somehow this sketchy dude was able to get his hands on. The description of Hooper's early cinematic effort is fascinating and compelling, and the idea of that film even existing got me hooked. Unfortunately, the persistent first-person accounts is ultimately distancing and I sort of lost interest after getting fairly well into the book. So, I haven't picked it up in a few months. I should just finish it to tie up loose ends, though. In fact, when I re-started reading the book again it was to kill time while waiting while my car was being worked on at Walt's Garage. Now, I have some other repairs that have to be done again - big ones, too: four tires and rear brakes, ugh! - so maybe I'll get back into MIDNIGHT MOVIE within a week (since I need the repairs to pass inspection and my inspection was due, uh, last month...).
December 3, 8:58 am
So, I'm trying to finish up some posts that I started quite awhile ago, mostly to move forward on this 2019 50,000 word/blog-post challenge. Last year I got up to 29,000 words which wasn't too bad. I'm way behind right now. Although, I do have a private blog I started this year to address a more personal issue and I've written more on that than my public blogs, go figure: Private (15,550 words) vs. Public (7,090 words). Ah, well. I just need to keep plugging away.
Anyway, in a lot of these incomplete posts, I write a lot of lists. A LOT. I'm a compulsive and impulsive list writer. Part of me does it so I don't forget shit. A lot of me is a wishful thinker because I never seem to complete these lists (or posts).
So, it's kind of meditative to go through these old partial posts and see these lists and goals and tasks and ideas and I think it's a good idea to do an update to these things. It's a regurgitative process mentally and also from a reading and writing perspective. I'm re-reading a lot of things again and again, and that's interesting. It's like my annual New year's Resolutions. Usually the same resolutions make the list or are slightly modified. Maybe this step of the process - updating - will help me complete these things and then finally move on to the next level. At the very least, I'm getting some words down. It's like me getting steps!
Anyway, to continue...
GOAL 2: FILM BLOG: Write a review every month.
Well, I certainly haven't done that. Hell, I haven't posted ANYTHING on my film blog since LAST December. Shit!
So, having said that, the Netflix Connection thing I had going on with Mermaid Heather and Dawn Deader has pretty much bit the dust. I certainly contributed to its demise because of my, well, lack of contribution. Heather was really the only consistent writer of reviews and I was the worst, even though it was my idea in the first place.
Nuts.
Anyway, in the last couple months, my friends Rhonda and Mark Parker, who happen to be filmmakers who run Beaver Alley Studios, have been trying to do this streaming service for independent filmmakers through their studios. In addition, they want to add some original content to the site and one program includes reviewing films. We've been talking about me being a part of this reviewing endeavor, but we'll see. I initially said "sure," but now I'm having second thoughts because I'm not quite confident about my being on such a show. I mean, basically I feel fraudulent offering my thoughts on films by local filmmakers. But I do think reviewing local films is a great idea. So, I need to do that at least on my own blog.
But I haven't yet.
*sigh*
11:51 am
I'm going to piss this whole day away before I go to work, aren't I?
Grrrrr...
Man, I should have slept better last night.
Anyway...
GOAL 3: ART BLOG: Write a post every month featuring new art.
Okay, I haven't really created much new art, but I have been adding some more posts to my art blog because I've been thinking about how to develop this goofy Stellara Ultranova idea. But I definitely need to create some artwork. Right now it's mostly me yakking.
GOAL 4: RAMBLING WASTREL, ETC.: Write 50,000 words of new blogging posts in 2019.
And/or 1 post/month.
Yeah, I've been doing this and only lately, primarily starting last month, November, which is appropriate since November is when NaNoWriMo happens. Although mostly I've been focusing on my private blog (with a greater degree of success, and more for the reasons as to why I started that blog), which are all private (so they don't add to my public word count, natch!) and my art blog. So, I've been working on this goal moderately, but I'm way behind.
GOAL 5: Write first draft of PUS MASTERS.
GOAL 6: Write first draft of THE RESURRECTION OF THE BLUE AGOUTI.
Uh, no, neither of these have happened nor have I even started working on them. Re: BLUE AGOUTI, I had hoped to actually make a pseudo-teaser/trailer for my BM-VM Shorty Contest entry in the fall, but that didn't happen either. Somewhat related, over at Buffalo Movie-Video Makers (BM-VM), a local film society of cinemaphiles and amateur and more experienced filmmakers, the main group started a "splinter" group focused on screenwriting. The decision to start the BM-VM screenwriting group started with a discussion between myself, Leo Medico and Sabrina Pena Young and then we went ahead and started it. The original intent was to run it monthly like the regular BM-VM meetings, but in the couple years we've been doing it, we pulled that back a little bit to maybe every other month. Anyway, Leo and Sabrina have been unable to attend the screenwriting meetings due to a busy schedule, but local playwright/screenwriter Donnamarie Vaughan has joined along and has taken a pretty active interest in it and she's like co-heading it with me. Anyway, I bring up the group because it would seem to be a perfect vehicle for me to use to start working on either script and bringing in scene and getting feedback from the group. Except... I don't want to. I'd rather keep PUS MASTERS under tight wraps, keep it between just Carter Soles and myself. Carter initiated the project with a sort-of treatment/synopsis of a script and showing it to me and after reading it, I had some other ideas that sort of took it into a whole other different direction, which he liked, and we decided to collaborate on the script. This was way back in...2012. Holy crud. And I just looked that up, I didn't remember off-hand the year Carter sent me the script. Shit. Also, BLUE AGOUTI has some weird personal stuff (or have been inspiring some ideas to be included) I've been considering to put in the screenplay, so I think I'd feel self-conscious sharing it with the group. Anyway, I DO need to work on these screenplays, but right now, I have to get through some other projects first. Like, I have to do a poster/DVD cover design for Beaver Alley Studios' film, A CHRISTMAS MONSTROSITY and I do want to do a little something on this Stellara Ultranova comic book concept I've arbitrarily been obsessing about lately (okay, the latter is me being a "victim" of accidental inspiration - I saw a picture of a model on the internet named Emily and I thought she would be a good physical basis for a sci-fi heroine that I've been thinking off and on about doing, an answer to Barbarella, kinda-sorta. Anyway, I want to do some drawing to kind of take advantage of all the thinking and ideas I've been having recently regarding this concept. Maybe 2020 will be the year for either or both of these goals. Although, having said that and having brought up the BM-VM Screenwriting group, I should work on some screenplay with group, so i might just start another project. I've been watching a lot of dreck on streaming TV (Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Shudder) , films I find fascinating even though I may not sit through them all the way through, or even like a little but it makes me think about filmmaking. Like, TERROR BENEATH THE SEA, ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK, or even, HONKY HOLOCAUST. Yeah. So, I might start something as almost purely an exercise, something in the vein of Emir Skalonja's filmography. Emir is a local filmmaker who's made a bunch of extremely low-budgeted horror film features in the last few years and part of me is thinking, hell, if he can do it, why not me? At least one feature. So, that's where my thoughts are on that.
Yeah.
*ANOTHER sigh*
Okay.
I'm finally done with this one.
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