Category Archives: On Writing

FINALLY… HELP ME MAKE MY THESIS: SWEET HONEY CHILE’

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It has been a long time coming but it is finally time for me to shoot my thesis… I feel like one of the lost boys in Peter Pan… screaming I don’t want to grow up… but all things must change, including my status as a student and this is one step closer toward achieving that goal. This is a very special film to me and if you like anything else that I have ever done in the slightest you will love this! Thank you so much for your continued support, please pass this on to EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!! 

AND HERE IT IS… POW!!!  DONATE HERE !!!! 

 

Tips from Haggis

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As a budding writer it is important to learn from and study those who have come before you… they are proof that you can do this and that your goals are tangible and achievable… This man started out as a furniture mover–Life will bring you all types of opportunities to step into your passion!

ON FEAR

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Let’s talk about what we all feel at some point or another on our journey but don’t share our experience of…I am on a personal journey of being in a constant state of awareness because I don’t want to be caught sleeping when I’m supposed to be living so here goes…In my experience of being in tuned with my artist portal I discovered fear’s footprints in my sanctuary… it is not fear of creating, because I was born to actively share what I create or PERISH but it is fear OF…non-acceptance… or perhaps fear of failure, fear of little to no income doing this thing that I love because NO ONE ever gets paid to do what they love…fear that as a black woman and a first generation college graduate I need to be doing something more fiscally generative to advance my family’s social status… FEAR OF FEAR ITSELF!

While writing this, I am mortified that I could even come up with these thoughts because this is confirmation that at some point or another they were real manifestations or thoughts that I ran across in society or that… I created myself (GEEZ We are are powerful!)… and NOW in this very moment I want to blow them to shreds with a nuclear missile. FEAR has now turned into shrapnel and inconsequential matter.

So much of what I do as a writer and filmmaker is connected with how I view the world and is translated through the spiritual bifocals that I have acquired on my journey. Malcolm Gladwell speaks of the 10,000 hour theory to mastery, and I would like to go further and join Richard Moss’ conjecture that the 10,000 hour theory also applies to our belief systems and projected realities as spiritual AND ARTISTIC beings. You are what you think about all the time… and “our only sense of who we are is based on a continuous arousal of the stories we tell ourselves” (MOSS)… marinate on this for a moment. Let this sentence sink in in terms of story and a society’s oral history. What is the connection between a culture’s stories and the republics perceived identity? We are what and who we think– into being.

I am constantly surrounded by people who are UBER talented and simultaneously live in a black hole of fear and contraction. How is this possible? If this is you… please BREAK OUT & start living now, life is too short to dote on what you aren’t… JUST BE what you ARE!

When trying to create art there is no room for doubt or fear because you are already unearthing layers of your existence in life to redistribute and reflect into society… you have to be open and vulnerable to so many different emotions and realms of experience that you can’t AFFORD to invite fear into your reality.

I feel like I am now speaking over my own head but this is what is coming out, so I welcome it in the hopes that there is a sliver of truth and resonance in what I am saying that is connected to the process of writing, singing, making visual art, filmmaking, dancing, etc. You just projected into the next portal of the matrix…welcome the growth with open arms and go create your ART & then SHARE IT FEARLESSLY!

Endings

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In light of the recent “apocalyptic” events such as the earthquake and Hurricane Irene–all this frantic scare tactic talk about the end of the world has prompted me to think more about the seeming crisis of ending a damn script (I love all my scripts btw–I’m just frustrated!).

I’ve spoken to many colleagues about the writing process and the brick wall that they hit when attempting to write the penultimate third act and I have also meditated on my own scripts and endings to try to figure out what the hell goes wrong between the midpoint and the last piece of dialogue uttered in a script and I still can’t quite figure it out to a point to where I am at peace with my own process and understanding of how to write a kick ass third act.

Due to my own quest and  insatiable neuroses of wanting to solve this issue, so I can just put a couple of my scripts on the finished shelf for good, I am currently doing a bit of research on endings and what makes certain films and scripts feel whole.

Today, I ran across a quote that I think is quite befitting and has also prompted me to reread the last chapter of  The Odyssey because it is the type of novel that serves as a platform for good endings… with an overall sense of reward and satisfaction after having weathered the apocalyptic storm of existence.

We Seekers come home at last, purged, purified, and bearing the fruits of our journey. We share out the nourishment and treasure among the Home Tribe, with many a good story about how they were won. A circle has been closed, you can feel it. You can see that our struggles on the Road of Heroes have brought new life to our land. There will be other adventures, but this one is complete, and as it ends it brings deep healing, wellness and wholeness to our world. The Seekers have come Home. -Vogler 

This quote is essentially what we the Writers… Seek to accomplish by even taking on a screenplay… we inevitably seek to bring our characters on a journey that in some ways completes them and the original question they asked of the world… the Main Tension of the film… the reason we spent our $15 to take a looking glass to our eyes to peer into someone else’s life and circumstance.

So I leave you with this… at the end of your script does your character come home with that special elixir, the power to heal the wounded land or do they come home at peace with their own failure or perspective of the world? Whatever the case may be… they better come home with something that is worth the return from that which they experienced… it’s all relative.

My research and thoughts on endings will continue. For now, enjoy one of my favorite endings from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest–and to be fair, this is not the entire ending because it is only 2 of the 15 minutes of the closing of the film, but
satisfying nonetheless.