Shorts to Novels; Passion and Drive in the Form of Art

During this 'Journey' of writing my first Novel, as is normal with anything and anyone I've found moments where my enthusiasm has somewhat lacked. Whether the reason is to do with fatigue, stress, or just pure darn laziness it's just something that happens and it's annoying. Very annoying. Because you're sat at your desk, looking at what you've written so far, one half of your brain sadistically whispering "look you've done well, just put it aside and write a different one for now... an easier one" and the other half failing to encourage "go on, look you've got half of the book left.... thats good, you know it is.... it might feel like a lot... but it's not... go on" it tries. For the first half hour I find myself battling between these two conflicts in these moods, someday's I'll give the latter half some sympathy and randomly find wonderful productivity and other days I'll get furiously competitive on a shameful procrastination game of Mario Kart. So what's the cure? For the anti-productivity bug? Well for me, and again this kind of thing varies with different people, but a lot of my enthusiasm comes from Art - and I use Art in an extremely broad sense. Anything that constitutes as a beautiful creation; from Music, Films, Books and literal pieces of Art really lift the spirit sometimes; if I run into a piece of Art that's truly fantastic it instantly makes a difference.

For example during one of my bad sessions of procrastination fueled by endless episodes of the fantastic Fresh Meat I found myself inspired multiple times. Fresh Meat, along with including Kimberly Nixon; an undeniable celebrity crush if ever there was one, is a great programme and has these incredible moments of poetic excellence, in its writing, it's choice of shots, it's use of music and its absolutely electric connections with the actors. But during one scene in the library where Oregon/Melissa (Charlotte Richie) falls in love with a student and librarian Dylan (Ronan Raftery) they recite a section from Anne Sexton's poem 'Admonitions to a Special Person' which I had never read before. It went "to love another is something like prayer and can't be planned, you just fall into its arms because your belief undoes disbelief" and that was enough to start me off again.... after finishing the episode (obviously). It made me want to write, to create something as equally beautiful as that, it reminded me why I want to be a writer, I want to be the person that creates something that really leaves a lasting impression on someone like Admonitions to a Special Person and Fresh Meat has to me. 

Cure for anti-productivity? Passion and drive in the form of art/what you love.

The Missing; Drama at its best

"Home is not just just a place, Tony. It's whatever there is in your life that stops you feeling alone."

These are the words spoken by Julien Baptiste half way through the series finalé of what could possibly be one of the greatest dramas to have graced our TV screens for a long time. I tend to stray away from watching TV as it seems to periodically get slightly worse, but programmes like Broadchurch, Last Tango in Halifax and The Missing keep the faith growing. Some may say that The Missing 'drags out a bit' but the length of time it takes to get to some form of solution simply reinforces the idea of reality... cases like those do not resolve themselves simply and quickly, so it would be wrong for The Missing to have finished after the first 2 episodes, for example. It was richly layered with multiple narratives, and sub-plots, all created with a sort of enforcement on dramatic equality; so that we not only focus all our attention on Tony and his struggles and the 'abduction' of his son but so we connect with the lives going on around it just as much. James Nesbitt has always been a favourite of mine when it comes to actors so I always knew he would be fantastic, but his acting surpassed even my original expectations, he was perfect for the role and exuded such a beautiful sense of a debilitated, and horrifically angry childless father. Just as much as Frances O' Connor who played Emily, whose character was actually quite refreshingly different to Nesbitts' in the way that she was quite a bit stronger, so it was only right to give her character the final resonating speech that tied all the narratives together. Of course, with dramas like this every single character lends itself to its success and truly every single character was enthralling, and perfectly performed. Sometimes too many characters with too many stories can become confusing but Harry and Jack Williams managed to develop everything and everyone in a way that along with the complimenting acting kept it entertaining. Praise must also be sung to the Williams' for the whole story and their ending. It's only natural with these sort of programmes that people watching will attempt to solve the case themselves, as they should, why not, right? So to bring the audience back down to earth, and keep them focused on the story and the reality of these cases, to have an ending that almost no-one could have predicted was absolutely genius. Yet the ending also left a little doubt in our minds, a little doubt as to the truth of the case, that, as is only right wont ever be fully found out. It's by no surprise that it's already been given a second series to focus on a different case.

If you watch anything; watch The Missing. Oh and Broadchurch when it comes back because that was incredible; 5th January y'all.

The Power of Observational Thought

So I've said multiple times that this blog is to do with the Arts (theatre, writing, film, music) aswell as a bit of sentiment (seemingly a lot) so it's no surprise that this specific post is going to meld the two into a hopefully understandable mixture. The other day at University in my creative writing class we had been told to create a PowerPoint Presentation that showed our influences, to explore the power of influence and to see just how creatively effected we are by the mentioned people or things. I mentioned briefly Charles Dickens, specifically 'Hard Times', Patrick Suskind and his book 'Perfume' Jane Austen and 'Emma' and Emily Bronte 'Wuthering Heights. Those were the books that have quite a profound effect on me, in the classic sense, but with a more contemporary feeling and for me on the most personal level I spoke about John Green (The Fault In Our Stars, Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns etc) Nicholas Sparks (Dear John, The Notebook, The Guardian, Message in a Bottle, Safe Haven etc) and on a more cinematic level Frank Capra and my favourite film of all time; It's A Wonderful Life. Those are truly my greatest influences but I felt that I needed to add in an admittedly cheesy aspect, but one that truly is my all time most important influence; and that's life, and observations. Before I got really into wanting writing and film as a career rather than a hobby I really enjoyed photography, and I used to take pictures of the world around me, and when you do that you realise things that you don't notice the first time. When you're sad or low, you tend to notice these things aswell, because you're looking for something to let you escape and make you happy, and find these small wonderful elements of life that normally would be overlooked, and they are fantastic influences. Small little things in this life that could quite easily be a catalyst for a piece of prose or poetry; the closing of an eye in sleep, the one bright leaf laying amongst hundreds of discoloured autumnal leaves. And its powerful, its an incredible sentimental and emotional thing, there's a connection you can feel to small objects within a larger universe, because essentially that's what us as humans are, and if one day a human can notice a leaf; something they are surrounded by and find beauty in it, then that leaves hope. If we can find beauty in something we see everywhere everyday, then surely we can find beauty in ourselves and our friends, and our lives, and our family. Yet it's a thing that not that many people seem to do; to just notice life. But it's one of those things that more people really should do, Observational Thought is a power to be reckoned with.

Shorts to Novels; Belief in the Creative Flow

As I approach the halfway mark in my Novel I've started to become a little more relaxed and positive about trusting the 'Creative Flow'. This Novel has been in development from the very first conceptual process to actually putting every bit of planning into writing it for at least 14 months. During those 14 months character profiles, brief timelines, back-stories have been changed quite dramatically, and as I've been writing it I've found myself concentrating TOO hard in order to make sure all the planning is executed correctly. Yes, there is such a thing as concentrating TOO hard, of course there is. With my writing I've been guilty of doing it before, but sometimes you have the idea and you plan it then when it comes to writing you get sucked into this worry that it wont be good enough, or that the genre wont be right, or that this wont go right so you try to mould it as much as possible. That cut's out the belief in 'creative flow'. When I say Creative Flow what I mean is the self-belief that you've thought of a good story and will thus write a good story. You have to give yourself the freedom to then go ahead and write it, write it being aware of what you're writing... but to an extent. There's no way that any writer will allow himself to write a poem/short story/epic/saga/novel without reading through it and editing about a million times. So the way I look at it is that you should write it, change things if you feel they desperately need it or they don't work with other bits, but ultimately trust yourself to finish it first, and then go back read it and edit it with a fine tooth comb. Writing is a fun thing to do, if you go through the whole process worrying and be over-critical before you've finished then you're completely changing the happiness and wonder of the process.

Perfecting the Craft

Now although calling something a 'craft' can often sound pretentious, it's still a pretty accurate word for what it is. Anything that one is good at, and that one practices in order to follow it as a career is their craft. With writing, there are very specific instructions as to how to perfect it....Write, Read, Have others read. Simple. Every book/author out there will say that you have to write as much as you can, you have to get others to read your work along with reading lots of books and getting inspiration etc etc So that's my main aim this year; to write a LOT more. As much as I love writing, since around the age of 8 I've written small things, or had a real difficulty finishing the stories, but thats improved as I've got older, naturally! But I still don't think I've written enough to properly understand my style of writing in order to make it better (its possible no-one ever does).

I'm writing Rediscovering Clarity; my novel still,but I want to make sure that is written in the best way possible so I'm taken breaks to write short stories (what I've been used to) and to write multiple different ones to develop a more distinguished style and to incorporate the work ethic element to writing.

Write.Write.Write.

Depression Testimonials/Interviews

Hi, as my previous post shows I'm making a Documentary on depression, and I'm basically asking for anyone who has suffered or knows someone who has suffered to come forward, anonymously or otherwise and answer some of my questions over email. In fact anyone who would be interested in lending their opinion and answers can contact me at ltxavi@outlook.com. It would be much appreciated. Thanks

Film Assignment Preparation

So here I am in the 2nd year and generally speaking, I'm off to a good start, I'm doing quite a bit of what you would call 'extra-curricular' writing back in college days and I'm having a good time again. The pressure of the first assignment however is looming, and we have to start pretty soon to get the most time! The task itself is to create a documentary between 8 and 12 minutes and its due in at the end of this term, which if I'm not mistaken is just under 3 months now. However, the documentary I'm planning to do is an investigative one into depression, the psychological and scientific effects of it, the personal ones told by sufferers and the perception of it within the general public sphere. There are so many elements to this and a few complexities, along with personal connections to the condition so I really need to be prepared for this project. It's a project that I believe has the potential to be great, and possibly one of the best and personally pride filling things I've done so far, but having that pressure and knowing the possible emotional stress caused by it makes it even more daunting. Preparation for any film is needed, it's stressful I wont lie. The preconceptions of a film course, and the process in general is that its easy and you watch films for inspiration, the latter is partially true but it is not easy. Emotionally its demanding and stressful, and physically tiring at times, but the end product, if its good makes everything worth it and the love of film makes everything you do fascinating and thrilling. So I am excited for this next project, especially because it means so much to me and I know my passion for making this condition more public as a CONDITION and not a selfish means of attention seeking will come across in the film, but it definitely requires even more careful thought and preparation. Never give up, people.