tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70791550515003011012024-03-18T23:35:53.354-04:00Rejected and Alone: A Writer's LifeCheck out my new novel, "Love for Justice" available now on Amazon.Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.comBlogger371125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-57290428070465934972017-03-22T07:25:00.002-04:002017-03-22T07:25:43.727-04:00"Buck up, Little Camper."<div class="MsoNormal">
I got a book in the mail the other day. It wasn’t from Amazon. It was from a friend of mine. There was a note with it describing the career
of the author and drawing parallels to my journey as a writer. It couldn’t have come at a better time, or offered
better encouragement to keep writing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The subtext of the unexpected gift was that even while I was
struggling with my current novel, reading the fine work of Michael Connelly,
and wondering who I thought I was to even try to appear a shelf beside him,
there was someone out there who believed in me and couldn’t wait to read my
next one.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That’s the thing we struggle with, whether we are writers,
artists of another sort, or just trying to make it through life. We feel discouraged, we feel overwhelmed, and
we feel very alone but we aren’t.
Somebody out there is thinking about you, hoping you are okay, and
excited that you are in the world.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Buck up, Little Camper.
Carry on. Tell that mean old
world, “You cannot make me quit.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN1H2NkZ_H-dOuWwvTi4ALfxIh2QRMF_JKMoQ4_uObblDUu6JOCAvYI7WEg47LaJqfuuQnAN_016YofTvWpZX9owNQmhqv7t1nXgypnvUUmcQ13fs1syhCwn_ap65_4MDahnbS7EFLYs8/s1600/BetterOffDead.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN1H2NkZ_H-dOuWwvTi4ALfxIh2QRMF_JKMoQ4_uObblDUu6JOCAvYI7WEg47LaJqfuuQnAN_016YofTvWpZX9owNQmhqv7t1nXgypnvUUmcQ13fs1syhCwn_ap65_4MDahnbS7EFLYs8/s320/BetterOffDead.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Have you read Love for Justice yet? It's available now at <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Love-Justice-Jonathan-Stark/dp/0997682701" target="_blank">Amazon</a>.</span></i></div>
Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-79146888287935150942017-03-13T12:40:00.004-04:002017-03-13T12:40:49.154-04:00I call them Skull Crawlers.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I got talked into going to see Kong: Skull Island this
weekend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn’t too hard, I loved the
original King Kong and am always up for hoping another Kong movie will be
good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The last one was a fairly true
remake and while long at times, still captured most of the core story and was
generally enjoyable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had some concerns
about another remake, of course, not the least of which is the current trend
toward over dosing on CGI in the modern PG-13 action flick, but I can always
close my eyes in the theater and add my voice to the hue and cry against reliance
on processors instead of good writing afterward.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As always, the following observations on the merit of the
story contain light spoilers.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCGibB23F83afUmrnE8mQ_YChHV7X4HWHGfPa0vig5H9FcpNWpMgPFaSm1ByM44_ooXlfEkgNTvzeB6uyN2PFrRccFxOF2zO18bcs5Wqw3cwc7Lt_Sd9ikbZ1MIOwrd_6kSjei5Vsln90/s1600/Kong.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCGibB23F83afUmrnE8mQ_YChHV7X4HWHGfPa0vig5H9FcpNWpMgPFaSm1ByM44_ooXlfEkgNTvzeB6uyN2PFrRccFxOF2zO18bcs5Wqw3cwc7Lt_Sd9ikbZ1MIOwrd_6kSjei5Vsln90/s320/Kong.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I thoroughly enjoyed this film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was exactly what it claimed to be (a PG-13
action movie) and executed itself well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The acting was top notch with John Goodman doing what he does best and
Samuel Jackson channeling Kurtz perfectly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What an amazing idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Heart of
Darkness is one my all-time favorite stories.) And then John Reilly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will never see him as any other character
again.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">There were several good story choices made.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first was setting the action in 1973.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The world we live in today is too far removed
from the original setting of the Kong legend to resonate with younger viewers,
but post-Vietnam isn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The choice lent
a spectacular soundtrack, political conflict that echoes exactly what we are
going through today, and an easier Kurtz connection for those who think Apocalypse
Now was the original story.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The second great choice was reimagining the storyline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve always dozed off when Kong goes to New
York.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No worry about that now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s more Jurassic Park III than Jurassic
Park II.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I liked number three.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Speaking of number three, my #3 left saying,
“I have a new favorite movie.”)</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The sets were outstanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The real-world backdrop was stunning, the actual sets were crafted with
attention to detail and added to the realism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The CGI effects were woven into the real with skill and care.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>CGI.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Present.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Absolutely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>BUT!!!!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And this is important; the effects were not the draw of this film and
were not used in place of plot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just the
opposite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The effects add to the story
telling and draw you in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I actually wasn’t
even aware of the CGI until the climactic battle when the analytical side of my
brain said, “Wow, that’s good use of CGI.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I never once worried about getting a headache or said, “Really?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d rather see 10 real soldiers than 100k
drawn by the computer.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Remember the
original Jurassic Park?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s special
effects like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But with today’s higher
resolution.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Finally I want to talk about what is perhaps the most
impressive part of the entire movie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
dialogue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are a lot of
characters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of them are extremely similar
in appearance and costume.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>None of them
are cardboard cutouts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know who they
are by how they act and what they say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That is extremely good writing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You’d think there was a Gilroy involved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I am very interested in reading the script.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">There are probably purists out there who will lament the
loss of certain story elements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I caught
myself several times saying, “Ah, this where they will have the XYZ scene” only
to find it missing entirely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
original King Kong is still a great movie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I will watch it again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This Kong
is not that Kong and doesn’t even try to be (read: “Not a love story”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a reimagining of the conceit and it’s
told with skill and style standing strongly in its own right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I think this summer’s offerings will have a hard time
matching the total package this popcorn flick is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The IMDB “Parent’s Guide” section is spot on,
make your ultimate decision accordingly.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<br />Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-42712850538475319282017-03-10T10:01:00.001-05:002017-03-10T10:02:51.416-05:00And This Bag Was Just Dancing With Me<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">There's a stoy in screenwriting circles about a floating plastic bag and the inspriation for the film "American Beauty." I like that story, and I found Mr. Alan Ball's script for the film to be extremely well written. I don't see the what he saw when I look at discarded shopping bags, but it's stuck with me and I've wondered about how he must feel in places such as San Francisco that have declared the ubiquitious liter to be detritus-non-gratta.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The following is a work of fiction and did not occur (to the best of my knowledge). Any actual quote of Mr. Ball which I did not fabricate on the spot is intended only as an aid for readers who care to search out what he has to say on the topic of plastic bags using "Ctrl-C" and Google.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP6a_ogmvq_6L8Itl6jp1uJpUqr_RZ-Otlf0XOoquxt8WEJlSPQbpY4WL3-7XHpdlbmC1TgbIfp1PYCGyej7DOo_6xm79RvSGgKD-Ve_nBvWMFu8bJfmOpyIgplV70Ln9uZkuFhYVxvgs/s1600/American-Beauty.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP6a_ogmvq_6L8Itl6jp1uJpUqr_RZ-Otlf0XOoquxt8WEJlSPQbpY4WL3-7XHpdlbmC1TgbIfp1PYCGyej7DOo_6xm79RvSGgKD-Ve_nBvWMFu8bJfmOpyIgplV70Ln9uZkuFhYVxvgs/s320/American-Beauty.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><strong>A Thing of American Beauty</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><em>(by Jonathan Stark, 800 words)</em></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Councilman McTaggart yawned as he shuffled the papers on the
table in front of him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The florescent
lights overhead flickered and the blueish bulb in the third fixture went
out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then it came back on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He looked at Councilwoman Harris on his
right, then Councilman Greene on his left.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">McTaggart cleared his throat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then looked at Councilwoman Harris
again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She looked up from her phone,
said, “Oh, right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sorry.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Harris opened the folder in front of her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’d borrowed it from her daughter and the
sight of the kitten falling of the tree branch on its cover made her heart skip
a beat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That poor cat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Driven by duty to her electorate, she pushed
aside her concern for the wellbeing of the animal and read from the first paper
inside.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">“Next order of business is proposition seventeen dash zero
zero zero six,” said Harris.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>McTaggart
snickered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So did Greene.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They always did when she said “proposition”
and sometimes she’d snicker too but not this time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Zero zero zero six was important.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Harris continued, “The council proposes a ban on the issuance
and use of plastic bags within the city limits by grocery stores, restaurants,
convenience stores, food carts, Yancy’s Lumberyard, and school lunches due to
the unsightly problem of excessive plastic bags on the sides of city streets, in
yards, clogging parks, congesting sidewalks, blocking bus grills, and filling the
shopping carts of homeless people.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">McTaggart said, “All in favor say, ‘Aye.’”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">A well-dressed man transitioning from handsome middle age to
distinguished older gentleman, stood and said, “According to bylaw section
twelve paragraph ‘C’ you must open the proposition for discussion.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">McTaggart and Greene snickered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then McTaggart said, “Everyone is in favor,
no need to discuss.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">“I am not,” said the man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“You don’t realize what you are doing.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Harris said, in her slightly schrillish voice, “Sir, the
plastic bags are an unsightly problem in our city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This prop-“ she stopped, bit her lip with a
sideways glance at McTaggart, “-plan will solve that problem.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">“You may as well solve the problem of flowers,” said the
man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bluish bulb went out again, but
this time with a dramatic pop.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Henry Steed, well ensconced in distinguished gentlemen,
attended every council meeting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His
quiet snoring always comforted the councilmembers, reminded them of the
importance of their work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sudden
interruption in the rhythm of the snoring when Henry awoke at the comparison of
trash to flowers was disconcerting.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Henry said, “Are you mad?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What do flowers have to do with plastic bags?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The other man opened his mouth to speak but stopped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Henry’s face changed, lightened with sudden
realization and agreement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Councilman
McTaggart, my esteemed colleague –“ <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>he
paused, turned to face the man, “Sorry, what’s your name?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">“Alan,” said the man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Alan Ball.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Henry nodded his thanks and then went on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“My esteemed colleague Mr. Ball makes a valid
point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have not included Shane’s
Florist in the ban.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">“The amendment is approved,” said McTaggart, casting a
commanding look at Harris who dutifully wrote ‘Shane’s Florist’ in the margin
of the proposition.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">“That’s not my point at all!” exclaimed Alan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Have you ever seen a plastic bag caught in
the wind?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Drifting along an alley,
dancing on the updrafts and floating down only to be swept further along?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Nobody had.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">“I have,” said Mr. Ball.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“And was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They looked at him strangely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“There’s a Buddhist notion of the miraculous within the mundane, and-“</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Steed interrupted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We’re
all good Presbyterians here, Mr. Ball.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>No need to confuse things.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Alan lost his flow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>McTaggart leaped into the void and dragged the rest of the council with
him.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The ensuing debate ultimately resulted in a series of
amendments that allowed school children to bring their lunches to school in
plastic bags because the council, as eloquently expressed by Councilwoman
Harris, “Did not want to discourage the arts among the young people of our
great city.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Henry Steed, who had been to Canada once, expressed his
displeasure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The plastic bag is
garbage, a thing of American pestilence that should be eradicated.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Mr. Ball said, “You are mistaken.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a thing of American Beauty.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Henry Steed rose from his folding chair, removed a carefully
folded plastic grocery bag from the left breast pocket of his blazer, shook it
open, and tossed it into the air.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The bag hung for a moment, as if orienting to the room, then
gently floated downward only to be caught in the sudden down draft of the overhead
HVAC duct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just as it was about to crash
onto the vinyl tile of the floor, it whooshed toward the council table and rose
on an updraft.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Councilwoman Harris squeaked and covered her mouth. Her eyes were wide, filled with unshed tears, and she shook. Never, in all her days had she been so moved.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">“It’s just Steed’s bag,” thundered McTaggart, oblivious to the miracle he witnessed.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Councilman Greene snickered.</span></div>
Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-55738071394292770832017-03-06T14:08:00.000-05:002017-03-06T14:08:21.423-05:00Who Am I Talking To?<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Split.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The latest
from M. Night Shyamalan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s have a
quick refresher – I’m not a Shyamalan fan boy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I believe The 6<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> Sense was one of the best movies made, even
if you know the twist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought The
Village was a masterful thriller.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
rest?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not so much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I freely admit I didn’t get Lady In the Water
and honestly, did anyone anywhere like Devil?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Truly one of the worst films ever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’m glad to know it wasn’t a career killer but still, I almost didn’t
bother with Split because of it.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCs0dVcnwMzszjosBiVxDszDR-ng7NpL5Vi7SvamZAFgEkXgiqD93c6vvE7SDylXYECajMLwutyJLxJodKbiNnwe5ckvWb2g9AUDQ3yB9R1br6mkK-AP7j-qr_2vi2EA3NHSNpNhJ-oRU/s1600/Split.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCs0dVcnwMzszjosBiVxDszDR-ng7NpL5Vi7SvamZAFgEkXgiqD93c6vvE7SDylXYECajMLwutyJLxJodKbiNnwe5ckvWb2g9AUDQ3yB9R1br6mkK-AP7j-qr_2vi2EA3NHSNpNhJ-oRU/s320/Split.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /><br />
<br /><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">However, #2 told me it was very good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And my wife wanted to see it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So off we went.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">When I first started writing scripts, I read voraciously on
the subject.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the recurring themes
was that I would never watch movies the same way again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Split proved that warning to be true for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Within 5 minutes I was analyzing everything
from the inspiration to the introduction of characters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I kept stopping myself from trying to figure
out what was going to happen because I wanted to enjoy my large popcorn.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Depending on your definition, spoilers follow.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Really.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ll give you a minute in case you read faster than you
process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The characterization was pretty
good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t confuse any of the main
cast and the dialog was extremely well done in the sense that I always knew
which personality was talking, even without costume cues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, the dialogue was not extremely well
done if you’re looking for lines that will become part of pop culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, there were a few lines I found a bit
cheesey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But they never drew me out of
the story far enough I couldn’t get back in.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Split was creepy the way The Village was creepy, a few
gotcha moments and a setting that created tension.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was not a horror movie and the gore was
minimal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My wife suggested that might be
because I’m color blind, there were a few scenes where I didn’t know what
happened because I didn’t see the blood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Still, in this movie the violence was mostly suggested rather than
witnessed.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It took a few twists and turns which played with stereotypes
for the genre and were logically supported, but nothing earth shaking – there
was no big twist like in the better films.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’m also not sure it was entertaining.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was dark in the way Prisoners was dark, but lacked the
resolution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was disappointed by the
ending.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was the general sense of
unease, discomfort even, and depression like his so-so The Happening.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I thought of Prisoners several times while watching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I had the sense that had an unknown
written the film, it would only have been produced by a bit of luck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t say that to take away from the quality
of the story, but to make the point that Split wasn’t any better than many of
the unproduced scripts I’ve read and worse than several.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Perhaps the take-away is aimed squarely at struggling story
tellers – the world is dark and bleak, but somewhere, somebody has the money to
make your movie, whether it’s amazing or just pretty good.</span></div>
Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-89597785655625140602017-03-03T07:36:00.001-05:002017-03-03T07:45:10.817-05:00What Happened to Space?<div class="MsoNormal">
Do remember being a kid and wanting to be an astronaut? I don’t hear that anymore. None of my kids want to be astronauts. None of their friends ever talk about
it. But I did, and so did all of my friends.
I have been wondering where the cut off
was, when it stopped being the great adventure.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBlmULuaistUkQGvtJ-xMKNMWnHclHCzVKo_U7w42J3kX3z-AZfJUd0THInIiLapwQViPIFzilxKFqRc5yxnT2aue15QvknnwSOQGxf8vOVWvn8jIvSPlCf1q3h8DXmlaAZ6RHRSOy8FY/s1600/747+and+shuttle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBlmULuaistUkQGvtJ-xMKNMWnHclHCzVKo_U7w42J3kX3z-AZfJUd0THInIiLapwQViPIFzilxKFqRc5yxnT2aue15QvknnwSOQGxf8vOVWvn8jIvSPlCf1q3h8DXmlaAZ6RHRSOy8FY/s320/747+and+shuttle.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
My first thought was it broke evenly along the generational
line. For my generation and our parents,
space was exciting and still very new.
We knew the names of ships and their crews. I suspect Topps even had collector cards for
the various leagues. Now it’s old hat,
like sailing around the world in a small boat.
Not something many people do, but enough we don’t think anything about
it when somebody does.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then I wondered if the demise of the shuttle program and privatization
of the industry led to decreased interest.
I was in second grade when the first shuttle lifted off and we stopped
classes and gathered to watch the first two scrubbed launch attempts. Everyone was disappointed the actual launch
was in the middle of the night. But we
watched the landings and other launches.
And I watched the reentry and landing of the last shuttle flight on the
TV in my office, felt the weight of history.
Thinking about it now still gives me chills.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My kids didn’t really care.
It meant nothing to them. They
never had toy space ships or a Boeing 747 with a spring launch system for the red
plastic shuttle on its back.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I could blame video games but I’d rather blame
Facebook. Neither one is the likely
culprit. It isn’t a lackadaisical
attitude by my kids either, they want to do big things. They want adventure and meaning. But my oldest wants to explore the dark
depths of caves rather than space, my second to rescue people stranded on ships
in the oceans rather than orbiting planets.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With the success of books and movies like The Martian I
believe there is still a yearning for the great unknown beyond our atmosphere. Just not in the next generation, not the way
it was. My daughter thought The Martian
was great for the same reason she liked The Green Zone (Matt Damon).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Electricity. That’s
what it is. If we turned off the power,
looked up at a night sky unpolluted by city lights, someone in the next
generation would say, “I wonder what’s there?”
And people would go.<o:p></o:p></div>
Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-27543961029109298622017-02-27T07:19:00.001-05:002017-02-27T07:19:50.654-05:00Ore-Ida Then<div class="PadderBetweenControlandBody">
I grew up with Ore-Ida French fries. Now my kids are. Still yummy, now in even more varieties. Curly, tots, extra thin, waffle. Maybe they were always there and I was kept
in the dark? Doesn’t matter. The important thing, for this post, is that I
didn’t make them back then – you know, when TV was black and white and Hi-Fi
was a big deal.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://i.imgflip.com/1bxqpb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="188" src="https://i.imgflip.com/1bxqpb.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe I did make them but didn’t bother with the directions?
I actually rarely read directions in my youth.
I always thought there wasn’t time.
Us “old folks” like to wax rhapsodic about the simple life of the good
old days and maybe that simplicity is why I didn’t need to worry about such
minor details as instructions. More
likely, as I’ve aged, I’ve become a bit more compulsive about things. Things like reading directions. Twice.
Every time. Even when I’m making
something I know by heart. Like pancakes
– ¾ c milk, 1 egg, 1/8 vegetable oil mixed; add 1 c flour, less than 1/3 c
sugar, 1 Ts baking powder, few shakes from the salt shaker, healthy sprinkle of
cinnamon. Mix with wire whisk. Place on hot grill until ready to flip. Flip.
Cook until you remember there are pancakes on the griddle.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I digress. This is
about Ore-Ida.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you have a bag these tasty treats in the freezer, I
encourage you to get it out and read the directions. Then come back and tell me if I’m crazy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are directions for cooking ½ bag. There are directions for cooking ¾ of the
bag. That’s it. There are no directions for cooking the
entire bag. No directions for cooking ¼
of the bag. I’m a smart guy, I can
figure out that I should double everything to cook the whole bag but what do I
do with the ¼ left over after cooking 3/4?
(Did you react in horror? I’m not
actually crazy. I know that I’m not
supposed to double the ½ bag cooking time for the whole bag…)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But what am I supposed to do for the missing ¼? Is that considered advanced? The sort of thing only experienced Ore-Ida
re-heaters would ever attempt? Is it
some sort of marketing scheme aimed at tricking engineers into buying 2 bags?
(So when they cook ¾ of one, they have to cook ¾ of a second so there will be ½
left.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Does anybody know?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Does anybody care?<o:p></o:p></div>
Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-90530170547508171262017-02-16T15:46:00.003-05:002017-03-06T14:03:53.610-05:00Love for JusticeIt's happened. For real this time. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Love-Justice-Jonathan-Stark/dp/0997682701/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1488826794&sr=8-1&keywords=love+for+justice+by+jonathan+stark" target="_blank">Love for Justice</a> has entered the world. I know this because instead of holding a "proof," I am now holding proof. My author copies.<br />
<br />
<br />
My blog has always been sort of not quite the usual author's blog and I plan to continue it as such. Writing is challenging business and there are a million reasons why nobody should ever pick up the proverbial pen and start. But we do anyway and I hope that my story, as well as my stories, are able to inpsire and encourage others to take on the challenge, to follow the dream, and press on toward the mark. So R&A will stay as it always has rather than turn into the commericial site of an elusive best selling author. (Please help make me a best selling author...)<br />
<br />
<br />
I have to be completely honest, which is hard for a fiction writer who grew up hearing influential adults confide that they, "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." I did not think I would ever see a novel of mine published.<br />
<br />
<br />
I had no idea how much work was going to be inovlved. I'm not saying I wouldn't have written it anyway, but holy cow. The revisions take a long time and they are hard. And you're never actually done until you say, "Okay, that's it, it's good enough." (Every book out there is published to that standard.)<br />
<br />
<br />
It took nearly as long to get from finished draft to publication and that's because I have a great publisher who loved my book from the beginning. If I'd had to struggle to find a pulisher and/or agent, it might still be in limbo. There is a lot of work to get from "The End" to "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Love-Justice-Jonathan-Stark/dp/0997682701/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1488826794&sr=8-1&keywords=love+for+justice+by+jonathan+stark" target="_blank">Now on Amazaon</a>."<br />
<br />
<br />
The good news is that I'm still not done. Now that's its available, I have to promote it and that's something I don't know anything about. Because I never thought I'd get here.<br />
<br />Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-50238829170150381192016-12-30T09:11:00.001-05:002016-12-30T09:11:35.288-05:00Not Published!!!!Apparently I am not yet published. The errors discovered in the proof copy have not yet been corrected and the print run has not occurred. Therefore, Amazon now indicates the book is not available.<br />
<br />
I'm sorry for the confusion and misinformation. I continue to learn about this business.<br />
<br />
Word of the day: perseverance.<br />
<br />
Have a happy new year. I will be eating pigs in a blanket.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7qTsDOZdsFxsuAU8UM7zlakKPv-2SzFyblS2LHhGojBwXfYGIip9rPfLKqI5WcuVSfbCgFZhvLKI7jZedjM2pIIXcJJIki8R3foAiE5Obvf73N-9FDh3baZ8mEiq8nreqDILDoGO_mNc/s1600/pigblanket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7qTsDOZdsFxsuAU8UM7zlakKPv-2SzFyblS2LHhGojBwXfYGIip9rPfLKqI5WcuVSfbCgFZhvLKI7jZedjM2pIIXcJJIki8R3foAiE5Obvf73N-9FDh3baZ8mEiq8nreqDILDoGO_mNc/s320/pigblanket.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-85717629709302560062016-12-27T10:26:00.004-05:002016-12-27T10:26:54.792-05:00PUBLISHED!!!Greetings, True Believers.<br />
<br />
I know I used exclamation marks, but can you blame me? I mean, really, isn't this the sort of thing they are for?<br />
<br />
"<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Love-Justice-Jonathan-Stark/dp/0997682701/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1482852270&sr=8-16&keywords=love+for+justice" target="_blank">Love for Justice</a>" print edition is available on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Love-Justice-Jonathan-Stark/dp/0997682701/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1482852270&sr=8-16&keywords=love+for+justice" target="_blank">Amazon</a>. A print book. I held the proof copy in my hand. Hand delivered by my publisher. This is literally a dream come true.<br />
<br />
Which brings me back to the purpose of this blog...<br />
<br />
Don't quit. Ever.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Love-Justice-Jonathan-Stark/dp/0997682701/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1482852270&sr=8-16&keywords=love+for+justice" target="_blank"><img src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41a1Wx6JmDL._SS140_SH35_.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-69471222361899633992015-01-06T06:09:00.000-05:002015-01-06T06:09:00.084-05:00"Watch it, Bub."<div class="MsoNormal">
There was a giant crashing sound at my house last
night. I didn’t hear it. Everyone else did. They said, “Dad, what was that giant crashing
sound?” I said, “I didn’t hear it.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There have been a lot of giant crashing sounds at my house
over the years. Once it was a
transformer a few houses down. Another
time it was my neighbor crashing her car into a tree across the street. Most recently it was a tree falling onto my
fence. That was the week before
Christmas.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because the crashing sounds usually mean something has
crashed and I’m always late to the party because I don’t check, I decided to
check. Turns out the noise last night
was a tree crashing across my fence and into my neighbor’s house. I live on a corner so what actually happened
was one neighbor’s tree fell across two section of my fence (corner) and across
the yard of my other neighbor reaching up their deck and against their house.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Very exciting -- for the first smartest dog who was outside
when it happened.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/moviemom/files/2013/07/the-wolverine-picture10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/moviemom/files/2013/07/the-wolverine-picture10.jpg" height="252" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Another exciting thing I saw last night was “The Wolverine”
which really surprised me. I wasn’t
expecting much more than an over-the-top CGI sendoff. Turns out it was actually a movie with a
story. Now, in the interest of full
disclosure, I should tell you that there is a copy of Wolverine #1 safely
stowed away in a secret hiding place in my bedroom. (Just like when I was 18 and bought it.) But don’t dismiss me as just another fan-boy,
rather, you should recognize that I’m old school and especially critical of how
the big screen treats my favorite characters.
Case in point – there hasn’t been a single Punisher film that I’ve
liked.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://wolverine.x-knights.com/forsale/rs1f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://wolverine.x-knights.com/forsale/rs1f.jpg" height="320" width="208" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Wolverine offered honest character development, a real
and complex storyline involving solid A and B plots, and kept the CGI in the
background. Until the last twenty
minutes at which point we were rudely reminded that it was a comic book film in
much the same way that James Cameron’s Titanic was interrupted by an iceberg. But I can’t fault Marvel. It was consistent with the character’s
tradition and my goodness, we went over an hour and a half with a story that
was part Inception, part Karate Kid II, and part Skyfall.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Don’t just pop it in for the kids if you haven’t seen
it. There was a lot of discussion when
it came out about the PG-13 rating. The
IMDB parental advisory is accurate but I’d add the caveat that nothing was
gratuitous. Wolverine is a haunted
character and the film captures that.<o:p></o:p></div>
Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-68976383382117090802014-12-30T08:21:00.001-05:002014-12-30T08:21:56.449-05:00Do Not Quit. Ever.<div class="MsoNormal">
The blog has been silent for a bit. I’ve been considering whether or not to keep
it going. It’s got a cool name, but as
anyone who watched “The Phantom Menace” knows, it takes far more than a cool
name to make a good product.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The goal of Rejected and Alone has, all along, has been to
keep me writing. What I’m finding is
that it now keeps me from writing. Every
post takes away from the bigger projects.
Since the end goal is to produce professional, saleable work, it makes
sense (personally) to shift my effort into those projects – like the two novel
drafts I’ve finished but not finished or the score of screenplay ideas that
need to be broken, written, and polished.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve gotten some very positive rejection letters on my short
stories with comments that tell me I’m close.
So. Very. Close.
I’m ready to close that deal. And
I plan to publish a novel this year. Commercial
ventures, unlike the blog which I have pledged (even if only to myself) to keep
ad free.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So I was going to pull the plug. After all, how many of you are actually
reading these words because you want to be better authors? How many times do you want to read me saying
the same things in different words?
Listen, I can sum up the message of my blog in four words. Do not quit.
Ever. Everything else is just me
talking and you being polite – and hopefully entertained.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://content.artofmanliness.com/uploads/2009/03/border-collie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://content.artofmanliness.com/uploads/2009/03/border-collie.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">First smartest dog</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then I got an email comment from a stranger who liked some
of the content. And some of you have
been asking what happened – am I alright?
Why has the blog been silent? I
talked to my wife about my plans to shut down R&A and she said, “What? You can’t do that.” Hmm.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How about this. How
about one post a week? I’m thinking
Tuesdays. Maybe because today is
Tuesday, maybe because Tuesday is a day that needs a little something. Doug Richardson posts one day a week and I really
like his format.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So here is my pledge for Rejected and Alone, version
2015. One post a week. And it will make you smile. To make sure you don’t miss it, please get an
email subscription (there’s a link at the bottom of this page).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This was all pretty serious and nobody has smiled yet. I could say it isn’t 2015 yet, which would
make some of you laugh, but instead I’ll tell you a funny story.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yesterday was my last day of vacation. It was a good day and I cooked a dinner of
twice roasted potatoes, creamed sweat corn, a roasted onion (butter and beef bouillon)
and grilled rib eye. The dogs get very
confused when I cook. I’m not the sort
to toss them scraps. Doesn’t keep the
third smartest from hoping though. Thing
is, she’s terrified of pretty much everything, even Norah Jones on the Pandora,
so when I was chopping the potatoes she wouldn’t come over and get the ones
that fell on the floor.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then I was rushing in and out between the skillet (olive
oil, parsley, ground black pepper with the roasted potatoes) and the
grill. She kept smacking into the
cabinets to get out of my way. The first
smartest dog was jumping over her. The second
smartest did some barking. I put them
out. They still didn’t know what to do. I felt bad for them, the steaks looked
amazing, so I dropped a bouillon cube into their big water dish.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That was a trick because they catch really well, I had to
chase them away from the bowl. Then they
rushed up to see what it was I’d dropped in.
I laughed out loud watching them try to figure out how to get to the
cube at the bottom of the deep bowl.
They started drinking like crazy and I thought for a minute they were
going to drink it all, just to get to the cube.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
But they didn’t. The
first smartest was distracted by a tennis ball and the third smartest ran away
when I clicked the igniter of the grill.
Maybe you had to be there.<o:p></o:p></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn-www.dailypuppy.com/media/dogs/anonymous/koko_blacklab11.jpg_w450.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://cdn-www.dailypuppy.com/media/dogs/anonymous/koko_blacklab11.jpg_w450.jpg" height="224" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Third smartest dog</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-36519790201076618342014-12-03T10:06:00.001-05:002014-12-03T10:06:01.372-05:00Kent Haruf speaks the truth<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://bookpeopleblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/kent-haruf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" closure_lm_550301="null" eta="true" height="250" src="https://bookpeopleblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/kent-haruf.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I heard a wonderful <a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/12/02/367938648/kent-haruf-author-of-moving-colorado-set-novels-dies-at-71" target="_blank">excerpt from an interview</a> of the now deceased author Kent Haruf.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said that in his experience there is no shortage of creative writing students with talent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The shortage is in creative writing students who are willing to put in the work required to write something truly good.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It was a fine articulation of a truth you must come to terms with if you plan to succeed in the arts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I spent a month writing a short novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m finishing up the first draft now, probably by Friday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>60k words written as fast I can go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The next part is where the work is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll have to take that mass of gobbly guck and refine it into something worthy of your time. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s a lot of work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s so much work that the first draft of the short novel I wrote last year sits idly on my hard drive, taunting me, telling me I’m not a pro yet because I’m not willing to go back and do the hard part.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Thousands of people finished novels during NaNoWriMo this year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suspect that the published results will show Mr. Haruf to be correct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only a few of the authors will be willing to put in the work required to write something truly good.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I expect to be one of them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Don’t forget, you can subscribe to Rejected and Alone and receive each post delivered directly to your inbox.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Want to comment?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just click on the link in the email and it will bring you to the page.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-91547788941581864222014-12-01T08:20:00.001-05:002014-12-01T08:20:40.843-05:00Bad Luck<div class="MsoNormal">
Finished NaNoWriMo.
Now I need to finish the novel, probably another 10k words or so. Should be Thursday if I can keep the NaNo
pace up. Also ran a 5k with my
family. It’s been 17 years since I ran
in an organized race and this one was very crowded. It was a little frustrating at first but
after about ½ a mile the pack sort of settled and then we spent the rest of the
time passing people. That felt pretty
good.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thought I’d try something different for today’s story.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hell3_7253.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hell3_7253.jpg" height="296" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Bad Luck</b><br />
<i>by Jon Stark<br />
December, 2014; about 700 words</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Squids came about five years ago, best we can figure. Bounced off Mars and smashed into the
moon. Broke it and their ship. Of course at the time we thought they did it
on purpose and all those smaller ships descending on us were attack craft.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It didn’t help that they took out a U.S. carrier group
somewhere in the North Atlantic. Or that
one of them burned into Beijing. Sort of
galvanized our resistance, global cooperation kind of thing. It took two years and five billion people to
beat them. Worst luck we ever had. As a race.
Squids killed clean.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thing we didn’t know in time was that the Squids weren’t
invading – those little ships were lifeboats and they were running. Didn’t know that until the Cha’ah showed
up. We were trying to put things back
together, one hand on the wall and the other on our extraterrestrial blast
rifles so to speak, always with an eye overhead. Wondering when round two was going to start.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We didn’t know there wouldn’t be a round two, that we’d
destroyed the last of the Squids.
Ironic. The Cha’ah pulled Pluto
into Neptune’s orbit and then recycled it into a forward operating base. They put an Illuminator in orbit around
Jupiter and focused the ten jiggawatt beam on earth. You want night? Go underground. There’s not a dark place left on our planet. Seasons were messed up, clocks were already
fried, we sort of lost track of when we were.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Squids were NBA sized -- tall aliens with tentacles and
beaks – but they had faces and spoke.
They wore suits and carried their weapons. And we could kill them. The Cha’ah are bugs. Big, nasty, spidery things -- all legs and
hair and eyeballs. They’ve got these antennae
things that sort of flop around and they chatter. Clicks and whirs all the time. They sound like tap dancers or drill sergeants
when they walk on our ruined streets, clattering on claws and they swarm
everywhere and I’ll tell you, doesn’t matter how you feel about spiders, they
are terrifying.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Our weapons didn’t seem to touch them. Worse, the best weapons we had were captured
from the Squids and they had been beaten soundly by the Cha’ah. You know how in the movies when the zombies
or vampires or aliens showed up there was a guy, either one of the heroes or
somebody they found, that knew how to kill the evil? The guy who would say, “Garlic doesn’t work
on them. But Holy water does.” Well, that guy hasn’t shown up. Not here.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And if there’s a secret base somewhere with a captured Cha’ah
ship that we’re reverse engineering, nobody has told me. Nukes can’t stop them. The President of the United States leading a
fighter attack can’t stop them. The
unbreakable human spirit can’t stop them.
Even the common cold seems to be powerless against them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They just march over us.
They suck the life out of you if they touch you. They call down fire from orbital systems if
you run from them. We’re out of
food. There’s disease we can’t
cure. The oceans have nearly boiled
away. I’m not sure we’ll be able to make
it even if we beat them back.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Not that there’s any chance of that. We’ve been running and hiding and they just
keep coming like a line of tanks advancing through the desert. We run from hole to hole but none of them are
deep enough. There was one place --
might have been Colorado but who knows – where we hooked up with a military
unit for a few days. They had a Colonel
who told us that he’d heard about somebody standing against the Cha’ah. Somewhere in Europe. Albania or Romania or something. A group came out of the mountains and when
the aliens attacked they were beaten by a man who used their own power against
them. Sounds too good to be true.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sounds like a dying man grasping at straws to keep up the
morale of his troops. They fought well,
when the bugs dropped in on us. Left us
wandering again. But now we’re wandering
east. It’s a long walk to Moldova but
that’s good. A man needs direction, some
sort of purpose, to keep going. To get
up in the morning and not quit. To
fight.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
And who knows? Maybe
there is a secret base somewhere. Or a
man that has power against the scourge destroying the world.<o:p></o:p></div>
Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-13601253284688048892014-11-24T08:21:00.001-05:002014-11-24T08:21:09.749-05:00Snapping the Pieces Together<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://static.flickr.com/124/323535183_8f6f353da3.jpg?v=0" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://static.flickr.com/124/323535183_8f6f353da3.jpg?v=0" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Snapping the Pieces Together</b><i>
by Jon Stark<br />
November, 2014, about 1100 words<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Blustery is probably the best word, because the wind was
fierce and when you’re on the corner of 31<sup>st</sup> and Avenue of the
Americas it’s hard to find someone to help you.
There was one nice man but he apologized, said he was from Brooklyn, and
had no idea where Garrett’s was.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you have never been to New York City than you can’t
imagine how big it is. Not really. You can’t sympathize with the man from
Brooklyn who didn’t have a clue about the iconic popcorn shop that I hadn’t
even heard of before this trip. And I lived
there for years. Brooklyn, not
Manhattan.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Which makes another interesting point. If you’ve never lived in New York City you
don’t know how small it is. You know how
Legos all sort of snap together and make up interesting things but all the
interesting things – death stars and Hogwarts and race cars – are made up of
the same blocks? That’s New York. A thousand small towns where everybody knows
everybody all snapped together and connected by a half dozen bridges and
tunnels into a 7 million person metropolis.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t live there anymore.
And my girlfriend said that when I came back I’d better have a bag of
caramel corn from Garrett’s. Apparently,
to her, Garrett’s is New York. I have
another friend who told me to make sure I had a knish. “It isn’t a trip to New York without having a
good knish.” For me it is. I don’t like them. Maybe a slice from Cosimo’s or D’Angelo’s but
I didn’t bother with that this trip, New York isn’t about the food. Not once you’re from there.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Not that I was ever from Manhattan, but I spent a lot of
time in the lower part, down by Battery Park and Pearl Street and the
towers. That’s New York to me. They’re gone now. What they’ve put back is a sign of the city’s
decline. They dress it up with fancy
language, but the truth is obvious. If
New York was still the center of the universe and a place of opportunity and
growth, they’d have built something big.
Real Estate that valuable wouldn’t have been used for a memorial.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Don’t get me wrong, I think a memorial is good. When I was dating Toni -- when I lived in
Brooklyn --she and Mike’s wife had to go across the bridge for a procedure so
Mikel and I went too. And her son
Brandon. He was probably about
three. I didn’t know anything about
being a father, wasn’t interested in being a father, but Mike was so it was a
good day. Sometimes I wonder if Brandon
remembers that trip or if we were just part of the blur of faces that came in
and out of his mother’s life.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The twin towers of the World Trade Center were huge. You know what I mean if you’ve ever stood at
the foot of them and looked up. I
remember one time driving across the Brooklyn Bridge and seeing the towers
disappear into a cloudbank only to emerge into bright sunlight a few hundred
feet later. They were like mountains,
sheer unassailable cliff faces rising from the bedrock with more concrete and
glass than my hometown. We wandered in
their shadow and stumbled across a firehouse.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There was no Dalmatian but the young men working there were friendly
and went out of their way to show Brandon everything there was to know about
their truck and the garage. They even
took us all upstairs to see the barracks and kitchen.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think of those men every time I see smoke in the
towers. I hope they transferred before
September. It doesn’t change the tragedy
of what happened but maybe the people who died weren’t as nice. Bad things should happen to bad people.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There was a girl I knew who worked there. In the towers, not the fire house. Her name was Tricia and she liked Pinot Noir
and I couldn’t afford to take her out again.
We’d meet socially on occasion and I liked to think she always wanted me
to ask again. I almost did a couple of
times, but she was out of my league. Or
I was just scared.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I stood at the construction site of what used to be the
towers I overheard an old woman complaining to her daughter and grandchildren
that she’d never been to the top of the towers.
She’d had the chance but didn’t want to spend the $17. It was a regret, she said. Don’t be cheap when life offers you a chance
for something wonderful.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It made me think of Tricia.
I don’t usually think of her when I see the towers. But it did then. Her office was above the line. Impossibly high. I thought about her fear. Her terrible choice. I think she would have jumped. I looked at the street, the broken sidewalk where
I stood and wondered if maybe that was where she landed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Or someone else. I
was suddenly overwhelmed and my knees buckled and the city around me became a
blur and I had to get out and I couldn’t understand how the woman could
complain about her life being incomplete when she was still alive and how could
anyone blow their horn in impatience there, in the cramped quarters of the
final resting place of thousands of souls who had loved the city and hated the
city and gone to work excited or hung over and had plans for weddings or
birthdays or were expecting children or grandchildren and it made me terribly
sad.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And that was New York to me, not knish and certainly not
Garrett’s Gourmet Popcorn but here I was, wind tearing at my ears and killing
time before my train following directions on my iPhone that told me I was right
there but I couldn’t see it. The man
from Brooklyn couldn’t see it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then I did see it.
I’d over looked the door a hundred times. You know how it is, if you’ve ever looked for
a special place in New York. No
awning. No real store front. Just a door and a window and a small sign
that said, “Garrett’s.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The door was open. A
woman held it for a family that must have been from North Dakota because they
were in shirt sleeves and the rest of the world was freezing and I saw her face
and it was Tricia and she was alive.<o:p></o:p></div>
Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-50248009390741578332014-11-17T08:09:00.002-05:002014-11-17T08:09:11.526-05:00Strings Attached<div class="MsoNormal">
I hope you enjoy today’s no-frills story.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXHG7N9KHJ1TI9MSKRm4PFom5KQnvo8_5Nh2ucD4-Uk9I2MsdJjm3ypJ1Wcfe4_znqS4KaIfr4QsZNlBlddESolQdtboC2yI34yu3gODggZpzO7PhOTOVCQregJPLE3yQNnGDwhyphenhyphen0MI6Qr/s1600/Add+Golden+Apple+Garlic.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXHG7N9KHJ1TI9MSKRm4PFom5KQnvo8_5Nh2ucD4-Uk9I2MsdJjm3ypJ1Wcfe4_znqS4KaIfr4QsZNlBlddESolQdtboC2yI34yu3gODggZpzO7PhOTOVCQregJPLE3yQNnGDwhyphenhyphen0MI6Qr/s1600/Add+Golden+Apple+Garlic.JPG" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Strings Attached<br />
</b>by Jon Stark<br />
November, 2014<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Just us?” Stephanie
smiled. His voice had that power. It did other things too. If she was fourteen she’d be up until
midnight listening to his radio show. That
she hadn’t been fourteen in twenty years and he wasn’t a DJ didn’t diminish the
fantasy in the least.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He always dressed well, one of the many traits she
admired. She took fact that he was
wearing the tie she’d bought him for his birthday as a good omen. She said, “You look good in that tie.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He looked down at it.
“Thank you. I think my kids got
it for me a couple of Father’s days ago.”
She frowned, almost corrected him, was distracted by his eyes. Oh, those eyes. He said something about the restaurant being
a nice place.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was a nice place.
She didn’t remember it being so expensive. She’d wanted nice, but the prices. How did they stay in business? There was hardly anyone even there. When the waiter came she ordered soup. Not even with a sandwich or salad.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He ordered the Beef au Jus without hesitation. It made her shiver. He was a hunter, a strong meat eating man,
confident with what he wanted and rich enough to get it. He hadn’t even looked at the menu. This was his kind of world.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They made small talk.
Mostly he talked. And
smiled. He could be reciting the Oxford
Dictionary for all she cared. As long as
it was the unabridged version so that it would take longer. Watching the big words roll off his tongue,
between lips that had been sculpted by some divine agent.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He paused when the food arrived. She made her move. Asked how he was getting on with his family
out of town. Through a mouthful, slow
trickle of au Jus on his chin, he said, “I’m not going hungry.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Her turn. A nod. Then, “You sure? I’ve got the afternoon off.” She hadn’t practiced the words, exactly, but
she’d been working on the tone. And the
look. Combined with the outfit she’d
bought on Tuesday he got the message.
Knife and fork stopped moving.
She could barely hear him over the rush of blood through her ears.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Steph, I hope I didn’t give you the wrong idea.” That wasn’t his line. He was saying it wrong. She missed most of the rest of what he
said. The crackers were stale. $30 for a bowl of soup and the crackers were
stale. It made her so angry. “… what you’re offering. I’m flattered, truly, but it isn’t what I
want.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“What about what I want?” she said. It sounded harsh, even childish. She hadn’t practiced this at all. How could he be saying that?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He shook his head. “What
about what Leslie wants?” Our kids?” So he’d thought about it. She tried to get back to before, to when she
had him. “I’m not like that. Never have been. Never even thought about it.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That couldn’t be true.
She didn’t want it to be true.
Those eyes. They said it was
true. And the crackers. Could it get any worse? She needed something. Tears were dangerously close. He had to give her something. “What if you didn’t have Leslie? What if there were no kids? What then?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He did her the courtesy of thinking about it. She thought he might even be appraising her,
appreciating the effort she’d put into her hair.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“If I hadn’t found Leslie?
Was unattached?” She nodded, encouraging
him. “I think I would probably be very
interested. You’re a remarkable woman.” The words washed over her, cleansed her,
warmed her. She forgot about the
crackers. Move the conversation on. Worked on getting back to normal. He played along. Nothing had happened.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
She thought about what he said, nodding as he spoke now but
not really paying attention. If there was
no Leslie he’d be interested. She didn’t
remember slipping the knife into her purse when the check came, but fishing for
her keys back at the car, wondering where to go now that she had a free
afternoon, it was there.<o:p></o:p></div>
Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-47671172052148000642014-11-14T08:03:00.001-05:002014-11-14T08:03:42.223-05:00Different isn't bad when it's done well<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m reading a John Hart novel. I’m writing my own novel. (Not nearly as good as his.) It’s really showing me just how different
novels and screenplays are. He’ll spend
two paragraphs describing a scene, vividly and well, but in a screenplay I’d have
to do it with a single sentence, reduce it to the most visceral part. That’s the advantage and bane of many
pages. I’m a feature length script into
the book and have barely passed the introduction. It’s why books are almost always better than
films.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m playing a game with the book. It’s called, “How would I turn this
masterwork into a screenplay?” It’s
making me do the sort of analysis that high school English teachers dream
about. BTW – Mrs. Odell, if you are
reading this, I still don’t think you’re right about the black pot in <i>Red Pony</i> but I’m mature enough now to
let it go.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Novels are hard to transpose to screen. That’s why a lot of films start with the
words, “Based on the short story <i>XYZ</i>.” Last weekend I watched a movie based on a
children’s book. It was nothing like the
book. Really. Not the least bit. That’s okay.
<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1698641/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt" target="_blank">Alexander’s Bad Day</a> was still fun.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/25/ALEXANDER_TERRIBLE_HORRIBLE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/25/ALEXANDER_TERRIBLE_HORRIBLE.jpg" height="243" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you like Steve Carell, you will like the movie. If you don’t?
You won’t. I haven’t met anyone
who is indifferent about him (sort of like Woody Allen) so I don’t see a need
to comment on that further. Instead, let’s
look at book to screen conversion.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Similarities:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1 * Almost the same title.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
* Has a character named Alexander.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Differences (described from movie):<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1 * Doesn’t take place over a single day.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2 * Has magic involving birthday wish.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->3 * Takes place in the burbs.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->4 * Alex isn’t the guy with the bad day.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->5 * Has crocodiles and male strippers.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->6 * Is about Steve Carell.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s sort of like how <i>The
Perfect Storm</i> is based on a true story but 75% of it is a total
fabrication, including most of the conflict and character development.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I loved it because it was fun and exactly what was advertised. Nobody in it expected to win an Oscar. My wife
called it her new favorite movie.
Different isn’t bad when it’s done well.<o:p></o:p></div>
Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-35406349724037782402014-11-12T07:42:00.001-05:002014-11-12T07:42:33.087-05:00Creation is an act of will.<div class="MsoNormal">
I was talking about NaNo with a friend of mine the other day
– he decided not to participate “this year” – and another acquaintance of ours
joined in. He was surprised that I
wrote, then wasn’t. But he did ask an
insightful question, even if it is common for those of us with a second,
non-writing job.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Where do you find the time to write a novel too?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I said, “Usually I write screen plays and they aren’t quite
as long.” That was a joke but I don’t
think anybody else got it. I then told
him, “I ride the train.” ‘Nuff said, that’s
2 hours a day where my choices are limited.
He nodded, like that was all there was too it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thing is, it isn’t. I
used to say that if I rode the train I’d write a novel. Said it for years. Then I started riding the train and after a
couple of weeks I actually tried to write a novel. Two days in a row. Then I stopped. Went back to reading and playing games. Did that for over a year.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What I’ve learned is that creative art is something you make
time for. The same way you make time for
going to DMV or grocery shopping. In the
novel, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” Phillip Dick gives us the idea of
kibble – stuff that fills all available space but has no value or purpose. Our schedules fill with kibble, can be
over-run by kibble.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve just come off a very nice break, a five day weekend if
you will. (An expression I really don’t
like but seem to use anyway.) No train. No agenda.
Still wrote. It was about showing
up. Yesterday I showed up three times,
wrote for about an hour each time. Got
2800 words. Day before? Only showed up once. Got about 1k – split it between the blog and
the project.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You get what you put in.
If you like the idea of writing or the act of writing itself is all you’re
after, feel free to show up when you find time.
But if you want to actually create something, finish it, then you’ll
have to make the time.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And show up.
Otherwise the kibble will stifle you.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Sign up for email
delivery of this blog and never miss a post or worry about losing the
address. Click on the link at the bottom
of this page and enter your email. It’s
really that simple.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-6996765804259657432014-11-10T09:01:00.000-05:002014-11-10T09:01:06.160-05:00Somebody, somewhere.<div class="MsoNormal">
I sat down to work on my NaNo project and remembered it was
Monday. Story time.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Untitled<br />
by Jon Stark, November 2014<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Henry drove east. The
fading sunlight blinded the folks coming at him, swerving a bit here and there,
creeping over the yellow, not in a dangerous way but he was glad to have it at
his back. Gave him a Red Baron sort of
confidence. And a red tint to the world,
maybe more orange. Either way, it was on
the way out and reminded him of the body in the car.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He was okay driving with a body. He’d been on the detail back in ’90, driving
a half-track through the desert loaded down with bodies. Didn’t know them. Didn’t want to know them. Some of the guys freaked out. Davis walked all the way from Nasiriyah to Kuwait
just so he wouldn’t be with the corpses in the truck. Henry was just thankful to be driving away
from the killing and out in the desert there no SCUD drills.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Stateside was different.
He and Donna were married during his tour at Ft. Benning and then with
the baby he decided not to re-up. Didn’t
have a lot of call for an infantryman in the civilian world. School didn’t suit him although he did end up
taking a custodial shift at the high school.
He also worked part time for his brother who, for some gruesome and
inexplicable reason, had purchased a mortuary business.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Henry did a lot of driving for his brother. Picked up bodies, delivered bodies. He made a few runs to Florida. Even went way out to St. Louis one time. That was the trip he started talking to them. It was a long way. And a soldier. He felt like they had something, some sort of
a connection. He wanted to encourage the
boy, thank him, tell him it was going to be okay down here.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was a good chat.
He had a few others, over the years, on those long stretches of
interstate between bubbles of ticky tacky.
He liked talking to them. They
listened, gave him time to think through what he was trying to say.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Henry didn’t talk now though. Nothing left to say, really. Not to this one. She sort of looked asleep, headlights sweeping
across her face. He drove on long after
they should have been home. The ride was
nice. Traffic wasn’t too bad. The company was good. And he’d driven for his brother. He knew what would happen when he finally did
stop.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
And he wasn’t ready for that yet.<o:p></o:p></div>
Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-90272366021719549032014-11-07T08:01:00.000-05:002014-11-07T08:01:05.609-05:00Gordon Bombay. Dream chaser.<div class="MsoNormal">
We watched The Mighty Ducks.
It has held up well. Except for the
hair. My goodness and people make fun of
the eighties. Emilio Estevez was at the top
of his game and turned in a typical EE performance. There was nothing the least bit surprising
about the movie or story and it didn’t matter.
It was just plain fun.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0JDFh85CHCg/hqdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0JDFh85CHCg/hqdefault.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
And let’s face it, you don’t watch a sports movie with kids
in it if you are looking for plot twists and surprises. #3 summed it up best when he said, “It was
pretty good. I mean, it’s a movie about
sports so you know what’s going to happen, but there aren’t very many about
hockey so it was cool.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you’ve studied screenwriting at all you’re familiar with
the “Same but different” mantra. TMD
delivers on that and manages to somehow rise above most of the other films in
the genre. Interestingly, the story is
about learning to play by the rules and the triumph of everyman over the
wealthy. Team work is a distant
backseat. It’s there, but you’re fare
more likely to hear, “Get out of here, Cake Eater,” than “That’s what teammates
do for each other.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe it’s because I’m reading Steven Pressfield’s “The War
of Art,” but I thought it was interesting that in the movie, Gordon (Emilio)
leaves a high paying job on principle and then pursues the crazy dream of
becoming a professional hockey player.
It plays well and gives us a wonderfully satisfying ending that everyone
loves BUT if Gordon was our friend, would we encourage him to quit the law firm
and follow the dream?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you’re a writer, you are shaking your head and laughing. It doesn’t work like that at all. Unless you are blessed as I am with family
and friends and who really think I can do this.<o:p></o:p></div>
Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-63065366488931766242014-11-05T07:46:00.003-05:002014-11-05T07:46:46.298-05:00Children's theater<div class="MsoNormal">
There is something truly special about seeing your work
brought to life. I’m fortunate to be
enjoying a second helping of that specialness.
You may recall that last year I wrote a Christmas play that the teens in
our church performed. This year –
surprise, surprise -- I’m doing a reprise.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Not a true reprise, the story is completely different, more
like Fierce Creatures as a reprise of A Fish Called Wanda. (When I saw Wanda, I was a middle teen
watching it with a lot of old (70+) people and was horrified that they were
laughing at the sex jokes.) What I mean
is, the cast is mostly the same even though the story is not.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Working with the actors is great because you can see what
works and what doesn’t. The kids laugh
at me because they’ll deliver an exchange perfectly and I’ll bust out laughing –
it’s funny – and they’re all like, “Why are you laughing? Didn’t you write this?” and I’m all like, “Yes
and I thought it was funny then but you guys nailed it and it’s hysterical!”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What really struck me this year was how little direction the
actors needed for the proper way to deliver their lines. They knew, from the words and context,
exactly how to say it. I wasn’t that
good last year. This is proof-positive
that I’m getting better.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you want your very own copy of “You Don’t See That Every
Day,” send me and email.<o:p></o:p></div>
Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-20359603743987219872014-11-03T08:11:00.001-05:002014-11-03T08:11:21.184-05:00What Guy?<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s November, that magical time of year when thousands take
to the proverbial quill and parchment to craft the next great American
novel. But not me, I’m going for the
next commercially successful American novel.
If you have any interest at all in writing the long form, please give
serious consideration to participating in NANOWRIMO. There is something magical about the shared
experience and there’s a ton of encouragement floating around. You might not write something great, but you have
the best chance ever of finishing and that really does mean something. I’m off to a reasonable start and it’s funny
how different year 2 is.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I plan to keep the blog going during the month. I remember last year getting a bit short on
time and skipping out on a couple of entries.
This year I’m more professional.
And I fully expect to get blocked along the way so I’ll have plenty of
opportunity to write posts instead of prose.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anyhoo, on with today’s original fiction inspired by a
conversation I had with #4 over the weekend.
For background, he and his brother like watching – and mocking – the “survival”
shows on Netflix.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/microscope/blogs/it-in-context/2011/07/29/17914-mobile-phone-train-hemera-technologies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/microscope/blogs/it-in-context/2011/07/29/17914-mobile-phone-train-hemera-technologies.jpg" height="283" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What Guy?<br />
by Jon Stark<br />
November, 2014<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was waiting for the train, as I often do, and heard a cell
phone ringing. I hate that. People should have the decency to mute their
phones when sharing public spaces. But
we can’t have everything and this wasn’t so bad, it was Frank Sinatra singing, “Same
Old Saturday Night.” One of my
favorites. In fact, I like it so much
that I… oh. Made it my ring tone.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I answered the phone.
It was Martin and he had an emergency.
It was a typical emergency and involved both being late and a girl. Not what you just thought. He was late for work and had gotten drawn
into a long conversation with his favorite barista.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I asked, “Why was she so talkative?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Don’t know,” he said, “But from here on out I’m going to
get just plain coffee.” We shared a
laugh. “Traffic is awful today, I’m never
going to make it.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Sure you will. You
always do.” I wasn’t sure, but it was my
line. We had this conversation three
days out of five. “And you’ll get the
same coffee you always do tomorrow.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He laughed. “Maybe. “ There was a moment’s silence. I’m never sure if he is changing lanes or
thinking of something clever.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You guys want to come over this weekend?” he asked. (He must have been changing lanes.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Probably. I don’t think
we’ve got anything going on.” I heard
the train whistle. “I gotta run.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Sure – whoa, this guy is crazy. What is he –“
There was some sort of noise but I had to jerk the phone away from my
ear.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Marty?” No
response. I looked at the phone. Call ended.
I tried to get him back. Got
voicemail. Odd, I thought, but the train
had come and I sit in the quiet car. No
calls. But I was curious. What guy?
What was he doing? I sent a text.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Martin never answered.<o:p></o:p></div>
Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-61578543059721421742014-10-31T07:55:00.000-04:002014-10-31T07:55:02.553-04:00"But first you accomplish paint fence."<div class="MsoNormal">
Watched 1984’s “The Karate Kid” with my children last
weekend. They were hesitant because they’ve
seen the remake and didn’t think it was very good. I haven’t seen it but they so didn’t like it
that I doubt we’ll be able to do another comparison like “Red Dawn.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
TKK aged well. The
styles are out, naturally, and the fit and finish of the film is rough in a
couple of places but if we are honest, they were rough in 1984 too. The biggest thing for me was how young Ralph
Macchio was.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I haven’t seen the movie in a very long time. He was always older than I was. They all were. This time around they were kids. And as an adult, I understand a bit more
about what was going on. Like why mom
moved to California, why Ali’s acceptance of the poor kid from Reseda was so
unlikely, and just how funny the dialogue actually was – sure, I caught a few
of the jokes, but it is really clever.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://blogs.citypages.com/dressingroom/karatekid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://blogs.citypages.com/dressingroom/karatekid.jpg" height="192" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The family conversation focused on pacing. #3 complained that we were a half an hour
into the movie and nothing had happened yet.
My daughter was incredulous. “What
are you talking about? He’s moved across
the country, gotten beat up by a gang, found a girlfriend, and we just saw the
old guy kick butt.” #3 said, “O.K., but
he hasn’t done any training yet or anything.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That’s a great point.
I don’t think you could sell the TKK script today because it takes so
long to get to the meat of the plot.
There’s this idea that you have to rush into the action because the
modern audience is savvier. Forget the
insult for a minute and focus on the result of that belief. A remake that has lots of fighting you don’t
care about. If Daniel got beat up once,
what are the stakes? Why does he have to
fight? If we don’t meat Ali’s parents
and her friends, why do we care that she dates Daniel?” There’s no pay off. And then what about Mr. Miyagi? He is destiny and patience and wisdom rolled
into one – if you rush him, you lose him.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And that would be a tradgedy. All weekend I heard Mr. Miyagi quoted and my
daughter is still chuckling about the scene in the boat when he falls off the
seat laughing because Daniel fell into the pond.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
My boys wanted to know if it was really possible to catch a
fly with chopsticks. I told them it
was. So is writing a movie that speaks
to your children the same way it spoke to you.<o:p></o:p></div>
Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-26086171785144904312014-10-29T07:47:00.001-04:002014-10-29T07:47:41.810-04:00Steal yourself<div class="MsoNormal">
I discovered a wonderful little book that you absolutely
have to read. When I say little, I mean
little. Your library has it if you don’t
like to buy books. If you do like to buy
books, it’s one that your collection yearns for.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That’s right, yearns.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://workman.com/speakers/kleon_austin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://workman.com/speakers/kleon_austin.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The book is Austin Kleon’s “Steal Like an Artist” and it will
both motivate and free you. He opens by
telling us that in his opinion, anytime someone offers you advice, they are
really saying what they would do now, in your position. There’s a bit of obvious but undiscovered
truth there and it sets the tone for the rest of the book.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The book itself is pocket sized and doesn’t feel any
pressure to fill the pages with words.
What is there is good. What isn’t
there wasn’t needed. Illustrations,
charts, and balloon quotes all get their own pages.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It isn’t because he doesn’t have much to say or needs
filler. It’s to control your pace as you
read. It’s the printed version of my mother-in-law’s
apple pie. You take a bite and just let
it sit there for a minute making your mouth happy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Essentially what Kleon does is articulate, artfully, the
difference between inspiration and plagiarism.
His arguments may not stand up in court but they will give you
permission to enjoy your creative passions more fully.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
And that is the goal of the book – to encourage you to make
art that you like. He breaks convention
and says, “Don’t write what you know, write what you want to read.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Don't forget that you can subscribe to the Rejected and Alone email to have safe and free in-home delivery of each post. Just click on the "subscribe to email" button at the bottom of this page.</i></div>
Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-47849672562181932692014-10-27T09:08:00.000-04:002014-10-27T09:08:40.999-04:00Smoldering<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://ak.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/265576/preview/stock-footage-burning-leaves.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ak.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/265576/preview/stock-footage-burning-leaves.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Smoldering<br />
</b>By Jon Stark<br />
October, 2014<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Levi did what anyone
else would do. He pretended not to
see. But some problems don’t go away by
themselves. That’s what Hannah would
say. He still wasn’t ready to admit she
might be right.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Things were out of
hand now, though. He couldn’t ignore that. Fall was well on its way to winter. Time to gather up the mess. Time to get on with it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Levi didn’t know how
to do that, though. The trash can was
out, he’d never fit it all in. A gust of
wind stirred the mass of leaves in his yard.
Spun them up into a spectral shape that danced a hundred yards before
dissolving, drifting back to the ground.
He shivered.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">There were branches
down in the yard too. An idea
formed. Then the shape of a fire as he
gathered sticks, broke them to size, and constructed a teepee within a log
cabin. That should do it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">No, it
wouldn’t. Levi gathered more wood and
stacked it beside the carefully laid fire.
He crumpled newspaper and hid it inside the sticks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">More leaves fell. Clouds roiled in the sky as night crept upon
him. He glared at the faces of his
neighbors, peering from the windows of their warm houses, judging him with
their immaculate lawns and orderly bags of debris stacked at the ends of
driveways that got fresh sealant every summer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">He didn’t like being
judged. He’d told Hannah that a hundred
times. She had a problem though,
involving judging, talking, and not listening.
The quiet was nice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Dark had come when
he was finally ready. Those who knew him
would say it was because he was lazy and started too late in the day, not
because he’d planned it that way. Others
would suspect that he labored over the fire, adjusting everything just so,
because be he sick in the head.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Once he had a good
blaze going he headed to the house and dragged out some of the trash bags. The rooms were packed with garbage, a warren
that both comforted and horrified him.
The neighbors had complained unsuccessfully -- the homeowner’s
association only had rules for the outside and to see his mess you had to be a
nosey Nancy and look through his windows.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">All the same, he’d
blocked the windows. Hannah didn’t like
that, but she was too busy running her yap to do anything about it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">A pair of eyes
watched Levi from his neighbor’s upstairs bedroom. He stared back until they went away. The fire flickered and the rising shadows
turned his face to a grotesque parody of a man.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Levi heaved one of
the bags onto the blaze. It sputtered
for a moment, hissed, then burned with a sudden furry. He wasn’t prepared for the smell. He’d thought it would be horrible but it was
more like grilling steak.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Flashing lights
caught his attention. He rushed around
front. A sheriff’s deputy walked from
the curb toward the house. “What can I
do for you, Officer?” asked Levi.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The deputy stopped,
shined his 6 cell flash light at Levi, then walked over to him. “Had a call about a fire.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">“Just burning some
stuff I cleaned up,” said Levi.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">“You’re supposed to
call before you burn,” said the deputy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Levi cursed under
his breath. How had he forgotten
that? “Sorry. I was rushing to get it done, didn’t think of
it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The officer
nodded. “That’s alright. Just don’t let it happen again.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">“It definitely won’t
happen again,” said Levi.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The man walked back
toward his car then turned. “What are
you cooking? Smells great.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Levi stared at him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">“You okay?” asked
the deputy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">“Dinner. I’m hungry.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The deputy frowned,
shrugged, and went back to his car. “Be
careful with that fire.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Levi didn’t
wave. He ran into his house and through
the piles of collected junk to the freezer.
He grabbed a package of meat and put it on his grill out back near the
fire.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The grill wouldn’t
start. He cursed. He hit it.
Again. He threw it around his
deck. It didn’t start.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The fire settled
into coals. He threw on another trash
bag. It caught quickly with a sickening
hiss. This time flames didn’t leap up,
they crawled low and blue. He watched
them dance. The way he watched Hannah
dance. He felt the same stirring.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">It took some
puttering but he wasn’t upset about the cop anymore and he got the grill
going. He wasn’t sure anyone ever
grilled a roast but nobody would be that close.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">He threw more wood
on the fire. He couldn’t afford to let
it go out. Then he dragged out a half
dozen more trash bags, one at a time, carefully so that they wouldn’t rip.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">One of his neighbors
waved from her back deck, a can of something in one hand, a cigarette in the
other. He ignored her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">“You and Hannah
having a late night barbeque?” she asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Levi snapped his
head around. The woman had come to the
edge of her lawn and was watching him.
He glared at her, the fire casting a deep red tint on them both.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">She caught her
breath and stumbled back inside.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Levi spent hours at
the fire, adding wood and trash bags until he was out of both. He poked at it with a long stick, shifting
the ash and bones.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">He dozed on a
rusting folding chair. The moon came up
and played hide and seek with the clouds.
Still the fire burned. He
startled awake, a curse on his lips. He
looked around. Nothing. And the fire.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The flames rose up,
formed and reformed. Arms stretched out
and retreated. A face laughed at
him. The wood was gone but still it
burned. He poked at it again. He was tired.
How long would it take?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Dawn crept into the
sky and the fire burned. He sprayed it
down but the fire kept burning. He could
clearly see the bones now, fire fliting in and out of the empty eye sockets of
the cracked skull.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">He ran to the garage
and fumbled for a rake. He worked
feverishly and dumped piles of leaves on the fire, smothering it. Smoke poured out, vile, acrid, thick.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Levi went inside. He ate.
Outside, the fire burned through the leaves. He went back to work, feeding the fire with
leaves and fallen branches.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Every time it burned
down he would sift and stir and each time he found the bones still burning, no
hint that they were being consumed. All
day and into the night he labored. He
burned all of the leaves. Still the
bones looked untouched by the fire that clung to them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">His phone rang. He ignored it. A few minutes later his neighbor was back,
with a fresh can and cigarette. “Where’s
Hannah? I just tried to call and she
didn’t answer. Haven’t seen her in a few
weeks.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">“Gone,” said
Levi. “Maybe to her mother’s?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">“Why would she go
there?” A drag on the cigarette.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">“Didn’t say.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">“Or you weren’t
listening?” It was playful. So was the subtle unzipping of the sweatshirt
she wore. “She say when she was coming
back?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Levi shook his
head. He threw some books onto the fire
from where he’d moved the stack in the dining room to a pile beside the
fire. “I told her to shut up. She said I couldn’t make her. I stopped paying attention after that.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">His neighbor nodded
sagely. Finished her can. “You let me know if there’s... anything I can
do.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">“You can go home and
leave me alone,” said Levi. He threw the
rest of the books on the fire. She
zipped up the sweatshirt and huffed away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The fire burned all
night. He tried soaking it with the hose
but the water just hissed and mocked him.
The fire danced and leered at him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">He emptied the
house, burning decades of collected treasures but each time the trash was
consumed, it left only the bones. The
sheriff’s deputy came back. He chased the
man away. Promised he was almost done.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">But he wasn’t. When the trash in the house was burned he
started on the garage. Then the
furniture in the house. Then he tore up
the floors and broke up the walls. The
fire consumed all of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The fire department
chief came by and suggested that maybe it was time to put out the fire. Levi told him he was on it. His eyes blazed and smoke clung to him and the
fireman retreated, shaken.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Levi tried burying
the fire. The bones moved together then,
hiding from the dirt. Scurrying out of
the pit and onto his lawn. He hacked at
them with his shovel. They danced out of
reach.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Exhausted, he
stopped for breath. They came
together. Feet, legs, pelvis, ribs,
shoulders, arms, hands. He watched in
horror as the bone fingers lifted the skull and set it in place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">A voice, harsh with
smoke, hissed at him from the broken jaw.
He fell to his knees, covered his ears.
But he still heard her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">“You can’t make me,”
said Hannah.</span>Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079155051500301101.post-85451989172820122622014-10-24T08:10:00.001-04:002014-10-24T08:10:05.928-04:00You never know where you'll end up unless you never leave.<div class="MsoNormal">
Last weekend I typed Fade out on a script. I haven’t looked at it since and probably won’t
until after Christmas. I’d better
not. There has to be a “cooling off”
period when you work on a project before you can effectively edit it. The bigger the project/more you change, the
longer that period has to be. In this
case, it’s a 113 page feature.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thing is, typing Fade out was a bit anti-climactic.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I didn’t know why I felt that way, after all, I finished it –
something I’d never done until just over a year ago. I had allotted a month to write the first
draft and I only needed 3 weeks. I had
no difficulty getting to the end I wanted without it being contrived (by
Hollywood standards, anyway). And it’s a
great story. I really like the
protagonist and she gets to do pretty cool stuff.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So I went deeper. Why
didn’t I feel like I’d actually accomplished something major? There are literally tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands
of people who never get to Fade out. It
was my fourth feature script. I’ve
written a novel. Getting to the end isn’t
the goal anymore. There was never a
question in my mind that I’d be typing fade out within 30 days of typing fade
in.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Getting that draft done was only the first step. I know I have at least one more major
revision draft and dozens of smaller passes.
Most likely – despite unwavering confidence in my awesomeness – I’ve got
2 or 3 more major revision drafts. It
probably won’t actually be “done” until next year’s contest season.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m excited about the script but that excitement is now
tempered by experience. It’s also a
private story for now. Even harder than the
discipline needed to reach Fade out is not sharing the first draft with a
trusted reader. Stephen King <a href="http://www.amazon.com/On-Writing-Anniversary-Edition-Memoir/dp/1439156816" target="_blank">knew whathe was talking about</a> when he said NOBODY should ever see the first draft except
for you. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://img.spokeo.com/public/900-600/nicole_sullivan_2004_05_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Nicole Sullivan" border="0" src="http://img.spokeo.com/public/900-600/nicole_sullivan_2004_05_01.jpg" height="320" title="Nicole Sullivan" width="203" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
So it isn’t done, but that’s okay. I’ve finished another important step on the
way to being done. I take heart in that
and am reminded of the speech that <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005474/" target="_blank">Nicole Sullivan</a> gave at graduation. She quoted Winston Churchill – a man who
understood scripting – who said, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the
beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”<o:p></o:p></div>
Jon Starkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123160004981131322noreply@blogger.com0