Archives for January 2012

Teaching Writing

January 31, 2012 by rurugby 2 Comments

So offered to do a writing workshop Saturday morning at the First Light Men’s Conference in the midcoast of Maine.

I am basing it on my “Write Poorly” poem:

Write poorly
Suck
Write awful
Terribly
Frightfully

Don’t care
Turn off the inner editor
Let yourself write
Let it flow
Let yourself fail

Do something crazy
Write 50,000 words in the month of November
I did it.
It was fun, it was insane it was 1,667 words a day.
It was possible.

But, you have to turn off your inner critic, off, completely.
Just write.
Quickly.
In Bursts.

With joy.
If you can’t write run away for a few.
Come back.
Write again.

Writing is like anything else.
You won’t get good at it immediately.
It’s a craft you have to keep getting better.
You don’t get to Juliard, unless you practice.
If you want to get to Carnagie Hall, practice, practice, practice.
(or give them a lot of money).

Like anything else it takes 10,000 hours to get to mastery.
Just like Malcolm Gladwell says.
So write.
Fail.
Get your thoughts down.
Let it rest.
Let it marinate.
Then edit.

But don’t edit as you type,
that just slows the brain down.
Find a daily practice,
for me it’s blogging every day.
And it’s fun.

The more you write, the easier it gets. The more it is a flow, the less a worry. It’s not for school, it’s not for a grade, it’s just to get your thoughts out there. You know they want to come out.

So keep at it. Make it a practice. And write poorly, write awfully, write with abandon and it may end up being really, really good.

So I was mainly planning to give everyone a chance to write, and to suck and to share if they want.

Some possible writing topics I was thinking about:

1) Write about a time you were intensely happy.

2) Write about a time you felt at peace, and/or in balance.

3) Write about something that scares you.

4) Write about something you have never shared.

5) Write about something that touched your heart or your soul.

or 6) Write about what comes to mind, at the present.

Realize all are good thoughts, and all are good writing.

And that’s it’s ok to write poorly.

Any thoughts?

Spoilers

January 30, 2012 by rurugby Leave a Comment

So, I had no idea what to write tonight.

I was listening to my favorite radio station in Portland, WPMG 90.9 listening to the amazing Midnight Sun radio show (5-7pm blues/soul Monday-Friday), and heard her like “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” and “The Artist”.

The “Extremely Loud” review didn’t bother me, but I was only 1/2 listening to “The Artist” review and realized she was going over much of the plot which I didn’t know, and realized I was glad I wasn’t really listening.

My wife is much worse about spoilers then I am, but I want to know the movie/book/etc. was good or bad, what was done well, good acting, etc.

I don’t want to have a plot summary.

A perfect example of a spoiler would be some of the previews for “Contraband” the new Mark Wahlberg movie. Me and Lanna saw a preview before I think “The Descendants” and after the 2 minute trailer, felt like we just saw the whole movie, plot twists and all.

Here would be an example from a movie hopefully everyone has seen by now: “The Empire Strikes Back” ..

Good review: Darker then the original, more exploration of the force and the mystical energy of this universe, a richer film.

Bad: Listing every major plot point of the movie, and all the many rich surprises, yep I couldn’t do spoilers for a movie that is part of the collective experience of the world and has been spoiled as a joke in everything from the Simpsons to South Park.

So, let me know you loved something, loved the acting, loved the characters; don’t tell me what happened.

Ok, Cheers!

Sick on Sunday

January 29, 2012 by rurugby 2 Comments

Today I am not feeling well.

Having a lot of sleep.

So, making a post to keep posting every day.

Nothing to see here, move along.

Hugo ****1/2

January 28, 2012 by rurugby 1 Comment

I love the movies.

I have since Star Wars came out when I was 3 in 1977.

Star Wars was the movie that got me into reading, with books with read along LPs. I loved the tales of the empire, the jedi and the force.

Hugo is a wonderful movie. One that use tropes of juvenile fiction and “kid’s movies,” but is not a kid’s movie itself.

It’s hard to review movies when your partner considers everything a spoiler. It’s also interesting that my friend Keith said the movie was too long for 3-D. After seeing it I understand what he means.

I find 3-D tiring, especially with my childhood amblioypia (ie lazy eye) and having a much worse left then right eye.

Hugo is magic. It is told in a magical place of clocks, and gears, and trains and friendships. It shows the wonder of being a child, the love of the power of movies, and some of the best child acting I can remember (as does my co-favorite film of 2011, Super 8).

The movie starts slow, and in the warm clock towers of one of the main Paris train stations sometime post World War I. You see a child of about 12 frantically winding clocks and living in an amazing, surreal place. You wonder why he is there, and why there are no adults.

The tale of the Hugo Cabret is the center of this story, the boy who knows how to fix things, even though he is broken himself. The boy who can fix broken men and bring dreams again. I want to say more but that would go again into spoiler territory.

This is also a movie about a love of movies, and how movies bring us the language of dreams. It is beautiful and one of the best movies I have seen in many years. I love Martin Scorsese and this would be on my top 3 for him (with the extremely different Taxi Driver and GoodFellas).

It also has amazing acting by it’s three leads: Ben Kingsley, Asa Butterfield as Hugo Cabret, and Chloe Moretz as the other child lead.

It’s wonderful, see it in the theater if you can, and I think it will be on DVD soon. The movie is due for tons of technical awards, and makes you realize why you love movies.

Reading comic books

January 27, 2012 by rurugby Leave a Comment

So one thing I have gotten into in the last couple years is comic books.

I really didn’t have a comic book phase growing up, but at that point had read some graphic novels like “Watchman”, “V for Vendetta”, “A History of Violence”, “Palestine”, “Pyongyang,” etc.

And I had purchases a couple of random comics over the years.

But given that I can be penny-wise and pound foolish, when I saw 20 random comics in a brown bag for $8 at Casablanca Comics in downtown Portland, Maine, I had to check it out. And I liked it.

For me comics are kind of throwaways, they are fun. Stories and peril are often wrapped up in about 30 pages, clear heroes and villains, interesting artwork and writing. And at 40 cents each it’s easy for me to leave them places like the laundromat or more often give them to the Young Adult section at the Walker Library in Westbrook, Maine.

On Wednesday I did something ever crazier after lunch with friends .. bought a 100 comics in a box for $20. The ones I tend to read first are all the various superman series (there are tons), it’s a story I identify with, geeky kid gets bit by a spider. With great power comes great responsibility, feeling like the geek and afraid to ask the pretty girls out ….

Comic books are simply fun to me. And I invite you try a few and see if you like them. I am more of a Marvel guy then DC, as I prefer story to lots of fights, but they are simply good fun. Although honestly $4 is too much for new comics, but that’s a whole seperate issue.

————

As far as book I read this week, “Wool” by Hugh Howey was my favorite, but I already had that review on Wednesday .. I also read a silly book of political cartoons from Mad Magazine in 2000 (Topsy Turvy by Peter Kuper); and finally finished the Cornhuskers by Carl Sandburg (poetry) and “Love is a Dog From Hell” by Charles Bukowski; also finished the Saul Wiliams poetry book.

Still reading the John Mole (I Was a Potato Oligarch) and Ben Mezrich (Sex on the Moon) books as well as “Fun Home” by Alison Bechdel, also finished the graphic novel “The Professor’s Daughter” (3-GR).

I generally review the books I finish at my Goodreads account.
http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/3177908?shelf=read

Expect to be back to my normal book of the week format next week.