Tag Archives: writing
First-World Problems #12
I have had to dramatically decrease the scope of my ambitions.
+
During my LEGO-strewn childhood, my mother was quick to tell me that I had what she called “good spatial awareness” and that I could, if I wanted to, pursue a career in architecture. I remember being surrounded by notebooks full of graph paper and pencils in constant need of sharpening, sketching out schematics for spaceships from Star Wars and some of my own design. But when when I took to the dull parallelisms and straight lines of homes of office buildings, my sketches became stilted and hollow and wholly uninspired.
And my dad reminded me gently that my less-than-impressive grades in mathematics were unbecoming of an architect. He didn’t do this to discourage me from my dreams; quite the opposite. But I have no doubt I caused him at least a flicker of disappointment; he himself is gifted with a knowledge of the absolutes of numbers and their function, having worked as an engineer and programmer for almost as long as I have been alive. He was never a terribly patient teacher but he was knowledgeable, and helped me limp through my math classes. I remember him buying me a set of very expensive student encyclopedias halfway through middle school, and he and I opened them together exactly once: to look up the procedure by which one might – by hand – find the square root of a given number. The method taught by my math teacher had been reproduced imperfectly in my notebook, and so my father and I set out to find an alternative method. We were successful, and I turned in the assignment and received a failing grade. My toad-like math teacher, Mr. Barton (who not even tenure could protect when he backhanded a student), suggested that I pay closer attention to his lessons in the future; alternative methods at reaching the same goal were not permitted. Imagine if all of life worked that way.
So any tiny, withered desire I had to perform well in mathematics got the remaining life crushed out of it and I decided to muddle through with only minimal effort. But while I floundered at math, I flourished in my studies of reading and writing. As early as second grade, teachers were commending me on my vivid and energetic writing voice. My family took a vacation to the Bahamas when I was about this age that I only vaguely remember now, but I do remember coming back and presenting my teacher with journal entries describing my family’s adventures. She thought they were works of fiction; my recollection of a coconut milk vendor trolling the beaches was too perfectly rendered to have been the product of memory, and didn’t have the tell-tale stiltedness of a child’s journal entry. She was the first to tell my mother that I had a possible future in writing.
The second was my fourth grade teacher. I don’t remember what singular thing I did to impress her, but whatever she said to my mom, it wasn’t soon after that Mom’s ambitions of my becoming an architect were replaced by dreams of being a Bestseller’s Mother. I think she’d probably already had the bumper sticker made up. And so after high school I went off to college to pursue a BA in writing. Hindsight tells me it was a fool’s errand on some level, but recent empirical data claims that liberal arts majors are in demand now more than ever. There’s evidence for both pronouncements. I suppose part of the problem is that it’s a career choice that doesn’t really have an endgame in mind; business students, in my experience, have at least an imperfect picture of what they’ll be doing after they graduate. “Writer,” on the other hand, is not a word fit for printing on a business card – it is not a word that instills confidence, however attractive it might be as a self-title.
Four years came and went. I became a writer, I guess. Or began the process of becoming one. I realized how much I didn’t know before I got to college. I learned the craft and perhaps more importantly, I learned about myself. I re-learned myself. I think it’s probably a cliché by now that young men and women go to college to found out who they are. This is absolutely, terribly true; I am a different person – a better person for the time I spent there; I made lasting friends and I unlearned certain truths about the world and about myself and I discovered confidence for probably the very first time in my life and as good as things were at the time, I learned the skills necessary to avoid total implosion when things inevitably got a little less great in the quickly approaching future.
Can these things be accomplished without going to college? I have no doubt that they can be. It’s a truth of our modern world that college students have more doors open to them than do people who didn’t go to college. But this is not to say that the latter are any less valuable as human beings. We are not our collections of skills.
I’ve been out of college for over a year now, and I know exactly two people from my circle of friends who have found a job related to their field of study. Several others have taken jobs best described as the very best of very limited options, and others have chosen to further their education and defer their entry into the real world.
Physics teaches us that potential energy refers to an object’s position relative to a reference point; an object’s potential energy changes according to its physical location. A book resting on the floor, for example, has a great deal less potential energy than does one placed high up on a table. I look around most days and think that, while my current situation isn’t ideal, I do at least have a moderate amount of stored potential.
My brother lives by a similar credo; he attended business classes at the local community college and teaches himself musical theory in his spare time. He’d rather be studying music at Berklee, but until then he’s working to maximize his own stored potential.
For right now, I’m working in an Amazon.com warehouse ten minutes from my house. It isn’t remotely what I expected to be doing a year after I graduated, but as I said before, I never did have a very solid plan. I was recently granted a conversion from a temp to a full-time Amazon associate, which brought with it a (very) modest raise, benefits, and a reasonably secure future with the company. In the couple of months since I started, I’ve managed to distinguish myself in ways that, viewed against the backdrop of the universe’s many galaxies and vast untamable wonders, mean precisely nothing. I have been frequently recognized for the speed and accuracy with which I move boxes from one part of the warehouse to another. My life over the last couple months has been defined by the wait between computer print-outs telling me that I’m meeting or exceeding Amazon’s expectations for productivity. I have a ream of these at home.These are my accomplishments. This is the place from which I cultivate my pride, and measure my ambition.
And maybe the worst of this is the fact that it wasn’t a gradual realization; it hasn’t been a process that I could watch and be aware of and have some measure of control over. No, it was quite sudden indeed. A little bit like an obese man waking up one morning and looking at himself in the mirror and realizing for the very first time that he hasn’t seen his penis in five years.
My ambition is that penis.
I am alone with my thoughts much of the time at work, so it’s easy to let the phrase So this is what my life is? enter my mind. But then I mentally kick my own ass and realize that the constituent parts of my life are so miraculously and completely perfect that I have to remind myself daily, when thoughts like these creep into my head, that I am one of the luckiest people on planet earth. I have a loving family and a roof over my head that I don’t have to share with strangers, running water, clothes to wear, food to eat, friends, a well-rounded skill set, and I’m reasonably attractive and male and white. There isn’t any single thing about my life that somebody, somewhere, wouldn’t murder to have for themselves.
I might be living for small pats on the back when I perform certain menial tasks well, but the truth is that they wouldn’t be thanking me for my quality work if even these stupid, mind-numbing tasks could be done well by just anyone. There is pride to be found here, even in distinguishing myself among other non-skilled workers; there is something worthy of ambition here. Because if I’ve learned anything at all in the last couple of years, it’s that no task is too small to bring the whole of my human essence to bear on it. Nothing is worth doing to anything less than the best of my ability. And reminding myself of this fact is what it takes to remember that what I am is not all that I ever have to be.
The Script Frenzy Chronicles Week I
Because scale matters.
On March 5, 2012 I signed up for Script Frenzy. Script Frenzy is an event ran by The Office of Letters and Light, which runs National Novel Writing Month. Script Frenzy is where writers are given the challenge to write a 100 page script over the 30 day period of April. The script can be written for Film, Television, Stage, or Comic Book/Graphic Novel, and since I am a movie guy, my script will be for the screen.
Similar to NaNoWriMo, once you sign up with Script Frenzy you can get sponsored to help bring donations to The Office of Letters and Lights and their mission. You get access to forums, and the ability to talk to people with in your region. You also get guides to script writing since writing for film, television, stage, and comics is different from writing a novel. It require you to be detailed enough that the reader knows what is going on yet sparse enough that you don’t choke the artistic freedom of the cast, crew, and director that will breathe life into your word.
To sign up for Script Frenzy go to their website, www.scriptfrenzy.org, and click on the Sign Up link on the upper right-hand corner of the screen page. The sign up process involves creating a usernamer, providing an e-mail, and picking what area you are writing in. You then get a password e-mailed to you to which you can then log in and start with your journey to write your script. Once you are in you can start updating your writing profile, releasing information on your script, post on the forums, and find friends for the support you will need.
And while the event requires that you write with in the month of April and not before or after that month, nothing can stop you from starting you plan your work.
Script Frenzy: Week 1
Show, don't tell
Even though I do not want to start writing my screenplay out of fairness, but that is not stopping me from think about what to write. I want to be as prepared as I can be so that once April comes around I can dive right in. At first I planned on re-writing a screenplay I started last summer and only got seven pages in. But then I decided to challenge myself a bit and start anew.
When starting a new script, I thought, it is always best to think of a pitch. In the business, the pitch of a film can break or make your film. Each pitch is different because every film is different, but there tends to be one cardinal rule. That rule is you must keep it short. It used to be that you had to describe your film in fifteen words or less. If you could not do that your film was less likely to get made. While I am sure that some companies still go by this rule, I doubt most adhere to it. One sentence should be enough, and this is something that applies to most medium.
This makes sense for multiple reasons. Writing a movie, television, or comic book script or a play is very different than writing a novel because you are writing for a visual art. A highly collaborative visual art in which many people will be interpreting as the product is getting made. As such, you are writing an outline, and having the ability to use a sentence (or a “log line.” for a more technical term) to tell everything about your story will show the potential producers your talent for by descriptive with minimum detail.
Another reason to use a log line is the fact that someone has to buy your script. In order to sell your script, you have to advertise it. Calling your script “A surrealist character study musical with comedic bit about a group of quirky adolescents taking part in a spelling bee” is going to get someone’s attention faster than “This story is about these quirky kids who take part in this outrageous spelling bee where on kid is a horny boy scout while another spells words with his foot and there is a counselor who is there because of his service hours…” You are going to lose potential buyers quickly if you cannot hook them immediately. This is made even more vital since the producer who is interested will probably be seeing many other potential buys outside of yours.
There are other reason for having a log line ready, such as giving you script focus, a mood to play with, and much more, but there are two other elements to having a pitch ready. One is the “My script is…” in which you use two films to describe your film. An example would be “My film is Up meets The Sixth Sense.” This shows that the story has elements of the two movies and depending on the log line the elements would be very visible. Another thing this does is compares you film to two or more other successful movies. Be careful when comparing movies to your film. Make sure you use movies that are either critically and commercially successful, just commercially successful, or considered classics, otherwise the film may not get picked up. The last thing to have for your pitch is a title. It does not have to be the actual title, but a title none the less. The buy may not ask what you are going to call your movie, but there is a good chance that they will. Having one ready shows that you are prepared for the journey ahead.
***
If you are an aspiring writer, especially if you are interested in writing for the visual and performance arts, Script Frenzy is the challenge that can get you in moving in the right direction. Again, sign up at www.scriptfrenzy.org, get friends involved and start planning.
Escaping the Ghosts: Special Interview with Tami Rasel
Tami in period dress for ghost tours
“After only three days of battle the survivors departed, and they left behind some 51,000 casualties for the good people of Gettysburg to tend to. Imagine, if you can, what it would have been like to live in the town at that time. Imagine the sights you would have seen: the dead lying all about you, bodies decaying in the hot summer sun, and amputated limbs piled up outside of the buildings like cordwood. Imagine the horrible odors in the air; it is said that the stench of Gettysburg could be detected up to ten miles away. Some folks say you can still smell the unpleasant odor today. Finally imagine, if you can, the sounds of the town–the sounds of suffering humanity crying out for help.”
–Spirits of Gettysburg: Tales of a Ghost Tour Guide by Tami Rasel.
I met Tami Rasel in a Freelance Writing course at York College of Pennsylvania during the spring semester of 2009. While the rest of Anthony Fredericks’ students were busy pounding out make-believe query letters and made-up book proposals, Tami had actually written a book and was in the process of getting it published.
Now, two years later, Tammy is living in Hanover and working in Human Services, where she is “picking up balls on the playground and wiping noses.” As it turns out, that Freelance Writing class may have been the most important class Tami and I (not to mention the other Professional Writing majors) ever took. Even though it’s damn near impossible to get a job as a full-time writer, freelancing can at least keep us on our toes and remind us why we went to college for four (or more) years: we love to write, and we want to make a living at it!
Fortunately for Tami, her book did get published, and she did make some money from it. Her book, Spirits of Gettysburg: Tales of a Ghost Tour Guide, sold about 2,500 copies, which Tami explains, “isn’t bad for a really small Gettysburg audience kind of thing.” Tami owned and operated her own tourist business, Civil War Hauntings Candlelight Ghost Walk, in Gettysburg for a little over a decade, which allowed her to compile many chilling tales about the “most haunted town on Earth.” But alas, all good things must come to an end. Tami closed up shop this past summer due to tedious relations with the borough.
Tami was kind enough to let me interview her (“Anything to help out a fellow Pro. Writer!” she exclaimed), and she gave me the scoop on her book, how she got started as a storyteller, and her thoughts on getting out of the “Gettysburg-ghost-box.”
UM: In the prologue of your book, you recount your childhood experiences with the paranormal. Would you say those experiences influenced your decision to become a ghost tour guide?
TR: I think they influenced me being a storyteller, because for years after those experiences, I would tell those stories to people. I learned I could entertain people by telling them scary stories— stories that were true to me.
UM: Would you say that you are more of a storyteller than a writer? Or do you think there is much of a difference between the two?
TR: To me, they’re one and the same. I remember Dr. DelliCarpini [head of writing department at York College, now the Dean of Student Affairs] always called me the “storyteller.” Basically, in my writing, that’s what I do–I tell a story. I think all of us, as writing students, had different styles. Some of us were screen play writers, some might have gone into journalism, but I was mostly a storyteller.
UM: At what point did you realize you wanted to put all of the ghost stories together and publish a book?
TR: Well, at first I just collected them, and then— as I had plenty of them— I thought about the book thing. But I was afraid that writing that book was going to group me into that box of a “ghost story teller.” I didn’t want that. But through encouragement of my family, I did write them down and was lucky enough to get them published. And I thought it was a good thing, because it helped build my platform as a writer. But I don’t— I still do not— want to be grouped into that specifically-only-ghost-stories. That was my fear— that’s all I would ever be known as— “The ghost-story writer.”
UM: That’s one of the things I was curious about. What came first: that you always wanted to be a writer and write books and the ghost stories just gave you an opportunity to do it, or if you just wrote the book because you had so much experience and that’s just what you wanted to write about?
TR: No, the writer wanted to be the writer. When I was in the eighth grade, they made me take a study hall, and study hall in my school, at that time, meant you were going to be in the cafeteria with a bunch of kids carrying on. And I was very shy in school. So everyday, I would sit in that cafeteria, and I started writing a story. By the end of the year I had written an entire book. That was my first experience with writing a book. Nothing ever happened with it… Matter of fact, I think it probably got thrown out. But I remember at that time feeling like, “Wow, I really enjoy doing this.” I couldn’t wait every day to get back to the book and keep writing the story! So yes, being a writer was first. I chose to do the ghost stories because that was my business. It helped promote my business. Those were the stories— a lot of those were stories I told on my tours. It was a great marketing tool, you know? “Here’s my book, you can read the stories to your friends.” And it helped build my platform as a writer.
UM: So how else did you advertise your book?
TR: Well, we have it in all the shops in Gettysburg, and so as far as paying for advertising, I’ve never had to do that, because we have a million tourists going through Gettysburg a year. Basically, I try to do a lot of book signings, so that gives me some advertisement. When I had my ghost tour business that first year, of course we could advertise there. I advertise it, of course, on the social networks. But I haven’t had to take out an ad or something like we did with the ghost tours.
UM: Since there are millions of people coming to Gettysburg, you know there is going to be some interest in it, a ready-made audience.
TR: Oh yes, there’s so much in Gettysburg. I can’t tell you at book signings how many pictures I have to look at, or hear about Aunt Martha’s house being haunted, or Aunt Martha haunting their house. You have the tourists who are the enthusiasts, and you get the really serious people who are the die-hard ghost hunters who come there. You end up being more known for that than the history.
UM: On the back of your book, it says you speak to groups about history and the supernatural. Could you tell me a little bit about what kind of groups you speak to, and what sorts of topics?
TR: Over the past ten years I’ve spoken to a college group in Newark, New Jersey, and I get invited to Civil War round-tables. I also go to the Maryland Paranormal Society sometimes. Just a range of people. It’s not just one particular group. I’ve spoken to ghost hunters, students, also reenactors.
UM: Are your talks mostly based on Gettysburg and paranormal activity in Gettysburg, or are you something of a history buff in general? Do you have a wide base of knowledge about the paranormal, or is it based on Gettysburg and what happens there?
TR: I’m a big history lover, particularly Civil War. As far as the ghost end of it, my knowledge pretty much goes with Gettysburg. That’s where I worked, that’s where I collected my stories. I started out as a single mom, needing to support my two young kids. I got a job working through the Ghosts of Gettysburg, and through the years, people would tell me stories. Stories that were believable, or the things that I witnessed myself, I would write those stories down. That’s how I came up with the book, The Spirits of Gettysburg. But as far as paranormal activity outside of Gettysburg, I don’t have a lot of knowledge. I mean I have as much as anybody else. I couldn’t tell you about all the ghosts at Harper’s Ferry, or Salem, or anything like that. I consider myself a writer and a storyteller, not a paranormal expert. And I’ve had people come on my tours, saying they want me to come to their home and get rid of their ghost. And I always tell them, “I’m a storyteller. I’m not a paranormal expert.”
UM: On that note, do you think you probably won’t miss the Gettysburg ghost tours so much?
TR: I miss them a little bit. I feel like after doing them for so many years, it kind of defines me, that it’s kind of a nickname, “The Gettysburg Ghost Lady.” So yeah, I do kind of miss it, meeting the people from all over the world. I don’t miss dealing with the competition. Sometimes it was pretty nasty. But I definitely miss the tourists. And for me, I’m such a big history buff, I always say that it’s a sneaky way for me to teach history. And I love that. I love when kids went away and could tell some of the statistics of the battle, or about certain generals that I talked about, get a little bit of a lesson.
UM: I never thought about it that way. I mean, I don’t know a lot about the Battle of Gettysburg, but as I read the book, I was able to learn some things as well as be entertained.
TR: That is probably the best compliment you could give me. That’s wonderful! That was my goal. You learn a little bit about the battle. (Pauses) And of course I miss the clothing. My mom said I was born in the wrong century…All my life, I loved dressing up in the clothes!
So, Unwound readers, if the cold of winter isn’t enough to make you shiver, check out local author Tami Rasel’s book, Spirits of Gettysburg: Tales of a Ghost Tour Guide, for some chilling ghost stories that are sure to send goosebumps up your spine (and put some good historical facts in your mind). If you find you like Tami’s storytelling and want to read more, check out her articles at Chesapeake Happenings and Examiner and keep an eye out for her upcoming novel. In the meantime, happy haunting!
Author Tami with her book. "Read it...You'll like it!"
National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)
Who: NaNoWriMo.org, official organization for National Novel Writing Month
What: The annual challenge to write a novel (50,000+ words) in only a month.
When: November 1st – 30th.
Where: Contestants can sign up on NaNoWriMo.org before November begins.
Calling all writers! Do you have a story brewing in your noggin? Are your fingertips itching for a literary challenge? Then enter this years National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) competition! The annual craze is rumbling around the world, ready to explode on November 1st when writers young and old begin sprinting towards the end of one single goal: to write a novel of at least 50,000 words by the end of the month.
NaNoWriMo has grown exponentially since its inception in 1999, starting off with only 21 participants. Last year, over 200,000 had joined, representing over 40 countries and 528 chapters, and over 37,000 of those writers made it to the 50,000 word finish line.
Those interested in joining must sign up at www.nanowrimo.org by the end of October, which is ONLY A FEW DAYS AWAY! Starting on November 1st, participants can begin writing. Don’t cheat and begin early! This is a competition running on the honor system. Though there are “winners” declared, there are no prizes except for the glorious feeling of knowing that you have written your own novel! For a more detailed (and humorous) explanation on how the contest works, visit their section, How NaNoWriMo Works.
Some of Unwound Magazine’s own writers will be participating, so be sure to check back for updates on their progress. Also be on the lookout for any tips, resources, or maybe even some friendly competition that may appear on our site!
