Author: splend42

I am a writer and filmmaker who broke his way out of the rat race and is now trying to feed himself one word at a time.
ambitions, mental health

An Autumn Self-Audit

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Concrete Road Between Trees by Craig Adderley

 

It’s crunchy season!

I love the crackle of leaves underfoot, don’t you? Crunch crunch crunch. It’s such a satisfying sound, the crisp crinkling of dead leaves being pulverised to smithereens like city blocks under Godzilla’s heel. Very empowering. Next time you go to the park, I thoroughly recommend stomping around on them and going ‘RARGH’. It can be very cathartic.

Once again, it’s time to take stock and do a bit of introspection. The nights are drawing in and the days are ever cloudier, so fire up your SAD lamps and make sure you get plenty of vitamin D. I know that won’t cure my depression, but it can’t hurt. Unless I stub my toe on the SAD lamp, that is. It’s pretty hefty.

So where am I, right now? In my life, my career, my everything? Well, in terms of career and material considerations, I’m not much farther than I was last time I had a look at myself, though I’ve definitely been busy.  Remember I submitted The Bride Wore Blood to the Screencraft Screenwriting Fellowship, the Finish Line Competition and the BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Competition? No? I don’t blame you, it was ages ago, but scroll down and you’ll see that I did mention it. Anyway, I reached the Quarter Finals in the first two and didn’t place at all in the latter, nor in a couple of other competitions and opportunities, including the BBC Writers Room. It’s been a bit of a blow, to be honest, though I know it’s all part of the process. Failure isn’t the opposite of success, it’s just one of the steps you carry out in the process of succeeding. Do you like that? I made it up just now, didn’t get it out of a fortune cookie or anything.

Quarterfinalisting is pretty good, though, and I did manage to get a free read of ‘Bride’ from The Literary Consultancy, which was a big opportunity. The notes were great – and even better, I recently got notes from a great fellow writer (hullo Lucy Linger!) and her notes were in line with TLC’s. Thanks to that, I know exactly where to start on the next iteration of this script, starting with a change I’ve been thinking of for a while – from now on, The Bride Wore Blood will be titled Hen Party Massacre! I think it gets the gist across quite nicely. I also have a hook for the pitch: “It’s Bridesmaids meets Friday the 13th!” – succinct and fits the tone well, I reckon.

I’ve started a new podcast (don’t ask what happened to the old one for now) which I’m really quite excited about – a friend and I will each choose a film, we’ll watch them both and then talk about the differences and similarities and things we found interesting about them. My tastes are more mainstream and esoteric horror/scifi while hers are more classic an arthouse, so we’re finding common ground in this Mixed bag of Pictures; or we’re Mixing our Pictures; I dunno, tag lines are hard, it’s called Mixed Pictures, ok? Watch out for it early next year, I hope, as by then we’ll have recorded enough episodes to have a nice buffer for when we start.

I also had a huge breakthrough in that I’ve worked with a friend of mine to write her film school graduation short! This will be my first proper credit (though as it’s a film school one and it’s unpaid then I don’t think it counts as a Professional credit?) so I’m quite nervous about how it turns out. It’s called Nancy, and it’s about a young girl who may or may not be haunted by the spirit of her mother. I did 10 drafts, and then another writer was brought in for an 11th draft to change a few things for logistical reasons, but that’s how it goes! Filming has just wrapped this week and I’m really looking forward to seeing the final film and eventually sharing it with you all.

Also, I went to the ScreenSkills Open Doors event in Leicester recently and met some very nice and very talented fellow creatives who I was only mildly jealous of. It did drive home my biggest weakness right now: confidence and speech. I tried to pitch to someone there and flubbed it twice thanks to my shy nature and pressured speech. I hate the way I pause and stumble over words as my mouth tries to catch up with my brain, and I hate what years and years of low self-esteem and lack of support for my mental health have done to my confidence. If I’m going to make it in this business, I need to address that and fast. I also need to defeat my phone anxiety. And maybe defeat my nervousness about driving.

Essentially, as ever, the biggest thing that’s holding me back is myself. I always have to try harder because of the limitations of my brain/psyche/mind/abusive subconscious, and the things that come more easily to others always seem just out of reach for me. Once worked up, it can take me hours just to write a 300 word paragraph about myself. Just trying harder isn’t going to get me there, though. I need to do Actual Work on Myself. I need to Introspect. I need to Do a Self-Scrutiny.

I’m happy to say I can at least report positive progress on that front. Earlier this year, tired of suicidal ideation (no that is a word, Chrome dictionary, look it up) and deep depressive spirals, I finally self-referred to Trent PTS for talking therapy. This is a Big Deal for me, as asking for help doesn’t come easily; not because of bullshit toxic I-am-a-man-and-men-don’t-ask-for-help reasons, but for I-should-be-able-to-just-carry-on-and-I’m-not-worth-anyone’s-time-anyway reasons. But I did it, and I had 8 sessions with a lovely counsellor who listened and said ‘gosh’ a lot. And she validated me. She told me I’d been through a lot, and am going through a lot, and she acknowledged how hard it is. And to hear that from a stranger, a professional, someone with no emotional investment in me? It was like a soothing balm. It let me realise that yes, I have been through a lot. I moan about it, yes, but I always downplay it and insist to myself that I’ve got it easy and should just get on with things. I’ve internalised this idea that I’m lazy, and will moan about how lazy I am as I run around trying to get three things done at once. Stopping for a break isn’t allowed, because treading water is the same as drowning and standing still is a waste of time.

The counsellor helped me think of myself in terms of the person who’s driven by an impulse to push himself and punish himself if he doesn’t hit perfection. I talked about my past, beyond the traumatic incident towards the potential roots of my depression and my anxiety. It was a safe space to air grievances and express emotions I’ve been repressing for too long. Ultimately, it was an extremely helpful 8 sessions of deep thinking and prodding at my psyche.

Add to this the fact that when my wife was diagnosed with adult ADHD, I sat in on the assessment sessions and went ‘Oh. Oh dear.’ at about 90% of her answers – they match up suspiciously with my own experiences. So much so that I’ve decided to to seek assessment myself, just in case; it would certainly explain my craving for constant stimuli and my struggle to remain focused on any single task. No idea if anything will come of it, but we’ll see.

If you’ve read this far, thank you, you’re a trouper and I salute you. Let’s go for a drink sometime.

So that’s how I am. It always feels like one step forward and two steps back, but I know that that’s not the case at all. Even not placing in competitions is an achievement, merely because it means I still have the confidence to put myself out there. Garfunkel and Oates put it better than I could. I’m still here, I’m struggling but I’m stronger.

And no matter how long it takes, I will succeed.

screenwriting

An Update From the Word Mines

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Man writing on notepad with open laptop and a clapperboard

 

We’re long overdue an update around these parts!

Let’s see, what’s been going on lately? Well, I set up a Letterboxd account – follow me as I try and remember what films I’ve already seen and fail to stick to a consistent rating metric!

Oh, and I finished my first feature script The Bride Wore Blood, got a few revisions deep and realised that there’s no use tweaking it any more. At this point in time, right here and right now, it’s the best script I can write for that story.

So I’ve let it fly.

I’ve submitted it to the Screencraft Screenwriting Fellowship, who fly the winner out to LA for industry meetings all-expenses-paid, among other things. I’ve submitted it to the Finish Line Script Competition, who offer a $1000+ grand prize and skype industry meetings, among other things. And perhaps most importantly, I’ve submitted it to the BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Competition, which offers a live reading of the extract I submitted and an industry showcase right here in the country I’m most likely to be working in.

Do I expect to win any of these? No; I’m not delusional and I know there’s heaps upon heaps of talent out there. I know there’s also quite a lot of dreck out there too, and what I hope to accomplish here is introducing myself as a talent and not a dreck-peddler. Your first script is never good enough to be made, I’m told, but perhaps it’s good enough to get people to remember my name when my next script does the rounds.

Which reminds me, I’m slowly starting work on my next feature script. It’ll feature a non-binary teen who goes on holiday with their family and accidentally brings back a woodland spirit/creature/boggarty type thing. It’s early days yet, but I’m excited. I’ve applied to the BFI Network Feature Treatment Workshop at Broadway cinema, will hopefully find out soon if I got a place on it. And speaking of BFI Network, I’ve set myself up over there and uploaded The Tree. No idea what I’m doing or if anything will come of it, but whatever happens happens, right?

In other news, I finished a short comedy script about a young woman who moves into a haunted flat and refuses to leave no matter how hard the ghost tries to scare her. We’re taking tentative steps towards filming, but I’m rusty and frankly, scared. We’re going to be dipping our toe into crowdfunding, and it’s really quite overwhelming. I’ve been in a dark place mentally in the past week or so, but thanks to some much-needed love from close friends and the probably-all-too-brief return of the sunshine, I’m feeling cautiously optimistic about things.

So this is Sam, checking in, letting you know things are moving and I’m not giving up.

 

writing

Screenplay Progress Report

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popcorn-1433327_1280

It’s been a little while, so I thought I’d update all you lovely readers (both of you) on how my screen-writing is going.

If you follow me on any of my various social media accounts (I’m on Twitter, go click on the bird over on the right!) you’ll know that I submitted my short script The Tree to the HollyShorts Film Festival and Screenplay Competition and it did rather well. It was selected! It was a quarter-finalist! And then much to my astonishment it reached the semi-finals! I crossed my fingers and I crossed them hard – 2nd or 3rd place would net me a free copy of industry-standard writing program Final Draft, and 1st place? Well, if I won 1st place then a production company associated with the festival would film my script and screen it at next year’s festival!

Friends, I did not win the competition, nor did I come 2nd or 3rd. But I’m thrilled to have reached the semi-finals. A lot of competitions are bunk, will take your money and give you nothing but a warm glowy feeling if you win, but these guys have a very respectable festival and I’m honoured that they thought my script was good enough to reach the stage it did.

So what’s next? Well, I’m re-jigging my first feature screenplay (The Bride Wore Blood!) to get it to the right length and proper structure, then I’m working on adapting my spousal unit Rachel Tonks Hill’s book Novis (available now!) into a riproaring space opera movie. That’ll show I can write high budget, Bride will show I can write medium budget, and I’m tooling around with ideas for a low-budget feature. Once I’ve got those, combined with the shorts I’ve already written, I’ll have a portfolio strong enough to start shopping myself around.

My script-reading job is going well (touch wood) and I’m on the hunt for more clients, so for the moment everything is coming up Me!

Stay tuned for further updates…

journal

General Housekeeping Notes

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cleaning-2650469_1280

Well, I suppose I should spruce the place up a bit, shouldn’t I?

After all, I’m working towards being a writer for a living and while I excel at the flighty flaky creative side of that particular profession, I do need to work harder on my online presence and the business side of things. So, some housekeeping is in order.

The site has undergone a complete overhaul, as I’m sure you can see if you remember what it looked like before. There’s now a home page, and a spruced up film page, and a link to my twitter and stuff and things. My Short Fiction page is still under construction, so just, er, don’t click on that link, ok?

Any suggestions, questions, comments, insults? Hit me up, I’d love to hear from you!

 

babbling, Uncategorized

I Was Almost an Incel, M’lady

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a brown cat yawning in while laying on a wooden deck
Pic unrelated, but cute Photo by Sam Burriss on Unsplash

On Tuesday 24th April, Alek Minassian drove a van into a Toronto crowd, killing 10 people and injuring 14 more. He prefaced his attack with a post on Facebook declaring the below:

“The Incel Rebellion has already begun! We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys! All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!”

Since the attack, there have been a bunch of thinkpieces looking at incels (‘involuntary celibates’) and MRAs (‘Mens Rights Activists’) and there have been a lot of people wondering how this could have happened, how someone could be led to be so violently deluded. This isn’t your common-or-garden variety political terrorism, this is a much murkier ideology that’s being pushed here.

And, as in the aftermath of Elliot Rodger’s attack, all I can think is ‘that monster could have been me.’

I was an awkward kid growing up mixed-race in Jordan, a country whose kids didn’t seem to like me very much. In their defence, I didn’t work hard to make myself likeable. I kept to myself, didn’t work hard at learning Arabic, made friends with books and Amiga games instead of with people. I was not good at socialising, is what I’m saying.

And then came puberty.

I noticed girls and girls didn’t notice me. I was scrawny and had weird hair and mumbled a lot because my confidence was through the basement. It didn’t really help that my mother had told me she’d cut my penis off if I so much as went on a date before I turned 18. She later pointed out that this was obviously a joke, but at 13 or 14 it really didn’t feel like one!

I remember that the only real conversation I had with my first crush was a mumbled ‘yeah I like him too’ when she noticed I was reading Stephen King and said she was a fan. Smooth, young me. Smooth. There were other crushes, and I was just as charming to them. Astonishingly, no girlfriends were forthcoming.

When I got to IB stage in Palestine (think A-levels, or last two years of high school in the US) I started learning how to actually get along with people. I had friends! And acquaintances! And some of them were girls. Not bad for a nerd in a war zone. I fell in love (but not really, you know) with a beautiful girl who made my heart do somersaults. And, being the lovesick fool I was, I wrote her a love letter.

She wrote a reply saying she was flattered and firmly hoping we’d be good friends. And I was happy she replied… until it wasn’t enough. I was a nice guy, there’s no reason I wouldn’t be able to woo her and win her affections. That’s what they do in the movies, right? And they get the girl, so why shouldn’t I?

I wrote two further letters, and she firmly but politely rebuffed my advances again. And I crossed a boundary by kissing her on the hand when that kind of relationship was firmly off the table. Like an idiot, I put a good friendship in danger through my lack of respect for her, and I’m astonished she’s still friends with me. If you’re reading this, you’re a saint and I’m sorry for my hormone-driven nonsense. But that’s how it starts, with hormone-driven nonsense. You overstep a boundary, are rejected and are hurt – and it’s natural to be hurt, even if you know you did wrong. But dwelling on it is unhealthy, and that’s a pattern I’d fallen into.

When I got to England in 2001 at the age of 17, my hormones went into overdrive. I found myself falling for each of my closest female friends, one after the another, pushing and pushing for them to enter a relationship with me. Each time I was… not rejected, per se. I don’t recall any ‘let’s go out’ ‘no let’s be friends’ conversations with them. But it was made increasingly clear that I was a friend and nothing ‘more’. As if being a friend to these women wasn’t an immense privilege already. Today we’re still close, though less so after we’ve drifted to different parts of the country, and I can only be grateful that they put up with my lovesick puppy routine each time it happened.

a black pug looking quizzical with head tilted
Pictured : A lovesick puppy Photo by Charles Deluvio 🇵🇭🇨🇦 on Unsplash

The ‘nice guy’ narrative was running around and around my head more and more. Nice guys finish last. Women like bastards. Why am I alone when that guy has a girlfriend? I’d have coffee with friends and sit and sulk because a couple was being couple-y at the next table. I’d say things like ‘I don’t want to see gay people kissing because I don’t want to see anyone kissing, it reminds me how alone I am’ (yay for underlying homophobia). I once even wrote a godawful couplet about skies vomiting something or other as I stew in my loneliness, or something. Vom.

I went to uni and almost immediately fell in love (again, not really, if it’s not mutual it’s not love) with someone who just seemed to click perfectly. We were almost inseparable and we seemed to understand each other perfectly. I wanted her badly (listen to that language, ‘I want you’, how possessive). And she didn’t want me back. Sorrow and self-pity and, yes, rage were swirling around inside me.

And that’s when I could have been lost.

The difference here is that the rage was directed inwards. It became a part of my depression, because depression isn’t always sadness, it’s anger and hopelessness. No woman would ever like me the way I like them, how could they, I’m disgusting, I’m a slob, I’m a loser. Because these feelings were internalised, they just fed on my insides and were quite happy wrecking my psyche.

If I’d found a community of people of men who’d felt the same way, I’d have felt accepted and understood. We would have shared jokes and memes about women who won’t give us a chance (the so-called ‘Stacy’) and the men they choose over us (the so-called ‘Chad’). I’d have felt like I found people who would care for me even if the women I fell for wouldn’t.

I’d be ripe for the red pill.

Instead, I threw myself into the community of nerds and geeks in the scifi society and tried to swallow my loneliness. In retrospect, it was silly to feel lonely when I was surrounded by friends and people who loved me – they just didn’t love me in the way I felt entitled to be loved.

And that’s the rub, isn’t it? Entitlement. No one is entitled to a partner. No one is owed love. But we’re flooded with imagery and messages that tell us that yes, we are entitled to it all. Rescue the damsel, bestow the kiss. Give her a diamond, get sex. Rub her feet, she’ll give you a blowjob. Put more favour tokens in, go on, she’ll pay out eventually. She dumped you? Stand outside her window with a boombox, that’ll convince her to take you back.

The incels and the MRAs and the Men Going Their Own Way and so on, they scare me. Because I can understand them. I understand the anger and the hatred, because I’ve felt them too. We just directed it in different directions. If I’d directed my anger outwards more often and lashed out at more people, who’s to say I wouldn’t be hailing Elliot Rodger and calling for the death of women who’d dare to choose not to fuck me. I’d like to think it’s not in my make-up, but I’m learning more and more that people change and the psyche is a strange dangerous thing.

This is not to say that I’m a saint for not going that direction. I’m not better than anyone, I’m just me. I’m still growing and I’m still unlearning those patterns. I do still overstep boundaries occasionally, and to any woman I’ve ever made feel uncomfortable: I’m so sorry. I will do better. I know that being sorry isn’t enough, you have to actually make good with action.

And I will.

social media, Twitter, Uncategorized, writing

Extraterrestrial – A LiveTweet

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Actress Brittany Allen covered in alien goo, a screenshot from 'Extraterrestrial'
“Why couldn’t I have been in ET: The Extraterrestrial instead?!”

A while ago, I saw the trailer for a B-movie style flick called Extraterrestrial. It looked like it might be a fun diversion for a couple of hours, so I stored the title in my memory and got on with my life.

After discovering that you can buy BluRays from CeX from 50p (I’m a sucker for a bargain bin, I make no apologies), I thought I’d splurge on it and give it a try. I fired it up yesterday and decided I’d ‘treat’ Twitter to a running commentary of my thoughts on it.

Make no mistake, I enjoyed watching it. I like bad movies, movies that showed promise but failed to live up to it. This could have been a superb film, but there were several bum notes that just left me cold. There’s one moment when they enter a scene so late (for comedy ‘say-one-thing-then-cut-to-a-shot-of-the-opposite-thing-happening’ value) that it made no sense at all and I had to go back a scene and rewatch it to make sure I hadn’t sat in the controller and skipped ahead with my buttocks.

But for all its flaws, it had good moments, and it’s worth remembering just how difficult it is to make a movie, let alone a good one. They did well with what they had, and I might even watch it again one day.

I’ve included my tweets below for any who don’t follow me on Twitter and are interested in my thoughts (you weird buggers). Feel free to follow me over there if you like!

I was going to complain about Storify no longer being a thing, but it turns out WordPress has an ‘Insert Tweet’ function, so that’s all worked out then. It doesn’t seem to handle threaded tweets well, mind, unless I’m just an idiot who can’t work out how to use it properly. Either way, I apologise for the weird formatting in the tweets below.

It’s still better than what I did last night, which is embed every tweet individually, which ended up looking more like quotes than tweets. Blogging is hard, people. Blogging is hard.

Beware mild spoilers – I tried to keep it context-free as much as possible because someone may actually want to watch this, and there’s no need to be a dick.

absurdity, dreams, fictional, story

The Farmer’s Dream – A Story

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nature-3125912_1280

 

It’s been a while, so I thought I’d share a little something I wrote a while back. Remember, when opportunity knocks you have the option to hide behind the sofa and pretend no one’s home.

 

The Farmer’s Dream

William was sleeping when the angel came to him.

He had been dreaming of hard labour in the field, ploughing and sowing. It was a common dream of his, one he’d often pondered the meaning of. He thought it was probably something to do with rebirth, or renewal, or fertility. More likely it was just too much cheese before bed.

In this dream, as in every previous dream of its kind, his plough would strike something hard, twist and buck in his hand. The dream would usually end there, but not tonight. Tonight the plough wrested away from his grip and sped off, leaving a deep groove in the soil behind it, merrily ploughing the rest of the field on its own.

He looked down at the ground, searching for whatever it was his plough had struck. A sharp corner poked out of the dirt. He dug away at its edges with his fingers, freeing it from the earth. He pulled it out to examine it more closely.

It was a box, about the size of his head, made of granite and marble but lighter than it should be. He was suddenly overcome by a strange feeling he hadn’t had on previous nights – he knew that this was a dream. He could feel the soft earth beneath his feet, could feel the cold rough surface of the box, but something was off; he was certain that he was actually asleep and in his own bed in the farmhouse.

“How curious,” he said to himself.

He looked around. The field was just as he remembered it from his waking hours, as far as he could tell. He wondered what would happen if he attempted to take control of the dream, perhaps to take flight or to change his surroundings. He looked at the plough retreating into the distance and willed it to come back. It didn’t.

“Perhaps I need a bit more practice,” he thought. “Let’s start with something small. Like opening this box.”

He opened the box.

A burst of bright light spilled out, blinding him. A great booming voice rang out in such rumbling tones that he could feel the soles of his feet vibrating.

WILLIAM, said the voice. HARK, WILLIAM.

William dropped the box in shock.

OW.

He nudged it gently with one toe. What was it?

WILLIAM, the voice resumed. ARE YOU HARKING?

“Um, I think you mean harkening?” William suggested.

GOOD, YOU ARE HARKING. PICK THE BOX UP, AND GAZE INTO THE LIGHT.

William did as he was told, though his hands were shaking so much he thought he would drop the box again. The strange voice rattled his back teeth.

I AM THE ANGEL OF DIVINE INTERVENTION. I AM TASKED WITH INTERVENING, DIVINELY. DO YOU COMPREHEND?

“No,” William answered honestly. The voice sighed, blowing the farmer’s hair back.

THEN I SHALL ELABORATE. I AM TO SET YOU ON AN ADVENTURE TO SEEK A GREAT FORTUNE. THE JOURNEY WILL SEND YOU FAR FROM HENCE AT GREAT PERIL, BUT IT IS OF HUGE IMPORT.

“What will I be importing?”

WHAT? NO. NO, I MEAN IT WILL BE HUGELY IMPORTANT. BECAUSE YOU WILL BE RICH.

“Well why didn’t you say that, then?”

BECAUSE… BECAUSE… BECAUSE IT JUST SOUNDS BETTER.

“Seems to me that sounding good isn’t quite as important as making sure you’re understood, don’t you think? Especially if you’re meant to be sending people on important quests.”

LOOK, DO YOU WANT TO GO OR DON’T YOU? BECAUSE WE DON’T HAVE ALL NI-

“No, thank you.”

There was a moment of stunned silence.

I BEG YOUR PARDON?

“I said no, thank you. See, I’m asleep at the moment and I don’t really know how long I’m likely to be. I can’t go on a long quest and then have to oversleep in order to finish it. Who’ll feed the pigs?”

OH, AHAHAH, I CAN SEE THE CONFUSION. NO, SEE, THE QUEST IS FOR WHEN YOU ARE AWAKE.

“Eh? How’s that work, then?”

WELL, SEE, I TELL YOU ABOUT THE TREASURE AND WHERE IT IS, AND YOU WAKE UP THINKING IT’S A DREAM ONLY I’VE LEFT A SHEAF OF WHEAT OR SOMETHING UNDER YOUR PILLOW AS A SIGN AND SO YOU GO OFF AND SEEK YOUR FORTUNE, GROWING AND MATURING ALONG THE WAY UNTIL YOU RECEIVE YOUR FINAL REWARD OF A KINGDOM AND A BEAUTIFUL WIFE AND SO ON.

“Oh, so the quest is for after I wake up?”

YES.

“I see. Well, in that case… no, thank you.”

LOOK, WILLIAM, I DON’T THINK YOU’VE GRASPED THE BASIC CONCEPT OF-

“Oh, I have, it’s just that I don’t want to do it. I simply haven’t the time.”

There was no reply; the voice seemed to be pondering this. William felt more was needed.

“Like I said, who’d feed the pigs? And the cows would need milking, and if I don’t get the field ploughed in time for sowing then I’ll be buggered. I can’t just up sticks and travel off to foreign lands seeking my fortune and battling monsters and outsmarting evil viziers. It wouldn’t be fair on the livestock, or the people who’re counting on my crops. So thank you, but if it’s all the same to you, I’ll have to decline.”

He laid the box gently on the ground.

NOW SEE HERE-

“No, I don’t think so,” William replied firmly, slapping the lid shut. The voice continued, muffled and confused.

wait, what are you doing? william?

William placed the box back into the hole and started to shovel dirt back over it.

are you serious? this is ridiculous … stop, william. william.

William didn’t stop. He filled the hole and smoothed the dirt over until the spot was indistinguishable from the rest of the field. He patted his hands clean on his trousers.

“Now then,” he thought. “Let’s give flying a try.”

And with that, William flew off into the clouds.

The next morning there was a long white feather under his pillow. He threw it away.

THE END

creativity, film making, Uncategorized, writing

No Regrets

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Here we are again.

I’m not going to apologise for the hiatus this time. It’s a new thing I’m trying called No Regrets. It is what it is.

I think my creativity and my drive come in waves. I get bit by the bug and have a brief brilliant burst of productivity, get complacent, get tripped up by something and stop trying. It’s the ‘stop trying’ step that I’m working on. No regrets.

My last post advised I was setting up Splendiferous Films so I could keep making short films and pushing myself. So far, I’ve made one and a half in nearly three years. Considering the pace I was cranking them out before, this can be considered to be Not Good.

But here’s the thing – circumstances change. Everything has to be taken within its context. I can’t judge myself now based on my actions then. A very specific set of circumstances were in play, to do with people and responsibilities and energy. Over time, things have changed. I’ve been punishing myself for not pushing harder, when really I just need to work out the right amount to push.

No regrets.

I’m proud of Going Down. It’s a funny little flick, and I’m proud of everyone who helped make it. Is it an amazing game-changer of a film? No, hardly. It was the best film we could make at that time. Was it worth submitting to festivals? Probably not, but it at least got it in front of people who are out of my social circle, even if those people didn’t pick it for inclusion in their festivals. And that’s quite right – it’s not quite at that quality yet. We’re getting better.

But we won’t get any better if we don’t make any more films.

Snapshots has been stuck in post-production for about a year now. We’ve got a rough cut and some ideas for where to go, but we haven’t been able to finish it. I don’t think it’s been looked at in 6 months or so.

There are personal reasons for this, partly to do with being a little too close to the subject matter and partly to do with a whole host of internal and external factors. I’m not going to go into them because they’re quite personal, but suffice to say I’m done beating myself up about it. I’m not the same person I was five or six years ago, and I’m not in the same position.

I didn’t work as hard as I could have to stay on top of creativity, and I can’t change that. But I can forgive myself and move on.

I’ve been kickstarting my creativity lately. I took an excellent screenwriting course and a fascinating body-casting workshop. I’ve been reading about creative people doing creative things and thinking about the creative process. It’s disheartening to realise that I can’t take many of the risks that creative people do to get themselves out there, but this is 2017. I have the internet and a functional body and a (mostly) capable brain. And I have friends.

We’ve been moving house and that’s taken a lot of energy, but that’s nearly over. We’re going to finish  Snapshots, get it out there in front of the eyeballs of the world – and then we’re going to make another short film or sketch. And then another. And then another.

Can I get to the ‘3 projects in a year’ position I wanted to be in? Maybe. Maybe not. And if not, that’s fine. Life happens, and as long as we don’t give up altogether then all will be well.

No regrets.

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Splendiferous Films

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I’m bricking it.

Those who know me know that I have tried my hand at making short films with friends as part of a group called Black Stump Films. I found that I really enjoyed the challenge and the satisfaction of being a part of a group project that produces something that can entertain people.

Life has a way of getting in the way of creativity, though, and I’ve found myself making short films less and less frequently while growing frustrated at the lack of a creative outlet. It was only a matter of time (and confidence) before I took the logical next step and started working towards doing this properly.

And so Splendiferous Films is born. I’ve not registered it as a company yet, there’s still research to do before I’m ready to take that particular plunge yet, but for now it’s a place where I can start to build something beautiful, something that I can call my own and share with the world. I hope to still involve my friends as much as possible as I work my way towards eventually being a professional filmmaker, and I hope that you’ll all come along for the ride with me. There will be ups, there will be downs, but I’ll do my best to make sure you’re entertained. Because that’s what I’m here for. I’m here to make you smile.

So wish me luck, and be patient with me if I start screaming incoherently, rocking backwards and forwards or hiding under my duvet to avoid the pressures of actually living up to this monster I’ve created. I’m an artist, we’re sensitive delicate types.

Now, who wants to make movies?

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The Featureless Man

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Ah, October! Where the nights come quickly and the wind grows cold!

‘Tis is the season for ghosts, ghouls, goblins, gremlins, gribblies … gvampires… gwerewolves? Alliteration is hard. You get the picture.

I’m trying my hand once again at the delightful Whimword flash fiction competition. I aim to submit one every week if I can, to keep my hand in. The benefit of this is that you get to read my attempts at literary greatness – lucky you! Oh to be blessed in such a manner!

This week’s word is ‘featureless’, chosen by my very own spousal unit.

Without further ado, I give you a creepy story I just chucked together tonight. Tonks bribed me with some Mass Effect 3 time. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with Commander Shepherd.

The Featureless Man

The featureless man will come again tonight.

I sharpen my spear as I crouch by the fire, the burning wood crackling and sending sparks up into twisting currents of air. My knife snicks through the wood, shavings fall at my feet. The point is growing sharp.

It will not be sharp enough.

The featureless man comes every night, or at least he has come every night that I have been here. Since I pulled myself, broken and bleeding, from the wreckage. Since I dragged myself to the beach. Since I built this small fire. Maybe even before then. Who knows if he was watching me as I slipped in and out of dreamless sleep those first few nights?

The featureless man does not speak, because he does not have a mouth. He can see even though he has no eyes. I know because his head follows me when I move and he cranes his neck to follow the movement of a waved arm. He can hear even though he has no ears. I know because he cocks his head when I speak, when I cry out or when I whimper.

Every night he creeps closer, and I can see more of him. There is nothing to see. He has no face. He has no clothes. He is not naked. He just is. My eyes slide off him when I try to focus them, to see the distinguishing characteristics he surely has, he must have, all humans have.

He is not human. He has two limbs that look like arms. He moves them like arms. He has two limbs that look like legs. They move him like legs. But he is not human. He smells wrong. He looks wrong. He is wrong.

Light bends around him. The world bends around him. As he gets closer, the air gets darker and colder. Every night is darker and colder than the last. Every night he comes closer than the last.

Last night he came and stood at the edge of the ring of light cast by my fire. He stared at me with his lack of eyes and listened for me with his lack of ears. I didn’t move. I didn’t speak. I could do neither. We stayed still, silent and unmoving statues, for hours.

I watched as a crab scuttled across the rocks and crossed the light of my camp. As it passed by the featureless man it began to shake violently, and with a terrible cracking noise it began to fold in on itself. The featureless man’s shadow reached for the crab and consumed it. As daylight came, he faded away, leaving behind nothing but the indentations in the sand where he had stood.

The featureless man will come again tonight.

I am sharpening my spear.

It will not be sharp enough.

But it is all that I can do.