Blood and Money and the need to get to work.

Today I finally finished Thomas Thompson's epic true crime novel 'Blood and Money'.  And indeed, it was epic.  Chronicling a series of murders in Texas in the late 60's through the early 70's, it mythologizes available information leading up to the events and well into what became their settled conclusion.  As each character is introduced we see their stories through the lens of a sort of tragic fatalism, certain to fall on one side or the other of the brutality that took both the opulent socialites and the seedy and unscrupulous bottom-feeders and cast them all into a wasteland of lies and self-servitude.  What's amazing to me is that Thomas Thompson only barely suggests each individual's implications through his approach a slight-of-hand that at least gives the illusion of objectivity.  The story does indeed end, though it is left largely up to the reader to draw conclusions from the information provided about whom to exonerate and whom to convict.

I discovered this book after reading Roger Ebert's review of David Fincher's 'Zodiac' earlier this summer, in which the former said that both 'Blood' and 'Zodiac' understood how to create tension through character and patiently peeling back the layers of the case and ensuing investigation.  I'm glad I read Thompson's book, though I'll probably benefit most from the first half in which we see the tapestry of the lush world in which the original victim's inhabit rather than the latter in which the trial laboriously dissects the details and those suspected of involvement in the murders.

I love when I read a good book.  I don't like when I read a book that seems like it needs more work.  It frustrates me, and it feels jarring, and in a possibly neurotic way I feel it pollutes my creative thoughts about my own work for at least a short time.  I always feel like I have to do a sort of detox after this kind of negative experience, and I have to watch a movie or read a book I already know is good just to reset things.  It's weird, I know.  Creating ideas, worlds, characters, etc. through writing, for me, is a fragile process, and experiencing projects that suck can sometimes disrupt that process.  These days I no longer seem to read for enjoyment but rather to learn something specific pertaining to a story on which I'm currently working.  'Blood' had much to offer me in terms of narrative structure and how to create tragic irony through distancing from the character, and I needed no detox after reading it.

Then, on a roll and reading-rush from finishing the book at long last, I dove head first into 'The Man From Beijing'.  Granted, I'm only about 35 pages into this book, but still I have to say I'm not entirely excited about this story.  Having read earlier this year what to me feels like a modern crime classic in 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo', Henning Mankil's novel seems already as though it would have benefited from the less-is-more mentality, beginning with (and this is not spoiling anything the back cover won't tell you) no less than nineteen murders.  It seems determined to hammer home the disturbing nature of the crime but it feels a bit ham-handed, and the characters feel just a bit too quickly sketched and a little...familiar...?

I'll finish it, though, if nothing else because I'm weird and think that if I start a book and don't finish it I'm a failure.  What I really, really, REALLY need to do, though, is finish my own damn outlines for my own damn work.  'Polemic' has a solid outline that I'm satisfied with.  I'm still trying to suture together some details in the middle, but I think the overall architecture works fairly well.  But 'Raccoon City', the bane of my existence, still eludes me on what works best.  As Kristen would say, analysis paralysis.  The story is there, I just have to tell it already.

The end of August will be here before we know it...

Obsession is good.

In the past month I've taken full advantage of the time I've afforded myself in my drastic life changes.  I've read and reread Syd Field's "Screenplay".  I've read and dissected Cormac McCarthy's novel "No Country For Old Men", and Thomas Thompson's "Blood and Money".  On at least one occasion I've done several critical examinations of the following films: "Chinatown", "The Ghost Writer", "The Social Network", "Zodiac", "All The President's Men", "Minority Report", "The Departed", and "Collateral".  I want to be one of the best American screenwriters, and I've been tending to my craft.  By critical I mean that as I watch the film I examine, often times typing out a word document as I watch, to keep track of items such as inciting and key incidents, plot points, narrative arcs, subtexts and how/when they are discussed or integrated, historical context of the film and cultural milieus from which they arose, blocking, cinematography (camera movement, mise-en-scéne), editing, lighting, color schemes, and sound.  Basically, everything.

I've been keeping myself on a steady diet of daily reading and writing of varying intervals.  I'm currently working on two stories, one a feature length script entitled "Raccoon City" and the other a novel, tentatively titled "Polemic", though there is a slightly more incendiary title floating around that a few have heard me mention.  They will be done by the end of August, I promise you that, and I promise myself.

There has to be nothing else but this in order to be the best, and that's what I want to be.  I don't care if I go broke and have to work at a gas station because it's all that's available to support myself, I'm too close now, nothing is going to stop me.  I will have this.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Tonight Nina and I had a productive meeting over some all-you-can-eat tacos (always a catalyst for intellectual pursuits).  I somewhat begrudgingly decided upon my script rather than my novel for her to project manage as we both agreed since it's the more violent of the two it's probably also the more badass.  Although, I've been making a lot of headway on that story lately and I doubt I'll give up on it entirely to focus on my script.  I've set a concrete goal of completing a project (now we know it's the script and not the novel) by the end of August.  So, by August 31st, 2011 I will have a script completed, polished, and ready to move forward with.  Hopefully a novel too.

It seems as though it will take the majority of my time for the remainder of summer.  By the end of the week my application will be in the mail and/or submitted online as appropriate so all I need to do is send out prompts for letters of recommendation and then await my graduate school fate.

Our meeting tonight was fantastic in that it offered that much coveted though always elusive external perspective that you just can't get when you're only one human being.  I realized how unimaginably tedious I had made all the elements that as of yet didn't connect, and had neglected to address the most critical aspects of the story, such as: What are the characters overarching motivations?  What do they want?  What is the overarching theme?  What is the ending (the most important aspect of the story to know before you begin writing!)?  What is at stake?!  (I'm sorry Syd Field, I've failed you.)

Somehow I had, or thought I had, an inciting incident, and yet it didn't connect with any particular event and so incited... nothing.  My next assignment is to fix that.  Honestly, somehow I thought I had all of these major elements embedded in my copious disjointed notes, but after discussing them I realized they fell apart.  It was really exciting, actually, because it made the story feel more alive.  All this time it's just been ideas that no longer have any value in my head because I have nothing against which to justify them, and hearing them aloud is critical to knowing whether or not they work.  Hearing my ideas spoken to another person is really the only way to find out whether or not they work.  I find myself explaining ideas differently than I do for myself.  Where details might suffice for my own explanation in your head to someone else they may seem flimsy and they instantly red flag themselves.  It's a harsh process and I had to walk into it (or sit into it at a table with many tacos) trusting that Nina wasn't going to laugh at my cockamamie ideas or that they don't fit together.  Yet.  That's what this is for.  

These are the types of puzzles my brain loves.  I'll straighten all of this out, and I have faith in this story.  It's going to be brutal and grizzly, exciting and suspenseful.  At least, I hope it will.  This is my first outing at a feature-length script and the first time I'm employing all the tactics I've read about in the last few months.  Here's my final exam.