On consolidating an online presence

Every major site with social elements has a community with profile linking and supported commenting.  They encourage usage, debate, feedback and even to platform these sites for your own ventures.

How much of it is a gimmick and how much of it serves practical use? I can't say.  All I know now is that it's completely exhausting.  I'm tired of combing through personal photos for profile images but I suppose the more you do it, the more you start to develop a mind for it.

I've begun writing a "scary" story about a young girl who's being encouraged by a mysterious being to push people in front of trains.  I haven't committed to writing fiction in a long time and wow, this s serious business.  The amount of time I've spent staring out of the window, pacing in my room and doing just about anything else, including writing this blog entry, should have really made for some progress but getting through just the first page of world-setting was like pulling teeth.

In my distraction, I veered off to twitch.tv again (which is probably why common advice is to turn off the internet and the electricity if you can manage it).  I decided to look more carefully at how streams are growing.  There's a lot of styling and branding that has to be accomplished.  Certain sayings become memorable, certain colors become iconic of the player, and a look is usually immortalized via cartooning or digitizing of the player.

I doubt I can do a proper drawing without first putting a major investment in training myself in that craft but maybe with some more photoshop tutorials an short term and doable idea will come to me to place-hold until I can get some help.  In the mean time, just improving my commentary is about all I can focus on during the show.

Additionally there's this highlight business which allows me to export clips from my cast and then put them on youtube.  What I haven't figured out yet is the best way to pull a voice-over or what images I want to bookend the clips with to better brand what I'm offering.

On top of that I'm still sorta slacking in putting in serious editing time on my movies and my crafting my opening video introducing the "Build-It! Transmedia Project" which is pretty much this type of information but visual and more entertaining.

I'm learning lots and progress is really slow at the moment.  But one thing is for certain: there are no shortcuts.

- C

On release from the wheel

Good evening,

Fiction writing for novels is different from the script format in that a writer can return to the senses and wayward thoughts of the character.  

For adaptations to screen this is awesome because it gives you solid footing for shooting with subtext in your composition and gives your actors a great deal of insight into the motivations moving them through a given scene.  I feel like true adaptations are provided with a great deal of heavy lifting from the source narrative.  That's why I want to keep the craft growing alongside anything else.  It can double the work but if the original story is good, at least people can read it straight and find something in it.

I was thinking about this because it's only at the end of film school that I've finally begun to see how my mind visualizes information.  Through the early part of my college career where it was all about the creative writing courses, we were going deep into literature and the words themselves carried the ruling potency.  Sure they created images but the images were flashes, abstract, and usually combined with other types of stimuli like smells and touch.  Now I can see scenes when I want to and that's pretty cool.

As an example: I recently wrote a very 'stick-it-to-the-man' e-mail to a big group of students that were once part of my constituency as film society president.  In that I alerted them to a host of issues I'd recently dealt with prior to my resignation, including duplicitous faculty, obstruction, undermining language, just a slew of issues that distracted from getting the work done until eventually the loophole was uncovered that came with a threat ending my resignation.  I'm so happy to get that stuff off my chest.

While I'm writing of course all I can envision are all the people I'm pissing off. Before the work probably would have stuck pretty close to the flow of the keys but now there are visual associations like these people with real titles and shit...I'm in my room at my laptop but I'm very much with their faces closely observing the way they contort and grimace before my loose-lips syndrome. It's like getting up close to a JHS bully in slow-mo, able to really observe the humanity in the eyes of someone too much of a villain to recognize that they are one; both human and a villain.  It's all justified and what's most sad is that I probably could've easily crossed over to the dark side at many points in my life given the right circumstances.  The appearance of something like righteousness is just a weird occurrence.

I don't know what happens to people when they finally get a salary or benefits . . . I mean we all need them but we're so afraid to lose them too.  And then you become your salary and your benefits and you act as an agent in defense of the system that provides them.  Freedom is abandoned and I can't say if the alternative is necessarily worse.  But, for now, in the absence of money I've found a type of allowance to explore my potential and my voice.  Apparently I'm good at thinking and analyzing and using those thoughts to make people in "powerful" positions uncomfortable.  Well, school faculty isn't really a good test for that but relative to me as a recent student, it sure felt intense.

I'm glad to let go of that madness.  I'm glad to have a brief time, even if I'm joke-broke, to fool around in my imagination and see what's inside.  I can't wait to share something done - like really DONE.  Then I'm gonna get smashed!

- C
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Story inbound: Thirteen year-old Mary is aloof, antisocial and a bit morbid.  Her parents are patient, her 11 year-old brother oblivious.  Her imaginary friend Norn is however quite skillfull in tutoring young Mary how to push unsuspecting commuters before oncoming trains and getting away with it. When a chance witness takes off, Mary gives chase and unwittingly alerts a nearby patrolman to investigate with Norn silently in tow.

Sometimes you gotta put your own north star up there.

 Um...

 

shit.

I woke up a week ago and decided I was gonna be a content creator via this blog, youtube, twitch and vimeo (my gf encourages me to use colors...)

THE GOALS: 

• write fiction for people who still like to read and don't mind reading from an amateur as long as the stories are cool
• make movies I want to make for folks that can appreciate them [cheap or no-budget, but funny or thrilling]
• play games and share that experience with folks that can dig it
• do it all in a way where the products compliment each other
• do it all in a way that increases my chances of being able to survive off this and contribute to a household CAUSE I'M 31 AND A COLLEGE EDUCATION = F*IN USELESS!

[Disclaimer: I went for a double major in creative writing and film production.  I understand, but I had hopes and I still believe it would've been useful if someone had explained you could build your craft outside of college without having to go into debt. Leave college for occupational therapy or accounting. Film Production especially put me in the $60,000 hole besides other expenses that built up while I was busting my ass on set.  I was naive and to stick it out was just me being stubborn.  But I didn't want to be called a quitter.  Lesson: Knowing when to quit is wisdom.  Too bad it tends to stem from hindsight.]

That's me ^ using the internets.  OBS WHAT?!



OBSERVATIONS
A few things have become immediately clear:  

1. The market is saturated but that doesn't mean it's saturated with entertainers.  If I'm going to make it, I've got to learn how to be clear, engaged and be entertaining.
2. I need control over the stream.  Control might as well mean becoming a GOD-DAMNED ASTRONAUT (they're cool, just sayin)! And I'm going to need money.
3. I need to remember what it was to enjoy video games and movies again.  Since college, production's become slave labor and video games are a source of guilt.  The audience this is built for is eagerly awaiting an escape and I gotta be able to find it myself.

BUT HOW (I really don't f*in know!)

This is an old blog. If you dare to read older posts prepare to be either bored, depressed, confused, or secretly consoled that you're not alone given pretty typical themes of awkwardness, searching or whatever.

I think I've been trying to tell my story in attempt to export accountability. That doesn't work. I wasn't offering anything in return. There are no solid answers or pathways.  You gotta cut through the brush.  You gotta lather up the sky and plant your own business up there.

My business now is the big thing, it's the thing we all want: do what we love for a living, be able to do it well and be fairly compensated for it. What's especially important to recognize here is that if I can pull it off, anyone can!

It so happens I'm just about as far from success as you can get without being a hobo. My personal TV is broken. My laptop is over decade old. I have nothing to invest in any new equipment or games and I have zero experience in broadcasting. The gauntlet's been set.

This is a dangerous situation.

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The rest of this week I'll be editing a few films I made in college and writing my video intro for my youtube channel. I'll also be revising some shorts stories I've written. I'll set a date now for uploading at least one short film Thursday and one short story Friday.  

Twitch streaming practice will begin late nights till about 3 or 4 am EST and Tuesdays from 5-9pm or so.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned.

- C

Emotional Risk is Finite Bloodletting

Image Credit:playalapa.com Morning Sunlight in the Jungle

 I don't believe there's a true image of the jungle we can uniformly rely upon.  The clearing up ahead we've been searching for is unanimously ominous by the time we realize how important it's become.  We've learned to do without it.  We've convinced ourselves that humility was God's greatest lesson.  And yet there it is.

Waiting long enough to understand it's not a reflective mirage beyond the haze of breaking light, but another pair of eyes altogether glinting across the clearing, is part of growing wiser.  We are our worst danger, both within ourselves and upon each other.  Simultaneously we need one another to learn and grow and to make better use of the efforts enlisted in our deep struggles.

I don't want to be writing at 1:11 AM.  I want to sleep.  I'm turning 31.  I'm not nearly as depressed as I was this time last year.  But I am conscious that the energy I've taken for granted all this time is definitely on allowance and the currency is far less than what it was when I was younger.  Either that, or I spent it all too soon satisfied with fantasy alone.

  

image credit:
http://images.forwallpaper.com/

It was always about dragon-slaying.  When I got up this morning, dragging my gut out of bed and washing my face with soap that didn't seem to be working on imperfections that never seemed to clear up and a nagging sense that the day was already wasted, it was very much still about dragon-slaying.  Some books call it resistance.  It's like there's this spiritual gravity which binds us from the freedom we believe is hidden in the world in the form of some destiny bound to a magical weapon meant for our singular wielding.

But the dragon never dies.  Both it and us reawaken to circle each other until the days have all gone and we're all but forgotten...

Why did I abandon this blog?  Two years ago it could've been any number of reasons: a bad breakup, loss of the dream, serious life doubts, you name it.  I've been broke and not being able to make money over an extended period of time is bound to have a psychological effect.  I'm not on meds because I'm too stubborn to stay consistent with the perpetual flow of doctor's appointments that take place after just the first.  I was so busy asking questions I didn't know that answering them was up to me.  I needed time.

Image credit: familyguy.wikia.com

But not writing wasn't the answer.  It has remained an important space for reflection and without it I've been numb to my own journey.  I'm not happy with the habits I've been repeating but I will talk about what good's been done today and what I might do better tomorrow:  I awoke this morning with a thought to accomplish, efficiently, an assignment due at my internship EOD by lunchtime.  Barring a small complication, that was accomplished.  I was able to use the remainder of the day to review several articles about the evolving freedom of filmmaker entrepreneurs in the age of self-distribution, review some interesting parallels in the music industry, and share these thoughts with a co-worker.  I'm not going to be interning for long, and it frustrates me that many of the professional staff are nearly 10 years younger than me while I'm just interning.  But I am happy to be in an environment where I can talk openly about my interests.

I came home to have dinner with a loved one, exercise, watch some Sherlock Holmes and there's a peace worth fighting for.  The only problem is the big job isn't done: a story teller must tell the stories, a producer must produce, and I think I'm going to skip my thesis film at Brooklyn College, graduate with my English degree, and move away from, what is to me, a needless expense that would only bury me further in debt with little to show.  I have too many stories half-baked in too many scribbles across too many half-used legal pads.  I long deeply for that sense of achievement and camaraderie a thesis engagement, but I truly feel what I'm putting aside is...well, life.  I need to move on and out of Brooklyn College and I need to do it before I lose my mind.

This weekend I should be performing location sound services for a short (26 pages!) paranormal action/drama pilot that a friend's pulled me on for no-pay.  I don't want to do it.  But I will because I've got a few of these left in me and sometimes bright young people just need a little help.  Where else can they get it if not from friends that believe in them?  As long as I can live in that world, I don't mind making a part of it.  

The Afternoon After

Image from http://www.boattitleanswers.com/

   As if it were yet a turning point . . . But I am trying, still, to change what I represent; both consciously and unconsciously.

   That much being evident I believe I need to bring the focus around. My first order of business is to rise up out of the hole: achieve gainful employment or earn meaningful income otherwise. By meaningful or gainful I mean, at the least, that I can support myself and a little bit more. That's my first goal.

   The future beyond that point is equally clear to me but I'll begin but underscoring the point that what I can do for myself, I will work to pass on ever year - either through perspective, influence, participation or donation.

   Chances are anything I am able to accomplish will not happen alone and my ability to achieve wealth or success on my brand will have more to do with my diligence at work, my capacity to uphold a distinct quality standard, and mostly my ability to work well with others and to inspire them to offer their best with me.

   The vision of the income stream is set to 3 fields: Sound, Writing, and Business Management. More specifically sound recording and design, writing fiction and editorials, and lastly business to the extent of the founding and management of my own non-profit production company, for-profit studio, and the regular production of shorts, features and other modes of storytelling throughout.

   There is enough here to last a lifetime but even this work leads somewhere. My first step however is to become solvent and now that the road has been cleared of some debris (the games on my laptop) I believe the urgency I've denounced for so long will come home to roost.

She's bound on the tracks and getting the hint she can't stay there

I was up all night again playing Diablo III. It was just about 5am when I finally quit my session. I had been playing since roughly 11am the previous day. I had taken a few breaks to eat. I studied a text book for perhaps 20 minutes. My mom is working at Macy's because she's obligated to. My gf was studying her ass of for her PhD. It's not that I'm not in school and a normal job at this point would prove a hindrance. The idea is that with the time I have available I should be pulling ahead of the game and setting down to lay out the tracks for my near future. Instead I was actively putting it off, choosing to be anything but what my truer passions have been stirring me for because of this amazing distraction we call gaming...It is an addiction. I slipped back into it. But with the recent election, because of Obama and the sever nature of the business I claim to be interested in, and my age, I am sorely aware of the fact that I cannot hold onto my youth forever. I matter now. My mind and my limbs are needed and whey they are not available it is felt. It's painful returning to consciousness. And I know that when I finally do sleep today and wake up around 2pm or so, I won't know where to begin to fill the void. I'll be shaken. My library won't do it. It won't attack me. My studies won't stimulate me in that frenzied kinetic way. My dreams will seem more displaced from reality that that tangible controller... But now that I've finally taken the step to uninstall all gaming from my laptop and my 360 is still packed away, perhaps I can make that change. I'm no longer wild enough to say this is the day of days, this is the moment of change. I don't know what makes the difference. I'm not sure what keeps us from change and what finally agrees to allow us to move forward with it but if it truly were up to my most present and concerned facets I would have been in a very different place by now. An aspect of myself got too big and I do have reason to fear it's response over the next few days at it realizes it doesn't have its most immediate arena for amusement. Sure there's writing and drawing and learning. Sure there's the films and self-investment otherwise and exercise. Sure there's my family, gf, and friends. Sure there's the search for work and the development of my company which all is very important. And of course there are the spiritual pursuits. But there's this illusion I uphold about time in between, as if there ever really is. About decompressing and mindlessness and free time. There truly isn't any. But a part of me still subscribes to a period in my life where I didn't have to care, even if I did... I'm going to change. Before I hit rock bottom, before utmost tragedy. Before I have to be taught a painful and ugly life lesson. I'm going to change before I fail everyone in my corner, before it supposedly becomes easier and before that fabled perspective arrives off a spaceship and hands me my destiny. I'm going to change before I get too old and worn out to fool around. I'm going to change on purpose because - I deserve to take myself seriously. And if I ever hope to be truly taken seriously, if I ever hope to inspire followers, I need to apply myself. Today hasn't even begun and it's already practically wasted...but I suppose starting the day with a sacrifice and some choice words isn't the worst case. Perhaps 20 minutes ago I was absorbed in my avatar's performance. Now I'm rubbing my face incessantly and tugging on my hair. I'm slouching. The middle of my back feels just awful. And when I stretch I can tell my ribs and breastplate were compressed. I must look crazy. And I'm pretty sure the uneven sleep cycle contributes to stress related symptoms and the odd physical cue like acne. I feel very much uncool. But the greater realization was that not only of degeneration but a near-conscious choice away from the things I claimed responsibility for and the desire to be recognized for. I've dropped the ball horribly this semester and was approaching the precipice... I could always have done better, but now I feel that I truly need to. The games, I see, will mark the end of me and everything I stand for if I don't resist today and forever forward work to replace the focus of that obsessive habit with one nearer to the practice of whom I deserve to be and whom others deserve from me. Specifically, the writer, the film maker, the founder, the activist, the father, the good son, the happy man, the true adventurer. There's still room for him yet I know, but only if I embrace him now. Life will not get any easier if I continue to turn my nose up and away from so precious a path as the one I've been escaping. God help me. I'm so tired all of a sudden and I don't know how to end...

I Don't Know What to Do: War

Yesterday I was in the city. Manhattan was full on a weekday evening. It was pregnant with exasperation and beautiful people and the achingly high buildings which speak of an alternate reality right next to ours at the bottom but theoretical at our best attempt to picture. I came away from a production meeting proceeding an uneventful casting (in terms of turnout, not quality per se). I went home feeling a little uplifted. The director's confidence helped me feel well-placed. And I reorganized my thoughts on the way. I was at war. I've been struggling to gain a winning hand in this mess of my identity. Action defines a person. Although I'm an idealist, I'm nothing if not executing the weight of my ideals... Ugh, that old problem again. I can speak of the proverbial "this time." I can talk forever of the beauty of a world pulled together knowing the effort involved is unfathomable. I can cling to dreams because the romance of longing for something truly great and selfless is both rapturous and selfish. But the truest work is in giving. Real work is the provision of labor and focus. Real work is meaningful and draining and rewarding. Real work is not something someone can ask of you. It is a precedent you can set and remake every day. Being a real worker is often joyless but it is soothing on some level. Directly or indirectly, it requires a divorce from the ego. But does this mean we give up pursuits of power and the benefits of wielding it? Sexuality, wealth, popularity, fine materials and expensive trinkets? Do we give up wanting to travel to the exotic, eat the exotic, have grand spaces allocated for our sole enjoyment and servants at our beck and call? Do we give up the pleasure of music and celebration in exclusive locales, access, luxury? I don't have any of the above and something tells me that if I did I would abuse them all with abandon. I would live this way if I could. I would submerse myself in the mire of stimulus until I had lost the very meaning I was born with and all I am had been supplanted with a meaningless joy. I would do it because I know I cannot truly live without understanding what I would be giving up. To see the limitations of myself now, of myself in power, of myself as an idealist, of myself as resigned, to envision all ends in limitation places idealism in paradox. The freedom to believe whatever versus the self-contained nature of any concept conceivable; where you look, you find Him - infinite forms of finite meaning; a language against boundary and a path to truth. The harmony of all of agendas will only create stagnation, a loss of need. The search is more essential. We are headed somewhere... We are imbalanced because evolution requires it. We must fight always to turn the leading philosophy, or to strengthen it. To what end? Does it matter? The breakdown of all pursuits is ubiquitous. Power corrupts, as they say. This is just one manifestation. College dropouts amass great wealth; this is another. There are no true stigmas BECAUSE because war is there to change the definition of stigma. I wrote once more that I would pursue earning $10k a month. Around $6k from production and post sound and the remaining over time from literary residuals, film distribution and my nonprofit salary. I told myself this having only half a business plan, half a sound kit, half an understanding of sound design, any number of half-developed short fiction and novel ideas. The war has raged for the last 20 years, slowly at first and now more fiercely. The enemies recognize each other and brutalize each other openly, leaving me the host frantic with desperation and guilt, doubt and rage. I lean into it. I lean into it. I will tremble beneath the strike. I will feel the fear. I will shake and cry. I will stand if more from stubborn will than from courage. I will stand because people depend on me. And more will before this battle is over. I am haunted by it.