Writing Advice - part 1

There's a lot of writing advice out there. How do you know who to listen to? Easy. You listen to me. As some of you know, I read scripts for a screenplay competition and write coverage.

Sometimes people come up to me on the street and they say "hey! how do you get your hair to be so shiny?" and I say "Hey! Nice try, but you're off topic". You see. That's how laser-focused I am. On writing. Let's begin. At the beginning of course.



(1) Quit your job.



To be a successful writer, you absolutely must quit your job. How else are you going to have time to write? Look, we hear a lot about writers who worked this or that crappy job, just enough to pay the bills, but at night they would really get passionate..with writing (get your mind out of the gutter), blah blah blah. But this is not true. Most writers are a bunch of rich people and trust fund babies. You need to emulate them. Check this out. "Hi, I work at the Gap but on my days off, I'm writing my novel". SNOOOZE. Compare - "Hi, I'm writing a novel". Zing! Now you're interesting. And when you get famous enough for people to ask, you tell them you did the whole worked at the copy center for 3 years for minimum wage bit too. Standard stuff.



(2) Be a hermit.



To be a good writer, you need to isolate yourself. If you can find a bubble, or a cave, perfect.

Log cabins, abandoned warehouses, or treehouses also work. You should cut off all communications. Don't read. Don't watch TV. Don't talk to anyone. They don't understand you anyway. You are a tortured artist. Why do you even bother to write for these despicable idiotic invisible people that make up your "audience" anyway? They hate genius when it smacks them in the face. But that is your job. To smack people in the face. One day, they will appreciate it, probably when you're dead. Secretly, people love a good smack.



(3) Network!



Get out there and socialize. You'll never make it on your own. You need to surround yourself with important people who like to talk about "fast-tracking", "the back end", and "fast tracking the back end". Drink a lot of Scotch so you seem normal. Own a blackberry. Figure out how to "Twitter" and Facebook your face off. Spend a few months looking for an assistant. Fire new assistant on first day. Spend next few months looking for another assistant. Repeat.



(4) Don't Write Every Day



If you start writing every day, you'll end up doing a lot of work for free. Working for free is not your goal. Your goal is to sell that ONE novel/script/pitch/young-adult-vampire-garbage for an assload of cash and retire in the south of France. How are you going to sell something for an airplane-hangar-full-of-coin if everyone knows you work for free? You've got to put in the least amount of time and effort so everyone knows what a gifted writer you are. "It just comes effertlessly to me", you'll say. "I don't need to rewrite myself. Every word is perfect the first time." Everyone will "ooh" and "ahh". They WISH they could be like you. You will send them into a jealous frenzy. Some poor shmuck will say to you "no one can do that! Everyone else has to write all the time, constantly trying to improve the craft. There are NO EXCEPTIONS." But you will say "how qaint. Now, who wants my autograph?"



(5) Don't Write What You Know



Everyone writes what they know. You need to be ahead of the game and outside of the box. You have to differentiate yourself from the pack of "write what you know" writers. Writing what you don't know is imaginative. It's creative. You can't do research. If you research something, now you know about it, duh. You should write about outer space molecular biological lifeforms in hell and invent new words like "cuboprety". Nonsense equals genius.






"Once upon a time" is for hacks.

HGTV show ideas

HGTV is awesome, we all know. However, all their sassy style-me-pretty flip-it-switch-it home-buying-is-fun crap is not really current with today's economy. Here are some show ideas I've written to HGTV to pitch for 2009 -

Foreclosing Your Home with Style!

How to Downgrade and Lose most of your Equity.
Finding a Home in your Price Range (there aren't any).
First Time Buyers - don't worry, you won't be approved for a loan anyway.

Haiku to my recently purchased items at Trader Joe's

Dear reader(s) - (hopefully there's more than one, but who knows) -

Like most females, I have a healthy obsession with food. I enjoy cooking, and LOVE eating out. Naturally, I asked co-blogger/partner-in-life Matthew if we could turn our blog into a food blog, instead of our blog-which-mocks-snobbery-while-simultaneously-showing-off-our-great-taste-slash-intellect-all-in-the-name-of-fun.

However, Matthew scoffed at this idea, and (scoffing), said, "Real original. Food blogs have so been done before." It's true. They're everywhere. Some are good. A lot of them are lame. And they seem to be getting more and more popular. So of course, when something has reached it's peak of popularity, we have already been hating it for years.

So, rather than bringing you lame recipes that I've copied from somewhere else followed by step-by-step blurry unappetizing photos, I am bringing you, blessed reader(s), the gift of poetry.

Please enjoy some (rather original and ingenious) haiku. And stay tuned for our Labor Day trip to Cincinnati, where we will sample some "famous" (who-knew) Cincinnatian chili, and, umm, do other Cincinnati things . Coming soon.

Onion.

Chop! Dice! Wedge! Sizzle!
Bringing tears to my blue eyes,

You smell great sautéed.

Hark! Rings like a tree.

In the test of time, you win.

Gimme some onion rings.

Red Pepper Jar.

Fire roasted brilliance.
Where have you been all my life?
I’m moving to Spain.

Soy Ice Cream Sandwiches.

Freezer Door Opens.

Cool Breeze. Softly swirled chocolate.

I just can’t quit you.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes.

Evil coworker,
Brought these to work. Only two!
Dollars. I had 4.

Gnocchi.

She gazes at the west -
Ern sun. Are those Potatoes?

She muses. Or cheese.

Tomato.

Perplex, form, function.
Boundary of thought. Words fail
To describe. 'Red' works.

a Presidential Bake-off of Monumental Proportions! (and hopefully monumental portions)

Hello all. We've been busy being engaged and haven't blogged for some time now. But, a subject of national interest has inspired me to blog once again – the presidential cookie bake-off.

It’s no secret Matthew and I enjoy baking cookies, decorating cookies, and definitely eating cookies. We are clearly experts at all of these. It’s time for us experts to weigh in on what is proving to be the most controversial presidential cookie contest EVER.

The contest is held through “Family Circle” or “Parenting” magazine, where readers (or anyone who registers online) vote for their favorite recipe submitted by the presidential candidates’ spouses. In the past, the spouses who won this contest (Hillary Clinton, Lara Bush, etc) ended up in the White House. The cookie contest now has an aura of predicting the future. It is the Groundhog’s Day of November. Ideally, the candidates should post a recipe that has a story to tell about who they are. The cookie should represent what kind of person you are and what kind of family you have. After all, baking a cookie from scratch is a symbol of love and it’s something that pretty much anyone and everyone can do. Let’s take a look into the history of this cookie contest –


First up, Barbara Bush’s “batch” versus Hillary Clinton’s “Chips”. Both of these recipes are variations of chocolate chip cookies, which is arguably the most beloved and also most mainstream cookie. Hillary’s chips have oatmeal and chocolate, but her recipe also uses vegetable shortening, which I refuse to bake with (although probably does taste really soft and delicious). However, Barbara Bush’s recipe was a pretty simple chocolate chip cookie, yet half-way through the contest, she CHANGED her recipe to include oatmeal, essentially copying Hillary’s success. So, clearly, Hillary stuck to her guns here and deserved this win.

(America loves the chocolate chip. )

Next, Hillary’s same recipe defeated Elizabeth Dole’s “Pecan Roll Cookies”. That’s a no-brainer! Pecan Rolls are for OLD people! Just like Bob Dole. And margarine instead of butter? Come on.






<---(Pathetic looking pecan roll cookies.)

Then, things got interesting with Laura Bush’s “Texas Governor’s Mansion Cowboy Cookies” versus Tipper Gore’s Ginger Snaps. Cowboy cookies are pretty dang good, with chocolate, coconut, oats, and pecans. Ginger snaps are a little boring, which was precisely the voters’ problem with the Gore’s in 2000. “Let’s get crazy and party with the Bushes!” thought 49.99% somehow-rounded-up-to-a-majority of America.

(Cowboy cookies and ginger snap cookies...America says "Close Call".)

In 2004, Laura Bush switched up her recipe to “Oatmeal chocolate chunk cookies” which is pretty similar to Hillary and Barbara’s recipes, with the addition of sour cherries. Teresa Kerry offered something more original and well suited for November – the “pumpkin spice cookie”. Arguably, this is one of the few “breakfast cookies”, a cookie you can eat for breakfast and not feel too bad about it. However, the voters felt Kerry’s cookie was “too elitist” because it didn’t have chocolate and required pumpkin puree, something you can’t use year-round. The Bushes prevailed again.



(Chocolate oatmeal chunk cookies looking familiarly inviting. Pumpkin spice looking rather snobby)

So now, finally, we have Michelle Obama versus Cindy McCain. Ms. Obama has chosen a family recipe of “shortbread cookies” that has orange and lemon zest, a splash of Amaretto, and an optional dash of dried fruit or nuts. Cindy McCain, who the thought of actually baking anything herself is pretty laughable, has offered up “Butterscotch oatmeal cookies” from ‘a friend’, clearly an effort to capitalize on the past success of super-sweet-and oatmeal combos. Turns out Cindy’s recipe is plagiarized from the back of the Tollhouse butterscotch chips label. Bill Clinton also submitted an Oatmeal Cookie recipe (before Hillary’s concession). Bill’s recipe turns out to be 100% the Betty Crocker cookbook recipe.

(shortbread cookies a little Jackie-O remincent)

(butterscotch cookies looking a little unappetizing and thrown together last minute).



(thanks for playing, Bill.)

I don’t really care that Cindy and Bill plagiarized. The contest rules do not state anywhere “the recipe has to be original to you or your family or friends” nor does it say “If the recipe is from another source, it must be given credit”. If your family favorite recipe is the one from the back of the chocolate chip package, that should be fine, right? But HOPEFULLY, hopefully, voters out there aren’t looking for the same old thing they can get already. When I look for recipes, I look for SOMETHING new and different. That’s why, although I intended to try both recipes before voting, I already voted for Michelle. Why? Because your bias in presidential candidate makes it impossible to have a “fair” cookie vote. I like Obama, so I will read into Michelle’s cookie as unique and different, maybe even a little sophisticated and elegant. Others might read into it as “elitist”, (since it requires liquor, something relatively expensive and not readily on hand), being too English, (aka Un-American), and who knows what else.

So this whole cookie contest stems from America’s obnoxious need for their Presidents to be “just like me and you”. The bowling, the beer-drinking, the flying on corporate jets, this is what makes or breaks an election these days. So, while I voted for Michelle’s cookies based on the issues at hand rather than comparing the actual substance, I vow that I will vote for the President in November based solely on which wife wins the cookie contest, rather than the issues at hand. Like the majority of Americans, I will wait until the last possible moment, than base my decision on the latest frivolous bit of trivia. I like cookies. I fricking love cookies. Cookies are my livelihood. And I don’t want a president whose wife can’t win a cookie contest. Call me a patriot.

Back To The Present - Part II

Ok, so its August.  Much has happened since our last posts, but i need not bore you with the deets.  Anyways, summer time is movie time.  Before the holiday season rewards-fodder, this is that time of year when Hollywood churns out their cash cows.  This was labeled the summer of the threequels, but it might as well have called the summer of the pukequels, since that's what the majority of them made me want to do when they ended and that's putting it nicely.  Let's have a quick analysis...

Spiderman 3: Oh where to begin with this one? Despite the ridiculous amount of money Sony has raked in with Spidey, I think this franchise has stunk from day one; with the exception of the performance by Alfred Molina and a sweet fight sequence on the elevated train in Spiderman 2.  Spiderman 3 is the most offensive of the trilogy.  The Pete Wentz-ing of Peter Parker aside, the "climax" of this thing was just laughable.  And the MPAA is seriously deranged if they pass this flick as PG-13, just because they don't show blood when Spiderman beats the crap out of Venom with a metal poll.  But despite the soothsaying of Kirsten Dunst I'm pretty sure Sony will keep this money train chugging whether the "talent" returns or not.  Save yourself James Franco! Just say no!!

Shrek 3: Skipped this one.  When a studio makes more than 2 trailers for a movie, you know its going to be a turd.  Besides Shrek 2 was a major let down.  Next.

Pirates of the Caribbean 3: This is Hollywood excess at its worst.  I really had high hopes for this one due to a pretty excellent trailer.  But alas, Pirates turned out to be another Matrix for me, meaning a trilogy where I use selective memory to ignore the fact that two sequels were made.  One would think Disney would realize that if this movie were 45 minutes shorter they could screen it more times during the day and hence make more money, but obviously that didn't happen.  Who would have ever thought too much Johnny Depp could be a bad thing? 

Bourne Ultimatum: Thank you, Universal. Thank you, Paul Greengrass. Thank you, Matt Damon et al.  I read that the script for Ultimatum was being written on the fly during the shooting of this film.  Usually that is a recipe for disaster (see: Pirates 3 above), but somehow these blokes pulled it off.  Its the third in the series and its not just good, its the best of the three.  You know when critics say, "an edge of your seat thrill ride!" well with this one they bloody mean it.  This movie was so well executed from start to finish I didn't want it to end.  I was literally shaking from the intensity and suspense of it all.  Awesome.  Simply awesome.  Someone give Matt Damon an acting award already please.  Actually don't because the Academy is a joke now.  Screw them!  Just keep on doing what you do, fella.

Rush Hour 3: Skipped the first one.  Second one was meh.  No way I'm seeing this one regardless of a Polanski appearance.  Watching the trailer was torture enough.  Pass.

Okay, I think that takes care of the trilogy dreck.  But I'd like to lump Transformers in with the bad apples.  I'd rather not go into details because it gets me upset.  There's no denying the effects were some of ILM's finest work but that couldn't save this flick from a weak plot and terrible pacing.  

I'll post about some of my other favorites of the summer in the next installment.  Until then...

-- M

Saving the Environment in 3 Easy Steps

The environment is out there and it needs to be saved. Sure, you can’t see it, or hear it, or touch it. But it’s there, lurking just over the horizon waiting to smack you in the face with a bit of global warming. If the horizon even exists by then. It’s probably the first thing to go. So if you want to save all the things you like, like puppies and rainbows, and all the things you need, like air and water and dry land, then you best make some lifestyle changes and follow my advice.

1 – A lot of people talk about saving the whales. The whales’ biggest problem is that they can’t see in the dark. So when it’s nighttime, turn on all the lights in your house. ALL OF THEM. Turn on any light-creating appliances too. If you’re not sure whether it makes enough light or not, like a coffee maker, turn it on anyway just to be safe.
The whales need to see, so don’t be selfish. Every little bit helps, and together we can light the way for these nocturnally challenged creatures.

2 – You’ve probably heard that taking the bus can help the environment, but this is a bold faced lie. Everyone knows that the metro transportation systems don’t make money and have to be government subsidized. A lot of buses run on bio-diesel, which is more expensive and guess who’s paying the bill. The government. And you. This is totally unfair, and what the government should do is give all of that money to the people so that they can buy gas. And then the price of gas will go down. And when the gas price goes down, that means less people are using gas. Everybody wins.

3 – When you’re at the supermarket, buying your industrial strength super glue and Frito Lay fun packs like I do so that you can glue some trees together and have a tree-friendly snack at the same time, you’ll be indubitably asked the environmentally fatal question – “paper or plastic”? Paper bags are made from recycled paper, making them inferior and likely to have their flimsy handles rip off, causing you to wastefully spill the contents of your groceries who knows where. It’s like a mini oil spill. However, plastic bags remind everyone of homeless people and homeless people are bad for the environment - they eat trees and they pee all over the place. So, the best thing to do when confronted with this double-edged sword of a bag choice is to compromise. Go with both. Make that grocery bagger earn his 7.50/hour and tell him to put the plastic bags inside the paper bags.

With these three simple steps, you will soon be on your way to making the world a better place. It won’t be easy. But think of how great you’ll feel if you do these great things for yourself. Pretty great, huh?

"Twilight" Glee

Several months ago, a couple respected comrades raved to me about a new group out of Scotland called, The Twilight Sad. I procured a copy of their EP, and was immediately hooked by the brooding lyrics, banging drums, and pulsing guitars with splashes of keys & accordion for good measure. Their first full-length LP, Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters, was released last week and it pretty much has instantly become my favorite record of the year thus far. And it is up against some pretty strong competition. 9 cuts deep, running at a trim 45 mins, leaves nary an ounce of fat on this album, which definitely sets it apart from the rest.

Well last night, I had the pleasure of seeing The Twilight Sad live in concert at The Knitting Factory here in lovely Hollywood, CA. After a glowing review of their recent show in NYC by my trusted music connoisseur associate, MRL, my expectations were running particularly high. The three young Scotsmen, took the stage stealthily and proceeded to cast a spell over all those in attendance. Playing half the songs in their known canon, the set was a robust albeit brief delight. Frontman James Graham's verses are certainly poetic and you can see every ounce of emotion pour as he both croons into his 50's style microphone and bellows to the heavens throughout the performance. The real show stopper came with the track 'Talking With Fireworks/Here, It Never Snowed' where Graham kneels in front of drummer Mark Devine's kit and with a single stick straight up murders the cymbal whilst on his knees until a few measures of quickly paced tick-tick-ticks by Devine's own sticks mellow out the pace for Graham to come in pondering, "And does your fear not grow when you see that you're all mine/See that you're all mine/With a knife in your chest." Who else but a bloke from Glasgow could come up with lyrics like that?

There's something so nostalgic about seeing an emerging band play a small venue because you know the chances of seeing them again in this type of setting are finite. Living in L.A. has granted me many such opportunities; e.g. Muse at The Mayan, Arcade Fire at Spaceland, and most recently Menomena at The Echo. These gloriously fortunate events are few and far between, but obviously that's what makes them so monumental; memories that do not soon fade into the twilight.

-- M

LP vs. MP3

5 and 1/2 years ago, the iPod was introduced to the marketplace, and listening to music hasn't been the same since. I had just become an Apple OS convert after a summer internship at Sony Music, and I was psyched on all things out of Cupertino. At first I was skeptical of the little white wonder because it was expensive and mp3 players were usually so poorly designed. But iTunes changed my perception of iPod's possibilities. By ripping all my CDs I would have instant access to anything I wanted to hear at the click of a mouse. Waiting for my beloved 400 CD changer to switch between disc to hear a random playlist on shuffle would be a thing of the past. Now, my new PowerMac wasn't just a fancy word processor with Internet access, now it was the jukebox of my dreams. Couple that with the portability of iPod meant no more lugging around my CD collection on trips, no more skipping Discman while riding the T to class, and no more buying AA batteries. God bless you, Steve Jobs.

Fast forward to present day... The iPod is a massive success having sold over 100 million players world wide satisfying both music lovers and Apple stockholders alike. I've called the iPod the greatest invention since slice bread and have owned 3 different models. Even my mom has an iPod (Hi, mom!). It certainly has changed the way I listen to music for better and for worse. On the positive side it has forced me to acquire music at an accelerated rate, which has allowed me to discover tons of new bands. The downside is that I do not give the usual focus to an album in its entirety as I once did after a trip to Sam Goody in days of yore. The Internet takes blame for both sides of the scale. Now that you can hear an album before it is released, which will leak sometimes several month before it is in stores, getting your hands on the actual, physical CD just is not the magical event it used to be. I know you're saying, if you want it to be magical don't listen to the leaked music. Well that's a valid suggestion, but that's like trying to not eat some of the cookie dough before putting it in the oven. And don't even try to tell me you never tasted that sweet, sweet cookie dough.

Every CD I buy, and yes I still do actually buy CDs, gets opened, ripped, and put on a shelf nary to be used again. So why don't I just save myself some time and effort by purchasing from iTunes or Emusic? It simply comes down to sound quality. While watching movies has evolved for the better; have you tried watching a VHS lately? Yikes indeed. CDs eliminated many of Vinyl and Cassettes cumbersome traits. Instant track selection, no flipping, and no hissing or pops to interrupt you listening experience. But while mp3s are an evolution in convenience, they are a step backwards in aural quality. I'm no audiophile, but the quality of the music you purchase online is not equal to what you pay for. The kids buy it like hot cakes because they don't know any better. Here's an easy way to hear for yourself. Take a CD of an album you have on your iPod. Listen to the opening track on your iPod, then listen to that same track on the CD. If you can't notice the difference, then you can stop reading now because clearly this argument is wasted on you. So why should I pay $9.99 for an album on iTunes that is not only inferior in terms of sound quality but is also crippled in terms of what I can do with it by Digital Rights Management (DRM). I can get that same album on CD for a very close if not exact same price elsewhere. Then I can rip it at higher quality (still via iTunes) and listen to it on as many computers and iPods as I'd like as well as have the real physical CD as backup with linear notes and all.

It all comes back to the magic of buying an album and listening to it as it was meant to be heard. The album is an endangered species. Apple invented the iPod shuffle not just because it was a much cheaper alternative to the original iPod, it's because they surveyed iPod owners and the majority of them filled their players with singles and listened in shuffle mode. But being an old soul I like listening to bands who actually care about creating quality albums, not just one song destined to be the newest sensation on the Billboard hot 100 singles chart and 9+ throw aways. Which brings me to the original point for writing this now way too long entry. How can I have my cookies and cookie dough too?

On a recent trip to the record store, I picked up a copy of the new Of Montreal on vinyl from the shelf and on the front was a sticker. This sticker mentioned there was a coupon inside that allowed you to download high quality mp3s of the full album from the record label's website. This was an interesting revelation indeed. Vinyl has always held some mystical properties. Sure it is inferior to CDs in terms of shelf-life and purity in both sonic fidelity and seamless playback. But because of those things, there is more of a connection between the listener and the music. You're not just letting a machine automate the experience and zoning out instead of paying attention. For my 27th birthday, Elizabeth got me a record player and it has allowed me to develop a deeper appreciation for my passion of music. I can listen to my iTunes library at work and discover new artists via the internet. When it is released, I can go buy their album on vinyl and legitimately receive the mp3s for my iPod all inclusively. I win, the record store wins, the artist wins. What a magnificent time it is for all music lovers. I will close with some wisdom from the recently passed Kurt Vonnegut who I think would agree music is the most powerful medium in our lives:

"My epitaph, should I ever need one, God forbid: ''The only proof he ever needed of the existence of God was music."


-- M