Spain Update 1

Hey all,

Spain is really beautiful. Seeing the mountains from 20,000 feet is something I will never forget. I'll also never forget realizing that our Trans-Atlantic flight took us higher than I ever thought it would and we reached speeds between 8-900 mph ground speed. I'm still a little wary of flying, but my first flights were really good.

I like it here. But I'm a little homesick. Kate's family is great and Spain is really interesting and beautiful, but I'm still an alien in every way here.

Hmm... perhaps I should meditate on that part of scripture while here.

Hmm...

Going Home and Going Away

Kate and I came down home to Charleston for a couple of days before we fly out. It's been fun. Nice to relax, sleep in and have nothing to do. Thankfully I think Spain will have a lot of that, too.

I had a cool idea for a feature film on the drive down yesterday. I'm hoping to have some time to develop some of my ideas further. With any luck I want to be able to have a pilot ready for next pilot season and a couple of features ready to go out to agents this summer. I feel like I'm starting to get the kind of "hook" ideas that sell well.

With any luck, I can scale my availability back to Mon-Fri at work so I have the weekends to work on writing and to work on Consecro.

And Here We Go...

Okay, kids.  Zero to A Hundred.

I wrote a short titled Consecro Mythos.  Some who read it were excited about it and I'm excited about it so I'm going to do everything in my power to try and get it made, and made very well.

Valerie told me a while back that she thought I might make a good Producer.  I'm finding that to be very accurate.  I enjoy mapping out the production process and pulling those pieces together.  I like trying to put the right people in the right places and I like delegating out tasks instead of trying to do it all myself even more.  It feels more efficient and I feel more capable of seeing it all through.

So I'm very excited.

Here we go.

Stranger in a Strange Land

I have been struggling this past week with CIU. I wrote something earlier this week that was cathartic and which wasn’t as scathing as it could have been. I haven’t posted it and I don’t know if I will. Responsibly, I sent it to someone I trust who is in a position to tell me how bad the fallout would be.

I suppose, in some way, that’s a sign of growing up. Not so long ago I would have fired that cannon and not cared, but marriage suddenly ties someone else’s welfare to your own. Kate’s too close to finishing for my grizzled attitude to get in the way now.

This is a cycle. At some point I grow to recognize how unbiblical CIU is about some things, and those things invariably begin to gnaw away at me. I get fed up, and I crash and burn. And then, either out of pride (I won’t be beat) or resignation (I’m so close there!) I come back. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I have no idea what to do. Marriage, again, changes one’s perspective. Responsibility enters the equation in a whole new way. Like a producer who can’t keep throwing money at an out-of-control director, I can’t keep throwing loans at an institution that I principally disagree with on such important points. It’s not good for me, its not good for Kate and its not good for our future children’s collective college fund.

And though it may seem to some of you that I don’t care about education, let me be clear: making sure my kids have access to a high quality education is one of my top priorities in life. I want them to be able to think and reason critically. I want a factor of their faith to be because they have been convinced of it, not because we pressured them into it. I want them to be able to exist solidly with their contemporaries. I deeply believe that a good education is not only one of the keys to success but one of the keys to a high quality of life and relationships.

I don’t know what to do at this point. There are some CIU classes that I would like to have under my belt, but I don’t think I can stomach some of the things that come along with that anymore.

So do I throw myself at writing full time and try to make that key sale?

Do I narrow in on editing and try to launch a career there?

Do I narrow in on cinematography and try to launch that career?

The film and video field is built on experience and ability more than on education. Specializing doesn’t hurt, though I do admire guys like John Ottman who both compose and edit. Not that I can even remotely compose. I’ve forgotten how to read music, let alone ever having been able to write it.

Prayer and advice are appreciated.

Consecro Mythos

With the fundamental problem that OE was giving me, I knew I wasn't going to be able to get it written well in time for class. And I don't want to just throw something together, either as an artist or as a student.

Luckily, the last day or normal class time gave me what I needed. The possible linking of Isaiah 26:19 and Psalm 110 provided a little punch for a story idea I've been toying with for a year or two now. This morning I wrote the first draft of a short titled Consecro Mythos, just like this blog. Translated, it means "Consecrated Myth".

It's got vampires and its got Jesus. I'm not sure what else you could want.

It's an 8 page short so its probably about 8-10 minutes of film. I don't think I have enough time to really film it and make it quality by next Tuesday. But I'll submit the script for the creative response project and then get cracking on actually making it. I'm dying to make something and make something good and I think this gives me the opportunity to do so.

So even though I'm still fighting with a cold, and even though I think I might have a hernia from coughing, this isn't such a bad day at all.

:)

SHC

Indy Anthology?

While OE has become far too big a task to try and do it in the timeframe allotted for the Psalms project, there is enough time and a good enough idea to write a short story. It’s based on the category known as the Imprecatory Psalms.

I want it to look nice, of course, so I started investigating options like Lulu to have it professionally bound. I’m a proponent for self promotion and independent artistry, so it didn’t take long for me in poking around the Lulu site to start toying with the idea of writing a few more shorts in the Gol. universe, titling it Tales of the Gol. and publishing it as a collection of pulp shorts.

Through Lulu, I could even get an IESB number and sell it through Amazon.

I really like the idea. It’s not the first time I’ve toyed with an anthology of Gol. short works, though the first time was as a series of internet shorts. I suppose sometime later, if there’s any kind of interest in the Tales collection, I could take some of the money from sales of that and finance a pilot short.

What do you guys think about independent artistic work?

And would anyone be interested in a book of short stories if I write it?

To rephrase: would anyone out there buy it?

Quarter Mark

25%.

I jumped ahead a bit because I finally broke the ordeal phase of OE. I had to write it. It needs the usual tweaking, but it works I think.

This is exciting.