Tag: writing

Auspicious Beginnings

by earlthepearl137

During Covid, I took an online Master Class about Writing with Dan Brown, the author of the DaVinci Code.

He accentuated that your novel must have a good beginning to grab the reader and pull them into the story.

That’s why stories no longer begin with “Once upon a time.” They have to cut to the chase, immediately.

“It was the best of times.  It was the worst of times.”

I used this technique in two of my screenplays.  If your novel has a slow beginning, Dan said, you might want to consider starting where the action starts, or even at the ending.  That class about great beginnings reminded me of long ago when I took an Acting Class in the Adult Education program of the local high school.

My project was a scene played by Jack Nicholson in the movie “Five Easy Pieces.”  For research, I watched the movie.  I liked it, but I was a little disappointed that there weren’t five great sex scenes.  Instead, it was about a kid who played the piano.  His family hoped that he would become a great concert pianist, but he ran away from home and drifted around the country. Now, when he returned home because he heard that his father had a stroke, his family asked him to play the piano, and basically all that he could remember were five easy musical pieces.

My scene wasn’t the most memorable in the movie.  That would be the diner scene where he tried to order plain toast, but the cranky waitress kept insisting that there were no substitutions.

(25) Hold the Chicken – Five Easy Pieces (3/8) Movie CLIP (1970) HD – YouTube

I didn’t have that scene, but I had a good one.  The father is in a wheelchair, unable to speak and Jack is getting ready to run away from home again.  He wants to have a talk with his father before he does, though.  So he wheels the father a few hundred yards from the house and he bends down to talk with him.

Are you cold?

I don’t know if you’d be particularly interested in hearing anything about me…

My life.

Most of it doesn’t add up to much that I could relay as a way of life that you’d approve of.

I move around a lot.

Not because I’m looking for anything really, but ‘cause I’m getting away from things that get bad if I stay.

Auspicious beginnings.  You know what I mean?

I’m trying to imagine your half of the conversation.

My feeling is, I don’t know, that if you could talk, we wouldn’t be talking.

It’s pretty much the way that it got to be before I left.

Are you all right?

I don’t know what to say.

Tita suggested that we try to…I don’t know.

I think that she feels…I think that she feels that we’ve got some understanding to reach.

She totally denies the fact that we were never that comfortable with one another to begin with.

The best that I can do is apologize.

We both know that I was never that good at it anyway.

I’m sorry it didn’t work out.

I would practice my lines constantly while I was at work, and drive everyone crazy.  Every time I said, “I don’t know if you’d be particularly interested in hearing anything about me,” everyone who was within earshot would shout “We’re not. Shut up.”

Now I have 3 screenplays that never made it to the screen, because I never sold them to anyone who makes movies.  I’m 75 years old, and I’d hate to go to the great beyond without passing the stories around a little bit.  Usually, books are made into screenplays, but I’ve decided to reverse engineer my screenplays into books.  I can’t do it by myself, but I’m hoping to use Claude A.I. to do the conversion.  I don’t know how Claude will work out, but it’s a start, and I need to get off to a good start.

Then to insure that I had the proper level of creativity flowing through my system, I used my brand new Pennsylvania Medical Marijuana Patient card today to make my first visit to the Marijuana Dispensary near the bus depot.  Since, my medical claim was for chronic pain, the Maripharmacist suggested an Indica strain of Marijuana which is used to control pain.

No.  I can handle the pain, I told him.  Give me the Sativa strain, something that gets me high, makes me laugh, makes me creative, doesn’t put me to sleep, and goes well with white wine. 

He knew just what I wanted. I walked out with two vials of THC oil.  One was called White Lotus, and the other one was called Carbon Fiber.  Plus, I got a 20% discount for being a senior citizen and a Navy veteran.

Auspicious Beginnings, indeed.

Peace & Love, and all of the above,

Earl

Ring out the old; ring in the new.

by earlthepearl137

It’s a brand spanking new year, and another chance to “get it right.”  I started the year by toasting it with a tall glass of Moscato Sangria.  Oops, there goes “Dry January.”  No problem, that wasn’t one of my resolutions, anyway.  So, this still may be the first year that I don’t break all my New Year Resolutions in the first month.  The odds are actually very good this year, because, for the first time that I can remember, I didn’t make any resolutions.

I did not resolve to lose 20 pounds this year.  That’s a resolution I’ve made every year for decades, and my weight continued to hover just south of 250 lb. every year.  The resolution never worked in the past, so it seems pointless to continue making it.  I do have a plan to burn off a whole lot of calories eventually though.  When I die, I want to be cremated.  That’ll be a sure end to all my weight problems, but I’m more than willing to wait for it.

I did not resolve to learn a new language in 2024.  I’ve been trying to learn Spanish for decades, but the little German I learned while in the service still inhabits almost all the brain cells dedicated to learning a foreign language.  My new neighborhood is largely Spanish, so I thought that would finally be the jumpstart my brain needed.  My first week here I learned how to ask for a pound of turkey, “una libra de pavo, por favor,” but when the counterperson handed me my package, I still reflexively said, “Danke Schoen.”  Most of the Spanish people in the neighborhood speak English, so I did not resolve to learn Spanish this year.

I did not resolve to save more money this year.  In the Book of Isaiah in the Bible, it states: “Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we shall die.”  I’m 75 years old, seriously overweight with a heart condition.  So, my plan for the future is to eat, drink, be merry and hope that The Bible was just as wrong about tomorrow as it was about a bunch of other things.

I did not resolve to make new friends in the new year.  Quite the opposite, I just learned how to “Unfriend” people on Facebook, and I plan to remove all the so-called “friends” there who I do not actually know and who I wonder why I ever confirmed their Friend Request in the first place.

I will get more sleep in 2024, but that’s not a resolution.  That’s just that my body insisting on taking more naps.

I did not make any resolutions to visit new places or explore new things.  If I can’t get there via YouTube or Google, I’m not going there.

Every year I resolve to declutter my apartment, and every year it just gets more cluttered.  So, this year I will not resolve to declutter my apartment.  I will just try not to add more clutter, but that’s not a resolution, that’s just wishful thinking.

I did not make any resolutions to learn a new musical instrument.  I’m just hoping that I will find one of the old musical instruments that I haven’t yet unpacked since I moved in here.

I will reduce my carbon footprint in 2024.  That’s not a resolution, though.  That’ll just be the result of me reducing all my footprints in 2024, by plopping my butt in a comfortable chair and sitting there as much as possible.

If you make any resolutions in 2024, I wish you good luck with them.  I’m just hoping that I’m still around next year to repeat my lack of resolutions.

Eat, drink, be merry, and have a Happy New Year.

Peace & Love, and all of the above,

Earl