hate

Post-Jordanism: noun- The artistic (cultural?) movement which began in late 2011. Works within this deal with themes of existential crisis, identity crisis, posttraumatic stress disorder, the state of being broken, intrusive thoughts of (non)existent(?) memory, the morbid preoccupation with suicide, grief, uncontrollable emotion, and darkness as a simple abstract concept. ex. 1: "Kill me."

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

I AM PROUD OF MYSELF

Holy shit, I did it. I made two logs of OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING. In a row. And they were both surprisingly decent and I am definitely proud of both.

I think I may have even come out of my little bit of writer's block I was having. I mean, it wasn't quite writer's block so much as it was an unfortunate case of "I CAN'T SIT DOWN AND FOCUS ON WRITING AND WHEN I DO IT FEELS FORCED." Because believe me, I was having no trouble coming up with ideas! It was consistently coming up with ideas, ideas that all felt to me like they flowed well, that was the hard part.

But anyhoo, what cured me of this stump this time around was a mixture of things. But I think, mainly, it was inspiration. I watched Edgar Wright's Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, and.. those films, guys! That director! That style! Those actors! That mixture of comedy and suspense! It's so well-done, it's so admirably imagined, so imaginatively realized! The fact that they are linked by trait and motif as part of a conceptual "Three Flavours Cornetto" trilogy is even more appealing to me!

I mean, I first saw Shaun of the Dead ages ago, and it was appealing to me but it took me a few rewatches to really get it. And now that I do, it fucking leaves me in tears. I mean, the comedy makes me laugh to tears, the connection with the characters makes me want to cry by the end, and the sheer brilliant writing and superb camerawork seriously brings tears to my eyes. I really want to watch Hot Fuzz some more, too, so I can fully appreciate that as well. And I am thrilled to hear that there will be a third film in this trilogy (tentatively titled The World's End).

Basically, I realize that good writing isn't just coming up with bizarre landscapes, tragic character relationships, or original settings. Good writing involves using techniques, on directing your reader to see what you want them to see. It's the little things, the hints that prod our eyes towards the events in the background, not the giant events in the foreground.

To sum it up in a sentence, good writing is not the event, it is the way you frame it.


It's a literal case of "It's about the journey, not the destination, man!" I guess that might be one of the more appealing parts of OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING; there is so much sheer build-up to the terminal coming of Rapture, yet the story's not about Rapture, the story's about it coming. The story's about everything leading up to it. And I mean everything, it's about the characters sleeping every day, it's about the characters finding cars and stopping for gas, it's about the characters having what is referred to in real-life as "teenage drama," it's about the clothes they wear and the songs they like, it's about how they change and how they stay the same. And it's about the Fears and how eldritch they are, but it's also about how eldritch they aren't, how they're just like us and how they act because they wish they weren't.

I saw Rapture and I didn't just see a cheap genre fiction with sex and violence and scares; I saw a kid with five months to save the world, and I saw him choosing to look for his friends instead of blindly following the Blind Man's Book. I guess this is why people call me a good writer, and why I call myself one.

No comments:

Post a Comment