Another Item Crossed Off My "To Do" List

It started off as a challenge.

A challenge to try something that I’ve never done before.

After numerous times sitting watching other people’s words being acted on stage in KLPac and wondering if I could do any better.

I decided to write a 10 minute play for submission to this year’s edition of the Short+Sweet Theater festival.

But where and more importantly how to start?

First of all, I had to overcome the nagging fear that I have nothing really substantial to say and that I have neither the skill nor talent to write a stage play. It looked like a big bump in the road for me until I realized that I would never know if I could do it unless I give it a try.

“The worst that could happen was that it turned out to be a pile of crap that people would rather burn than read”, I rationalize.

I wonder if all other writers had to go through the same things when they first started their piece. I even went as far as enrolling myself in the Short+Sweet Playwriting Workshop last Apr to learn how to start my piece. I ended up skipping it on the very morning it was suppose to start due to an attack of nerves and fear of having my work publically dissected as part of the workshop activities. I would later find out that my fears were unfounded and I had missed fairly enlightening session learning about the structure and conventions of writing a 10 minute play that would have greatly helped my own writing journey.

Once I realized the missed opportunity due to my own insecurities, I decided to ignore the doubting voices in my head and listen instead to the voices that had a story to tell. Thanks to the information that I found online (http://www.10-minute-plays.com/), I figured out a story structure that was simple enough for me to understand and feel less intimidated to work with.

Pages 1 to 2: Set up the world of your main character.
Pages 2 to 3: Something happens to throw your character’s world out of balance.
Pages 4 to 7: Your character struggles to restore order to his world.
Page 8: Just when your character is about to restore order, something happens to complicate matters.
Pages 9 to 10: Your character either succeeds or fails in his attempt to restore order.

Excerpt from “TEN-MINUTE PLAY STRUCTURE”, 10-Minutes-Play.com

Thanks to the page breakdowns and the tips I found on the “HOW TO WRITE A 10-MINUTE PLAY” link on the same side, I was finally on my way to actually writing my first 10 minute play. My first attempt started out strong but became longer and longer as I started to write it. Trying to fit the story that I had in my head into the confines of the page constraints was as easy as trying to herd cats around. It forced me to stop and look at what I was doing wrong and I figured out that the problem was that I was writing strictly to the format instead of actually writing a story.

I ended up restarting my piece from scratch with a different story. I reminded myself to keep it to festival’s title, short and sweet, and more importantly write from something that I personally know. It was quite surprising that on the 2nd attempt, the story came out easier from my head to paper and by the end of the 2nd day of writing, I had practically wrote down 9 minutes of the story. It was that that point that I hit another snag in my Short+Sweet playwriting journey which was how to end my story.

Trying to find a satisfactory ending to my script was the hardest part of my writing journey. None of the endings that I’ve came up with at that point really worked. In my mind, I had to find an ending that I hoped would not only serve the story but also leave a mark with the audience. I went with one of the ending which I thought was best but was never really satisfied with because not only would it made the piece much darker in the end but it was also felt a bit overused to me since I’ve seen dark twists done in other plays before.

I was fortunate that I had a friend who read my script and immediately highlighted the weak way that the story ended. A single enlightening comment from him gave me the inspiration to totally revise the ending into the one that I have for the story now. If it was not for the peer review, I would not have been set on the path towards writing a much better ending that I felt good about to end the story. The experience enforced the notion that a writer needs someone to read what they have written for a fresh perspective that we would have lost by virtue of being so closely linked to the piece that we have written.

With a completed script in hand, I felt ready to submit it to be considered for the Short+Sweet 2009 Theater festival. I didn’t really think much of it after the submission until I found an email from the festival director in my inbox congratulating me on the acceptance of the script for the festival to be performed on stage no less. My words were going to be delivered by actors on stage! Needless to say, I was ecstatic for the whole week.

What started as a challenge was now an accomplishment and I could safely tick it off my list of things to do in life.

(This blogger’s 10 minute play is currently being performed at klpac in the Short+Sweet Theater 2009 festival from 12 – 15th Aug)

Looking forward for a good year

It’s strange really when the moment you thought that you have everything planned out then life throws you a curve ball and messes everything up. That’s the only excuse I can give for not updating this blog for the past 6 months.

I did honestly planned to recap the “One in A Million” show but when I started to miss watching the shows and repeats on their website, my interest in the whole endeavor quickly waned. Somehow it didn’t feel the same like when I recapped the whole season of MI2 … I was motivated then by the talents on the show but that motivation was strangely absent in the case of OIAM. In the end I decided to chuck the whole project out of the window instead of feeling guilty that I’m not putting an effort to recap episode after episode.

I also continued on my summer ’06 blockbuster movie watching spree but felt writing about them fairly pointless after a while. I fell into a writing rut that all I wanted to do was to just concentrate on my work and not dwell on how I was personally smothering my creative impulses. I became less guilty as the days went by for every entry that I didn’t write to the point that I simply didn’t care for it any more.

So … what’s changed?

For one … one of my new years resolution is to let my creative side more leeway to roam free. It has been a few years since I really produced something that I was really proud of both personally and professionally. I don’t want to continue feeling that I was just going with the flow and just letting things happen around me. It’s time for me to snap out of the general malaise that I have been wallowing lately and take back charge of my course yet to be navigated.

Writing is exactly the outlet I need to exercise my new found determination for change. There was a time that I could pour out my personal demons on printed word and not have them bottled up within to fester. I need to have that feeling of control again in my life. To that effect, I’ve decided to reactivate this blog as a way for me to keep myself in practice. I’ve also set myself two writing projects to be completed by the end of the year. One of them is the continuation of my previously abandoned collection of autobiographical stories from my experiences of studying in a boarding school and the other is a film screenplay adaptation of an original story written by a fellow blogger.

Will I be able to do it … heaven knows but I know that I will put in my best effort to try. I can’t ask more of myself than that. If I do then it would truly be a good year for me.

Can Hardly Wait

Been quite a busy week this week.

It started off with a call from S asking me to come along on a mobile phone shopping trip since he had to get a new one for himself. Of course this time around, his new wife and her son from her previous marriage were along for the trip. It was awkward at first but I eventually warmed up to them. We went around to Low Yat Plaza to check out the models that they had on sale. We didn’t really buy any phones on that trip since he still wanted to compare more models before he made his choice but we still had a passably fun outing. Although he didn’t say it outright, I knew from what he did say that this was a way for him to assure me that they still wanted to include me in their lives.

The days following last weekend was a rush helping my father on some translation work on his short film submission for a screenwriter’s workshop that he was attending. They wanted a copy of the script that he wanted to submit to be translated into English for the workshop facilitators who were from the UK to critique before they decided which script will be chosen to be produced as a short film. It was lucky that I didn’t really have much else to do so I was able to help him out on the translation. Truth be told, the translation was not the biggest problem that he had with the script.

The biggest problem that he had with the first draft of the script was that it lacked a strong character for the audience to follow as the story progressed. The “voice” of the story moved from character to character in the script that it felt more like an ensemble piece that wouldn’t really work in a short film format. I felt that by focusing the plot in and around a particular character it will help the story stay focused and clearer. After discussing it with my father, he agreed that my recommendations would make the next draft even better so we decided to add them into the piece. We actually ended up rewriting about 60% of the first draft and ended up with something that read much better than the first draft.

I didn’t really ask to be credited as the co-writer of the story since it was still my father’s original story but I can’t help but feel really connected to the current version of the script. I’m looking forward to see if the final draft of the script would pass muster and be selected to be produced as a short film. If it does then this would be the first thing that I have ever co-written that got made into a short film. I had something that I wrote published before and even had one piece staged way back in college. If the script that I collaborated with my father got picked to be filmed, it would be a crowning achievement of this year for me.

Can hardly wait to find out this weekend.

A Non-Writer's Journey - Beginings

Among one of the things that I told myself that I would try to do and finish within this year is another screenplay. It has been close to 2 years since I completed my first one and I felt that it was about time that I tried to get another one out. The blog entries that I have been putting out for these past few months have partly been for the purpose of keeping me in practice with writing and an exercise in creative expression. Part entertainment, part therapeutic and part confessional, these blogs have helped me keep the creative juices flowing and help me organize some ideas in my head.

I have had people who asked me where I learned to write the way I do. It bears repeating that I am not a writer by trade. I have never trained in the art of being a writer other that the basics that one would get from high school and college. I don’t aspire to be a writer for I don’t think that I have the aptitude for it much less the skill to write anything remarkable. What I write usually comes from gut instinct on how the story flows from one point to another rather than the strict conventions of structure. I humbly believe that in its simplest essence, my writing comes from the need for me to tell the stories that I have in my head. These half formed stories and images sometimes seemed to shout out demanding to be heard and that is when I am driven to write them down. I have several notebooks filled with story ideas in varying degrees of completeness and details. Some were no more than bullet points while there are others that came close to complete screenplay treatments. I can never tell when or how these ideas come to me. For all I know I might have been a storyteller in a past life or they are just ramblings from a demented mind. Regardless of their origins, I continue to feel passionate and driven by them.

The story for the screenplay that I’m planning to write this year has been knocking around in my heard for a few years now. It has gone through several incarnations in my notebook over that time and I finally feel that it is now in the flow that I feel confident enough to try to attempt to expand into a full screenplay. Being more of a visual person, the first step that I would have to do for this type of undertaking is to break the story down into scenes to see how many scenes I needed to have to tell the story. One tip that I learnt from the experience of writing my first screenplay was that the best way for me to do this is to get all these screen descriptions written out on medium sized Post-it notes and post them on large piece of cardboard or even to the world. This creative device allows me to visually see the progression of the story as well as allowed me to keep the bigger story firmly in view when I need to rearrange scenes. I guess that one can call it a version of the storyboard but made up of textual descriptions on post-it notes instead of pictures. It is also nice to be able to check scenes off from the board after completing them and have a visual representation of the progress of the piece.

It is only once I get this step squared away that I really dive into the writing experience.

Story Ideas

I have a writing journal that I keep next to my bed that I use to jot down any ideas that cross my mind anytime I lay down on my bed. Most of the entries are junk but some snippets that I write down does get developed more into some of my personal writing. I was reading through my journal to find some ideas about what to write for today’s blog entry today and noticed that I’ve not written anything in it for a quite sometime. Maybe this is because I’ve been doing most of my writing on line nowadays that I hardly have any ideas left for the writing journal. Anyway ... it is in this journal that I would also jot down story ideas for screenplays that I then attempt to write. Some of them have progresses further than others but I have to admit that to date I have only completed 1 of them.

One of the story ideas that I have written down and forgotten until just today is my outline for a television series. The series was to be an anthology of sci-fi influenced episodes which would have a “Twilight Zone” meets “The Outer Limits” kind of vibe. I’ve outlined about 13 episodes of the series which all would deal with the human aspects of technology and how it has changed humanity for the better or worse. Since it is suppose to be a non-linear series, each episode would be set in a different universe, so to speak, but would have the same theme of how misuse of technology would destroy the abuser. I actually picked “CTRL-ALT-DELETE” as the working title of the series as I had an image of using the keys on a keyboard as part of the credit title for each episode.

To date I’ve written down the broad plot lines for 12 episodes:

1. “Synthetics”
Tells the story a man’s quest to find something natural in a future Earth where everything that we have left is man-made. His quest would slowly uncover the secret of how it all began and just how far the synthetic substitutions have really eliminated all that is natural in his world.

2. “New Love”
A lonely computer programmer writes a computer program to simulate the emotional responses of a woman to better understand his own girlfriend. In the process of doing so, he finds himself falling in love with the simulation more than his real life girlfriend. Unknown to him, the simulation has “her” own sinister reasons for making him fall in love with her.

3. “Edge of the World”
A recluse, suffering from intense paranoia, is convinced that he was constantly being watched and followed. He decides to leave everything behind and search for a place that he could escape the prying eyes that he felt surrounded him in this modern world. His search would at last uncover the reason for his paranoia and will leave him wondering if it would be better off if he had ignored his fears.

4. “Bug”
A greedy computer programmer discovers a computer bug that is somehow able to control the flow of time. He uses this bug to his own advantage and personal gains regardless of the consequences that may result from his action. In the end, he is trapped by his own greed when he realizes that he never learned how to manage time properly.

5. “Hacker”
A thrill-seeking hacker is looking for the ultimate hack and would soon find it in the form of a black ops computer system that he discovers. Flushed with success, he then proceeds to dive into the inner workings of the systems unaware that this time; the computer is ready for him and is fighting back.

6. “Perfect 10”
A shy introvert finds himself more comfortable staying behind the avatar of his online persona in a local chat room than having to face the real world and interact with real people. This is about to change when he finds his “Perfect 10” woman and is finally finding the courage to meet her face to face. What he doesn’t know is that his “Perfect 10” may not be what he was expecting.

7. “The Descartes Dilemma”
In a future where one’s identity is defined by what is store on a computer, what happens when one record is deleted in a freak accident? If the computers tell you that you don’t exist, do you actually exist at all in real life? One unfortunate soul will find out the hard way that “I think therefore I am” will have a different meaning for him from now on.

8. “The Haunting”
A family has finally moved into their new smart home full with the latest that technology has to offer. Soon after, they began to notice several unexplained events that could only be described as supernatural. These events began to escalate and all attempts at explaining them have failed. Could a house full of the best that science can offer be truly haunted? Were they haunted to unrest spirits that still linger or something more sinister?

9. “Close to You”
An anti-social inventor unintentionally invents a communication device that allows him to hear the thoughts of other people around him. He uses this new found ability to his own advantage and to the detriment of others. What he does not know is that his invention was an unfinished work in progress that was still being worked on. It would be apparent to him soon enough when he finds out that he will never be alone again.

10. “Virtual Lives”
A young executive decides to take some time off from work and go for a virtual reality vacation. This would be a vacation that he will never forget as it takes him further along the lines of realities that he would ever imagined. In the end, he finally manages to find his way back to his reality or so he thinks.

11. “Mirror Image”
In the pursuit of fame and fortune, a young researcher ignores rules and regulations in creating a perfect clone of himself. The young researcher then instructs the clone to do all his drudge work for him while he takes all the credit for the clone’s hard work. What he doesn’t realizes is that his clone is more a like with him than he can ever imagine and would soon engage in a battle with himself for the sole right to exist.

12. “Time to Spare”
A death-row inmate with terminal cancer finds himself coerced into a secret experiment involving the use of microscopic nanobots in a cure for cancer. The success of the experiment not only removed the cancerous tumor in his body but also gave the inmate the ability to heal from any wounds instantly. Using this ability, he escapes and returns to his life of crime seemingly invincible. When he is finally brought down to face judgment, what kind of punishment would a judge give to an immortal?

I don’t really know how realistic it is to thing that I would be able to do something like this for local television. The budget for each episode alone might be too much for a local production company to invest. Nevertheless that should not stop me from putting my ideas on paper and possibly developing them into a full blown television script. I may look into doing exactly that someday soon.

Guestbooks and Blogging

When I first started my online entries, I decided to include a guestbook for any reader to leave their comments behind. After looking around on the net, I’ve decide to register my guestbook with one guestbook provider website which will remain nameless. It first it was fine but gradually I noticed a few out of place guestbook entries that looked innocent at first but was actually linking my page with spam pages. It got so bad after awhile that I had to login to the site almost daily to edit the posts. The final straw happened today when I discovered that someone had place a HTML post on my guestbook that automatically refresh the window and directed all visitors viewing my guestbook to a porn site. What was worse was that the porn site that had hijacked my guestbook was not even a gay porn site! It was then I decided to cancel my registration and remove all links to that guestbook site. This is actually my first experience with guestbook spam which I never knew existed before.

Initially, I had thought that no one would be interested with what I had to say in my daily entries. I guess it was because I thought that it was not as insightful or informative as some of the blog sites that are out there. Most of the things that I write in my entries are my thoughts and reaction to whatever was happening in my life and surroundings. So you can imagine my surprise when I noticed that there were actually other people on the Net who were actually reading what I had written. It started out very subtle, a little bit here and there, an occasional nod to what I had said. Soon after I began to notice that my URL had been included in their links list and then my entries quoted in other blog sites. Truth be told, I was ecstatic the first time that someone quoted my entries but I was also feeling self-conscious about the bad grammar that I am convinced evident in my entries.

It is because of my realization that there are people out there who actually think that what I had to say merits a few minutes of their valuable time that I decided to replace my guestbook with an entry comments link. Of course I had to ask Nizam about it since I have no idea how to do it. I may have a degree in Computer Science but when it comes down to creating websites and all, I’m about as good as a monkey with a typewriter trying to write a novel. Ever since I started my online entries, Nizam has been my blog guru who never seems to tire of me asking blog tips from him. It was him who pointed me to the site that I could register for comments link which I will have inserted at the end of every blog entries beginning today. I do hope that the comments left behind by my site visitors would give me the inspiration to continue on producing the daily entries.

In other news, they will be uploading different Real Media clips of the blooper reel from Dawson’s Creek daily at Katie Holmes fan site this week. It would be the last time these clips will be made available for download before they are gone altogether due to bandwidth constraints. So if you’re a fan of the show like me, you should mosey down over to the site and download the clips which will be changed daily until this weekend. They are actually pretty hilarious!

Deconstructing Writer's Block

I’m trying hard to think about what I am to write about tonight but all that I came up with is a blank page. So instead of consciously thinking of a particular subject for tonight’s online diary, I guess that I just write about this writer’s block that I’m currently experiencing. At least it would be better than just a random collection of words.

Why do people draw a blank when they don’t have anything to write about? Is it because their life is dull and uninteresting that they do not have any experiences to draw from? If that is so, is it only those who have led remarkable lives who would make good writers? I don’t really know that many writers so I don’t really have much to compare with. I realize that I am actually less well read than I would like to think of myself. However, I think it would be logical to assume that not all writers live exciting and thrilling lives. There would sure be some great writers who actually live a quite unassuming life and yet managed to produce great works. With that assumption, where do their stories come from?

Maybe it comes from their imaginations. That place where they go to escape the dreary daily routine that had become mind numbing. But then how long with one’s imagination lasts when it is slowly chipped away by the monotony of life? Is imagination like a bottomless pool that ripples outward every time a pebble of idea falls into it? Or is it more like a limited oil reservoir that becomes worthless when it is all tapped out? I like to think of it as being an unending pool that occasionally will become still when no winds blows across the surface. It is calm but yet still holds a promise of waves and ripples when the right moment comes. Waves and ripples that would resolve into sparkling wit and brilliant insights.

There are no winds blowing tonight. This pool is calm for now.

Blog or Diary?

The latest interview on Nizam’s weblog today on Oon Yeoh got me thinking that what I am doing here cannot be considered a “true” blog. It seems that my daily musing and rants qualifies more as an online-diary. Come to think about it, there is some truth in that characterization. Most of the things I write about in my entries are outward expressions of my thoughts and emotions. Of course those thoughts and emotions would not really have any links that I could include in my entry for other people to browse further for more information. So by the given definition of a blog, my entries clearly do not fit the description.

It actually does not matter is my daily entries are blogs or online-diary entries. We all have ways to express ourselves here in the net. For some of us, the Net is the only place where we do have the freedom of expression that some people take for granted. For some that freedom is taken to the extreme in both content and taste. Maybe they are the ones who warrant the label of “exhibitionist” or maybe not depending on who you ask. To label online-diarist as those hungry for attention does smack of elitism if not outright generalization. We all have different reasons for venting our emotions on the Net. Even if some do it to grab attention, to lump everyone else in the same category is not exactly wise.

I may just have a knee-jerk reaction to the interview. I may also just be brewing a storm in a teapot by putting these thoughts in words. But at least I am doing them so I move forward. I don’t really care if anyone reads this rant because the attention is not what I seek. I seek the self-satisfaction of knowing that I exercised my right of freedom of expression and of choice.

A choice to speak out even when there is no one listening.

Meadering Thoughts of A Frustrated Writer Wannabe

I started this weblog in part to keep myself writing. It has been awhile since I’ve put any serious effort in my writing and sometimes I feel guilty about it. There was a time that I felt driven to write, to exorcise my inner demons out by the flow of my words. I’ve always seen my writing as therapeutic since I’m actually quite shy in person and would never be able to express myself freely. Through the anonymity of the Internet and the shield of this computer, I would always be able to let myself go with my writing without any barriers.

I mainly write fiction since it is what I’m most comfortable with. My writings would usually be dictated by how I feel at that particular moment. In a way, I invest a lot of emotions into my work which by the time I reach the end would totally drain me. Of course this means that when I read back things that I’ve wrote before, I keep thinking about what on earth would motivate me to write something like that. I remember one particular piece that I did in college that my lecturer actually commented as being “a bold but disturbing piece”. It was something about an abused multiple personality killer and was written in 2nd person POV as part of a conversation between him and the victim i.e. the reader. I wished that I still had that paper but I lost it when I brought my things back home after graduation.

My latest pride and joy is my very first English screenplay. I’ve been trying for ages to do one but I’ve never written anything in screenplay format before and had a lot to learn before I was confident enough to start. Once I started, I found out that I actually liked this format better since I get to let my imagination run wild while I wrote. Writing about stage directions and dialogue allowed me to visualize the story better and I found myself more careful about how I ground the story in the realm of what is possible within an imaginary budget. I also found myself thinking about the impact of every scene that I write and how it impacts the pacing of the “movie” that I had playing in my head. It took me a few weeks of 2 hours block of writing before I completed a full feature length screenplay. BTW … the screenplay I wrote was an unauthorized sequel to “Beautiful Thing” by Jonathan Harvey. It was more of a fan-fiction project that went a wee bit overboard.

Of course being able to write doesn’t mean I write well. I’m terrible with grammar and could never pick those mistakes out when I’m editing. I guess that’s why it is always better to share one’s writing with others.