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[KittKat]

Because there is more to creative writing than poetry.









For those who don't know, I'm a screenwriting major at a very exclusive film school.* I don't share my (screen)writing for fear that people may steal my ideas. It may sound paranoid, but in such a demanding industry, we are taught to keep close clenches on our portfolio.

There is one script I will share because it is registered with the WGA. I won't post it here, but any interested party may PM me, and I'll gladly send it your way.



*Yes, I was tooting my own horn.

[tonic pancake.]

pm sent.

[KittKat]

Received

[KittKat]

So no one else on the box writes stuff that isn't poetry? That maketh me sad.

[Kenny Wisdom]

So no one else on the box writes stuff that isn't poetry? That maketh me sad.

I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

[Erinaholic]

There is more to life and writing than poetry. I wouldn't know what to put in this thread, through I do want to contribute at some later date.

[Mr. Anagrammatism]

For those who don't know, I'm a screenwriting major at a very exclusive film school.* I don't share my (screen)writing for fear that people may steal my ideas. It may sound paranoid, but in such a demanding industry, we are taught to keep close clenches on our portfolio.

So it's the beginning of the new millennium, and like everyone has been on ADHD drugs since the end of the last century, pretty much.  And in this post-modernist utopia people have lost the ability to deal with the real world, or maybe they don't want to.  They see glimpses of "it" on TV reality shows, but "it" doesn't look all that interesting.  And so in a state of perpetual denial, they pathetically seek meaning for their existence by posting on the bulletin board of some Cabaret band.  If other people read it, it must be real, and so it becomes a form of validation.  It's cabaret verité.  It's not real because the act of posting is just performance, nevertheless the act is as close to real as these people experience.  Soon the cabaret becomes so idiosyncratic that the general audience leaves, and it becomes a discussion between maybe a handful of people, and here the script becomes derivative of "wafting for godot" or maybe "waiting for BillH to turn the board off".

and the title is called "circumcision news"

[KittKat]

Oh, Mr. A, if you weren't already taken, I'd ask you to marry me.
 

[Hayley Fiasco!]

Here's a short non-fiction piece and non-fiction prose piece (describing my tinnitus and what it sounds like) I wrote this past spring -


THE FLAG POLE WEATHER REPORT

    The clang of the rope against the flag pole rings in what sounds like two second intervals. The wind blows the rope against the aluminum pole in its effort to reach the top to wave the flag. The tightly bound rope attached to the pulley at the top makes a distinct sound when it is slammed against the hollowed pole that can only be attributed to flag poles. However high up the steeple of the pole reaches, it is two, maybe three, feet higher off the ground from its cement pedestal alone, which doubles for a bench to sit on, or maybe used to tie a shoe.
    The flag is centered in a courtyard right in front of where the gym teacher stands. She doubles as a crossing guard when she uses a stop sign and her gym whistle in the morning to stop cars to allow the “walkers” to enter the school. The clang of the rope against the pole and the shadow it casts on to the pavement below lets us know that we can play outside during recess; it alerts us that summer is almost here. On overcast days when rain is expected, the flag is reeled in and taken down off the pole. We did not know how to read the newspaper yet, nor did we understand the weather report on our parents’ AM radios and the 10 o’clock news aired past our bedtime; that flag was our meteorologist. With many playgrounds to choose from we did not care where we played as long as we were outside with the flag pole’s clang echoing in the distance.
    We only knew of Bretton Woods Elementary School simply as “Bretton Woods.” Whatever made woods bretton we did not know. How ironic it was for us to never be taught about the origin of the name, or its historic significance in a place where the foundation of knowledge and curiosity were fostered.
    Nearly 15 years later, still unsure which Bretton Woods we were named after, or why our mascot was an owl when the rest of the schools within the Hauppauge Public School District adopted an eagle, we know that the flag is still clanging in the wind, even if it is a different flag than the one we used to admire and pledge our allegiance to. We know that the classrooms are full of kids wondering which playground they will go to during recess, and that somewhere someone is learning to count so that in years to come they will be able to start countdowns to school recess vacations.
    There is a fondness in our hearts for the familiar and as our lives change, we know that even as we move on to attain the futures we have been aspiring to for decades in flagpole time, we are now in higher education and with our past teachers retiring, somewhere in the dirt there may be a time capsule with Spice Girl lollipops, tamagotchis and a Titanic movie poster that is long forgotten, but the time capsule in our memories will always be preserved.
 




----------------------------------------------------------------------------




tin•ni•tus
The static between stations on an AM radio, the crashing of waves in the ocean without children or birds around to scream over the collisions. When you go outside late at night and no one's around but there are cars traveling in the distance driving on a road somewhere that never ends, that's it, the way the cars echo. It is the suction feeling inside of your car from the window that's open a crack and you're driving 10, 20 miles over speed limit on the expressway. A distant fire alarm with the hammer going back and forth smashing the bell for the rest of eternity. The eeriness of a vacuum - the black hole, lack-of-matter kind, not the Hoover sort. The hum of a radiator that will never shut off. The tick of an annoying clock when you first notice the ticks with every second because from that point on you will always hear the tick-tocking no matter how hard you try not to. Glass shattering the moment it hits the ground. Your head being dunked under water with things moving on the surface and you can't quite make out what is being said above you.

There is no off button, no volume knob, you cannot change the station. Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it doesn't. It is only tolerable because you have no choice, it will never go away. Once you have it long enough it becomes part of you, a second shadow. It's your conscience in a language that you cannot decipher, extra instruments that your favorite bands did not intend to record. It is your secret until you try to justify why you turn your head in conversations – not to be rude, but to hear. A question without an answer, impossible to understand. Tinnitus; a sensation of noise caused by a disturbed auditory nerve.

[Devery]

And in this post-modernist utopia people have lost the ability to deal with the real world

William H. Bonney was hiding out in a farmhouse on the Mexican

border.  He probably did a few chores for his keep; even he didn't

want to be beholden to anyone.  One night there was just a hint of

moon.  Billy was in the kitchen, in the dark.  He heard a noise in the

hallway near the stairs.  He had long ago lost the cockiness he had

shown in his one, official photograph.  Was that just a pose for

posterity?  He took careful steps through the doorway.  In the

hall, he stopped and said quietly, seconds before the flash from

Pat's gun shattered the stillness:  "Que pasa?"

[The Great Ma Chao]

I ate ink and threw up words.

--

He was an inquisitive man, always seeking answers and ends. It was only natural that he made a living as a detective; moreso that, given the opportunity, he would take the knowledge of the future as his own. It could only make things easier.

A feeling of weightlessness encompassed him entirely; he felt lucid, stark, and perceptive. He was dreaming, but what he was experiencing was quite real. As he opened his eyes, a feat that felt quite surreal in spite of its simplicity, he took in his surroundings. Perhaps, rather, the lack thereof. There were no walls, no ceiling or floor, just himself and a light that outshone any landmarks he might have noted in the absence of the oddity.

He tested his voice by clearing his throat, and finding it in working order, he spoke. "Where the hell am I?"

The question was directed at noone in particular, which is why he was quite shocked to hear an answer. "You are nowhere, Jack."

"Fuckin’ hell!" He instinctively fell backwards, and the irony of the action was lost on him. There was nothing to push off of, nor was there a place to land, and yet he had fallen on his rear. His stopping point was thin air, and he was stopped only by the force of his own mind; his logic had told him he would land as such, and so he had.

A breath of disbelief escaped his lungs, but he could only mumble a brief and incoherent set of words before the light spoke again. "Relax."

He did. Whatever spoke to him was an empath’s antonym, and the force of its will, however neutral, was unmistakably powerful. His silence bade an explanation; he didn’t get one. "Jack Rinson, you are going to be yet another fruitless ambassador to humankind."

It was a statement, a demand, and it didn’t sit well with Jack. "You ca–"

"I will." The voice was a man’s, strong and evenly pitched, though favoring a higher octave than this explanation would propose. It echoed off of invisible walls, Jack thought, but the truth was that this voice traveled with perfect acoustics from its inception unto wherever its owner would have it end. Jack could not fight in spite of himself.

"You are a seeker of knowledge, " the voice continued, "and knowledge you will be given."

Jack’s voice shook slightly as he responded. "What are you going to tell me?"

"What it is I would grant you to hear."

Jack twitched nervously; he didn’t enjoy being on the defensive, but his combative nature failed him. It showed on his face, in his demeanor, and through his silence. In his ignorance he found himself afraid, as is natural for humans. He gauged, as the dumbest could in his shoes, that he could not fight, and as there was nowhere to escape to, he was without options. He could only sit, scared, and await the voice.

"You are a lonely man, Jack Rinson. You have never been married, never conceived a child, you have few friends whom you don’t make time for. You will remain this way until your death, which will occur in eight years, four months, seventeen days, two hours, five minutes, and forty two seconds as of two and a half seconds prior to the completion of this sentence. You will not attain the raise you asked for last Monday, your dog’s cold is in fact an early signifier of cancer, and if it could speak it would tell you that hard dog food tastes worse than its own ass. The woman who was looking at you in the bar last night was, in fact, checking you out; shame you didn’t ask for her number, as she would’ve turned out to be just your type. You’ll see her again next week at ten thirty-two p.m., but you will again pretend not to notice her gaze because you are a coward. You haven’t visited your father’s grave in five years because you have truly moved on from his death; you haven’t so much as given him a passing thought in six months. In this, you have shown the slightest bit of conviction–truly a feat for one such as you, but you keep with your failures in that that is quite possibly the last place one should ever find such complete and utter closure."

Jack was in shock, but he found enough bearing to interrupt the speech. "What the fuck!?"

"Eloquent, Jack Rinson."

"Who are you!? How do you know all of this, and where the hell am I!?"

"I am God, I just answered that, and I already told you."

"This...this isn’t real. This is a dream. This can not be real. This is, I, my subconscious, I’ve read about this kind of thing, I, I, I..."

"I assure you, everything you are experiencing is quite real. If you don’t believe me, wait until you die. Or, perhaps, next week, at The Lonely Suitor, when Amanda eyes you on five separate occasions–her name is Amanda Lewis, by the way, and her bra is not a push-up–or, to satiate your impatient and voracious curiosity, go to the store and by your dog soft food. He’ll bark happily, lick your hands, devour his meal instantaneously, and you’ll notice he has magically become potty trained. Amazing what a little complacency will do to an animal."

"This, it’s...this isn’t possible. How, why?"

"Again, I assure you, this is as real as the Redskins missing the playoffs for the next nine years– a side note; I’d invest in a new favorite team, because you won’t live to see their successes. I really wish you’d stop with the redundancy; I’m a patient man, to phrase it in a way you can comprehend, but you’re wasting your time with your doubt. I am God; I do what I wish when I wish to do it. And you, you are an ambassador to your race, living proof, as of tonight and the nights of your life thereafter, that while the pursuit of knowledge is a virtuous endeavor, being a know-it-all is quite a drain on happiness, not to mention pretty annoying."

"I don’t believe you. It’s that simple. I just don’t. I can’t, and I won’t."

"Oh, you will. You will, and you’ll see how hard it is to get anyone to understand anything. I have spent centuries sending countless messengers to Earth in an attempt to open the eyes of the collective human race to the simplest of facts that your children seem to easily understand as being tenants of a happy life, not just for the self, but for all. Things such as equality, open-mindedness, satisfaction, and nap time. As you grow you are taught to keep ambition in the forefront of your mind; and where has that gotten you? Nowhere! Ahahahahaha...oh, forgive me. I shouldn’t laugh right now. But this is the knowledge I give to you foremost: you are the perfect example of my one mistake."

"What...free will?"

"No, no, don’t be silly! That was the best idea I ever had! I speak of a terrible marketing decision; higher thinking."

"You...what? You should’ve made us dumber?"

"Oh, no, it’s not something as big as that. I’m God; I don’t screw up that bad. I just gave it a bad name."

[mangosta]

I've made attempts at writing short stories. They're good, but the ending is never right. I'm horrible at endings.

[The Great Ma Chao]

I've made attempts at writing short stories. They're good, but the ending is never right. I'm horrible at endings.

Think of the ending as a backwards thesis. When writing a paper, you establish your platform and lay your points out clearly. Writing is the reverse; you leave a viel of mystery and only reveal your intent when it's all said and done. I always spend the longest amount of time on my ending; to me, it's imperative to leave the best possible impression once you're done, and there's no better spot than the last thing your audience reads, so gather your thoughts and put your message down with a lot of punch. Be clever, humorous, authorative--whatever fits the mood of what you're writing. Just make sure it has a lot of swagger and bite.

[SeeAnne]

I used to have a webpage on AA and I wrote monthly stories where I got lots of good reviews. then I just stopped and gave it up. I had 4 stories that I remembered that I liked a lot but were so damn cliché: gay teen commits suicide by jumping off a building. my seventh grade teacher liked it so much he gave all the teachers in the teachers lounge to read it. second one: psycho next door neighbour is a STALKER. a part in the story i like is, as the girl is running away she trips and the psycho neighbour swings his axe at her foot, it actually wasn't an axe, more like those big hammers they use at carnivals to get the big bell to hit the top. but I forgot what they're called. third: two people love each other so much but UH OH the girlfriend has a brain tumour that causes her to pass out and die. fourth: killer santa. a city that doesn't celebrate christmas due to the killer santa.