I was thinking about awareness today. For people, self-awareness has many facets. People in general need brain power to filter out much of the information their senses collect. I think self-awareness for particular people can end up running in channels, so that we can quickly assign meaning and values to people and relationships in our lives and not get bogged down/drown in processing details. Relationships can also be symbolic, in the sense that a symbol can stand in for a relationship, a kind of short hand code.
The problem arises when a new writer doesn't realize their particular short hand code (a dark-haired woman with thick glasses could be a symbol for an abusive parent) doesn't evoke anything for a reader. The job of our brains to filter out details or shape our reality to a particular design can lead to a kind of neutered, thin writing that fails to ring true. Except for the person writing in their particular symbolic code.
Directed awareness, however, is a choice about where to focus awareness. Cynthia Whitcomb, the President of Willamette Writers, has had a long career as a successful screenwriter. When she began focusing more on writing plays, she read a play a day for a year. That was one way she assimilated a deeper understanding of what makes for a good play.
I find students in my screenwriting classes who don't like or watch movies. They simply want to imagine an idea of theirs turned into a Hollywood film, or imagine their life being turned into a major motion picture, with the money involved. I sometimes lose 50% to 70% of my students in a particular class. I suspect when I try and teach them directed awareness about storytelling -- consciously learning the craft -- they aren't ready for the work involved, or they come to realize the work involved.
About directed awareness versus intuition, recent brain scan studies have shown that once people have assimilated understanding (gained understanding about some facet of writing like plot, for example), when a problem arises, the subconscious can take that assimilated understanding of storytelling and find a solution to a particular plot problem. Then pop the answer in to the conscious mind.
Which some people interpret as intuition.
The catch is, the subconscious can only present that answer to the conscious mind when that mind is not preoccupied with a particular problem. Being pre-occupied with a problem blocks the subconscious mind from accessing the conscious mind and providing an answer.
I go over this more in the latest version of my book, and reference some of these new scientific studies. I find it fascinating that brain scans give a more accurate representation of how the brain works and functions.
Many years ago I was in a state of deep meditation where I could see the flow of my subconscious thoughts/feelings/awareness welling up into my conscious mind; be aware of thoughts before they became conscious thoughts. Odd, enchanting process to observe.
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A fourth edition of my writing workbook, A Story is a Promise & The Spirit of Storytelling, is now available for $2.99 from Amazon Kindle.
Articles about the craft of writing. A blog by Bill Johnson that explores principles of storytelling and articles about writing by other authors.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Sunday, May 17, 2009
The Dolltender, by Nancy Hill
Nancy Hill's The Dolltender is a video of a book written and photographed by Nancy. In the story, a young girl's parents disappear into a looking glass. She ends up hiding in a trunk stored in the back room of an antique store. The little girl begins to care for the dolls until she's found out and exiled...until the dolls help her come up with a plan to come back to the home she's created for them all.
The Dolltender is a heart warming story for all ages.
Nancy is a professional photographer and writer living in Portland, Oregon. To view other photos by Nancy, visit http://www.nancyhillphotography.com/
Copyright The Dolltender Nancy Hill, all rights reserved.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
My Confession
I have a terrible confession. I went to see the movie Max Payne. Funny in a bad/good way. A sniper with a rifle standing above and about 20 feet behind Max takes a shot at him. Ten feet to his left. Another shot, ten feet to his right. Max does a back flip and takes out the sniper with a shotgun. In another scene, people chasing Max from about 40 feet back shoot at him repeatedly, missing him by about 20 feet to the left and right. Must have a 20 foot rule; every 20 feet, miss by another ten feet. Good thing Max wasn't a hundred yards ahead, they would have been missing him by a couple of miles.
There was something in the movie that sparked a reverie, shadows. I once had a girlfriend that shadows would come over. I used to travel to her place and seal her room at night with light and write on her pillow and the pillows of her kids that they were loved and protected. Once I was sitting in bed with her, meditating while she slept, and a bright white light flashed and filled the room, as bright as a flash on a camera. A shadow about the size of a person went up the wall in front of the bed and out the ceiling.
One funny story about all this, after we'd broken up I was sitting at home in bed meditating when I felt pulled out to her place. She later asked me if I'd 'been there' at that particular time. When I admitted something pulled me out there, she told me she'd had a new beau spending the night in another room for the first time. A white cloud came rumbling down the hall and over the bed he was preparing to sleep in, and a voice demanded, "Who are you?"
He's lucky I didn't zap his manhood with a lightning bolt.
Anyway, every time I see shadows in a film (Constantine is another) it creeps me out. Damn things.
There was something in the movie that sparked a reverie, shadows. I once had a girlfriend that shadows would come over. I used to travel to her place and seal her room at night with light and write on her pillow and the pillows of her kids that they were loved and protected. Once I was sitting in bed with her, meditating while she slept, and a bright white light flashed and filled the room, as bright as a flash on a camera. A shadow about the size of a person went up the wall in front of the bed and out the ceiling.
One funny story about all this, after we'd broken up I was sitting at home in bed meditating when I felt pulled out to her place. She later asked me if I'd 'been there' at that particular time. When I admitted something pulled me out there, she told me she'd had a new beau spending the night in another room for the first time. A white cloud came rumbling down the hall and over the bed he was preparing to sleep in, and a voice demanded, "Who are you?"
He's lucky I didn't zap his manhood with a lightning bolt.
Anyway, every time I see shadows in a film (Constantine is another) it creeps me out. Damn things.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Mike Thaler, Tales from the Back Pew
Mike Thaler, author of The Teacher from the Black Lagoon, reads from his new series, Tales from the Back Pew.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Mike Shepherd Speaks about his Kris Longknife Novels
Mike Shepherd speaks about his Kris Longknife novels at Orycon 30, a science fiction convention held in Portland, Oregon. I shot several authors, including David D Levine, Sheila Simonson, and Mary Rosenblum. So far I've just edited two. I didn't take a tri-pod, since I didn't have a 'place' to shoot these. I discovered that in a hallway, it's best to shoot the author sitting at an angle to the wall behind them to give a sense of depth. In hindsight, I could have shot some hallway chats with people to edit together.
Mike was a good subject. He has a nice strong voice and he's done his share of public speaking.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
My Appaloosa Past
I just saw the movie Appaloosa. In the film, a woman has sex with every dominant male she comes across. I was in a relationship many years ago that had that dyanmic. At first, not knowing what I was dealing with, it seemed fine since I was the alpha male. My girlfriend was going through a divorce from a gun collector/lock smith. He didn't like her going to school so he rigged her briefcase with a blackpowder charge. When she opened it, there was a flash and a bang. He just wanted her to know what could happen if she really crossed him, like asking for alimony in a divorce.
Didn't do much for her nervous system. That and his rigging firecrackers to drawers (and doors) so when she opened something around the house, bang!
During that time, I wondered if I'd open a car door, see a bright flash, and watch my hand go sailing over my shoulder.
It was odd at the time that because I'm tall and big and quiet around people I don't know, so my girlfriend's tormentors all assumed I was plotting to do something to them. So they all took a step back when I was around. That probably did help to keep something unpleasant from happening.
Around then I became an editor for someone who'd just sold a screenplay to Columbia. A male writer. They had a brief affair, which destroyed that working relationship. Our relationship survived, but the same problem eventually killed it.
To me a relationship is a sanctuary, a place I can be with someone and talk about my day, my life, just be myself, share myself and be open and intimate with my sweetheart. It's not a circus, with me as the guy who follows the elephants shoveling up crap.
Ah, well, it was something to be young and in lust. That woman had me on fire.
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A fifth edition of my writing workbook, A Story is a Promise and The Spirit of Storytelling, is available on Amazon and Smashwords.
Didn't do much for her nervous system. That and his rigging firecrackers to drawers (and doors) so when she opened something around the house, bang!
During that time, I wondered if I'd open a car door, see a bright flash, and watch my hand go sailing over my shoulder.
It was odd at the time that because I'm tall and big and quiet around people I don't know, so my girlfriend's tormentors all assumed I was plotting to do something to them. So they all took a step back when I was around. That probably did help to keep something unpleasant from happening.
Around then I became an editor for someone who'd just sold a screenplay to Columbia. A male writer. They had a brief affair, which destroyed that working relationship. Our relationship survived, but the same problem eventually killed it.
To me a relationship is a sanctuary, a place I can be with someone and talk about my day, my life, just be myself, share myself and be open and intimate with my sweetheart. It's not a circus, with me as the guy who follows the elephants shoveling up crap.
Ah, well, it was something to be young and in lust. That woman had me on fire.
**********************************************
A fifth edition of my writing workbook, A Story is a Promise and The Spirit of Storytelling, is available on Amazon and Smashwords.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
A Room With a View
Some tone deaf children are singing the Sound of Music outside my door. I live in a church converted to a performance studio.
My motto in life, live somewhere interesting.
It's nice when the International Club does its blow out Halloween party at this place. I can leave, lay down in my room, check my email, take a nap, go on the internet (sometimes all at the same time), and return to the party refreshed, revived, with a new sense of joive de vere, or whatever that is. Whatever it is, at those moments, I have it in spades.
They used to do dance benefits here, and the basement/kitchen area was a changing room. I was down there eating toast once when a semi-dressed young woman ordered me out. I considered stating my right to eat toast in the dressing room of my choice, but I skeedaddled when she looked at me cross-eyed.
I'm now off to a Willamette Writers meeting. A month ago a young man arrived at the Old Church where the meeting is held (that's the name of the place, and it also happens TO BE an old church) and asked a book seller in the basement if he could help the young man find a literary agent. When the old guy said selling used books had nothing to do with literary agents, the kid whaled on him, bloodying his face and head. The police caught the kid and I'm told his trial is today, so my hope is to get through the meeting without a need to call in some muscle.
When I was young in a bad neighborhood, I was never been beaten up by a single person. I was always beaten up by gangs when I went in to rescue friends who by the time I arrived to help them had usually grown wings and flown away. Small wings, not big enough to take me with them.
Ah, well, being hit on the back of the head isn't too bad, compared to being hit in the nose. That hurts.
I'm all over here, so I should leave and be all over somewhere else.
Bill
My motto in life, live somewhere interesting.
It's nice when the International Club does its blow out Halloween party at this place. I can leave, lay down in my room, check my email, take a nap, go on the internet (sometimes all at the same time), and return to the party refreshed, revived, with a new sense of joive de vere, or whatever that is. Whatever it is, at those moments, I have it in spades.
They used to do dance benefits here, and the basement/kitchen area was a changing room. I was down there eating toast once when a semi-dressed young woman ordered me out. I considered stating my right to eat toast in the dressing room of my choice, but I skeedaddled when she looked at me cross-eyed.
I'm now off to a Willamette Writers meeting. A month ago a young man arrived at the Old Church where the meeting is held (that's the name of the place, and it also happens TO BE an old church) and asked a book seller in the basement if he could help the young man find a literary agent. When the old guy said selling used books had nothing to do with literary agents, the kid whaled on him, bloodying his face and head. The police caught the kid and I'm told his trial is today, so my hope is to get through the meeting without a need to call in some muscle.
When I was young in a bad neighborhood, I was never been beaten up by a single person. I was always beaten up by gangs when I went in to rescue friends who by the time I arrived to help them had usually grown wings and flown away. Small wings, not big enough to take me with them.
Ah, well, being hit on the back of the head isn't too bad, compared to being hit in the nose. That hurts.
I'm all over here, so I should leave and be all over somewhere else.
Bill
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