MONICA:
How've the dreams been lately?
Mine have been taking off again like a missle.
Had a great redaing from an expert a few eeks back.She was really in tune with me.
Love to get a solid reading from an intutive though.The real kind...one with the gift.
There are so many of them out here in California...that don't have the gift; and yet are claiming so. Making a lot of money off of people who are despreate for help.
Problem is...just like anything else in life...i feel so many folks have gifts themselves, but it comes down to choices being made...
Do people want to do what may be necessary to expand their gifts?Lot of them don't.
So they get clogged up...and egos, prides, fears, whatever...get in the wy of these people becoming clean channels...tools...for the Universe to use.
I'm continually working on staying as clean and clear as possible for all of my known and unknown gifts to be used for the Universe.
Giving up smoking and coffee are two things I'm working at.But also...not allowing people to take me off the road I chose in previous lives to follow in this one is the biggest thing I can do.
Because I'm the one who allows myself to sign off on crap I don't want.
Believe me...this sounds more simple than it's been.
But I'm finally turning the point.You wouldn't believe how much stuff has repeated itself in my life until recently.
I really thought it was about burning down bridge after bridge to finally have the lifeI want.It's not about setting fire to anything or anyone...except me.It could be the scorpio sun, cap rising and leo moon...plus a lotta Saturn and Jupiter.But it's more pwoerful just to realize I finally woke up.
Future's clearer and stronger and all mine.Thank God for the Universe...having so much patience love and trust in me.And thank god for me choosing to be part of that Universe...no matter where it takes me.
I recently had this miraculous dream...where the ocean was all around me...and I was watching
MYSELF...falling out a car...which ws at the peak of a long, tall bridge...which ended at the highest point above all this water.
And to watch myself fall out of the driver's side of this car before it fell off the bridge...and myself falling down to the ocena below...was so real. So crystal clear.
I'll paint this one of these days.
Now...it's about getting life ready to move to L.A.Time to get my screenplays and film directing on a whole new road.Finally embacing successes I was so afraid of before.And...staying on my own road...leading to my own bridge into the cosmos.
Keep in touch.
Always the best.
MARK
Saturday, October 20, 2007
THE L.A. SWIM
This may be wierd...so just hang in there...
It wouldn't be much to assume everything about anything in L.A.
This comes from a 6 year absence now from the City of watchmacallit Angels,
which started from trying to hold too much of a world together with my own hands.
I don't mind callouses, because there's something uniquely undefined, yet still very really about picking away at and finally pulling off my own dead skin.
Plus it tickles.
I mentioned something about the wierd.
Hanging out up here in northern Cali was good for the soul; even though at the same time these past 6 years, it was more than just murder on the wallet.
More like cannabilism by anorexia.
Don't understand?
That's okay.
It's cool if you do and don't.
You keep tearing it all apart just to finally eat away at it, devouring by the hour, only to never get full, because you don't even know you're forcing yourself to throw it all up at the same time.
Or maybe I just thought the vomit was my special sauce?
So, it's more than just carousel-ling ( even a word?) through life.
I knew some kind of the cycle would eventually break down.
Either by my own hands or a combining of mine and others.
Basically? To the point? More like this...
Outa UCLA'S MFA grad film school...
...with 15 feature screenplays completed and 10 more in various outlines; and an experiemntal short film I wrote, directed and edited...and crewing on numerous student films...
Crewing on a few indie feature films; then writing and selling a few low, low, low budget scripts finally led me to directing one of them.
That's when it all fell apart.
At least the directing side of my life.
2 years earlier...homeless on the streets of L.A., after life crashed and burned in my last year of film school.
2 ex - girlfriends who I found myself really close to even though it was never my nitention get involved past the sex side of it all...there were always the young and nubile actresses always around...
An angry landpord who I owed money to and a construction contractor boss who owed me back pay -- more than enough money to pay my landlord -- never came through.
Drugs and booze involved also along the way...didn't help keep me on the staying wide awake during most of a normie's life.
So it was OUTA HERE!
At least up north for awhile.
Lotsa construction work, digging ditches, remodeling homes.
Now...
Steady job with the precious state of California.
Soon...
Back into the waters off Santa Monica.
New screenplays and get back to making my third film.
It's been a strange trip since leaving in 2001.
That's what's good about leaving...always head into another future.
Cannibalism not withstanding.
And maybe even pounding some nails.
It wouldn't be much to assume everything about anything in L.A.
This comes from a 6 year absence now from the City of watchmacallit Angels,
which started from trying to hold too much of a world together with my own hands.
I don't mind callouses, because there's something uniquely undefined, yet still very really about picking away at and finally pulling off my own dead skin.
Plus it tickles.
I mentioned something about the wierd.
Hanging out up here in northern Cali was good for the soul; even though at the same time these past 6 years, it was more than just murder on the wallet.
More like cannabilism by anorexia.
Don't understand?
That's okay.
It's cool if you do and don't.
You keep tearing it all apart just to finally eat away at it, devouring by the hour, only to never get full, because you don't even know you're forcing yourself to throw it all up at the same time.
Or maybe I just thought the vomit was my special sauce?
So, it's more than just carousel-ling ( even a word?) through life.
I knew some kind of the cycle would eventually break down.
Either by my own hands or a combining of mine and others.
Basically? To the point? More like this...
Outa UCLA'S MFA grad film school...
...with 15 feature screenplays completed and 10 more in various outlines; and an experiemntal short film I wrote, directed and edited...and crewing on numerous student films...
Crewing on a few indie feature films; then writing and selling a few low, low, low budget scripts finally led me to directing one of them.
That's when it all fell apart.
At least the directing side of my life.
2 years earlier...homeless on the streets of L.A., after life crashed and burned in my last year of film school.
2 ex - girlfriends who I found myself really close to even though it was never my nitention get involved past the sex side of it all...there were always the young and nubile actresses always around...
An angry landpord who I owed money to and a construction contractor boss who owed me back pay -- more than enough money to pay my landlord -- never came through.
Drugs and booze involved also along the way...didn't help keep me on the staying wide awake during most of a normie's life.
So it was OUTA HERE!
At least up north for awhile.
Lotsa construction work, digging ditches, remodeling homes.
Now...
Steady job with the precious state of California.
Soon...
Back into the waters off Santa Monica.
New screenplays and get back to making my third film.
It's been a strange trip since leaving in 2001.
That's what's good about leaving...always head into another future.
Cannibalism not withstanding.
And maybe even pounding some nails.
Friday, September 07, 2007
UPDATING THE UPDATING
LEGACY...
Finally got off to GHOST HOUSE PICS.
Happy it's out of my hands and ego -- and back in the
Universe's...where it all got started anyway.
And where it's gonna go and do what it's gonna go and do.
PASSPORTIN'
Much happier about this passport thing getting finalized.
Greece is feeling more and more magical.
Don't know about the long plane flight overseas next to my brother,
but...sure he feels the same about me.
Family means a lot to me, but not enough sometimes to justify a 16 hour flight. Sibling to sibling.
Finally got off to GHOST HOUSE PICS.
Happy it's out of my hands and ego -- and back in the
Universe's...where it all got started anyway.
And where it's gonna go and do what it's gonna go and do.
PASSPORTIN'
Much happier about this passport thing getting finalized.
Greece is feeling more and more magical.
Don't know about the long plane flight overseas next to my brother,
but...sure he feels the same about me.
Family means a lot to me, but not enough sometimes to justify a 16 hour flight. Sibling to sibling.
Sure he feels the same about me. So, it's all good.
But actually being in Greece...
I'm feeling solid about being grabbed and covered and smothered by
as many Greek and French and Spanish and German and Swedish women
as possible. From 20 years to 40 years...as long as they're in
great shape...I'm ready to go on.
I could easily chuck the U.S. away for awhile and stay over there
in Greece if the right offer is made.
The right offer...which means a substantial amount of...
WHY SO MUCH ABOUT LEGACY? YEAH....YEAH
Long story. Same as the other ones.
Always starts with a certain IMAGE...and I just let it kinda
wander along.
And then one image leads into the next, etc., and then scenes
really get going which means sequences get rolling, and then the
acts kinda just spring up.
LEGACY was always about the grasslands and the sandhills.
How a natural world that was always in constant change and
flux...
Real raw and powerful life and death and rebirth cycles.
And what variables...pieces...no matter how big or small or
insignificant it would be...could still be a part of the natural
creation. The mix. The Universe's tumble and flow.
Have to finish this later.
Gonna see 3:10 TO YUMA.
Right on, write on.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
STRAW...THIS WRITING THING
AUG 17 2007
I've been thinking, feeling this for a long, long time...
Once every 4 or 6 years...it pops up.
Doing so now...right after a long, writing session.
Started writing fiction -- it took on a visual flow because of my love for comics, graphic novels, paintings...MOVIES! of course...
...but also because of my dreams when I sleep...and a natural gift or curse -- to seeing stuff in a very extremely visual manner.
So...being strongly attracted to pulp fiction/noir novels from dead, unknown (at least by today's readers) novelists...
...who also wrote in a strong, very distinct, visually - driven manner (DAVID WILLIS's CASSIDY'S GIRL as one); many of my early and current screenplays flowed more like visual novels than...easy to read...simple (with a lot of white space) commercial scripts.
I've read script after spec script of the easy to read, lotsa white space commercial scripts.
I've outlined my own along those similar outlined, same, commercial scripts.
And they always (well, except for one in film school which turned out to be bad, even though my teacher liked it -- don't ask me why)
turned back into these stranger, visual - novels as screenplays.
I'm not directing on the page.
No production numbers, etc.
Not wasting a page describing a door...or all these interior thoughts.
None of that nonsense.
It's like....
Even with the tightest, specific beat sheet, outline...
...these beginning of easy ti read, easy to write, commercial type of scripts turn into something out of my control.
I love being the channel.
Just being the tool for this universe to work through.
I understand the construct of a scene...conflict after conflict.
beginning, middle, end.
Character arc, etc.
But...I think, after these next 3 scripts...the revenge thriller, RAGE;
an untitled raunch comedy I've been dying to do...
...and a Hitchcockian thriller, THE LIES OF OUR TIME...(which ends, obviously...on a dark, tragic note for many...but personally healing and real...and powerful for me)....
...I'm going back to doing fiction...a novel, I worked on in film school, but mostly as an undergrad, an hallucinogenic thriller, A KILLING OF DREAMS.
And then a metaphysical crime-noir...HITCHING CHINA.
Both are masquerading the spiritual journies as genre pulp fiction.
Which will be a blast to play with and just go all out on.
Keeping a definite page count of 250 pages each.
I was just hoping by now...the scripts would take off...and pay me enough to just write my books...travel...and write more books and do more traveling.
Instead of working construction.
Which has been cool.
Kept me in shape.
Met great characters.
And even though I'm not doing it now...the past 48 hours just hit me:
Can't waste anymore of my life. On anything.
Who knows...maybe I'm supposed to be doing the fiction first.
Instead of the other way around.
And then the scripts will be written that are meant to be bought if even that.
I don't know anymore.
Maybe I'm just going through something...
RAGE, act1, kinda ballooned...even though it was a tight, specific outline.
And I'm starting to feel, even though it's the first draft...and all mine...etc., that if I don't write it the way the Universe...the character, etc., wants this specific story told...and just use me as the channel...
...one of two things are going to happen:
1) It's not going to get done...and will bug the hell outa me, and screw me all up for any thing else...because this story and character will haunt me.
They always have...from day one.
If I don't do the first draft...to be done as it wants; not as I wnat it.
2) I'm gonna say fuck it to screenwriting forever...which I can't,
'cause I know how fucking close I am to finally breaking through (again)
and I'm not going to fuck it up this time...because of the wrong people, and drugs and booze.
3) Did I say 2? Sorry. Rambling time.
I've told a lot of struggling writers in struggling times...not to give up, no matter what. Writers write. period. We write.
which means...we go all the way to the end. We complete.
I've never cut and run before with my scripts...and my current RAGE...something like, 30 feature scripts now?
Close to it.
And there are 15 other ones outlined or in synopsis.
Time I did what i've always done before, let alone tell others -- COMPLETE!
But...
4) I will have stopped short of fulfilling my destiny.
It's why I came back in this lifetime...
Had another dream last night about Hollywood...
On stage...holding up the OSCAR.
In my family home back in Nebraska...(which has already been sold
and lived in by another, young family)...in my parents' room, and hOLDING the OSCAR...while my Mom is happy. Really happy.
My dad passed away a few years ago...and I wanted so bad to break through while he was alive...so I could tell him thanks.
With all my love.
Well...that's my deal for tonight.
Write on Straw. Be cool.
I'll finish RAGE before I know it.
Just had to tell someone else.
MARK11
I've been thinking, feeling this for a long, long time...
Once every 4 or 6 years...it pops up.
Doing so now...right after a long, writing session.
Started writing fiction -- it took on a visual flow because of my love for comics, graphic novels, paintings...MOVIES! of course...
...but also because of my dreams when I sleep...and a natural gift or curse -- to seeing stuff in a very extremely visual manner.
So...being strongly attracted to pulp fiction/noir novels from dead, unknown (at least by today's readers) novelists...
...who also wrote in a strong, very distinct, visually - driven manner (DAVID WILLIS's CASSIDY'S GIRL as one); many of my early and current screenplays flowed more like visual novels than...easy to read...simple (with a lot of white space) commercial scripts.
I've read script after spec script of the easy to read, lotsa white space commercial scripts.
I've outlined my own along those similar outlined, same, commercial scripts.
And they always (well, except for one in film school which turned out to be bad, even though my teacher liked it -- don't ask me why)
turned back into these stranger, visual - novels as screenplays.
I'm not directing on the page.
No production numbers, etc.
Not wasting a page describing a door...or all these interior thoughts.
None of that nonsense.
It's like....
Even with the tightest, specific beat sheet, outline...
...these beginning of easy ti read, easy to write, commercial type of scripts turn into something out of my control.
I love being the channel.
Just being the tool for this universe to work through.
I understand the construct of a scene...conflict after conflict.
beginning, middle, end.
Character arc, etc.
But...I think, after these next 3 scripts...the revenge thriller, RAGE;
an untitled raunch comedy I've been dying to do...
...and a Hitchcockian thriller, THE LIES OF OUR TIME...(which ends, obviously...on a dark, tragic note for many...but personally healing and real...and powerful for me)....
...I'm going back to doing fiction...a novel, I worked on in film school, but mostly as an undergrad, an hallucinogenic thriller, A KILLING OF DREAMS.
And then a metaphysical crime-noir...HITCHING CHINA.
Both are masquerading the spiritual journies as genre pulp fiction.
Which will be a blast to play with and just go all out on.
Keeping a definite page count of 250 pages each.
I was just hoping by now...the scripts would take off...and pay me enough to just write my books...travel...and write more books and do more traveling.
Instead of working construction.
Which has been cool.
Kept me in shape.
Met great characters.
And even though I'm not doing it now...the past 48 hours just hit me:
Can't waste anymore of my life. On anything.
Who knows...maybe I'm supposed to be doing the fiction first.
Instead of the other way around.
And then the scripts will be written that are meant to be bought if even that.
I don't know anymore.
Maybe I'm just going through something...
RAGE, act1, kinda ballooned...even though it was a tight, specific outline.
And I'm starting to feel, even though it's the first draft...and all mine...etc., that if I don't write it the way the Universe...the character, etc., wants this specific story told...and just use me as the channel...
...one of two things are going to happen:
1) It's not going to get done...and will bug the hell outa me, and screw me all up for any thing else...because this story and character will haunt me.
They always have...from day one.
If I don't do the first draft...to be done as it wants; not as I wnat it.
2) I'm gonna say fuck it to screenwriting forever...which I can't,
'cause I know how fucking close I am to finally breaking through (again)
and I'm not going to fuck it up this time...because of the wrong people, and drugs and booze.
3) Did I say 2? Sorry. Rambling time.
I've told a lot of struggling writers in struggling times...not to give up, no matter what. Writers write. period. We write.
which means...we go all the way to the end. We complete.
I've never cut and run before with my scripts...and my current RAGE...something like, 30 feature scripts now?
Close to it.
And there are 15 other ones outlined or in synopsis.
Time I did what i've always done before, let alone tell others -- COMPLETE!
But...
4) I will have stopped short of fulfilling my destiny.
It's why I came back in this lifetime...
Had another dream last night about Hollywood...
On stage...holding up the OSCAR.
In my family home back in Nebraska...(which has already been sold
and lived in by another, young family)...in my parents' room, and hOLDING the OSCAR...while my Mom is happy. Really happy.
My dad passed away a few years ago...and I wanted so bad to break through while he was alive...so I could tell him thanks.
With all my love.
Well...that's my deal for tonight.
Write on Straw. Be cool.
I'll finish RAGE before I know it.
Just had to tell someone else.
MARK11
Saturday, August 11, 2007
WASSUP? WASSDON?
AUG 11 2007
Not to0 much.
Dying to get my own comp, internet at my place.
Have so much to do...so little time...and driving back and forth between Soledad and Salinas...and popping down 20 bucks for 8 hours at the internet cafe...is spending too much.
Flip side?
Back in the Zone with my writing...busting my chops to do it the way the Uni wants me...and the Uni rewards me for it...
RAGE
Felt really good on getting through ACT 1.
Not too good about the page count...42 pages.
But pages are meant to be chopped down anyway.
And as the usual excuse goes lately...it's only a first draft...and no one reads first drafts except me.
Felt great about getting emotional over what my main character...SAMMy is about to go through.
He's got a helluva wilderness waiting for him...and the darkness is wide open arms out their on an unknown frontier.
act 2a IS A BREEZE...ONE CONFLICT...one bad ass shithole after the next
and act mid...well, it's my cave...into the dark night of the soul...even easier.
It's act 2b...that has me somewhat up and down now.
Act 3's cool...because I can always string out the final climax
It's always been act 1...which has always got me burning down the world.
So much stuff to jam into it...before it breaks, widens out and grows on its own throughout act 2 and act 3.
Oh well...that's the stuff of er legends...write on, write on.
MANAGERS / THE BIZ -- LEGACY
THE COLLECTIVE and J.ROSS ENT. are reading LEGACY.
Well, at least the COLL is.
J.R. won't get to it until they get it...which'll be in a few days.
J.R. sounds cool on the E.
The Coll sounded cool on the phone.
Have no idea about Ms. Patty.
You'd think with ICM cutting her loose, and an up and comer (6 years outa film school, but who's counting, but...) like me...she'd jump.
Had LEGACY for a week...based on her assist telling me to get it in as soon as possible, and now it's wait, wait, wait....
She hasn't even read it yet...and probably won't.
She's just not hurting for clients...and is probably burned out on the whole Biz.
I still can't believe how commercial I changed LEGACY over to.
I miss TAYLOR, the old hunter...tracker, killer...and the whole
symbolic, inverted unholy trinity ensemble I'd put together.
Even miss the overt conspiracy team going into action.
Said so much about the present story...while opening up doors for the sequels...and obviously the prequel.
Don't mass the lab scene...
Just had no other idea at the time how to work itout...
Plus...it was all during the last days of fiasco at UCLA, and becca, and the Co-op, etc.
So all I was doing was jamming on pure airplane fuel...
I'm stunned more of my life didn't fall apart or swore off writing and creativity all together.
I don't think I'd be alive today if I hadn't gone through what i did...and took
the hits that slam hammered away at me.
First time I can go public...
"Becca...I wish you the best. Sorry about being jerk if you thought I was"
"Hope you really have everything you want"
There, now it's out in the Uni...the Uni does what it wants with it.
Not to0 much.
Dying to get my own comp, internet at my place.
Have so much to do...so little time...and driving back and forth between Soledad and Salinas...and popping down 20 bucks for 8 hours at the internet cafe...is spending too much.
Flip side?
Back in the Zone with my writing...busting my chops to do it the way the Uni wants me...and the Uni rewards me for it...
RAGE
Felt really good on getting through ACT 1.
Not too good about the page count...42 pages.
But pages are meant to be chopped down anyway.
And as the usual excuse goes lately...it's only a first draft...and no one reads first drafts except me.
Felt great about getting emotional over what my main character...SAMMy is about to go through.
He's got a helluva wilderness waiting for him...and the darkness is wide open arms out their on an unknown frontier.
act 2a IS A BREEZE...ONE CONFLICT...one bad ass shithole after the next
and act mid...well, it's my cave...into the dark night of the soul...even easier.
It's act 2b...that has me somewhat up and down now.
Act 3's cool...because I can always string out the final climax
It's always been act 1...which has always got me burning down the world.
So much stuff to jam into it...before it breaks, widens out and grows on its own throughout act 2 and act 3.
Oh well...that's the stuff of er legends...write on, write on.
MANAGERS / THE BIZ -- LEGACY
THE COLLECTIVE and J.ROSS ENT. are reading LEGACY.
Well, at least the COLL is.
J.R. won't get to it until they get it...which'll be in a few days.
J.R. sounds cool on the E.
The Coll sounded cool on the phone.
Have no idea about Ms. Patty.
You'd think with ICM cutting her loose, and an up and comer (6 years outa film school, but who's counting, but...) like me...she'd jump.
Had LEGACY for a week...based on her assist telling me to get it in as soon as possible, and now it's wait, wait, wait....
She hasn't even read it yet...and probably won't.
She's just not hurting for clients...and is probably burned out on the whole Biz.
I still can't believe how commercial I changed LEGACY over to.
I miss TAYLOR, the old hunter...tracker, killer...and the whole
symbolic, inverted unholy trinity ensemble I'd put together.
Even miss the overt conspiracy team going into action.
Said so much about the present story...while opening up doors for the sequels...and obviously the prequel.
Don't mass the lab scene...
Just had no other idea at the time how to work itout...
Plus...it was all during the last days of fiasco at UCLA, and becca, and the Co-op, etc.
So all I was doing was jamming on pure airplane fuel...
I'm stunned more of my life didn't fall apart or swore off writing and creativity all together.
I don't think I'd be alive today if I hadn't gone through what i did...and took
the hits that slam hammered away at me.
First time I can go public...
"Becca...I wish you the best. Sorry about being jerk if you thought I was"
"Hope you really have everything you want"
There, now it's out in the Uni...the Uni does what it wants with it.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
AD INFINITUM
Oh yeah....
Currently dealing with new lit manager and agent.
More contacts going out this week.
Hitting the screenplay contest circuit for the first time in a while.
Should have my own comp and internet system and phone at new home in a week or so.
Doing some part time work by then on tech writing pojects, hopefully some research ones,
might even get in deck or two going.
Feel free at any time to write about questions dealing with films, screenwriting, directing,
writing...
It's better for my soul to give advice or whatever you want to call it instead of nothing.
Keep the arts going.
Currently dealing with new lit manager and agent.
More contacts going out this week.
Hitting the screenplay contest circuit for the first time in a while.
Should have my own comp and internet system and phone at new home in a week or so.
Doing some part time work by then on tech writing pojects, hopefully some research ones,
might even get in deck or two going.
Feel free at any time to write about questions dealing with films, screenwriting, directing,
writing...
It's better for my soul to give advice or whatever you want to call it instead of nothing.
Keep the arts going.
WHATEVER WHATEVER
FEB 24 2007
Still rehearsing for my role in the stage version of CLOCKWORK ORANGE.
It's a trip.
On stage as an actor for the first time since thrid grade.
It's so much easier telling actors how to act as a writer and director.
Really is easier finding their problems and guiding them through them instead of being directed myself.
Such a wierd feeling being on that stage.
Anxious to start writing two new projects.
One's a thriller, the other's a conspricay piece.
Feel good about both of them.
Feel even beter about starting to shoot some rough footage of my new surroundings out in the Salinas Valley.
The natural colors and lighting, and how it changes so much in the Valley is astounding.
Same goes for some spots on the coast between Big Sur and Monterey.
I've stumbled across some real, rugged, backroad places purely by accident.
No one can touch Ma Nature when it comes to lighting and color.
No one.
Still rehearsing for my role in the stage version of CLOCKWORK ORANGE.
It's a trip.
On stage as an actor for the first time since thrid grade.
It's so much easier telling actors how to act as a writer and director.
Really is easier finding their problems and guiding them through them instead of being directed myself.
Such a wierd feeling being on that stage.
Anxious to start writing two new projects.
One's a thriller, the other's a conspricay piece.
Feel good about both of them.
Feel even beter about starting to shoot some rough footage of my new surroundings out in the Salinas Valley.
The natural colors and lighting, and how it changes so much in the Valley is astounding.
Same goes for some spots on the coast between Big Sur and Monterey.
I've stumbled across some real, rugged, backroad places purely by accident.
No one can touch Ma Nature when it comes to lighting and color.
No one.
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