film & the great void

We finished filming "The Crawl" on the 4th of July, and then the void set in. The thing was "done". Yeah, right. Everyone else got to go home and forget about it. I had to capture 5 hours of video, find the best takes of every shot, and piece the whole thing together.

Then I got busy with work (heap of random web jobs). Now there's a rough cut, but we still haven't gotten together to watch it. We need to arrange a half-day shoot to pick up some missing pieces, but now the days are short and the place we filmed at rebuilt their front porch so it won't match up.

Still, it can be done.

Not much writing news. A few shorts & poems published here & there. Our writing group has gotten bigger but a bit less organized. Some folks don't want to meet unless everyone is there, but since we can't predict the future, all we can do is show up & see what happens.

I've written a few new short stories & poems. Some wild stuff. As time goes on, I'm discovering what I call the "fearless factor". Writing should be fearless. It doesn't have to whomp on taboos or try to offend people. It should say what needs to be said, without withering and worrying. This was clarified recently when I was at Killer Pizza from Mars, watching Robin Williams on "Inside the Actors Studio", although he could not explain it either, he could only demonstrate endlessly.

The very next story I wrote simply plowed ahead, defying logic, not stopping to explain itself. And only that way could it have reached the shocking ending. Had I wussed out along the way, it would have sunk and gone nowhere.

Note from 2024: this was first posted to my AuthorsDen writing blog.  The film would later be renamed "Vincent."  We had fun showing it to people, and I had some DVDs for sale for a few years, but it never went anywhere.