The Future

Never climb a limbless tree without an exit strategy. Learned that the hard way. Sprained my ankle, kind of sucks.

Somehow Cape Cod completely missed the spring season this year. It went from hoodie weather to t-shirt and shorts weather in just about a week or so. Funny how things can change that fast. The pollen isn't making my life too fun though. Pretty much fatigued or sinus pressured all the time. It is raining at the moment though and my dad said that rain will wash away the pollen. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Watch the French animated feature film L'Illusioniste the other day. Here's the trailer for any interested parties:

Some interesting news in technology:

Sony let's two people watch two different shows on the same tv at the same time!

Nintendo announces new console; confuses everyone!

iCloud!

The film works pretty much without any dialogue, a difficult feat considering that they are trying to keep your attention for an hour and twenty minutes on visuals alone. Bittersweet and fantastically beautiful. Check it out.

Really tired so I'm going to stop it here. I start camp in two weeks! Pretty excited for it.

Speak easy,

Neil

retro.future

Been working 40-50 hour work weeks which hasn't proved to work well with my writing schedule. A few weeks ago I hit the 90,000 word mark and decided that that would be a good a time as any to start trimming the fat. Since then I haven't got a great deal of work done (without daily goals I find it terribly hard to be productive) but I hope for that to change in the weeks leading up to camp.

Quick list of things:

- 127 Hours: Terrific film, watch it right now.

- Twilight Zone: If you have Netflix instant watch I highly recommend watching "Masks", "Five Characters in Search of an Exit", "Walking Distance", and "It's a Good Life".

- This is cool: http://www.learnmorsecode.com/

- Everything Will Be Okay is now available for free! (One of my all time favorite short films)

- Stay away from the book Film Club by David Gilmour (not worth the read. hours wasted)

...and without further ado...I give you the house of the future.

Speak easy,

Neil

last.fm/user/seedownthesun

I've been working hard, 36 hours a week at Stop & Shop doing construction type work and rigorousness working on my novel. Earlier this evening I passed the 80,000 word mark. I will probably have the rough draft done by the end of April (approx. 120,000 words) and a first draft completed before I leave for camp towards the end of June. Not sure what I'm going to do from there. Honestly by then I'll be so busy looking for career work that the whole project will have to go by the wayside.

I went to the Penny Arcade Expo a few weeks ago with my Dungeons and Dragons crew. Basically it is a video game convention/exposition run by the guys who make the popular gaming comic Penny Arcade. Apparently it got a lot of publicity this year because I have actually met a lot of normal people who know what it is.

For anyone who wants to know what this thing is all about, I recommend this video here to explain all that I don't feel like explaining.

I even got to play the very arcade machine that was featured in one of my all time favorite documentaries King of Kong.

Speak easy,

Neil

Zed's Dead

Just read an article on the Wall Street Journal with Conor Oberst (named the best songwriter of 2008 by Rolling Stone magazine). In this article he calls himself "a good thief". He goes, explaining that many of his lines and concepts are collected from aspects of conversations he has with friends or books that he happens to be reading. Last year I watched a Q&A with writer Chuck Palahniuk where he said something similar. He said that he would be at a party and overhear a conversation and then run to the bathroom to frantically write down what he'd just heard word for word. I find that I work the same way. If I here something interesting I'll write it down on my phone (notebook feature). It's a lot less conspicuous than carrying a paper and pencil with you and everyone will just assume that your texting someone.

Watched Breakfast At Tiffany's for the first time the other day. Love Audrey Hepburn, love the atmosphere of the movie, loved most of the script, didn't really like the pseudo-Hollywood ending. Didn't feel fitting but I suppose I'll have to read the book to see how Capote told the story. Also, really strange Chinese stereotype character seemed forced and weird.

Reached 61,000 words today. Trying to get to about 100,000 by the end of March so that I can start the editing process and hopefully have a first draft on my hands by late May. Love what I have so far.

Found a menial job to work at. Finished the hiring process this afternoon.

Speak easy,

Neil

PS - Watching Pulp Fiction

50k

Don't have a job at the moment but I have been writing on a daily basis. I just passed 50,000 words towards my manuscript but most of that is unedited. I feel like I'm probably about halfway done with completing my first draft. The work just doesn't seem to end.

The three hardest things I've come across while writing...

A. Content - What is worth writing about?

B. Editing - What was I trying to say? How am I going to turn this into something seamless?

C. Atmosphere - Did I include enough details to make this scene work? Did I include too many?

Here's a short list of stuff I like at the moment...

1. On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardener

This is both interesting and helpful. It's not very long either, running at around 150 pages. Sometimes Gardener's input seems tedious or obvious but most of what he says about being a novelist is worth reading.

2. A More Perfect Union by Titus Andronicus

Not as brutal as its namesake but Titus still pulls off some raw and fun punk hooks. This is the first track from their new album The Monitor, a concept album about the Civil War.

3. Batman: The Long Halloween (Graphic Novel)

The book that was the inspiration for The Dark Knight. I'm not that far into it right now but I'm finding it pretty interesting, despite the fact that super hero comics are not my personal preference.

4. Dungeons & Dragons

The game, not the movie. I joined a D&D group that meets every Monday night. It's a lot more fun than most people would think.

5. The IT Crowd

Clever English sitcom that I first saw on my flight back to from England. What really makes the show is the character Moss. Funny stuff.

Speak easy,

Neil

Schrodinger's Hard Drive

I went to the local indie cinema to apply for a job and I stupidly put the summer camp on my application. When I sat down for the interview the woman asked me if I was planning on going back this summer. I said yes because I'm incapable of lying to anyone that asked me a straightforward question. I suppose that's what they mean when they say nice guys finish last. Anyway she said she didn't want to hire me because she wants a year round employee. She gave me reference sheets to hand out to my previous employers but she said she would still have to think about it. Personally I could just find another job somewhere else but the real reason I want to work there is because I have a deep love for film and would work there for free just for the opportunity to get an all you can see Regal movie pass.

In other news my hard drive crashed and at the moment I have no idea whether I am going to be able to retrieve my information. I ordered a sata to usb cable that should be able to help me out with the process but I have yet to get that in the mail. For me, it is both alive and dead at the same time.

I am still dilligently working on my manuscript and just reached the halfway point yesterday (although I write out of sequence so my estimate could be way off). Currently the running list of people I plan on sending the first draft to is as follows:

Dell Smith, Liz Smith, Kathryn Hakala, Taylor Rose Marvin, Sara Hanson, Andrew Lippman, Ross Lippman, Robin Johnson, Laurie Murphy, Bradley Murphy, Daniel Barrett, Carolan Fleer, Kristina West, and Ariel Lauri. If I have forgotten you or if your name isn't on this list let me know so I can send you a copy.

Speak easy,

Neil

Sadie

Since I got back to the Cape, I've been locking myself in my room in the basement and writing a ton. My goal is to write at least 1,000 words a day and have been been pretty successful thus far. Yesterday I bought a bunch of post it notes so that I could visualize the outline for the segment of the manuscript I'm working on. My goal is to have the first 70 pages written and edited by the end of the month. I figure if I give myself more deadlines I will get more work done in the long run (whether or not I stick to the deadlines is another matter entirely.)

This is a picture I took of my brother fracturing his ankle. Judging by the look on his face I reckon it hurt quite a bit.

This is Sadie. Nice dog. Two different color eyes.

Speak easy,
Neil