RSSDon’t call me kiddo. I REALLY hate it. People been calling me that way too long. Fever and Ma and Uncle Spade all call me kiddo, and it makes me crazy. See how I ain’t smiling? People who know me, know that means trouble. So begins the new novel by J. Adams Oaks, Why I [...]
Read it all...That’s a question about creativity raised by the film “Starting Out in the Evening.” It follows an aging and mostly forgotten literary novelist who is forced from his routine when a young graduate student enters his life, ostensibly to research her thesis. It is a wooden and stilted film with some (mostly) unintentional awkward moments, [...]
Read it all...A friend once told me that every conversation that takes place in a screenplay should be an argument. It’s advice he heard from a writing teacher, and I think it’s basically sound. I’d replace the concept of an argument with the more general notion of tension. It doesn’t have to be direct confrontation, but there [...]
Read it all...I don’t know how many times over the years that I’ve recommended to writer friends and fiction writing students to read their work out loud. Not only will you catch every typo and grammar glitch, but you’ll be able to hear the ring and rattle of the words in your head. Now that a tiny [...]
Read it all...Cats that wake you at first light are useful. Suddenly you’re stumbling to the garage with a cup of cat food, bleary eyed, wondering where you are. You walk past where the Mac is charging on the counter, and suddenly you’re sitting on the front porch typing (or more likely deleting) dialog on your script [...]
Read it all...