Writing These Wasted Pages

aseaofquotes: Albert Camus, The Stranger

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 00:54:10 -0400

Albert Camus, The Stranger

Trusting A Blurred Vision

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 14:57:29 -0500

Where did you put my glasses?

You want me to simply find them again. But I’m so blurry I may as well be blind and I’m in this unfamiliar space, this room that from the bed looks to have no door. (And it doesn’t have a door, just some negative space we passed through to collapse here).

I do feel safe in this bed, your comforter is warmer than anticipated and the air is cooler than it would be in my own apartment. It smells of you, fresh and clean and full of promise.

Still, my body has urges that can’t be satisfied here. I have to stand, lay bare feet on the floor, press forward. This delicate balancing act we call walking.

From the bathroom I wonder how many words I’ve lost in the time I spent here. Warm water runs over my hands and I think I can feel your arms around me. I wish it were not just my imagination.

I pause in the hallway, by your bookshelf. You’ve trusted me to behave in your apartment, with all of your things dusted with memories. I return to the bedroom and put on the shirt I wore last night, next to yours on the floor. It is after pausing to look at your room, to truly look for the first time—it is then that I see the blurred curves of my glasses on your dresser.

I put them on, and marvel at the clarity sunlight and sculpted glass provide.

Then to creep over to the living room, where my bag rests in the corner with my shoes. Clean clothes, toiletries, all taken out and in my arms. I wonder if it’s still raining, and peer out the window. There you are, my sweetest thrill, carrying breakfast across the street towards the apartment. I start, wondering if I should drop everything and pretend to be asleep. Instead, I put down my clothes and pretend to be looking through my bag once again. The door opens, and you smile at my kneeling form. The mystical loneliness of the morning is broken, and all I can think are warm thoughts of you and egg sandwiches.

"I write as though I am whispering in the ear of one I love."

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 23:40:46 -0500

“I write as though I am whispering in the ear of one I love.”

- Terry Tempest Williams, “Why I Write”

Photo

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 07:16:14 -0500

robsheridan: Clever anti-smoking ad.

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 00:49:52 -0500

robsheridan:

Clever anti-smoking ad.

beatonna: Here are some previews and info about our 2013...

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 20:38:30 -0500

beatonna:

Here are some previews and info about our 2013 calendars with Drawn and Quarterly! I’ve included a panel from each page so you know what’s in it.

“There She Blows” is a literary calendar, with writing-related dates.

“Beethoven Birthday Party” is a more general history calendar!

I imagine the images will run small, so to see the whole thing, CLICK HERE!

You can buy these in stores, from places like Amazon and from D&Q themselves!

Holidays are comin’ y’all

Someone find me the literary one and buy it for me PLEASE.

worldfamousprofessor: i handwrote my top four favorite text...

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 23:09:45 -0500

worldfamousprofessor:

i handwrote my top four favorite text posts ever made

Someday

Sun, 11 Nov 2012 21:39:00 -0500

Someday I will stop viewing my life as an inevitable tragedy. Someday I’ll face each new day with vigor and excitement instead of mild curiosity. I am sure there will be a time when I don’t just roll out of bed—I’ll leap, enthusiastically onto the ground and not onto my laptop, darn it.

Someday breakfast will be a culinary adventure, not a sleepy internal debate between high fiber cereal and high fiber microwaved oatmeal. And maybe a banana, do we have any bananas? My roommate used the last one for her milkshake last night. Great, fine, whatever I don’t need fruit!

Someday getting clean will involve luxurious soaps and yummy smelling things. And I’ll take my time and not worry about running out of hot water or my mother screaming to “UNLOCK THE DOOR DAMMIT SOME OF US HAVE TO USE THE BATHROOM” or should I shave my legs and be late or not shave and never let my legs see the cruel mocking light of day?

Someday dressing will be a thrill of matching colors, patterns, and textures. I will make heads turn, I will blow their minds, I will have strangers stop me on the street to pose for pictures which end up being their most popular post on Instagram. On that day in the distant future, I will care about Instagram. No, that’s a lie, I won’t.

Someday I will go to work and leave excited to go back the next day.

Someday I will get on that airplane.

Someday I will complain that I need things to add to my reading/watching/living list.

Someday I will read back on this post and laugh.

LOOPER's borrowed story structure

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 16:29:30 -0400

LOOPER's borrowed story structure:

austinkleon:

The NYTimes has a great piece on Rian Johnson’s influences while making LOOPER. (One of my favorite movies I saw this year.)

He conceived of the movie in four acts, each one related to a quote from T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets,” and he borrowed the story structure from another source I totally missed:

He also points out that “Looper” owes more to “Witness” — the 1985 drama starring Harrison Ford about a Philadelphia cop who hides out on an Amish farm while investigating a murder — than it does to “Blade Runner.” While he was plotting “Looper,” Johnson sat down and watched “Witness,” diagraming its structure on a piece of paper so he could dissect exactly how that screenplay worked. “It starts in the city, creates this noir-type tension and atmosphere, then transfers to the farm, but loses none of that momentum and keeps you in suspense until the end,” he says. “Which is like a magic trick to me. So I studied it.” One thing he noticed: “Witness” features a prologue on the farm before shifting to the city, which “helps acclimatize you to the visual world of the farm.” He liked that so much he aped it, situating his own opening scene in a sugarcane field — so that when the film shifts later to a rural setting, “it’s not like we’re going into a room we’ve never been in before.”

When asked about the name of the bar in the film, “La Belle Aurore,” he replied:

“It’s a Casablanca reference. If you take a close look at Joe’s narrative arc, I totally just stole Rick’s arc from Casablanca. So I named my bar after the bar they’re at in Paris when the Germans are attacking. I figured I owed that movie something.

Related:

3-act structure vs. 4-act structure

Rebecca Skloot Talks About How Fried Green Tomatoes and The Hurricane Helped Her Find the Structure of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Filed under: storytelling (via @maudnewton)

I've Been Gone Forever

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 16:17:50 -0400

Sorry guys!

I pretty much abandoned this blog in my efforts to write my senior thesis project, Ophelia. I spent half the summer on a version of the script which was ultimately abandoned because I reworked the plot. I’m here to announce that I’ve officially finished the first draft of the script. And of course, I have two more screenplays to finish by Monday night. Along with some other non-filmmaking work.

This is what I get for procrastinating.

Also, I finally watched It’s Kind of a Funny Story last night. I laughed, and cried. This isn’t really a review just a statement reflecting the fact that it made me have feelings.

"Want to live without regret? Forgive yourself for the mistakes you’ve made and look forward to..."

Sun, 15 Jul 2012 22:44:14 -0400

“Want to live without regret? Forgive yourself for the mistakes you’ve made and look forward to learning from the ones you have yet to make.”

teachingliteracy: Face, Book (by Edmond Pang)

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 22:09:21 -0400

teachingliteracy:

Face, Book (by Edmond Pang)

laughingsquid: Required Summer Reading About halfway through...

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 20:54:40 -0400

laughingsquid:

Required Summer Reading

About halfway through my last summer vacation (as a student, anyway).

Found on YouTube, in the comments under a Louis CK clip.

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:44:29 -0400

Found on YouTube, in the comments under a Louis CK clip.

"Shame is for uninteresting people."

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 05:56:08 -0400

“Shame is for uninteresting people.”

Expectations

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 19:43:45 -0400

You know, thinking back to my teenage years, there was a lot of crappy parenting (and general irresponsible adult-ing) going on around me.

When I remember how other kids, especially boys treated me and I can very clearly remember how most adults did nothing. (My mom was pretty great with this stuff, in the few cases where I actually felt I was able to report the abuse. Yeah, bullying and teasing is abuse, people.)
As a bullied kid, you can sometimes understand where the harassment originates and why. You know what the bully’s doing is wrong, and you know they’re probably just insecure. As a girl, I knew for a fact that some of the guys who mercilessly teased me had crushes on me. So they didn’t bother me so much as the realization that all the adults around us were ignoring the problem. Because that’s what boys do. That’s what kids are like. Toughen up.

Thankfully I did toughen up a bit, learning that as special and fragile as my little ego was there were people who would not treat me sensitively. I learned to deal with rejection, harassment, and even exile. Mostly by burying myself in books. But it would have been nice if adults actually took responsibility for the environment they created.

Tl;dr: Age nor gender doesn’t excuse a kid’s horrible behavior. Expect better of the people and children around you, and maybe they’ll be better people in the long run. Duh.

This problem. I am having it.

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 15:12:59 -0400

This problem. I am having it.

Fast and Young

Sat, 09 Jun 2012 00:45:19 -0400

Fast and Young:

Shameless Self-Promotion! Dave and I are business partners, now. Check it out.

Yep, I'm part of the Doctor Who cult now.

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 21:59:48 -0400

violetrosesky:

wastedpages:

Forcing myself to finish chapter one of the book I’m reading before starting Season 2.

Also, I aspire to be the female version of Captain Jack.

WELCOME TO THE FOLD!! We love you for joining us XD

I lied, too. Didn’t finish chapter one. On Episode 4 of Season 2…I can’t believe I wasn’t watching this sooner.

50 Books by QPOC

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 21:56:34 -0400

50 Books by QPOC