Marino

I’m on a roll, I’m on a roll
This time, I feel my luck could change
Kill me Sarah, kill me again with love
It’s gonna be a glorious day

Pull me out of the aircrash
Pull me out of the wake
I’m your superhero
We are standing on the edge

The Head of State has called for me by name
But I don’t have time for him
It’s gonna be a glorious day
I feel my luck could change

Pull me out of the aircrash
Pull me out of the wake
I’m your superhero
We are standing on the edge

I want to learn how to write. Writing has become very important to me lately. I have beenworking with the NB Film Co-op for the past month by taking film workshops:

Screenwriting – Here we learned some basics and tips on writing drama films, such as building a premise, ideas on character conflict, story arcs… Also some methods in comedy writing.

Production Management and Assistant Directing – Britany Sparow taught this workshop. She has been worknig on films for years as Pruduction Management, and is a master in organizaition. Even her job is in organization; she works at the New Bruswick Archives. After meeting her in the workshop, I set up a meeting with her last Friday at Starbucks, where she gave me some guidance on how to manage my products, and what I should do next to learn and have great experience through the NB Film Co-op. I expected the meeting to be about 30 minutes to an hour. We ended up talking for almost 3 hours. We had to leave because Starbucks closed. This really got me excited about the Film Co-op and film making.

Location Sound – I went to this workshop today, actually. We learned a lot about different mics, how to record audio on a film set, and a little on post production sound editing. I love the Film Co-op because I already met a lot of people, and am already getting involved. I met a woman there who is an art teacher. She made a interview-style documentary on a man who died and came back to life. I am going to work with her to edit a teaser trailer for the documentary; we haven’t worked it out yet, but in exchange she is going to give me art lessons.

I still have four or five of these workshops to go to. This is going to be a good year.

Peace

Marino

Now that I have started vlogging again (even if it has only been one vlog so far) it seems that my creative flood gates have opened. I can’t stop thinking of ideas for videos, projects, ideas… which I think stems from the creative day of watching the boys write music that night. I bought a new set of guitar strings, and have been playing every night since then; coming up with new things I’ve never played before… and I even recorded some of it to my video camera so I can play it back, pick out some of my favourite parts, and establish it further. I’m getting my finger calluses back! Progress!
I also went to another film workshop on Wednesday, which further peaked my excitement for creating films. I want to start writing, and get some people together to try and create a short comedy film.
Wow, I have a lot to say, but just not in the writing mood I guess. It’s early, and I haven’t got through much of my coffee, so… brain is working hard to just type this..
So….
PEACE!
Marino

Hello, no one.

I say “no one” because I’m pretty sure I have 0 readers so far, but I might as well keep writing.

Anyways, today I woke up kind of bummed out because I had to get up early to get my oil changed. I work the 1:30 – 10:00 pm shift at work, so I figured I’d get this done in the morning.. but I was prepared for a long day.

When I got to the Coast Tire garage, they offered to change my oil and inspect my vehicle for $60. I thought “why not, I haven’t had it looked at since I bought it”. 2 hours later, the manager came to me with a list.

“These are the things wrong with your car. First of all, your inspection sticker and license plate expired in October, your brakes need replacing, this needs replacing, that needs repairing, etc., etc. Would you like us to do this now, or just put your car back together.”

“Okay, what’s an estimate on the cost?”

850 dollars. Dammit car. Guess I have to pull 850 dollars out of my ass now.

On the plus side, Weak Size Fish is releasing their second album on February 23rd, and having a album release concert. They released one track today; “Moving On”. Check it out here, it sounds great!

http://radio3.cbc.ca/#/artists/Weak-Size-Fish

Best Wishes,

Marino

Yo yo yoid, what’s up people!?

Haven’t said that one in a while. I think once I start vlogging again, I’m removing that greeting. It’s getting old. Maybe the occasional throwback. We’ll see.

I went to my first film workshop (out of eight) that I signed up for last night. The subject was screenwriting, and I learned many great insights on to some story structure, the use of conflict affecting the protagonist, and many other great insights on writing. This field is vast, and there is much to learn, but it was a great starting point, and really peaked my interest. During the course, we all came up with up to 20 premises:

Premise = character + event + outcome

A premise is a short statement that briefly summarizes a story. It gives you insight on who the protagonist is, a major event that happens to the character, and the outcome of the situation. This is very brief, and although gives you an idea, it does not give much detail or out line how the story is told. During the story, a character generally goes through conflicts; most commonly:

Personal – Man vs. Self

Inter-personal – Man vs. Man

Extra-personal – Man vs. Nature

A character normally goes through a significant change. This also helps viewers watching a film, or reading a book really remember the character later on, or relate to them. A character with no change, like an action hero (James Bond was given as an example) may be cool to watch, but is unrelatable. If a character goes through significant change, it gives the viewer hope that they are able to change themselves. That’s why some people looking to lose weight enjoy shows like “The Biggest Loser”. They see these people losing a ton of weight, which gives them hope for there own future. They know losing weight is possible, but seeing other people actually doing it brings the concept into reality.

Anyways, I think that’s enough for now. See ya later!

Peace,

Marino

So, I was planning on making a post every day. Not doing so good so far.

Anyways, here’s an update on some future projects I have planned:

NB Film Co-op: I signed up for 8 workshops over the next couple months. I’ll be quite busy balancing work and learning film, but it will be worth it. Here I can learn some great practical skills, but more importantly, build a lot of great and useful connections and friendships. I have many ideas of what I can use film for; I always wanted to write a sitcom, and this will bring me one step closer to that goal. Sure, I can make a sitcom now, but it won’t be as great unless I swallow my pride and work with other people. I am a guy with a lot of ideas, but I hate doing the physical side of work. I’d like to learn… but I’m not the biggest fan of setting up shots, organizing, or setting up the lights. I’d rather have ideas, and let other people do the work. In that sense, it seems that I’d rather be a writer/director. And break into acting, because I love being a goof on camera.

Rogers TV: I’ve been wanting to start a Talk Show for quite some time now. I know plenty of people in the local music community that I can have on my show. I also know a lot of people doing interesting projects in the city. This would make for interesting content, but also help promote these artist’s work. I recently bought a book on journalism to acquire some tips on interviewing people. I also have been watching one of my favourite talk show hosts and comedian, Conan O’Brien. I have been trying to really pay attention to what makes him good. How does he interact with his guests. I noticed that Conan has the uncanny ability to make his guests seem interesting even if they are shy or nervous. Some celebrities can just talk, and do fine, no matter who the interviewer is. Some need that guidance in telling their stories, and Conan does a great job at doing this. I was told there are some people that have Talk Shows with Rogers TV. I feel like my first step is to get involved with them. After taking all the workshops for the Film Co-op, and my schedule dies down, I plan on volunteering for Rogers TV at the end of March. This will bring me one step closer to my goal; and even if I don’t end up having a talk show as a result, I will still get some great experience, meet some new people, and probably at least come up with some project I can use my new acquired skills for.

Oh, and I also plan on starting vlogging again… just have to get back into the swing of things…

Best Wishes,

Marino

By Chuck Wendi

1. Stop Running Away

Right here is your story. Your manuscript. Your career. So why are you running in the other direction? Your writing will never chase you — you need to chase your writing. If it’s what you want, then pursue it. This isn’t just true of your overall writing career, either. It’s true of individual components. You want one thing but then constantly work to achieve its opposite. You say you want to write a novel but then go and write a bunch of short stories. You say you’re going to write This script but then try to write That script instead. Pick a thing and work toward that thing.

2. Stop Stopping

Momentum is everything. Cut the brake lines. Careen wildly and unsteadily toward your goal. I hate to bludgeon you about the head and neck with a hammer forged in the volcanic fires of Mount Obvious, but the only way you can finish something is by not stopping. That story isn’t going to write itself.

3. Stop Writing In Someone Else’s Voice

You have a voice. It’s yours. Nobody else can claim it, and any attempts to mimic it will be fumbling and clumsy like two tweens trying to make out in a darkened broom closet. That’s on you, too — don’t try to write in somebody else’s voice. Yes, okay, maybe you do this in the beginning. But strive past it. Stretch your muscles. Find your voice. This is going to be a big theme at the start of 2012 — discover those elements that comprise your voice, that put the author in your authority. Write in a way that only you can write.

4. Stop Worrying

Worry is useless. It does nothing. It has no basis in reality. It’s a vestigial emotion. We worry about things that are well beyond our control. We worry about publishing trends or future advances or whether or not Barnes & Noble is going to shove a hand grenade up its own ass and go kablooey. That’s not to say you can’t identify future trouble spots and try to work around them — but that’s not worrying. You recognize a roadblock and arrange a path around it — you don’t chew your fingernails bloody worrying about it. Shut up. Calm down. Worry, begone.

5. Stop Hurrying

The rise of self-publishing has seen a comparative surge forward in quantity. Stories are like wine; they need time. So take the time. This isn’t a hot dog eating contest. You’re not being judged on how much you write but rather, how well you do it. Sure, there’s a balance — you have to be generative, have to be swimming forward. But generation and creativity should not come at the cost of quality. Give your stories and your career the time and patience it needs. Put differently: don’t have a freak out, man.

6. Stop Waiting

I said “stop hurrying,” not “stand still and fall asleep.” Life rewards action, not inertia. What are you waiting for? To reap the rewards of the future, you must take action in the present. Do so now.

1. 7. Stop Thinking It Should Be Easier
   

It’s not going to get any easier, and why should it? Anything truly worth doing requires a lot of hard work. If climbing to the top of Kilimanjaro meant packing a light lunch and hopping in a climate-controlled elevator, it wouldn’t really be that big of a deal, would it? You want to do This Writing Thing, then don’t just expect hard work — be happy that it’s a hard row to hoe and that you’re just the, er, hoer to hoe it? I dunno. Don’t look at me like that. AVERT YOUR GAZE, SCRUTINIZER. And get back to work.

8. Stop Deprioritizing Your Wordsmithy

You don’t get to be a proper storyteller by putting it so far down your list it’s nestled between “Complete the Iditarod (but with squirrels instead of dogs)” and “Two words: Merkin, Macrame.” You want to do this, it better be some Top Five Shiznit, son. You know you’re a writer because it’s not just what you do, but rather, it’s who you are. So why deprioritize that thing which forms part of your very identity?

9. Stop Treating Your Body Like A Dumpster

The mind is the writer’s best weapon. It is equal parts bullwhip, sniper rifle, and stiletto. The body fuels the mind. It should be “crap out,” not “crap in.” Stop bloating your body with awfulness. Eat well. Exercise. Elsewise you’ll find your bullwhip’s tied in knots, your stiletto’s so dull it couldn’t cut through a glob of canned pumpkin, and someone left peanut-butter-and-jelly in the barrel of your sniper rifle.

10. Stop The Moping And The Whining

Complaining — like worry, like regret, like that little knob on the toaster that tells you it’ll make the toast darker — does nothing. (Doubly useless: complaining about complaining, which is what I’m doing here.) Blah blah blah, publishing, blah blah blah, Amazon, blah blah blah Hollywood. Stop boo-hooing. Don’t like something? Fix it or forgive it. And move on to the next thing.

11. Stop Blaming Everyone Else

You hear a lot of blame going around — something-something gatekeepers, something-something too many self-published authors, something-something agency model. You’re going to own your successes, and that means you’re also going to need to own your errors. This career is yours. Yes, sometimes external factors will step in your way, but it’s up to you how to react.

12. Stop The Shame

Writers are often ashamed of who they are and what they do. Other people are out there fighting wars and fixing cars and destroying our country with poisonous loans — and here we are, sitting around in our footy-pajamas, writing about vampires and unicorns, about broken hearts and shattered jaws. A lot of the time we won’t get much respect, but you know what? Take the respect. Writers and storytellers help make this world go around. We’re just as much a part of the societal ecosystem as anybody else. Craft counts. Art matters. Stories are important. Freeze-frame high-five. Now have a beer and a shot of whisky and shove all your shame in a bag and burn it.

13. Stop Lamenting Your Mistakes

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you screwed up somewhere along the way. Who gives a donkey’s duodenum? Don’t dwell. Don’t sing lamentations to your errors. Repeat after me: learn and move on. Very few mistakes will haunt you till your end of days unless you let it haunt you. That is, unless your error was so egregious it can never be forgotten (“I wore a Hitler outfit as I went to every major publishing house in New York City and took a poop in every editor’s desk drawer over the holiday. Also, I may have put it on Youtube and sent it to Galleycat. So… there’s that”).

14. Stop Playing It Safe

Let 2012 be the year of the risk. Nobody knows what’s going on in the publishing industry, but we can be damn sure that what’s going on with authors is that we’re finding new ways to be empowered in this New Media Future, What that means is, it’s time to forget the old rules. Time to start questioning preconceived notions and established conventions. It’s time to start taking some risks both in your career and in your storytelling. Throw open the doors. Kick down the walls of your uncomfortable box. Carpet bomb the Comfort Zone so that none other may dwell there.

15. Stop Trying To Control What You Can’t Control

ALL THAT out there? All the industry stuff and the reviews and the Amazonian business practices? The economy? The readers? You can’t control any of that. You can respond to it. You can try to get ahead of it. But you can’t control it. Control what you can, which is your writing and the management of your career.

16. Stop Doing One Thing

Diversification is the name of survival for all creatures: genetics relies on diversification. (Says the guy with no science background and little interest in Googling that idea to see if it holds any water at all.) Things are changing big in these next few years, from the rise of e-books to the collapse of traditional markets to the the galactic threat of Mecha-Gaiman. Diversity of form, format and genre will help ensure you stay alive in the coming entirely-made-up Pubpocalypse.

17. Stop Writing For “The Market”

To be clear, I don’t mean, “stop writing for specific markets.” That’s silly advice. If you want to write for the Ladies’ Home Journal, well, that’s writing for a specific market. What I mean is, stop writing for The Market, capital T-M. The Market is an unknowable entity based on sales trends and educated guess-work and some kind of publishing haruspicy (at Penguin, they sacrifice actual penguins — true story!). Writing a novel takes long enough that writing for the market is a doomed mission, a leap into a dark chasm with the hopes that someone will build a bridge there before you fall through empty space. Which leads me to –

18. Stop Chasing Trends

Set the trends. Don’t chase them like a dog chasing a Buick. Trends offer artists a series of diminishing returns — every iteration of a trend after the first is weaker than the last, as if each repetition is another ice cube plunked into a once strong glass of Scotch. You’re just watering it down, man. Don’t be a knock-off purse, a serial killer copycat, or just another fantasy echo of Tolkien. Do your own thing.

19. Stop Caring About What Other Writers Are Doing

They’re going to do what they’re going to do. You’re not them. You don’t want to be them and they don’t want to be you. Why do what everyone else is doing? Let me reiterate: do your own thing.

20. Stop Caring So Much About The Publishing Industry

Know the industry, but don’t be overwhelmed by it. The mortal man cannot change the weave and weft of cosmic forces; they are outside you.

21. Stop Listening To What Won’t Sell

You’ll hear that. “I don’t think this can sell.” That might be right. Just the same — I’d bet that all the stories you remember, all the tales that came out of nowhere and kicked you in the junk drawer with their sheer possibility and potential, were stories that were once flagged with the “this won’t sell” moniker. You’ll always find someone to tell you what you can’t do. What you shouldn’t do. That’s your job as a writer to prove them wrong. By sticking your fountain pen in their neck and drinking their blood. …uhh. I mean, “by writing the best damn story you can write.” That’s what I mean. That other thing was, you know. It was just metaphor. Totally. *hides inkwell filled with human blood*

22. Stop Overpromising And Overshooting

We want to do everything all at once. Grand plans! Sweeping gestures! Epic 23-book fantasy cycles! Don’t overreach. Concentrate on what you can complete. Temper risk with reality.

23. Stop Leaving Yourself Off The Page

You are your stories and your stories are you. Who you are matters. Your experiences and feelings and opinions count. Put yourself on every page: a smear of heartsblood. If we cannot connect with our own stories, how can we expect anybody else to find that connection?

24. Stop Dreaming

Screw dreaming. Start doing. Dreams are great — uh, for children. Dreams are intangible and uncertain looks into the future. Dreams are fanciful flights of improbability — pegasus wishes and the hopes of lonely robots. You’re an adult, now. It’s time to wake up or stay dreaming. Let me say it again because I am nothing if not a fan of repetition: Stop dreaming. Start doing.

25. Stop Being Afraid

Fear will kill you dead. You’ve nothing to be afraid of that a little preparation and pragmatism cannot kill. Everybody who wanted to be a writer and didn’t become one failed based on one of two critical reasons: one, they were lazy, or two, they were afraid. Let’s take for granted you’re not lazy. That means you’re afraid. Fear is nonsense. What do you think is going to happen? You’re going to be eaten by tigers? Life will afford you lots of reasons to be afraid: bees, kidnappers, terrorism, being chewed apart by an escalator, Republicans, Snooki. But being a writer is nothing worthy of fear. It’s worthy of praise. And triumph. And fireworks. And shotguns. And a box of wine. So shove fear aside — let fear be gnawed upon by escalators and tigers. Step up to the plate. Let this be your year.

kathastylinson asked: Hello.:) I just wanna thank you for being my follower, I hope you had a good year and can enjoy the last days of the year. I would like to wish you a merry christmas and a happy new year. (: I'll love you, forever! (:

Thank you! Happy New Year! Did you make any New Years Resolutions?