D.M.Belisle is a political paleontologist digging into North America’s early Trumpassic Period. He’s dissecting a remarkable fossil that has fueled endless debate. The fossil is of the incredible Donaldosaurus. The name means ‘different lizard.’ It has a huge head with very sharp teeth and weighs in at 2.3 metric tons. It is big. Massive. The biggest.
This major dig promises a true grasp of these turbulent times. Belisle plans to meticulously uncover this historic find bone by bone and will be providing crucial updates in his daily analysis under the heading The Trump Dig. Follow this blog for more.
No, Martha. Them ain’t bullets bein’ loaded into a shotgun. That thar’s yer free downloads of “Bushwhacked!” yesterday at Amazon, ayup. An’ the free deal is still goin’ on today, by gum.
Editor’s note: Thanks to FreeBooksy for a great promotion.
Yes, that’s the game plan. My apologies for the lack of updates. I was editing The Dog Behind Me, teaching and there was the call of the foul ball — Arizona spring training beckoning. Back at it, I’m adapting my screenplay Newfie, Come Home! into a novella. Then, with Newfoundland English tongue planted more firmly in cheek, I will cast off aboard Stompin’ Tom’s golden dory to write the Great Newfy Novel. It’s rubbin’ me nerves right raw, waitin’ to set sail. Stay tuned, b’y.
Will baseball be the same? Will wit and wisdom triumph over mental health? And what about those Cubs? In satire, as with pitching mechanics and stolen bases, timing is everything. Hence, click below … and play ball, er … read on!
I purposely avoided watching the HBO series Deadwood (2004-2006) lest it influence my own fictional account of the South Dakota outpost’s goings-on in my 1876-based novel Bushwhacked! Now that I’m in the middle of season two, I bring high praise, albeit with one saddle sore.
Ian Shane, who plays the Gem Saloon owner Al Swearengen, is well-deserving of his 2005 Golden Globe award for Best Performance by an Actor in a TV Series Drama. His fierce tenacity and derogatory wit is the embodiment of pure greed and power in the lawless town. The Gem’s manager E.B. Fenton (William Sanderson) is comical in his penchant for speaking his thoughts aloud in near-Shakespearean rants. Trixie (Paula Malcomson) shines in her role as a prostitute with pride.
But while the show’s creator David Milch has done an admirable job of bringing the prim and proper Victorian-speak to the high brow folks, most notably, Alma Garrett (Molly Parker) and Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant), it’s the show’s profanity-laced dialogue that often threw me from the period piece.
While Deadwood puts the devil in Gunsmoke and Bonanza, the f-bomb was only a sexual reference until World War I. The 43 uses of it in the first episode are highly gratuitous. Robin Weigert, who played Calamity Jane, must still be cursing “c*cksucker!” in her sleep, it came every other word for her.
The profanity surely comes to contemporize and gratify today’s Walking Dead-proofed viewership. Apparently Deadwood’s minimal body count needed to be bolstered by f-bombs exploding throughout.
Potty mouths aside, the show is cut-throat gritty. It has a raw energy that plants you in the chuck wagons and chamberpots that were the wild west frontier. The story is reduced to the quick — bare bone elements of character and motivation sans technology in a wilderness environment where nerves of steel battle an itchy trigger finger and a man’s word is sealed with a spit-soaked hand shake.
Like getting thrown from a horse, the initial episode may shock you. But climb back in the saddle or step up to the bar … because there’s more drinkin’ than ridin’ in this blackest sheep of shows on the Black Hills of American history.
It’s been two years since I stowed the Morgan Freeman narration and leaped the Grand Canon separating screenplays and novels. I do however keep an eye on the future of animation software. I recently tested Plotagon with a scene from my “Newfie, Come Home!” script … which can be viewed here.
The folks at Plotagon say that within five years their animations will be realistic. The technology is impressive, so much so that you can’t help but wonder what’s in store for authors and screenwriters.
I see a day within the next ten years where — much like the app craze where every computer geek was holed up writing apps for our phones — hordes of writers will get busy adapting novels to screenplay format allowing the animation software to take the story from page to video.
What would this mean? Actors images and voices would need to be licensed. The end-user would chose the story they want to see, select the actor for each character and hit play. A percentage of the viewer’s payment for the movie would go back to the actors. The new “B” movie list might include actors and famous people that have passed away more that 70 years ago, thus placing their image and voice in the non-costly ‘public domain.’ In the next few years, W.C. Fields, Al Capone, Babe Ruth, Gandhi, Al Jolson and George Orwell will join that domain. Imagine the possibilities.
J.K. Rowling is one step ahead of us writers. Her “Cursed Child” is ready to roll out already as a script. Take heart. The rest of us may not have to wait to be best-selling authors to see our works on the screen. The animation technology is a hungry machine and we have so many great stories ready for it to digest.
Those whoops and hollers you hear from the Writing Well Spring are playwrights and screenwriters delirious with glee at J.K. Rowling’s fantastic foray … ahem, entrance into these two formats. Her just released Harry Potter and the Cursed Child stage play and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them screenplay, coming in November, are two deliciously demented wand blasts to the old adage, “nobody reads screenplays.”
They do now. Cursed Child sold 2 million copies in 2 days in U.S./Canada. Rejoice thy screenwriter within. Come hither! Come yon! There’s Ideas Begat and Thoughts Provoked in them thar pages. Plenty of eye-friendly white space too. Oh, the speed we will read. Want to know what a character is thinking? Dialogue and action. That’s it. That’s all. God knows Morgan Freeman won’t be around forever. Tally ho and take note thy nuance. Don’t blink, you may miss the small town of Symbolism.
Has the writing establishment come full circle? Forgive the foreshadowing, has the fair lady Rowling reconnected us to Shakespeare?
Stay tuned … a future blog will delve, dear reader, into just what awaits said screenplay and story for you.
As a precursor to this blog, 100,000 of you have seen the “Make Your Bed Everyday” YouTube video featuring the sage advice of Navy Seal Admiral McRaven. If you haven’t, take a peek here:
Without stepping on the Admiral’s spit-polished shoes, may I add my own self-help wisdom for those hours following a well-made bed … when the naysayers’ supposed dust mites are in a mating frenzy.
Are you adding to the heap? No, this is not Mount Underwear in the corner. This ‘heap’ is the lily-white Pile of Good Things. Everyday you should make an effort to do at least one thing that places you one concrete step further down your path in life. This could be anything regarding your health, your family, your career, your financial security, your faith, etc. After all, isn’t spirit the sidekick of religion?
This is not about keeping up the Jones’s. Fads and trends continue … but is 2016 the year we finally stop chasing this poor family? … Neither is this about he who has the most toys at the end wins.
‘Adding to the heap’ is goal-setting reduced to its simplest form. You’ve made your bed (or not). Now what? Add to your heap. Have lunch with your daughter, run that 20 minutes on the elliptical, write that 3-page scene, create that e-book cover, jot down that story idea that will be the novel you’re working on in 3 years because there are two other ideas ahead of it, etc.
Without getting too technical, Heap Diversification is key. True writers can get by living in a box with a view. Don’t forget to share those views outside that box with those who need you because you need them. Socialize.
At the end of the day, when you climb into your made or unmade bed, you can look back and tell yourself you’ve done something productive, something that advances your lot in life and something you can hang your hat on. Your actions are tangible. They tell you that you won the day and not the other way around. Effort is the surrogate mother to success.
There’s no gold medal for the biggest heap … because the smallest action may bring the most memorable reward.
Don’t Look Back … but I absolutely have to. Last week’s 7-hour drive south across the border to Missoula was a pilgrimage of sorts. Boston played the Montana outpost as part of their 40th anniversary tour. I sang their hits in the shower — but had never seen them live. Sadly, the glass-shattering lead vocals of Brad Delp were gone. I’d lost touch with the goings-on of the band and didn’t know he’d taken his life in 2007. A further google behind the scenes told how when Delp first auditioned for Tom Scholz, the band’s founder said he “knew in the middle of the first line that a guardian angel had just presented him with one of the best vocalists to ever step in front of a microphone.” There has since been a constantly changing line-up and a litany of law suits.
But it was Scholz’s meticulous touch and hard work that kept their music alive. It was a sweet, wonderful tide that night that picked us up and carried us away to the very heart of classic rock. As the familiar refrains of More Than a Feeling, Foreplay/Long Time, Rock’n Roll Band and others filled the sky behind Big Sky Brewery, the decades simply disappeared. Precise moments from the 70s and 80s zoomed into focus. Lead singer Tommy DeCarlo was very good, an impressive, welcomed copy of Delp’s voice, save for the high notes we all knew remained with the band’s original singer. The night was cathartic … an adrenaline rush … a true blessing in 40-years disguise. It was the vibrancy we need to revisit time and time again … for music has many emotional stamps, but Boston’s a biggie. … It is to listen. Thank you, Tom Scholz & Co.
David Belisle 