Film as a medium is almost infinitely flexible, universal and personal at the same time. Film is capable of so much emotion and yet it’s also capable of conveying the complete absence of it. Beauty or lack of it. Terror or peace. And, as A Ghost Story proves beyond any doubt, film can make you feel so fucking uncomfortable and voyeuristic that you would give anything for the director to just yell “cut” already!
Put another way: how long do you think you could bear watching someone eat pie? Think carefully before you answer. For the full A Ghost Story experience, write your response down on a little scrap of paper and hide it in your house (or underneath a rock if your house is just a couple of pegs in the ground).
Whatever you think you can bear now, the inescapable truth is that no amount of tolerance for…
There’s been a stretch of re-blogs here at RidicuRyder that have gone on for almost 3 years! The idea has been to put the blog in neutral and just twist the throttle every once in awhile to see if everything has stayed bolted up and there’s still gas in the tank. I started to figure out in 2013 / 2014 that I had a book with RidicuRyder, but very little understanding of how it would get done.
I thought it would take a year or two. I’d clean up the old Blog sections (easier said than done) and finish the story – put a bit of swanky literary structure in and BOOM: BOOK. The Universe, being semi-universal and expansive and shit decided not so fast. It wanted something broad and solid…it turns out when you’re crafting a story…not just cranking off tales of ragged sanity riding a river of delusion and pork… some technique has to go into it (and a lot fewer ellipses, parenthesis, almost no freestyle punctuation and I’ve had to cut way the hell back on run-on sentences too!).
A friend brought me along to a Meetup in 2013 that was lead by Christopher Hawke and Traci Hall from Community Authors. These guys are not only story sharpeners, they can help you settle your gut to bring the smoothest energy out of your writing. Christopher and Traci’s stuff speaks for itself, but I’d like to add something about the passion they have for writers. They’re always encouraging people to express themselves more clearly and tell deeper stories. I’ve watched Christopher and Traci for over 3 years and their talent and dedication is amazing
My original idea was to re-blog until I had the book done. However, I seem to be doing one of those “pre-book posts” because I’d like you to check out the new Craft of Writing video series offered by Community Authors. “However” above, and a few other sections of the course are available on YouTube for any of you to get a free preview of the complete course available through Eclectic stores.
Traci Hall and Christopher Hawke
I’m blown away by how comprehensively and concisely Christopher explains the craft of written storytelling in these tight, easy to follow videos. Had these classes been created in 2015, my book would have been out in 2016. Christopher and Traci’s thousands of hours of working with writers and their 30 plus books comes through in the lessons. This series distills the steps that novices or experienced writers need to navigate precisely through the shallows of their work.
Can you or anyone in your circle write better with Community Authors?
Would you expect a classy rant out of someone calling themselves Beleaguered Servant? This is much smoother than any RR rant…no monster territory…this is really well done. An exceptional blueprint Sibelius. Thanks!
I need constant reminders that this is meaningless. It doesn’t matter how important you think you are, how real all of it is, there will come a day when we’re all gone and none of this will matter to anyone. It will be like we never existed at all. Billions of years will feel like […]
A well-meaning church lady sends a card overseas to “the troops” – and “Sarge” is touched by its generic rah-rah words of encouragement when he receives it in “Afghanistan.” The church lady, who is blonde and pretty in a buttoned-up, conservative way, sends a sexy picture along with it. Okay, no, she sends a picture of the church (just what every soldier is hoping to get!) but it really gets him through a tough time, when his buddy gets blown to bits on a Red Cross mission (it sounds like someone didn’t really do their war research, but that’s the least of the troubles: the effects budget is so non-existent that you could get a better display out of the fireworks that are leftover in your local corner store on July 5th)(no need to fear anything graphic – by “blown to bits” I mean he received a fatal bloody lip).
Sreejit Poole is really onto something here, getting down around 100 words to encapsulate your perspective of the chaos around you….
We’ve got a lifelong public servant labeled a criminal, and a lifelong selfish bastard labeled man of the people. I’ve got 100 bucks in the bank, ‘cause all things being equal, I like to waste my m…
Film as a medium is almost infinitely flexible, universal and personal at the same time. Film is capable of so much emotion and yet it’s also capable of conveying the complete absence of it. Beauty or lack of it. Terror or peace. And, as A Ghost Story proves beyond any doubt, film can make you feel so fucking uncomfortable and voyeuristic that you would give anything for the director to just yell “cut” already!
Traci Hall and Christopher Hawke
