Intellectual jerk-off

Been awhile, yada yada. What prompted me to post was thinking about intellectual jerk-off. In particular the so-called post modernistic deconstructionist movement. Honestly, I'm over it. Have been for quite awhile. And I hope it blows off in the next decade or so, because frankly it's working against good writing. I think good writing is telling a good story. Good writing is certainly not over-emphasizing the format in order to gain the favor of a bunch of intellectual snobs, because you can choose the most creative and innovative format and still tell a very bad story. This seems to be the case with a lot of "contemporaries". And, really, snap out of it. Recently tried reading the latest Barbara Kingslover- "The Lacuna", and her trying to be all meta-narrative and post-mod really bothered me. Seemed like it could've been a good story but the rubbing of the format in my face caused me to throw the book aside. I'm not saying that using these methods episodically and where the circumstances call for them should be avoided. I actually encourage that. But "art for art's sake" isn't all that artful.

I like seeing directness in writing- basically, tell me the story you're going to tell me without wasting my time with pretension. I like seeing a multi-genre approach, because boxing writing up in neat categories is really rather fanatic. And I like basic good ol' writing ability and craftsmanship. That I think is all a truly contemporary piece of writing ought to be- direct, genre-bending, and well executed.

Peace out.

Bird of Prey: First draft finished

Just a little status update. My forthcoming short story "Bird of Prey" has finally taken a shape and form. After a pretty lengthy writing process that started before "Lena" was released on this blog, all the pieces have been stitched together into what is looking much more like a finished text. This said, there will be inevitably plenty of tinkering that the text will undergo before it's released on here, but I do anticipate to have that done fairly shortly. The current mark puts it at about 4,000 words, so it's somewhere between "End Dream" and "Lena" in size. Almost entirely made out of dialog, it meditates on our interactions, aspirations, and fantasies. Stay tuned! :-)

Sci-fi drama- the new mainsteam?

"Lost". Need I say more? "Battlestar Galactica". The resurgence of vampire chic mixed up with teenage hormonal imbalance. "Twilight", "True Blood", "The Vampire Diaries"... "Avatar", of course. Can't really skip that one, it became the highest grossing film of all time. A tree hugger film at that, which makes it all the more poignant. Even snooty high literature is bowing down. Yann Martel, David Mitchell- two of my favorite young writers more than dabble with sci-fi in such showstoppers as "Life of Pi" and "Cloud Atlas". Cunnigham's "Specimen Days"- another example of the permeation of the genre. And I love it, needless to say. Sci-fi is very dear to my generation, and it only follows that it will be catered to. Of course there is the larger trend of eclecticism in art, the blending of genres, media, styles. But that's a whole different topic. So get your sci-fi on. I know I'm doing it. :-)

Some big news

As I've mentioned before I was working on a script for a TV series. It's been about a year in the making, and has come along very nicely. However, over the course of the screenwriting I discovered that the accumulated material amounts to much more than a TV series script, and thought that perhaps it will be better rendered in another form. Here's my big news: I decided to try it out as a novel. It's a major project that will most likely take a couple of years to complete, and it is very challenging, and a bit scary. I'm going forward with it. In the current stages I will take the work already completed in terms of story, character construction, themes, scenes, etc. and work on designing a structure and format that would best fit the bill. I'm also starting a research reading list that contains everything from the King James Bible (at which as you probably guessed I will be taking more than a few stabs) to scientific articles on a certain kind of jellyfish. The tapestry of the novel is very rich and it reflects the zeitgeist. In its core is futility and the vanity of human thought.

In other news, "Bird of Prey" is nearing completion. "Fences" will be put aside in favor of the planned short fiction review. And the four pieces completed thus far: "The Breakers", "End Dream", "Lena", and "Bird of Prey" will be revised and sent off to journals for publication. Once that process is more or less complete, work on the novel will resume. Future pieces of short fiction, such as "Fences" will still appear but the main focus will be reverted back to my major project.

Wish me luck!

Bird of Prey: A Car's Musings on Human Suffering

DO YOU BELIEVE THAT PEOPLE HAVE TO TORTURE THEMSELVES AND FACE TERMINATION IN ORDER TO APPRECIATE WHAT THEY HAVE BETTER?
I DON'T KNOW. I DON'T NOT BELIEVE IT. A LIGHT SHINES THE BRIGHTEST BEFORE IT FLICKERS OFF. PERHAPS IT'S PART OF THE PROCESS.
COULD BE... I THINK IT'S A MATTER OF INTENSITY- THE HIGHER THE INTENSITY OF THE EXPERIENCE, THE MORE ATTRACTED PEOPLE ARE TO IT.
THAT'S ACTUALLY A GOOD POINT. AFTER ALL, PEOPLE ARE CHILDREN OF CHAOS, NOT OF ORDER. AND CHAOS IS AN ORDER OF A HIGHER INTENSITY.

Excerpt from "Bird of Prey", Ivan Danou © 2010

Bird of Prey: Couples and Fights

As mentioned earlier, BoP starts with a couple having a fight while driving back to Provincetown. As part of my research (gotta do your homework, kiddos!) I read several pieces of short fiction that depict similar situations. It's an experience most of us have been a party to, and the depictions seem to underline some commonalities. The repetitiveness of arguments, for example: all that needs to be said usually can be said very briefly; but resistance, unwillingness to cooperate, and outright stubbornness often get in the way; and so things are restated until they are beaten to death. Another thing is blowing things out of proportion- one thing leads to another and before you know it you're no longer arguing about the Tupperware and instead are tearing each other to pieces over money, kids, affairs, whatnot. I want to show some of that, but I am trying not to get caught up in dysfunctionality. Appealing as it is, it seems like easy drama.

Bird of Prey: Structure

"Bird of Prey" is shaping up nicely, and is about ready to go into the drafting stages. The story is written in a two fold format, the first part seeming pretty standard and familiar (married couple arguing while driving), the second part- an exercise at existentialism, surrealism, and the absurd. Both are strictly dialogs in the current version. I wanted to experiment with writing in a way that effectively removes the fluff as often times that is how my works start off- with dialogs that I later glue together with circumstantials. There is a lot of weight given to a writer's attention to detail, the ability to summon a vivid image that can engage a person's imagination to recreate it. And I do think that is incredibly important, and strive to be good at it. But I also think that often times dialog is downplayed in favor of what happens internally, thoughts, emotions, glances, movements; streams of consciousness that modern writers seem all to fond on. And yet, in the dry exchange of words, something. And I guess "Bird of Prey" is my meditation on that something. It's a risk, of course, and that's precisely the appeal of it. :-)