Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Poem post
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Now its Time to Get Back to Work
OK, so now that I have nothing else to complain about its time for me to start actually posting work. Here is an introduction chapter I wrote last night:
You are floating, almost as if invisible hands have grabbed you and are carrying you to some unknown location. You can see nothing but the darkness around you but you can still hear. What you hear is your mother slowly assembling your brothers and sisters and you wonder if they too can hear what you hear.
Slowly you begin to hear something else, soft at first and then louder. It is impossible to make out what they are saying but from the tone of their voices you can tell one is angry and one is desperate. It sounds almost as if the angry voice sees this discussion as a waste of time while there is an urgency in the other voice; as if this is the most important topic in the world.
Then the angry voice says the first word that you can make out. Computer. You wonder as to whether or not you are this computer and regardless what a computer is. You begin to wonder many things like how a computer could cause such anger in a person and such urgency in another. Finally the angry voice barks something and the urgent one stops speaking.
You feel yourself flying and then you feel a sudden stop. You hear the urgent voice speaking in a sad tone I'm sorry. You aren't sure what those words mean but from the way they are said you assume that it is something bad. You hear a slow creaking and you feel something slipping on your underside.
For a brief moment you feel nothing. You are in a free fall for all of three seconds until a you feel a strong grip on your side suddenly stopping your fall. You feel a roughness rolling around your top side and then suddenly there is a rushed flight. Your flight ends and you feel a rough substance on your underside.
You hear what sounds like a door closing and a roll of tape unrolling and tearing. The last thing you hear is Go live from an optimistic voice that sounds similar to the desperate and sad one before. The only thing you can think now is the word live. It is all you want. To live.
Any thoughts?
Mike Hand
Sunday, September 16, 2012
The Self Deprecating Pattern I See in Myself
Today I noticed a recurring thing in all the art I do while doing my homework for a basic drawing class. That is that I am incredibly self deprecating on myself. Of course the problem with this is that it seems like people misjudge me based on that alone. I almost want to grab them and scream at them "I am not depressed!" but enough people have that in their heads that it doesn't help.
So I play every thing I write as a character but people seem to miss some of the points of that and think that I myself am still speaking. Or even worse, they honestly believe that the situation a character was in is meant as a screw you to them. I'll be honest, sometimes it is but most times its a logical continuation of a plot.
What brought this up was that I was doing my self portraits and the two points of myself that I emphasized were my uni brow and scar aka the two most unattractive features on my face. If I see myself as being that ugly then what does that say about me as a person?
Perhaps volumes,
Mike Hand
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Open Mic
Today was the first open mic event of the year at college. I had the honor of being the first reader at the first open mic event of my time at college. I think I did well; there was enough applause when I was done, people told me I did well and a person for the schools newspaper took a quote from me.
However, now that I know what the crowd is receptive to I can start making things really good for them. Also if any one was wondering I read all 20 tanka from the zine to them.
Thank you for reading,
Mike Hand
Monday, September 3, 2012
Purchase
I would like to report that I am now safely at college. Specifically Purchase College and my classes start tomorrow. Of course all I have tomorrow is a philosophy class which has to do with happiness and film so hopefully that will be good.
Of course, I have started to fall into a place here. More importantly I've met a few writers and I've been stealing ideas off them. OK, so I only stole one so far which I just wrote. Its a murder mystery that was birthed from the question "what if the shark from Jaws was a goldfish?". Its gotten a bit changed for me because I've been watching too much Marble Hornets and playing too much Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.
Other wise I'm at a near loss for words, I saw an hawk land on a car this morning and it was beautiful. I ran into some one who I swear I know and she swears she knows me although neither of us have any idea how. My semi acoustic bass and harmonica combo seems to be serving me well enough, switching between the two when needed.
In short, I think I'm going to like this place.
Thank you for reading,
Mike Hand
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
I now prepare to leave from this area and with that, my summer will close and my school year shall begin. I can't say I actually got much done this summer so I'll have to step up during the year and get a ton of stuff done. Right now I'm trying to get back into the groove of bass playing and I picked myself up a new harmonica to replace the one that disappeared on me.
Otherwise, I now work towards trying to figure out exactly what I should do. I could work on a large poem, work on one of two novel ideas I had, making more tanka or focus more on my musical skills. OK, I think no matter what the music will become a side salad but in the meantime, this is what I'm trying to figure out for myself.
Thank you for reading,
Mike Hand
Monday, August 20, 2012
Play done
I believe it only appropriate that we take a moment of silence on all the files on my old laptop. I got a new one recently and the old one had all of its files erased when we gave it to my sister. They shall be sorely missed.
Other wise South Pacific has closed for myself. It has been an interesting journey full of fun, mischief and plenty of raw stupidity but alas it has come to an end. I've seen some people who look like they have... promise and one person I regularly tried to convert into a congress kid. I hope she takes the tip as I think the organization would suit her.
Although there is also some celebration with this new laptop. It is far faster, far more advanced and with much better battery life then my old laptop. The only down side is that I lost all the files I had to upload to the Youtube account. That may be a good thing, I got tired of doing the same old stuff so maybe it is time to do something different.
On top of that I re did the first chapter of the novel and made it a page long instead of half a page long (I know its pathetic but I needed something to work off of and I expect to return to it) and I had another idea for a novel. I'm going to have to put that aside until this one is done.
Hoping summer has been well,
Mike Hand
Friday, August 10, 2012
Day Off
Long time no read, how have you been? I apologize for not posting in a while but between the show, work and the girl there is not much time left to me in a day. This means that I have not gotten much done at all. Although I have been reading A Song of Ice and Fire which has caused me to change the movie I was working on into a novel with numerous POV views. I can already see that I need to practice that more. I will give you no illusions about what I've gotten done this summer with a list:
-Started a novel.
-Started a triple lane poem.
-Started reading A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin.
-Got a job.
-Listened to Thick As a Brick 2 by Ian Anderson.
Now for my failures:
-Finishing all the above
-Not working on as much tanka.
I'd post up examples but there is nothing that I'm excessively proud of right now.
Enjoy the rest of your summer,
Mike Hand
Monday, June 18, 2012
Final Products
Here is the video project I was talking about. Watch to about 9:48, after that there is one more scripted scene that looks like a blooper because its in the middle of three minutes of unnecessary bloopers. I won't speak too much on the final product here but as for notes I've already given:
-Learn your lines.
-The director should know everything in terms of cast ahead of time.
- Don't put bloopers at the end of a video (they'll probably never listen to me on that).
Now for what I feel is the meat of the post, that first poem I was working on. Right now it is tentatively called Travelers Poem however I am not really content with that name so I'll be thinking of another name soon enough.
Because of the limitations presented by Bloggers file upload system (you can only upload video and photo) and the fact that blogger will screw up my formatting if I cut and paste the file I have created a Google groups account where it can be accessed as a PDF file. I don't really know how this will work so if it doesn't work then can some one please tell me in the comments so that I can find a different work around?
With out further pause, here it is.
Thank you,
Mike Hand
Friday, June 15, 2012
Hello Again
I'm back for right now. To be honest if I'm not blogging I'm kind of bored and I feel like I'm working towards nothing, so I figured that I'd blog about what I've been up to.
First off the script I helped my friend write and make has been edited and put on Youtube. I'm kind of iffy about putting the link here because of the extensive blooper reel that takes over the end and makes it look as if the scripted ending may be nothing but a blooper and because of our low production quality (there is a scene where I am talking to my self and for whatever reason we decided that it was an OK disguise if I only wore a hat).
Second off I'm scripting something else for that group, a Walking Dead parody. I'm not entirely sure what made them want to do a Walking Dead parody of all things but I have some good ideas for the script.
Thirdly when I was in North Carolina I had written a ten section poem and know all thats left for it is for me to type it up and play with the format (one part in particular I want to do in Word Art). I think this one will probably end up here. On top of that I had the idea to do a poem where there are three simultaneous columns, one tells the story, another is the man in the story slowly going insane and the last column would be his the voice of his insanity which would be seen sporadically at first and then by the end be there every line. After that I return to tanka.
Fourthly the overarching project this summer will be South Pacific. I didn't get a call in regards to casting so I am probably ensemble which does free up some time for all the other projects.
Lastly, there is a good chance that I'll have a job this summer, making it likely that this will be the first summer where I'm not broke.
Until next time when its something other then plans,
Mike Hand
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Adios
Yes, I do plan to keep this blog. For now though, I feel the need to say goodbye. I have been in this school district for 13 years (kindergarten to senior year) and to be honest, I'm glad to leave. I've come to the conclusion that I've been here for too long. Of course there will be people and things about the school I miss but I'm not shedding tears over leaving. The school hasn't been my sole life for the past four years.
But on to happier things. STAC Night was long, but it was pretty good and I liked that people liked my Zine. I also still have enough copies to use them as birthday presents (maybe in hindsight I should have charged people for them like Ellen. I would walk around and come back to see one or two turned to the back cover and out side the rubber band meaning that some one read it but didn't take it. If I charged them, they would have had to take it after that).
The making of the Zine was fun. It feels almost a mix of a laboratory and a factory. The laboratory being when your pressing buttons on the copying machine and the factory is when you get the settings right and make sixty copies.
Adios for now,
Mike Hand
PS. If anyone wants a Zine, please tell me. There should be enough to go around.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Project Progress 9
I apologize for not doing one of these this entire week, I have been preoccupied. I can say that I've been writing 6-12 tankas a day and I will spend one day next week to go through them and choose the best out of all of them. On top of that yesterday I had the opportunity to write a ten section poem (everything down here is very far away from each other) and all that is left for it is for me to type it up, add on to it and play with a single part in word art.
From North Carolina,
Mike Hand
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Project Progress 8
Before I start with this I would like to report that while I was on Youtube I saw that some one had started to use the world of Minecraft to explain the laws of science and how to measure things in a scientific matter. I fully expect the series to be horrible but it reminded me of the Grammar blog so I'll include a link to the channel in an edit later today.
Yesterday was mainly a research day so I do not have much to report on. I would much rather focus on today over tomorrow. To start the day off Luke told me to look up tanka, a Japanese form of poetry which is five lines long and follows a syllabic pattern of 57577, and to look up Sanford Goldstein. After looking up tanka I looked up Sanford and found a pretty interesting interview from him. I will include the link in the edit I'm making later. Along with that I found some examples of his poetry along with the double link tanka, which is when you write on tanka, then you have another guy write another tanka and then you link them all together. I am actually thinking of doing this. Not sure with who yet.
Here is some example of the tanka written today,
One:
What does five lines give?
A sense of reality?
Perhaps the mind knows.
Perhaps the mind shalln't see;
Though only the mountain knows.
Two:
You don't disagree
When the sandman seeks his prey
Along the river
The accusations are made
For human rights are gone now.
So those are my samples, I hope you enjoyed them. Edit will come by seven o clock tonight with all the links.
Hoping you enjoyed,
Mike Hand
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Project Progress 7
Today I found myself working on my side salad and realized that it was far more enjoyable for myself and moving at a much faster rate then my main project. As such I've decided to push the movie into the side salad (and possibly make it a longer term project for myself) and take my side salad of poetry and putting it as my main project.
So today, instead of playing around with styles, I began by taking lines from famous poems and juxtaposing them to see what I got. From there I started reading some Allen Ginsberg, namely "America". I loved how he used repetition of words and phrases so I began to copy that, stealing phrases from what people around me were saying. Every poem could use some work however I feel like it is a good start.
Thank you for reading,
Mike Hand
Monday, May 7, 2012
Project Progress 6
I GOT THE BATTERY! Now caps die. Anyways on Friday I announced my plans which I shall now post here for convenience. First off I'm going to try and get poems published in (relatively) official places. I'm expecting rejection letters from most places. My plans with these are that if one or two uses an interesting phrase I'll center a poem around that phrase. I could also do the same for acceptance letters. On top of this I'm also trying to write a movie, of which I have a whopping thirteen pages completed on. I still have some work to do on that.
As for the criticism I received, it is quite clear that my poetry is by far not rhythmic enough. Of course that means I'm going to be spending one or two days working on my syllabic rhythm.
I also understand that I have yet to address artistic issues in a blog post. Lets take some time to do so now. In my most immediate work one would notice a lot of morbidity. Recently I have taken an obsession with death and what death means for people because of how much of it I have seen going around. There is a concern with friendship and what a friend is, with is seen as many of my poems do have a feeling of backstabbing involved. There is an issue with meaning and being what you mean to be. There is a feeling of darkness and many of the poems I wrote as pantoums are very dark in word choice. There is an obsession with anarchy and why people would follow one another. Hell, there probably is a lot more but I'll choose to stop there.
Hoping you enjoyed the read,
Mike Hand
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Project Progress 5
On the down side of things my computer has absolutely no battery life left. On the bright side of things the new battery will be here in 3-7 days.
This has given me some time to write poetry during class and while it was hard to get off the ground at first I gave my self something to work with and I started playing around with rhyme schemes (something I don't normally do). I will probably continue this tomorrow so my task now is to figure out what to do with all the poems that shall be made. I'm thinking either a new site or trying to get them published although the latter may not yield swift results.
Thank you for reading tonight,
Mike Hand
Monday, April 30, 2012
Small Mental Block
This is the grammar thing I am/was working on. At this point I've reached a bit of a block on it so any recommendation or feed back would be helpful.
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Mike Hand
Edit: Fixed title and url.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Project Progress 4
I apologize for not throwing this up earlier, but Thursday was used for decision making and on Friday I was in Hewlett. For those wondering why its because it was the last congress of the year (managed to get third place in a committee that debated almost exclusively about music, acting and books).
For the decision I made, I'm dropping the music as my side salad and am going to do poetry. All I have left to do is find a theme to hold it together (although I am on the third draft of a poem that I came up with after learning about a hill in Wales that rhymed with orange).
On the grammar, I don't think there is much more I can do on it in terms of material to post. I'll review everything tomorrow and then post a link here. If there is anything I missed, screwed up or you want me to cover on it then tell me and I will.
On the film, I'll start writing scenes again tomorrow and see how many scenes I can get through.
Mike Hand
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Project Progress 3
To begin the day I attempted to be a sounding board for Scott. Note to self: Being a sounding board is not my specialty. When this was all said and done I continued grammar research and made another post and realized that even though I have very few posts its gotten to the point where I did the "i before e" rule. I'm really going to have declare that done soon.
I wish to have a more extensive update for you guys tomorrow.
Mike Hand
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Project Update 2
Today I created yet another grammar post, this time on when it is proper to italicize/underline. The difficulty in the project is trying to find out what to write on next. Perhaps tomorrow will be on when to properly use a slash in a sentence.
In my research I learned that "Basket Case" by Green Day and "Pachelbel's Canon" use the same exact chord structure. While I have nothing saying that they knew they were simply taking the chord structure and placing it in a different key, Wikipedia tells me that it is one of the most commonly used structures in pop music and so I assume that they knew that they were ripping the chord progression off from somewhere. This of course presented an idea; what if one ripped off an interesting chord progression and focused instead on making it interesting rather than original? It would be an interesting project and would avoid all the pitfalls of current music where most of it feels boring.
Of course I'm not entirely sure on why I want to do this. I know part of it is self motivated as I have been playing guitar for a while but never actually wrote a song. A slightly more dubious side is that over my entire high school career I have been continually pressured by my family to set my poems to music. Now I believe there are three camps in the music world right now: Those that shouldn't be in any industry, those that should publish a poetry book and call it a day and those who are genuinely good. I see myself more in the second category. Of course, I haven't even attempted song writing in years which is what is pulling me towards it.
Those are my reasons for considering song writing as my next "B" project as well as my progress on the current "A" project.
Mike Hand
Monday, April 23, 2012
Q4 Project day 1
Been a long time hasn't it? Well that ends now as I have to give daily updates to the progress of my work. Today I created a post explaining how one properly uses parenthesis, dashes and quotation marks. I hope to be done with it by the end of either this week or next. I did not make any progress on the movie I have plans of writing as I've pushed that aside until my "A" project is complete. On top of all that I've looked into songwriting. I didn't really learn anything new from my research however once the current "A" project is done and I need a new "B" project, I think I'll make song writing my new "B" project. Still not sure who to include in my community and for what project however I have people in mind and will have reached a consensus by Friday evening at the latest.
Mike Hand
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Intensive assignment
The workload of an intensive is, as the name implies, intense. For me the change in pace was a little less great because I had just got up to Day 370 in a 365 for poetry however I had never seriously attempted play or screen writing before. In fact my prior attempts involved improper formats aggravated by “actors” who refused to do the necessary work and the few actors who were insistent upon doing there acting also decided that they should be the director and the writer and changed the work into an unfathomable abomination.
That said these intensives come off from me writing in a poetic matter and we very little experience writing for other people to perform. Perhaps this is why I found our first task of writing our most memorable argument so it fills up 6 pages and then cut anything that can be seen as unnecessary and lower it to a single page. I can no longer say that I find this difficult and I can say that I find it necessary as I do find myself going off into unnecessary details in my head from time to time.
From there the next memorable upgrade to my brain obtained from the intensives would have to be Pinter. For the curious and/or uninitiated, Pinter is a writer who is famous for his use of such things as silence, pauses and the infamous “...”. Somehow I found his indirect style easy to work with and was able to write in it very well. To this time a good portion of my work has continued to use the style that was introduced to us when we worked with his style and I feel like it is very complimentary of my own style.
I also find now that I am a much faster and better writer. Where as last summer while I could create a five page poem in roughly six minutes I could create six pages of script in twenty minutes. As you can see this is a very large discrepancy. The current time for my script writing for six pages is more akin to four to six minutes when I have an idea of what I'm doing and who my characters are. The scripts are also of a much better quality and no longer has what feels like dialogue that has been forced through the characters mouth and they have begun to take on their own qualities of characters much separate from myself.
Starting out in these intensives I had some reserve of putting down myself on page with absolutely no change. Then came time for the monologues and the first subject was one where the character breaks down crying in the middle of it. For it I wrote what I knew and I would have to say that the end result was amazing, especially after I handed it off to Andrew and he performed it. He put a level of understanding on it that really drove it home, especially for me. I had heard what I needed to hear for months and only because the intensives made me write it down on paper. Now I feel a new courage in my writing, that I should not fear what I write.
As one can see the intensives allowed me to stop being a coward in my writing, develop the voices of my characters and how long it takes to write a script as well as what is and isn't important to have in the script. Because of this work I know have a movie in my head which I have developed into three acts with plot points and while it is still on the drawing board I do not feel that I would have had the ability to do this with out the intensives.
As always thank you,
Mike Hand