1. How did you get into what you do creatively?
I’ve been involved in theatre for as long as I can remember. When I was very young, my uncle was an actor, and he had a standing gig playing Jesus at the big Glory of Easter production in Tucson . Every year, we’d go out there for the holiday, and they would use my sister and I in the show. Growing up in Los Angeles , I got exposed to a lot of opportunities to act, but I never liked anything I read for. I kept trying to ‘improve’ my sides that I was reading, much to the chagrin of anyone in casting, so I decided that the only way to advance my career the way I wanted was to write myself a part. When I was 14, I wrote my first screenplay. It was this awful sci-fi epic that I realize now would have been 3-1/2 hours long, if anyone was misguided enough to film it, but I got so energized by the process that I forgot about acting entirely and concentrated all my efforts on writing.
2. Do you think that you would be able to teach what you do?
I believe talent can be molded, but it can’t be taught. If someone has some innate ability and needs to learn how to focus it, I could definitely facilitate that. If someone has no interest in writing or doesn’t have a gift for it, you can teach technique and theory, but you can’t bestow imagination on somebody.
3. What inspires you?
Don’t we all wish we knew? Inspiration comes from everywhere, I’d like to think. Good friends, good conversation, odd experiences, I’ve noticed that a lot of my stories are weaved around archetypes or symbols that people feel like they can trust implicitly to be there. I had an idea about the Hollywood sign while hiking in Runyon Canyon the other day that I can’t wait to sink my teeth into.
4. What do you do to get into your creative zone?
Working a 45-60 hour per week job and trying to write is a mental balancing act where both commitments are in a constant swordfight for your energy. I recently completed a novel that took me about two years to ‘finish’, and it took a lot of discipline to complete. I began in October 2006 and gave someone a completed draft for the first time in March 2008. I had to tell myself that until I had a finished draft, my weekends belonged to the project. I would head home from work on Friday evening, and the story would have all my focus until I crawled into bed on Sunday night. I had to flake on a lot of events and my friends might not have loved me for it, but they understood why when they read it. Since I only had a few hours per week to write, I had to train myself to channel creativity when I needed it, because the clock was always ticking.
5. What is your favorite accomplishment?
I think my favorite moment in writing came from the opening night of our musical. As is true with most opening nights, when we launched into our first act, there were problems. A lot of problems. The actors called each other by the wrong names, they screwed up the crescendo of our best song, and somebody’s wig fell off. I spent most of that hour up in the sound booth looking for something to hang myself with. When intermission mercifully came, the director and I weaved throughout the audience in the lobby listening to their reactions. Although people were aware there had been mistakes, they were relatively complimentary, until I got to the theatre door and heard this girl tearing the show apart. Nothing was spared, writing, directing, acting, music, costumes, everything was horrid in her eyes. The director and I slunk back to the sound booth, and thankfully, things went a lot better in act two. I was still stinging from that girl’s verbal flogging as I walked my friends out afterwards, and they all said they enjoyed it, but they are my friends so I knew they’d be nice no matter what. When I returned, the director ran up to me and said somebody really wanted to meet me. He took me back into the theatre, and there was the same girl, with mascara running all down her face, praising everything about the second act. She even asked if she could sing some of the songs on her audition tape. The director and I were practically shaking because we were trying so hard not to laugh.
6. Do you ever create hidden meanings or messages in your work? Explain.
Oh yeah, all the time. I think it’s much more fun for the reader that way. People want to be challenged. They want something to stay with them, and they don’t want all the easy answers fed to them.
To give an example, one of the main characters in my novel is a jaded therapist who believes that human beings, as a whole, can’t be trusted to solve their own problems. He’s based on one of my best friends, and one of the most frustrating things about our friendship is whenever we debate on something in the future where the outcome relies on a person’s morals, I take the more optimistic view, he takes the cynical outlook, and he’s almost always right. No matter how much I want him to be wrong, he rarely is. In the story, the therapist takes this idea to disturbing levels, but despite his methods, he really does help (most) of his clients and does want to see them get better.
Even as the story draws to a close, the hero is oblivious to the fact that he’s deluding himself in the exact same way the therapist said he would. I never come right out and say this, because I think it belittles a reader’s intelligence, but I wanted to explore whether or not a great idea used irresponsibly is still a great idea. If it is, are we right to vilify the practice of that idea along with its creators, or do we owe it to ourselves to accept some difficult truths about our species in order to better understand how we operate? One of the things I’m most proud of is how readers have said that this story stuck with them for days after reading it, and I think a big part of that was touching briefly on these ideas without pulling out my soap box.
7. Do you enjoy sharing your work with others, or do you prefer to go unnoticed? Why?
I’d like to get my work into the hands of as many people as possible. The best reward for all the months or years of hard work are those involuntary reactions, a laugh, a gasp, a tear, where you know something you imagined and actualized touched that person in a manner they can’t hide. I wrote a horror screenplay a few years back and gave it to a friend to review. I kept her voicemail for almost a year where she told me she hadn’t slept in two days after reading it.
8. Do you pay attention to others' strong reactions to your work? Does that affect what you create?
I’ve always said that I’d much rather someone HATED my work than was indifferent to it, because even if someone hates what you’ve made, you’ve affected that person somehow, albeit not the way you intended. When you do plan to share your work with others, you have to pay attention to their opinions. Especially if you’re trying to sell it to a distributor, publisher, producer, etc. You get one chance to impress those people, so your work has to be as refined as possible before they see it. However, I only let it affect the finished product.
When I’m picking my next project, I usually start with a pitch and share the idea with some friends to gauge their reaction. If I tell them my story idea and I get that pause, and that excited smile, and they stare off into space as they imagine everywhere that idea could go…then I’ve got a winner and it’s time to write. At that point, I don’t show anyone anything, because now I have to sell all those people that MY version of that story is better than the version of the story they’ve just concocted. We’ve all seen movies or read books about great concepts that were poorly executed, so we know that letdown. To rise above that, you have to preserve and protect your vision from well-meaning people with their own ideas who make you doubt yourself. Once I’ve got something finalized that I feel reflects my original intent, I let people chip away at it, as long as they’re chipping away at a finished work, instead of a half-formed idea.
9. Who do you define as a visionary?
One of my favorite quotes has always been “Any idea that isn’t dangerous is hardly worthy of being called an idea at all.” –Oscar Wilde. To that end, I feel like anyone who was able to challenge convention, and get history’s attention by doing so, is a visionary. I quoted Wilde above, but anyone from Voltaire to Blake to modern-day writers like Alan Moore, Joss Whedon, Christopher Nolan, Christopher Moore, Chuck Palahniuk, and many more!
10. If your creative work were edible, what would it taste like?
Funny you should ask. HP Toner. Who’da thunk?