Hello. My name is Writer. Mr Hack Writer.

Well, I'm still writing my screenplay. And I've found myself accidentally stepping in a large puddle of writer's block. It's not really block, I suppose if I did have writer's block I wouldn't be typing this right now.

But, me being the perfectionist myself am, I felt that one sentence wasn't perfect and rather than moving along and accepting that whoever reads it won't notice, me being the perfectionist I is, I pressed good ol' "ctrl+backspace" and rewrote and pressed "ctrl+backspace" and rewrote and realised that I needed a little magic!


Boy... I'm sorry if the above paragraph is confusing (it certainly seems to be confounding my imaginary cat who's sitting on my lap and stroking - i.e. scratching - my swanky pair of white thighs). If you're drunk it may be making more sense, I don't know.

Anyway, the magic I needed came in the form of One, that little film I did so many hours ago.
I don't mean to be tooting my own diamond-encrusted horn, but I'd forgotten just how good it is in the past few months.
I haven't seen it in so long and managed to watch it with a more objective point of view, since I wants my magic and it has to give me my magic (I'm actually writing a scene which is virtually identical to the one in the film, so if One doesn't convey the intended message, that little sentence stays in its place, tapping its foot impatiently), and it still sucked a millimeter or so of salty, watery goodness from my tear ducts.

It's like seeing an old friend after a couple of years, you may remember his/her face, but soon the charm returns. And you remember why you liked this person then, and now.

Like I said, I'm not meaning to be prr-ampu-pum-pumming, but 3 stars just isn't enough. I'm not going to say it's a masterpiece --

Well, actually, I would. And I will.
I don't get it. What's so difficult about understanding it? What's so bad that you've gotta hate it?
I mean, I can understand the Hitler and Jesus film. Religion isn't an easy topic for many people, and saying Jesus and Hitler are the same will garner mixed reviews at best.
But One?! Come one... it should get 3 stars for effort alone, and then you've got the angles, cinematography (think of the lighting, won't someone think of the lighting...?! And the colour.), acting (method, by the way), editing, and I don't know what more. And did I mention I did it all on my own? Everything. All by myself.

Damn. I've gone astray.
This isn't the reason I started this post, but, well... I suppose it's about time I got that off my chest. I'll shove those feelings right back in the closet, but I'll say this first:

If there's one thing about the stuff I've done that has always killed it, it's that it was just too damn good.
It had too much detail. Too many references and little things that no one noticed, or cared about (this very collection of random words being a perfect example). It tried to be more than anyone could handle; too much intensity. And I just tried too hard to make it the best thing it could possibly be, that anything other than complete exaltation meant it was nothing more than a complete failure.

But maybe, just maybe, I'm missing the point here. Maybe I'm failing to realise the truth....

Maybe One isn't as good as your humble Narrator thinks it is. Maybe it got 3 stars because it was quite simply mediocre.

Maybe I am, quite simply, a mediocre artist.

Maybe I've been swimming in a pool of delusion.
Maybe all this time my graphic novel, my stories, my sketches, my sculptures, my films, all those filthy little words my scrawny little fingers created from the plain white letters on my beautiful black keyboard aren't what my ego and self-esteem have betrayed my mind into thinking.

Maybe I am that hack writer sitting alone in his dingy motel room, working on the latest masterpiece the world will inevitably detest. Breaking his back for 152 pages of sweet averageness.

Maybe.

Or, just maybe, I'm not him. Maybe I'm that other guy.

The one sitting alone in the dingy motel room next to Mr H. Writer's. That misanthropic bastard who despises everyone because they despise him or just don't give a diamond-encrusted fuck about what he has to say. Who's slaving away at the piece of trash the world will love, but inevitably never understand. His magnum opus, which will get those stupid celebrities with their plain white teeth wrapping their scaly arms around his shoulder and saying what a great job he did.

"You did good. You got the masses interested. Everyone loves you, now."

And he will smile back with tight lips, not replying. Or maybe, just maybe, he'll say, "Thank you."

And then he'll slink back into his dingy, stinking motel room. He'll take off his rented tuxedo, brush his teeth, wash his face, and slip under the covers of his dingy bed with stinking pillows.

He will, at 01:04 in the morning, stare at the ceiling. His eyes will be red, burning, aching for sleep. But there'll be none of it. Because he'll know then what he knew before the world fell in love with him.

All those people smiling at him. All those hands asking for a shake. All those stupid celebrities with their brilliantly white teeth - achieved by brushing with Colgate three times a day and then washed with fresh bleach - touching him with their dirty fingers, smiling at those shiny, flashy light-thingies us professionals like to call "cameras", violating his ears with their dingy, stinking prepackaged speeches.
The whole world is fickle. They're all going to forget his name tomorrow. They're all going to demand his next waste product, without fully grasping what yesterday's random collection of words even meant in the first place.

Maybe.

Or. The world won't fall in love with Random Collection of Words. The world won't smile just because it's "him". The world won't extend its hand. The world won't tell him what a great job he did, getting it to want to fuck his ass for a day.

He'll take his place next to Hack Writer, standing on the pavement, smoking a cigarette and watching the world frenziedly trying to get it's fair scrapes of some other schmuck's neck on the other side of road.

And he'll slink back into his dingy motel room. And start work on his next piece of shit.


I gave my brother the first quarter of TSH a while ago, with a notepad and pen. I asked him to write down everything he thought... what he liked, what he didn't, even if he read something he thought was well-written or funny or touching or thought-provoking. Whatever.
Two hours later, he returned with a single page of his opinions. The page listed only the spelling mistakes I failed to notice in my late-night/early-morning editing sessions.
To my surprise, he then said how good it was. That is was "better than I expected."

He didn't say much more than that. He didn't mention the section where my protagonist confronts a mother who thinks her son has been resurrected, which I think is brilliant. He didn't mention the section where three characters discuss which of them is worse off, a part I spent weeks perfecting, and which sent me into depression. He didn't mention the amount of detail, the evident amount of research I did when they confront a dead person. He didn't mention the small joke I added which gave a little charm to the scene. He didn't even say how well I'd written it, how pleasing it was to read.

It was, quite simply, better than he expected.

(Sorry for going astray.)