Day: February 17, 2017

Hell Or High Water

This contains spoilers about the movie, ‘Hell Or High Water’. If you’re planning to see the movie, don’t read further, unless you’re okay knowing some important matters.

My wife and I watched the Academy Award nominated movie, ‘Hell Or High Water’. It stares Ben Foster, Chris Pine, Gil Birmingham and Jeff Bridges. There are women in this movie but this is about men, men and their relationships to one another, life, and women.

It’s a harsh movie, mournful and painful. Watching it, you think, “Jesus, people in Texas are really angry and (or) mean.” And you know, almost from the beginning, what will happen. If, after watching five minutes, you asked me to write down what events will take place, I would have written this down.

Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) will be alive. His partner, Alberto Parker (Birmingham) will be dead.

Tanner (Ben Foster) will be dead. Marcus will kill him. Tanner will nobly sacrifice himself for his brother, Toby (Chris Pine). Pine will be shot but he’ll live. Pine will get away with the robberies.

Toby will not reconcile with his wife. He’ll remain estranged with his boys. Hamilton will visit Toby after ‘it’s all over’ to try to confirm Toby was part of the robberies.

All this happened. Yet, expecting them to happen didn’t detract from the movie. This film was about relationships and the nuances their existences create, and how relationships continue to live and drive behavior even after some of those involved in the relationships are dead.

The movie, while about Texans Rangers and bank robbers, law and society, men and their women, and brothers and their family, is ultimately about love and betrayal. The largest betrayal is their belief in the land and the country, and how their expectations of what to believe betrayed them.

When the movie ended, after Toby and Hamilton have their conversation, and Toby invites Hamilton to come by and finish it, my wife commented, “That was an odd ending.”

“No, it wasn’t.” It was exactly about the title to me. Although the line, “Hell or High Water,” is used in reference to getting some money to a bank on Friday regardless of hell or high water, it’s clearer to me that the title is about relationships and life.

They are the hell or high water that’s endured.

 

0

Inspirational Quote # 552

I laughed when I saw this just now, because that’s exactly what I realized that I’d done – tensed up, closing off my creative power. It took a few days to recover the lessons I’d learned before — and before, and before, and before. Maybe, learning it with repetition, it’ll start to stay in my mind.

Today, You Will Write's avatarToday, You Will Write

quote-don-t-tense-up-no-matter-what-for-you-only-close-off-creative-power-when-you-do-norman-vincent-peale-105-69-23.jpg Google Search Image

View original post

0

Any requests for “Writing Glitch” topics?

If you have a writing glitch, or have an issue and haven’t found a decent answer, reach out to Thomas Weaver.

0

Smarter Than Me

I was back with Philea in ‘Long Summer’, the sequel to ‘Returnee’. Her part in the novel and her situation are complicated and unique, and I struggled to write the most recent chapter featuring her. I tracked the problem back to several causes.

  1. Philea is a woman. I’m not.
  2. She resides several hundred years in the future.
  3. She’s been time-traveling.
  4. Her intelligence is higher than mine, and she’s educated. She’s the only Human (on the Earth side of the split) that has the grayware to dismiss needs for external augmented memory.

Contributing to my problem is that, complicated as the story’s part is for her, I’d not written about her and her parts recently. The situation straddled my strengths and weaknesses. Strengths: imagination and analyzing abilities. Weaknesses: inability to recall what I’ve written and over-thinking matters. The last paralyzes me.

The complications inherent in her story arc forced me to re-acquaint myself with those arcs for continuity. That took some time to do. Then, once caught up, I thought, now what happens with her? What does she do?

Fortunately, the character knew what to do. No doubt she resides in some sub-conscious cubicle in me. My strengths and weaknesses were constraining her. She couldn’t get out of the cubicle and onto the page. Meanwhile, I’m struggling to write, wondering, what’s going on?

She finally made it to the page yesterday afternoon. Boom, once she was there, she carried the scenes forward. Out of her cube, she kept going later in the day, pointing out changes needed to progress.

So, yea, rollin’ again. Once again, I’ve concluded I need to get out my way and let it happen. As the writer, I’m the least important part of this process. I hesitate to confess this realization, but I’m…just a tool.

Now it’s time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

1

Today’s Theme Music

This album had the honor of being the last piece of vinyl that I bought. I was living on Okinawa in Japan, then, assigned to the 603rd MASS at Kadena AB. DVD players arrived during my tour’s final year, so I bought one for $400. That’s since been replaced by less expensive players with better quality many times over. Before CDs, I bought music on vinyl or cassettes.

This album, ‘Come On, Feel the Noize’, by Quiet Riot, was bought while we still lived off base on the economy in 1983. I had Bose 301 and 910 speakers with a Sansui amp. The combination filled the tiny apartment. Ah, to be young and stupid. We moved onto base housing the next year but rotated to the U.S. by the end of ’84.

I no longer have the album, selling it at a base yard sale.

The song was originally released by Slade in 1973. For fun, here is a video of them with that. It’s such a tamer version but their clothing was very interesting, very glam rock. I was surprised that people commented that they’d never seen or heard Slade in the states. I remember buying and listening to their album in 1973.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rftnB33goIg

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑