Why the Site is Suddenly Better

I've been a very bad blogger.

And a bad writer.

And musician.

And artist.

If you haven't yet, go take a look around the site: it isn't the quillandfilmproductions.com you knew before. I wiped all the content from every page and repopulated them all from the ground up. Some things are gone forever. There are lots of new things to look at, watch, and listen to, and from here on out, there'll be lots more to see each week.

Since we moved to Maine, I've been in a sort of long, liminal midnight. I went through a period of fervent creativity, and then I fell off the edge of the earth into a place where I could barely get out of bed some mornings, let alone make up stories or sing silly songs. The most I could manage most days was Longmire on Netflix and a pan full of eggs. I worked mindlessly. I stopped working out. For the first time in my life, I didn't even want to make any art. I've gone through creative lulls before, but I always feel guilty about not working on things in the midst of them, and am always soon back at the desk and the keyboard, recording something or making up people and places and things again. This was different. This was worse.

Right now, I'm sitting on the couch in me and Bird's little green studio nest in Southern Maine. This morning's coffee is steaming softly on the stove to my right, and Trinity is curled against me to my left. I'm listening to Cults' first album, and watching the mystic, mysterious patterns iced onto the windows in the night melt away with the coming of the cold, clear, sunny Sunday this is shaping up to be. The coffee smells like acorns and warm wood, hot and strong.

There are really two people who pulled me back into the world: my real wife, Bird, and my movie wife, Mariah Rosado. (They took to calling themselves "Sister Wives" during principal photography on Marlon, and it stuck.)

Mariah has, from the very beginning of all this--from the days of Chat-Man and Blabbermouth (the first podcast I ever did, a hybrid movie news/weekly talk show I did with Mariah), when I was in pre-production on Marlon and didn't even have a website--has pushed me to generate content, engage on social media, blog, vlog, and build a brand. She's been (gently, kindly, insistently) telling me that "the webiste could use some work" for nearly a year now. Mariah is wonderfully polite. The website was in a smoking shambles before I sat down and started working on it. Dead links, stale content, no updates...it was a glorified shed for new episodes of Chat-Man and Robin, and even those were months in between.

In fact, when the website came up for renewal this past October, and I was looking at the bill to renew it, I considered letting it lapse and go quietly away. I was a writer, I reasoned. Not having the website to distract me, I would get so much more writing done. And we could save that money for stuff we really needed, like Ben & Jerry's and our Netflix subscription and new seasons of Game of Thrones.

Bird had just started her own website (link above), and was loading it up with her art. She was making connections with local galleries. She just recently got into an art show. Her plan is to pay for the web fee by selling prints and originals and...

...and her plan was a lot like what mine was when I first built this website. Back when I was an artist.

I don't know exactly which direction to look at it: maybe, nettled and jealous of Bird's success and artistic energy as I withered away into a slovenly, chocolate-stained blob in bed, hollow eyes red-rimmed with the weight of Netflix Originals, my pilot light kicked back on and I crawled over to my dusty guitar and dried-up pens to try and reclaim my life. Maybe, with Bird's unflagging support and encouragement, I started feeling like an artist again, thinking, and acting like an artist again. Maybe I was dragged back into Art (capital A) in her meteoric jetstream.

I guess whichever way I look at it, Bird inspired me, as she has so many times over the years.

Right now, our kitchen table is littered with sponges, brushes, and stained palettes of watercolor paint. There's a pickle jar full of oddly-colored water, a plant, and an out-of-place lamp. And there's a haunting, sexy, witchy painting in the middle of it all, which will be the album cover to my debut album, an EP called "Lo-Fi Lullabies," which is all recorded, and which I'm mixing right now.

Right now, there's a novella ready for editing on my hard drive.

Right now, I feel reborn. I feel happy, and productive, and artistic, and I haven't felt any of those things for a little while now.

But I'll tell you more about what I'm working on tomorrow. For those of you who found me through Marlon, there are some things about "Lo-Fi Lullabies" that I think you'll find particularly relevant, cool, and exciting. Tomorrow, tomorrow. Baby steps. I only just got out of bed and back on my feet. In the meantime, go check out the new site. It isn't quite finished yet, but it will be soon. I'm debating whether or not to really change things up and go white background with black text. A true fresh start. I don't know. What do you think?

Anyway. The coffee's done. Thanks for sticking with me. I have so much to write and shoot and show you these days, I can't wait to get out of bed in the morning.

--Max
From the Ice Nest in Maine

Not So Much a Haircut (More a Masterpiece)

Went and got a haircut today. I've been feeling a bit like a dirty hippie, and a bit like the middling-shitty ensemble character in every eighties action movie ever: hair slumping down over my ears, dangling dangerously close to the border of Mullet in the back, generally bringing into a shapeless mop of mediocrity and unremarkability on top of my head.

Of course, I hate haircuts. I hate the way it feels like I'm betraying Mark Arm and Kurt Cobain by chopping it classy. I hate having to explain to the invariably hairy-knuckled, halitotic paragon of masculinity shaving me into the haunting image of his dead, drill-sergeant father that, no, I really don't watch football, baseball, or NASCAR. Then they notice I'm wearing a vest and a shawl-collar cardigan, and the rest is a sullen silence while the barber hurries to finish shearing me, lest I should, Incubus-like, drain testosterone from his fingers and leave him with dress sense and empathy.

I really don't like haircuts, is what I'm getting at. 

So when I got a voucher for a free haircut at Supercuts (selling points: five big-screen televisions playing nothing but Sports so you can compulsively Watch Sports, and "stylists who know about guy stuff"), it seemed like the Universe sack-tapping me for a laugh. But I'm broke, and a free haircut is better than what I was going to do to myself with the electric shaver tonight. So. Off I went, cyanide capsule safe in my molar, and a flask of London Sour secreted away in my cardigan (as always there is).

There were, in fact, five screens of sports. But  I didn't really notice them. Once the hot steamed towel face massage, shampoo, and acupressure scalp massage started, I sort of didn't notice much of anything else.

(Except the vibrating massage chair my "Stylist who knew about guy stuff" laid me back in. I noticed that, before I melted into it.) 

It's very seldom that I walk out with exactly what I had in my head coming in, but she knew her stuff: she saw my cowlick and strategized ways to tame it, noticed my natural part and compensated for it, and inferred the products I normally use by feel.

And then--I assume just to melt my mind into my shoes--a neck and shoulder massage. Jesus, is this what haircuts are in this brave new world of ours? Reading the advertisement, I was expecting something more like the barber scene from Full Metal Jacket : something brusque and smelling of stale tobacco, something involving tears and homophobic perjoratives, ending with a firm handshake and a slap on the ass. I've been alternately shaving my head in bathrooms and growing my hair to my shoulders for years, now: is this what barber shops are now? As an amateur journalist, I feel it's my duty to go back next month and find out. Maybe I'll even take a look at one of the TVs, and see if the Buffalo Red Sox are hitting any touchdowns.

--m. 

A Funk, a Robe, and a Recipe for Salsa

I've been in a bit of a funk the past couple of days. I don't know if it's the autumn gloom rolling in and pouring all over everything, or the unclean smell of cold Crescent street garbage, or the fact that I haven't been writing. At any rate, I've been here before: usually it's the funk of the tidal pool left behind after I finish a big project. I spend so long flooded with one idea, one story, one fabricated world and the people who inhabit it, that when it's done and the whole thing drains out of my head, I'm left splashing around in the puddles and fetid pools left in my brain, trying to figure out what to do when the tide of creativity comes back in.

I think the next thing will be to finish this New Orleans Crime Noir novella I've been working on. I reread what I've got so far just last Friday, and wrote a short scene. (I think this novella may be the best thing I've ever written, but I also think I think that about everything I happen to be working on at any given moment.)

Instead of writing, I've been eating a lot of ice cream, drinking a lot of tiki drinks, and cooking a lot. I made quinoa veggie burgers for lunch today, and another batch of the most addictive salsa in the world for dinner. (Bird got the recipe from a former co-worker of hers. I'll put the recipe at the end of this blog post, but be warned: in-between batches, you'll be scratching your arms and watching imaginary bugs crawl all over the walls. It's a lifetime habit after one bite.)

I tried my hand at Scottish Tattie Scones and sausages for breakfast on Saturday, and they seem to have been a hit. They're like little pancakes/crepes made out of potatoes, flour, and eggs, and they're surprisingly versatile--I love them with jam, Bird prefers them with smoked kielbasa.

Kielbasa, Tattie Scones with butter and jam, tea and runny eggs. I felt like I should've been wearing my waistcoat. 

Let's see. What else have I been doing to avoid writing?

I suppose that's not entirely fair. I did finally finish The Wolves of Dresden, the first screenplay I ever attempted. It's sent off to the United States Copyright Office right now, to secure a registered copyright before I submit it to any film festivals. It's 119 pages, and I'm actually quite happy with it--it's big and violent and sad and odd, and the sort of thing I'd like to watch. I'm finding myself writing more and more for myself just lately, and--perhaps unsurprisingly--I'm also finding myself liking my writing more as well.

Silk bathrobes. That's what I've been doing tonight to avoid working on anything meaningful. Particularly this bathrobe, by Derek Rose:

Pure silk. Shawl collar. And it's only $700.

And it hasn't been all time wasted, either: Bird and I finally got Chat-Man and Robin on iTunes! We've been more or less on time with our last two episodes, and I think they're both pretty funny. It feels good to be back behind a mic and laughing with my wonderful wife. (You can subscribe to the podcast HERE.)

Speaking of Bird, she's got a new website all her own. It's much prettier than mine, and full of art she's done. She has her own blog over there as well, and I am extremely jealous of her. Don't tell. (You can go see her website HERE.)

You know what? Just writing this has sort of helped. It's not earth-shattering stuff, but it's better than another pint of Ben & Jerry's and another episode of Sherlock and another goddamn delicious Chi Chi. Sometimes just sitting down to write is an act of rebellion. Writing is refusing to die just yet. A couple words can be the cough that cuts through the thick sick-room caul of procrastination between you and a good story. So tomorrow I'm going to write. I have the whole day off, and plenty of notes on the story to help me along. (My detective, a very clever woman bashing about the French Quarter in New Orleans, is about to go visit her benefactor at his mansion, engage in dangerous banter with his head of security and probably drink a lot.)

Besides. The salsa is already made.

Kayo's Lifelong Habit-Forming Salsa:
2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can white shoepeg corn, with juice
1/2 red onion, chopped
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
6 Tbsp. olive oil
6Tbsp. fresh lime juice
1 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. salt
3-4 tomatoes, seeded and diced

Mix all but tomatoes the night before. Add tomatoes and stir just before serving. Watch Breaking Bad or The Panic in Needle Park while eating, because you're a junkie, now.

--m.

The Gardener Stage

I've been on a real writing tear recently. I'm working on something I haven't put a hand to in awhile: genre fiction. Mostly, I write scripts and screenplays lately, but short stories is where I got started.

Right now, I'm eight thousand words into a hard-boiled detective story set in New Orleans; real Hard Drinks and Hard-Eyed Women type stuff, and it's been gloriously fun to write. I've built a little daily routine: breakfast and strong, black coffee at seven. Read Dashiell Hammett for an hour or so (Red Harvest and The Dain Curse were both good. I started reading The Maltese Falcon two days ago, and I can already see why it's everybody's favorite). Then I sit down at my laptop, at a little white table in front of a window facing the butcher shop and the worn old church across the street, all the windows open, blowing in the sounds of the street and the smells of smoking meat, heat, and the river nearby. I play Crime Noir playlists on 8tracks.com, mostly moody jazz. I chew my empty pipe, drink coffee, and look sometimes at the blooming Peace Lily that seems to so love the sunshine by the window.

And I write. It's been great fun.

Until a few days ago, when I reached the Gardener Stage of the story.

I don't know about other of my artsy friends, but I have strong suspicions that The Gardener Stage is universal. I know that it's happened to me on every single song, poem, and story I've ever sat down to write, and it plays hell with a writing streak (and my emotions).

Briefly, The Gardener Stage is the moment when I decide that the project I'm working on is stalled, or bogged down. I just need some time to think about it and let it ferment. In the meantime, I reason, I'll just step away from it and start something else. A script, maybe. Or a different story. It's like the mini midlife crisis at the halfway point of every story.

It's the moment when the Gardener, tired and sore from digging weeds (but making progress: good progress, even if some of the adverbs are going to need pruning later on), sits back on his haunches to rest, and sees beautiful, untilled ground a little ways away. He looks at the land, imagining all the beautiful things he might plant there. He looks at the weeds around the things he's already planted. Those goddamned fucking weeds he's been digging for weeks, back aching and hands sore. And he has been meaning to plant those blueberry bushes...

(What I'm doing right now, writing this blog, is planting blueberry bushes.)

It's hot. July by the ocean is oppressive and humid. I've been reading Detective fiction for a month. I've been writing this story for a month. I don't want to write one more hard-boiled word. I want to read strange, psychedelic comic books from the 80s and dive back into a comic book series I plotted out right before the move. Or maybe finish revising a screenplay I wrote half a decade ago. Or maybe a romance! Or maybe...!

Someone told me once that writers write and writers read, but, most importantly, writers finish things. If you just go around starting things and writing them until they stop being fresh and new and exciting and fun, what do you have?

You have drawers full of ideas and paper. You have files on a hard drive. (I have plenty of both.)

But if you stretch your back, wipe your brow, and turn your eyes back down to the weeds, to the next bit, the next word, the next sentence, the next page, before you know it, you have a THING that didn't exist before you finished it. So, back I go to breakfast and Hammett and moody jazz. Back to my white table by the window. I keep telling myself: one word after another. The next scene. The next page, and the next, until The End.

And after that? Well. There's always the blueberries, the Peace Lilies, and the weeds.

-- On the hottest July day so far,
from the only lighted window on my street

A Lesson I Learned In Maine

It's early in the evening, and a thunderstorm massive and black and heavy as any I ever saw in Michigan is rolling up the seacoast toward Maine. New Hampshire will get the worst of it, and in our little green room at the top of a little yellow house, my family will weather the storm.

Bird and I have lived in a lot of little rooms at the tops of houses, over the years. In them, I've written two screenplays, a novel, three comic book series, and more little bits and bobs of imaginary, made-up stuff than I can count. Because I'm a writer. I made up my mind to be a writer ages ago, when I was a boy, and reaffirmed that to myself and my wife when we were busily falling in love, and falling in love with each other's art.

A thing like that, something ethereal and without form or shape, definition or substance, a thing like love, or a young boy's dream...a thing like that is easy to lose, in the drifting clutter we accumulate as we live. Bills drift over the writing desks we build when we are young, and job applications, and parking tickets, and paper money drift over them like old snow until the writing desk is just a table. Believe me. Things got cluttered and complicated in my life. I'm 26 years old, with all the flotsam that implies. There's a place that creative people fear, and thinking people, and people up against hardship: a rolling homogenous fog where every day is like the last and like the next.

The fog here in Maine smells like Melville's wide, cold sea, and if I had to learn this lesson, I'm glad I learned it here.

When we first moved here, I decided to try to work from home. I could take care of the dog, so she wouldn't be in her crate all day, and the flexibility of my schedule would allow me more time to write, it was reasoned. I applied for and was contracted to do several online jobs. Bird went to work at Michael's in the mornings, and I would sit down with my laptop and a cup of coffee to start, with a smirk, my "day's work."

Except...except by the time I was finished with six hours of my first work-from-home job and onto another, I had a pounding headache from staring mindlessly at a screen for a quarter of a day. Bird would come home from work, and I'd put on Bob's Burgers, and then I'd open my laptop and fill out surveys until I fell asleep. And then it was the next day. And the next. I was working from home.

Honestly, it might have gone on like that. Not forever--nobody can do that forever--but for long enough to blunt me down and burn me out. It was Bird who saved me. Of course it was. She always does; it's what best friends, lovers, and clever, insightful partners are for.

Working from home wasn't making me enough to pay my side of things, so I went and got a retail job as well. I decided I could do both. Just imagine the riches. The fact that I was considering doing anything for no reason other than the money should have tipped me off that I was way in the weeds, following lights in the woods toward a fabulous feast of the dead. It didn't. A month went by.

I worked a few retail shifts, did my online work when I got home, and wrote nothing at all. Not one word. Bird and I were settling in, one evening. I'd made a drink and was complaining that the online company I was contracting for was going to be demanding a lot more of my time, that they'd deemed my latest work Substandard and I had to complete hours and hours and hours of unpaid training to get my work back up to snuff; I was telling her how much stress I was under, how much I hated to online work, but the extra money--

"Then don't do it." She didn't say it nice. She just said it, blunt and hard, right to the forehead.

"What?" It was like a shock. It was like watching someone strike a match in the fog.

We went to bed. When I woke up, this morning, I sent out a batch of emails terminating every online contract I had. Then I made a pot of coffee and wrote 1700 words straight through. It was like letting out a breath I'd been holding, or...it was like being alive again. Nobody paid me anything for it: it's a short story I've been working on. When it's done, I'll submit it somewhere, but when I do, it won't be for the money (nobody writes short stories for the money). It'll be because I'm a writer, and writers write. They don't fill out surveys. They determine if their work is substandard. Bird and I moved to Maine so we could be closer to New York City. So I could focus on my writing career. I just needed a little reminding: we all do, sometimes. Sure, our budget is tighter than we're used to, but that's a good thing. I think creative people are sharper when they're hungry.

My freshman year of college, I watched an interview with Neil Gaiman on Youtube that changed the way I thought about my dreams. I heard Amanda Palmer say it in another interview that same year, but by then, I'd already decided. It is advice that has enabled me to do everything I've ever done, and it comes in two parts:

1) Don't leave yourself a safety net. Don't give yourself Something to Fall Back On, because then, when you fail (and I have failed over and over and over), at least you tried, thank goodness you had something to fall back on. I have nothing to fall back on, by design. My degree is worthless, and my resume will only let me do two things: minimum-wage jobs and writing. That's it. That's all I have, and since I refuse to call myself a "minimum-wage professional," by default I am a "writer."

2) If you think of something you really, really want to do, just go do that. It took me forever to actually get up the nerve to do this one. It's simultaneously enormously hard and the simplest thing in the world to do: if you want to write a novel, there is nobody in the world who can stop you from writing a novel except yourself. People might not pay you to do the things you want to do, at first, not right away, but they can't stop you doing them. Write a novel, make a movie, record an album, write thousands of haiku about the eroticism of goats' eyes. It doesn't matter. The secret is simple: if you want to do something, all you have to do is that thing. Voila.

This morning, I tore down my safety net. As it tumbled down, so did the bills, the stress, and the hours I'd been wasting on it. The bits of greenish paper I'd been chasing flipped off in a clean ocean breeze. And I looked around, and I decided what I wanted to do. I wanted to write. Crime Fiction, I thought. I brewed a pot of coffee, and put on some slinky, dangerous jazz, and wrote.

Yesterday, when I went to bed, I had nothing more than I had when I woke up. Tonight, I'll have part of a story that didn't exist before. A story full of dangerous women, barking guns, soft light, and hard drinks. I'll finish it this weekend, send it off, and then write something else. I have scripts to read, musicals to work on, and words. Such words.

So. Let me feel foolish for you, and follow me back to the path. Cut down your safety net. Turn your back to the precipice; leave nothing to fall back on. Close your eyes, decide what you want to do, and go do that. Decide what you are, and be that. It's up to you, whether you're a bank teller or a musician. Whether you're a cashier or a filmmaker. A waiter or a writer. Bank Tellers handle bank accounts. Musicians make music. Cashiers handle money, filmmakers make films. Waiters bring food to people.

Writers write.

--On the first day of July, in a small green room at the top of a yellow house in Maine