Open Hatch

Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category

I’ve been slowly working on a project to produce a version of the Book of Mormon which integrates modern grammar with textual corrections discovered in Royal Skousen’s Critical Text Project.

Royal Skousen has spent decades researching the original and earliest sources (and for that matter, eventually all major printed editions) of the Book of Mormon, and he has discovered thousands of errors and alterations transmitted through various editions from the original manuscripts to subsequent editions. None of these errors or alterations change the meaning of the text substantially, but there are numerous cases where relatively small meanings didn’t come through. One example is the final verse of the book, where the original manuscript, it has been discovered, read “..pleading bar of the great Jehovah”, but the first printed edition (and all subsequent editions) mistook this as “..pleasing bar of the great Jehovah”. (Incidentally, I’ve always found that mistaken word a bit jarring and puzzling – now I’ve learned why. That’s not how it was intended to read!)

My main reason for this is that for some time I’ve wanted to orate a “podcast” of the Book of Mormon, as I really don’t prefer any of the existing audio versions of this book; so while I’m doing that, why not do it with a text truer to the original manuscript?

Initially I even contacted Dr. Skousen himself, seeking permission. He seemed open to it, but deferred to Yale Press, forwarding my request there. Yale Press denied permission on the basis that they would want to authorize and organize such an effort through an established publisher. (I predict they never do.)

Nevertheless remaining curious, I got my own copy of The Earliest Text from Deseret Book. I was both very pleased and disappointed. The disappointment stems from decisions necessary to remain true to forming a “critical text”. This means a text reproducing the original manuscripts as faithfully as possible – right down to some of the weirder grammar – such as “if there be fault, it be the mistake of men” in the original title page – which, incidentally, I think is a perfect mistake. These grammar errors may be inherent to Joseph Smith’s dictation when he (early on) had little education in language. I don’t mean to marginalize The Earliest Text. Being strictly true to the original text doubtless has very worthwhile academic and historical application. But for the layman and everyday readers, it doesn’t. Joseph Smith himself made considerable grammatical and other emendations to the text for the third edition (dozens of times, he scratched out the very redundant phrase “and it came to pass”), and apostles and prophets who followed him down through the decades made numerous grammatical corrections, none of which alter the meaning of the text, all of which make it clearer and easier to read.

What pleases me in The Earliest Text is the plain layout, the spare devotion to only canonical text (none of the extensive introductions, cross-references, chapter introductions etc.), the preservation of initial section breaks as denoted by Joseph Smith, and Skousen’s very clear reworking of the punctuation from scratch. (The original manuscripts were, with very little exception, un-punctuated, continuous blocks of text. All periods, commas, semicolons etc. were added by the original type-setter.)

It dawned on me these facts (of my pleasure and disappointment) produce an opportunity.

The Earliest Text edition may arguably be under copyright as the first printing of all combined discoveries about the earliest text, plus Skousen’s completely reworked punctuation. What it does not have is the grammatical emendations of later editions – which are all in the public domain. Very little has been altered since Orson Pratt’s grammar emendations and versification of the text early last century.

I can combine the two without violating anyone’s copyright.

My edition will integrate these of Skousen’s findings: 1.) Correction of all errors that alter meaning, such as “pleasing” to “pleading”, 2.) All language that supports the original text’s self-consistency, such as the identified “Hebraisms” – for example, so many conjoining clauses prefixed with the word “and” 3.) All grammatical emendations subsequent to the original publishing which clarify meaning, and 4.) Perhaps even some of my own grammatical corrections. For example, where Lehi says “..behold, I have obtained a land of promise, in the which things I do rejoice”. If this isn’t evidently originating in any language phenomenon inherent to the text before translation, why not simply reduce this to “in which I rejoice”? No change in meaning, and plenty of improvement in clear grammar.

Unfortunately, producing a new edition of the text is an involved undertaking. But modern technologies are speeding it up vastly (such as Optical Character Recognition grabbing me a full 1921 text, from a scan of an edition of that year downloadable from archive.org).

I have a full text; I’m working out OCR scanning errors. I’m aiming for a layout akin to the first edition, but maintaining verse numbers unobtrusively.

Hours ago I accidentally ran into the work of a font designer who created a font intent on reproducing a style of typeface in wide use in the 1800’s through early 1900’s, but which was subsequently almost entirely abandoned. I’ve incorporated this font into a page layout and title page design first draft; I’m very pleased with it. Here is a link to a pdf export: 1921-bookofmormon00smituoft-editcopy3-title-pages-design1

This entry would probably best be at a new blog devoted to the project; but I’ll have a section here devoted to it as well; so maybe I’ll just copy relevant stuff to.. whatever.. new blog.

You may find this useful as the days get warmer. Click the image for a much larger version. Here is the original Photoshop format file for you to mess with, and here’s a .pdf version for easier printing, too.

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to grieve
And grace my heart to sing
For Him whose Death is my Rebirth;
The Everlasting Spring!

If you search, you’ll find that dozens of different versions of Amazing Grace and additional verses can be found. This verse is mine.

I’ve been overhearing one of the audiobook recordings of A Series of Unfortunate Events, as my wife listens through it with our children, and she paused it and talked to them about it:

They’re laughing at the circus freaks because they think they’re better than them. But is that right? .. No, it isn’t, is it?

And this just got me thinking: We’re all freaks.

Which leads to:

All we like freaks have run away; we have run every one and joined our Circus; …

Here is a script for something I’m going to shoot soon – my son will star.

With his permission, I’m copying these words of Mahonri Stewart (an LDS playwright and active voice in the LDS literary/art community, and who occasionally writes over here) which he wrote at the AML-list, where the topic emerged (in response to a link to my Harry Potter predictions at this blog) of the morality presented in the final Harry Potter book. I liked what he had to say about the book; here it is (with minor edits for clarity/syntax). There will be spoilers here if you haven’t read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

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New blog design (for this and the past three new posts in a row) in progress here. Here’s a page about it.

Just so’s if I’m right I can say I said so, before the final Harry Potter book is out this weekend I’d like to make some predictions. I arrived at these on my own and then discovered that big networks of Harry Potter fans have speculated the same. By the way, this portrayal or illustration of Severus Snape, which I love, is taken from Leaky Fan Art, a huge art forum full of Harry Potter fan art, much of it excellent (and much of it not).

These are spoilers for anyone who hasn’t read up to book 6, The Half-Blood Prince.

Oh, I just noticed that with the spoilers in this entry hidden there is a delightfully odd visual juxtaposition between this entry and the last. Click the psychedelic image in the banner to see that layout

On with the predictions.

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In reference to the desired features expressed in this entry (and not minding those amusements), I found personal journal software that has them. I think this application is great. Makes keeping a digital journal (I’m bereft of more fashionable journaling abilities) much less intimidating, once you grasp how the thing is laid out and organized. I only found a hang quirk deleting old entries with it (but who wants to do that? Honesty, honesty..) but they still delete OK, and other than that it’s much better than a lot of things I’ve tried. Intuitive, not too fussy, secure, and exporting to one big Word or .rtf or many other kinds of files is a snap (again, if you get the hang of the program).

[This entry is rated PG-plus-ish!]

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[I wrote this and asked many people if I should send it. Their answer was yes, though possibly not to this recipient.]

Dear Senator Hatch,

I’m not really sure if you’re in my district, or whatever, but sometimes I think I like you, so I’m writing you anyway. I might even write you if I don’t like you.

I’ve been thinking about house prices. It’s weighing heavily on my mind. Like so many mortgage payments. And I’m thinking, if I want to move into the Nevilleson’s mansion when they move out, how am I going to secure the right price? I’ve heard there are so many Californians moving into our state, right out of theirs – who said they could come here? They aren’t Pioneer stock! – and gobbling up all the expensive houses by selling their half-million dollar homes in the Bay area and driving out here. Right after they sell! And this drives prices up. I know I’ve heard that Utahns are stingy – I’m proud of it – but doesn’t that strike you as wrong? It feels like an invasion. My daddy worked hard in the soil all his life and his lot is now inherited by someone from L.A. It seems like the wrong kind of Eminent Domain, if you ask me. Where are the border patrols? I’m not sure how they even watch the border. I’m sure it must be a bigger problem than Mexico, with a flood of Californians like this! But then I got thinking about why they are buying those homes for such high prices, anyway. And I realized: it’s because the credit bureaus all report their revolving debt, right there on the credit report, which anyone can look at for even the most marginal reason, such as wanting to haggle me with mail solicitations by chopping up more of the trees in Panguitch! And Panguitch is my middle name, so I doubly resent that! And when they look at that credit report, with the revolving debt, they know just exactly how much they can extort from their buyer, no guesswork at all, no fudging and lowering of the price just in case they can’t pay that much – I mean, Supply and Demand never had less guesswork in the Red Scare! Talk about another invasion! Keep their eyes off how much I’m making! That’s private! Can you do anything about that? You’re a Senator, after all. This also got me thinking about taxes. It seems like a lot of people pay high taxes on homes and then businesses find ways out of paying more taxes. In fact it seems almost conspiring how much businesses get away with loops and multiple special exceptions in the tax system over consumers and general lay domestics. It’s as if they get to make more money just because they are smarter. What is right about that? Should someone get less tax just for buying a hummer? Or structuring their company one way vs. another? They seem like arbitrary concessions devised solely from politicians buckling to too much pressure from too many lobbyists who somehow have themselves convinced that they must be worthy of less taxation just because they are more special for doing something some way or owning some thing. Or some people. Like we thought blacks were a worthy tax exemption for a while. Like Communists owning peasants. But I think the tax should be completely flat, everywhere. Like Kansas. Then we would all lay up in store treasures as if from heaven, and the Mormons could stop being so frugal. Or stingy, I guess. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Someday, Senator, someday.

Floese Panguitch Louisa, Jr.

I think Rhapsidiom’s comments in his post here are right on target.  We exchange comments after his post.

I’ve put up a new blog that just has internet films and clips that I’ve made. It is:

http://www.alexandtia.com/film

The newest entry in it at the moment is:

Concept Trailer: THE SONS OF HELAMAN – or this link will jump to play the video directly.

This new film blog uses a video comment plugin I found for WordPress that allows visitors to post comments that link to a specific time in the video clip. Cool!

And this blog is dying for a new style. Or I am. This here now is ugly. Ug!

I went to look for Movie Magic Screenwriter and typed in the wrong URL. I found this page. Something it says is so good I’m going to reference it in Google’s cache in case the page changes.

They’ve got these blurbs from guest speakers who are very successful screenwriters. I believe the one, Paul Haggis, is the type that a certain book I’m reading sneeringly refers to as a “Creative Protectionist” type; one who makes art for art’s sake, and who happened to be one of the one in fifty thousand who made it big doing so. Because such successes are rare (or are they just a matter of lining up the right business plan behind the art?), folks on the purely business, pragmatic side of the spectrum (who are in the habit of deluding themselves that they can “eliminate” risk) advocate going with what is tried and true – in other words, what has been done before and made money. That approach by definition demands formulaic, unoriginal, and therefore to the audience, drab films.

Which is what Haggis’ comments get at. And whatever else I might be – I think my film ambition may demand more pragmatic people at my side – I think I’m a “Creative Protectionist”. Now mind, though I counter-sneer at that term, the book from which it comes (THE PRODUCER’S BUSINESS HANDBOOK) has some absolutely indespensable loads of details on the actual operational and organizational procedures of the most successful independent film production businesses. I will not ignore the loads of wisdom and business know-how in that book. It’s just a matter of deciding what of it to take for granted and what to question, if your insticts ever tell you otherwise on anything. Because film is a business of risk, and I would think that sometimes you have to know when to knowingly take a risk, do something “untried” and “unproven”. The same kind of thing goes for listening to what folks on the fiercely independent creative artist side of things have to say; decide what to take for granted and decide what to challenge. And I don’t mean to say make rules out of any of your conclusions; I mean feel it out for every work of art you want to put forward.

To get back to where I was going, I find myself more inclined to first listen to the “creative protectionists” for creating stories, and then use the business side of things to decide what to do with my art.

So here are three excellent answers to questions by Paul Haggiss via screenwriter.com, referenced in google’s cache:

QUESTION:
Sometimes I go to sleep at night and say to myself that this isn’t working and I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m not going to write anymore. The next morning I get up and my characters are yapping again. At this point in your career, do you ever have such insecure thoughts?
ANSWER:
Every single day. You deal with it by writing. You just sit your ass in the chair and write through it. It’s the only way to solve your problems. When you come upon a problem, write directly into it. Embracing the problem is often the way to find a really interesting scene. My other trick is to say, ‘What awful thing could happen to them right now?’ Because sometimes, things are going too well for your characters and you have to give them the worst possible thing that could happen to them. [Ah ha ha! This sounds like God meddling with his lazy children who are too comfortable. "Let's give them a trial!" - RAH]

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QUESTION:
What type of scripts are hot in Hollywood right now?
ANSWER:
Never ever ever ever ever ever think that way. That is the road to failure and hackdom. I just met with Linda Obst this afternoon, and she bemoaned the fact that all young writers are looking for a payday and therefore are writing what they think she wants to see rather than writing what is in their gut, something they have to say. I cannot stress this enough.

I wrote two spec scripts that I was absolutely sure no one would ever buy: Million Dollar Baby and Crash. They both sold within a couple of years of me writing them, which is very fast.

If you try and second guess what people want and then provide it, YOU WILL FAIL.
Guaranteed.
And never listen to any agent who tells you any different.
You want to write something unique, something only you know.

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QUESTION:
How does an unknown make it to Hollywood?
ANSWER:
You have to understand that for all intents and purposes, I was “unknown” to the film business four years ago. I had no more advantage or disadvantage than you have. You may not think that truth, but it absolutely is because I had no “heat” coming off any great television show. It was all about the script. If you write a great script and put it in your drawer at your cottage in Muskoka Lake, someone will track it down and find it. If you write a bad script and send 100,000 copies out, it still ain’t gonna sell. The trick is really simple: write a great script. And I don’t mean to be flip. That’s just the truth. Write something that’s in your heart, and if you have your craft down and if you’re really honest with the characters, it will sell. It just may take some time. I guess that’s what you should ask yourself. Not how to sell or market something, but have I written enough and experienced enough to write a good screenplay? You write, you research, you write, you research… What makes a good writer is thousands of pages written.

Where I am dubious of these comments: excuse me Haggis, but at some point someone picked up your work and put a lot of money behind it. And then audiences loved it and got more money behind it. Don’t discount that. Your success was not all pure art. It was pure art with filthy money behind it.

Other than that, he sounds just like the writers in this “ZEN” book I constantly refer to, which Richard Dutcher recommended to me – and I like what I hear. Haggis doesn’t say it’s easy, he says it’s a lot of work, but he says to go with your gut. I should also say, though, that the whole premise of sharing ideas before they are even written in first draft form – sharing them in schools and for example this online-organized writer’s workshop – that goes against what I read in ZEN. There are ideas I’d share with others, and there are ideas I won’t until I’ve got a first draft written.

One more against “doing what has been done before” – what is one of the major complaints about films? That too many of them are FORMULAIC. What does this imdb reviewer of Napolean Dynamite have to say positively about it?

I think where the film ultimately succeeds, aside from the casting of Heder, is that it doesn’t fall into the traps of predictability and stereotyping.

Whatever the writer’s gut tells them to do will be original. Actually, that could mean doing something that has been done before. Maybe in a different way, but still.

Oy. So, a first draft.. oh yeah. That’s why I went to get a program that will output screenwriting format (right now there’s Haggis again at that page: he’s hot, he’s everywhere, he’s the Indie Hero); ZEN recommended writing 120-ish pages of pure rubbish in screenwriting format to defeat the fear of the written page. That’s what I need to do, and that’s what I’m going to do.

I am also reading another indespensable book on independent film marketing: THE COMPLETE INDEPENDENT MOVIE MARKETING HANDBOOK. Though I have the same singular criticism for it that I have for the (afore-linked) PRODUCER’S BUSINESS HANDBOOK – it takes formula way too seriously – I emphasise that it is indespensable.

Lastly, I haven’t forgotten the other two books I mention here (though I haven’t finished reading them), one of which an anonymous commenter mentioned helped him get his first film off the ground, picked up by Fox Searchlight. Who left that comment? One of the folks who made Napolean Dynamite?

Look at this! Look at this entry! LONG! This is my contract with the world.

Wandering through the wastes of the ruined world, they encountered the machines. Hallowed in chambers of dark and abandoned dustiness, as the Creatures plugged in their electrolimbs, the machines whirred back to life. Relay after relay across the land, they revived the interconnections, and mindscaping the electronics and codes, they deciphered the meanings, unlocked the vast internetwork, and found what used to mirror the great life of the civilization. The messages, the meanings, and the struggles came alive in their minds, and it was Chlonthluthlu who first posted a message through the network:

“I sympathize with the plight of the Democrats.”
And Nachtholab replied: “I hate you.”

I found this animated image (1.4 MB download – you’ll have to wait on a slow connection). I don’t know where it’s from. I think it’s very funny.