Brian Trent dot com

Mornings are getting chillier. You can feel summer winding down, and we’re about to turn the corner into one of my favorite seasons.

Last weekend, I went horseback riding with my girlfriend throughout some wooded trails here in Connecticut. It had been a few years since I’d done that, and of course I imagined I was astride Pegasus for a while… before I realized how impractical it would be to actually ride a winged horse. Forget about inertia for a moment; where do you hang your legs while its feathery wings are beating the air?

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I’ve made more progress with the screenplay I’m writing with my friend Damian Dydyn. It isn’t easy finding an effective collaborative partner; lots of writers don’t work well together. I’ve been fortunate to have met some very talented people who don’t let ego get in the way of their art. We plot together, give and take, compromise, negotiate, debate, and through it all, the screenplay moves forward. Usually the only bump in the road we get is when we try to come up with names for our characters. Or that great challenge of naming the screenplay when it’s all over.

I have the same trouble with books. Titles come last for me.

But as to the writing process itself, I have read many interviews with writers and have to say I don’t believe I’m related to them. Here’s a snippet from one of my unpublished novels about the writing process, creative collaborations, and the author’s fever:

The few writers I’ve met personally are tranquil bastards.

While still in high school, I attended the local book-signing of a popular novelist. She looked like the Queen of Sheba in her plush chair. She sipped her tea. She spoke about the writing process, and it went something like this:

The writer sits at her desk, calmly typing away at the typewriter. The rhythm is almost musical, lulling like ocean surf. It is the sound of order. The writer straightens pushes her glasses up on the bridge of her nose, and decides to take a break to enjoy the golden afternoon.

“Darling,” she calls to the kitchen, “Bring out the ice tea and join me on the porch, would you? ‘Tis a glorious afternoon that fills me with the dazzling light of existence!”

During the Q&A, I raised my hand and asked her to elaborate on the writing process itself.

“A writer reaches deep into the collective soul,” she told the enrapt audience, “And learns how to tap that well. It’s like magic! You put your mind out there, and you reach into the collective ocean.”

I left wondering what the hell was in that tea she was sipping.

A few years later I met another tranquil bastard. This fellow was grey-haired and possessed all the gravity of a Teddy Bear. His voice was like honey mixed with copious amounts of Prozac. He spoke about writing as if he was in a peyote trance. I remember noticing, with a great deal of alarm, that he also was drinking tea.

I left both incidents in a bewildered haze. Because I don’t write like that.

In my friend’s seaside house, we set up camp on the water-stained grey carpet of a barren living room. Three laptops are plugged in and become individual creative stations like refreshment stands in a marathon race. On another table is a pot of coffee set to boil, assorted snacks, and a jar of pencils. Each one of us is armed with notebook and pencil like gladiators, stepping into the arena.

We who are about to write salute you!

The coffeepot shrieks.

We’re off!

I strike the laptop keys like pummeling an enemy. We leap onto couches, shadow-box with devils, avoid chariots and weapons-fire. We hop to each station, shifting genres as we do, becoming different people as we do, cursing, dancing about like goblins at a midnight Sabbath, hurling javelins into the heavens to encourage a rainfall of ichor.

I know nothing of peaceful writing… even when I’m alone. The art of creating is beautiful torture, flesh-hooks hoisting us above an altar pit until the stone below us has imbibed enough of our blood.

When our stomachs rumble we order pizzas and soda, and between bite and guzzle we keep writing, the crust crumbs on our lips, speaking half-conscious in our frenzy of production. Pages are written, revised, shaped, chiseled, polished like working on a new sculpture. They spring out of our notebooks, like caged tigers finally let loose for a night of carnage.

The daylight beyond our fort turns into scarlet sunset, then into blue gloom.

The hammering of the keys is like Vulcan’s forge. My fingertips feel numb after several hours of this. We glisten in sweat, faces flush, eyes glittering.

Maybe it’s because I don’t drink tea.

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Oh, I have a new Public Profile on Facebook . I’ll be using it, and of course this site, to discuss some new film and writing projects I’m involved in.

I write historicals and contemporaries, poetry and even science-fiction. I love ancient Rome as much as the mysterious days of tomorrow’s calendars. As I reflected on what to submit to the Public Profile, I was stricken with the desire to post – on a job search site – an honest resume. Because let’s face it – we’re lying Deceptacons when it comes to our resumes.

No one’s really honest on their resumes. If they were, few would get hired. For example, most people who apply for a customer service position would write something like: Seeking a challenging company in which I can grow and find a fulfilling future.

The honest answer would be: Seeking a job that allows me to pay the bills while I secretly work to free myself from the rat race and do the things I want to do. Your company seems to fit the bill.

Just to inject a healthy dose of honesty into the mix, I uploaded my Honest Resume.

Job objective?

“To join together with other creative artists and bring about a new Renaissance of ideas and freethinking.”

Education?

“Scraped knees, books, foreign countries, climbing Mount Fuji, beloved friends, hated enemies, movies, scars, B. A. in English Literature and Creative Writing, Master’s Degree in Education, fights, video games, parents, teachers, diaries, lovers, self-reflection, strangers, graffiti, music, dreams, debates, photographs, museums, parks, beaches, mountains, and thunderstorms. Especially thunderstorms.”

References?

“Anyone I’ve ever known.”

The funny thing is that since doing it, I’ve been getting automated emails suggesting I apply for management positions at Petco. Hell, maybe the pet thing is a front for a delightful creative cabal bent on sparking a new age of the arts. Or maybe they just have really unique pets. Like a Pegasus.

One final note for this week in history: Mount Vesuvius erupted, buried Pompeii on the 24th, and killed Pliny the Elder. On the 26th, his body was found beneath the ashes.

Random Fact:

The Red Spot on Jupiter is a hurricane that’s three times the size of the Earth, and has been raging for about three hundred years.

Quote of the Day:

“Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies. “

Aristotle