PRACTICE BREEDS EXCELLENCE

It’s a little disturbing that I am now old enough to refer to “young people.” I guess I have reached that age where “young people” no longer see me as part of their pack (and vice versa). I remember quite clearly being a college student, but I am now a college professor. I remember taking finals, but now I write them. Because I am currently perceived as someone with a little wisdom, I feel a sense of responsibility to live up to the part.

TIGER WOODS, AGED 2, ON THE MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW
As an educator, I encourage my students to figure out their professional interests sooner than later. The earlier you can determine what you like in life, the sooner you can begin building expertise. There is an extremely old video of Tiger Woods on the Mike Douglas Show hitting a golf ball at the age of two. Essentially, Tiger has been playing golf since he learned to walk. For most of us to develop a true expertise, decades are required. This is the reason we need to begin delving into our craft the moment we take note of what that craft is.

THE ART OF WRITING SCREENPLAYS
It’s hard to believe that I first began writing screenplays in the 90’s. At that time, I didn’t know what I do now, so I naturally thought I would become a great screenwriter with my first effort. I remember someone once telling me that most screenwriters write ten screenplays before they sell one. This not only seemed crazy, it seemed impossible. Certainly no one would reach success if that kind of effort was required. Now that I’m older and wiser, I know this isn’t so farfetched. Writers write and with each project they become stronger, faster and better. The greats like Amadeus Mozart and Johann Sebastian Bach were known for obsessing over their music, as I’m sure many athletic greats have been known to do. “Practice makes perfect” is cliché, but there is truth in every cliché.

WHEN IT SPEAKS TO YOU, YOU'VE ARRIVED
Last year, as I was finishing my first novel, “The Unveiling,” I became aware that I was stuck in a loop. I had completed the first draft and was continuing with rewrites. With each pass, I became a better writer, and the draft improved, but it was still never good enough for my liking. It took a while before I realized what was going on. By the time I got to the end of each pass, I had become a better writer, so nothing I’d written before was good enough. It occurred to me that this cycle could continue indefinitely. The more I wrote, the more I would improve, so I’d never be satisfied with anything I’d written in the past. Somewhere in the midst of all of that, my expertise as a writer transitioned. My skill crossed the line into professional level prose.

It probably sounds strange, but after I made that realization, certain words began speaking to me. While editing, I would stumble across a word that would trouble me in a way I didn’t immediately understand. Finally, I took note that these words were speaking to me, telling me, “I am not the right choice for the idea you’re trying to convey.” It took me really quieting down to listen to what these words were saying. Sadly, they hardly ever suggested what the right words were, but they would announce to me that I needed to keep looking until I found what best expressed my idea. I believe when your craft begins to speak to you in this way, you can truly say you have developed expertise. But the amount of work you’ll need to achieve this will likely be equivalent to finishing 10 screenplays before you sell one. For this reason, the best advice I can offer is to enjoy what you do, stay patient and keep at it.

TO LEARN MORE OR TO READ AN EXCERPT
of my sci-fi/fantasy/adventure novel, “The Unveiling: 1.0,” please visit TheUnveilingSeries.com.

OH SAY CAN YOU SING...

BEYONCE AT THE 2013 INAUGURATION
There has been so much hubbub about Beyonce lip-synching the National Anthem. If indeed she chose not to sing live, I have to admit I'm a little curious why. At the same time, it's not like the Milli Vanilli revelation. Whether she sang live or not, that was her voice and Beyonce did "perform," even if it was, as RuPaul always says, that she was "lip-synching for her life."

All of this "National Anthem" talk has me thinking about other memorable performances like the ones by Roseanne Barr and Whitney Houston. A couple of renditions that you may not remember were performed by track star, Carl Lewis and R&B legend, Marvin Gaye.

Carl Lewis screeches the National Anthem
To see highlights of Carl Lewis and giggling ESPN commentators, please click here.

Marvin Gaye croons the National Anthem
To see one of the best performances ever of the National Anthem, as sung by Marvin Gaye, please click here.

About K. L. Collins
I am an author and a college professor of screenwriting for both television and film. To learn more about my newest sci-fi, fantasy, action-adventure novel, "The Unveiling: 1.0," please visit: TheUnveilingSeries.com.

THE LIVING OR THE LIVING DEAD?

This week, I saw the trailer for “Warm Bodies,” a zombie love story that will be released next month. If I’m going to be honest, I have to admit my initial reaction was one of disbelief. A zombie love story! Really? But then I thought about it and realized I should have expected this a long time ago. The zombie craze re-emerged in 2002 with “28 Days Later.” This movie’s success led to the remake of “Dawn of the Dead” and the more comedic “Shaun of the Dead” in 2004. “28 Weeks Later” would follow in 2007 and “Zombieland” in 2009. The “Resident Evil” franchise would also come to the big screen and “The Walking Dead” would find its way to the small screen. Zombie stories are the rage and if I had thought realistically about it, I should have known it would only be a matter of time before there was a zombie love story.

So, why are we fascinated with zombies? This question has been on my mind for quite some time. Last week, a potential answer occurred to me. In my screenwriting classes, I encourage my students to write from experience because the stories we create are simply analogies for real life. The protagonist, or the hero of any story, is really us. We watch or read these stories to see characters triumph over adversity. In essence, we are relating to these characters because we hope to be similar to them in the challenges of our own lives. When misfortunes occur, we wish to overcome them just as the heroes do in the stories we read or watch on the big or small screen.

AND THE REAL ZOMBIES ARE...
Then it occurred to me! Zombies are so popular because they are also analogies to real life. Zombies represent the majority of society – the masses of people who are stumbling through their lives in jobs they don’t like or relationships they don’t respect. How many of us have said, “I wish I could...” but instead continue to do things that don’t make us happy? We are in fact the zombies of today. Society has given us all a script regardless of whether or not we are truly right for the part. We are told when we finish high school that we should go to college, get jobs and then marry and have families. While this is a fantastic path that I support, there is no single direction in life that is tailored to fit everyone. For many of us, surrendering to this “script” transforms us into zombies, urging us to march blindly down a path that is not our own. As Shakespeare wrote so many years ago:

“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man...”

Today, I urge everyone, as long as it doesn’t infringe upon or lessen the experience of others; don’t wish you could, rather know you should do what you are passionate about. The Mayans predicted that the end of 2012 would mark the beginning of a great awakening. We must all take ownership of our own realities. We must know that we are the survivors and not the zombies of our own destinies.

To view a trailer for the next blockbuster zombie pic, "World War Z," please click here.

I WROTE A BOOK!
To learn more about Volume One
of my Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Action-adventure series, “The Unveiling,”
please visit the website at TheUnveilingSeries.com.

Let's Conversate On It...

ONLY IF YOU BELIEVE IT...
Whether you consider yourself religious or spiritual is not really the point. Most would still agree that a common belief system is what brings things into existence. We call the sky blue because we have all agreed to this belief. Words, in fact, exist because, at some point, we have all agreed to them. For years, I cringed when I heard the word “conversate” because I knew this was not a word. Little by little, conversate has crept into existence and has been used by so many people until Merriam Webster finally validated it by placing it in the dictionary. Because so many people believed it to be a word, conversate has become verbal reality. If tomorrow, we all agreed that the color of the sky was much closer to purple, this would also become an accepted truth.

BUT THE WORLD DIDN'T END...
Things exist because we believe they do. Just a few weeks ago, I spoke to a very good friend. He was convinced that the world would come to an end with the finish of the Mayan Calendar. When I questioned him, he admitted that he had purchased a “disaster kit” and had also requested time off work to escape to safer ground, as they did in the movie “2012.” I am sure when he reads this post, he will know who I am referring to. Several years ago, I assured him that the Mayans never predicted the end of the world but rather predicted the end of the world as we know it. The Mayans prophesied that 2012 would usher in the end of materialism, which some might argue is not a bad thing. I feel it’s important that we acknowledge our negative thoughts. If we continue to think pessimistically, we bring negativity into existence and make that negativity real. It’s also important to know that we can all create positivity by simply agreeing that goodness exists. So, what will you choose for 2013? Will you be the light that illuminates the day? Or will you choose to be the shade that creates shadows of darkness in life? The choice is entirely up to you.

Happy New Year, everyone! To read my Sci-fi/Fantasy/Adventure book on the world's elite, please visit: TheUnveilingSeries.com

Is The New World Order Just More Of The Same Old Thing?

AS THE YEAR WINDS DOWN...
To those of you who have enjoyed my blog, you should know I greatly appreciate you. When I first started blogging back in 2009, I admit the process felt foreign to me. I had to learn how to organize my thoughts differently. But it was fulfilling, learning how to articulate myself in a different fashion.

While 2012 was not a great year for the blog, it was terrifically productive in many other ways. As you may know, I was absent from the blog in order to finish my book, The Unveiling: 1.0:

Completing this book was a phenomenal task. Just recently, I have spoken to two authors who are working on their first books. When I hear them say things like “It’ll just take me a few more months and then I’ll be done,” I have to smile because I know things don’t go quite the way we expect.

When I first began The Unveiling, I figured I’d be able to wrap things up in a year or so. 18 months later, I had completed a manuscript but it was so terribly rough. I also made quite a few storytelling mistakes that cost me hundreds of hours to fix. Now, it’s three years later and I am finally done! Because The Unveiling is a series, I have to begin working on Volume 2.0 very soon. I think (or at least I hope) I will finish this second book in a shorter time frame, especially since I have learned from some of the mistakes I fumbled in the first one.

Over the past 18 years, I have written quite a few screenplays and I have been produced as a television screenwriter. Writing a book was a different kind of writing, however, just like the blog was. I had to learn the ropes, but the experience has left me feeling as if I’ve found my niche. I suppose I have always been a novelist and learning to be a screenwriter was just part of my formation. So far, nearly everyone who has given me feedback, including my editor, has said they can visualize the story as a movie, which makes perfect sense given my writing background.

THE BILDERBERG GROUP AND THE COMMITTEE OF 300
For those of you who don’t know, The Unveiling was inspired by my fascination with organizations like “The Bilderberg Group” or “The Committee of 300.” In modern times, most people would say members of these groups belong to the one percent. They are extremely powerful and influential people who possess most of the world’s wealth. Many believe members of these groups control the world even in countries where democracies exist. To that I have added Sumerian Mythology, one of the world’s oldest stories. Anyone who has studied Sumerian Mythology knows it is terribly similar to the story of “Genesis” in the Old Testament. The major difference involves extra-terrestrials in place of God. If you believe in the Bible (or even if you don’t), the story is terribly compelling. I hope you will enjoy it. The Unveiling: 1.0 is available in paperback, Nook, Kindle and iBook. To learn more or to purchase a copy, please visit: TheUnveilingSeries.com

"The Unveiling: 1.0" has finally arrived!

It's hard to believe, but my book is finally done!

"The Unveiling: 1.0" is the first book of a series based on the Anunnaki of Sumerian Mythology. If you've watched "Ancient Aliens" on The History Channel, of if you've read any books by Erich Von Daniken or David Icke, then you might have an idea how the story will unfold. This project has been 3 years in the making, so I hope you'll like it. Any day now, I will be starting on "The Unveiling: 2.0," the followup to this first novel. 1.0 has only been on sale for a couple of weeks, but preliminary reviews are trickling in as my first readers are finishing. While the stories are very different, many people are comparing "The Unveiling" to Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code." To learn more, or to get your copy on paperback, Nook, Kindle or iBook, please visit: TheUnveilingSeries.com Happy holidays and I hope you enjoy the book!

Commercially Yours

In light of the Super Bowl and its legendary commercials, I figured today’s topic was timely. Now that I have Netflix, I have grown accustomed to commercial free viewing when I watch series television. While I don’t have a DVR, I still find myself trying to pause live TV, a habit I developed from watching Netflix and DVD’s.

I must admit I was a little perplexed when I stumbled across Alexandra Wentworth’s comedy series “Head Case.” The first episode I watched was 11 minutes long. The length perplexed me since TV shows are formatted to be a half hour, an hour, or a movie length of 2 hours. When you watch an hour-long drama without commercials, they tend to be between 40 and 42 minutes long. This means an hour-long TV show will have anywhere from 18 to 20 minutes of commercials. This is one-third of the viewing time spent watching commercials. If this formula were used for a half-hour show, you would expect there to be roughly 10 minutes of commercial viewing and 20 minutes of the actual show. Once again, the 11-minute length of Head Case confused me. If this was a true time frame, it meant two-thirds of the viewing time was dedicated to commercials while only a third of the time slot was dedicated to the actual show. Huh?

As it turns out, “Head Case” was developed for the Starz cable network. From what I can gather, Starz doesn’t have commercials, which explains the 11-minute format. With that said, I still wonder how the show will be syndicated. Perhaps, they will double up on episodes, although some of the later episodes actually did approach roughly 20-minutes. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how that plays out.

Noticing these discrepancies brought a larger question to mind. Is it the intention of the television networks that we watch their shows or the commercials that are interspersed between them? Back when my mom was alive and we were both in California, I would visit each Saturday. I still remember her muting the television during commercial breaks because in her words, “The commercials drive me crazy”.

In the past year, I confess I have begun to do the same thing, muting the television each time commercials appear. I am often fascinated by the synchronicity of the networks. More often than not, if you change the channel during a commercial, you land on another commercial. How do they manage to do this so consistently? Truthfully, I know the answer to this question. For the most part, TV shows are similarly structured into six acts. As such, the commercials will tend to occur simultaneously across all of the networks.

Most of us find this aspect of television annoying, which is why the DVR’s arrival has been a particular challenge to advertisers and networks. When we record our shows, we can easily zip through commercial breaks. Advertisers deplore this idea. In the old days, we would run to the bathroom or get snacks during commercials. This is the reason the volume blares much higher at these times. You can still hear the name of the product or catchy lyrics that you will hopefully remember while you are in the grocery store or shopping for some other product.

I still recall how absurd I thought “The Running Man” was with Arnold Schwarzenegger. While it was released in the late 80’s, it was a portrait of a futuristic world overrun by edgy, life threatening game shows and corporate advertisers. At the time, I thought it a far-fetched concept but in many ways it has come to fruition. Shows like Fear Factor, The Amazing Race and Survivor flood the airwaves with a slue of commercials and infomercials, brainwashing us to consume. Today, I write only to reflect. Is it the commercials or the shows being sold to us? Do we go out and consume what we want, what we need, or the things advertisers tell us we need? Hm.... Happy Super Bowl everybody!

I HAVE WRITTEN A BOOK! TO LEARN MORE OR TO READ AN EXCERPT
of my sci-fi/fantasy/adventure novel, “The Unveiling: 1.0,” please visit TheUnveilingSeries.com.