Quotes

[Amy] Nicholson astutely connects Eyes Wide Shut back to Interview with the Vampire through their intentionally strained eroticism, which serves to acknowledge the films’ respective true theme of the capitalist power that lingers under the superficial sexual roleplay. This, in turn, underlines the great irony of Cruise’s career: that his weirdest and most original performances, particularly in these two films, are often panned because they entail subtly blunt trickery that involves the deliberate assumption of cold, alienating theatrical tactics that point inward toward their own inherent falseness. These are Cruise’s most daring and revealing turns, rather than the obligatorily “relevant” performances that often win him praise.

Chuck Bowen, Review: Amy Nicholson’s Tom Cruise: Anatomy of an Actor

And here, the biggest lesson of them all, and a summation of all the problems.

You are in the way of your story.

Hard truth: writing is actually not that important.

Writing is a mechanism.

It’s an inelegant middleman to what we do. It’s a shame, in some ways, that we even call ourselves writers, because it describes only the mechanical act of what we do. It’s a vital mechanism, sure, but by describing it as the prominent thing, it tends to suggest, well, prominence.

But our writing must serve story.

Story does not serve writing.

This is cart-before-horse stuff, but important to realize.

Listen, in what we do there exist three essential participants.

We have:

The tale, the teller of the tale, and the listener of the tale.

Story. Author. And audience.

That’s it.

You are two-thirds of that equation. You are the story (or, by proxy, its architect) and the teller of the story. The telling of the story is most often done through writing — through that mechanical act, and because it’s the act you can sit and watch, it’s the one that is used to describe our role. I AM WRITER, you say, and so you focus so much on the actual writing you forget that there’s this other invisible — but altogether more critical — part, which is what you’re writing.

So, what happens is, early on, you put so much on the page. You write and write and write and use too many words and too much exposition and big meaty paragraphs and at the end all it serves to do is create distance between the tale and the listener of the tale.

It keeps the audience at arm’s length.

Quit that shit.

Bring the audience into the story. This is at the heart of show, don’t tell — which is a rule that can and should be broken at times, but at its core remains a reasonable notion: don’t talk at, don’t preach, don’t lecture, don’t fill their time with unnecessary wordsmithy.

Get. To. The. Point.

Chuck Wendig, Five Common Problems I See in Your Stories (via vickiexz)

*mic drop* 

Source: vickiexz

“What an unusual name, Lestat,” she returned. “Does it have a meaning?”

“None whatsoever, Madam,” Lestat answered. “If memory serves me right, and it does less and less, the name’s compounded of the first letter of each of my six older brothers’ names, all of whom – the brothers and their names – I grew up to cheerfully and vigorously despise.”

– The vampire Lestat, Blackwood Farm

So he must have known all his brothers before they died ;A;

Discussing this with viaticumforthemarquise… maybe Augustin (or one of Lestat’s brothers) told him that just to hurt his feelings, like “YOU ARE SO WORTHLESS THAT AT BIRTH OUR PARENTS COULD ONLY MUSTER THE CREATIVITY TO TAKE A LETTER FROM EACH OF OUR NAMES” *SLAPS*

Lestat: *screaming internally*

They told him this at a young age … and he never questioned it.

Find a beautiful piece of art. If you fall in love with Van Gogh or Matisse or John Oliver Killens, or if you fall love with the music of Coltrane, the music of Aretha Franklin, or the music of Chopin – find some beautiful art and admire it, and realize that that was created by human beings just like you, no more human, no less.

Maya Angelou, you will be missed. (via hydeordie)

I do not know why I go on. I do not search for truth. I do not believe in it. I hope for no ancient secrets from you, whatever they may be. But I believe in something. Maybe simply in the beauty of the world through which I wander or in the will to live itself. This gift was given to me too early. It was given for no good reason. And already at the age of thirty mortal years, I have some understanding as to why so many of our kind have wasted it, given it up. Yet I continue. And I search for you.

The Vampire Lestat

Los movimientos humanos poseen elegancia. Hay sabiduría en la carne, en el modo en que hace las cosas el cuerpo humano. Me gusta el ruido de mis pies al tocar el suelo, el tacto de los objetos entre mis dedos.

Marius (via jardinsalvaje)

“Human movements possess elegance. There is wisdom in the flesh, in the way he does things the human body. I like the sound of my feet to touch the ground, touch the objects in my fingers.”