Showing posts with label 24h Playwriting 2008. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 24h Playwriting 2008. Show all posts

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Black Holes and Lucid Dreams










2 parts to the following post: first is emo, second bit is about lucid dreaming.


I don't have my own blog, so I feel compelled to dump here.

Things move fast eh? On Friday I went to school to study. I was hoping to get some pictures of the Sec 4 classrooms and desks before leaving forever. I was dismayed when I found that the classrooms were all clean. Our little post-it notes and blu-tacked pictures had all been removed. All classes. In 4/6 there was a picture of a Sec 3 class. Except those Sec 3s are Sec 4s now, and we Sec 4s are nowhere. I sat in 4/6 (I have a fondness for teacher's tables) for a while, trying to study F&N. But alas, it was time to lock up the classrooms and I went downstairs to sit at the place Mikana used to sit at, and watched Mr Leong give rousing speeches to people I couldn't recognize at all. One day we won't recognize the younger generation at all. We'll be like our parents, misunderstanding our children completely then having to bow out and watch from afar as our kids enter puberty and live a separate life. That is if we have children at all.

Compared to my primary school, my secondary school has been very decent. It's nice that I can worry about who's my friend instead of who's my enemy. And my parents have steadily been giving up on trying to make any sort of impact in my life. It's kind of sad, but I have space. What do I do with that space? Honestly I haven't been doing much. It's a carryover trait from the primary school days, when I would jump at the chance to forget how miserable I was by spamming computer games. But the space is never quite filled.

Last week I went for the 24-hour playwriting competition prize presentation. But it appears that I really did get lucky the first time (first-place script was indeed deserving of 700 bucks). Nope, no runner-up or merit prizes for me either. There's this BBC Radio Playwriting Competition. I have to finish a radio play by March. Very prestigious. And I have a ticket into DPA. A machinima project in the works. I have a lot of half-completed, half-realized ideas. But it's all space if I don't do anything about it.


Mikana being friendly to me created a lot of complications. Becomes difficult to classify. Just eye candy, or treat as someone I know? I tried to stop all the nonsense, but when I did, I noticed that my porn folder just grew bigger (the porn also ventured into more extreme regions). I tried to do both and it really epic failed. There's this space here that has to be filled. But you know what? I'm not amoral (contrary to what I thought earlier). I just have morals and views that aren't socially accepted. So I'm not going to the prom (it's a failprom anyway), not even to see Mikana. I figure porn is better.

2/7 'o6. It's funny how those first two years were pretty fucking rocky, yet it was the best class ever, ever ever. Monday/Tuesday I'm going back to the classrooms and try to take pictures of the desk graffiti.

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After I wrote my last post (the one about hentai lovers bizarrely rushing to defend the honour of rape victims), I went to sleep.

It was 4.30. Very very late indeed.

I sneezed a bit, took a few bouts of sleep paralysis, and then, ladies and gentlemen, I began to become properly aware I was dreaming. While in the dream itself.

It's not easy to hold together the fabric of the dream itself after that. Naturally when you come back to yourself, you automatically try to get a feel for your limbs, get a feel for everything, like OMG AM I BREATHING? WHERE ARE MY LEGS? And the dream kind of falls apart after that.

But this time, I guess my automatic responses were dulled (I was VERY sleepy). So somehow, I "woke up" in my dream and attained lucidity, by simply not thinking about where my legs were too much, and focussed on keeping my mind and the dream together.

Some thoughts flew out of control, and one manifested itself into a laughing Joker (Heath Ledger style, though I've never seen Dark Knight) that was reallllly unnerving, since it felt out of my control. I concentrated and turned it into a laughing Batman. Lol. Then I continued to turn it into less and less scary laughing things.

Despite having looked at some *ahem* just a few hours before, I didn't encounter anything particularly erotic or massively fuxpro. I did manage to focus on Mikana and bring up a very clear picture of her face, but for some reason didn't or couldn't go further to try and recreate her personality, her body, etc. Within the dream I COULD consult my memories to verify.

The default "template" for the dreamscape seemed to be dusty black, reminiscent of a black chalkboard. After a while I began to lose my grip on reality, and let my imagination take the wheel and throw me about aimlessly. I do however recall multiple instances where I was talking to someone and suddenly the lower half of my body floated up while my upper half remained locked in the air. And seeing the rest of my roomthrough half-lidded eyes (though this could also be imagination at work). Lololol.

Oh yeah, and there was one where one of the girls from our school (whom I know distantly) served me food and stuff. It was like a valentine's day present or something (LOL WTF), and JC was there too, which made it funny for reasons I can't remember. Not part of the lucid dream (as I believed what was happening) but lol nonetheless.

Hopefully I can recreate this again and reattain lucidity in at least some of my dreams. So far, my awareness of the dream and the capabilities of my imagination don't seem to mesh very well. I've heard of people gaining such control over their dreamscapes that they become a god in their world and can pull all sorts of crap for their own amusement. Some actually practise real-life stuff in there, like shooting hoops and riding bikes. And of course epic sexual fantasies.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Underemergency

The reason it's not "The Unemergency" anymore is because unemergency hints that it's not an emergency; it is. Just that some characters in the play refuse to recognize it as such, doesn't undermine the facts. Underemergency has a link to the word understatement so it's better for the themes I'm pushing. Many pacing problems in it, but hell:

DOWNLOAD LINK

Wish I'd changed the title before I submitted it. Top prize of $700 will go into our Europe trip if the competition hasn't hiked up much from last year. It's a sorry-ass, shit-laced, pessimistic playscript about Peak Oil, written in less than 24 hours so don't expect A Midsummer Night's Dream. As promised, the word 'oil' is hardly mentioned. It looks at how the complacent, pampered attitude works in a close-to apocalyptic world.

One fascinating thing about Underemergency is that the night after I finished it, I couldn't sleep. I closed my eyes for a few minutes and I woke up, heart pounding. I felt terrified and desolate. I was thinking about death, and a shitty future, and dying alone, and living alone, and death again. I couldn't stop myself going into a frenzy about it. I had to get up and switch on the light, and read a book (it was nonfiction, mind you) to get rid of that black hole in me that had suddenly opened up and was sucking me in. I managed to calm myself eventually, but my, it was freaky. I didn't feel like that at any point at all during the competition. Maybe it was Underemergency, maybe it was the sleep deprivation, maybe it was the withdrawal from human contact. Oh well...



Battlestar Galactica for the win!

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Fucking finished

Last stimulus: Taxi Cab

Submitted 10 minutes before deadline. Unemergency isn't going to be something I'm going to hang on my wall, to put it lightly, but it is a lot better than Heavy White Turtle in my opinion.

Will upload and post link when I get past the deluge of homework that I haven't done.

7 hours 20 minutes left

Just went on a walk all over Joo Chiat Road and it's satellite lanes. Was imagining how all the nice cultural buildings would look post-Peak Oil when this funny guy recognized me as the winner from last year. He was one of those people that got too friendly ("You're really smart right?"), so I bolted("What are you writing about??").

Play not moving along fast enough, and I haven't pulled off enough "moments" yet. Spending the night has made me feel really sleepy, despite double coffee servings.

Joo Chiat smells like dogshit. After Peak Oil I suspect it would be manshit.

11 hours 40 minutes left

I'm more than halfway through the time limit. I need to go faster.

I finished the outline the character journeys of each member of my ensemble cast outside (battery ran out and I had to come back in), plus the first two scenes. The next bit will be tricky; the middle part always is.

Half the people here are sleeping, or look fucking sleepy. Maybe they've become immune to coffee from years of constant use, because I'm rather sprightly now, at 4 in the morning. Wish I could get you pictures of that hot chick, the night sky, and my cock, but I gotta return to my writing.

And they just ran out of toilet paper. Luckily I brought my own. ^__^

15 hours 30 minutes left

We all lined up with a piece of tissue paper; at the head of the line was the man who would give us our third stimulus. After assuring us all he wouldn't be secreting or squirting any body fluids, he dripped a few drops of something into my tissue. Apparently, the third stimulus is a smell.

This one was very open to interpretation. It smelled orangey, acidic, scratchy. I'm sure there's an use for it.

My outline is moving forward, but I have to start writing the real thing soon.

In other news: I noticed a chick that's cute in the same way as Mikana, but nevertheless I moved downstairs to this deserted restaurant called Quentins. The atmosphere is FUXPRO. Right now I'm sitting at a dark wooden dining table. Directly above me is night sky and a single visible star. To my right is Ceylon Road, which cars breathe past every few seconds. Ferns and oppressive trees all around. If the traffic dies down during the night this'll be perfect.

Internet is shit out here, so this post comes late.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

20 hours left

The second stimulus was given out an hour ago. It's "Beijing".

Cements the Peak Oil story. I can play it like a disaster movie without the CGI. The focus won't be on Peak Oil, but on how Singaporean ignorance and complacency is so completely fucking useless to the average individual in times of serious crisis.

The slacking around here seems to have died down. People are going into corners to write notes and I can hear typing. On my end, research is going along on how Peak Oil will hit Singaporeans, and China(I need to integrate Beijing into this).

I'm starting to get into things. Will update again in a bit.

2 hours 30 minutes

They serve dinner at 6. WTF? I eat at 8!

I've walked around looking at what some other people are doing in the early stages.

A few people are writing/taking notes by hand
Someone's watching anime (and other stuff, judging by some people's expressions)
There're a group of four guys who've been gossiping for about an hour in a corner
A woman 's telling two other girls that actually we can request to go outside the competition venue... eat laksa, go 7-eleven...
Spamming free muffins into themselves
A dude across me is reading a thick book called "Empress Orchid"
drinking tea

Some funny things I can remember from last year:
One woman was playing MapleStory
A guy snored... really fucking loudly
A teenaged guy putting his head on a girl's lap (think they know each other?)
rampant toilet sodomy (finally an event where I did more than just watch)



Still waiting for second stimulus. Meanwhile, I've compiled a list of possible storylines:

Partition – In an uncompromising society that is defined formally by ‘levels’, and has locked down its children for fear that they be drafted into revolutionary groups, Syrene and Teja bond in a regimental tuition centre despite their social outcast status and relationships being prohibited at their age. They work to overcome their past crimes, though their memories of it have been purged from them. Josh, Teja’s rival, begins to understand the flaws behind the system, though his parents share a very different view. Samesh, the tuition teacher, is an outspoken critic of the current system, though he abides by it dutifully. Swee Chin is Teja’s legal guardian, committed to ensuring his ‘safe’ development. A natural disaster comes along, forcing everyone to make choices.

Protection Group – In a rough neighbourhood of people oppressed by gangs, a group bands together, determined to fix the situation. Though somewhat successful, they begin to be tainted by their harsh experiences and slowly become what they once stood against.

Peak Oil – A middle-class Singaporean family receives a nasty shock to their complacency and struggles not to lose its luxuries and each other as the world economy spirals into oblivion as world oil supplies dip and dip.

Car - A man gives up his life to start a new one aventuring in a car (or doing some other wacky adventurous thing)

Credits to Panzer for the car idea.

29 minutes

I nearly missed it.

It is a testament to my careless and forgetful nature when I dump in at 2008’s 24hr playwriting competition at 15:59, one minute from the start time, without an indemnity form and without formal parental consent, having only informed them of today’s event an hour before. Maybe I didn’t want to wake up father up because I didn’t want to talk to him. Maybe I was overconfident about being able to reach the venue on time. Maybe I just forgot, like I forgot so many other important things. All that matters is not that I’m here, but it is the most paramount task I have right now, because of the time pressure.

Less than 23 hours to pull off a winning script – I say winning because it would be a shit in the face if I grab anything lower than second place. Last year could very well have been a fluke, I admit that. Maybe the competition was weak then. Maybe I’ll be facing real playwrights now. Regardless, writing is not just my niche; it’s going to be my life.

The participants will be provided stimuli that they will have to include in their scripts. Stimuli may take the form of an object, a snatch of dialogue, even a sensation (last year they made us drink some tasteless tea).

Last year’s first and second stimuli had me pondering in circles fruitlessly for roughly seven hours before I began to really type. I think I’ll wait for the second stimuli before I seriously pick my direction and start running. I don’t want to have to reconsider my whole convoy of creativity unless I have to.

I have some roughly preconceived ideas this year. First stimulus seems simple enough. It’s dialogue: “I don’t know. It has always been like this.”

A short list of what I’m packing:

This laptop (the same one I used last time, thanks Ms Zee)

A couple of unused ideas

My playlist

Headphones

An useless goodie bag, except for the free mug

My collection of Mikana pics (I was going to bring porn, but what if I get disqualified?)

Island Voices (School Literature text)

A wireless connection

A dictionary

Thesaurus

Rhyming dictionary

Malay-English and English-Malay dictionary

Toilet Paper

12 bucks

2 thumbdrives

Stationery

Umbrella

My list of ship names (posted in Pebble Fort before)

And over 9000 spartans.