Month: July 2012

Writing

Is Memoir Writing Self-Indulgent?

Chrys Buckley

WritingIt certainly feels that way at times. When I’m writing memoir, I’m my own main character, my life is the plot, my predilections become the theme, the story is from my perspective and all the characters’ voices are in some ways filtered through my own.

But on the other hand, memoir writing can be like a crucible. When you are writing memoir and really digging into it, it can be excruciating. Your embarrassing moments are laid bare. And so are your faults. You have to look at yourself in a real way, and it can be scary and really hard to do.

In fact, I know that’s held me back on my latest memoir project. I’ve known for a long time that I wanted to tell a particular story, tentatively titled A Case of You, but it has been hard to get started and keep going on the story because I know there are parts of myself that I’ll have to face that I’d rather not acknowledge at all. So many times I’ll start working on bits and pieces of the project, only to stop a few days later and leave it alone for months. Sometimes the thought of facing those darker parts of yourself can feel scarier than almost anything you could encounter in your external life. But memoir writing doesn’t let you get away with running away from it.

Continue reading “Is Memoir Writing Self-Indulgent?” →

Writing

TV Rich and Movie Poor

Chrys Buckley

As I’m sure is glaringly obvious, I watch a lot of TV. But somehow, despite all the time I spend watching Netflix, it’s almost always TV episodes. I don’t make as much time for movies as I used to. And even when I used to watch move movies, it always seemed there were so many good ones I hadn’t seen for any number of reasons.

I want to do more screenwriting, and as with any form of writing, getting better at it means immersing yourself in that form and medium of storytelling. Or I’m just giving myself an excuse to start getting DVDs in the mail from Netflix again (the streaming movie selections are a bit limited) and spend more time watching movies. Either way, I would love some suggestions.

So give me your top five to ten movies (or more!) you think I should see. They can be your favorites, or great examples of a particular genre, or even movies you hate (as a writer, it can be good to familiarize yourself with the not-so-great examples too, and who knows, tastes differ. Or you can have no particular theme or reason at all. Just give me some suggestions, and some descriptions of why if you want, and I’ll start compiling an epic film educational queue.

I’m not saying much about what movies I already love (or hate) b/c I want to be open to all suggestions, but if you’re really curious, I have a faves list on my FB. But since I’m looking to branch out, I just don’t want to limit anything to similar titles or anything like that. Really, all suggestions welcome!

~Chrys

Writing

Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

Chrys Buckley

For anyone who writes stories, makes music or does any sort of creative art, this has to be one of the most common questions you are asked, and one of the most common questions you want to ask others.

Dreaming

It’s a mysterious thing. I think so many people are curious about it, even people who themselves are involved in the creative arts, because it’s not always concrete and logical (those aspects do come into play, of course). Sometimes it’s hard to know exactly where that first seed or flash or image or idea originated.

Sometimes you know. The idea for Total Eclipse of the Heart, which I wrote originally as a short story and am now having fun working into a screenplay, came to me pretty much fully-formed in a dream, including some of the dialogue. Actually in the dream I was taking a screenwriting class (which at that point in time I had never done in real life) and struggling with writers block, then came up with this idea for the story and in the dream I was reworking it and molding it. There were so many details, so many subplots and so much complexity for a story that came from a dream.

That has never happened before or since but it was pretty cool when it did. It kinda made me feel like I had to write the story.

Continue reading “Where Do You Get Your Ideas?” →

Blindness and Disability, Samples, Writing

Reading Eyes and Faces – Seeing and Not Seeing 1

Chrys Buckley

eyeimagesAnd faces—nothing has given me more trouble. Eyes, those most important details of a face, are too small to make out unless I am close enough to make out with someone. I didn’t know what color my last boyfriend’s eyes were until after we had been dating for almost six months. Whenever we were close enough for me to discern their color, he kept his eyes closed. I didn’t see his eyes until we were riding a city bus on our way to a concert on an early May evening, squished next to each other on the seats. He turned slightly to me, the light was just right, and I finally saw out of my right eye that his left was brown with textured traces of gold, simultaneously soft and hard in color.

Last year, I was watching TV on my 24-inch computer monitor, sitting less than a foot away, and saw a close-up of someone rolling her eyes. At thirty, I was seeing that gesture for the first time and it was nothing like I had imagined. Inspired, I wanted to get a glimmer of what it is to read feelings in eyes, so I watched Grey’s Anatomy, scrutinizing characters during emotionally wrought scenes, their faces taking up my whole screen. Though I felt all the feelings from the context, the music, the minute changes in pitch and inflection in their voices and the larger facial gestures, I could see nothing in the eyes.

~~~

This is an excerpt from an essay in which I explore a few different aspects of albinism and blindness.

You can check out other Friday Samples here. And don’t forget you can always check out Published and Older Works for more samples.

~Chrys

Related articles
TV

Awesomely Creative Fan-Made Breaking Bad Media

Chrys Buckley

…that really freakin’ rocks.

Okay, I HAVE to start with this one because it’s just too cool. Someone made all these Breaking Bad scenes out of Legos. Most of them focus on the dearly departed meth superlab, but the RV is also there. There’s Walt and Jesse in their meth-making cook suits, Gus holding a chicken thing, Walt Jr. on his crutches, and even (my favorite of the people), the creepy-ass Salamanca Cousins complete with an ax. It would be cool if they added a Skyler, Hank and Marie. And of course Tio.

All of the pictures are slightly, wonderfully disturbing and I just can’t get over how freakin’ cool it is. And how detailed. Like Breaking Bad itself.

Click here to visit the imgur page with all the images.

Continue reading “Awesomely Creative Fan-Made Breaking Bad Media” →

Blindness and Disability, Science

A Blind Girl in Science Labs

Chrys Buckley

I belong to a lot of mailing lists for blind and visually-impaired members, including blind students, blind people interested in science and engineering, the blind of Oregon, the blind of Portland, and so forth.

One thing that comes up over and over again on these lists, especially the student and science ones, is difficulty with science labs. Maybe a student needs a year of a lab science for their general education requirements. Maybe someone wants to go into science but doesn’t know how to handle labs. Maybe the students know they can find ways to do the labs but the professors or the schools don’t.

It can be really intimidating so I thought I’d take some time to write about this here. I also think a lot of sighted people, once they see or hear about a blind person doing science labs, want to know how it’s done but might not feel comfortable asking. So this is for blind and sighted alike.

Continue reading “A Blind Girl in Science Labs” →

TV, Writing

That “Leaked” Breaking Bad Season 5 Premiere Script

Chrys Buckley

Has anyone else read it?

It all started with a duffel bag. There was this really awesome Breaking Bad duffel bag on eBay that I was looking at. After the auction ended, I went looking for it elsewhere, googling, and accidentally came across the script for episode 301 “No Mas,” in which Walt and Hank have an exchange about Walt’s duffel bag filled with drug money. It soon became clear that reading the script was way more valuable than some duffel bag so I started googling and looking for more scripts. One kept popping up in all my searches, a script for Season 5, Episode 1, titled “Truckers Deluxe.” Some sites labeled the script as fake, others seemed to claim it was real.

Photo from the real Season 5 Premiere © AMC TV

You can read the supposedly leaked 501 “Truckers Deluxe” Script here

Now, I’m usually a spoiler-free kinda girl. You might even call me a purist, with slightly limited willpower. I want to experience the story the way it’s written to be experienced, not know it ahead of time. I remember a few years ago, it was announced that there would be a wedding on the season premiere of Grey’s Anatomy, and a bunch of people wrote all over the Facebook page about which couple it would be, with no spoiler alerts, and I was pissed! For that reason, this year when it was announced that someone would die on the season finale, I stayed far away from the Grey’s FB page. Anyway, the point is, I try to avoid spoilers.

But this was Breaking Bad and I am more addicted to that show than the methheads on the show are to their blue crystal. So I couldn’t help myself. Plus it was probably fake anyway, right?

Continue reading “That “Leaked” Breaking Bad Season 5 Premiere Script” →