Jeff Phillips's Blog, page 21

Fourth

I have jumped into my fourth draft of my novel, working it entirely from scratch once again. It will be a slow process but I will be focusing on the specificity of each word and tightening the POV from what I've already worked up and deepening. It feels right now, where it's at so far. I'm overcoming my need to pound out a quantitative body of work. I've been pounding out quantity. All of it stuff I'm proud for some aspect or another. It was necessary to churn my brain and get me thinking as ...

Turban-Tan

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Play written! / Economy Rant

Today turned out to be a pretty good day. I got on a roll with a play idea I started playing with at the start of the week and had a solid streak. I was able to finish up the first draft. I'm incredibly happy with how it winded up. It's a strange scenario but I think it's highly unique (at least I hope). I can't wait to play with the dialogue more and bring in a couple of actors in, do some readings of it to hear how it sounds.

I was a moody guy last night. It took me 1.5 hours to get home fr...

New Stab at Trailer and smell of Cooking Wort

Last night I had a dream I was on a road trip to the east coast and wound up at the new house of some old family friends. They lived in house by the seaside that had elements of old colonial Boston and old west architecture slewed together. The inside stood hallowed out, like a hotel lobby but looked like the facade of a western movie set going into the off shooting rooms. And the guy had quite his own little microbrewery going. I think I was even able to smell the wort heating up in my...

The Ghost that Shook the Sh&t out of the Bed

Last night at 2:30 am the bed shook three times abruptly and the cat jumped off in panic mode. My first reaction was tight gripping fear. I have been apt to watch a lot of those ghost hunting shows lately and have seen some haunted clients on the show make claims of "we've been woken in the middle of the night with what felt like someone shaking the bed." I was a bit afraid here as thoughts of this poured through my groggy, weary, still slightly sleeping brain.

I was thinking - shit. Are we ...

Eye Swat

An old boss of mine once said to me "Jeff, you seem like you're very much in love. Well don't take this the wrong way. Love very much has a way of making you stupid."

This morning I was spending time with my girlfriend and cat, Pythagoras. We were sitting nicely. I closed my eyes to fall back asleep and felt a nip at my eye. "Gus" went to bat at a string of my hair and got my eye lid. We of course yelled at him and scolded him and made him leave the bed. For the next hour Gus looked like a mad...

Precision & Stillness

Last night I got to sit in on a tech week dress rehearsal run of Adore in the Steppenwolf Garage Studio. I was very impressed. It was their first full run in the space and it's already coming together quite well. The interaction between the actors and the video projection blended nicely to create a very precise ambiance. I was very engaged by the piece and it is the first piece of theatre I have seen in awhile that truly has a visceral bite to it. It's far from flat. From my work with Three L...

Dystopian Basement Gathering

The reading went well last night, I had a blast. I enjoyed everyone's story and strange adventure in apocalypse and I enjoyed reading my new short story Nagasaki Lagoon and I am thankful for the positive feedback. We recorded the audio of it on Aaron's tiny net book so once we clean up the audio, that will be posted here. I'm excited to revisit this story and get it spruced up before submitting it places. If anyone wants to take a look at it I would be glad for the critique. I won't be postin...

The Liquid Burning of Apocalyptic Bard Letters - Tonight!

If you're in the Chicago area, my friend Aaron Cynic and I have a organized a reading event, The Liquid Burning of Apocalyptic Bard Letters. The event is tonight and we have several other Chicago writers on board. It revolves around the theme of dystopia. I always have the most fun at collaborative reading events so I'm psyched about this and equally psyched to see what pieces the others bring to the table. I'll be reading a new piece which I'll be revising over the coming weeks and submittin...

Snow & Writing

There is a bite in the fat snow flake that is quite recharging. It seems to slap with soft electricity. I've found myself at times being disappointed in the lack of snow so far this winter. Winter haters might argue against my claim that it has been a fairly mild winter in Chicago so far. The rest of the country seems to be getting dumped upon. Over Christmas, I witnessed Minnesota slammed with something like 3 days of snow. Yesterday, a mini blizzard unleashed. I brewed a pot of coffee and s...