Scarlet Risque's Blog, page 18

Make It Happen

Life lines are hanging on electric poles

There is no electricity, just the illusion of electricity

There is no fear, just the illusion of fear

There is no history, just the continuous rewriting of history.

What we believe today, may be changed tomorrow.

The tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.

It isn’t today, today, today.

Fear is the biggest illusion.

We are all free to be.

Make it happen.

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The Difference of Good and Great : Inquiry into the success of Lee Child

Selfie with me and Lee Child at Thriller Fest 2016

The difference between good and great individuals is a subtle line of grey. What constitutes greatness? It is a subjective inquiry itself. I recognize that in the world of Thriller Writers, Lee Child is a great author. There is a defining characteristic that makes him outstanding from the rest of the authors I had encountered in the convention – his acceptance to feedback.

When the topic on the panel turned to reading reviews about their books, Lee Child said, “I read my one star reviews on my books to see what people got to say.” This characteristic of him being coach-able and ready to accept one star feedback is the probably the biggest differentiation factor between a good or great author. When I asked him privately about his decision to include a Chinese Female Detective in his book, MAKE ME. He replied, “I write what people want to read. That’s what the market wants.”

On further inquiry on the panel, Lee Child revealed, “I chose the name Jack Reacher as my wife told me that Reacher was a good name for a character in my book as I was asked on many occasions to reach for the top stands of groceries isles, and it stuck.”

I believe Lee Child’s ready acceptance to feedback is his greatest reason for his consistent success. For an author to consistently hit the best seller lists with no up or downs annually, Lee Child has shown himself to be a consistent performer at his productions. His greatness is his ability to produce a consistent product that delivers on it’s promise.

There are many “good” authors who might have one or two bestselling books at the start but upon their next book release, their rankings and reviews went down. Even at the very top level of authors, most authors do not consistently hit the charts with every book like what Lee Child has done.

At the end of this inquiry, I realised that my barrier to my own greatness as a writer has to do with my acceptance of feedback. I should readily accept feedback and read one star reviews to improve on my craft to move from being “good” to being “great”.

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Frontiers of Humanity

From my observations at the Thrillerfest, it is easy to determine who is a best selling author or mid tier author from the way the author speaks. It doesn’t matter what he or she wears or presents or talks about. It can be a joke, or trivia or some historical or news. It lies with the author’s voice. The way an author speaks is the difference between a good or great author.

Some authors had worked twenty years, forty years or some barely a year before they make it big. So, it is not the case of time spent on craft (10 000 rule does not apply in the world of writing). Neither it is about connections as all writers have to go through agents, who have to go through publishers and then the customers pick out the books from the shelves. There is a lead time from zero to all.

The probability of this game is determined by the market. Hence connections of a writer is not a factor. Neither is inherited background as writers have to create a brand name for themselves and cannot inherit another author’s name. A son of a famous author can write the same kind of books and publish in the same genre, but the market may not respond to it positively and the publisher can drop the son off due to poor book sales. If the earnings cannot sustain the author, the author will eventually quit the business to pursue another lucrative trade.

How the market accepts a writer is the same way on how a country accepts a politician. It has to be in the time frame of the world that they want this genre of writing. For example, the latest trend of best selling books now is adult colouring books which is available in every major bookstore. It is linked to people wanting to return to a time and place where they are children again and free of expression whereby they can create and draw expressively. Hence the trend now is books that allows people to be be free of expression (before the colouring trend was Fifty Shades of Grey).

The next trend is not predictable, only the writer can produce that creation he sees that the world needs. Hence the key lies in the writer’s voice as it is linked to the soul of the writer and his greatest authenticity. Sad to say, most great writers will never be acknowledged in their lifetimes like most great leaders. I loved the Great Gatsby and I was sad to hear the writer did not get that acknowledgement that he wrote the great American novel before he died. His voice was pure and it has resonated with me that I had to check out the Long Island mansions of his vision way past his time.

At the end of this post, I realised the detriment of quality of leaders and writers is due to the detriment of the market who do not support great works, neither they support great leaders of our time. We currently live in a civilised world lead by puppets who are trying to appease everyone, but they do not have a stand of frontier for humanity to reach to next. In my lifetime, I would like for the world to unite as one and end all wars and suffering. By doing this, we can finally travel to outer space and explore the universe beyond this world. This is my greatest dream and writing about this makes it possible for others to believe in this vision once again.

 

 

 

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Cats Musical Broadway Premier in NYC Review

It is no secret I love cats, and anything to do with cats, including humans acting as cats in a musical. I probably wasn’t born when it first premiered on Broadway, but I believe I had seen the video version when I was a child as certain scenes and songs are familiar to me. My mother would take me to the theatre every weekend, and surround the house with music from those plays that she played on the piano from day to night. Occasionally, she would break out and sing. I remember some of the songs she liked are from this play. Anyway, I was curious to watch Cats as I had heard and listened and been surrounded by it but I haven’t watched the actual play. I believe Catwoman from Batman is partially inspired (or the other way round?) from this play.

After watching Cats and Phantom of the Opera, I believe I have sufficient evidence that Andrew Lloyd Webber is kinky. Firstly, in Cats, ALL the actors are wearing collars! That’s seriously OMG how interesting! That is the first sign of an imprint of kink in a play indirectly caused by the person who created the musical himself. I LOVED the costumes, they are very gothic. There are human cats in corsets, leather boots till the knees, high collar fur coats, and lots and lots of fur of course! The play is worth watching just for the costumes. The music varied and it shifts from contemporary to classical with lots of dancing and no dialogue.

I haven’t quite figured out the storyline towards the end of the play because I was paying too much attention to their dance moves and elaborate cat like behaviour. I must say, if I ever have to choose to act in a broadway play of my choice, I would choose to be in Cats for the reasons above. I will kill myself than act as bimbo-tic Christine (WHY DIDN’T SHE CHOOSE TO BE WITH PHANTOM!) in Phantom of the Opera although that’s the leading female role. I don’t mind being a minor dancer in Cats for the pure ecstasy of dancing, crawling, behaving like a fully expressed human being in the role of a feline creature.

Back to the review, it exceeded my expectations. The set was very modern and unexpected. Some scene changes were unpredictable and I couldn’t predict the story, which is a good from a storytelling perspective, because I have been able to guess the ending of 999/1000 stories I come across. Andrew Lloyd Webber is indeed a genuis for his productions, other than him, I personally like Tim Burton’s movies as well. It’s not by coincidence that I like gothic stuff, because simply gothic is kinky, and kinky is fun.

As I attended the premier night, most of the audience I believe are family and friends of the performers and they were queuing up outside the theater from 7pm on-wards in a queue that extended two blocks. The performers indeed put up their best performance (they will dance at their peak if their family is watching) for their special audience, and knowing this secret now, I will try to catch premiers of any opening shows in future. I spotted a child wearing a feline costume with hand drawn whiskers on her face. Another person was watching a big black CATS T-Shirt. I semi regret not wearing my cat ears, I should do totally do that!

I loved the part when the actors would randomly come to the sides of our chairs and prowl and sing and dance so we can look and listen to them upclose. They call this method of acting “breaking the fourth wall  ” which means basically the actors are aware the audience are watching them. Since Deadpool inception and welcoming of breaking of the fourth wall, I believe we will see more of this type of productions in future.

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Fame

Fame came too early an age 

Melchony was the cure

For many years there was 

No poetry 

The rebirth of being invisible

Yet famous 

On this virtual wall 

Sometimes

What is caged

Is meant to be free 

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Decay

Anxiety burns into the chest in summer

Ultra violet blinding light hits the eyes 

The gloom hits on the subway 

The machinery runs on un-oiled wheels

The dread sets in the morning 

Yet another day in this dysfunctional city

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Lifeline

Lifelines are hanging on electric poles 

Urban guns and innocents 

The state of warfare is the empire of greed 

The descent into fear and anarchy 

Why, why, why? 

The agenda is on the cards

Yet do you know we are one and the same? 

New York, why do you make me cry 

For the love of the world

You had became a monstrous being 

That eats the souls of its inhabitants 

Till they are zombified

Lifelines are hanging on electric poles

Save no one, not including yourself.  

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Lifeline

Lifelines are hanging on electric poles Of course it’s better to avoid them 

Urban guns and innocents 

The state of warfare is the empire of greed 

The descent into fear and anarchy 

Why, why, why? 

The agenda is on the cards

Yet do you know we are one and the same? 

New York, why do you make me cry 

For the love of the world

You had became a monstrous being 

That eats the souls of its inhabitants 

Till they are zombified

Lifelines are hanging on electric poles

Save no one, not including yourself.  

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fruitation

I am on the verge of the cliff facing the abyss.

There are no safety nets Jumping into the matrix of oblivion 

Death is the beginning of rebirth 

I had found and lost my self 

time again and again 

A life of dreams 

Of risks and forgoing what is acceptable 

What is right, what is wrong

Conditioning of the mind and body 

By constant exercise and redefining limitations 

I am not who I am 

Not a single cocktail touches my tongue 

You know what is the hardest part? 

It’s that people don’t understand

What is it like to live in your head 

And reject the hopes of what you believe 

Of course this is not a suicide note, 

It’s my message to the virtual fake world 

“Get out there and do something!”

I am here

Closer to my impossible dream 

Yet the taste of fruition lingers

In my tongue.

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Fantasy & Reality

Fantasy is a projection of the reality we want vs the reality we currently have. To have our fantasy realised all we have to do is start to have conversations with like-minded people to discover “what ifs?” But most of the time, before the fantasy can be materialised either one person runs away from who they really are, to go on this long search of avoiding the reconciliation of who they are vs who they are pretending to be.

I have to declare that all my relationships that occurs online before meeting in real life have failed. There is a drift between what is projected and what is real. The relationships that work, is amongst people whom I met in real life as they know the real me.

In the artistic pursuit of my identity, numerous projections have been placed on me. But they are just fantasies. It is nothing real. They are stories that exists in consciousness. To transcend them to real life, it requires real life conversations. Introductions. Really getting to know someone.

Escaping and running from who we are only brings us back to square one – to finding out who we are.

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