Dyslexia, becoming a published Author and seeing the world a little differently

It is not every day that you hear a good thing about Dyslexia. From open ridicule in some areas of the academic world and often a misunderstanding of what dyslexia involves – it really can be an up hill struggle.

Publishing a book therefore for a Dyslexic should be pretty difficult. But as any dream goes you often owe it to yourself to make it a reality. Ever since I was a child I wrote stories, time progressed and they grew into novellas and novels and by the time I was eighteen I had written my first full length novel and was already busy writing another. Even when the English teacher said it would be impossible to pass GCSE English my determination wasn’t hampered. After being rejected by over 50 agents and publishers and having sent out to well over 300 worldwide, I decided to publish through my own publishing imprint. I learnt the business and I published by book into Waterstones stores nationwide – a few years later the book had soldout.

Early on it can seem as a dyslexic like nothing will ever change, be it problems at school or the academic struggle. But that determination, that struggle can often define a vigour which can last a lifetime. No matter the learning disability, there’s no need for it to be seen as an obstacle to any kind of success. Least I mention the names of Albert Einstein and Sir Richard Branson and many more among them, dyslexics in their own right. Not only can severe dyslexia be ovecome but it can assist in laying the qualities needed for success.

So to see the world a little differently was a good thing,even if it took painstaking hard work the road was never an easy one. As I Produce and sell feature films today, I am reminded of the hard work required to succeed at any level. But I know that it was the support of those I met through happen stance that made all the hard work pay off – for those people gave me the belief to believe in my dreams and make them a reality.

Dominic Took endorses TutorDoctor.com for showing children – no matter there background – that they can succeed no matter who they are.

Manchester Short Fiction Prize 2009

Well I just found out my entry to the Short Fiction Prize 09 has been logged and checked.

I can’t wait to see what comes out of it, I sent my best work anyway a short called “His Futile Guilt” I wrote in 08 and recently read at a festival in Cheshire.

It’s been very well recieved so far and the cash prize is massive so it would be fantastic to win – not to mention I could do with a bit of money!  The writer still looking for a job!

Well I’m finalising a script at the moment for our Production Company so I best get back to it!

Here’s hoping it wows the judges.

It’s

Only recently have I noticed how many people don’t appear to use “it’s” properly.  Now I know it’s not necessarily crucial, but being dyslexic I had to rigourously learn out all my incorrect grammar and mentally force myself to apply the rule each time I wrote something (trust me that slowed down my writing).

I just find it weird how many people get it wrong, but maybe that’s the benefit of dyslexia.  I even know that “anymore” isn’t really a word, the americans use it as “any more” but really ideally it’s not actually a word at all.  Saying that a recent copy editor reminded me that when writing it’s best to remove all extraneous words that would otherwise clutter up a good sentence.

I mean there are loads of books on “how to write well”, I have a rare one here by William Zinsser – even though I choose not to read the whole thing just in case it makes me a grammar whore.

Goes to show though – I don’t even have a degree in english!  Just another way for me to remind the world that academia will not make an excellent well rounded individual with the skills they need to go out into the world and prosper – all that comes later if at all.

I just finished a screenplay I’ve been working on called Autumn Leaves, it’s contemporary drama with a supernatural twist.  Hoping to sell it but I don’t know how saleable it will be.  Either way I believe in it and for that reason alone I’m going to see if anyones interested…UK first.

Gone Fishing

Found a great blog today via a online contact – he’s the scriptwriter Danny Stack, the blog in question is Living Spirit. It’s about a company who have put together various short films and and the blog is about their efforts to get them out there into the world.

They’ve got a letter from one of their scriptwriters on there, actually a script editor. But it’s a really important letter, it defines something that I myself began to experience after I began meditating every day for nearly a year. This script editor was working on a short film and the actress died suddenly of Lukemia over roughly a few months. It shocked the whole crew greatly, but this particular guy found that the money and the awards just weren’t worth it – weren’t important.

He ended up finding contentment in his family, his kids and writing. You should read the blog itself, as it does a better job of explaining the ins and outs. But after meditating I experienced the same thing, contentment. Sounds great right? Well it is, but it has a downside. Your drive is diminished in anything that doesn’t provide you with a truly worthwhile and inspiring project. This often makes you see what you actually love and what you thought you loved, but now see that you hate/detest/despise.

Fantastic blog for reading up about filmmaking anyway, but that particular entry struck a major cord with me.

Hope you enjoy it too,

The Blue Gemstone

Well it’s finally time to start book three in the Acias Series.  Book two even though it’s not published yet, is all done and dusted and now I’m not writing any scripts – for a short interlude I hope – I might as well get cracking.

Book three is the BIG crescendo.  It’s when everything comes together.  The Gracious Ones, the mysterious blue gemstone and some true epic fantasy.  Maybe even the Storm will get its comeuppance, who really knows?  Not even I do!

At the moment Gracious is facing up to what’s just happened.  Barnabe is trying to cope with the consequences of it all and the Gracious Ones themselves even though displaced are where they should be.

So it’s time to light up the skies and encircle the eyes – for the last time.

Woo, can’t wait to see this baby finished.

Princes Trust – First Public Speaking Gig

So I was over in Birmingham today at a College doing some public speaking.  We had 12 people from the TEAM program, TEAM faciliates a 12 week intensive course whereby people aged 16-25 are introduced to challenges and must work effectively in a TEAM.  This in many cases produces some fantastic results, with young people involved in crime, or with real issues going on to have hte confidence to be a part of society and get as much out of it as they can.

Secondly we had a group of 18 people from Mosaic, which is a Prince of Wales charity working with Arab countries.  It may possibly be multi faith orientated, but our group was purely arab countries.

I spoke about the Business Programme offered to me by the Trust and I tried to impart some of my own experienecs by telling people how I overcame my dyslexia and my sixth form years, to go on to do all the things that I did.  This seemed to really inspire some people and certainly allowed others to see the good the Trust does.

What was most intersting was the fact that I’m yet again in a situation where I’m meeting very intersting people.  One woman was a lecturer from Pakistan and was working with creative arts, theatre/literature/etc.  This was interesting because it’s so different to western culture and some of the calligraphy she was showing me was beautiful.  Certainly an inspiring art form for any artist.

The younger TEAM members also got plenty out of it and even though I only managed to speak to a few I was able to see that there confidence was very happy and for them there lives had in that moment and in those 12 weeks – changed.  Of course what’s important is that everyone is kept in a similair state.

As always really complicated mental and pyschological elements for post development.  How to exist in the world and build on what you know, how to believe in yourself, all these things, are not really taught.  Some would say, can they be taught?  I don’t know if they can, but I do know they can be instilled and highlighted.  Self belief, faith and inner fortitude and stregth are hard things because they do come from within, there a personal individual battle for self recognition (to qoute a friend).  But with them what truly effects you in life?  With those things you can go anywhere do anything and move through any crowd.  They’re powerful facets and they’re ones I still think that society as a whole – globally – doesn’t really benefit from or understand.

If each person could garner self belief, find inner strength and resolve fortitude, they’d not feel so compelled to fall to pieces when a massive event smacked them in between the eyes.  Ignorance?  I don’t think so, I think people would start to live differently – god forbid perfectly – but they’d be potentially calmer too.

Screenplay

So I’m finally finishing off my first original screenplay.  This is only a first draft but it will be good to finish it off.

Once I’ve finished I think I am going to try and write an original screenplay as well, I have a few ideas, just need to pick one which works out well I think.

I should probably write another short story for competetive submission as well.  When I get some time.

The Devils Guide to Hollywood – Eszterhas

If you thought this was a book you’d be mistaken, with pages that read like quotations it’s quite different.  However it was well worth the recommendation I first received to read it.

Cataloguing how gratuitous and immoral/unethical Hollywood is, it’s certainly playing into the hands of truth.  Sometimes the truth feels almost too private though, like someone is shouting it for the betterment of everyone else around, not realising that everyone else around isn’t actually bothered.  But is this not the hallmark of PR and marketing?  Is this not the way to conduct an Interview?  Is this not the best way to sell yourself?  It’s a shame though, because it’s not just Hollywood, the literary industry can be easily as bad and so can other industries that become ingratiated in their own routines, loving themselves just that little bit too much.

Makes you ask the question is perspective always lost when an industry or job is done for many decades?

But back to the book.  It is very good, all of the above aside, it is better as a Hollywood negotiation guide, getting you through life in LA (From what I’ve now heard I’d rather die than even go) and getting you through any negotiations you might go through.  Eszterhas with his bulldozer no compromise approach is actually quite inspiring to read about, but if you follow his example and you get lucky, you’re sure to land some pretty hefty options for your work.

Moreover it points the scriptwriter in the direction of what must be done to move forward.  It lists and catalogues a lot of things I already do, e.g. write down ideas, write every day, have a routine, stick to it, etc.  One other nice thing about this book is that it’s quite up to date, so some of the films mentioned actually have modern relevance (that’s nice for me, seeing as I am only 23!)

I’d still recommend Goldman’s book over this one, partly because he’s gone to the trouble of writing it into a non fiction book, not a series of quotes.  But Goldman does also try and teach a few things and he’s modest as hell (Which is a good and a bad thing, but I like it)

Well worth a read if you want to get the lowdown on scriptwriting.

No More Competition

Well I’ve beaten off the competition for my new short film script – which will be funded apparently,  so that should make a difference. It could all fall through of course, but it’s nice to get to the top of the pile – I have a feeling a lot of budding screenwriters don’t know the meaning of hard work, but I can’t substantiate that. Though I think my hard work must have certainly paid off with this one.

My most current short film project is all signed and sealed and will be filmed next month. Seeing as this is a longer project, I’m really really looking forward to seeing how it all comes together.

There are other things in the pipeline as well of course – as ever.

That and I’ll be trying to write my first original screenplay now that I feel able enough.

Seeing Past the Story

Yesterday at Morgan Stanley as part of our training we had to do a group presentation. We chose the idea of how the media influence us and especially how they mis-contort information about young people.

One guy said how it was important to see “past the story” and I think the same is true of people. How many times, directly or indirectly do we just see the person and their mannerisms – actions – persona. But not the actual person, how their life’s been shaped etc.

The great thing about this program is it brings you to account as a person. If you sit in a room and take all the opportunities that come your way, even though you know you can have these opportunities again or have had these opportunities in the past, then do you leave it open to people who’ve never ever spoken to people like that? Questions begin to appear in your mind and you really start to morally and ethically question many things.

But the great thing is that you end up growing and maturing as a person. I think that in a 9-5 job these sorts of challenges are pretty non existent. Many people choose to live within their own shells anyway, especially in big cities, so they may never truly touch another person (by touch I mean talk to, assist, listen to, etc). So to be able to continue to grow, at a time when others may be giving up completely, fills me with a great sense of pride, it makes me want to be a better person and it certainly creates a better person through the objective balance of social harmony and being able to understand a persons humanity and their connection with the humanity that we are all a part of.

I can’t wait to see what’s in store for us next.