All Published Works – Enneagram and Encaustic

Gage and Wrigley: Chapter One, Part Three

“Ready?” Rachel asked. She mostly hid her impatience well.

Wrigley settled on the leather harness protecting Gage’s left shoulder. The right side was cleaned up and bandaged. “What’s the plan?” Gage asked her.

“I want to start in the laundry. A habit, probably stained with blood, would need to be washed.”

“Or incinerated,” Wrigley suggested.

“We’ll have a chance to find more clues at the laundry. We start there.” She gave Wrigley a waiting look.

“Oh,” Wrigley said. “This way.” He cocked his head.

“Pal,” Gage said, “I can’t see what you’re doing and I can’t read your mind. Use words.”

“We’ll be here forever,” Rachel said, rolling her eyes. “He’s basically your horse. Can’t you just nudge him or something? Maybe we could get some reins and a bit?”

While Gage scowled daggers at Rachel, Wrigley shifted his weight and gently pushed with his left talons.

“Are you kidding me?” Gage snorted. Exasperated, he blew air from his mouth.

“Pretty good whinny.” Rachel headed toward the direction of Wrigley’s nod.

Gage and Wrigley: Chapter One, Part Two

At this point a codex will become available. Stories about this world and its religions will start to accumulate. Dry reading can give your imagination context and a foundation.

Achievement unlocked. Pick a special skill out of the Owl’s Gifts power-up list.

Gage sat at the dining table in the monastery kitchen while Rachel pushed a cup of tea at him.

“Cut it out,” Gage said.

“You look like something I scraped off my boot. Drink the damned tea.”

“Just get me out of here.”

“I don’t think so. I can’t halt a murder investigation just because you’re struck with the vapors.”

“Hey!” Gage snapped. “Some bird has just claimed a kinship with me closer than marriage. Excuse me if I feel slightly rebellious.”

“All right, Gage, all right.”

Without warning the owl flew through the wide kitchen doorway and perched on the back of one of the table chairs. As the chair rocked with the owl’s weight, Gage lifted a boot and stomped on the seat to steady the wobble.

“Thank you,” said Wrigley, inches from Gage’s face.

“You’re welcome. And goodbye.” Gage stood and beckoned to Rachel.

WiP: Tribe of Liars

After publishing my last screenplay about a year ago, I hit a creative wall. Fort Defiance was such a bucket list project. Completing it was satisfying, which left me with little drive to find something new to write. I had a great and lengthy folder for Tribe of Liars with no plan how to develop it further. I liked the fragments I’d written, but it wasn’t grabbing me.

I believe in letting an idea cook, even if I remain creatively idle, rather than force my writing. It worked. I had a brain blast: I would blend Tribe of Liars with another (untitled) screenplay fragment. Neither was working on its own, but combined, I could envision the story arc.

This entry is a placeholder for how I’ll share my process.

I have four characters and their animal Companions. Each team needs a backstory before I can develop a proper screenplay. Gage and Wrigley are the furthest along right now. Not only do I have a Story Enneagram for them, but I have the fictional writing that digs deeper.

I’d like to post my backstory writings here. When the screenplay is eventually published, I’ll include these prologues in an appendix. It’s a complicated writing idea. Let’s rock!

Update 1:

When I wrote the beginnings of the Gage and Wrigley backstory I didn’t know how to develop the IP further. It was a writing exercise at that point. The ToL idea began as a video game, not a film, so I wanted to include the gaming aspect even in the fiction. The conceit I used — go into a first-person narrator voice for the details — is cringe to me now. However, I will probably continue with some variation of the narrator in the other three Companion stories. A lot of brainstorming went into the animal powers; I don’t want to lose the fun of that.

UNCUT GEMS

A lot of content nowadays is generated just to trash on someone else’s creativity. The worse a show is, the more people will make a video about it. It’s not my intent to be that person. My Enneagram reviews of unsuccessful shows are because I hope to find an answer. Usually it’s because I love the content and am disappointed that it failed. I believe that a great Story Enneagram structure will lead to a great movie.

Sometimes, though, a subjective reaction will overcome the objective reality of a solid Enneagram.

From my unused files, a case in point:

I can’t say I enjoyed Uncut Gems, 2019. This is a well-crafted movie, heavy with intentions. The filmmakers knew what they wanted to do. No, my dislike comes from the character and plot. Again, well-acted. I just don’t want to watch this protagonist. I don’t really care about his drama. He’s repugnant. I’m pretty sure this is what everyone was aiming for and they succeeded. Hat tip to them, and please never put this movie in front of me again.

LEFTOVER NINE

The movie opens in Ethiopia, 2010, as if it were a Raiders or Jurassic Park franchise. Locals work a gem mine under hazardous conditions. A man with a wounded, bleeding leg is pulled from a cave-in. The crowd is restless, angry. Miners still underground chip out a rock loaded with gems (or a single gem peeking through the layers). It’s shiny.

ONE

We dive into the gem. Colors, music, the kaleidoscope — it’s like an outer space nebula. This is a very particular shot. This gem — The Rock — is like Sauron’s Ring. It plays a protagonist of sorts, a force with an impact on agency. You could even say it has a magical influence. All of this is suggested in this shot.

Then the gem interior cross fades seamlessly into a colon interior. (Yes. I know.) Howard is undergoing a colonoscopy. Afterwards, the credits run as we follow him forward with his day. It’s New York City, 2012, Howard runs a sketchy jewelry store, and disorder emanates from him like a noxious gas. Even for the city, he’s loud and brash.

Bandcamp Friday

I mostly forget that I have music posted to Bandcamp, but recently I’ve been wondering if any of it stands up. I haven’t listened to Heart of Iron since I published it in 2019. After playing through the album, I would say that the singing is tolerable, the music is greatly enhanced by the musician who helped me record, and the lyrics are still my pride and joy in the project.

It sounds obscure and somewhat crazy now, but I wrote a musical screenplay of Jane Eyre. If you listen to the album and you’re familiar with the story, you might be able to guess which songs go with which part of the plot. (It plays in chronological order.) Fair warning, though: I sing Jane’s and Rochester’s songs. I tried to beef up my voice for Rochester, but that’s utterly ridiculous. I sound the same.

Bandcamp, I’m informed in a recent email, has brought back “Bandcamp Friday”, a day in which they waive their revenue sharing and pass all funds to the artist. Give the album a try, if you’re so inclined. On listening again to the songs, some were as I remembered — not bad — and a couple were worse. One song, though, “Fly”, which takes place at the story’s climax, gave me that great feeling every artist seeks on returning to past work: Did I write that? Damn.

The Story Enneagram of Fort Defiance

ONE

Establish the Emerald Rose Saloon in the late 1800s American west. Two middle-aged sisters own and run the place that their parents, now deceased, built. The elder, Izzy, is a more steady presence. The younger, Luisa, is more restless.

TWO

A mysterious wagon, coming into town at the head of a monsoon, crashes in front of the Saloon. Driver and horses are crushed. Only the cargo, a large box, remains intact. Emerald Rose customer Leon notices a handbill attached to the wood. He shows it to Luisa: a reward for return of the box to its owner in Fort Defiance.

THREE

Luisa agrees to upend her life and accompany (and finance) Leon’s trip. In order to smooth her decision with Izzy, Luisa plays their family song, “Desert Lullaby.” Moved, Izzy relents. She’ll travel with her sister.

Fort Defiance

I’ve published a new screenplay at Amazon!

Perhaps, lol, you will remember this post about my decades-long project. I claimed that the original story for Fort Defiance was dead. Time had passed and I had changed.

It turns out I was wrong. I considered how I could adapt the screenplay to suit who I am now. What’s interesting, at least to me, is that the core of the story hasn’t changed in 30 years. It exists separately from me, an entity in the world. I tinkered with the protagonist, making her older, but the basic bones of the plot are consistent. I’m so very proud to publish this — again — after all this time, and I believe the story became better with age.

LITTLE WOMEN (2019)

My breakdown of this version, Little Women (2019), is going to be very strange. If the filmmaker decides to take an extremely well-known story and change its ending, chaos can ensue. In this case facts about Louisa May Alcott are incorporated into the climax. I didn’t know any of these details and found the end confusing and infuriating.

It felt Author’s Message to me, and in a way it was. No matter how interesting real life information is, if you go against audience expectations, especially ones so deeply ingrained as they are for this story, you have to be crystalline. LW2019 doesn’t cross that bar.

It makes for a very interesting Enneagram pattern.

ONE

The girls are adults. The beginning of the movie starts near the end of the characters’ arcs. Okay, fresh and interesting. Jo sells a story, Amy is in Paris, Meg spends money recklessly, and Beth plays the piano. Professor Bhaer is introduced; he and Jo see each other at a pub and dance together.

I don’t understand why this scene exists. (The movie, at two and a half hours, needed trimming.) It’s Four-ish stuff put in the middle of the opening. That’s the danger of leading with your ending, it seems.

Jump to Seven Years Earlier. Meg’s hair is burnt by the curling iron and Jo’s dress is burnt by her carelessness. Classic scene. Laurie comes to the dance and the March family meets their neighbor. Meg twists her ankle, Laurie’s carriage takes them home, and here’s Marmee, Hannah, and the bustle of Orchard House.

You see the problem here, right? This is all Four stuff! Where is our anchor to begin the story? No scene is edited to stand out.

Except one.

LITTLE WOMEN (2017)

Every filmed version of a beloved story will have some things that are ho-hum and some that are the best of any of the movies. For Little Women (2017), a three-part miniseries, Emily Watson’s Marmee is a triumph. Top actresses are cast as Marmee, so the field is particularly strong. Watson’s work and the script she’s given to deliver are truthful, painful, and joyous. This is a must-watch.

Some of the other choices, however, are not as strong. Let’s look.

ONE

At three hours runtime, LW2017 can add details the others leave out. We get Father March at the war right away. Both parents are much more present throughout, giving a complete family in the storytelling.

The very first scene has the girls trimming a lock of hair to send to him for Christmas. It’s a very weird sequence, though. Close-ups, corset laces, shadows, scissor blades . . . why shoot this like soft-core thriller content?

TWO

As Marmee returns home she crosses paths in the road with Laurie in the carriage, coming to Grandfather’s house for the first time. Laurie is Trouble, of course. He disrupts the March life in many ways. It’s not the most visually descriptive or inventive Two, though.

THREE

I am utterly and totally making something up here. We see Father, still nursing the sick in the war, cover the body of a man who’s died. Again, this is a strange choice. It establishes Father, the war, and, most pertinent of all, death. We all know what happens later with Beth. Does this moment foreshadow or portend that? I don’t think so. We know nothing about this corpse and have no connection to it.

But here it is, sitting after the Two and before the Four, so it’s what we have to work with.

LITTLE WOMEN (1994)

(In honor of the month of December, I’ve pulled out a series that was written for my book but didn’t make the cut.)

For me, this version, Little Women (1994), is the gold standard.

ONE

Credits, beautiful music, snow, and a Christmas wreath. Time of year and era are established visually. Jo narrates. As you may know, I’m not generally a fan of narration. It’s more of a “tell” than a “show”. Because this story is a novel, Jo’s narration feels like she’s just reading to us. It’s not the worst use of narration.

Marmee comes home, chilled, and the family gathers to read father’s letter. Throughout, the film is beautifully framed, like a portrait. The arranging of the five women is evocative. You’re watching a time gone by. Perhaps you’re remembering illustrations from books you read as a child. This family is loving and close.

Also, this family is missing its father. The women are surviving and thriving, despite hardship. Whatever guidance a father would provide, whatever comfort or strength, is not weighed.