Tag Archives: writing

Days are like little lives

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Perhaps it helps that I’ve had some background of being a morning person out of work related necessity.  I worked a lot in cafes and therefore being ready and bright early just started to flow after a while.  I’m also an insomniac so I kind of get a version of both with exhaustion kicking in somewhere midday. As I steer closer to my existence of working on my creative endeavours full time, my focus has become more about how to best use my time.  I’ve always had the job that set the days program and now I will be doing that.  I won’t go into the specifics of it all because it is not as mountaintop-with-guitar/notebook-and-windswept-hair as you think.  The image I chose probably doesn’t help with that.  I wanted to represent time.

So much gets piled on mornings I’ve found.  There is so much of that “first thing in the morning” suggestion out there that I almost think it is like your early years of child development.  Everything calls for attention.  The evenings are like later in life when you can relax. 

Which thing do you do first?  For me its morning-page like free writing with coffee and something light after a walk and then bass practice before steering into the primary work that I do.  I’ve heard exercise and water should be first.  The Artist Way series got my writing going first.  Some of these things I like at home and others out.  I don’t know who else feels this but there is some thing in leaving the home to work on a creative process elsewhere.  Your away from home distractions and you know are there to do the work.  The word work shouldn’t scare creators away.  Its still creative but as Billy Joel said “there’s a job…there’s a gig here…”

All of this hinges on any kind of major event.  And yeah, I do like structure.  It’s my parents coming out in me.  My mom is the creative and my dad is the logical former service planner for Hydro.

And so I’ll be up again, in the young hours with the practical and exhuberant playing out.

Houston, we’ve left normal

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My long time co-writer and friend Cheri Jacobs

     It’s really early.  It’s early enough to still be considered late.  Making coffee now because I know I won’t be going back to sleep for quite some time.  That’s the perfectly normal thing right about now.  I have never slept well, due to a large part that I never liked to do that.  My schedule has little power naps and as I type this on the tablet Cece is sleeping.  I give full points to a girlfriend who sticks by her creative man.  We’re the most difficult breed there is if we’re good and likely worse if were not.

      In now less than two weeks I voyage out into the waters that I have always wanted to sail.  Thanks to a mixture of my work with Cookeilidh, my work with Cheri Jacobs and our partnership with Less Bland Productions I have made the leap to being a writer and musician full time.  I do feel ready for these waters but naturally it is a place that I sort of half thought I wouldn’t be sailing.  The choice to make the leap is one that does scare me since it’s not as though I have made it in the conventional sense.  The work I do is exhilarating in both fields (two sides of my expression  that have always been there relentlessly since I could make baby noises most likely) but the work is still very much in the day to day grind of a local craftsman.  That is something that doesn’t bother me that much.  If you want superstardom you don’t really pick the fields of bass player and screenwriter.  I’ve certainly stepped out of those less lit parts of the stage to do things like acting (in little bits with Cheri on the Tom and Cheri Show) and singing (open stages and backup for Cookeilidh) but with those the need to do that came from the fact that there is this material and its simpler just to do it.  I swear its not false modesty.  I have, when a singer has been I’ll in the past, tried to fake that role for the evening.  Didn’t like it.  Much more relaxed to stand on my side of the stage and focus on making the best work I can.  Its similar to writing.  I want your imagination or the actors to take my ideas and make them soar.  I far prefer to get up early, make coffee and get an idea that makes my toes wiggle in the carpet.

But I won’t say that the ides of venturing out into doing this full time isn’t scary too.  Part of me does feel like “who do I think I am?”. I have routines down so I am always busy, which can include blogging at 4:30 a.m.

Still less than two weeks to go before I officially sail.  With all the making preperations for the journey I still wonder how I’ll feel when the anchor rises.

The White Wand

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The White Wand Blog site  This is the story that has never left me.  Whenever I do morning writing exercises the world of the people of Tarsha comes back.  Yeah, it’s big old silly nerdy world but it’s a great place to explore all the possibilities in writing.

Fantasy gives you the chance to leap out in the full horizon of concepts but also bring in things from this world and make them shine.  My favorite thing about this project is that I have tried to depart from the standard fantasy repertoire to bring characters like the Jeekas people with the towering Tiki Tree, Si wands and the dominion of the Bly Forest.

The new blog is at

The White Wand

Come by and have a look!  Lots more to come!

The writer’s journey

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Last night in rehearsal

There’s that moment when your wheels grip into the dirt and you surge forward.  You get that when you ride a track as a cyclist and your out of your seat pedaling hard towards those mini bumps that you can jump from the first one, over second and down third if you’re on it.  You can’t do that quiet the same with a hybrid bike.  I tried that on a BMX trail, jumped the first and came down on the next two and got stuck.  Fortunately there was no crowd for that.  That’s why I don’t race.  Well, that and my days of cycling just aren’t what they use to be.

Writing has also been around since I can remember and the idea of doing something serious with it has been at my shoulder likewise.  But there wasn’t really any special drive before.  I just liked riding and writing and fighting Ganon on level 9 like I alluded to in the blog on Nintendo gaming.  There was the occasional story that was inspired by my love of Red Dwarf and other British comedies that between that, computers and so on, yeah I was a nerd.  I still am, but now there’s this nerd cool thing that I sort of fit into, but it’s mostly as an extra.

The process began with a mixture of Ricky Gervais, a Sol Stein audiotape and Uvic.  I had some academic success with scripts and working as a janitor I had time to listen to these to others basically showing me the finer points of writing comedy which I had wanted to do.

Eventually it was the first small production and even though it crashed and burned badly I do remember those moments along its trail.  There is the first time a real actor emails for an audition.  The first time you see the name of your project on a slate.  The more you put in the more you realize you want to make this world happen.

It was also around this time that I started working with Cheri Jacobs.  I had wandered into my first comedy writing completely alone and I felt like having a co-writer would help with this so I put out an ad.  Cheri’s response was the most down to earth and enthusiastic so I met up with her.  It was a great working partnership right away as we finished seven episodes of the old project before that couldn’t move forward and then starting playing around with new ideas and pitches.  From this came Ollie and Emma and our own production company, Jacob Pogson Productions Ltd. 

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Each step along the way has been great with sharing of our enjoyment of what we’ve read and our work which comes from some different and some like backgrounds.  We still work on new ideas and feed off of each others energy and what I can’t wait is to share that energy with the world out there.  The road continues…

Cheers,
Tom

Created by TomPogson.com

Straight away, First thing

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Good size for mug 🙂

That was my first time using the quick photo feature.  Right now I’ve got, well a decent supply of coffee and a 300 page notebook and a bass which is pretty well perfect.  I have considered bringing a coffee maker in here too but as Cece is also in here I’m not sure her feelings on me brewing in here at 6am.  I could sneak in a Bodum perhaps.

Today we have the Emma and Mandy table read which I’m very excited to get into.  With the main shoot for the demo/pilot coming up it will be great to start working one on one with the cast again.  With recent events of course things have not been easy.  Wolf was not only a great cast member and someone who got our dream and our idea straight away but he was also my Cece’s beloved cousin.  We will be doing a tribute to him in the Ollie and Emma WordPress site early next week when we have time to focus on it properly.

I’ve also been working on a new blog story idea that comes from my own background of working in Victoria and living in James Bay where all the big hotels are situated.  It’s called Closer to Heaven and it’s a romance set here in working class Victoria, BC.  Our city is perfect for that, which I know any local anywhere would say but we are set on the ocean and one of Victoria’s quirks is, thinking of my mention of James Bay, the number of little mini towns within Greater Victoria and how, as I mentioned, the very rich and others can not only live close by but even right next door.  This also leads to all kinds of exchanges and therfore story possibilities.

Cookeilidh is also starting up our festival season which is looking to be really busy!  After such a supportive crowd at The Highland Games our next show is June 7th at World Ocean Day in Sidney, right down by the water.  Moving here almost 30 years ago now from the Mainland to Saanichton it’s great to play only a few blocks away from where I got my first bass! 
If you haven’t yet, follow the band on Facebook!

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Victoria Highland Games!

Created by TomPogson.com

Show must go on

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With lucky socks and left hand shoe
string tie smell the curtain singe beneath
searing red lamps

Piled together, motley freaks clammy
in off stage nausea that’s
when I text her x’s and o’s
It’s all break a leg or not
And I switch off.

And I switch on
to that creature born
of makeup, smokes and stale coffee
pacing thin leopard

I will pull up the boards with my friends
Raising each riser and rafter
to each conceived end

With plastic stars in our eyes
and blue camera flashes

Tungsten tears and sweat
without ceasing or backing off
We rise and challenge as to battle
to fight for other sad clowns

Our pulse rising to heights of curtain falls like an angel’s blaze in flight

On with the show.

—-
Poem in memory of Wolf Rick Patterson, dear friend and passionate showman.

Created by TomPogson.com

What do you want to see happen?

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The universe awaits...

     
     What do you want?  You don’t have to tell me or anything but what’s out there off in the fine distant horizon?  What world do you see in your mind’s eye or in you wildest dream?  Don’t discount that. It’s something we do as adults.  We’ve learned to play down our importance and the importance of those thoughts.

     No, it’s not all about you, or me, but can’t you give more to the world from a place of strength?  That strength can come from anything too.  Some of the greatest lives were not lived in opulence.

     I still set goals pretty much yearly.  Some goals have made it and some are still, shall we say, in rotation.  The reason I like them so much is the sense of direction they give.  They don’t have to be big since little reachable targets can build slowly towards the big ones but big glorious ones are lovely to have.  They give you that sense of extra drive, like how amazing it would be to get there.

     Every massive thing started small.  There is the “journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step” cliche, which is true but maybe overheard.  I like the story behind Lord of the Rings.  How did that colossus of books and films start?

     It began with a young soldier in the trenches of World War I and a notebook.  That’s it.  One young Englishman jotting down the next idea, maybe playing off of what he last thought.

      That’s the idea right there.  You get an idea of what you want to see, even from the impossibly of your trench, and each day make those steps towards it.  Anything you do counts for something here.  There’s no real pressure here either because any focus on the goal is better than nothing.  Any screw up just tells you “what isn’t the sculpture” in the rock.  Your focus sharpens.  You start getting the picture clearer.  Even if it’s going out for a catalog at the Ferrari dealership.  You have to know what your buying. 

If you want that, naturally.  What do you see?

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Created by TomPogson.com

Nostalgia

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The road to Death Mountain...

Was there something about those games back then that captured the imagination?  I have tried since the passing of my NES from being in its longrunning spotlight to get into games like back then but to no avail.  I have come back to them with purchasing old games and emulators so I don’t know if is really that I grew out if it.

I mean it was a different time and place for me definitely.  Things were definitely simpler then.  That was the age when the Internet was still just a rumor and we had a Comtex 386, which was pretty high end.  Which leads me to how gaming was.  Nintendo was better for action games and the IBM was better for R.P.G’s  Windows was very much in its infancy.  I would load games with MSDOS, the MS standing for…yeah they were already around.  Some games had sound but it was in clunky clips.  These stuck with words below the “action”

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Alexander takes a mint...

I confess I didn’t get to play as many of the Quest series as I would have liked to.  There was something about all this that was wonderfully mysterious though.  There was other players you could talk to in person but mostly you were on your own and as the game didn’t have perfect audio and video you filled in the rest somehow with your head as you worked through it.  It was also relatively simple to play with instructions being about the size of a slightly oversized pamphlet to Fable Cottage Estate that you would pick up on a BC Ferry.   That was my weirdest ever hobby as a kid.  Pamphlet collecting.  Yeah, I don’t get that one either.

If you really wanted to nerd out you could put on a Monty Python cassette and play this at the same time.  Glorious!

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I'm a lumber jack. ..

The above game was a long time favorite which I’ve yet to find a emulator of that comes close.  It was called Empire Wargame of the Century and it was essentially a risk style game with two other players, human or computer, lurking out there in the darkness that would play and explore in turns.  It was usually a slow victory even if you made your settings absurdly easy.

It was a very different time for those of us who first saw the excitement of those early computer game years, starting for me with Apple 2 games like Carmen Sandiego, Choplifter, Airheart and Cross Country Canada all the way until Final Fantasy and these four guys from the Sierra Games.

Just four guys in a game, you know…

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Leisure Suit Larry, Police, Space, and Kings Quest

Permit me to be the nostalgic old guy.   Those were the days…

😉

Tom

Created by TomPogson.com

Kindness is magic

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All the difference on earth

How can you make the world a better place?  Ricky Gervais had this trending as a Twitter hashtag a couple years back but it stands repeating.  World peace seems so daunting as do all of those sorts of things.  But what could you change?

I wrote this after a day of trying to think of some material and mostly getting stuff like people arguing about merging on Facebook which got me thinking about how we should find another way since they can’t run forever anyways.  But where do you start with that?  It’s that same level of massive subject that feels too much to even go into.

Thinking about this I went into the food store.  I tried to keep it simple but had even less money than I realized.  I tried asking if the lady could take some things back but it still didn’t go through.  Then a lady behind me in line paid for me.  It wasn’t just a few quarters either it was over a five.  I thanked her profusely and she said she had been there before.

It was just a little moment but I am so grateful to that person.  It gives you that feeling that as one community we can make it all work out.

It doesn’t take much.  Even just stepping forward when someone is having a hard time makes all the difference.  The feeling of things working out can spread.

Have a great day!

🙂

Tom

Created by TomPogson.com

And I just saw this :s

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Oh..

     I use WordPress mobile for just about everything you see here.  I swear to your preferred diety (or favorite bovine) this is not a grumbly go at the set up of that because I have really enjoyed working on it up until now and I want to say I really appreciate the support I’ve had since I started on this site as well as my work on Journal by Max, Ollie and Emma, and now the new Closer to Heaven blog.  I just got my first 100 likes which was a great milestone.  I’m not great at getting the screengrab photo thing, but trust me, it’s there.

I do wish though that the wordpress app told you that there was other comments that it had screened you from seeing.  I was just on the way back from my Cookeilidh show at the Highland Games when I actually went to the online version and found them.  I was looking up how the Ad thing works.  Not sure if I’ll do that yet, and don’t have the money to go premium but there you go.

What’s critical and freaked me out is that there is a thing that screens comments for suspected spam.  I didn’t know this and you wordpress users who don’t know this should maybe check too.  I had a chance to see the first 4 and only one so far is spam.  There around 50 of these!  I have a busy weekend with the Games, getting ready for our new Emma Mandy shoot and getting the Bravo fact pitch together so I will go through them when I can.

I absolutely apologize for not seeing this until now.  Please don’t anyone think I’m ignoring you because I’m not.  I do that on Twitter mostly.  I get lots of “gain 1000 followers” and other such actual obvious spams.

I managed to see two of them on the bus home and the messages looked really positive so I am really grateful for that 🙂 

But yeah the new one is called Closer to Heaven and it’s kind of my attempt at a straight fiction love story.  I kind of like where it’s going but I find it funny I can’t just do an absolutely normal love story.  I’ve been making lots of notes and prewriting behind the scenes of that (behind the scenes like…I want to bring in more local shots for those.  That’s one of the things I’ve enjoyed about the entire process of working on the Ollie and Emma promotion.  I came in a writer and bassist and I came out still that but one who likes taking photos and reading about what’s on Vic.

Having bit of a post show, then post post meal crash.  It has me falling asleep while typing so I suddenly spring awake and see I have written “ğjhh” which is a clue.

Clues…clues go good with fries..and bacon.  Yup I should go.  Have a great rest of Saturday on this long weekend!

I will read your comments soon.

Cheers,
Tom

Created by TomPogson.com