Mortimer

On my computer there is a file of old letters, and when I have trouble finding the right one to post I post the first one in the file. That is assuming I find a file worth posting.

This is a letter and a letter response from a screenplay contest. They had this thing where you could ask a piece of clipart for advice. I asked my question to get into the spirit of things, and I was the only one that did.  

I think the important thing to remember here is that people who enter screenplay contest are interested in winning not participating.

4^th August 2011

Hay Mortimer,

Got a hard question for you.

I've two scripts I could rewrite for this and I can't pick. I got "Levi" Bond meets Alien eats Reservoir Dogs. It's a complicated plot with scenes out of chronological order that makes you keep wondering what will happen next. The other one is "Walker in the Trees" which is a more mainstream horror movie. When Karl's sister is found dead he is haunted with images of her death and obsessed with the idea that she was murdered. Will he find the truth or spend the rest of his life obsessed with a freak accident?

"Levi" is going to stand out and "Walker in the Trees" is easier to understand. The other concern is that I don't know if I can get Levi up to snuff on time but if I had to give you a time table on Walker it would be around three weeks. Ten days if you need it fast.

I don't know, simple or complicated, epic or personal, I just can't decide.

What do you think?

Richard


Hey Richard, 

Ya won't have much time to perfect this little baby, cause the idea is you write for a month and say screw it and hit that little itty bitty submit button. 

Learn to let go, my indecisive friend. Hand it over to the big guy in the sky. Yeah, I do mean Robert McKee. Just imagine he’s sitting on your lap, listening to your pitch. Which one does he NOT want to vomit on. That’s the one! 

Sounds like the horror flick would fit into their Horror slot just about right. And the other might give someone a brain hemorrhage. 

But, in the end, it's whatever you can get written in a month that won’t drive you bonkers and gets your creative juices flowing. The juicier the better. The judges can smell a juicy, yummy, passionate piece of writing a mile away. 

Passion is good. Juicy passion is better. Juicy passion with a kick-ass story that doesn’t make the reader want to shoot himself is best! On second thought, flip a coin. Always works for me.

Alrighty

Mortimer

Uncivilized Brute - The Old Dark House

Great Experiment - Dr. Mirakle

Electric Immortality’

I wrote this when I was eleven or twelve still reeling from the death of my mother two years earlier. I had invented a story about a man who had been kill and reanimated through the use of implants. Those implants eventually became a part of him being truly consumed by his systems until it was impossible for the machine to be distinguished from the man.

To be dead honest, I got the idea from a few TV shows and movies mix with these booklets about surgery that had been floating around my house. They were images of muted tone showing flesh and implants together. I remember having these strange dreams about people who could be taken apart and put back together with screw drivers.

I guess I wished the world was that way. I wished I could have just taken a broken person to the mechanic and had them fixed. If only the world could be so simple that any think broken could be truly mended.

It simple isn’t so with the human body or mind.

Date unknown but some time in 1992.

ELECTRIC IMMORTALITY

A sound and then a silence

a ray upon the sky

the fleet has turned to dust

I lie upon the wreckage

bruised and battered am I

what is that at the door

a sinister figure

and I awaken a metal man

who are those people

with blood upon their tools

of healing and of  hurting

My hands are turned to claws                                            

human I am not

machine am I

O' why, O' why, O' why

Heresy - Dr. Mirakle

A Note about Letters

What most of us would give to be fourteen again, and that was the age at which I wrote this letter. To be honest, I would never want to be fourteen again because being fourteen was a time at the height of my disease.

This is the oldest document recovered from my electronic files, and the random nature of its request is a testament to the sickness that plagued my mind. Exactly what was wrong with me at the time is a question that cannot be completely answered.

Some where I have the opinion of a nurse and I will post that soon, but whatever it was I believe that at least part of it stemmed from the fact that no matter what I said or did I had no affect on the world around me.

The world looked on as I suffered, and no one was willing to admit the truth or act against it. I was a thing expendable, and if I lived or died no one would have taken much notice.

As for the letters noted in this text they never existed. I had gotten it into my diseased brain that I should write letters, but the limit of my command of the written word hampered me. I never delivered this letter but the only right answer to so foolish a request would have been no.

1^st April 1994

Dear (English teacher),

            

I have an unusual request, that is I have several letters that I need correcting and you are the most trust worthy of all that I have considered for this task, but if you do not have the time for this I will understand. I realize that you are a busy man with your family and your class schedules, but if you can find time to spare, I would greatly appreciate it.

                         

Sincerely,

                              

R. L. Neal

Friend with Beer - Barron Frankenstein