How Writing (& X-Men) Saved Me From Myself

By author | July 25, 2016 |

One value I place above all is authenticity. And on a blog, this means always being honest, and being vulnerable as much as is appropriate.

I firmly believe the best creative work – including our lives – is always honest, always authentic.

Tell the truth, the last few months have been tough for me. Without going into too much detail, I’ve been feeling led to confront issues from my childhood, which I’ve buried and run away from for 20 years. They’d been undermining me and controlling me for too long – and this year, I knew it was time to confront them. I knew this would mean going down a dark path, into the valley, and knew this would impact me – but I also knew it was, and is, absolutely necessary for me to grow.

What I didn’t expect was the depths to which this would go, and has gone.

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Ferris Bueller, FOMO & The Truth Of Breathing

By author | April 13, 2015 |

A fortnight back I attended a 2 day teaching with Rob Bell on all sorts of subjects. I’ll be blogging about it in more detail soon.

One of the issues he raised was a topic Brenda McGraw touched on last week – burnout, rest. And today I want to talk about another aspect of this – taking care of ourselves.

So naturally, there’s only one person I thought to turn to first.

I’m talking of course, about Ferris Bueller. He once said this:

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it”

A well known quote. And as we’ll see, Ferris nails it completely

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What ‘Interstellar’ Taught Me About Writing

By author | November 10, 2014 |

Last weekend I watched Christopher Nolan’s new film, ‘Interstellar’. It’s a film set in the near future about a group of people who have to travel into deep space, to save humanity. It has some of the best cinematography I’ve ever seen, and a powerful, emotive narrative. It’s epic in every sense of the word.

‘Interstellar’ is a demonstration of a master at work. It’s Christopher Nolan at the absolute peak of his powers as a filmmaker. Someone with total mastery of their craft, in every possible sense. The storytelling, cinematography, soundtrack, editing, and epic size of the movie are perfectly seamless.

‘Interstellar’ is a cinematic masterpiece.

And when I watched it, and reflected on it afterward, one of the things which stuck with me purely from an artistic perspective was simply this:

My main goal in writing is to leave a positive impact on the world. To serve others. But outside of this, my biggest hope is that I can master the art of writing and storytelling, in the way Chris Nolan has mastered the art filmmaking. To have the command over words and stories which Nolan currently holds over the art of filmmaking.

It may be my biggest test as a writer.

The film also convinced me of one other, crucial fact. That to become a master writer, I must become a master storyteller.

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What Miami Vice Taught Me About Identity

By author | October 20, 2014 |

In the 1980’s there was a TV show called ‘Miami Vice’, about two undercover police officers from, surprisingly enough, Miami. The image & clothing of the police officers, and it’s location, gave it a particular image which made it an iconic show of the 1980’s.

Toward the end of season 2, one of the principal characters, Sonny Crockett (played by Don Johnson, left in picture), poses undercover as a drug dealer ‘Sonny Burnett’. This is a false self with his own backstory.

But when Sonny gets hit on the head and gets amnesia, he only remembers the identity of Sonny Burnett. So he goes ahead and lives out that identity, not remembering he is an undercover police officer, existing solely as Sonny Burnett.

He’s not Sonny Burnett. It’s not his true identity. However, he continues to live and act like he is. And this story, and it’s resolution, is a great example of a fundamental truth about identity. In the words of Rob Bell:

“What we do comes out of who we believe we are”

In other words, our identity defines our reality.

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Know your Sabbath, know yourself

By author | October 16, 2010 |

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB95KLmpLR4] I watched the film ‘The Social Network’ last night (see the trailer above), a film which tells the story of the early years of Facebook, how and why it came about and how as things developed it affected the relationship of the two guys who began it. Its a brilliant film and I’d recommend…

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