In writing my book, I purposefully laid in layers to give it a sense of depth.  On the surface, it’s a fast-paced, action packed, page turner (damn, I’m conceited).  There’s sex.  There’s mayhem.  Want betrayal?  You got it.  Want love?  You got it.

Slice under that superficial layer and you’ll find a deeper understanding of the story.  Billowing clouds may reflect a character’s painful conflict within.  Heat from a fire reflecting off someone’s clothes may echo the character’s anger.  Wind may symbolize a character’s dominance over their lands.

In 1954 a renowned filmmaker released what’s considered one of the best films ever made:  Seven Samurai.  It’s about a Japanese farming village, constantly beseiged and pillaged by an army of bandits, recruits seven independent samurai to defend it.

Akira Kurosawa’s films have influenced great directors such as Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.  In fact, Star Wars was heavily influenced by The Hidden Fortress, a Kurosawa film.

I have to admit, when I watched Seven Samurai, I was like, “What da hell?”

I was caught off guard by the soundtrack, pacing and language (despite my slanty eyes, I don’t speak Japanese).  I did drag myself through the length of the film, all three hours and forty-five minutes.

Luckily, I had bought The Criterion Collection of the film.  There are tons of lectures on the DVD discs, and I listened to all of them, wanting to learn everything I could.  What I learned had a profound effect on me and my writing.  Or is it my writing and I?

Consolidating Kurosawa’s genius would be difficult and insulting.  But here I go.  He controlled everything because everything in his films had a purpose, a reason.  Every word, action, shadow, even the swipe or fading to the next scene meant something.  If someone broke wind, there was a purpose.  Unless it was silent but deadly.

The most interesting character is Kikuchiyo, played by Toshiro Mifune.  He doesn’t exactly look like a samurai, nor does he walk like one.  So is he a samurai?  He lugs his extra long sword on his shoulder instead of holstering it around his waist like the other six.  What does this say about Kikuchiyo?  Is he compensating for something?  Or is there a deeper story within the character?

In his dramatic scene, Kikuchiyo admits he was once a villager and somehow found his way to samuraism. (Is that even a word?)  This didn’t happen in those days of Japan.  It was difficult enough to move up the ranks of the samurai.  And admitting you were once a villager was like admitting you’re a woman, when you’re really a man, but without the operation.

The lectures in the special features stated Kikuchiyo symbolized the filmmaker, Kurosawa.  His views were somehow reminiscent of Kikuchiyo and his rise in society and that Japan had moved into the modern era.  This is further symbolized when each samurai is killed by a modern weapon:  the gun.  Once the villagers were saved, they continued their lives giving any thought to their saviors.  We see the surviving samurai walk from the cemetery where their comrades were buried and out to the horizon, never to return.

I rewatched the film many times, and I grew to love it. The story density is amazing.

It’s interesting to see how we clamor to the magazine stands to find out the latest on celebrities.  What atrocities have they committed?  But if we were truly curious about who they were, all we’d have to do is turn to their art.

For art is the language of the soul.

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Do you work at the US Mint?

I was waiting for a free table at my favorite place to write, Borders. And I overheard a high school student asking a grad student about working in the financial sector.  The grad student had financial looking books on the long table.  He said that if you worked for this certain company doing this certain kind of trade, you’d make a lot of money.

Something inside me wanted to jump up, slap the grad student across the face, and take the high school student, shake him, and tell him to follow his passions.

If that’d happened, then I’d be writing this post in jail.

The more important question was why did I react this way. And why do I react this way when I hear people say, “Do this and you’ll make lots of money.” Or the more infamous, “I’ve created a system that will create fast, easy money, bring you girls from all over the world. See this car I’m driving? Would you like to drive this car?” Then in faint, white fine print ‘Results may vary. Results not typical.’  The kind of fine print that not even Sherlock Holmes could find.

As I was waiting for a table, I checked through my unread emails and came across a newsletter from Michael Neill. Check him out. He’s awesome. He wrote about the difference between earning money and making money.

Aren’t those two the same?

The only people in America that make money are the people who work in the US Mint. The rest of us earn money.

The earning part is where most people don’t understand.

I was talking to a friend yesterday and he’s helping his close friend produce some videos. My friend said he knew how to get free actors. We laughed because actors would work for free just to get their faces and names out there. But these actors are on to something. They’re putting the work in, serving others, with the hope that it’ll pay them back.

To start a fire in a fireplace, you must give it wood. This wood is the service you give before you can get heat, the payback.  Life is full of dualities.  Giving and receiving are two sides of the same coin, the yin and yang, complete opposites that work with each other.

Will I make money from my books? No. Unless I use the pages to print money. But that would be a big no no.

My job as a writer is to write the best book that I can write, to write the story given to me, and have fun doing it.  I’ve put my soul into it.  As the fame photographer Rodney Lough has said, art is the language of the soul.  Everything else follows.

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Everyone in my book hates my hero.

Why?

He’s sending tens of thousands of sons and daughters, fathers and mothers to a war that seems pointless.

Sound familiar?

However, there is a legitimate reason for this war, this war in my book.  But everyone doesn’t see it, and they exact their negative opinions.

Isolating the main character is important to create empathy for my hero.  One of hundreds of techniques used to create an emotional bond between reader and hero. The reader has a superior view of the whole story.  The reader knows the truth behind the necessity of this particular war.  So they’ll root for him.

One of my favorite shows that has ended was Jon and Kate Plus Eight.  I tell my friends that I’m an avid watcher of the show.  And I don’t watch that much TV, let alone reality TV.  But I found the kids endearing, the parent’s relationship real, cause it was, and was pulled into their family dynamic.

If you’re a fan of the show, then you know the drama that has gone on between the parents and TLC.  TLC being the network that put on the show.

The thing that saddens me are the opinions, tabloids, and hate that had been shown to all parties.  I know one thing that’s true.  Opinions are like assholes.  Everyone has them.  And they smell like ass.

No one on the outside knows really what’s going on between Jon and Kate, Jon and TLC, Kate and TLC, TLC and TLC.  The amount of crap that portrays itself as truth is so negative that I wonder why we are so engaged with it.  Is it because misery loves company?  Maybe.  Is it because we hate it when people gain a certain amount of fame and fortune?  Maybe.

Why can’t we just let them be, let them handle their issues, and live our lives?  I mean, do people not have enough of their own problems that they have to take on others, too?

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In an interview, Sendak was asked what he’d say to parents about the movie being too scary for kids.  His response?

“I would tell them to go to hell. That’s a question I will not tolerate.”

I love that.  Not that I want people to go to hell.  Nor do I believe in a hell, but one that we create for ourselves.  That’s a topic for another post.

I’m tired of parents, or people, telling an author, film maker, or storyteller what their story should or shouldn’t include.  First of all, it’s not those people’s story to tell.  Second of all, authors usually don’t know where their inspiration come from.  What they do know is they have to be loyal,honest, to the stories that are given to them.  Any conformity the author makes, outside of story structure, can destroy the story itself.

J.K. Rowling has been bombarded with upset parents and church groups for writing her Harry Potter novels.  Her books have been on many banned book lists.  A sign that an author has made it. Her response has been the same when questioned about her dark material.  She’s told them not to read her books.  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn written by Mark Twain has been banned.  And that has been considered a great American novel.

If a parent, or anyone, who finds a movie, book, TV show, anything offensive, then ignore it.  Time is too precious to focus on what you don’t like.  Focus on what you do.

Even when a story comes to a writer, and it goes against traditional story structure, then the writer should go with their intuition.  Take the hit book to movie Slumdog Millionaire.  It uses flashbacks to tell most of the story.  I can’t tell you how many books, teachers, and professional writers state flashbacks are a big no no.  It simply takes the threat of death away.  But it worked.  It worked so well that tension was still a driving force in those flashbacks.  That’s because other’s died.  But still, it worked!

Follow your passions.  Follow your intuition.  Great thinkers and leaders do.

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I was reading an article in one of those karate or kung fu magazines. It was written by a practitioner. He was discussing how spirituality was missing from MMA, specifically targetting UFC fighters. That all fighters wanted was to be champions, to have fame, fortune, and busty ladies swarming around them.

Hell…what man wouldn’t want that?

It’s obvious there’s a huge misunderstanding of how spirituality should be practiced, or that MMA fighters don’t practice it. And it was also obvious this practitioner didn’t watch MMA, read the forums, interviews, and watch post fight conferences like I do.

It’s one of my many vices.

The wise practitioner, the writer of this wise article, full of wisdom, full of research, and full of shit harped on the lack of inner peace. Through his wise words I knew this person never fought, or if he did, then he approached it without inner peace. As wise and full of wisdom as he ascertained.

I’m a huge MMA fan. Watched hundreds of hours of interviews. And one thing that all fighters strain to get is inner peace. One of the most popular UFC fighters is former light heavy weight champion Chuck “The Iceman” Lidell. His monicker indicates that his nerves are as cold as ice before, during and after a fight. Every fighter praises him for that. Because if a fighter gets too excited, they’ll waste energy, suffer from an adrenalin dump, or are prone to mistakes. And mistakes in a game where there are literally dozens upon dozens of ways to lose isn’t a good thing. Keeping your cool is essential. And the current dominant fighters of the UFC and Strikeforce exhibit this without a doubt.

I get more nervous watching them fight.

Back to this all wise practitioner. His practice of inner peace is through meditation. I’m surmising here. But it’s pretty common. And there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s pretty easy to reach inner peace when you’re peaceful.  It’s kinda like going into a room full of yellow balloons to look for a yellow balloon.

Now, if we place a fighter punching this all wise practitioner in the face, how well would he be able to keep inner peace? Not well. But MMA fighters do this every day. And their ability to keep this inner peace allows them to adapt to the fight. It’s very common to see one fighter losing the fight badly, and with a slight change of strategy he comes up with the win.

This can’t be done if the fighter panics because he isn’t present enough to analyze what’s going on.

MMA fighters also practice 6-8 hours a day. They have to love the process and love the journey to continue to learn and challenge themselves. Another principle of spiritualitism.

All fighters want to be champions. But as they climb the ladder to contention, they remain present and focus on their current opponent. They study tapes, go over strategy, hire fighters who can mimic their opponents, and rarely think pass them. The principle of being present is at work here.

MMA fighters practice inner peace, but they do it in an environment that doesn’t elicit it.  So who’s more skilled at inner peace?  Someone who practices in a peaceful environment?  Or someone who practices in a violent one?

I wrote this because it struck me as a huge misunderstanding of MMA fighters.  To be misunderstood is a sore subject for my main character in my book.  He’s continually misunderstood by the people he’s sworn to protect, but he pushes on because it is what he does.  What hero gives up?

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Immediately, I dreamt of Jeannie.  Genie actually.  Jeannie was hot.  I remembered watching that show because her costume was the best.  I mean, how many women do you see on the street dressed up in transparent silks?

I thought about the phrase “Ask and you shall receive”.  So I thought about my book.  I wished for my wish.  I did my best to make it as big as possible in that moment.  A wish that I would say, “Wow.  That is awesome.”

I walked into a clearing and saw the whole sky.  This is what I saw.

I thought this was pretty cool.

The best way to predict the future is to create it.  -Peter Drucker

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Which way is better?

Let’s ask a question.  Does getting hit by a car feel good?  I can tell you by experience it doesn’t.  But if I wanted to teach someone this, would I plow through them with my car?

Maybe.

For most people they don’t need to be hit by a car to know it’ll hurt.  I guess, I wasn’t one of those.

I was talking to friends, a mother and father, who have a daughter.  She’s been dating this boy who doesn’t treat her well.  I can’t go into detail but he’s abusive.  By his behavior he’s possessive, needy and manipulative.  I know this because I was once possessive, needy and manipulating.  It takes one to know one.

My friends want their daughter to rid of this boy for good reason.  They talked to their daughter on numerous occasions, but she’s become codependent.  In her case, the codependence comes from a lack of self-worth, despite her confident facade.  And it’s sad because my friends feel helpless to do anything.  In listening to their conversations I know the daughter has to learn this lesson the hard way.  The lesson that she deserves to be treated with much more respect, the lesson that she deserves someone who’ll truly love her, the lesson that she deserves her independence.

Just as I had to learn that my behavior of possession, neediness, and manipulation wasn’t healthy for the women I dated, it was unhealthy for me as a human being.

For those who think the parents should force separation, let’s look at the bigger picture.

If they were succesful in permanently separating the couple, they would alleviate the immediate situation.  But will the daughter have learned the lesson of self-worth that she deserves better?  That her relationship is unhealthy?  No.  How do I know this?  Because humans repeat their behavior until lessons are learned.  And lessons are learned only if the person is ready to change.  It’s obvious to me the daughter isn’t ready for that.

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

Not only will she repeat the behavior, she may enter another relationship that is even worse.  Once she learns this lesson, she’ll be able to identify future relationships that won’t be good for her, no matter how good they appear on paper.

She’s also an actress.  In the future, a role may be given to her.  A role in which the female character went through something similar.  And she nails the audition because she knows exactly what the character is experiencing.  And this role may catapult her career.  Where without this experience she may not get the role.

This experience can also lead to the man, her ‘soul’ mate.  Again, without going through the hard lesson, she may not see herself deserving someone so great and overlook him.  There are infinite possibilities.

Sometimes, lessons must be learned by experience.

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I was at the gym and saw this girl. Cute. Then it happened. “Her eyes are too Asian,” I said to myself.

Huh?

First off every one is perfect in their own way. It’s why there isn’t a perfect cherry blossom. No such thing. Because every blossom is perfect (From The Last Samurai). This applies to humans as well. Once we start comparing one to another is when this Eastern way of looking at things deteriorates.

When I was practicing crap martial arts, see my bio, we were given a special treat. Our teacher brought in a Chinese Kung Fu teacher to teach us a Chinese form. A form is a series of martial art movements against imaginary opponents. By the way, that in itself is not the best way to learn how to fight. And what makes a form Chinese? The slantiness of the movement?

As my friend and I practiced the form–we’re both Chinese–we were marvelling at how different the movement was from the daily crap that we practiced. Keep in mind I didn’t know I was studying crap martial arts till I was awakened.

One of the supervising instructors came to us and said, “You’re too Chinese,” referring to our movement.

My friend and I looked at each other. Then looked at our non-Chinese supervising teacher.

“Nooooo,” I said. “Wouldn’t want to be too Chinese.” Were our eyes extra slanty?

Everbody knows not to be judgemental. Even those who are aware of why can place judgement on others. We are after all human. It’s the conscious practice of being non-judgemental that’s important. Not the mistakes of when we are. But if you’re not aware that judgement is wrong, is the person still to blame?

I can’t say. And neither does the hero of my book. So what does he do? Continues to serve despite the hate he gets from doing so.

In Bruce Lee’s only filmed interview he was asked if he wanted to be thought of as Chinese or a North American. He was born in San Francisco. He said he wanted to be thought as a human being.

Here’s an experiment: Spend an hour without placing judgement on others. If you do, no problem. Just start the hour over. See how long you can do it.

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My friend who saw my reaction said,“How old are you?“

What does that matter?

The lead character of my book has defied age and experience.  Part of moving up the military echelon requires the dueling of more experienced, higher ranking warriors.  Being a tenderwing, a term used for a child or inexperience, the hero never let that get in his way.  Not that he wasn’t intimidated or ever scared.  But his father taught him that whatever you think you are.  Therefore, he never thought about his inexperience.  He only focused on his skills.

In Eastern philosophy any change must start from the inside, in particular the mind.  It’s the mind that leads and the body must follow.  Think about this.  You’re thirsty.  Your mind commands your hand to pick up that beer.  Then it commands your arm to bring that frosty drink to your mouth, etc.

So why is it when both men and women want to look younger do they start from the outside?  Worse yet, they don’t even go to the inside.  Women tend to use more make up, wear their daughter’s clothes.  Men date younger women, drive expensive sport cars.  None communicates youth but communicates, “I’M STILL YOUNG DAMMIT!”

My excitement of the Nerf sword was truly my excitement for a kid’s toy.  Inside I feel young as if I was still twelve.  I love to play.  I love fun.  I wonder about our world and ask questions every day.  Isn’t that what kids do?

“Why is the sky blue?”

“Why does that fat man eat so much?”

“Where do babies come from?”

“Why were you praying to dad last night?”

At first I thought my immaturity was my rebelling against growing up.  But the things I’ve accomplished in my life have required the maturity of an adult.  I just go back to playing whenever I can.  Most of nature is this way.  Lions lounge around all day, except when it’s time to hunt and eat.  Dog’s love to play ball, have their ears scratched, their bellies rubbed.  Dolphins leap into the air cause it’s fun.  Why else would they do it?  It doesn’t serve any other purpose.

Every day take a moment to have a little fun, or a lot.  It may serve a purpose, but definitely doesn’t have to.

Have fun.  Have the wonderment of children.

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The hero in my book is confronted with a choice.  His close friend and former mentor wants to brutally take over the world.  The hero is given the safe and easy position of being the right hand man.  Doing so would kill tens of thousands of lives through war.  Rebelling against his mentor would kill tens of thousands of lives through war.  Probably more.  Nice choice, huh?

I was watching a documentary called Slanted Screen. It chronicled the stereotypical and racial barriers Asian actors have to go through and endure in order to be successful in Hollywood.  I enjoyed the documentary, but I have a serious problem with it.  More on that later.

The main message was rebel.

One of the main reasons Asians are not seen as much in Hollywood is that acting, singing, dancing, the arts, are not considered practical choices of occupation.  I know.  My family detested my decision to study acting, and at times isn’t the most positive when it comes to my success in writing.

Actor Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa has been in tons of movies such as Mortal Kombat, Rising Sun with Sean Connery and  Wesley Snipes, and in upcoming movie Tekken.  The list is just huge.  He said something that I connect to.  If your heart is in the arts, and your family doesn’t support it, then don’t listen to your family.

Rebel.

I think too much in life we succumb to the norm.  Afraid of marching to our own drummer.  Wary of listening to our hearts let alone follow it.

I wrote a post about themillion dollar question. It asked, if you were guaranteed to make a million dollars a year, what would you do?  Does it match the work you’re doing now?  If not, can you spend an hour a day, five days a week on it?  If that’s too much time, then reduce it to 45 minutes a day, five days a week.  Or 30 minutes, five days a week.  Four days.  Three.  Just start.

What happens, if you truly love it, or like it, is you’ll naturally spend more time on it.  You’ll sacrifice precious things like hours talking shit in the bar, or watching television.  Have your own vision.  It happened to me.  I started writing around five hours a week.  Then it grew to ten.  Suddenly, I was spending an average of 15 hours a week writing.  I loved it.

We all have bills.  We have to eat.  Take care of our families.  Have laundry that we have to wash on the rocks by the river bed.  After we clothespin the laundry on the clothesline, what do we do?  We sit down on the couch and watch TV.  We watch reality TV.  Watch others chase, attack their dreams.  We see a lot of them succeed.  Then we go to bed, sleep, wake up the next morning, and start the circle all over again.

This is called complaining, playing the victim, blaming things outside of ourselves, when it is us who stopped us from chasing our dreams initially.  And that was the problem with Slanted Screen.  A lot of people interviewed said being Asian made it hard to succeed in Hollywood.  Really?

Have you heard of a small guy namedBruce Lee?

Rebel.

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