Paul Schiernecker

Author: Paul

  • The overwhelming power of words.

    I just wanted to say thank you to the people who have kept me on track recently. The people who ask if they can read my work. The people who ask how it’s going. The person who asked which of the boys in Situation One shouted out a man’s name when they were saying which of their lecturers they fancy. You are the people who let me know that all the nights in, and all the square eyes, and the aches in my fingers and the countless cups of coffee are worth it, that eventually I can deliver something that I enjoy.

    Last night I got a lift home from a dear friend of mine who is currently reading my novel. He was so full of questions about the characters and their adventures and it was so nice to be able to talk about it all to someone who wasn’t there and yet was genuinely interested in what happened. He also said that he really likes my writing style so in turn I feel I have to thank Salinger, Dahl, Fitzgerald, Thompson and Kerouac for teaching me how to write without limits.

    It honestly is an absolute joy to spend my time writing, and now that I’m getting such wonderful feedback on it all I just feel overwhelmed and so supported so thank you to everyone who has read or asked after my well being in the last year.

    Peace&love.

    Paul.

  • Torture – a flash fiction piece.

    With her eyes covered and her hands bound Ashley struggled to make sense of her new world. By the rocking of the wooden chair she was tied to it sounded; by the echo, as though it were a large or empty space. She had awoken to the sound of footsteps receding and a metal door being closed and locked but they had not returned since, however long that had been. That was the worst thing. Ashley was never late.

  • On The Road – a film review.

    It feels like this film has been coming at me forever, like headlights always sat on the horizon, but I guess that’s the danger of knowing too much too soon, and knowing that its circling around the festival scene before it will come to a five rowed studio screen in a cinema in Basildon. The love I have for the book was a catalyst for all this, the movement inspired my own writing and those characters changed the tides in ways that are very much unappreciated. They were all at the forefront, “the disillusioned twenty-first century poets” as my dear Kate said to me last night on the road to burgers and french fries. She wasn’t far wrong. They didn’t suffer the same restraints of their ancestors, by blood or by word, and yet they weren’t quite in the promised nirvana, it was a no mans land to do with as they wish and they shook to jazz and filled up notepads with Benzedrine jabberings.

    It was therefore a mild relief to watch a film that attempted to capture that, because for the most part it did. While it felt like certain scenes and chapters were rushed; Sal working on the cotton fields and his life with Terri for example, there were true moments of beauty to it all. The cast cannot be faulted, and as with Perks there are moments that look like they’ve been dragged from the book, through the sieve of my mind and then splashed up onscreen, it just fits exactly to what I had expected.
    For a skinny, pale, English boy drawn to the dead and the dying Sam Riley does an incredible job holding it all down as Sal Paradise, a character tweaked only slightly from Kerouac himself for his writing purposes. His accent is strong, and the way he sees things and writes and smokes is how you imagine Kerouac to work (with the limited catalogue of recorded work we have to judge these things by). Garrett Hudland also works well as Dean Moriarty although at times the sense of wonder Sal holds over him in the book is sold short on screen, as though there were points when he were too tired to keep up trying to be Moriarty, who as we all remember “burns, burns, burns”.
    As expected Kristen Stewart’s presence in the film dragged three teenage girls into the cinema with absolutely no interest in the beat movement, or the story, or even putting their phones on silent but her acting wasn’t bad. Maybe that’s because Mary-Lou isn’t particularly the most filled character, even if she is the most filled character. Regardless, she holds her own in a world of men. Viggo Mortensen’s brief appearance as Old Bull Lee is also brilliant but cut far too short, I could have watched a feature on him.

    I think overall the thing to note is that no film is ever going to catch the spirit of a book. It doesn’t have the time. Modern audiences don’t have the patience. It would look different to each person. It’s just not possible. There are however moments when On The Road catches onto the imagination and sucks on it hard, and when it does the sky is lit up for a brief moment before returning us to the darkness of the hushed auditorium.

    20121017-081754.jpg

  • Face burn.

    Morning.
    I got up far too early this morning, went running, did some yoga to warm down, showered and then got ready for work. It hurts me that I didn’t manage to squeeze a little bit of writing into this morning’s routine but everything is going to plan, I’ve got half my short stories finished now, although a couple of them are being scrutinised, tested and checked by some dear friends who are guaranteed a safe passage into Valhalla with my blessing.

    I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to orchestrate writing two thousand words a day into my routine as of next month. It’s going to be difficult, difficult, lemon difficult. I’ve been experimenting with getting an earlier train under the assumption that they would be quieter. It turns out more people are headed to London early than I had expected. I didn’t get a seat yesterday, let alone somewhere I could prop a laptop up for forty five minutes. Today’s search has been somewhat more fruitful. I’ve headed right for the back (like the naughty kids)
    at school) and so far I have a four seater to myself. I think the trick of keeping a four seater is to look on edge or on drugs. My natural look is a balance between the two and I’m hoping I can keep the savages back all the way to Liverpool Street. Maybe I could get this seat cordoned off with rope, and hire a bouncer.

    Anyway, I finished re re re re re reading Perks yesterday so now I’m re re re re re reading Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas. Keep it strange.

  • Out in this 4 degree heat.

    I’ve made a conscious effort to not be late this morning. Now my train is late and I’m left at the platform freezing my Two Door Cinema Club off. Oh wild joys of commuting. I assumed the platform would be empty at this goddamn hour but if anything it is busier than my normal time. What are all these people playing at? Were there families awake when they left the house this morning? Did they get to say goodbye to their loved ones? I doubt it.

    It’s a curious existence. We all jam ourselves into an electric box on wheels and then avoid each others eyes for forty-five minutes. It definitely makes the idea of sunny days a lot more appealing.

  • Gooooood morning.

    Hi.
    This morning I got up early, went for a run and then worked on my fifth short story (which is currently called Home). My car is finally back in the road so I was able to clear out some more stuff that’s been suffocating me. That’s another two bags of clothes and a box of books done. It was pretty easy to do. It makes choosing what to wear an awful lot easier when you only own things you like and need. I think I could cut back further. My only worry is what I’ll do as it approaches winter and I own one pair of jeans (with holes in both knees).

    That’s enough of that though. When I went for a run this morning I couldn’t help but notice my hands went numb from the cold. I worry that my writing shed might be a bit too cold to operate out of, might watch that Dahl video again to work out how he avoided freezing.

  • I like writing in my shed.

    You will be pleased to know that I am following in the footsteps of my heroes Roald Dahl and Papa John and have taken to working and enjoying life, in a shed. It was something I had talked about doing for a long time and the other day I was griping about my need to find somewhere quiet to sneak off to and write and my friend Stacy on Tumblr suggested I get myself a writing shed. I thought this over and realised there are two sheds which are virtually unused in our garden. I have been out there this morning, thrown out a couple of hamster cages and a broken swingball set and propped up a table and a foldaway chair. It’s pretty humble but it’s not like I’m going Kerouac in LT here, or even Justin Vernon, I just want to be able to run off for a couple of hours, hammer away (especially now NaNoWriMo is on the horizon) and feel that it is a job well done when I return to the house.

    I’ve just had a look at what Dahl had going on and it is incredible. He had the most comfortable looking armchair, and all his personal affects, and soundproofing. Wow, what a shed. I have shed envy. This has never happened before. Am I a man now?

  • NaNoWriMo Cometh.

    So there are now less than three weeks until National Novel Writing Month and I’m a ball of mixed feelings. I don’t think I’ll have any issues with hitting the 50k and due to the way my brain is structured I can’t help but panic that some of the content might not be all that because I’ve learnt through the recent redrafts of my short stories that I do have a tendency to get carried away, to bleed sentences together, to avoid the humble full stop. I’ve got seventy percent of it planned, I might just see what happens to the rest of it. It’s going to be a challenge, but I seem to love taking on a challenge recently.

    In other news it has been recommended that I find somewhere quiet to burrow away and work. I need to have an assessment this weekend because I think I’ve found the perfect spot, just need to get permission and do a bit of work getting it all shipshape.

    Back to the rain.

  • Waiting for the man.

    So last night I went to a BAFTA hosted Comedy Screenwriting Masterclass with the only person I could ever really call a collaborator, Flopsy. It was essentially a clips show for Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong who you will probably know as the writers of Dead Meat and Peep Show as well as for dipping their hands into work with Armando Iannucci and Chris Morris. It was absolutely bloody fantastic. In a similar way to how I leave a gig desperate to go and make music I left the Q&A with the desire to go and write some sketches or a sitcom. I think it helped that it was held in the BAFTA building just off Picadilly Circus.

    Another thing that Flopsy spotted is that where writers are concerned you don’t have to be the new up and coming fresh faces young guys. Bain and Armstrong had a long slog to get to their current position (and I must add it is very well deserved). It does put my mind at rest about getting a little older, the time it takes to find your rhythm as a writer is different to leaving school and sixteen and starting plastering and knowing all you could ever need to by twenty-one and starting your own business. That’s not to belittle plastering or plasterers in any way, if anything I envy their ability to do something of that calibre with their hands. The point is that learning to write is like brewing, you could always leave it a bit longer.

    I think that’s my point, if that was a point. I’m lost. Bye.

  • The Perks Of Seeing A Wallflower.

    Five years ago my friend Danny recommended a book to me. He told me that it was ‘the new Catcher’ knowing that it would launch us into one of our spirited debates on why you should never compare anything with Salinger. Once it was settled I put The Perks Of Being A Wallflower on my reading list and just after Christmas that year I read it in two days. I’ve read it every year since. It is one of those scary books that carefully encapsulates how you feel when you’re alone and vulnerable, how the human mind turns, and how we don’t think anyone could get under that and feel it too.

    Around this time last year it was announced that Perks had been green-lit to go into production. Danny and I were both skeptical until we learnt that Chbosky (the book’s writer) would be writing the screenplay, producing and directing. I can’t think of any writer who has managed to pull this feat off before, but feel free to correct me. When the leads were announced we were split on whether it would transfer to film, and how close to our imaginings it could be. That’s often the problem with book to film adaptations, they fall short and they aren’t how you pictured it. I had doubts about Emma Watson, thinking that she had only been chosen as a buzz actor following the last of the Harry Potter film franchise. Danny wasn’t happy that Percy Jackson (of Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief) would be playing our beloved Charlie.

    In November last year Danny passed away. It was very sudden and I am still reality checking on a daily basis and wondering how that could have happened. That’s all I want to say on the subject for the time being.

    At Danny’s funeral his friend Sam read from Perks, the speech about feeling infinite when they drive through the tunnel. Each time I read the book I think of being sat in a crematorium in Southend and hearing those words echoing out. It was haunting before but now it rips my heart up each time.

    When the film was finally released my girlfriend asked me if I wanted to go and see it. I said that I needed to. She suggested that we buy a ticket for Danny as well, in memory. I said that I wanted Sam to come and we booked a date.

    From the opening credits my heart started thudding. The film had been built up so much inside my head and by the events of the previous year that it felt odd that the day had actually arrived when I could sit in a darkened cinema and watch the film we had talked about so much. As soon as Charlie started speaking tears started rolling down my cheeks and I sat perfectly still, trying to keep as quiet as possible, it was exactly as I had pictured.

    There were some scenes in particular that looked how I had imagined them, including the placement of the characters and the details of the rooms, it was incredibly accurate. When it came to the tunnel scene I was amazed to discover the song that was used. I won’t say what it is because it wouldn’t be the same as if you were there, but it’s a song that I love and it was perfect. In the book Charlie doesn’t ever reveal what the song they heard on that night was, but the fact Chbosky was in charge of the whole project makes me assume that it was what was intended from the first draft.

    The cast are absolutely spot on. I don’t think I could fault anyone but Ezra Miller in particular was superb. I’ll be amazed if he isn’t in everything from here on in, a complete turn around from We Need To Talk About Kevin, but I guess that’s acting. Paul Rudd was also excellent as Mr Anderson, despite the fact he was definitely referred to by his first name in the book.

    I don’t know where Danny is now. I’m not a particularly religious person, although I would say I were a spiritual one. I hope he was there last night. I hope he appreciated the fact that it wasn’t him that had to organise us going out for once. I hope it was how he had pictured it as well and I wish he could come back.

    20121010-080600.jpg