About the Artist
The Learning Age
I am and always have been a learner and a creator. An imaginary carpenter's workshop called Broadhad, homemade books about everything from Native Americans to airplane flights gone terribly wrong, an unfinished story about a magical suitcase, extra appendages made of paper, extravagant forts made of blankets and rope and furniture and whatever else we could find: as a child and adolescent, each of these and other activities kept me busy with my sisters, cousins, and friends, trying to learn the optimal way to make something.
Reading kept me equally busy, as did TV and movies. And, growing up in the family I did, there's no way music wasn't going to affect me. From all these, I learned how to create, even if I didn't realize it at the time. I could have spent hours every day doing all three (not that that's any different now). At the age of 10, I got my first computer and, some might have said, first true love. I quickly decided I would one day be a computer engineer.
But that didn't happen. A chance encounter with a representative from Wabash College, during my senior year of high school, pushed me torward a different path. Instead of attending either Rose-Hulman: Institute of Technology or Purdue University for computer engineering, I took a leap of faith. People said it didn't make sense: "You wanted to be a computer engineer. Why didn't you go to Rose? Why did you go for a B.A. in English?" They just didn't understand; I didn't quite understand it myself. I just smiled and said that Wabash was a better option. I knew it, felt it. And although I knew that I wanted to use my English degree to write, in some capacity, I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to write or how I was going to make it happen.
And then, during sophomore year, when I happened to be taking a creative writing class, it came to me. I suddenly had what I thought of as a brilliant idea for a TV show, and it gave me the direction I needed: I was going to be a television writer. That was the new ultimate dream. I had always loved TV and movies, as well as writing, but it had never ocurred to me that I could succeed as a TV/movie script writer, until that fateful day when I saw about five or ten seconds of a show I had never seen before (LOST, which I have since watched in its entirety). This brief but amazing clip sparked an idea that would spawn a concept that would grow into a full-fledged five- or six-season roadmap for a show that shall remain nameless until it is on the air or I am on my deathbed. Whichever comes first. That tiny nugget of a show idea would later branch off into two companion shows that ideally would air, in succession, after the first show, each one tying back to the first show in important ways that I won't divulge right now. Whether or not any of these shows makes it to air depends on a lot of things, not the least of which is the crumbling of most network ratings in this modern age of DVR. And computer timeshifting. And the craptastic Twilight series of books.
Well, I use the term "books" loosely. Oh Twilight, how you ruin literature (and TV/movies) for me! However, the good thing about it (as well as the far superior but completely different Harry Potter books), is that it encourages young adults to read "good clean" literature again instead of mindlessly watching TV or playing video games for hours/days on end, or maybe even smoking pot or having sex.
Uh, yeah, maybe.
The Age of the Vampire
But hey, wait...young adults (and people in general) are watching less TV? Could that be true? If so, maybe I jumped on the wrong bandwagon. It's more complicated than that (especially when you factor in the growing number of cable channels), but still, therein lies the crux of the matter – for, while I love reading, I also love TV. My interests are at odds, on some level, because more reading means less TV, which means lower ratings, which means great shows get cancelled and once-great networks fall to their knees or merge with lesser networks to form even lesser networks. Right?
Of course, there are some exceptions, shows that actually manage to do well despite the fractured state of television today. True Blood, based on a series of vampire mystery novels by Charlaine Harris, came onto the scene in 2008 with a weak start (1.44 million viewers for the first airing) but a gradual climb toward the end of the season. The first airing of the first season finale would attract a record 2.45 million viewers, which was still nothing to crow about, leaving the first season with a 2.0 million average for first-run episodes. But including repeat and on-demand viewings, since this is a premium cable network afterall, an average of 6.8 million viewers were watching the show every week by the end of the season. HBO had faith in the show and, thus, renewed it. By the second season, which opened with a new record 3.7 million viewers for the first airing and climbed with almost every episode, the show managed to pull in as many as 5.3 million viewers for its highest-rated episode. The second season averaged 4.28 million, when it was all said and done, with an average of 12.4 million weekly views when repeats and on-demand viewings were factored in. The third season would premier to 5.1 million first-run viewers and reach yet another record high (5.44 million), averaging 4.97 million for the season; repeat and on-demand numbers for the third season have yet to be released. In any case, with True Blood, it was clear that vampires were "in" again, and True Blood was a bona fide hit; in fact, it had come to be the highest-rated original HBO series since The Sopranos.
At the tail end of True Blood's second season, CW's The Vampire Diaries exploded onto the broadcast network scene with 4.93 million viewers, the highest-rated series premier ever on the fledgling (and, by some accounts, failing) network. The numbers would settle down a bit but stay relatively steady, as the show average 3.6 million viewers for the first season. Used to getting 1 and 2 million viewers for most of its new shows at the time, The CW was thrilled. Like True Blood, The Vampire Diaries was a hit, at least by CW standards. And did I mention it was also based on a series of young adult books, even older than Twilight or the novels on which True Blood was based?
In any case, the Twilight, True Blood, and Vampire Diaries triumverate had breathed new life into the vampire myth (sometimes to good effect, other times to bad) – but more importantly, the franchises had encouraged kids to read again, at a time where it seemed reading was at an all-time low. Not even the mother of all vampire shows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, had been able to do that during its 1997 to 2003 run. Which is a pity because Buffy and its spinoff Angel were both phenomenal, and they did have their respective companion books, written by outside writers. If any shows were deserving of the slogan "making kids read again and, thus, be less dumb," it was these. But that didn't happen.
Make no mistake, though: just because I admire Buffy and Angel a little more doesn't mean I don't find True Blood and The Vampire Diaries to be fun and awesome on their own merits, because I certainly do. The third (and, in my opinion, most riveting) season of True Blood just ended, and the second season of The Vampire Diaries has started. So far, it's been fantastic, and the ratings have hovered consistently between 3.36 and 3.57 million. What's interesting is that The CW is a broadcast network, free and open to almost the entire U.S., whereas HBO is a paid cable network and, thus, has a much lower potential audience. Despite the fact that True Blood fans have to pay to watch the show, it sees ratings increases year-to-year, and that doesn't even include repeats and on-demand viewers. It seems clear that premium cable viewers are far more loyal than their free counterparts. Maybe that's why I would rather my shows be on a cable network like AMC or HBO or Showtime.
And finally...well, we won't speak of Twilight here, at least not until author Stephanie Meyer creates a vampire that doesn't shimmer in the sunlight. Seriously...no freaking shimmering! Just burn! Then, and only then – maybe we'll talk Twilight.
The Silver Age
Sorry for that important but slightly mundane digression, but anyway, after receiving my B.A. in English (magna cum laude) with a minor in history, I went – armed with the knowledge that I was most certainly going to be a writer – straight to graduate school. Directly to graduate school. I did not pass go, did not collect $200 (which I sorely needed, by the way), but I did begin an exciting adventure in the M.F.A. in Creative Writing and Publishing Arts program at the University of Baltimore, figuring such a degree would be more versatile than one restricted to just screenwriting.
Besides, I already knew I enjoyed writing beyond the screenplay genre (indeed, had never even written a finished screenplay). In my final two years at Wabash College, I published 3 short stories in a new magazine called The Writer's Block, of which I was one of the original/founding members; I also published an essay (which I had written for my senior seminar class) in the fall 2008/spring 2009 edition of the school's Callimachus. At U.B., I have written mostly in the fiction genre so far but have also taken experimental writing and screenwriting (during which I finally wrote a script from start to finish), and I plan to take a nonfiction course or two.
In the summer of 2010, just after my first year of graduate school, my video poem "Love I Didn't Know" (which was an assignment for a U.B. course about creativity) appeard in Gay Expectations Too – the second annual variety show for, by, and about the GLBT community in Baltimore. It was a wonderful, rewarding experience, and I would do it again if I could. That would require my coming up with a new piece to share next year, however, and I don't know if I'll have the time or energy for that, but we'll see.
These days, I am attending classes on electronic publishing and typography while working part time and writing in my free time. I enjoy computers (yes, still!), reading, writing, TV/movies, and spending time with my friends and my boyfriend. After graduate school, I hope to work in the publishing industry while trying to get published and perhaps get my shows on the air, one day, preferably on a cable network rather than broadcast, but I won't be too choosy.
And I could still use that $200.
Or a better job. Whichever one you can offer would be fantastic.
Peace, love, and puppies,
Roger