CHRIS WELLS
  • Home
  • Testimonials
  • Upcoming Workshops
  • Writing Life
  • Purchase
  • BLOG
  • Contact
  • The Secret City

"...the highly structured format means that tons of writing gets done, so that when the workshop is over you can barely recognize your work, it's grown so much."

We’re Being Adapted

5/14/2020

0 Comments

 
The best book-to-movie adaptations are those which capture the essence of the original work but don’t attempt to repeat it. They translate and, if possible, enhance the original.

Stephen King is said to have hated Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining. Kubrick said that when he first read the book, he saw how to make it work as a movie, and in his screenplay, he made significant changes, adding some things, cutting others. The book is great, the movie is great but they’re different.

There’s an entire set of ad-words that all swim in the sea of change. Adhere—to stick to. Not really changing, just tacking yourself to another object or idea. There’s a lack of elegance in adhering. The word adjusting contains its own reluctance. Just a bit of change. I’ll only change this much. It’s a small shift.

But, adapting is about fitting something into, like water being poured into a glass, it takes the shape of the glass.

For many people, we discover our creativity by adapting to either difficult circumstances or to a way of life that didn’t suit us or into which we didn’t fit. Like weeds coming up through the concrete, coming up in isolation, becoming strong, or strong enough, to thrive in an unlikely setting.

It’s almost as if I believe that well-adjusted people can’t be artists—which I don’t believe. Not at this moment, at least. Ask me in an hour and I might. When I believe it one way, I can see how the other way is the better way to believe, and vice versa. When I was a kid, I used to love the see-saw. When the see-saw was well balanced, it was magical. The up and down, the exchange of weight. But if little Johnny on the opposite end decided to jump off, you’d be slammed down into the ground, your butt smashed, falling off the side into the dirt. See-saws were dangerous, too. Probably why you don’t find them much in public parks anymore. Cause for lawsuits.

I’ve been an amateur gardener for much of my life. My mom’s a great gardener, as was her mother. Mom grows the most beautiful roses in the brutal heat of the Mojave desert. At the last apartment where I lived in Silverlake, before moving to New York, I had a patio in front of my door and I created a container garden and planted seeds an flower in the beds. In the time I lived there, the place bloomed and flourished.

The first spring we lived here, in early May, as soon as it got warm, I made a container garden out front. I gathered clay pots and tubs made of tin and I planted them with lobelia and pansies, portulaca and daisies. I had a string of bells I hung an a few pieces of pottery, some shells. Really cute. I took lots of pictures in anticipation of beautiful before and after shots.

I’ve never lived in a forest before. I’m from the desert. I’m used to sunshine, lots of it. By the end of May the trees started to get full. My little garden was still holding on. By the end of June, when the forest begins to find lushness, the pansies died, the daises began to wilt. July marked the beginning of the end and by August I had removed all of the containers.

Shade. It never occurred to me—but for most of the day during summer, the front of the cottage is in the shade.

Since March 12th, when we started these daily shows they’ve given me a place to put my focus—they also allow me to gauge the changes we’ve been through since this whole thing started. After two months of this, it’s not the sudden, shocking, oh my god, what am I going to do? Now it’s, oh my god, what am I going to do? Adhere, adjust or adapt.

We are all being adapted, from page to screen. Details will change, Whole chapters will be cut. A story that was set in the city, might change to the country. People will come and go. In old soap operas, when a beloved character was re-cast, just as they made their first entrance a voice over would announce, “The role of so and so will now be played by…” and they’d name the new actor.

No! Cry out from your sofa. What happened?! Bring back what’s her name, I liked the way it was before.

If you’re going to continue to watch the show, you’re going to have to get used to this new performer. Or, I don’t know, change the channel, or turn off the TV altogether. Go outside, I was going to say plant a garden. But that sounds sappy.

What I would really counsel you to do, before anything else, is watch the sun, know what kind of light you’re dealing with, wait for the trees to come in. Then grow something you’ve never grown before.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Chris Wells leads dynamic, life-changing writing workshops.

    Archives

    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    October 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    October 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014

    Categories

    All
    A Brief History Of Seven Killings
    Adam Zameenzad
    A Fine Balance
    Alexander Chee
    Alexander Dumas
    Alice Walker
    A Little Life
    Almanac Of The Dead
    Americannah
    Amy Tan
    Anatole Broyard
    Ancestor Stones
    Angela Fluornoy
    Another Country
    A Tale For The Time Being
    At The Bottom Of The River
    August Wilson
    Bad Feminist
    Balm In Gilead: Journey Of A Healer
    Barbarian Nurseries
    Beloved
    Ben Okri
    Between The World And Me
    Billie Holiday
    Blue Boy
    Book Of Salt
    Breath
    Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao
    Bright Lines
    Brontez Purnell
    Bryan Stevens
    Cane
    Castle Cross The Magnet Carter
    Caucasia
    Ceremony
    Chester Himes
    Chimamanda Ngosi Adache
    Citizen
    Claudine Rankine
    Collected Plays
    Colson Whitehead
    Danzy Senna
    Days Of Obligation
    Delicious Foods
    Edwidge Dandica
    Edwidge Dandicat
    Elizabeth Alexander
    Erasure
    Eyes
    Famished Road
    Fledgling
    Frederick Douglas
    Gabriel Garcia Marquez
    George Harriman
    Giovanni's Room
    Gorilla My Love
    Hanya Yanagihara
    Hector Tobar
    Hired Man
    Homegoing
    House Of The Spirits
    House On Mango Street
    Hunger
    If He Hollers Let Him Go
    I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
    Invisible Man
    Isabel Allende
    Isabel Wilkerson
    Ishmael Beah
    Jamaica Kincaid
    James Baldwin
    James Hanniham
    Jazz
    Jean Toomer
    Johnny Would You Love Me If My Dick Were Bigger?
    Joy Luck Club
    Jumpa Lahiri
    Jumpha Lahiri
    Jung Chang
    Junot Diaz
    Just Mercy
    Kafka Was All The Rage
    Kaitlyn Greenidge
    Kerri Hulme
    Kia Corthron
    Kindred
    Krazy Kat
    Krik? Krak!
    Lady Sings The Blues
    Last Report On The Miracles At Little No Horse
    Leslie Marmon Silko
    Leslie Marmon Silko.
    Lone Ranger And Tonto Fistfight In Heaven
    Louise Erdrich
    Love Bones And Water
    Love In The Time Of Cholera
    Love Medicine
    Margo Jefferson
    Marlon James
    Maxine Hong Kingston
    Maya Angelou
    Memory
    Memory Of Love
    Michael Eric Dyson
    Michael Twitty
    Michelle Alexander
    Monique Truong
    My Bondage And My Freedom
    My Year Of Meats
    Naomi Jackson
    Native Son
    Natsuo Kirino
    Negroland
    N. K. Jemisin
    Octavia Butler
    Olio
    On Beauty
    One-Bedroom Solo
    One Hundred Years Of Solitude
    Out
    Parable Of The Sower
    Paul Beatty
    Percival Everett
    Plague Of Doves
    Push
    Queen Of The Night
    Radiance Of Tomorrow
    Rakesh Satyal
    Ralph Ellison
    Richard Rodriguez
    Richard Wright
    Rohinton Mistry
    Roxane Gay
    Ruth Ozeki
    Samuel R. Delany
    Sandra Cisneros
    Sapphire
    Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot
    Sheila Maldonado
    Sherman Alexie
    Sula
    Suzan Lori Parks
    Swing Time
    Ta Nahesi Coates
    Tanwi Nandini Islam
    Tears We Cannot Stop
    The Absolutely True Story Of A Part Time Indian
    The Autobiography Of Malcolm X
    The Bluest Eye
    The Bone People
    The Color Purple
    The Cooking Gene
    The Count Of Monte Cristo
    The Fire Next Time
    The God Of Small Things
    The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
    Their Eyes Were Watching God
    The Light Of The World
    The Lowland
    The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness
    The New Jim Crow
    The Roundhouse
    The Sellout
    The Star Side Of Bird Hill
    The Sympathizer
    The Turner House
    The Underground Railroad
    The Warmth Of Other Suns
    Times Square Blue
    Times Square Red
    Toni Cade Bambara
    Toni Morrison
    Topdog Underdog
    Tyehimba Jess
    Venus
    Viet Thanh Nguyen
    Walkin' The Dog
    Walter Mosely
    We Love You Charlie Freeman
    White Teeth
    Wild Swans
    William Dufty
    Woman Warrior
    Yaa Gyasi
    You Don't Have To Say You Love Me-
    Zadie Smith
    Zora Neale Hurston

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Testimonials
  • Upcoming Workshops
  • Writing Life
  • Purchase
  • BLOG
  • Contact
  • The Secret City