Thursday, December 30, 2010

Gramoxone! (Another Year-End Roundup)

There's a thing about doing early year-end round-ups that leave a whole lot still left unsaid.

I have whined about how bad this year was to me and my family. Really, it was a culmination of a few bad years, really, as well as bad decisions, betrayals and whatnot.

And 2010 is still not done yet. I am not scared of 2010. It is not the year that is bad, but simply shit happens.

I did not, however, take into account the good things that happened this year.

The second movie I wrote for KRU, Magika, opened to a better-than-expected reception. I would often have very low expectations for my work. In fact, it won Best Film at FFM 23 - a gong that is more valuable to me than if I was nominated for Best Screenplay and had won it.

Meanwhile, MySpy won Best Comedy, beating even Magika in that category. I am actually happy with how that one turned out. I set out to do a Chow Sing Chi homage and the team didn't do a half-bad job, if I do say so myself.

Next year, on March 10, Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa will be out. This completes my KRU trilogy of produced movies. There are others, including Ribbit which is a 3D animation feature.

This year, is also the year I discovered certain things, and how some matters were made clear to me. Keeping an open mind at times helped identify new things and new people. I keep mine closed most of the time, for all the bullshit people try to pull on me.

Some old acquaintances are dusted off and given a new coat of varnish. I am working out some projects with these people, and we shall see where all this is heading.

I took three days leave this week, simply to catch a breather. I have been working non-stop for months, that I neglected my sleep and health. I do not want to be hospitalised again as that would take me away from my work.

In the next few days, I will be arranging and rearranging stuff for next year. There is no way I can churn out good work while doing a lot of things at the same time. I have learned again my limits.

The first time I did this, was simply to learn how much work I could do. This was in 2006. I was juggling my previous job at The Malay Mail, writing a book, poems to be read on TV, did the prototypes for three magazines and reacquainted myself with the production world I left in 2003 after a very brief stint.

I discovered that yes, I can do a lot of work.

This time, it is about quality. I will maximise my time, in order to write better stuff. Stuff that could support my family and myself for 2011, perhaps beyond. I offer no more freebies.

Some people have approached me to write a few books, and I am considering that. I have yet to write a book-sized non-fiction effort, and there is my unfinished sexual thriller which concerns a journalist/private-eye investigating the death of a kept woman, falling in love with the dead girl in the process.

There are several shows on the cards. A few movie offers, but I am only going to do things I want to do. I will pick and choose my projects, preferrably ones where I can have more creative control.

I am happy to report that I have no intentions of acting. Or performing in anything. I'm not a singer or an actor. My craft is the invisible craft and I would like it to remain so. I of course would like to be credited fairly for my own work, but I have no desire to expand my horizons into performing. I have enough drama with my family to fairly detest it in any other form.

So, in terms of writing, I was leaning more towards fiction this year. My job at the newspaper having fulfilled any need to write factual stuff. I don't know how this will be next year.

To be honest, I do not know, nor do I wish to know what will happen in 2011. An election, perhaps? Which may spell doom for some enterprises. A tsunami, because the gays have risen?

I do know this - as Lord of Destruction, I am privvy to some bits of information - that whatever it is, things will continue to change. Everything changes. People come and go. Friends and enemies come and go. The only constant in my life, is myself.

2010 has been a year when I worked mostly on myself. I discarded some childish notions and unleashed a dark side of myself which I should not have kept hidden or suppressed.

Perhaps the greatest revelation in 2010, amidst all the trials and tribulations, is the fact that no one in the universe can make me feel, do or be anything other than myself. And knowing that self, was liberating.

I am not gay or anything. There's nothing wrong with that, but I'm just not. I just realised the kind of power I wield, just as myself.

With this, comes freedom.

May everyone pay the devil his due.