The car chase movie scenes you must see before you die

I love movies, but I hate cars. I hate them because they're rolling, polluting coffins to me. I love them only when they are used in action films. Like in these ones. Classic old movies that use cars with respect, in beautifully filmed chases, with great actors and no lazy CG shit. Enjoy!

BULLITT - dir. Peter Yates (1967)

It's difficult to resume this movie but it's very easy to watch Steve McQueen in this exciting sequence that started it all.

THE FRENCH CONNECTION - dir. William Friedkin (1971)

Popeye Doyle (Hackman) chases a madman (Marcel Bozzuffi) and the subway he took over. Friedkin shot this gasping scene with no authorization from the authorities. Five Oscars!

GONE IN 60 SECONDS - dir. H.B. Haliki (1974)
This fun chase is very long, split in 4 parts so follow up! And forget the remake with Nicolas Cage.

THE DRIVER - dir. Walter Hill (1978)

Ryan O'Neal plays an expert driver regularly hired by robbers so he gets them away from the police. A great concept from writer/director Walter Hill.

MAD MAX - dir. George Miller (1979)
Ouch! One of the most violent films ever. Not for everybody! Only problems: this is not the original Australian version, and the quality is quite poor. But what the hell?

TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. - dir. William Friedkin (1985)
For me, one of the best police films in history. And one of my favorite films. With starting William Petersen, way before he became the CSI star, as a cop chased by other cops after a robbery he planned, in this incredible scene. Friedkin is THE car chase expert! We haven't finished with him yet!

THE HITCHER - dir. Robert Harmon (1986)

Two young innocent people are chased by the police - and are rescued by the killer! A terrific scene from another of my favorite movies. With an extraordinary actor, Rutger Hauer, as the playing maniac.

THE HIDDEN - dir. Jack Sholder (1987)

The bad guy here is in fact a hidden, aggressive alien, turning the most honest citizens into the worst criminals! An excellent, very underrated police horror film with this great opening scene.

AMSTERDAMNED - dir. Dick Maas (1987)
The Dutch too, can film great chase scenes! Here it's not a car one but a boat one, filmed through Amsterdam. My favorite chase scene, enjoy! You won't believe it!

COLORS - dir. Dennis Hopper (1988)
Sean Penn and Robert Duvall chase gangmen through the Watts area, in this awesome, violent flick from late actor/director Dennis Hopper. With a great soundtrack from Herbie Hancock.

POINT BREAK - dir. Kathryn Bigelow (1992)
Oscar winning director Bigelow and executive producer James Cameron - they were married at the time - deliver a full adrenaline packed flick that reaches its top during that car chase turning into a running pursuit.

JADE - dir. William Friedkin (1995)

Third flick in this list from Friedkin, with David Caruso, way before he became the CSI Miami star.

RONIN - dir. John Frankenheimer (1998)

An American film showing this chase scene shot in Southern France, through very narrow streets.

2012

This is an editorial I submitted a few days ago to a handful of mainstream newspapers in London  – The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent. Since I haven't received any response from any of them so far, I'm publishing it on my blog.

"What can be expected in 2012? Let’s examine the present situation.

"On one side, we have a very serious financial crisis spread all across the Euro zone. On the other side, we have Israel threatening to attack Iran, if the United States don’t do it for them. Stuck just between those two great, heavy blocks, the one doing everything necessary to go to recession, the other doing everything necessary to go to war, we have Turkey, that country sitting on Europe and Near East, that recently got hit by two big earthquakes in only a couple of days. These earthquakes could be the results of natural causes as well as political – was the international pressure too strong to take for Turkey and its so fragile construction?

"Less than two months before year 2012, all the religious and pseudo-scientists predicting the end of the world for this year must be very happy – all the signs are reunited for this to happen. Let’s remember that in 1998, under Bill Clinton’s presidency, the Republicans had put pressure on him so he goes to Iraq with the heaviest bombs ever. The same thing is happening again now, with the Republicans putting pressure on Barack Obama so he does the same with Iran, Sarah Palin notably, who likes to believe that everyone thinks and reasons just like her, and who’s very cynically arguing that a war against Iran and Ahmadinejad would assure Obama to be reelected – something that the Republicans are yet the last ones to wish for him. Bill Clinton hadn’t fallen under the pressure, we can expect Obama not to do that either but if he’s not reelected in November 2012, if the Republicans come back in charge next year, we can easily expect them to attack Iran right away, for a reason that is as easy to guess – for oil much more than for getting rid of the Iranian nuclear capacity. A war against a country that has more or less clear nuclear capacities would be, much more than with Iraq a decade ago, a clear crossing of the course of deterrence, and would lead to another World War that could burn the whole planet. And the end of the world is predicted by many people for... December 21, 2012. Which means, right after the next American presidential elections. Some other people have told of some miscalculation, and moved the date of the end of the world to October 28, 2011. This date is now behind us and nothing has happened. I don’t believe in any such prediction – the end of the world has already been predicted, many times before, in so many ways, especially before year 2000. Nothing had ever happened, even if French president Jacques Chirac and German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder had stopped the end from occurring by refusing to go with Bush to Iraq ten years before, in 2002 – in my opinion –, something that nobody could have foreseen. When I see what’s going on I still don’t believe at all that the end of the world is for next year, still...

"In the meantime, the Euro zone crisis keeps influencing the political scenes, all over the continent. The crisis has been first provoked by the political elites that believed that an European money was needed to compete the American dollar and to fight its influence. Without understanding that Europe is a continent (not a country), an ensemble of very different countries with different economics and languages. The entry in the Euro zone of the first country in big deficit or irresponsibly ruled (like Greece), had been enough for everything to collapse. “The euro money doesn’t work so we have to kill it, to return to all of our previous national currencies,” most of the political extremists seem to be saying. And the situation is bringing them the best reasons to be happier and more credible and popular. They probably won’t even have to kill the euro money. The possible arrival in charge of extremist people in Europe (in Switzerland, Greece and especially in France, where the next presidential elections are for May 2012), added to the heavy situation in the Middle East, with the Israelis now looking for another enemy to attack – since Palestine has just entered UNESCO and become more credible politically – can add to the explosive side of the situation; if America doesn’t attack Iran, Israel will.

"Roland Emmerich’s big Hollywood film, 2012, shows the Earth struck all over its surface, by many big natural disaters predicted and foreseen by the Maya calendar. The present situation can suggest the end coming from other, unnatural causes - (thermo)nuclear ones. What will (may) happen next year? Has mankind gone stupid enough to do everything it takes to run straight into a programmed, global disaster, without doing anything to stop it? We'll have to wait after the next American presidential elections to have a clearer  – definitive? – idea."

"Charlie's Trips" & its future place in YA literature

Let’s suppose that the book is a commercial success, what will be its place among the so many literary classics for the young? We can ask ourselves this question when we think that the book is also a disaster story, showing more than one natural disaster when, for instance, L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz shows only one – that famous tornado that catches little Dorothy and takes her somewhere else. Charlie’s Trips, which first can be seen as a sci-fi version of Baum’s work, also contains many subtitled comments about our society, targeting some of the American strongest values, when most of the best-known children and teenage classics don’t do that, when they’re pure entertaining pieces of literature, with no other ambition to make the reader feel good about himself and the society he’s part of. This is also the main aim of Charlie’s Trips, as well as the one of being a little caustic and unserious about all these values. The book doesn’t show any villain, any eccentric character the kid hero would have to struggle again. The only eccentric elements showed in the book are those famous  values (religion, television, army, marriage, etc.) we’re so fond of and dependent on.

I wrote Charlie’s Trips as a film script before turning it into a book after realizing that it could be possible – the script was way too long, over 200 pages – and after the project was turned down by Daniel Radcliffe’s agent in London. The result is, in my opinion the book is very close to Roald Dahl’s works, from a stylistic aspect, much more than it is to any other teenage book. No, this is a little dishonest – I have to admit, I haven’t read most of those novels, I still haven’t read Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, I still haven’t read J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, I still haven’t read S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders and any of her other teenage classics, such as Rumble Fish or Tex, I still haven’t even read The Wizard of Oz and I have very few, vague memories of the legendary film! I still haven’t read Alice in Wonderland or Charlotte’s Web or Gulliver’s Travels either, I haven’t read any of the Harry Potter books and you know what? I’m more than glad I didn’t read any of all these, because it allowed me to stay away from their influences and not to compete with them. And, even if I haven’t read any of these classics, I know about their plots and I know for sure that none of them includes science-fiction or describes futuristic environments. You’re going to laugh, but I also haven’t read any of the Lord of the Rings books, which belong to the fantasy genre. The only classic for the young I knew about very well before I started writing Charlie’s Trips, was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (one of my favorite books). The influence is quite clear – I reused the same first name, notably – and the narrative style is similar, rather minimalist, lacking any psychological consideration and issue, just like in Roald Dahl’s lovely book, but it’s still very different and distinctive. In Charlie’s Trips, the lack of psychological content can be explained by the ‘new’ nature of its main character, who totally lost his past, he can’t remember any of it and has no other choice than look forward – and his ability is quite limited. Such a character is a good enough reason to use minimalist narrative, to stick to the dialog and action and to deliver everything with this – in the end we have a book that is a fun and very quick read.

My way(s) of writing

Before starting to write a fiction story, you always need to have an idea that could make such a good story, in your opinion. Then you need to work on that idea, to develop it. You can write a first synopsis then take more or less notes on paper about your plot and characters, you can also do all of it mentally but anyway you always have to plan your future work.

Personally I quit taking notes, I just think a whole lot about what I'm going to write before actually starting to work on paper or computer. I mean I quit taking notes some time ago, when I started writing screenplays, which is an easier (or less difficult) thing to do than writing books. Fiction writing is a hard job, it can take much time - especially when you write a book, which is incredibly difficult - so I'd rather do it naturally, use my instinct. And new ideas come to you while you're writing. I remember a line in the movie Finding Forrester, from writer Mike Rich and director Gus Van Sant, starring Sean Connery: "You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite it with your head. The first key to writing is... to write, not to think!" I won't say that this is what I do most of the time but it's the best definition about the way I do it: instinctively. I put on paper or computer every good idea that gets through my mind, trying never to lose my vision and style.

So the first thing I do when I get a good idea is think about it a lot, and build it (beginning, middle, ending, etc.), no matter how I do it, if possible without taking notes at all, BEFORE starting to turn that idea and concept into a book or script or play or whatever. Then as soon as I start writing I don't think no more - or if I do, I don't do it too long or too intensively, it could lead me to writer's block. I just follow my instinct and let the story lead me to where it's supposed to end. And I try never to put any heavy psychological stuff in my texts, I always try to define my characters with what they say and do, as much as possible. This way my works can be read quite easily and quickly, and the reader will never get lost.

I'm always surprised when I manage to finish something. And I'm even more surprised when I manage to get promotion for it. Actually my last notable work, Charlie's Trips, is also the first of my works to get a publicity campaign. Two good reasons to be pleasantly surprised about that one. All my previous works have been left unpromoted - and I've been writing stuff since the mid 90s.

Today, with hindsight, I often wonder how I could write this or that, and when I find it good I call myself a crazy. Or a genius. Or both. Which is a good thing - and an even better thing when it's your friends or family mates, or even strangers, that call you such names. One sure thing, when it comes to writing you need to follow your instinct and you need to turn more or less crazy to do that and achieve something.

My Favorite Books

Literature is one of my interests, I read a lot. Just like you need to watch a whole lot of movies before turning into a filmmaker yourself, you always need to read like crazy before you're able to write yourself, before feeling the will and urge to become a writer. So this is a non-exhaustive list of books I have read and use as my main references when writing. You will notice that most of them are rather short.

THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY? – Horace McCoy (1935)

A short novel set in the early 30s, during the Great Depression. Robert Syverton and Gloria Beatty are two movie extras in Hollywood, with no money but still hoping to break into movie business. They subscribe to a marathon dance with the hope that they get the $1,000 top prize or get noticed by producers in the audience. All they have to do is keep moving around and try not to get eliminated during derbys (sort of horse races organized around a white oval line). In order to achieve that they need to manage with 10-minute breaks used not only to sleep but also to wash, brush teeth, massage feet, etc. A literary masterpiece that is a strong tale of desperation as well as a metaphor of the American dream and its society, greedy and ruthless, here showing both faces of America, the rich one in the audience and the poor one, on the racing track. This was the author's first book and also, probably, the very first ‘noir’ American novel. You won't recover easily from this story, hailed by the French intellectuals at that time (Sartre, De Beauvoir...) as the very first existential book coming from the US. It was turned into a film by Sydney Pollack in 1969, starring Jane Fonda, Michael Sarrazin and late Susannah York, and a French stage show by Robert Hossein in 2002.

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE – Anthony Burgess (1962)

1984 - NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR – George Orwell (1948)

FALLING ANGEL – William Hjortsberg (1978)

A very surprising crime novel about a private detective hired by a mysterious individual to find a missing crooner, then ending up investigating himself and coming to an incredible truth. It was made into a famous film called Angel Heart, written and directed by Alan Parker in 1986, with Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro and Lisa Bonet.

TEN LITTLE INDIANS or And Then There Were None – Agatha Christie (1940)
Ten very different people from very different classes and with very different backgrounds, are invited in a luxurious house based on an island, where they disappear one after another until there's nobody left. Originally published as Ten Little Niggers (lol), Agatha Christie's timeless mystery book, a real piece of anthology.

THE FIVE-CORNERED SQUARE or A Rage in Harlem – Chester Himes (1959)

PLANET OF THE APES – La Planète des Singes, Pierre Boulle (1963)

From the author of Bridge over the River Kwai comes this highly inventive work, maybe one of the most famous science-fiction ones… and it came from France! Author Pierre Boulle got the idea for such a story during a stay in Cameroon. Instead of the films which are set on our planet, this stunning work takes place on another planet the main character, an astronaut and scientist named Ulysse Mérou, lands on, discovering a civilization dominated by apes, where humans are treated as slaves and study objects kept in cages. Captured and first treated the same way, Mérou soon shows off his intelligence and knowledge and is helped by Zira, a female chimpanzee, and her husband Cornelius. I guess you know what follows next, except for the ending I won't give out not to spoil the pleasure, I'll only say that Mérou will leave the planet with his human, savage lover (Nova) and return to his Earth where an incredible surprise will welcome him. An excellent, thrilling book translated from French by Xan Fielding and turned into a series of movies started by an amazing film from Franklin J. Schaffner in 1969, starring late actors Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowall, itself recently remade by Tim Burton in 2001 and ‘prequeled’ in 2011 by Rupert Wyatt as Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

THE BEACH – Alex Garland (1996)

Since I've read this amazing book, Alex Garland has become one of my favourite writers. Another good reason for that is, he writes movies now. And good ones (28 Days Later, Sunshine, Never Let Me Go). But he started - and met with great success only at age 26 - with this impressive cult novel set in Thailand, where he spent much time as a backpacker. The book tells the story of Richard, a young British backpacker in Thailand who, along with a French backpacking couple, decides to go to a mystery island forbidden to tourists, that is showed on a map some crazy guy gave him before committing suicide. They manage to reach the island and discover a dream place dominated by a superb beach, already inhabited by a small group of urban people living there as Robinson Crusoes. But for safety, Richard had made a copy of the map he gave to some American friends he met before going, and soon the same guys can be seen coming towards the island, putting everything and everybody in jeopardy… The book was turned into a (somehow disappointing) film by Danny Boyle in 2000, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

RED DRAGON – Thomas Harris (1981)

THE GODFATHER – Mario Puzo (1971)

CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY – Roald Dahl (1964)

One of my clearest influences for "Charlie's Trips". That timeless classic from Roald Dahl about a young boy named Charlie Bucket who wins a tour across Willy Wonka's magical chocolate factory after miraculously finding one of the very few Gold Tickets, is still a reference for every child all over the world. Adapted twice for the big screen.

UBIK – Philip K. Dick (1969)

I AM LEGEND – Richard Matheson (1954)

Dracula in reverse: one sole man has to deal with the whole of humanity which has 'turned' into vampires after a plague. A wonderful idea for a tragic, legendary SF post-apocalyptic novel which delivers one of the best endings in literary history. Very mistreated in movies.

THE GETAWAY – Jim Thompson (1959)

A couple of married gangsters rob a bank before running away to Mexico. Adapted twice for the big screen by The Warriors' director Walter Hill (first for Sam Peckinpah in 1972 with Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw, then again in 1994 with Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger) and clearly duplicated by Quentin Tarantino in three of his screenplays, True Romance, Natural Born Killers and especially From Dusk Till Dawn. Some other movies like Thelma and Louise and Out of Sight are also very taken from The Getaway. A famous and very fun ‘noir’ novel, filled with violence and romance, that has influenced several generations of storytellers and filmmakers, from one of the greatest writers in 20th century, who notably brought us The Grifters and The Killer Inside Me, both taken to the screen as well.

CARRIE – Stephen King (1974)

A shy, complexed teenage girl, bullied at home by a religious nut of a mother, obsessed by sin and evil, and bullied at school by everybody else, finds hidden paranormal abilities and uses them to get payback. Made into an awfully stressful, scary, terrific horror movie in 1976 by director Brian DePalma, starring Sissy Spacek: this is Stephen King's first and best book.

The art of being bilingual

You guys must be wondering why I write my blog in English when my native language is French. Why not? English is the most widely spoken and written language in this world (along with Chinese I guess, even if Chinese language is mostly spoken in China – but there are almost 2 billion of them!) so I guess that speaking English anywhere (in China included), and speaking it fluently, is a big advantage.

What could be more surprising is that I am writing long texts in English, that’s much more complicated and risky I guess, as you’re more exposed to making mistakes that can be noticed immediately and your credibility can be ruined right away. I’m too conscious of that, that’s why it took me one year to write “Charlie’s Trips”. Actually it first took me one year to write the script, then one more year to turn it into a book. There were so many mistakes I always had to spot then correct… and I’m such a perfectionist, so demanding! I also had to add more stuff to make the story richer. This is what can happen to you when you write a book in a language that is not yours, and then self-publishing it – which means you have to do all the editing and corrections and design, all by yourself. But on the whole it was rather fun writing that book but I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it again in the future, even if the novel is a commercial success. Writing a book in your native language is already so complicated… so doing it in a different language than yours (even when it’s English) is too demanding, takes too much time. Writing film scripts in English is easier for me even if it’s basically hard enough. I have half a dozen scripts written in English.

I learned English a rather unique way: watching movies. Of course I learned the main stuff at school – and I was one of the best pupils, as far as I remember – but I used cinema to improve my knowledge. In 1984, when I was only 13 years old, my father subscribed to a new French TV channel. It was Canal+. Which is an internationally respected channel and institution now. The channel was broadcasting only sports and movies at that time, it was dedicated to that only. No commercial or information breaks, no shows, nothing else but films and sports. From this point I really discovered cinema, especially in its original version, with the real voices from the English-speaking actors. Before that, I was young and naive enough to think that those English and American actors were really speaking French! I didn’t know yet about the art of dubbing. That was a big shock, my fascination was huge and I started recording films in their original English-speaking versions (with subtitles) before watching them over and over again. That’s how I could get used to the rhythm and 27 years later, even if my speaking and understanding are not perfect even today it still made me able to manage with grammar and vocabulary and to write long texts in English with rather good confidence.

Actually I find it easier to speak English instead of French, the language is even simpler to learn and speak. At least in English you don’t have to deal with the masculine-feminine genders on each noun – when you do in most other languages, such as French, Spanish, and I guess Chinese too. That makes the language attractive right away. I guess that’s why English is the most common language around the world. That’s also why I intend to get married in the future to somebody who speaks English and no French J Also, writing in English gives you another great advantage: because it’s the most widely spoken language across the world, the market is much bigger, you can reach many more people and you can sell your work in many more ways. I always feel limited when I’m in France because it’s a country that is very closed, and everything that’s made there doesn’t get past the borders. And when I produce something in English when I’m in France, it’s impossible to pass it around or to contact people without spending much money in phone calls.

So I could learn English without going to any special school. I’m not saying that schools are ineffective, only that there are other ways than schools to learn a new language, especially such an easy language like that one. But like when you’re at school you still have to listen and speak continuously. Like Brad Pitt says in Tarantino’s film Inglorious Basterds: ‘PRACTISE’.

As for "Charlie's Trips"...

It's the very first book I managed to write in English. I completed some other works in French language before, mostly manuscripts, all unpublished. Now I've completed something serious in English I feel sort of forced to tell about it, maybe more than I should. I just can't stop myself! In this one I kind of managed to tell a surprising story, the one of a young soldier from the Midwest who's taken away by a tornado (like in The Wizard of Oz) but instead of winding up in some magical world, he's hurled into space-time. He ends up... 21 years later, on the West Coast! A bit off San Francisco. He's found unconscious on a beach and stays in a coma for two or three days. But in the meanwhile more and more people start imagining things about this young boy from nowhere, who just appeared, just like that (nobody knows his name or where he comes from), and who may have fallen down from the sky, according to some bimbo. The rumour that this very boy could be the Christ Himself, back on earth, always grows bigger in minds. And he's in a coma, a TV show about to be organized on him, waiting for the moment he'll wake up! And when he DOES wake up... right away he has a prediction about the future, the vision of a violent earthquake, supposed to strike the city (San Francisco) the day after. Of course he doesn't know he's the host of a TV show, he's still not aware either that his memory of the past is lost... and he's still unaware of a lot of other things around him.

I'm not a believer. In fact I'm an atheist. I don't believe in God. As I wrote this story I didn't think about religion. I was just somebody, writing an ironic story about our society. Now I'm aware of some other things in it. I know that some atheist people, not believing in God or in any other deity supposed to watch and protect us all, have written stories closely connected to God. Like brilliant writer Alex Garland (author of 28 Days Later and The Beach), who wrote that film, Sunshine, which shows the Sun as a positive representation of God. I wrote Charlie's Trips as an atheist, with the idea of the possibility - and I'm saying again, only the POSSIBILITY - of the Christ coming back to Earth in a shape we don't expect. In this case, as a teenager who doesn't really believe. Who even lost his past. Why not? A little bit like John Connor in Terminator 2, who's still a teenager and still doesn't believe he's the one supposed to save humanity from the destroying machines. Charlie's case is of course different since he's not supposed to be anybody in the first place. And he just showed up, as a total stranger, in a world he doesn't know about.

This rather short book doesn't give any explanations and sticks to the action and to the descriptions of the futuristic world Charlie ends up in; following what happens to him and around him, and what may get through his blank mind. You'll probably say I'm just trying to promote my work, of course I'm promoting it, this is what a blog is for but since I'm an atheist and this domain is very vast I thought it was wise to question people (and myself) about this issue and start a debate here. Maybe the Christ is already among us and we don't know it, maybe he's already judged us? For some strong believers, the end of the world is for next year (2012)... The book also speaks about some other values that are very strong these days, family, marriage, celebrity, patriotism...

The book also introduces us to a new kind of character: an 'amnesic psychic' (able to see in the future when he has lost his past) and to space-time travel. Unlike films like the Back to the Future or the Terminator series, where the characters travel through time but stay at the exact same place, Charlie's Trips shows a time travel that includes space, young Charlie jumping from the Midwest to the West Coast, without even realizing. Without even remembering, since the result of that travel for him is a complete loss of memory! And an ability to see the other way, forward instead of backward.

The book is a fun and compelling read for all audiences. Along with The Wizard of Oz, Charlie's Trips could be put close to other classic tales for children and teenagers like Alice in Wonderland, Charlotte's Web, Gulliver's Travels and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as well as to science-fiction works from Philip K. Dick (for his approaches of precognition) and HG Wells (the time travel). So the book will grip fans of Dick and Wells as well as those of Roald Dahl. It makes children and teenage literature meet science-fiction and disaster genres. Because Charlie's Trips is also a disaster story.

I'm not saying 'Buy the book, if you don't you have nothing to do here since you don't know what you're talking about!...' stuff like that. No, I really can't wait for what everybody has to say, I'm looking forward to hearing from you storytellers, readers, and (non) believers!

Why do we write?

Hello folks, I'm Jack, I'm an author and sometimes I wonder why I do that, writing things (not just single blog or forum posts) that nobody will care about unless it's promoted. Did that question ever come through your mind, as such a writer that nobody reads?

Personally I do that because I need to express myself, sometimes words can be more effective than oral talk. It can reach more people. But I'm part of those many guys who keep struggling as writers, using typewriters or computers or ipads or whatever else, burning their minds and bodies, and then struggling the same way trying to get heard or published or produced or etc. Since the writer is not supposed to have a face and show off, since he's supposed to stay in the background and keep his mouth shut, it's much more difficult for him to get through and make a living. That's the way things work of course, it's been like this since human kind started, and every writer can't reach the largest audience but still...

I've been writing stuff (fiction and non-fiction - as manuscripts, screenplays, also a stageplay, in both English and French, I'm French by the way), for fifteen years now. So far nobody knows about what I've done. You'll probably tell me, it's my fault, I don't know how to sell myself, I'm deaf and dumb. Maybe. But I also have lots of hope. Anyway I've created this blog to share my passion(s) and achieve something - among other things.

I just finished a work that was a film script in the first place. The script is too long and the synopsis was rejected by the agent of a famous actor, so I took this too long script and turned it into an average book. It's called "Charlie's Trips". The story of a young, 16-year-old soldier from the Midwest who's swept away by a tornado and winds up on the West Coast, in the future (21 years later), as an 'amnesic precognitive', able to see in the future when he lost his past. With a reverse memory. It's an interesting story. Available only online, on Amazon Marketplace, so far. I'm working on promoting it now, in a special way, and I hope it works.

I'm also trying to be a film producer, maybe in a close future I'll be able to make films from my own screenplays. If you enjoy cinema and books (don't worry, I sure do), feel free to come around and comment and see what I should check out. I'm not close-minded, I have other interests than books and films. I love sports - especially tennis and football (& soccer) and many other things, and I can talk about things (and people) that I don't like - I love that too.

Hope you'll like this blog. Hope it will be useful and allow me to answer my own questions.