Daniel Radcliffe interviews Jo Rowling about the Harry Potter series- an author's view of making movies from the most popular children's books of our time

This interview/conversation between Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter in the movies) and Jo ("J.K.") Rowling (author of the Harry Potter books), was shot near the end of the filming of the last Harry Potter movie, Deathly Hallows, part 2.  That came out in 2011, so this interview/conversation probably took place in 2010.  

While I'm a writer, I'm primarily an 1980' zine publisher turned prolific blogger, who has written for  a few magazines in the 80's and 90's.  I've never written much fiction, and never had any published.  But 2,400+ blog posts into my writing life, I've simply done a lot of one form of writing.  Most of the time I was focused on the weird little BMX bike world that was my life for 20 years.  But over the last 2-3 years, I've been watching videos of other writers more, just learning more about the various aspects of writing itself, and particularly how novelists think, an go about their work.

I'm not a huge Harry Potter fan, by Potter standards.  I read the first book a couple of years ago, and I loved the series of movies.  For some reason though, Jo Rowling, aka "J.K." is one of the novelists I most like to listen to about writing itself.  Her story is fascinating, that's one part of it.  But more than anything, she just talks real openly about the writing process in interviews.  Her thoughts on creating the amazing Harry Potter/Hogwarts world, the logic of the books, and on the various characters, are things I love to watch.  

One thing about this conversation/interview, is how both Jo and Daniel talk about how real the characters become to them, as a writer and as an actor.  Many years ago, I read a really obscure book about a Tibetan mystic concept called tulpas.  Supposedly Tibetan mystics, for some reason, would visualize characters that would ultimately become real people, or semi-real, anyhow.  I'm not buying that.  But the book I read was really interesting, and the writer compared the Tibetan tulpas to Superman, and other comic heroes that were ingrained in the public consciousness.  

When I read that book, one of the Star Wars movies had just come out, and I thought about how "real" Yoda, for example had become to millions of people.  While Yoda is a 2 1/2 foot tall muppet with great wisdom written by George Lucas, and who "acts" thanks to amazing special effects, the result is a character that feels nearly real to a lot of people.  I remember being out riding bikes with years ago, and we'd yell Yoda quotes to a friend, "Do or do not, there is no try."  Yoda's sayings, as a character, were as real to us as something a real person might have said. 

The way Daniel and Jo talk about the characters reminds me of that tulpa idea.  A writer thinks up these completely fictional characters, and they take on a life of their own, in a sense.  When a writer works with these characters for months or years, they begin to feel pretty real.  The fictional characters are nearly as close as real people, to the writer, as she's writing them. If the novel gets really popular, like the Harry Potter books have, those characters live in many people's minds, they take on a type of realness, to large numbers of people, and ultimately influence society in some sense.  There can be a type of reality to purely fictional characters, like the Tibetan tulpas.  

All Tibetan talk aside, this is a great conversation between two people, talking about a series of stories, that most of us know fairly well.  It's a great watch/listen as a writer. 

 

Why do you write?

In 1985, I bought an old, Royal, manual typewriter, much like the one in this video, for $15 at the San Jose Swap Meet.  I had just moved there from Boise, Idaho, and the weird, new little sport of BMX freestyle was my life.  I used that typewriter to start a zine about BMX freestyle, as a way to meet the other riders in the Bay Area.  That was the start of my writing "career."  In less than a year my zine landed me a magazine job in Southern California.  I had no idea that would happen, and it definitely wasn't my goal.  But that zine, San Jose Stylin', changed the entire course of my life.

Why do you write?  Do you just have something to say to the world?  Do you want to be a bestselling author or novelist some day?  Do you want to write a script for Hollywood and win an Oscar?  Do you want to become a famous writer?  Do you just want to be a "working writer?"  Do you think being a writer will get you laid?  Do you just love torture?  Do you want to make a fortune writing stuff that impresses that asshole professor in college who told you that you didn't have what it takes to "make it" was a professional writer?  Or do you see yourself as a conduit of information from some unknown source that needs to come into our physical world as books, movies or some other written form?  Or are you someone who has been writing for years, and you're just going to keep doing it, money or no money involved, because it's who you are?

There are a lot of reasons to want to write.  If money, fame and glory are your main reasons, you probably won't stick with it long enough to find any of those.  But if you have something to say to the world, or you keep coming up with ideas that seem like they should be part of a book or movie, you may be in it for the long haul.  

I started a zine when I'd only heard of them in a FREESTYLIN' (BMX) magazine article.  I'd never seen an actual zine.  I wanted an excuse to meet the pro BMX freestylers of the San Francisco Bay Area.  BMX freestyle, which was largely unknown to normal people in 1985, was my life.  I was 19-years-old, and couldn't afford to go to college.  I didn't really have a drive towards anything that needed a degree, so I worked at a Pizza Hut, and spent nights creating a really ugly, but pretty solid zine.  Less than a year later, FREESTYLIN' magazine (and sister mag BMX Action) offered me a job.  I didn't consider myself a writer then, I wanted to be a pro rider, a BMX freestyler, not a writer.  I didn't really click with the staff there, and got laid off after a few months (and replaced by 18-year-oldBMX/skater kid Spike Jonze).  

My next job was a year as writer/editor/photographer for a BMX freestyle newsletter.  Near the end of that, I was beginning to enjoy writing, and starting to feel like a "writer."  In the 33 years since, I've only been paid to write for two months, another short-lived BMX magazine, in 1998.  But I've written and published 40+ zines, including three of poetry.  And since 2008, I've tried 25-35 blog ideas, and written well over 2,400 blog posts.  I did that for free, writing things I, personally, wanted to write about.  Those posts pulled in over 435,000 total page views, so much of what I've written has actually been read by some people.  Along the way, over 36 years, I've become much more aware of my creative process, how I work, and how I write. 

I don't get writer's block really.  On the contrary, I'm usually exploding with far more ideas than I can sit down and write.  If I don't have a ready idea for one blog or piece, I usually have an idea for another, so I'll work on that.  Part of our influence in the 1980's BMX freestyle scene was punk rock, with it's DIY (Do It Yourself) attitude.  So self-publishing, in zines, blogs, and one ebook, made sense to me.  I've never given myself one rejection letter.  I've never really tried to get a book published by a traditional publisher, I cranked out one ebook last year, and sold a few copies.  Most of my blogging, since 2008, has been about my life in the early days of 1980's BMX freestyle.  I became an industry guy, a video producer, and knew all the pros and industry people of the first wave of what is now a worldwide sport.  So I had a lot of weird, little insider stories from that world.

Over the 36 years I've been writing pretty consistently, my reasons for writing have changed.  I consume a lot of information, and then think about it, like most avid readers do.  There came a point where I realized I needed to write my thoughts on different subjects, to let what I've learned flow back out into the world.  If I just read, I would be like a big lake with a river flowing into it, just filling up more and more and more.  But to really flow, like life itself, I needed to let my thoughts flow back out of the lake, producing my own river of content.  I'm not saying that's a good metaphor for everyone, but it works for me.  I write a lot more than I read these days, but I spent the 1990's and 2000's reading 250 or 300 books, and listening to 150 more on audiotape.  

I write because, as an organism, I get curious, I read and learn, and then think about what I've learned.  Then I pretty much NEED to write something, to put my take on that subject back out into the world.  That's what works for me, and why I will self-publish in blogs or zines, even with no money coming back, much of the time.  

That said, I've been struggling with homelessness, in and out of it, since I became a taxi driver in 1999, and I need to start making a decent living again.  I plan to do that primarily by writing, and with the unique Sharpie marker art I do, (#sharpiescribblestyle) as another creative outlet. So that's why I write.  I'm just geared to take in info, ponder about it, and write my take on this subject or that one, mostly with non-fiction, but now with some fiction as well.

So I'll ask again, why to you write?  When you find the deep reason for it, a lot of daily writing issues seem to fade away, at least to some degree.  When you figure out your own process, and work with it, a lot of the torture aspect goes away as well, at least in my experience. 

How "Fight Club" was written by Chuck Palahniuk and screenwriter Jim Uhls

I just stumbled across this one this afternoon.  Personally, I thought the Fight Club movie was one of the most original, brilliant, intense, fucked up movies I've ever seen.  Years later, I learned these was actually a book, and read that, too.  This 13 minute video gets into the nuts and bolts of how the original story, and then the movie was written.  Good stuff.  That's all I'm going to say. 

That time I asked a bestselling novelist for writing advice

For a 5 minute interview, this is actually a good look into the mind and creativity of Sharleen Cooper Cohen.  She's written several novels, like The Ladies of Beverly Hills, and many other projects for stage and screen.  This 2011 interview is from the promotion for her stage adaptation of An Officer and a Gentleman, a hit movie from 1982.  

In 1995, when American Gladiators ended, so did my work as stage crew guy.  I burned out on TV production work as a crew guy, and wound up a furniture mover back down in Orange County.  I'd been working as an office mover since 1992 for much of the year, and working on TV show crews in the summers.  One of the moving companies I worked for was Beverly Hills Moving and Storage, although we were based out of Carson, right next to Compton, 25 miles south. But with that name, we got a lot of calls to move homes in Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and that area.  

I was doing a ton of reading in those years, and trying to find my voice as a writer.  I wrote a fair amount of stuff that no one ever saw, trying out different ideas for short stories, novels, or movie screenplays.  Mostly I made a zine every now and then for my BMX friends, or a zine of poetry.  I wasn't sure where I wanted to go next, and just kept reading tons of books, and listening to a lot of audio books, as well.

One moving job took two of us to a very expensive house in the West part of the San Fernando Valley.  Although I didn't mind working hard, we were happy to hear that we were only moving the clothes and office supplies of the couple, and a few favorite pieces of furniture, to their beach house.  I remember the house being loaded with a lot of contemporary art, of all types.  That included at statue of a woman who looked so lifelike, I actually touched her to see if she was real, since she didn't move as I walked by carrying things. 

The couple was friendly, and in the course of the move, I learned the woman was a novelist, with several popular novels out in print, a couple of which were bestsellers.  The woman was Sharleen Cooper Cohen, and she had written seven novels, published between 1979 and 1994.  When I asked her what she'd written, The Ladies of Beverly Hills was a novel I had heard of in the press.  So as a furniture mover who was a wannabe writer, I got up the courage and asked what her best advice was to be a writer.  We were in her writing room, when I asked.  

Her answer was simple, "Just glue your butt to the chair and write."  

Honestly, it wasn't the advice I wanted to hear.  But it stuck in my mind, and here I am, 20-25 years later, knowing she was right, and sharing it with all of you reading this post. 

As young people interested, maybe even obsessed with, writing "something great" some day, young writers, like me back then, always want to hear some trick, or some magic formula.  We want to hear how to find the right subject matter, or how to know it's going to be a hit book before we start.  We want to hear some little known method to writing a bestseller, or hit screenplay.  

But there is no secret.  It's a process, at some point a spark of inspiration, a cool idea, comes for a piece.  Then comes the real trick to writing.  Sitting down for as long as it takes, and actually writing the thing.  Then usually re-writing it.  Then either self-publishing it, or looking for someone else to publish it.  There's a lot to being a creative person, particularly a working creative person, like an author.  But when it comes right down to it, sitting down and writing, day after day, for a long project like a book or screenplay, is what it all comes down to.  You can't publish or sell what you haven't written.  Thank you to Sharleen Cooper Cohen for the simple, straightforward advice to a young writer moving your clothes and furniture 25 years ago.

Elizabeth Gilbert's "genius" TED Talk

Worried about how to follow the freakish success of her bestselling book, Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert put together a now legendary Ted Talk.  I just listened to this again.  I think everyone doing creative work should watch this talk every once in a while. 

What would you most like to read?

 Over the last week or so, I've been trying to figure out what to focus on.  I've written over 2,400 blog posts  in the last 12 1/2 years or so.  A lot of people have read them.  Haven't made a dime off the writing itself, but I  built a following in the Old School BMX freestyle world, and sold a bunch of my Sharpie art to people in that world.  

But life has brought me back to the area where I first decided to "get serious" about writing, and try to write "something great," 30 years ago.  Now I have a pretty good grasp of how I write (and create in other ways), and why I write.  It became obvious it's time to move into a different part of my writing life.  

These times in between projects are the weirdest.  I'm kind of drifting on multiple levels, and this is a pivot away from trying to make money with my Sharpie art, to working more on writing.  As I thought about what direction to head next, I kept thinking of one of the best novels about writing I've read.  Seymor, an introduction, by J.D. Salinger.  I won't totally give it away, but there's a part where the older brother asks the younger, "What would you most want to read?  Write that.  

So that's what I've done the last 2 or 3 days.  I wanted to find what I was actually excited about writing.  An idea, a concept came together.  I have a direction again.  Feels good.  More on this project later.

Check out my Pinterest board

 Me stemming across a gap to shoot video of Keith Treanor and Alex Leech in 1991, as an independent BMX video producer guy. 

I'm more of a writer than anything else, and have been for 35 years.  My Sharpie Scribble Style art has been keeping me barely alive for 5 years, but I'm pivoting to focus more on writing now.  Check out my Pinterest board,  Steve Emig. 

I'm a writer/blogger/artist/ Old School BMX freestyler who does all my own stunts.  Flipping off my bike, over the handlebars, into some crash pads, 2001. 

Another view of the flips over the handlebars.  That's me, upside down, in the middle of the frame.  Those crash pads are ten feet long.  Just goofing around.

Great talk between Jo Rowling and Steve Kloves... about adapting Harry Potter books into movies

Author Jo Rowling and screenwriter Steve Kloves get together after the last Harry Potter movie, to talk about the process of adapting the Harry Potter books into movies.

 Jo Rowling, still best known as J.K. Rowling to most, probably turned more kids on to reading big books then any person in history.  The seven book Harry Potter series told the tale of the young wizard Harry going to Hogwarts School for Witches and Wizards, and all the adventures that involved. 

The first book was started by Jo when she was basically a welfare mom in the U.K..  The series went on to sell over 500 million copies around the world, and spawned 8 hit movies, and two theme parks.  We all know the basics of this phenomena, it's the best known book series in the English speaking world.  

The later books were huge, and this conversation is a great writer to writer look at English author Jo Rowling talking to American screenwriter Steve Kloves, who landed the daunting job of pruning the books down to workable movie scripts.  I found this conversation months ago, and its one of my favorite writer to writer conversations, about works we are all somewhat, maybe incredibly, familiar with.  

This is just a great look into the deep world of writing itself, with two of the most influential writers of our time. 

Full Circle-where the blog name comes from

This is South Weddington Park in 2021, now right next to the Universal City bus/Red Line train station, built several years ago, and hidden behind a wall.  In 1991, I used to sit on the little hill on the left, next to my freestyle bike, and write whatever came into my mind.  This is the spot where, 30 years ago, I first decided to try to "become a real writer."  

My first "real" TV industry job, working as a production assistant on the 1991 Supercross and monster truck TV series, got me commuting from Huntington Beach up to Studio City, just over the hill from Hollywood.  What started as a day of logging footage of monster truck driver interviews, turned into a 3 or 4 month production job.  When that ended, I got a job as a video duplication guy in a small business in North Hollywood, and moved into a sketchy, ghetto apartment nearby, where I rented a bed by the week.  I rented a bed, $40 a week, not the whole room.  I worked second shift on that job, and began to wander the east end of the San Fernando Valley on my BMX bike during the day, since I didn't have a car.  

That was nearly six years after I published my first BMX freestyle zine in September 1985. I started San Jose Stylin' to meet other BMX freestyle riders in the San Francisco Bay Area, after moving from Boise to San Jose with my family.  I was a year out of high school, and working at Pizza Hut and riding my freestyle bike most of every day, hoping to be a pro rider some day.  Instead, 11 issues of my San Jose Stylin' zine landed me a job at Wizard Publications, home of BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines, a month after my 20th birthday.  At age 20, without ever taking a college course, I was proofreading two magazines.

That led to editing a newsletter the next year, which led to video work, which led to working at Unreel Productions, the Vision Skateboards video company.  That closed down in 1990, and I self-produced a freestyle video that year, The Ultimate Weekend, which lost me a bunch of money.  But I started doing some freelance video work.  A former Unreel co-worker called me one day, and got me a job working in the production office of the supercross and monster truck shows that year.  Four years of me working in the BMX industry, it "died," and I became a video duplicator guy, and TV crew guy. 

I never thought of myself as a writer while while publishing my zines, working at the magazine, and when I began working at the newsletter.  But I came to realize I liked writing at the newsletter, and was pretty good at it.  Then I started dating a singer in a local rock band, who wrote her own songs.  So I started trying to write song lyrics for her.  They sucked, but she got me started thinking of myself as an actual "writer."  

So it was nearly five years after my first paid writing job that I began to really want to become a "real writer."  I began to ride my bike to Weddington Park in the mornings, to escape my crazy apartment and roommates.  I sat in the shade of these small trees, and just started writing whatever came into my mind.  I wanted to write a "great novel," or screenplay, or something great.  But mostly I wrote crap, journal type stuff about my day to day life.  

But then, after a couple weeks of that, every once in a while, a cool idea would pop into my head, and I'd write it out for two or three pages.  So my real journey as an intentional prose writer began at Weddington Park, in 1991.  Somehow, my crazy life landed me back up in this area, though homeless, in 2019.  A couple months ago, I realized it had been 30 years, and a crazy journey in both life and writing, and I somehow came full circle, back to the Weddington Park, Studio City/North Hollywood area.  But now I understand much more about why I write, how my process works, and have a bunch of writing, if not paid writing, under my belt. 

I still have never published a "real" print book.  I did publish a 263 page ebook about BMX in early 2021, and sold a 50 copies.  But I've written and put out about 30 zines, 25+ blogs, over 2,400 blog posts, and landed well over 435,000 online page views since those days writing in the park in 1991.  I've learned a lot about writing, life, and my creative process in the last 30 years.  I've learned a lot more about why I write, as well. 

Now, that I've come full circle in 30 years, this blog is about my ideas and things I've learned in that last 30-35 years of writing, and life in general.  So that's where the name comes from. 
 

Why writers and artists often want to be "catchers in the rye"

This is me, Steve Emig, blogger, artist, and self-published writer for 36 years now, as well as fat, homeless guy, last night (8/21/2021), where I sleep, on the sidewalk, in the San Fernando Valley.  I woke up thinking about what I should really be doing with my life right now.  What should I really be writing?  This blog was the answer that came to me.  

A huge number of us had to read The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, in high school.  I don't know if this is still happening, but in Generation X and much of the Baby Boomer generations, this was a standard novel to have to read in school.  Most of us were told the book had been banned in some parts of the country, and even thrown on fires in book burnings, in some cases.  So we wanted to actually read it, just to see what the ruckus had been about.  First published as a serial in the 1940's, then as a novel in 1951, the novel caused an uproar for the reclusive writer, J.D. Salinger.  In Catcher in the Rye, main character Holden Caufield is a teenager struggling with issues many teenagers struggle with.  That's a theme that often riles up some people.

In one part he's talking about what seems to be a kid's rhyme, "Catcher in the Rye," which is where the title of the novel seems comes from.  It actually comes from an old Scottish poem from 1782, by Robert Burns, "Comin' Thro the Rye."  Holden explains his vision of this rhyme as him being an older kid near a big cliff.  Little kids are playing in the field, a field of rye (it's a grain, like wheat), and when the kids stray towards the edge of the big cliff, Holden saw himself as the Catcher in the Rye, he would grab them before they fell off the cliff.  Catch them before they went over the edge, and guide them back away from the edge.

That's the metaphor I got while reading the book, a person who is kind of detached from the rest of the world, but a sort of unofficial guardian.  When someone gets too close to the edge, in life itself, the Catcher in the Rye goes over and guides them away from the edge, and back into the game they were playing.  That part of the book struck me, because I, too, wanted to be a "Catcher in the Rye," in that sense.  I wanted to save people from falling off the edge, into suicide, or other "cliffs" in life, where people go off the edge.  

In the 35 plus years since I read that book high school, I've talked to a couple other people, also people who survived rough and abusive childhoods, who wanted to be "Catchers in the Rye" in life.  I came to think that many of the kids grew up with lots of issues from whatever abuse they survived as children, went on to want to do something helpful as adults.  To be sure, people drawn to to be "Catchers," in this sense, are pretty fucked up as teens usually, and usually well into adulthood.  But I've also found a brutal honesty in these people.  And often a drive towards artistic or creative work.  We know as young people, that we're fucked up, and there's usually some kind of drive to "straighten our shit out," "get our heads screwed on straight," or whatever phrase you want to use.  

I think this is part of why so many people from tough backgrounds are drawn to writing, and the arts in general.  In much of artistic and creative work, you can have a positive effect on other people.  In writing, music, visual arts, and many other forms of creative work, there's chance to make other people laugh, smile, or just help them cope during a rough time.  That's one chance to be "Catcher's in the Rye," in a sense.   

The other main way is just being friends with someone.  Stepping in when you see someone struggling in a way where you can help.  "Hey, you OK?  Cause you look like shit right now?  What's going on?"  Those talks can really bring people back from the edge of the cliff.  Sometimes.  It can also push people closer to the cliff, depending where their mindset is, and how you go about it.  It's always dicey.

I'm a fat, homeless, 55-year-old loser to most of the people who see me.  But in the 36 years I've been writing, and doing other creative work, I know my writing has helped at least a few people back away from the cliff.  I know this because they've told me so.  That's powerful to know.  To know your creative work, of some kind, has had that effect.  I've also talked personally to a handful of people who were near suicidal, and in a few cases, very close to suicide, possible even homicide.  It's dicey, you never know if it's going to work, when trying to talk someone down, "back from the cliff".  But once committed, you have to see people as far as you can in that moment.  

I've talked to a female friend who was a long time cutter, as she had a blade to her wrist on the other end of the phone call.  When we hung up, I knew she was in a somewhat better place, but I didn't know if she'd sink back deep into depression over night.  I hung up not knowing if I'd see her again a couple of different times. 

I've also talked to a couple people, complete strangers, who were on the verge of potentially committing crimes to me, in one case, as a taxi driver), just to go back to the prison they'd just got out of.  They came out to an overwhelming situation, and I turned out to be the person there, in the moment, trying to defuse the situation.  We all get into these situations, to some degree, at some point.  My cutter friend, who was 18 then, has a successful career now, 20-some years later.  We've gone our separate ways, but she's doing well.  As for the guys fresh out of prison, they got through the tense spot where I talked to them, and were in a better place when we parted ways.  On those occasions where I was the "Catcher in the Rye," things ended well.  

But part of the reason I went to an effort in those cases, was because of a time in 1989, when I pro athlete I knew, wanted to talk, because he was struggling.  I didn't know him well, but enough to talk to him.  I was kind of patronizing, and didn't realize just how down he was.  I pretty much blew him off.  Maybe I could have made a difference that day, maybe not.  But I didn't really try.  A year later, still struggling, he flipped out and murdered a young woman he knew.  Many of you will figure out who I'm talking about.  I'll leave his name out of this.  There were lots of other people, over a year's time, who also could have helped him.  But I didn't, when the chance presented itself.  

That was a hard lesson.  So I've tried to do a better job in the years since.  He's still in prison for his crime.  I was one of many people who might have helped, and I didn't.  That failure dug deep, and has changed my actions a lot since. 

On the other side of the coin, I've had plenty of my own struggles, and and there have been a lot of people who have helped me, in many ways, along my path, pushing me "back from the cliff."  Sometimes we have the chance to be a Catcher in the Rye, and sometimes we need one ourselves.  The point?  Try to keep people away from the edge of that cliff, when we can, in the ways we can.  None of us can help everyone.  But each of us can help some people, in some ways, in some situations.  

I've learned to try and do the best I can, when I'm drawn into those situations.  I've also learned that I can't help everyone, and not to beat myself up, forever, if I can't help someone in some situation.  The point is to try, when you can, in the ways you can.  Also, accept help when you need it, in the ways that make sense.  Don't let people push you into other trouble, but when legit help comes along, use it.  

My point in making this the first post in this new blog is to throw the idea out there that artists and creative people, in many cases, are often drawn to be "Catchers in the Rye," in some sense, with their creative work.  There's a reason you are drawn to the work you are drawn to, even if everyone else thinks it's stupid.  If there's a really strong pull to a project, I've found there's usually a good reason for that, your work will likely have a positive effect, somewhere down the line.  You may never know it, though.  That's part of the the way things work out, over time.  But sometimes, if you do good creative work, someone will tell you that your work had a profound effect on them.  And it feels really good to know that, as an artist, writer, or any other kind of creative person.  It also makes you realize that possibility in future writing or other creative work. 

So there's an idea to think about, especially if you're a creative person, whether you get paid for the work, whether it's really popular, or not.  The potential is there.  

So that's my nice, sweet, light, thought to start a brand new blog.  There's a lot more to come in this blog, stuff like this, and some lighter more entertaining stuff, too, probably.  We'll see where this leads.  

If you haven't read "Catcher in the Rye," I'd recommend it.  Salinger's stories about the Glass family, are great reads, too, better, that The Catcher in the Rye, in my opinion.  Those are Nine Stories, Franny and Zooey (good for actors), Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, and Seymour: An Introduction (EVERY writer should read this).   Now go ponder this a bit, then create something cool.