465. The Making of "The Mountain's Last Flower" (Novella) ::: THE FINAL DRAFT IN PEER REVIEW (With and Without Images) and SUMMARY STATEMENTS

Please see this PDF File for the FIRST FINAL DRAFT of "The Mountain's Last Flower" for Revision and Peer Review:

WITH IMAGES:
http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/mountainslastflowerFINAL1blurbWITHIM.pdf.
WITHOUT IMAGES:
http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/mountainslastflowerFINAL1blurbwoutim.pdf.

BELOW IS "SUMMARY STATEMENTS" which will be used for PITCHING the story to people: (1) tagline (2) summary (elevator pitch) (3) genre, proposed audiences (4) summary of my life--self glorifying deprecation of an autobiography (5) first paragraph/sections of writing.

(1) Tagline:
"The mountain’s coming down! The mountain’s coming down!!! Aren’t you going to get off?!"

(2) Summary (Quasi Elevator Pitch):
The Mountain’s Last Flower is a surrealistic, precautionary tale exploring the relationships between the personal and universal denials of Heisen the Scientist, a rather obsessive and reclusive botanist. He refuses to listen to the warning cries of Gonzo the panicky Child, who is frantically urging him to descend from the unstable, rumbling mountain. Now required to deal with major sacrifice, the Scientist must consider leaving his once secure home of a mountainside cabinshack and discontinuing his attendance to the endangered, neon-orange-petalled Neopentaspectavolus granelli, which has served as a profound source of fulfillment in his later years. Through the interplay of antagonistic dialogues, Heisen’s war of ideologies with Gonzo ultimately reveals that he is conducting warfare within himself, as his own suppressed, youthful instincts are conflicting with the implanted, conventional “rationalities” of adulthood. Yet is Heisen able to come to his senses in due time such as to escape the “erupting heartbeat” linked with “dragon’s shedding of the mountain’s skin”?

(3) Genre, Proposed Audience:
This novella embodies the genre of "literary fiction for social (human-environmental) change," as clearly defined by Dr. Barbara Kingsolver (The Bean Trees) and her initiative of acknowledging works of fiction devoted to themes of social responsibility (through the means of the Belwether Prize, http://www.belwetherprize.org). Predominant themes interlaced within The Mountain's Last Flower include conflicts of value systems, communication methods, and knowledge regimes of different environmental stakeholders, the exploration of relationships between individual/collective learning and behavior change, and why the divorce of knowledge acquisition ("science") and action ("advocacy") can lead to failed decision-making.

This very "meaty" piece of literature--a novel's worth of material surrealistically packaged into a "novellette"--is catered toward the next generation of scientists, scholars, and activists in the realm of business, non-profits, and politics, who are currently figuring out their identities, and their role in society concerning efforts towards sustainability, locally and globally. In addition, The Mountain's Last Flower is designed to question and challenge several conventional paradigms in the university and other sectors that have resorted to widespread denial and inertia in terms of their role in the larger picture of human-environmental problems. Since I have been agonizingly inspired by great works of literature I was forced to read in high school (Crime and Punishment, Hamlet, Lord of the Flies), I sincerely hope to impose "inspirational agony" to our next generation of intelligent youth through the means of The Mountain's Last Flower (Come on folks! It's not as incomprehensible as Shakespeare! And not as gloomy as Dostoyevski! And it's even shorter than Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea!).

(4) One Minute Salespitch of My Life:
Victoria Minnich, otherwise known as “Stokastika” (a seeker of order from chaos), is a Ph.D. student in Environmental Media / Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Upon asking the question, “What is the definition of science when humans are a part of the experiment?” Victoria packed up her bags filled with knowledge and tools in the Life/Earth Sciences and Arts in order to venture down the rabbit hole of addressing complex human-environmental problems through multi-media storytelling, ranging from illustrated narrative fiction to documentary film-making.

Chronically asking the questions "What does it mean to be a next generation scientist?" and "What does it mean to be a next generation socially-and-environmentally-responsible storyteller?" Victoria dissolves any perceived boundaries between the sciences and the arts, luring these fields into new realms... of manifesting a more hopeful future.

(Wow, geez talk about book jacket foo foo! I hate all this self glorification, but this society is merciless in terms of my needing to promote myself. Even present myself as someone who I'm not. Well at least, it's someone I WANT to be. I guess THAT counts for something!)

(5) First Paragraph / Sections of Writing:

“Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.” –Sir Francis Bacon

Devotions:
The Mountain’s Last Flower was written in memory of my grandfather, John Ray Minnich. The creative wheels of this story began churning upon my first encounter with Duke and Dog in June of 2009 (then speeding up upon the incident of the 6.9 earthquake of Baja California in August of 2009). Thanks to Barry Spacks for challenging and encouraging me to write a poet’s story, not a straw man’s plight… and so this short tale has transformed into a novella, and it took me three months, not three weeks to write! Big hugs to Jeri Lyn and Steve for letting a troubled mind hibernate among the fruit trees and redwoods of Sebastopol, California. Much gratefulness to all of my blood-and-mind family for supporting—or putting up with—me through such an arduous journey of melding science and art. —September 2009

Part 1:
There was this old man by the name of Heisen who lived in a rather small, self-built cabinshack on a shrub-coated mountain, amidst a vast expanse of sparsely populated terrain, aways-away from any human-infested metropoliscapes. The cabinshack leaned against the somewhat steep, west-and-ocean-facing slope of the mountain, which was also bordered by a meagerly-fertile valley to the east, a village fairly near the base to the south, and a scanty continuation of the rugged range to the north. Despite his past-ripening age, Heisen maintained a lean and surprisingly agile form, giving him the capacity to construct this marginally functional, scraggly-shaped cabinshack, sufficient enough to shut out any high winds and mild rains. The old man’s untamed curly-grey-brown-hair-coupled-gruff-beard, horizontally-elongated, thick-lensed glasses, and gazelle-like defensive posture summed into an epitomized portrayal of a reclusive scholar of seemingly great intelligence—or bona fide geeky-ness in the least—as if he were a scientist of sorts.

And this man did in fact deem himself as a scientist. Heisen, the Scientist.

236. Pilot Season First Annual Santa Barbara Write-off Reality Show Competition, Day 3, Co-write a Conflict-Resolution Dialogue with FScott Fitzgerald

Please visit the pdf file below!

http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/unresolvedresolutiongatsbysdrunkard.pdf

Though I do not think Lynn and I were very highly judged with our co-written dialogue with F. Scott Fitzgerald being our “ghost writer”—primarily because the first draft had less conflict and was more visual than oral communication (hence, my falling on the floor as a drunkard) (besides, the stakes were high; we had to compete with a hilarious dilemma between the plastic surgeon, a cripple, and her momma, as well as a Mamette interpretation of two women fighting intensely over a parking spot)—I still feel like that this event right here captures the essence of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, in so many ways. This exercise here was indeed the highlight of my experiences in the past week of “chaos”—or my perception of chaos (especially since it was the first time I had ever attended such a conference!).

This experience and the conference as a whole pushed my limits as a writer. Co-scripting a dialogue is a very intimate process, and I was forced to get to know a person—in this case Lynn—very, very fast. Like, within a half an hour. I learned quite a few things about myself: (1) I have the ability to bend and adapt to a great degree to the other person I am collaborating with (in this case, my mind was going the speed of light and my partner’s mind was much slower-paced, which is understandable, because I think my brain is naturally on speed, even though I have never taken meth before), (2) I learned that even though I am a rather serious, satirical writer when I am in my own brain, when combining my brain with other brains, I become increasingly and rapidly more slapstick comical, (3) since I thrive off of healthy competition, I was desperate and pushed my “acting” visual-communication limits and fell to the floor as a drunkard to compensate for our rudimentary script. Though, we had two highlights of our dialogue. The first highlight was when Roderick commented on how he could not keep track of everything in his life, let alone the number of martinis he had. The second highlight was when Jenny proclaimed, “What’s the world coming to when everything’s fine and everyone’s drunk?”

One more comment for now. After this experience, I have come to realize that an ultimate dream of my career is to become a part of a writers think tank in the design of a system, whether a film or television show, or whether it's protocol for colonizing Mars! Whatever!

148. Blue Horizons Continued: "World's Easiest Catch: Zen of Rock Crab:" THE FRANTIC FINAL-ISH SCRIPT FOR 7.5. MINUTE VERSION

Link to the FRANTIC SKETCH FINAL SCRIPT FOR THE 7.5 MINUTE VERSION OF WORLD'S EASIEST CATCH:
http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/finalscriptSKETCHzenrockcrab.pdf

Link to the FINAL SCRIPT RANDOM SCRAP for World's Easiest Catch: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/finalscriptideasworldseasiestcatchRA.pdf

A week before the projects was due, I remember being in the parking lot of Denny's off Patterson, and that night I constructed in the car, the narration for the main 4.5 minute version, or at least the draft version. Quite poetic, indeed. Poetry can sometimes come from times of desperation! Later, while I was in the Orange County area, I "finalized" the script... or basically delt with what I had. My time in Orange County and Riverside that week was strange. Very strange. Every night I probably got 3-4 hours of sleep. I was operating like a rapid robot. Or as rapidly as I could go. My mind was in this state of zen. Writing the script requires good sleep and conscious thinking. But I can only methodically create art and music and edit under a zen mode of lack of sleep. My god, this is going to be the adrenaline rush of next quarter? I was in a dream state that entire week.

I also remember crashing at Matt's house, my new random friend who works at the 24-7 engineering computer labs at UC Irvine. He was so kind to let me use his password and work on the Macs and Final Cut Pro. A few days later he offered that I could crash on the couch at his place, which was practically across the street from the UC Irvine campus and the in-and-out. He and his friend were my "social pill" for the week. What amazing support! But then again, it was all a dream, and the entire time I was in a state of artistic delusion. It's like you can place your selt into a state of drugged trance through behavior modification (no sleep, no eating, no exercise) ... the issue is that it takes a couple of days to get into that kind of mode. If you consume a certain "drug-like" substance, I am assuming you can achieve an instant gratification mode of altered Reality.