JF – Writer
Jerry Flattum – Writer
The first article I ever published was called, “Three Hearts Into One.” That title has since become a song title. It was published in a magazine called, Loving More, dedicated to the controversial issue of polyamory. No, that’s not polygamy. Polyamory is about being in love with more than one person at a time. Since I happen to be in love with the world…guilty as charged. OK, yeah, the article was about being in love with 2 women.
It wasn’t polyamory I found controversial. It was the cultural myths we so firmly believe to be true that intrigued me most. Serial monogamy is standard practice in America. It’s OK to date several women or men at one time, as long as you’re not “in love” with one of them. It seems, once you fall in love, any other relationships are considered “cheating,” even if sex is not involved.
I wrote the article during my undergrad work at the University of Minnesota. I was in love with my girlfriend but also in love with a married woman. The trauma of this turbulent triad led to some of the best research I did in college.
I discovered “dyadic” relationships, amongst other forms of relationships in the world of love, friendship and romance. These discoveries took me into the bigger picture world of sociology, psychology and culture.
Getting published is most certainly the first step to launching a career as a writer. Well, it’s not my sole career. I’m a Performer/Songwriter and Screenwriter also. Since I incorporated–Entertainment Cyberscope, Inc.–I can add CEO–Chief Entertainment Officer to that list. It’s the writer in me that changed Chief Executive to Chief Entertainment.
When I created the Entertainment Cyberscope-Portal, I became a CyberAstronomer. Perhaps one of the most fun aspects of writing is getting to make up words.
Freelance writing became a way to make money in college. Articles were sporadic, mostly in local Twin Cities magazines like Minnesota Technology and the University of Minnesota Alumni Magazine. It was a job as an editorial and opinions (Op/Ed) editor and writer for the Minnesota Daily that firmly entrenched me in the scary world of assembling words to express or influence.
I got the job during my Masters work (Masters in Liberal Studies). I was considerably older than most everyone else at the Daily, many of whom were in their early 20s if not younger. At first I was intimidated and wondered what the hell had I been doing all my life. But then I became inspired by such a bevy of talented 20 somethings who most certainly had something to say.
It was really my journal where the seed of writer was born. Like most journals, it was a haphazard collection of random thoughts and feelings, then later becoming a capturing device for song titles, articles and even movie ideas. Now I use a digital recorder and my journal has since gone public (SEE JF’s Journal).
I wrote songs for musical theater before ever publishing a freelance article. Some people fail to see the connection between songwriting, screenwriting and freelance writing. This has been a major cross to bare as I journey into all three areas simultaneously.
The Journey of Songwriter, Writer and Screenwriter Begins
Not all writers venture into multiple areas of “word-smith.” Not all novelists are poets and copywriters rarely get credit for creating some of the most popular phrases that define culture like, “Have it your way,” or “Be all that you can be.”
There’s a fine line between lyrics and poetry. And non-fiction can certainly be poetic. Lyrics are meant to be sung not read. Lyrics can be read as poetry, but that’s not exactly the intention.
In musical theater, the lyricist or songwriter is collaborating with a “book” writer. And, since you’re using lyrics to tell a story, you naturally become a storyteller, and the next exploration is in writing the story itself–the stage play.
I never wrote any stage plays, but Time Travelers In the Celestial Age was my first venture in writing an entire musical. The more I got into film the farther away I moved from musical theater and Time Travelers In the Celestial Age has now become The Celestial Age, a sci-fi action/adventure (SEE Celestial Age - Treatment under Writer-Screenplays).
It’s been over 30 years in the making, which I myself find most incredible. But then, many long time songwriters and writers have stuff on the “back burner.”
An exception might be Stephen King, who seems to grind them out like a factory and his track record indicates he’s not a procrastinator. Many prolific songwriters appear that way as well. Dolly Parton claims (I have no idea where I got this) over a 1000 songs. Whether or not all of them have been produced remains unknown.
Celestial Age was originally based on H.G. Well’s, The Time Machine. No book to this day has influenced me as much, except for maybe Dan Brown’s, The Da Vinci Code and The Entertainment Economy by Michael J. Wolf. H.G. Wells taught me how to envision the future. Brown got me to question myths and taboos and especially the roots of a male dominated world. Wolf’s influence launched the Entertainment Cyberscope.
I sent out the first draft of Time Travelers… to a handful of agents and a couple of major movie companies. I can’t remember which one, but I’ll never forget the letter in response.
To summarize, they loved the idea, but wondered about the world rights. Well, that sure took me by surprise. I wrote the adaptation on the basis the book had fallen into public domain. Little did I know it was public domain in the US…but not in England. And, public domain did not include movie rights.
So off I went to the New York Public Library to find out who owned the movie rights. The owner turned out to be one of the most famous movie directors of all time, not to mention the director of the original Time Machine movie, George Pal.
I called George Pal and told him about my story. He too, loved the idea and told me to send him a copy of the script. Can you imagine how excited I was?
Three weeks later…George Pal died.
I don’t remember exactly when, but some time later Ted Turner obtained the rights. I made a few attempts in vain to contact someone with Ted Turner but never followed through.
Now, 20 plus years later, time travel is one of the most popular themes in sci-fi. When George Pal’s nephew was signed on to direct the Steven Spielberg produced remake, I decided to abandon the pursuit of time travel all together. The movie flopped.
Ah, but good ideas never die and now, 2011, I just finished the draft for a new treatment that was submitted as a final project for a Storytelling course at the Academy of Art, San Francisco. The Celestial Age has been resurrected. And ah, in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s also the title of my blog.
eBooks
My first book contract was with a glorified self-publishing entity–Publish America–for what has now become entitled, Holistic Song Creation (SEE Writer-eBooks). I quickly abandoned the contract once I realized any kind of self-publishing is not the route to go.
Man, has the notion of self-publishing ever changed in the 21st century. From Kindle to Smashwords.com, launching an eBook is downright self-respecting.
My 2nd book contract was legitimate, even though I blew it. It was a book on installing mp3s in the car for Sams Publishing. Well, I didn’t really blow it. I had received a couple of advances, and was actually quite close to finishing the book when I made the decision to divert my focus to recording. That…was a mistake. Not a mistake to record, but to abandon what would’ve proved to net me an income for 3 years or so, according to the marketing department.
Currently, FastPencil.com is considering publishing my first eBook, Global Strategic Thinking: The War on Drugs. Global Strategic Thinking was initial a standalone endeavor, but thanx to FastPencil, it will now become a series. The 2nd title in the series is, Global Strategic Thinking: The Global Family.
Websites and Blogging
After I launched JerryFlattum.com, circa 2006, the 2nd site I launched in 2010 was called “Solutions.” The launch was an act of revenge.
My uncle, Morris Flattum, whom I don’t even know, destroyed everything I was doing when he took over my father’s affairs as Power-of-Attorney. My father had a stroke and lost his mind. Little did I know he took away Power-of-Attorney from me and gave it to his younger brother.
Morris had me removed from the condo where I was living with my father. I lost my father, my home and my financial support.
“Solutions” was a way to overcome the travesty. The tagline, which still remains a mantra, “Every Conflict Has A Solution.”
Once I gained perspective, I changed the name to JerryFlattum.com and deleted the old site. Following this, I started my first company, Entertainment Cyberscope, Inc. Since then, as of 2011, plans are to splinter JerryFlattum.com into multiple sites. I’ve purchased several domains to reflect the various ventures and adventures of EC, Inc. All the new sites are now under construction.
Changing titles and building websites was a hands-on journey in writing, more specifically, blogging.
Bloggin’
Blogging has become the predominate way of expressing myself as a freelance writer, as opposed to writing articles.
The EC-Portal is a venture into a new kind of writing combining Portal with Blog. I also slipped in a “Mini-Blog” called “Writing – Art & Science, found under Writer on JerryFlattum.com.
Coming soon, is the Briefing Digest, an exploration into a variant form of Blog called “Tumblog.” The tagline for the new venture is, “A GPS for content.” More on the Briefing Digest is found in EC-Evolution.
EC-Evolution is a timeline documenting the growth and development of EC, Inc. I would imagine you could call it a Blog as well.
The word “blog”–meaning, a web log–sits at the heart of a an entirely new language and way of writing born from the Digital Age. And now, Celestial Age, a blog on JerryFlattum.com, is an exploration in both short and long form narrative journalism. I’m learning to write using “Short Codes.”
Titles
Speaking of titles, the biggest company to rise in the New Millennium is “Google.” Along with Twitter, Squidoo, and a host of other seemingly nonsense titles, the doors have opened wide open to word creation.
So, I felt completely free to create FerretDance. I love ferrets…and they dance.
We have a whole new vocabulary in the Digital Age. Now we “blog,” “click” and “text.”
I’ve spent more time writing titles than I have any other kind of writing. From song titles to titles of articles, this is a world of headlines, “hooks,” catch-phrases and other forms of branding. You’ve got less than a nanosecond to grab someone’s attention and you do it with the “hook.”
So I’m a “hook writer.”
An area that developed my ability to create titles is one very few people would ever recognize as an endeavor into creative writing. Also on JerryFlattum.com is FerretDance, a production music library. In creating pieces of instrumental music of varying lengths, each piece needs to be titled. So, you’ll see very strange titles like “Swamp Nymph,” “Factoryitis,” “Newscopy,” and many more. Some titles are descriptive of what the underlying music is like. Otherwise, I’m just trying to be clever or cute.
My favorite titles are Song and Screenplay titles. Most songs begin with a title. Screenplay titles are the most difficult, since they need to capture what the movie is about in a short phrase or usually in one word.
Writer’s Mission and Vision
I love sharing thoughts, feelings and experiences in a way only words can do. But the more I write, the more I realize the importance of what I’m doing. I have the power to influence, maybe even change the world.
In fact, I’d like to believe my mission as a songwriter, writer and screenwriter is to help make the world a better place.
Writing is self-therapy. Writing is a way of working through your issues, battling the inner demons, as it were. In so doing, you hope to discover new ways of understanding the Self and the Universe, and hopefully others will identify.
Writing is entertainment. Providing entertainment–in an informative way–is my ultimate goal as a writer.
Writing is an act of discovery. It’s a venture into deep, dark caves. Once you start writing, you don’t always know what you will discover or where you will end up. Writing is a journey.
Writing is a voice.
Writing–important as it may be–takes a backseat in this world saturated with media. However, all media is first scripted, from movies to news shows.
Publishing is undergoing tremendous upheaval in the transformation from traditional print to digital. People can now carry around a 1000 books on one device.
There’s no battle between word, picture and music. All three are…polyamorous. All three forms communicate in their own way and the most powerful communication is when all three work together.
The goal of my website is not to create a website but to design it as if it were a movie or a virtual world.
I believe the next major form of entertainment will be Virtual Reality movies, where people can star in their own movies.
Writing for virtual reality films will certainly change the nature of writing, scripting and structure.
There are a number of new realms of human endeavor I’ll be exploring as a writer in the coming years. This includes Energy Medicine, nanotechnology, and the merging of quantum physics with psychology. People like Bruce Lipton, Candice Pert, Deepak Chopra, Daniel Goleman and his wife, Tara-Bennett Goleman, are not so much writers as they are visionaries.
When you take these kinds of people and put them in the same room with Steven Spielberg, George Lukas, Bill Gates and Tim-Berners Lee, well, writing then becomes a tool for creating the future.
Editorial writing taught me how to say it in 500 words. Damn, that’s short. But, I do my best to keep most of the articles on my sites under a 1000. And this is where short and long form narrative journalism open the floodgates to new forms of writing and ways to say things.
Sometimes all you need is a headline. Other times you need an eBook or a movie.
And thanx to a highly influential songwriter, Cheryl Crow, “All I want to do is have some fun.”
