It sounds insane to me when I hear people say they don’t eat vegetables. But I forget that, not too long ago, that was me. I used to be the same way. I ate pizza for at least two of meals everyday for the better part of my life. So how did I get from someone who never ate vegetables to someone to eats nothing but plants? It didn’t happen overnight. It was a slow gradual process with slight changes and additions to my diet over time. Continue reading
My first introduction to screenplays was through my college screenwriting class. My professor was helpful in teaching me the basics like three-act structure, and I applied it by writing two short films. A college education is naturally quite expensive, but it wasn’t until a couple of years after college that I really learned how to write feature-length movies. I didn’t pay private script consultants or attend expensive conferences and seminars. I basically taught myself everything there is to know about screenwriting, and I learned it all essentially free of charge. Here’s how I did it: Continue reading
Last week I wrote about how I overcame my health issues, but now, I’d like to go into a little more detail about how I hacked my health, specifically as a writer. Continue reading
The worst night of my life was May 25th, 2012. The days and weeks before, I’d been feeling chest pains and numbness in my left arm and leg, and it only seemed to be getting worse. After Googling the symptoms, I began to fear it was heart-related. The symptoms always seemed to get worse after I ate, so when I felt the pains after lunch that day, I was too afraid to eat dinner. I got home from work and started crying as I told my mother about my condition. I really feared I was going to have a heart attack. And I was only 26 years old. Continue reading
1. Because I used to blog.
I began my writing career with a blog (Nova News) about my college basketball team, the Villanova Wildcats. The blog started as a project for a class in college, but I continued it long after the class ended— four years in total. I wrote at least one blog post for every game, which was twice a week for the entire season. Maintaining the blog built my writing habit, and more importantly, it taught me that writing could be fun. Continue reading
I saw The Lego Movie recently, and besides teaching me that “everything is awesome,” it reminded me of my childhood playing with Legos. I was an avid collector and loved building the sets then later playing with them. Unlike the child in the movie, I generally followed the instructions, but just like him, when I played with my Legos, I created elaborate stories with the figures and settings. Continue reading
A lot of writers say they’ve dreamed their entire lives of becoming a professional writer. They always knew writing was what they were meant to do. This was not the case for me. I didn’t write creatively as a child, and I didn’t really enjoy reading that much either. For most of my life, I had no idea what I wanted to do. Continue reading
“Under Space” is a short science fiction story I wrote a few years ago. (My first attempt at prose after writing several screenplays.) The story takes place hundreds of years from now in an underwater colony. It’s written in the form of a series of journal entries by a young boy who lives on the colony.
T.Z. Barry 