Hello, my name is Geoff and I’m a writer, director and Producer from Bristol, UK.
That’s how I normally present myself on Stage32, but on this IYW, I’d like to present the other side of my creative life, as that of an author.
I spent 15 or so years mentoring artists in a community called ‘The Group’ and each quarter we’d gather together to share our work, in the ‘Tree House’ which gained it’s name from a poem by one of the aforementioned clan of artists.
During this time, I wrote four books on spirituality, artistic identity and cultural resistance. They had great titles like: The Wilderness and the Desert of the Real, The Cultural Way of Being, Translating the Invisible Wind and The Artist’s Autobiography. They are all available from Lulu.com https://www.lulu.com/search?page=1&q=Geoff Hall&pageSize=10&adult_audience_rating=00&sortBy=RELEVANCE
When I look back at those books, it’s strange to say that I would no longer write with language like this in defining the spiritual; being much more influenced by the mystic poets like Tu Fu, Rumi and writers such as Zhuangzi.
I have to learn to be comfortable with this (now) uncomfortable use of language, but you learn as a writer that you don’t wade through a stagnant pond, but a vast current-strewn river. Those books were of their time and I’m happy that I worked on them with my then publisher, Chris Lorensson.
And then, as usual with writers, you seek out other territories and for me it was fiction, which came into being after a little lucid dreaming. This was the birth of “0w1:believe”, a story of resistance against a government of the corporations, by the corporations. It was an ode to what happens when everything is commodified and nothing is valued and the arbiters of that government are the leading companies in the national economy.
The notion of resistance in this novel is influenced by the motto of The White Rose Movement, when it comes to non-violent resistance in particular. “We will not be silent. We will be your bad conscience. The White Rose will not leave you in peace.”
This, it turns out is my leitmotiv as a writer. Control and resistance. Control has many nuances, from the thought-patterning of education to media propaganda, religious dogma, the politics of ideology. The list goes on in the many and varied administrations of control and therefore resistance. Control, it turns out, is an act of cunning.
0w1:believe was set to be a trilogy in four parts - see, I’m always tinkering with the norms of meaning! But as many of you know, after its rapturous entrance into the Land of Kindle, it was deleted by an algorithm that it turns out you can’t argue with and now lives a lonely life at Apple Books. At present, I can’t see me getting back into this world, as again my writing has diverged into scheming stories for animation.
Anyway, that’s a little about me as a writer of books. As Zhuangzi wrote many centuries ago: wander where there is no trail!
Welcome to my bi-fold world and more importantly, to this community of creatives. Be bold and introduce yourself to us.
https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=1572689790
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Happy holidays, Geoff Hall! Sorry "0w1:believe" got deleted. I don't have an Apple account, but if I end up getting one, I'll buy your book. I bookmarked the page.
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THE Geoff Hall.
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Maurice Vaughan Thanks, Maurice. I was thinking of putting it on Kobo.com as well, but 2023 has been a busy year and I’ve not had the time to pursue it.
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Richard "RB" Botto hahahaha, RB. In future you can just call me ‘The’!!!
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Hi Geoff - you have (still do) worn many hats in the creative world. Awesome and inspiring. Happy Holidays. Matt
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You're welcome, Geoff Hall. I think I've heard of Kobo.com. If you put your book on there, let me know.
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Hi Geoff Hall , thank you for sharing that interesting slice of your life. I also play with spiritual ideas in fiction and script writing. Trying to avoid doctrine or religion, and to present universally appealing stories in a magical realist style that treats spiritual experiences as ordinary. I aim for that still point between control and resistance, where a character surrenders human identity, transcends polarities, and becomes the door of infinite possibility.
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Geoff, You have been the person I have matched with the most on Stage 32 since I arrived, only 1/5month ago, and I am really excited about what I am learning from you. Thank you for enlightening us on your bi-fold world. Multidimensionality is something we are as humans, but few of us are aware of it. When we write, we share our multidimensional worlds, and it is amazing that we can choose between scripts, books, and quotes to do so! It is a wonderful skill, and I see you have it. Continue on, and as you say, "Be Bold!"
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Robin Gregory thank you Robin. I love that perception of ‘…transcends polarities and becomes the door of infinite possibilities.’ Awesome! I would call it ‘heightened reality’; rather than trivialising reality with superficial tropes, we need to show the full potential of an Earth groaning in birth-pangs to give birth.
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Sandra Isabel Correia ah, Sandra. It’s amazing who you meet in a November Write Club, isn’t it? I want us to continue that creative relationship and see what we can achieve. Yes, let’s be bold. Thank you for your friendship. Be well, stay chilled and above all be fearless in your choices.
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Matthew Kelcourse thank you, Matthew. It all started when I was a mature student (aged 30) coming I to Bristol in the 80s. I studied Art History and just loved it, but what I realised was, that the best cultural narratives are never the simplest, but are complex narratives ‘in travail’. I think this has influenced my storytelling, whether for book or film.
Plus, I’m old enough to have all these life experiences, which it turns out, feeds into my writing practice. Sometimes, it pays to be the older guy in the room.
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Thank you Geoff Hall :)) we rock!
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My pleasure, Geoff Hall . Heightened reality is a perfect way to describe what is possible but not presently accepted or realized by the collective. Terms like sci-fi or supernatural don't work because of their traditional standards. I suppose "visionary" could describe it, too. In literature we use the term, but I don't see it used much to describe films, do you?
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Hello Geoff
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Trina Jackson hey there, Trina. How are you doing? What’s stirring your creative juices at the moment?
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Geoff Hall I am currently writing my sixth screenplay called COCOA CAMP. It is going to be a real good juicy screenplay.
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Robin Gregory yes, supernatural has become a rather stale word. I think I’ll stop using it! Heightened reality is for me a more accurate and exciting way of framing such stories. Super (beyond) the natural actually seems to be so vague, because it leaves this encoded flesh behind.
When we heighten reality, we are speaking of sensitising and charging every aspect, every nerve in our bodies, as well as our synapses and our consciousness. We can all become jaundiced with this world; ennui can set in. Our work as writers is to resuscitate, to reanimate humanity. Yes, I hold writing as a high calling, Robin. Rumi wrote something like, I paraphrase, I am a pen in the hand of the Universe.
And I haven’t even paid for the ink in the pen!
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Trina Jackson what genre is it Trina? An unsuspecting horror story about the great outdoors? ;-)
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Yes it is ahorror film. It is about the great outdoors. It's also about what goes around comes around.
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Yes, yes, yes Geoff Hall , old categories simply will not due. Because of blockbuster marketing and sensationalized profits, I've been lost as to how to sell my magical realist stories without homogenizing them. I guess I'm not the first to feel this way. George Lucas left Hollywood and built Lucasfilm Studios because of it. It would be easy to believe that films touching on supernatural, sci-fi, or spiritual themes are doomed to extinction unless they fit into the Marvel Comics marketing machinery. I may be crazy, but I think there's still an audience searching for stories the emerge from deep rather than high concepts. Isn't that why we watch older movies?
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Trina Jackson My, oh my, Trina. I was on the money with my perceptive comment! Hahahaha!
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Robin Gregory I think people in the future will not look back at the Marvel House of Film as the high-point of storytelling! But, beyond the negative, the positive is that we are all looking for something ‘deeper’ and more meaningful.
No. No. No. You are NOT crazy! When I look at Mamoru Oshii’s ‘Ghost in the Shell’ there are deep spiritual themes about ‘what makes us human?’ It’s how you define that moment and that theme. It has to be well-crafted and stitched together seamlessly, or it disturbs the flow and experience of the storytelling. As the old Hebrew poets have said, “deep calls unto deep.”
Geoff Hall You mean the original, animated Ghost in a Shell? It seemed to handle universal, spiritual themes well. Don't you think the remake with Scarlett Johansson kinda turned it into an American story about heroic individualism? That's what I mean by Marvel Comics marketing.