John August

Meta

Press Day

Meta, Projects, The Nines

Today was press day for The Nines, which meant six solid hours of talking about the movie. And it was fine. I conducted all of my interviews sitting next to [Melissa McCarthy](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0565250/), so it was a good excuse to exercise our pact of mutual appreciation.Ryan and I have a similar covenant, but the world is pretty sick of it after the last publicity barrage. So we left him to fend for himself. And I slandered him, repeatedly.

Nines postersThe event was held at The Four Seasons. While driving there on Burton Way, I passed a construction site, and muttered under my breath about when the fuckin’ Nines posters were going to get plastered on every available plywood surface.

And then I saw one. It was enough to make me start believing in that book The Secret.That and a disbelief in the laws of science, logic or the fallacy of egocentrism. So, seeing the poster, plus those three things.

This picture is actually from St. Andrews at Hollywood Blvd. So there are at least two places in LA to see the wilding posters.

secondlifeNear the end of the press junket, we held a roundtable in Second Life, which was actually held in the SL re-creation of my house.It’s on Metaversatility island, if you want to stop by.

Lest anyone doubt that it was really me at the other end of the keyboard, here’s photographic proof. It was frustrating only because the questions came too quickly. I wanted to answer all of them, but by the time I’d finished one response, five more had gotten stacked up.

Guest-blogging on EW.com

Los Angeles, Meta, Projects, The Nines

Because I’m just not busy enough, I’ve started guest-blogging on EW.com’s PopWatch blog, detailing some of the madness related to launching [The Nines](http://lookforthenines.com). You can read the [first of these entries](http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2007/07/guest-blogger-j.html#more) today.

One observation so far: I’m snarkier on other people’s blogs than my own.

An air duct speaks back

Follow Up, Meta

From the comment thread on the [Air vents are for air](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2006/air-vents-are-for-air) post:

I am an Air Conditioning Duct and I find this entire conversation incredibly ignorant and offensive.

On the rare occasions that I do see my Community represented on screen, it is invariably unrealistic and below industry standard. All the Air Conditioning Ducts of my acquaintance are spotlessly clean, weight-of-a-grown-man supporting structures. However we cannot deflect bullets.

Someday the true poetry of our lives and history will be told.

Despite the occasional a-hole, I have the best commenters ever.

Interview up at cecil vortex

Meta, QandA, Resources, Writing Process

I have a very long (and hopefully interesting) interview about creativity up at [cecil vortex](http://cecilvortex.com/). While there’s a lot of material in it I’ve written about previously, this interview is a pretty good primer on my brain and work habits.

CV: How do you use your day-to-day life to feed your writing?

JA: When I was writing for my first TV show I found that I was sorting through life with a filter: what could be “in” the show and what would stay “out.” If I heard a song on the radio that I liked, I was mentally putting it into the bin for the show. If someone said something interesting — or something boring but in a particularly interesting way — I would literally stop to write it down.

That was probably necessary for the show, but I don’t think it’s particularly helpful for real-world sanity. I began living a large part of my life inside the show. That break from reality ultimately became one of the main story points of The Nines — what are a creator’s responsibilities to his creations? At what point was I allowed to walk away from the universe I’d created and get back to my real life?

I think I’m healthier now. I certainly always have my ears open for interesting phrases, but I don’t feel like I’m in constant collection mode.

You can check out the full thing [here](http://cecilvortex.com/swath/2007/06/07/an_interview_with_john_august.html).