"I'm not sure how many people on the planet
could do what I'm asking you to do, but..."

Blazing Reader,

Before going to see Trap yesterday, I'd just submitted the quasi-final draft of my second novel, All the Humans are Sleeping, to Amazon for a print run of initial proofs (after two decades of work!). Seeing an M. Night Shyamalan movie (one of my favourite filmmakers and storytellers) seemed like a great way to celebrate.

I was also particularly interested because the film stars Shyamalan's 28-year-old daughter, Saleka. In real life, she's an emerging R&B singer/songwriter. In Trap, she's a mega-famous R&B celebrity named Lady Raven. In an interview with USA Today she confessed that acting on the big screen was “definitely out of my comfort zone.”

"In a studio producing a song," she said, "recording by myself, writing by myself — that's my happy place."

I can relate. But when your dad is an Academy Awards nominee who drafts a script calling for you to write, mix, produce and choreograph 14 songs for a feature film, what are you going to say?

"It was insane," Shyamalan admitted. "I was saying to her, ‘I'm not sure how many people on the planet could do what I'm asking you to do, but I'm asking you to do it anyway.'"

As with all Shyamalan's works, I came away from Trap feeling renewed inspiration to create my own stories — albeit in novel form (although, if Shyamalan wants to turn All the Humans are Sleeping into a movie, I won't turn him down).

Stay sane & a little insane, too,
John C.A. Manley

PS If you missed my short review of M. Night Shyamalan's latest film, you can read it here: https://blazingpinecone.com/news/2024/08/13/

PPS Confession: While I admire Saleka Shyamalan's work as a fellow artist, I'm no fan of R&B music — as you can read in this post from May when I was trapped in a concert hall with a Nat King Cole impersonator: https://blazingpinecone.com/news/2024/05/08/

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story, the forthcoming All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of speculative fiction. Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber at: https://blazingpinecone.com/subscribe/