Hello, my name is Lucas Friesen and I am a writer living in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. Welcome to my blog, The Full Page. These articles are all one page in length, according to my Microsoft Word template. The idea was inspired by something Leonard Cohen said. I’m paraphrasing, but he felt that he had to fill the page with ink and, if he couldn’t do that, then what was he really all about? I thought I’d take this full page to give you some background on who I am as a writer.

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The first story I remember writing was a blatant rip-off of Spider-Man, the movie with Toby Maguire and Willem Defoe. This was in 2002 and I was nine. Something about that movie made me pick up a pen to write my own version. Since then, my passion for writing has waved through a multitude of genres. Through high school, I excelled in English class and found joy in writing poetry (one of which was an epic poem and a blatant rip-off of the Grand Theft Auto IV story, which I got a kick out of since it was the most popular game at the time and my teacher had no idea it was a rip-off… I even used the names Niko and Roman in the poem, to my high-school-mind’s pleasure), essays and speech writing. I was also interested in theatre and, when I graduated, I went on to study at the University of Victoria’s Phoenix Theatre. However, I was denied the acting program and I didn’t plan to spend the next three years building sets or studying theatre history. Therefore, in my second year, I transitioned to general studies where I, once again, fell in love with English classes. The ratio of girls to guys in the classes had no influence. During university but outside of class, my creative passions were making beats, mixing audio and rapping. Yes, I rapped, although I was always too scared to publicly display my rapping abilities. I penned more songs than I actually performed. I’m not sure what I expected from this. I was never one to pursue being famous. I think I just did it because I loved to write. I was always good at writing and I had control over the pen; something I felt I didn’t have in other parts of my life.

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After university, my writing was sent to another discipline: blog writing. I wrote blogs for various companies about various topics: compression socks, gardening tips, lithium mines. No topic was off the table, so long as someone paid for it. It was during this time that I developed a passion for screenwriting. I wrote two short screenplays: George’s Bicycle and an adaptation of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. However, I was too afraid to pursue this further. I would write the odd page here and there, but I couldn’t commit to the behemoth task of writing a feature-length screenplay. I took a job in the film industry to get closer to this passion in some form. I worked as a production assistant, which is not a glamorous job. It’s long shifts, mundane tasks and a lot of standing around. However, I was on movie and television sets! I was reading scripts and meeting people in the industry! However, it left no time for writing (other than on the clock, which was frowned upon). I quit, thinking I would one day return as a screenwriter. I wanted to get closer to writing again. I ended up as a copyeditor for a website that follows the stock market. Here, I honed my skill at editing: how to use punctuation; how to spell; how to be consistent. It was during my tenure here that my financial fortunes changed somewhat drastically.

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Suddenly, I had a nest egg. Some would continue to build that so they could buy a house in a few years. However, being the “creative” that I am, I decided to bet on myself. I quit my job again and began to work exclusively on my screenwriting. I’ve spent the past two years writing screenplays. My best work is The Paris Match. Set in Paris during the 1890s, it follows a married woman who recently discovered that her husband was cheating. Therefore, she plans an escape that involves an explosive romantic interest.

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I hope you find these blog posts informing, entertaining and pleasurable to read. Feel free to drop me a line if you’d like to talk, as I’m always happy to make a fresh connection. Thanks for stopping by and, please, enjoy The Full Page.