Yikes, and away we go!
Yes. I now have one of these. I have been teaching for over a decade and over that time have been keeping notes on all the ways we writers, myself included, get snagged up. And what sets us free.
Oh no another writer writing about writing!
I know what you’re thinking. Shit. There will be probably be graphs and like this dude is gonna use charts and formulas and even bold faced rules.
Or not.
I mean, I hate reading most writing books because they make me feel dumb. So, I will do my best to write one that isn’t that. Plus, I swear I’ll share funny stories about my days as a would be child star. Who doesn’t want to read anecdotes that begin with:
The first time I lied to get a part, I ended up on a horse riding over a gorge on a narrow bridge having to smile for camera the whole time.
I didn’t learn the lesson. So, of course I knew how to play hockey when my agent asked. I mean, I watched it on TV, right?
When the thought first occurred to me to share what I’ve learned from my teachers, my own practice, and from moderating writing groups for a decade plus, I knew one thing:
It had to be fun and honest and inspire inquiry and exploration.
Instead of coming at this impossible craft from a place of arrival or guru ga-ga-dogma B.S., my aim is to lead with my weakness rather than my strength. Sure I got talent. We all got talent. However as I will get into in some of the dispatches, our talent is the problem. The creative act is spiritual in nature and therefore resistant to language that pins it down, so therefore I will endeavor to describe it through parable, image, and good old American zen without pretense.
You are not alone
I mean, you are alone. We are all fundamentally alone … and the oceans are rising … and we will all need scuba gear and home desalination kits, but, besides that - let me debunk the myth that writing is a solo endeavor. It is not. There are so many lies built up around the practice of writing in any form. But the biggest, baddest bully of them all is the one that tricks our egos into setting up unrealistic goals.
Of all the people who sat down to write the great American whatnot, most of them didn’t; but of all the people who sat down to write, everyone of those f+ckers did. And who knows; maybe one or two of the peeps who sat down to simply write —- wrote something that shattered norms or won them an award that now doubles as a door stop. I am not the keeper of those metrics, so you’ll have to take my word for it.
Learn from my mistakes
Oh you read that right. This stuff is hard. It makes rocket science written by a zombie Latin professor on meth look easy. We have to not only bridge the two sides of our brain, in some kind of ongoing cognitive ambidextrous act of death-defying wonder, but we have to harness the powers of scrutiny and abandonment in order to spit out a coherent story that hold the attention of a reader (or viewer) who has literally the history of all things on standby at the touch of a button.
Now, more than ever, we have to stand out by finding our own primal voice.
It is as specific to each of us as our finger prints. It is not even our story that rings with truth. It is the voice under our story. The lens through which we view this mad world. That is the thing that holds resonance.
Why write?
I think most of us write because we like to be in the flow of creation. It feels good. We forget ourselves and for a few moments are in conversation with all that ever was. Maybe that is what the anonymous writer who first put down those words in Genesis meant when they said ‘in the beginning there was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.’
Nifty, right? To write, therefore, is the most direct experience of the divine there ever was.
I’ll be sharing dispatches from the front lines of this writing life and absurd anecdotes from my days as a child star.
C’mon, admit it. Who doesn’t want to overpay for a writing book in newsletter form that will surely get rewritten along the way. Allow me to read Aristotle and synthesize those dialectics about unity to help deconstruct the writer’s dilemma today, so you you can do your laundry, walk your dog, and still find time to write. Allow me to demystify the laws of action, so you can do the fun part.
Think of me as your Aristotle / Egri (Art of Dramatic Writing) for Dummies. Not enough to get you to sign up? Well, I’ll throw in a commemorative plate and a set of steak knives. Or, rather; I will share anecdotes from my early days surviving this industry as an almost child star, teetering forever on the edge of a break through. For example, in a few weeks I’ll be sharing about how I got used in a screen test to bring Macaulay Culkin’s price down for Home Alone as my introduction to the industry.
Stay tuned for my first dispatch on writing which will center on the importance of relaxation, writing from a place that is agenda free before you inflict yourself with rules and craft. Here is a sneak peak:
Let me clear from the get. Problems like these are writer problems, and by definition, are not project specific; they have to do with attitude and perspective and are rooted in our relationship with the work itself. One of the things I have had the honor of witnessing over the years as a facilitator of writing workshops is to see, firsthand, writers thrive when the work becomes less precious. When they know it doesn’t have to add up, mean anything, make sense, or be worthy of attention — something primal emerges. In a word: they are free to fail.
Whitman talked of the song of the universe, that deep murmur that can be experienced when we are still enough to hear it. I have watched that energy gallop-a-pace through the words writers employ when they simply let themselves go. It doesn’t matter if they are experienced, practice a particular genre, do audio books, or are neo-classicist conceptual artists – what I speak of here is a foundational tenet. And requires divine surrender. Maybe that is why so many of our peers turn to spiritual laxatives like drugs or anything else that seemingly “enhances” our work for a brief period of time. But what those things do is relax us. And why do we need to be relaxed? Because the act of creation can be hard.
I need your help
I know times are tough out there, especially for Creatives. We all have to collectively do so much more for way less. I started this because I wanted to take my natural skill set and support myself by utilizing those tools in service to my community. My hope is to get 300-500 people to sign up and then I can continue to offer my seminars at a discounted rate, plus find time to do the hard work and finish the five major plays I have been rewriting the past few years and not get an eviction notice.
Not to get all PBS pledge drive here, but:
Your subscription will not only help me, it will help the creatives, actors, designers I hire to help produce workshops and early productions of my work. You’ll be in essence, producers yourselves. And in typical Hollywood fashion, by title only.
Creative entrepreneurship is not easy, but I have enjoyed every step. (Mostly.) Sometimes when I compare myself I believe the lie that others have it so much easier. But that darker shadow feeling only opens me up to greater empathy in my work. Along the way, I’ve found true community that has sustained me. Like in my seminars where I have the honor of watching writers grow and do brave and bold things week to week. Yes. It seems like opportunities for support are dwindling and becoming increasingly more competitive. We need each other now more than ever. So, join me on this journey together, and write on.