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I've played organized basketball since the age of ten. Oddly enough, that's also the age I started writing stories. I got a lot of confidence from sports, and learned many life lessons. How to win and lose gracefully. How to work with a team. How to lead a team. How to prepare, plan, and implement--and how to change course midstream.
My jump shot was weird from day one. If you remember an LA Laker named Jamaal Wilkes, my shot looked like his. Kind of a one-armed over-the-head python maneuver that looked plain odd. But it worked. I used it through two years of college ball, and even became the team's reliable three-point shooter.
Then I started coaching. With my weird shot. Trying to teach the players how to do things correctly suddenly made it priority number one that I (finally) change my shot. I'd fought changing it all those years, and then it dawned on me. I didn't have a choice. I had to practice the proper mechanics, or my players would never trust me to work with them. I had to change my attitude before I could change my shot.
How does this apply to writing? The business has a way of making you want to...adjust yourself. Write for a line, rather than the story. Write what's selling. Change your voice. Lose your voice. Those are all the wrong reasons to change your shot. To make yourself something you aren't.
What about enhancing the things that you are? Tightening up your weak spots--getting the mechanics right? Finding creative ways to make up for your shortcomings or the proper venue for your work. It's difficult in the face of reader feedback, sales numbers, editorial comment, and even blunt critiques to remember the basics and not get lost.
My new shot works just fine, thank you very much. But I've realized that had I been doing it the proper way all those years ago, I probably could have played another two years of college ball. I would have been that much better.
What did I tell my players? I'd never be disappointed in the score if they worked hard, played hard, and gave it everything they had. That's what I tell myself as a writer, too.
Dirt is a new, edgy drama uleashed by FX about five weeks ago. It stars Courtney Cox as Lucy Spiller, the cold, balls-to-the-wall editor of two magazines--Dirt and Now. By the third episode, she's managed to convince the owner to merge them into one rag called Dirt Now. She and her staff scare up salacious (and somehow vaguely familiar) Hollywood gossip, including a dead rapper's head in a jar and pics of a dead, pregnant starlet. They also demonstrate how they get and protect their sources.
But the best part about Dirt isn't that Courney Cox plays so against her Friends stereotype, that she cusses like a sailor, or gives a rabid toast at her own mother's wedding. No, the best part about Dirt is ace photographer Don Konkey, played by Ian Hart. Don went to journalism school with Lucy and always comes through for her...but he's schizophrenic. For the record, schizophrenia itself is NOT great, but the way Hart plays it is spellbinding. He's nailed it to the floor, and I can't look away.
Dirt airs on FX on Tuesdays at 10 p.m. EST, and reruns Saturday and Sunday late nights on FX.
WOW! Forest Whitaker is spot on as Idi Amin. If he doesn't win an Oscar, there's something wrong. Oddly enough, though, The Last King of Scotland is only *kinda* about him. The story is told from the POV of his personal doctor, who originally went to Uganda out of medical school to work in a mission. He encountered Amin by chance and the rest, well, you know.
Dr. Garrigan is portrayed in this movie as young, naive and impulsive. He makes several innane, cringeworthy misteps, yet he can't seem to calculate the outcome of his actions before he takes them, even after realizing he's in over his head. Several other important threads appear in the movie as well, including Orientalism, European paternalism, and the infiltration of another nation (the British in this case) into African politics. That's all a history teacher's dream, and it is historically accurate in the details. The film's website has some great stuff, including a timeline of Amin's reign, and Whitaker did a fantastic interview on Inside the Actor's Studio.
Alternate titles for this movie include:
-The stupidest white man ever in Africa and
-Keep it in your pants upon penalty of death
And, in WTF news: Does anyone but me think it's strange to see "Final Fantasy VII"? Did Webster change the meaning of FINAL and forget to tell me?
Catalog this one under "words I hate." I don't mean idealistic words like hunger , war, and my new one, politics. Naturally, I'd rather such things not be in the vocabulary, but...they are. I may not like the idea behind them, but the actual words don't make me grimace. I'm also not talking about those rather blunt and often colorful anatomical terms, words that I'm not fond of using in my stories and use roadmaps to avoid (sometimes to my detriment--a spade is often a spade).
I'm talking about words that just plain don't sound good to you. Nothing to do with meaning, nothing to do with anything but "ick" when you hear it. I have identified three words that I'd rather never hear again, and I'm going to share them with you--one time only.
Platter.
Moist.
And...brooch.
My editor's going to LOVE that last one--hahahaha! It all has to do with the way the word sounds in speech, and in my head when I read it. I'll call it a "really big plate" or "damp" or "pin" before using any of the above words in casual coversation. Or in a sentence.
So now the million dollar question: am I alone in this, or are there just some otherwise regular words that make you go "ick"?
I'm a live-and-let-live kind of gal. Especially when it comes to myspace. Add me, don't add me. Let me add you, or not. I'm partially addicted to the site (I say partially, because I dare not access it at The Day Job), and have done my fair share of adding and formatting, posting and commenting.
OK, more than my fair share.
It's a weird place to be some days. Worlds collide (a la Seinfeld). While MY space is primarily for my writing life, I've been found by those whose orbits are not in that realm. My students, for example. Who are warned they will not get cookies if they add me. My circle of non-writer friends, who get aggrivated when all these writers keep trying to befriend them. The big band fans, and romance readers. And old school chums--college days, as no one from HS has located me (yet).
The cool thing, though, is that those outside the writers/readers scope...are interested in the book. People I haven't seen in years are clicking and finding and buying. So is myspace a good promotional tool? Additional sales and a live radio interview say "yes." Cost effective? Free good enough for you? What's priceless, however, are those unexpected blasts from the past.
That, and those friends who always answer my random list bulletins, lol.
Today, I got back on my regular schedule, and saw a lot of people I hadn't seen since the school's graduation. I've gotten used to talking about my book in kind of a generic way, but what I'd forgotten was that several friends gave The Knot as a Christmas gift to friends or family. While I'm deeply indebted for the sales (smile), I'm even more indebted for the positive feedback I received. One of my co-workers read it during the break and wanted to talk about it this morning. All of these more in-depth conversations somehow feel more daunting and a little surreal. People are finally seeing into a world I've kept strictly between myself and a few close friends. And they like it (bigger smile).
So, thank you to Jen, and Jamie, and Wil and Joanie...you've helped to make this first book very special in every way. Beyond that, thanks to Cheryl, my test reader. She's a voracious romance reader, and I gave her a copy (critique tested!) of my next novel. She stayed up until 2 a.m. to finish, and cried at the end. I don't think I've made anyone cry before--at least not in the good way! Forget the part where I'm back at work...I had a GREAT day!