When It's Okay to Put Out

I have a Facebook friend--you know, the kind I haven't seen or spoken to in over a year.  The usual.

This girl posts nothing but negative things: Her life sucks, the world is against her, "fml."  It's been like this since the day I met her.  Negativity is like being elbow-deep in a bag of Doritos: The more you do it, the fatter your ass gets.

In other words, it's a vicious cycle.  And this chick wonders why complaining incessantly doesn't make her life any better.......

I read about a study not too long ago where researchers took Olympic athletes and hooked little wires and probes and other scientific medical stuffs to their bodies.  They asked them to simply think about performing their sport.  When the athletes did, the researchers found that the muscles these athletes would normally use in their activities were actually activated--just from the mere thought of doing it.

It's the power of the mind!

When you put out a certain thought into the Universe, it reflects it back.  Thus, if you think and act like and speak about your life being shitty, it will continue being so.  Don't do it.  If you project positivity, guess what you'll get back?  The Universe will have no choice: Your mind and energy will be activating it.  This is when it's acceptable to put out.

So get your hand out of that damn bag of Doritos!

And with this spiritual message comes this picture I stole off of Google.  God speed.

Knowing When to Shut the Fook Up

The other day, I lightly debated the idea of drama as entertainment and deduced that ultimately, we love it and we need it, in life and in art.  (Read the blog here!)

Recently, however, I've been confronted by another topic: the idea of a good mystery being used to grasp people's attention.

Here is a handful of scenarios to consider:

(1) I once worked a gig with a group of beautiful, talented, smart girls, who were all open with their feelings and would talk about pretty much anything.  The girl I was most curious about was the one who spoke very little.

(2) You'll frequently see men and women offered the world by a particular love interest, and yet they often want the one who barely expresses interest.

(3) It's the tight-lipped celebrities whose lives often get probed the most.  People talk about them, chase them, and openly wonder about their lives.

(4) And for crying out loud, how many times did your mother tell you not to "give it up too soon"?

You know what they say: You always want what you can't have.

It makes me think...This is clearly something we should be implementing in our entertainment; and when people know what they're doing, they do!  In many cases, we're taught in life to give little in the beginning to prolong something, i.e. make a man chase you and he won't lose interest.


So shouldn't we be making audiences chase the characters of the book or film so that they don't lose interest?  Isn't that what keeps the page turning--the desire to know more?

It's a fairly simple concept and one that might seem obvious, but I don't think we all automatically utilize it.  I know that there are certainly characters in my books who could stand to leave more to the imagination.  I've found myself asking: "Why will the reader keep reading?"

Maybe it's time to leave audiences more in the dark.  Just an itty.

And in an effort to practice what I preach, stay tuned for my next blog, where I will reveal my one true love.

DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN...

But not really.

Why Drama is the Answer

As some of you know, I recently finished the first draft of my second manuscript, 47 Ways of Cuteness.  It took three years, but I finally got the story out.

While working on 47, I began writing a third manuscript, tentatively titled I Have No Clue What I'm Writing and This Manuscript Still Sucks.

Just kidding.

In both stories, however, I knew something was still missing.

I pride myself on being a levelheaded person who doesn't sweat the small stuff, and that's often how my writing comes out: rational.  But who the fook wants to read that?

Think about Facebook.  Whose Facebook do you always check up on?  It's the person whose life is a total trainwreck, right?  They have the most entertaining status updates, the juiciest blogs, the best pictures.

They're so irritating that you'd delete their asses in a New York minute if they weren't such a good time.  It's the break-ups, the tears, the ambiguous statuses like, "Why?..." begging people to comment so that we can all be dramatic together.

So that's when it hit me: My stories were missing drama.

I was desperate to make the characters perfect people: calm, collected, and always one step ahead of their emotions.  So, I went against the grain of my desire to be levelheaded and made one major change: I completely screwed with them all.

Now, their lives are hard.  They're not rational people.  Sometimes they fly off the handle.  Some of them are ticking time bombs.  And it's perfect!

It's a valuable lesson for many of us in the industry of entertaining (in any capacity): This is a form of escapism.  People read, watch movies, etc. because they want to see something that they can't see in real life.  They want extremes: hilarity, depression, love, hate.  They want drama, heartbreak, magic.

As soon as these barriers came tumbling down, I felt this immense release: I had finally found what I needed.  And the words came pouring out.

I'm sitting here tonight still feeling the creative flow, avoiding falling asleep because I'd rather be awake and writing.  Maybe I've been wrong all along trying to avoid the drama.







Thoughts??  Leave a comment!