Doc
It was bad enough to find myself attracted to the brooding, dark Gregory House. Now, after watching The Actor’s Studio, I find I’m attracted to the brooding, dark Hugh Laurie. What might a shrink say?
He’s quite a talent and seeing him interviewed really emphasized how impressive his American accent is. Wow. No trace of it on the show at all. I liked his observations about the character and his overall offbeat sensibility. And he wrote a novel!
Cool guy.
Writers all
How synchronous that I was just writing about J.K. Rowling here and it turns out I will be going to see her at an event at Radio City this week. A friend got tickets to see Rowling, Stephen King and John Irving. I so look forward to hearing the message.
I finished the Julia Cameron book and concluded that sometimes it bears remembering that we are all flawed beings and we shouldn’t put people on pedestals, as I often tend to do. After all, their humanness is what makes them so inspirational.
Probably a good perspective to take into the Radio City event.
Big thought
Lately I find myself wondering how anyone can drive a Hummer without feeling a profound sense of embarrassment.
Trois
To keep myself honest, I’ve decided I must occasionally check in on this whole three pages a day idea I’ve “borrowed” from Julia Cameron. So here goes.
Today was my third day in a row. I’m letting three pages of my book come through me and spill into my lime green spiral notebook. So far, I have done this in under 30 minutes each time.
It is magical for several reasons. One, it just flows when you don’t try to edit yourself. You have to allow yourself to have a real rough draft. Two, it has a way of making you feel really accomplished. I have nine pages written and they’re pretty darned good. In less than an hour and a half. At this rate I’ll have well over 100 pages written by September.
Go, Nan, go.
Inspiration nugget
This paragraph about J.K. Rowling just makes me all warm and fuzzy. I ran across it on Wikipedia while doing some research (a Google search, what else?). It’s not new, just a stark reminder of the Universe’s sense of humor.
In 1995, Rowling completed her manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone on an old manual typewriter. Upon the enthusiastic response of Bryony Evans, a reader who had been asked to review the book’s first three chapters, the Fulham-based Christopher Little Literary Agents agreed to represent Rowling in her quest for a publisher. The book was handed to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected it. A year later she was finally given the greenlight (and a £1500 advance) by the editor Barry Cunningham from the small publisher Bloomsbury. The decision to take Rowling on was apparently largely down to Alice Newton, the eight-year-old daughter of the company’s chairman, who was given the first chapter to review by her father and immediately demanded the next. Although Bloomsbury had agreed to publish the book, Cunningham claims he advised Rowling to get a day job, as she had little chance of making money in children’s books.
And as we all know, Forbes has estimated Rowling’s fortune at just over a billion dollars. I love that she is the most surprised of all. After all, she was on public assistance when she wrote the first book. The context around the above paragraph is that she wrote a book for herself, not the masses. She wrote a story that was interesting to her. Common sense wisdom, not just for me but for those clients I coach whose first priority is mass appeal.
Write what comes naturally. You never know.
In threes
The Julia Cameron memoir continues to grip and inspire me. How often does one get that combination?
One thing I am particularly fascinated with in the book involves the writing process. After getting sober, she was scared of losing her writing identity. So among the support she received in recovery was this advice: write three pages a day. That’s the quota. If it takes all day or if it takes an hour. It was also suggested that she let the words come through her, channel through her.
She was dubious about all of it but did it anyway. And it worked: I wasn’t so much writing as I was eavesdropping. I wasn’t so much thinking something up as taking something down.
Since I often have fits and starts in my writing, I decided to give this a try. Three pages a day. In longhand. (Incidentally, this is not to be confused with Cameron’s other device, morning pages. That is three pages of stream of consciousness writing done every morning. It is actually more meditation than writing. I already do those.) Anyway, this evening I went to the waterfront with a spiral notebook and a pen and sat on a bench. I began writing at 7 p.m., a moment heralded by the nearby church bell. By 7:25 p.m., three pages had poured off my pen like water from a pitcher.
Yep, I think I might like this.
Speak easy
Last night I just had to tune in to TLC’s new show called The Messengers. The premise is that they begin with 10 strong public speakers, put them in a really trying scenario, give them a topic and then they have to speak on that topic in front of a studio audience. It’s very intense, as the idea is to be inspirational.
So the debut show began with dropping off the 10 speakers on Skid Row. They were to spend 24 hours living amongst the homeless in the cold (which for me was less challenging than the idea of rats). They were given tips on a place for a free meal and when to line up for a guy giving out new cardboard boxes. The homeless people varied in their reactions, some screaming in anger that they’d be going back to their “homes” and others opening up and sharing stories. It was hard to watch, yet fascinating.
Then they took to the stage and by the end one guy was voted off by the audience. As far as I could see, the show’s main flaw is its two judges, who aren’t constructive, just cheerleaders for the most part. They’re a little too golly-gee for me, but the show was still worth watching. I loved seeing the styles of the different speakers, all on the topic of charity. Good speakers, for me, are real, relaxed and anecdotal.
Next week the speakers are going to be, I think, migrant workers. The coming attractions were very alluring.
I’m there.
A day
– I walk out the door to go to the gym this morning and find (could it be?) a chill in the air.
– The guy collecting trash along the town’s sidewalks has on his cart a backpack with a picture of a woman in a French maid’s outfit. I’m amused. Tasteful, like a piece of art as opposed to tawdry or cheap looking.
– I’m getting ready for church to the tune of Led Zeppelin singing Misty Mountain Hop and loving it.
– The message delivered at church is rousing, validating, inspiring. Reminds me why I go.
– A late breakfast at a diner with a friend is capped off by a nice walk along 34th Street as the Empire State Building looms large.
– On the 15-minute train ride home, I begin reading a book lent to me by a minister at church. It is Julia Cameron’s memoir entitled, Floor Sample. Immediately, on page 2, I bond with her as I read this: What could be more idyllic than flannel pajamas and a new volume of Nancy Drew? Yes, Julia, yes.
– I’m hooked on the book, so I take it to a bench on the waterfront and indulge. A friend joins me a short time later and we have a delightful conversation.
– I head to a cafe to do a little work and decide, after making some headway, to reward myself with more of Julia’s book. Her experiences at Catholic school, her feeling she didn’t quite fit in, her observations about writing (Writing involved a certain self-centeredness, a belief that the world as I saw it might prove interesting to others.), how she met and eventually married Martin Scorcese. And I’m only on page 50!
– I make a kick-butt dinner of whole wheat angel hair, broccoli, mushrooms and black olives.
A day indeed.
Lustrous
Francesca worked magic on my hair today. It is soft and silky and dark brown. It has movement. Amazing what this does for one’s psyche. I feel like I could do a hair commercial. Because I’m worth it.
The salon is called Genesis. Nice touch.
Write stuff
I am working with a lot of people who want coaching around writing lately. The more I do it, the more I realize how much I love it and how naturally it comes to me. It’s a niche I didn’t really need to carve — it just showed itself in the clients I’ve attracted.
I have this flair for looking at a piece of writing and spotting what works, what doesn’t and what’s really special about it. There’s something so gratifying in that. It’s more than just being a wordsmith, which I already knew about myself. It’s an eye for a good anecdote, a clever turn of phrase.
Bring your projects, one and all.
