Ah, Netfrix. I mean, Netflix. Asian accent. When Conan, not the barbarian, O’Brien, was ousted by Jay Leno’s return to the Tonight Show, he had a clause in his contract that he couldn’t go back on television for six months. So he rebelled and went on tour and made a movie about it called Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop.
There were two interesting things that I learned from that movie. As he was finishing up the development of his tour, he had run into a phase of doubt. Severe doubt. This is a guy who has an incredible track record of writing good, funny stuff. He’s written for shows like the Simpsons and Saturday Night Live. His run on the Late Night with Conan O’Brien from 1993-2009, The Tonight Show from 2009-2010 is nothing to sneeze at either. So a guy like him, who has a huge fan base, shouldn’t have doubts, right?
And according to Wikipedia, he settled for about 45 million dollars to leave. Doubts?
Yeah. Doubts.
I was very surprised.
Who among us hasn’t had doubts in any part of our lives? I know when I sit to write, doubt is something I don’t think about. Neither is writing a best seller. Writing the best story that I can is my focus, putting forward my most bestest effort ever. Afterwards, doubt trickles into my consciousness. Sometimes heart pounding doubt, in which I go back and revisit what I wrote with a magnifying glass. But that only makes the words bigger.
But it’s a small comfort that a guy like Conan has doubts. Yes, he’s human, and it’s human nature to doubt. But Nicholas Sparks is human. At least I think so. From some of his interviews I’ve read, he compares himself to Hemingway. Now, I ain’t gonna judge, your honor. You can do whatever you want, but I’ve never liked people who had that mightier than thou attitude. Get over yourself, dude.
You can’t say that about Conan. He self deprecates himself on his new show, nightly. He’s loyal to his crew. Twelve million of that settlement went to them. And he has an air of quiet confidence, which allows him to be self deprecating because, for the most part, he knows it ain’t true.
The second thing I learned was Conan never reads reviews. Someone off camera had asked if he read reviews of his stage show. His personal assistant states they’re a waste of time. I hear that a lot. From broadway greats such as Lea Salonga, to great romance writer Nora Roberts, and famed Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe don’t read reviews of their work. Hell. Johnny Depp doesn’t even watch dailies, which I think are the takes filmed on that day. And I agree. I don’t read comments made on my site, nor do I read comments about my writing on other sites, unless they’re my friends’.
You hear that? Yes, I’m talking to you select people. Welcome back and see Blacklisted.
Standing in a room of a hundred people, there can be a hundred varying opinions of me. I can’t control what they think. I can’t change what they think. So why worry about what they think? Everyone has an opinion, just as they do assholes.
One of my favorite acting teachers was Jean Shelton. Her legacy in the acting world had gone back to The Group Theater, which held many luminaries such as Harold Clurman, Elia Kazan, Lee Strasburg, and one of Jean’s personal teachers, Stella Stradler, who also taught Robert Dinero (just to name a few). The list of people however is freakin’ amazing. They pioneered the method from the Stanislavksi techniques and beyond to what American acting is today. Marlon Brando had won the Oscar for his role in ON THE WATER FRONT, which I think was the first time an actor won using the method.
So why mention this?
Jean’s daughter, Wendy Phillips, had come in one Saturday to give a talk about her experience in Hollywood, where she works as an actress and teaches. She’d acted with small time actors like Robert Dinero in MIDNIGHT RUN, Sean Penn in I AM SAM (loved that movie), and Warren Beatty in BUGSY. During a Q & A session, one of the students in the audience asked her what she could do to make it. Make what? Become a movie stah. Sorry foh my Asian accent.
Wendy said something to this extent: Become the best actress. That was the sentiment throughout Jean’s school. Be the best. Sounds easy to me.
Problem with that is someone is always going to be better, prettier, taller, buffer, richer, whatever. Not discounting skill or talent here.
Recently, I had gone to Miami, Florida and decided to read their inflight magazine, Airway. They interviewed lead singer of R.E.M., Michael Stipe. He said something that struck me in the balls. ”I never thought I was very good at what I do. That’s why perhaps the most important quality in a person, even beyond curiosity, is humility. Not false humility. Not false modesty, but a real humility. It’s an understanding that you really are no better than anyone else. You’re just fortunate to do something that other people respect or like or can pull something from.”
I’m the worst judge when it comes to comparing music, or even knowing the names to songs. I hear them on the radio, enjoy them, but since they don’t mention the titles, I don’t learn them. But the fact that R.E.M. have been around since 1980, they’ve got to be doing something right.
Now, what Stipe said hit me in the balls because I had finished taking a writing class from a reputable school that is known for producing good science fiction and fantasy writers. Part of the class was critiquing other students’ work, something that I’m not a fan of because writing styles can vary and still be great. When I read everyone’s pieces, I thought to myself, man, none of them are bad, and they all can write pretty well. When I looked at my writing, it didn’t differ much from a technical point of view. And I felt the same when I read most other published authors. Sometimes I feel there isn’t anything special that sets them apart. Not saying their work isn’t special, but that from a technical standpoint, there wasn’t an awe inspiring light from the heavens or a fire erupting from the cracking earth that showed me THIS IS IT.
Maybe part of the demystifying aspect of my point of view is the amount of thought and work I’ve put into the technical side. Taking a class from beyondstructure.com that broke down storytelling techniques to techniques, not theories, helped immensely as well. It seemed the writing class I took had 50% theory and 50% what I should include. Beyond structure broke storytelling down to it’s minute parts, parts that no reader, audience member should ever care about, but can feel when the techniques are used well.
Even though I compared my writing to others in the class, I never thought of myself as being exceptionally great or not. I took the class for the pure purpose of learning. I knew that in each individual story, different talents, skills, techniques, and tools are used. But a tool chest’s full is never used for a single one. It’s like using every ingredient in the world to make an omelet.
I write with no thought of bestsellers, fame, honor, or magnanimous glory. No plans of world domination. No plans at all. But they do creep in, riddling panic up my spine. So I take a moment and sip my coffee or tea and dive back in. Once I’m done, then my fantasies can fly as they wish.
“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley” -John Steinbeck
The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
As a writer and a former student of acting, one of the things I love to do is watch people. I don’t do it to try and develop a new character. I just do it to do it. I may never know what I may gleam from others. But I’m sure it’ll be something cool. That’s kinda my approach on life. If there’s something significant that I need to know, somehow it’ll come, and I’ll know it.
I think one of the biggest complaints people have about their lives is not getting what they want. Complaints of unanswered prayers. Disheartening stories of bad things happening to good people. Now, I’m not discounting them as simple complaints. Shit happens. Sometimes it does get in the way. But life must and does go on.
However, I think people get what they want more often than not. Hence the saying, be careful what you wish for. You may get it.
I’m never one to settle for just a corporate job. It’s a volunteer sentence at an open door penitentiary. As I was serving my time, an 8-hour day, a coworker complained how slow it was. And indeed it was like molasses on ice. She brought a book to read, talked endlessly on the phone, took long walks during work hours to pass the time. She even requested extra stuff to do from her boss. Her wish was fulfilled. For the next few months, she was working every single minute of her voluntary sentence. She barely took lunches.
So what did she do?
C’mon. You know. She complained it was too busy, doing everything she could to keep her head above water. She wished it had been slower.
As she diligently worked, her work load lightened. It got to the point where she brought in her book, talked on the phone endlessly, and took long walks. And as all cycles do, she went back and told me how she hated having nothing to do.
When I started writing, I knew the one thing I needed was time. And my job was entrenched in sales. Not only was it sapping my energy, my soul really, but the job had carried over into my free time. It was even affecting my relationship with my then girlfriend. Then is the operative word.
I needed another job that I could let go once I punched the clock to go home. And I had found it. But it meant less money.
What was more important to me? Money? Or my writing? Not exactly SOPHIE’S CHOICE, but one that a lot of artists do contend with.
There had been a lot of people leaving my department. At times it felt like there was an exodus, leaving me behind to suffer religious persecution. So I questioned myself. Do I stay or do I look for greener pastures?
I’d asked them why they were leaving, and their answers were some version of the grass is greener on the other side: more money, prestige, upward mobility (climbing the corporate ladder), etc. But it seemed to me they didn’t have any direction. Not that you have to have a direction. If you’re not growing, then you’re…
But they were leaving on superficial grounds rather on specific wants. People tend to regret those decisions. And leaving this job meant their problems would also leave, following them to the next. Since the constant in these problematic situations is the self and not the environment. People tend to bring problems with them. That’s why women don’t date guys with baggage. Not that I have that issue. Ahem.
So. Back to my choice. Money? Or writing?
Why not both? I made sure I could live on the amount of money the new job offered. So I asked for more, which I got. Alleviating much of the stress my sales job gave me, or I imposed on myself, my free time grew more peaceful, allowing me to create. I still made less money than I did selling mortgages, but my timing was right on. Soon after, the real estate industry crumbled around me, as I lived in the fantasy world that I am still writing about.
Be aware of what you wish for. You are sure to get it. Whether it’s right or not is a reward/consequence you’ll learn from.
In storytelling, there are many techniques to add depth to a character, a scene, or overall spine of a story. A lot of what is said in dialogue can hint to each character’s main trait, a trait defined as affecting the world they see. A woman is going to see the world differently than a man. An assertive/aggressive man will see a world as his oyster, where an unconfident one will see himself a victim. So actions and dialogue must coincide with those traits.
A way to bring a certain level of depth into the spine of a story was illustrated well in a movie called SEVEN SAMURAI. All of the samurai were killed by firearm. Though, it wasn’t indicated in the movie where someone said, “Hey, Bro. All our Samurai brothahs got whacked by firearms.” It was shown and spoke to how times were changing and the need for samurai was dying. We see this capped off at the end when the samurai left the village they helped defend. The villagers paid little attention as the samurai walked off into the horizon. Most audience members, including myself, wouldn’t have noticed. The effect is to play on a subconscious level.
I’d received a call from an old friend and was told that I had been blacklisted from my former martial arts school. That my name was removed from a list of honored. I wondered if that was a mistake and thought back. And here is where storytelling came into play.
At the school, after each teacher reached a certain level, the master called them by their first name. Being a formal school, everyone bowed and went by Mr. This and Ms. That. Once I reached that level, I was still referred to as Mr. Ng. Along the front of the school hung a line of pictures of the most esteemed. In the center, the master. If you know the game musical chairs, then you should be familiar with the game the master played. Those most loyal, most accomplished, most respected found their picture closest to the center. Those who thought outside of the box had left the school due to creative differences. Their pictures moved further away from the center, or removed. Can you guess where my picture went?
As I logged into my site, I noticed that my one of my posts received a lot of comments. I said to myself, “Wow. I haven’t seen those names in a long time.” People from the school. Those are the loyal, accomplished, esteemed.
Being purposefully blacklisted feels kinda cool. And their actions are very telling. They always talk about not having egos, taught that egos can get in the way.
But when a confident person is accused of something, something that they’re not, they should remain silent. If you’re confident that you’re not a table, and someone accuses you of being a table, would you argue that you’re not a table?
Now, I fully believe in what I said in that post. But I didn’t name anyone or my formal school in anyway shape or form. So what does that say when students from that school come to argue against a post written about them? That what I said hit a nerve. And being blacklisted was done on purpose, which I totally accept as I had removed myself from that school many years ago.
Do you sign up for emails you wished you didn’t sign up for only to have them barge into your email, despite unsubscribing to them?
When I started writing, I was very open to learning cool techniques and concepts about storytelling. I read magazines, blogs, talked with other writers, read their recommendations on writing books, taken seminars, and gone to conferences. Almost all talked about theory. Very few talked about actual techniques.
As I checked my emails, I saw one come in. And he, a published author, who mentors other writers, interviewed a woman, who is also published and mentors. She said something interesting:
Beginning writers tend to think of themselves as the center of the universe and expect huge successes. They’re often not open to criticisms. Blah blah blah…
I haven’t encountered that, but I don’t mentor other writers. In taking classes, I am asked to read others writing and comment. Whether they listen to me or not doesn’t really matter because it’s not my work. Only they can determine whether the criticisms are justified. I’ve applied many suggestions and criticisms and rejected those that don’t help the story. I don’t make changes from a place of fear. Another words, if I fear that my book won’t sell because I don’t have a certain element, then I’ll probably reject that criticism.
Now going back to the email, here’s an example of taking advice with a grain of salt. The interviewer asked her why she got into writing. She said (her exact words): For me it’s been looking back over my life and seeing all the input I’ve received over the years. Folks told me I could write when I wrote Christmas letters. My teachers saw the gift. And, yes, mentors have helped me hone the gift and encouraged me to continue.
Paraphrasing: Praise the Lord, for He hath layeth on me a gifteth!
Did you read that? She, in her head, is the center of the universe. She thinks she’s special after she just said beginning writers think they’re special. She ain’t no beginner, so does that mean you don’t have the right to feel special unless you’ve acquired a certain level of success?
In every moment of life, people should feel special about themselves. Who else, besides our doting parents, is going to feel that way about us? Everyone has the right to exist. Everyone has the right to follow their passions, to explore their lives in different ways, and to live it as they wish, barring hurting anyone outside of themselves.
And the interviewer went along with it. And this guy is reputable!
There’s some good advice out there. But when it comes to a story that is close to your heart, trust that that story will come out well, use actual writing techniques that will help tell your story (don’t use a flat head screwdriver on a phillips screw), and be clear about where your story and characters are heading. That way when people give you suggestions or criticisms, you’ll know what to implement and what to throw out.
I usually use Steven King’s method. Pay attention to the most common critiques. It’s a good sign you may need to fix it. But I had a friend point out my character’s reaction to a tragedy felt false to her. She explained why and I immediately took her suggestion and made the change. No one else pointed it out, but it matched exactly where the character was headed. This same friend made a similar suggestion farther down the story, but to change it would flatten the overall character arch. So I rejected it.
No one knows your story better than you. So be confident in it. And be open to learn and see what others see. Sometimes we writers are too close to see the forest.
Couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of being judged by my boss. It was time for midyear scorecards where they tell me how good of a job I’m doing and how much of a value I am. I asked my manager who read these scorecards, and he said, “Probably nobody.”
I’ve never put much stock in what people say about me, whether good or bad. Though words do hurt sometimes, especially if it’s from someone close like family or girlfriends. And since I’m not trying to climb up the corporate ladder, I put little effort in improving my scorecard.
I was talking to a coworker the other day and she was upset that P90X didn’t shed the weight off her body like the informercial promised. There are two issues here, or maybe just one. First, it’s an informercial. Second, she didn’t try very hard. Both led me to believe how unaware she may be.
One of the many quotes I have a hard time with is: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.
Being a former actor, one thing actors do is audition, audition, audition. Most of the time they get rejected, which is normal. But every time they hope to get hired. Is this insanity? No. Things can change from moment to moment.
What’s different is the day, the role, your attitude in that moment, the people involved, etc. There are thousands of things that can be different that it hardly qualifies as the same.
Even though I was rejected by every literary agent I’ve submitted to, doesn’t mean I won’t submit to them again to try and protect my insanity. I think you have to be a bit insane in order to write a book and a dash of craziness sprinkled in to want to get published.
Being aware of my own efforts, aware of my own writing technique, open to others criticisms and suggestions, and adapting myself to accommodate the story (the bigger picture), which is what’s important, not me as the writer, I’m able to trust in myself in the direction that I’m heading.
My coworker should have done the same. Was she trying hard enough? Was she watching what she ate? No, I found out. Her eyes were closed. She placed the expectation of being thin on a product and not on her own efforts. Deep inside, I could tell, she secretly blamed the program. It is an infomercial after all. But we sometimes don’t see that it is us we should be aware of and make little changes, like putting a little more effort, to yield huge results.
I was talking to my best friend, whose wife had just given birth to a son, about the best way to practice writing. Taking heed to Buddha’s words, I said dive into the work. He went on to tell me his preferred method. That he analyzed other writers’ work to find what made it click. That he worked with a writing coach. That he practiced specific techniques that he found valuable. And that practicing needed to be perfect practice.
I then calmly asked him, “What the hell is perfect practice?”
To me, it sounded like you couldn’t make mistakes while practicing when it’s really the best time to make mistakes. It’s those mistakes that we make in practice or immersed in our work that can give us some of the most profound insights. I told him there’s no one correct way of doing anything well.
It’s the geniuses, the innovators that create the rule, the market. Just look at the world of media. We have books and TV shows about wizards and vampires and wolves.
When I had my teaching and mentoring business, I was all about changing behavior. Shit. I was one of the laziest people I knew. I watched TV to no end. I had little passion for anything, or at least I thought I had little passion for anything. I slept for most of the day when I could. That was the life! Then something changed. A yearning grew. Not that yearning. Well…not the place to discuss.
I started to think about the things I wanted. Things I wished to accomplish. And somehow I was disciplined enough to go to the gym, write, have a social life, teach, and still have free time to just chill. How did I become disciplined? Hell if I know.
Actually, they were things that I wanted to do. Loved to do. I mean going to the gym was easy. There’s a lot of hot chicks there.
During the years that I taught, I made a slow discovery. As awesome a teacher as I was, I couldn’t make my students do anything. Yes, they listened to me. Yes, they behaved when I shushed them. But they eventually fell back to their shenanigans.
What I could do was listen to them, guide them toward their own well being, help them realize their own potential in real time physical exercises, and help them realize what they truly wanted in life. Their behavior was outside of my reach, outside of anyone’s reach, except their own.
One parent came up to me and was extremely concerned about her child’s time management skills. He loved to procrastinate. She was my client, so I did my best to try and change that behavior, asked him why he procrastinated, gave him specific things to do to swerve him from waiting till the last minute.
He made the changes for a day. Then he reverted back to his old ways. His grades never improved from the mostly A’s and B’s he already received. I know, I know.
Now in college, I asked him how school was going. He loved it, tried a slew of different things, as I suggested, so he could have a better idea of what he might love to do in life. I asked him how his grades were. Mostly A’s and B’s.
I asked him if he was ok with that. Totally fine, he answered.
Do you still procrastinate, I asked. He reluctantly nodded.
I laughed, told him that this was his method and that it seemed to work. If he felt bad about his grades, that he wanted to improve, then changes may need to be made (depending on why he felt bad). Since everything was fine, there was nothing to do but catch up on old times.
I had told my best friend this story, as he’s also close to this family, and the silence on the phone meant he didn’t agree.
He has his way toward excellence. I have mine. And as long as those methods work for us without any feelings of guilt or anxiousness, but with peace of mind, then whose to say that were wrong?
Sitting in my jail-like 6X6 cubicle, I overheard the new guy at our office, who charmed the whole lot, invite one of my team mates out to happy hour. Of course there was no sliding cell door that kept me from inviting myself. Footsteps swishes away as I wondered if I was going to be included in this exclusive outing. That would be a no.
Feelings of being the geeky, nerdy, lone Chinese kid, who people thought was smart, cheating off his paper (big mistake) came flooding back into my barreled chest. Too much? All I ever wanted in high school was to be the big man on campus. Not be smart. Psh.
Delving into the victim mindset was something I grew up with, so I knew it was just a reactionary moment of despair. Then I kinda laughed about it after drying my tears because I was meeting my mother later, and remembered that a five-year-old girl can hold her liquor better than I could. I wish I was joking. This leads me to my first point. Don’t cheat off my paper. My book smarts is limited.
One of my friends graduated from the university with a Theater Arts degree. She had showcases in New York and Los Angeles and felt she belonged in LA. She had an offer from an agent to represent her, but she declined because she didn’t feel connected to this person.
Now. To get an agent in Holli’s wood is probably just as hard for an author in Litty’s (literary) world. So I have to applaud her. In a world where the talent, yup, I’m part o’dat group, can be desperate to get representation, they’d take whoever shows a little leg. But the power comes back to the talent, still part o’dat group, when we choose who we want to be represented by. Because the whoever represents us talented must at the least love work.
This brings me to my second point. Know you’re talented.
When I researched agents, I read their blogs to find the one thing I could relate myself or my book in my query letters to them. I had found one that I liked with similar humor to me. I was like, ommahgawd, were made to be. Then I read one of his posts, which went something like this: Many people play the piano for fun and never want to play in an orchestra. Why is it that people can’t write for the pure joy of it without wanting to be published?
This guy’s world must be really small. Most of the people that I know who write, write for pure joy in journals, twitter, blogs, and have no want to be published in the traditional sense. I know very few who would venture into the publishing world. Hmm. Maybe my world is small. For some reason his comment turned me off.
Why?
Maybe because I wanted to be that popular guy who everyone looks up at. Which is hard since I’m not that tall.
“Hey. That’s Jimmy Ng! He wrote NIGHTFALL. He’s like the J.K. Rowling of fantasy.”
“Dude, man. J.K. Rowling is the J.K. Rowling of fantasy.”
“Oh, yeah,” I thought, while tapping my bottom lip.
Do I want to become popular in the high school sense? No. Do I want everyone to read NIGHTFALL? Totally. It’s a dream of mine.
But it’s an important question to ask. I wanted to write it because I thought it would be fun. It was. I want the world to read it and just enjoy the exhilaration I felt writing the book. I serve so people may have a little bit of escapism.
Ah, Netfrix. I mean, Netflix. Asian accent. When Conan, not the barbarian, O’Brien, was ousted by Jay Leno’s return to the Tonight Show, he had a clause in his contract that he couldn’t go back on television for six months. So he rebelled and went on tour and made a movie about it called Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop.
