Pointless Babblings

Oct

2013

Writing tips

I’ve received so much good advice over the course of my writing career. Now that I’ve got an entire book out, I thought it was only right to give back to others who might be thinking about taking up writing themselves. Here’s some advice, from me to you. You’re welcome.

Don’t write what you know. Your life is boring and nobody wants to hear about it. If exciting things happened to you you wouldn’t be a writer.
If you get stuck halfway through your book, just write, “And then they found a time machine!” and repeat the first half.
Introduce a dog and then kill it off. People freak out when you do that.
Remember that life is rarely straightforward. People have rich inner lives and complex motivations. Simplify that shit or you’ll never finish.
Readers love sequels. If you’ve written a poorly-selling second book and it isn’t a sequel, re-introduce the main character from your first book. Just add a sentence at the top, something like, “Joe from that other book of mine you liked said,” and then put everything else in quotation marks.
Remember, everyone judges a book by its cover! So maybe change out of those gross sweatpants. Take a shower once in a while and do something with your hair. Jesus.
Keep up with the latest trends if you want a best-seller. For example, dinosaur erotica is very hot right now. All the biggies have been done -T Rex, velociraptors, and such – but what about anchiornis? Anchiornis was a small, feathered dinosaur with long legs which resembled a chicken and was probably a total slut.
Seek expert advice! If your characters are in the military, talk to some soldiers for guidance on equipment and terminology. Writing sci-fi? Get a scientist’s take on your main concept. Romance? Poll your billionaire friends about what they look for in a schlumpy middle-class secretary. Western? Find a cowboy. Fantasy? Talk to an elf. Fan-fiction? Ask the My Little Ponies what kind of sick stuff they’re into.
If you get a single bad review, give up. People are mean and it isn’t worth the tears, trust me. Have you tried singing? Maybe you could take up singing.
If your book has two brown covers, is warm, and tastes good when covered in butter or jam, you haven’t written a book, you’ve made toast. You can probably still self-publish it on Amazon, though.

Aug

2013

Harry Potter and the Assumption of Heterosexuality

I was in the audience at Carnegie Hall the night J. K. Rowling revealed for the first time that Dumbledore was gay. My friend Kate had won two tickets to an evening with the author after the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Kate took me as her guest, something for which I will be eternally grateful to her (added to the long list of things I have to be eternally grateful to Kate for).

A young girl – I want to say she was around twelve, though I may be misremembering – shared a personal story about how the Harry Potter books had helped her through a difficult time in her life. She then asked if Dumbledore had ever found love. Rowling hesitated, then said that because the girl had been so honest, she deserved an honest answer. She said she had always considered Dumbledore to be gay.

The audience cheered and applauded. I did as well. It was a lovely moment. By the time I got home, the internet had exploded.

As I thought more about it, I found myself wishing Rowling had made Dumbledore’s sexuality explicit in the actual text. How much more powerful would that have been? I’m not suggesting she change her story the slightest bit, just that she could have stated clearly what she says she already intended. One little throwaway line about Dumbledore being in love with his friend would have had such a colossal impact. It would have done so much good. A major character in children’s fiction, named as gay in the book itself. Undeniable. Parents would be reading a story to their kids that includes a same-sex love presented as valid (if doomed). How many gay kids would have been helped by that? How many straight kids, for that matter? How many would still be helped now, as new generations discover these books for the first time?

I don’t blame J.K. Rowling. She is certainly an ally to the LGBTQ community. I don’t think it was a purposeful omission on her part. I don’t know why she didn’t clarify Dumbledore’s feelings, but it seems unlikely she was shying away from controversy. I think she wrote the story she wanted to write, and it’s a damn good one. I’m just a little disappointed that she didn’t go that one tiny step further, as the end result would have been so much greater.

Still, I’m glad she said what she said. Even though Dumbledore’s sexuality is far from clear in the text, and plenty of people will read the book and never notice anything romantic in his feelings towards Grindelwald (I certainly didn’t), a lot of people now know Dumbledore is gay, and that helps. And when she said it, it was beautiful. And I’m so happy I was there.

(This post was inspired by some conversations happening on Gail Simone’s Tumblr blog. If you’re a comics fan you should definitely follow her.) (And if you want to get the really insane – but hilarious – stuff, follow her on Twitter.)

Aug

2013

What do you do?

For years, I called myself an actor. If you asked me what I did, I would say acting. “Actor” was my identity. It had been for my entire adult life.

Then I started directing. Acting wasn’t bringing me the same happiness it once had, and directing was getting better at scratching that itch to create. At first, calling myself a director felt like a lie. I wasn’t acting anymore, but I had wanted to succeed as an actor for so long that is seemed like a betrayal of my younger self to call myself anything else. But directing satisfied me, and acting didn’t, and gradually I started calling myself a director and believing it. “Director” became my new identity.

For the past few years I’ve been working as a production manager. It’s more than a full time job, so I’ve had less and less time for directing as my work responsibilities have increased. My identity hasn’t changed – production managing is just my job. But if you ask me what I do nowadays, I’m more likely to say I’m a producer. (Nobody knows what a production manager does, but everyone thinks they know what a producer does, so I simplify.) Since I only direct about once or twice a year these days, I once again feel like a fraud if I introduce myself to someone as a director. I’ll leave that revelation for the deeper end of the conversation – if we reach the point where we’re telling each other what we are instead of what we do, I may tell you I’m a director.

Years ago, I was, to most of my friends, a writer first and foremost. I wrote plays and sketches for myself and my friends to perform, in high school and college and summer stock and eventually in New York. But while that was how other people viewed me, it was never how I viewed myself. I only wrote to give myself something to act in.

But now…something is changing again. I spent the past year pouring all of my frustrated creative energy into a book, and I surprised myself with how happy it made me. Happy enough that I turned down the opportunity to direct two plays this summer in order to focus on writing. I’m not quite ready to say I’m a writer, yet – it hasn’t become my identity. If you introduce yourself to me at a party and ask what I do, I will, after stammering incomprehensibly for a moment (I’m bad with new people), still tell you I’m a producer. But if we get past that, “And I wrote a book” will probably leave my lips before “And I’m a director” does.

But ask me again after my second book comes out. I’m dying to know what I’ll say then.

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