4616 VAN NOORD AVE., 91423

CALL THIS WEEK.  818-981-4761  IT FILLS QUICKLY

4616 Van Noord Ave, Sherman Oaks, Ca., 91423

It fills quickly. Call early this week: 818-981-4761

4616 Van Noord Ave., Sherman Oaks, Ca., 91423

Join me and see how my workshops work!

Call soon, they fill up. 818-981-4761.

I love the theater.  No, I mean, I love it. I love doing it. Now I love teaching for the same reasons. They come from the same place.

This kind of love isn’t a casual one-off statement thrown into dinner conversation. It is core for me from a place I couldn’t begin to verbalize which is what knocks me out about large ideas—love, belief, and sacrifice—those ideas.   They are bigger than words and their origins mysterious.  Even undefinable they are an engine that can keep you in motion.

Though I no longer act I shifted into some place equally fulfilling by teaching.  And not teaching acting, but teaching writing. I had no idea this is where I would land but once here, it felt like meeting an old friend who had been waiting for me. I began to see how my years as an actress donated to this transition.

The other day in class my long time pallie Mitch Ryan who has spent a life time acting in almost anything you have ever seen said, “You know, I don’t care a fig about TV and movies. Theater is where it has always been for me. Writing feels that way too. ” Mitch is someone who, after a long career in acting, dipped into writing and found it wasn’t such a stretch.  In fact, many of the people I work with are theater actors, already sharing practice and principles with writing.  We love the theater because we get to slow down and find what works and why. We get to make it ours and it’s easy to love writing for the same reasons, process being the glue between disciplines.  You will find if you have been spending time in one, you can borrow from it for another.

Okay. Think about this:  when you are doing play, all you have is the script and the story on paper. Then you begin to say the words. Throughout rehearsal, you add movement, and intention reflected bythe behavior of the character. You are bringing the words to life by interpreting them with your body, your inflections and your expressions.  That same element of behavior is key to good writing. The actor “behaves” in person, in writing, your characters must “behave” on the page.

Try these examples on:

“Bill reached down the whiskey bottle.  His big hand went all the way around it.”

Hemingway

“Dennis carried the drinks outside then, the plate of sandwiches on top of one of them.”

Alice Mc Dermott

“He went into the kitchen and drank two glasses of water. He turned off the living room light and felt his way along the wall into the bedroom.”

Raymond Carver

“He put his hand on the dead boy’s wrist. He was quiet for a time, as if counting a pulse, then he patted the stomach, almost affectionately, and used Kiowa’s hunting hatchet to remove the thumb.”

Tim O’Brien

…and then, probably my favorite and certainly most charming…

“Wherefore, the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of strong imagination, he failed.”

Charles Dickens

Look at your lines of dialogue and see what you can offer the reader by way of gesture, attitude and movement to demonstrate a feeling.  Show it with behavior.  It’s fun. If you find this puzzling, then sit down and remember one big family dinner. Go around the table of aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws and describe how everyone eats; now that’s behavior!

Nice Smart Young Woman New to Writing: (Enters class on a Friday morning her laptop under her arm) Shit. I didn’t write anything! (She slumps down into chair, dropping her oversized handbag to the floor.)

Me: So what does that matter? You’re here anyway. That’s the deal.

NSYWNTW: Well yes, but I don’t have anything. I just couldn’t write. You know, here I am going on and on about the same old crap—going to the health clinic in fucking Sylmar because I don’t have any money and about how awful they treat everyone even if you’re a legal immigrant, which most of them probably aren’t, and how just saying that makes me feel like a racist, and the health care system being fucked even for people like me who have a heart condition and have to have their blood taken every month, even from when I was  kid and then calling my crazy mother to see if I could drop in on her knowing she would say “It’s not a good time,” not because it wasn’t a good time, but because she has turned into a hoarder and there are no chairs to sit on and you have to climb over stacks on the floor and I can remember a time when she was beautiful, really beautiful and it makes me so sad.

Me: Oh. Yeah…..and…?

NSYWNTW: Well… just nothing.

Me:  (head down on the table laughing helplessly) “Nothing” you say?  (another fit of laughing)

Of all the people I get to work with the ones new to writing are often my favorites. They show up because there is something they want to say, they wonder if they can and if they do, will it be worth it.  They are at their most curious and innocent at the same time—a great combination. The liberating logic is, if you don’t know how to do something, then you can’t screw it up. (If  wanted to be a taxidermist, for example, I wouldn’t have any expectations. Rest easy. I’m only saying.)

They may just want to get something off their chests: memories, losses, scary stuff, secrets. And that’s a bad thing? If it makes anyone feel better to write their experiences (like the NYSWNTW,) and in the doing discover something deeper that with care can lift into story, isn’t that growth? I ask you, where does fiction come from anyway?

The newcomer may move on without latching on to a project and if so, I don’t mind  because for sure I know they  leave better readers with respect for the layers that inhabit any creative effort.

Then there are the times when someone new to writing finds that spinning a tale can be much like flying a kite. You run into the wind, let out the string and once up, your job is to hang on to the wonderful flying thing in the sky.

(Forgive me for becoming all rainbow-ish, but the analogy was irresistible.)

Art is not an esoteric remote ideal, it is grounded in ordinary, lived lives and imagination. The bottom line is, novice or professional, the imagination is a muscle and gets stronger with use.

P.S. I’ll take an excited newbie any day over “I’ve got a book in me, I just know it. Everyone says so.” Shoot me.

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4616 VAN NOORD AVE., SHERMAN OAKS, CA., 91423

This is a fine way to get acquainted with my work. I hope to see you here. Space is limited; 818-981-4761 to save a chair.

The leap itself isn’t really the problem, staying in the air is the challenge.

Now apply this to your work. Think about where you must go as an artist. You step in front of a canvas, onto a stage, pick up a musical instrument, sit down at your desk, etc.  There is endless discussion about the writer’s blank piece of paper but I think there is more to be said about the half-filled pages, those graphic but undeniably disturbing reminders that what you have is, gasp, unfinished!

What happened?

You are one third of the way through your novel or into act two of your screenplay. You have been charging forward as if you were channeling. You can’t wait to get to the computer and find yourself getting up in the middle of the night to jot down notes.  They know you by first name at the local coffee shop. You are so delighted and energized that you begin to haplessly and foolishly read it aloud to spouses or even more distant family members, best friends who only want the best for you and then—you hit a snag. Though “snag” is a fairly cute word, it can become black and deadly when it lasts more than an overnight. Weeks perhaps.  Maybe longer.  Like a fungus! And what happened to all those assurances and accolades from your nearest and dearest? This is when it’s good to remind yourself, that the people who know you are not the ones who publish novels or produce films. They are people who like you and want to make you feel good which has little or nothing to do with your work. You, after all, are not your work. But that’s what I mean by “looking down.”

There are as many versions as this as there are starfish in the sea. They sound familiar because we return to them again and again, like a stuck CD.

“What was I thinking?”

“Someone else has already written this.”

“Who am I to think I have a story to tell?”

I’m not for a moment suggesting that you can negotiate or reason with these messages. That’s insanity. I’m convinced those blindly rhetorical questions are built into our creative and cultural DNA. Can’t say why, (actually not interested) but for sure, they make you look down. While you were confidently sailing through the air in that leap, you looked down. (Think Wile E. Coyote and his desperately windmilling legs. It can’t end well.)

Do this.  Focus back on where you were headed in the first place. Keep your eye on where you wanted to land.  It was what put you in motion. It is something dear, something true, something worth tending.  It is what matters.  It wants you. And for all those reasons, it’s trustworthy. In fact, it’s your best friend.

Write the destination. Write the last scene of the movie, the essay, the poem or even the last chapter of the book.  You brought it into being when you leapt. Don’t abandon your first impulses. Sure, a lot gets in the way, but so what? A lot gets in the way of everything—raising children, money, appearances, position, geography, leavings, sorrow, falling out of love, falling back into love, ageing—so what?

The work of the artist is to simply continue.  Or even, continue simply; beyond sensibility, beyond knowing.  It is key to discovering that the capacity for growth is what has been set in motion by your leap of imagination. I ask you, why wouldn’t you want to think that?

Which brings us around nicely to the word “faith.”

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Feelings are what get you on the page, but they seldom keep you there.  In fact, feelings may end up blackmailing your work. You are not your work and your work is not who you are.  Not separating the two will guarantee you a permanent seat next to the complaining cousin at family events.

You might be doing it and be unaware.  Here are some of the symptoms:

“Who do I think I am? Who would want to read anything I write?  Nothing interesting ever happens to my characters, to me, to the people I know.”  Ya da, ya da, ya da.  You might  as well be saying “I’m nobody. Nobody likes me. I’ve led a dull life. Why bother?” There is still a smidge of dignity operating because at the very least you realize that those things said out loud, would clear rooms. But you’re fooling no one.  It’s still whining. And why do we whine?  Because we don’t want to look like fools. And why don’t we want to look like fools? Because we are fearful.  And why are we fearful?  Because we don’t want to feel uncomfortable. And why don’t we want to feel uncomfortable? Because we want to be in control. Aha! Control:  the everlasting curse of creativity. Creativity is chaotic. Art is a disturbance of spirit. Give over to it.

Here is a variety of reactions that occur in the critiquing part of my workshop: stony silence, tears, one-liners, apologies, excuses. None of us are strangers to this. We do it everywhere—with our spouses, our children, lovers, bosses.  Not for a moment would I disavow anyone of strong feelings, but good teaching is what can help to separate “self” from work and like anything, it takes practice.  The payback is worth it.

What thrills me about teaching is when I unexpectedly land on something that rings so true I wonder where it came from. “Your work is more important than how you feel about it.” As it was coming out of my mouth I understood in a flash if I was to truly be of service in teaching I had to rely on translating the principles of craft as I understood them; anything less would serve only to make it all about me. The creative convergence between teacher and student is a two-way street, its intersection, the words on the page.

Don’t despair. This confusion happens at every level; novices and pros. No one is exempt.  The only difference is that some push through and others enjoy the noise.  Doubts are just the mosquitoes in the jungle of art.

“Choose one and use it this week, young lady.”

I was more interested in reading “Life in These United States” and the jokes at the bottom of the pages the same way I now flip through the New Yorker scanning the cartoons first.

Still “aberration,” “indelible,” and “mundane” held a satisfying attraction.   I chose “mundane.”  So, I told my gloomy friend Eleanor that it was good we weren’t selected to be pep girls for the seventh grade softball team after all because most of the ones who were chosen were “mundane” as far as I was concerned. “School itself is pretty mundane,” I added. I was on a roll.   But just to cheer her up I told her that Miss Claussen, who we loved, wasn’t that impressed with pep rallies but she was very pleased with Eleanor and me as spellers. We might even get to the city-wide.  And we did.

One of the most absorbing tasks in re-writing is to linger on a word and toy with the options.  No word is ever the last word. When you go back over a draft even if you are tracking the larger issues of structure and story, note where you might want to return and in the margin or even right over the script, put down word choices in a wild circle. Be messy. It’s finger painting at this point anyway. And  because you aren’t necessarily focusing on individual nouns or verbs just yet, you are probably more open to possibility at this early point.

Poets, good ones, can bedazzle with a word or a phrase just like songwriters. They have to because they don’t have the luxury of space and time as do writers of novels or short stories. Every word counts.

Stanley Kunitz (1905-2006, that would be 101 years! ) when talking about words in an interview with Bill Moyers said that poetry was hard  “…because in our daily lives we enslave words, use them and abuse them until they are fit for only menial tasks and small errands.”  He continues, “You have to remove the top of your head and plunge into the deep waters of the buried life in order to come up with words that are fresh and shining.”  A good read about creativity is the Bill Moyers collection of conversations with poets titled THE LANGUAGE OF LIFE. These writers talk about their process. Here is where I’d like to state that I am not a poetry maven, but I love the words—the sounds and combinations.  You don’t have to love poetry to like it.

You might want to begin to love Roget’s Thesaurus if you don’t already.   I’m fond of the dictionary, but I’m mad for the thesaurus for it takes me off in a multitude of directions connected in ways with implications and innuendos I might not have suspected.  Peter Roget, born in 1779, graduating  from medical school at the age of nineteen in Edinburgh then making his way to England becoming an expert lecturer on medical subjects, establishing a charity clinic and in 1815 becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society serving as secretary for almost twenty years and, (my personal favorite) was  a founder of the Society for the Diffusion of Knowledge, (oh yes,  he also devised a slide rule and “spent much time trying to perfect a calculating machine”)—to think that he would have determined that there was a need for a catalog of words organized by their meanings and idiomatic implications, is thrilling.  I hold his mind in my hand when I turn the pages. He and my mother at the kitchen table were not so far apart .

Words connect. Words express. Words describe and words move.  No matter the century.