Buzz, Balls & Hype

THE DOCTOR IS IN

The Full Catastrophe

My musical theater class had our cabaret night Sunday evening. I had been nervous all month about messing up and ruining the show, and my anxiety peaked on Sunday morning. I had two songs in the show, "Summertime" and "All of Me." I was fairly confident about "Summertime," but we'd had a disastrous dress rehearsal of "All of Me," and I was convinced that something was going to go very wrong.

As it turned out, pretty much everything did, starting with my air-headed decision to do something about the ridiculous color in my hair. I bought a highly recommended (and expensive) "color extraction system" at a professional hairstylist supply store that was supposed to take out artificial color and leave your hair the way it was originally. I used it as instructed, and it did exactly nothing, until I went swimming and emerged once again with green streaks. I pulled it back and hoped nobody would notice.

"Summertime" was fine, and well received. "All of Me," though, was prop-dependent, and when I get nervous, props tend to take on a wild life of their own. I pulled my slinky shawl from around my shoulders, intending to drape it sensuously around my partner's neck, and instead hit him in the face with it. Our (fortunately plastic) champagne glasses leapt off the table and crashed to the floor, where I tripped on one. A lace handkerchief that I was supposed to pull out of my bra to emphasize "Your good-bye left me with eyes that cry" got lost around my navel and I had to dig for it.

And it was okay. I recalled my improv teacher's mantra, "Mistakes are gifts." We tried to use each mishap to deepen the scene and move it forward. I kept singing, we kept dancing, and the audience kept laughing and clapping. For the finale, my partner, whose day job is as a firefighter, spontaneously lifted me up and swung me around, neatly demolishing what was left of the set, and the audience went wild. Afterward, my teacher said, "They loved you--even more because of all the mishaps. They were with you 100%." and I felt that.

What I brought away from the experience was not the idea that anything goes, but that if I take risks I am going to make mistakes, and that that is part of the fun and excitement of live performance. What happened wasn't the result of carelessness or poor planning, but  of hard work, dedication, and nerve-induced klutziness, which I hope one day to control. But it is comforting to know that an audience is willing to engage with me on this journey, and to cheer me on.

I will be away next week. I hope you all have a good summer's end.

 Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog, and she is a regular guest panelist on Litopia After Dark. She can be reached at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com. 

Hand Yelling Louis Bayard's The School of Night

Sigh. I just finished a wonderful novel.

I've loved every one of Bayard's novels and feel he gets better with each one. This is my new favorite and I adored it. 

Rare is the author who can write so intelligently about a scholarly subject and turn it into a compelling novel of suspense and a deeply felt love story. It's a really brilliant weaving of past and present and the way its tied up at the end without being overly sentimental is monumental.

The New York Times said he "reinvigorates historical fiction, rendering the nineteenth century as if he'd witnessed it firsthand." And they described School of Night as "Louis Bayard's fabricated account of a secret society of brilliant Elizabethan thinkers who challenge conventional 16th-century wisdom by exercising "the freedom to speak their minds." Henry Cavendish, the 21st-century scholar who narrates the story, tumbles to this academic crew when an unscrupulous collector (who would "lay down his life for a Shakespeare quarto"

Bravo Mr. Bayard. I can't wait to see what you do next. This will be a hard one to top. And yes, you had me in tears at the end. So lovely. So complete.

Missing 10,000 Personalized Impressions

Yesterday, a writer I know mentioned buying a book that she noticed  I had blurbed. 

I did. Over a year ago.

Neither the author or the publisher send me a finished book. 

Rude or not - that's not smart marketing at all.

Here's why.

I blurbed it because I liked it a lot.

If  I had gotten a copy with a note that told me it was coming out I would have hand yelled it here.

That would have showed up on Facebook & Twitter.

I might have answered some questions about it. I might have tweeted about it more than once since I really did think it was intersesting.

All in all that one copy would have probably resulted in more than 10,000 people hearing about the book being out via my efforts, a couple of shares, and some retweets

So by being slightly disorganized  or thoughtless what the publisher/author really did was mess up a whole lotta attention I would have given the book because once I blurbed it I had something vested in it.

Moral here - send your blurbers books as thanks and let them know your pub dates.

THE DOCTOR IS IN

I have been struggling with a dental situation which, over the past few weeks, became a crisis and then an emergency, necessitating quantities of antibiotics before a root canal was possible.

I mention this not because it is that unusual or of intrinsic interest, but because I've noted an effect on my creative output (besides just making me stupid and slowing me down, I mean).

On Monday, we had a dress rehearsal for our cabaret performance, which will take place this Sunday evening. As noted here, I have been nervous about my part, but also excited. This week, though, when our teacher gave me some fairly normal direction, I became despondent, apologizing to her for doing such a bad job. She was dumbfounded. She had just been giving me a suggestion.

Then, on Tuesday night, I had my improv class. I didn't even notice, until a classmate pointed out out, that I had created a completely negativistic scene, in which my partner couldn't do anything that pleased my character, and in fact could hardly make contact with me.

I came home and tried to work on a story. The plot seemed too Pollyanna-ish. People wouldn't be that sympathetic in real life. I tried to revise, decided it was garbage and I was untalented and should just give up, and went to sleep.

Today, post-root canal, the world looks different. I'm nervous about my performance, but not pessimistic. I can't believe the drunken, accusatory, isolative spouse I created for my partner to deal with on Tuesday night, and I'm so grateful I didn't do permanent damage to my sweet little story.

It has started me thinking about the impact of transient (or more enduring) mood states on writing. I wonder whether others have had these experiences, and how you have coped with them?

I will be talking more about this, and other topics, on today's Litopia After Dark. Please tune in if you can. And while you're there, check out MJ's recent guest panelist gig, if you haven't already. She's brilliant, as always.

 Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog, and she is a regular guest panelist on Litopia After Dark. She can be reached at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com. 

Hand Yelling Agoraphobics in Love by Lisa Tucker

Say you have an extra 99cents.... say you have a laptop, desktop, iPhone, Droid, iPad, anyother kind of tablet or device that connects to the internet... say you want to read a really wonderful peice of fiction that when it's over will make your heart sing...

 

After the accidental death of her parents, Emily retreated to their home, where she freelances for an online greeting card company and tries to come up with words for feelings she can no longer feel.

Jules climbed his way up to creative director of an advertising agency; he had power, a girlfriend, and a great apartment in New York, when he started having the panic attacks that would leave him in a tiny sublet, unemployed and alone.

But when Emily and Jules both join an online board for agoraphobics, what begins as friendship quickly develops into something much more. Now if only they can find the courage to leave their safety zones and actually meet for the first time. . .

Witty, wistful, and deeply moving, Agoraphobics in Love is an O. Henry story for the twenty-first century.

In sparkling prose, Lisa Tucker perfectly captures the miracle of two lonely people finding each other--and finding their way back to life.

Buy it now here. 

P.S. You know there's a free app  - Kindle for Mac and Kindle for PC - I'm not promoting one format etc over any other but this book is only available in Kindle version.

THE DOCTOR IS IN

A Formula for Those of Us Who Dislike Formulas* 

In my improv class, we are currently studying narrative structure. Last week, our teacher, Rob, handed each of us a piece of paper with the beginning of a sentence written on it. Our task was to go around the circle in order, each of us reading our opening aloud and completing it in a way that moved the story forward. The openings were as follows: 

1. Once upon a time there was a world where...
2. And every day...
3. And every day...
4. Then one day...
5. And because of that...
6. And because of THAT
7. But then...
8. And because of that...
9. And so...
10. And finally... 

After a couple of false starts, we managed to create some credible, if abbreviated, stories. It was fun and interesting to participate in the building of these bare-bones narratives. "You'd be surprised," Rob told us, "how many great stories fit into this template." 

You bet I’d be surprised, I thought. This formula was useful for creating the simplified story lines needed for improv; but great, original narratives can’t be squeezed into a 10-point outline, right? 

For homework that week, we each had to watch a movie and describe it using this template. My assigned movie was “The Shawshank Redemption.” Here’s what I came up with (spoiler alert, obviously): 

Once upon a time there was a world where brutality and corruption ruled. And every day, the more powerful brutalized the helpless. And every day, Red tried to get by without hoping for anything better. Then one day, Andy, who was innocent, intelligent, and the vice president of a bank, was incarcerated. And because of that he helped the guards and the warden with their finances, including corrupt schemes. And because of THAT he was able to use his influence to improve life for all of the prisoners, including Red. But then, evidence of Andy’s innocence surfaced. And because of that, the warden, frightened that he would expose the corruption if he was released, turned against him. And so, Andy escaped, used the embezzled money to flee to Mexico, and did expose the corruption, leading Red to realize that hope can be a positive thing. And finally, Red was released and joined him in Mexico. 

Okay, but come on, this was a simplified movie version of a Stephen King novel. It couldn’t possibly apply to actual literature. 

To prove how impossible it was, I tried it on a few favorites. And look: 

Once upon a time there was a world where orphans were considered less than human. And every day, Mrs. Reed spoiled her own children while treating Jane with contempt. And every day, John Reed played horrendous “tricks” on Jane. Then one day, Jane couldn’t take it anymore, and fought back. And because of that, she was sent to Lowood School, which wasn’t much more brutal than the Reeds’ home. And because of THAT she went to work for Edward, who fell in love with her. But then the brother of Edward’s insane wife exposed him as an attempted bigamist. And because of that, Jane ran away and tried to start a new life, but she realized they were destined for each other. And so the first wife perished in a fire she had started herself, freeing Jane and Edward to marry. And finally they had a baby and lived happily ever after. 

Or what about this: 

Once upon a time there was a world where respectable couples didn’t have sex until they were married, and couldn’t marry without money to live on. And every day, Kate and Merton longed for each other. And every day Kate tried to come up with a scheme that would earn them enough money to marry. Then one day Milly, a rich girl with a serious illness and a crush on Merton, came into their circle. And because of that, Kate figured that Milly was their ticket to marriage. And because of THAT, she convinced Merton to court Milly in the hope that Milly would marry him and then die. But then, Milly found out about the plot and became depressed and died, leaving Merton a lot of money. And because of that, Merton realized that he was in love with Milly after all. And so, overcome with remorse, he refused the bequest and told Kate she could have either him or the money, but not both. And finally they were both miserable and disillusioned. 

(Yes, those sentences are kind of run-on, but consider the source.) 

It gets more complicated when you bring in secondary protagonists—I tried it with Pride and Prejudice, and had to fork it off into parallel narratives, one for Elizabeth and another for Jane, because even though I think of Elizabeth as the “real” MC, the novel couldn’t work structurally (for me) without the Jane/Bingley subplot. And I don’t even want to start thinking about War and Peace. But, truly, this formula is useful not only in creating stories, but in deciding what I think are the most important plot points in existing ones. 

I’ve been running some old stories that don’t work through this Formulator™, and it’s making it easier for me to identify weaknesses: I haven’t made the world of the story clear enough; the “but then” comes too early or too late; the cause and effect sequence is muddled. And I plan to use it to outline new stories, too. Amazing. 

*Thanks to Rob Schiffmann at Chicago City Limits for this template, and for being a great teacher generally!

 Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog, and she is a regular guest panelist on Litopia After Dark. She can be reached at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com. 

 

 

 

 

THE DOCTOR IS IN

Confidence Confidential

 My musical theater class, like my original singing class, has an end-of-term cabaret night, but the bar is considerably higher in this class. Martha, my previous teacher, took care to make the occasion as low-key and stress-free as possible. She referred to the evening as the “final class,” and insisted that it really was just a class; the difference was that we invited our friends and family and brought food.

This is different. It’s held on a different night from our regular class, in one of the school’s theaters, and wine and hors d’oeuvres are served. The entire school community is invited. I’m terrified.

This week was our last chance to bring in new songs; for the next two weeks we will each work to perfect 2 songs that we’ve sung in class before and that Lorraine, our teacher, feels are performance-ready. I had already gotten the nod for “All of Me,” but both she and I were a little uneasy about Jimmy Roberts and June Siegel’s “What Did I Do Right?” because I have a hard time getting through it without tearing up. I decided to work on “Summertime,” because I love the song, and also because it’s emotionally challenging—the melancholy melody runs counter to the optimistic lyrics, and it’s necessary to weave hope and despair together without going over the top in either direction. 

I worked on it using Uta Hagen’s six questions, talking it through like a monologue, and then singing it, to a baby doll. I sang it (sans baby doll) at a party last week, and it was well received. So I brought it in this week. 

When I was done, Lorraine said, “That’s fine. It will work. I have only one note—you move your head sometimes for emphasis, and it distracts from the emotion of the song.” 

I sat down, crushed. She had been spending a great deal of time with other singers, blocking their every step, having them repeat a line over and over until she was satisfied. I felt I must have screwed up in a way I didn’t understand, to be passed over like that. 

Afterward, I went out with Florrie and Beth, two close friends from Martha’s class who moved up with me. “So,” I demanded, “what isn’t she saying?” 

They had no idea what I meant. “How bad was it,” I said, “that she couldn’t think of anything to say? Really, I can take it.” 

“What the hell are you talking about?” Beth responded. “You sounded good. The song was terrific. She liked it; you’re in the lineup. What more do you want?” 

It hadn’t occurred to me that Lorraine had said it was fine because it was, well, fine. Not even for a second. 

This led to a long discussion about how the default assumption, for all three of us, is that our work is inadequate. I can see how talented Beth and Florrie are, and their hesitations surprise me—as does the fact that they feel the same way about me. We talked about childhood experiences that sapped our early confidence; about punitive parents and teachers; about our own inner judges. We were all in tears at certain points. 

We agreed to remind each other regularly of our gifts, our promise, and our courage. I feel blessed to have such friends. I know their support has already made a great difference in the way I view my work, and I plan to make sure they know how great I think they are, on a daily basis.

 Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog, and she is a regular guest panelist on Litopia After Dark. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.