How To Cure New Year's Eve Blues

I despise New Years Eve because I always get a major case of the blues. I find myself taking stock of all the things I did wrong during the year that has just passed. Usually, I follow the great guru, Yogi Berra, who said, "When I strike out, I think about the next home run," but on New Year's Eve, a black depression sneaks in, a kind of coulda-woulda-shoulda obsessive listing of every snafu which I usually have to talk myself out of. First I list my sins, then I try to talk myself into finding a positive aspect or a lesson learned. In other words, I make lemons into lemonade. This doesn't always work the first time, but if I am persistent, and drink some Champagne, I can usually talk myself out of being depressed. While this is a great exercise for us writers, we are not the important ones here, it's our characters, so try it out and let me know.

New Year's Eve
1. Select the worst thing that happened to your character.
2. Writing in the first person voice as if you were your main character, describe the event as it unfolded.
3. Set a timer for 5 minutes.
4. Writing as if you were your main character, describe what was the worst thing about the event.
5. Reset the timer for 5 minutes.
6. Writing as if you were your main character, describe a positive aspec of the same event, and then, what "you" learned from it.
7. Repeat the process for the villain or obstacle, using a similar type of event.

Good luck, and I hope that in 2011, all of your dreams come true and that you find new ones.

Happy New Year!

Happy Holidays to all!

I hope everyone who reads my blog is having a good holiday season. This wish is different than the normal pablum because all events can be helpful to writers. For us writers, a good holiday season is not only a pleasant and abundant one, but also one full of new material to inspire our work in the New Year, and I wish you one of those with all of my heart.

I personally am having what many would consider a difficult time because of death and illness within the family. People comment on my strength and calm in the face of all this turmoil. As a fellow writer, I wanted to share how it is that I can remain so focused:

All these years of writing, teaching and coaching have given me a different perspective about life. I have come to understand that each of us experiences life as if it were a movie, and that while we don't control life, we can control our perception and hence our responses to the things that happen.

In the midst of trauma, I still find myself so fascinated by the people involved and their responses that I find myself constantly taking note; which is how I remain calm.

This notetaking process doesn't distance me from what is going on, but allows me to participate in life on my own terms and do my job. I am a writer, and it's my moral responsibility to understand the human condition, whether happy or sad, so that I can help others to do so.

For example, at a recent funeral, I watched the grieving wife respond in such a way that it seemed she was acting out the role, not actually experiencing her own feelings. Her expressions of her loss were such utter platitudes that were so general she could have been talking about anyone, not the special person that she had lost. Her speech at the eulogy had no detail that supported the idea that the departed loved one had a personality, much less a name. The speech was all about her. This intrigued me, especially because I knew that she did care for the departed. I found myself (in between bouts of tears) rewriting her generic comments into specifics, and was somehow able to connect to my own particular feelings, and also to create a new character for my next project! Out of sorrow comes creativity if you can walk this road.

Exercise:

1.Think about the relationship between your main character and the villain or obstacle.
2.Set a timer for 10 minutes.
3.Write a brief eulogy as your main character for the villain or obstacle.
4. Reset a timer for 10 minutes
5.Write a brief eulogy as your villain or obstacle for the main character

Have a wonderful holiday season, and take notes.

Remember: Don't get it right, get it written!

What is your main character's wedding dance?

I danced with my teacher, Tim, tonight at Fred Astaire studios. There was a couple preparing for their wedding dance, a waltz to a song whose refrain was "And you're my best friend." Tim and I danced a hustle to Bad Romance by Lady Gaga -- Tim said, " I guess that would be our wedding song." We laughed, and Tim asked me what the main characters in my novel would choose. I'm still thinking about what my female lead would choose, but my male lead would pick the song, Nothing Else Matters by Metallica, and the dance would be a tango.

What would your main character's choose?

It is what it is

Emerson wrote, "It's not death we fear but the dying." My mother who is ill asked me, "Why is it so hard to die?" and my father who is very ill told my brother, " I wish I could take some poison and die." Dying is part of the life experience and not the fun part. How would your characters answer such a question, and if they wanted to die, how would they want to go?

My main character would say, " Who cares? Typical of God to make it such a big deal," and " How would I want to die? Fast."

The second lead, the love interest would say, "I don't know, but it's part of the reason I'm not a believer. How would I want to die? In the arms of a beautiful woman after being intimate."

What would your characters answer?

Trick for Improving Your Third Act

A producer at Showbiz told me a story about how he worked on a script about a couple who were falling apart and how they teamed up to prevent a crime -- but the script kept falling apart at the end of Act 2 -- then they had the idea of giving the couple a young child who is placed in jeopardy and the couple has to abandon the crime and focus on saving their child. By having the two elements, saving the child and preventing the crime connect and overlap, the producer and writer were able to create a profound climax. Because the couple were willing to do anything to save their child, they were rewarded by also being able to prevent the crime.

By giving your characters strong moral challenges, you will always be able to raise the quality of a story and give it more universal relevance.