Tag Archives: writing

Creativity, Resistance

Hating Harry Potter

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no potterI have never liked the Harry Potter series. There are two key truths related to this admission. One is simply about timing: for legitimate, if not rational, reasons, the theme of the first book reminded me of some then-recent trauma; thus a kind of guilt by association led me to hate the entire franchise. The second truth is this: I have never read the books. Nor have I watched the movies, despite being trapped in a houseful of relatives who were marathon-watching the DVDs on some Christmas past.

I am not proud of this. It makes me the worst kind of critic, declaring my disdain for an artist whose work I have never actually seen.

Sometimes I exhibit a stubborn resistance to hype, refusing to see the latest blockbusters, even if they interest me. I am usually willing to watch those movies later, when I can watch them via Netflix or Amazon Prime, rent the DVDs for a couple dollars, or borrow them, free, from the library. I even allow myself to enjoy them. (One notable exception is “Titanic.” I’d gladly pay full ticket price to have those three hours back.)

But hating Harry Potter was neither a product of bitter envy nor a rage against the Hollywood machine; it was something that anchored itself in my worldview as immutable. And a fixed worldview is a dangerous thing.

I have been working—or rather, not working—at allowing myself space to create, giving voice to whatever inspiration shows up, in whatever form. The strongest desire is usually to write, though I have been doing precious little of that, as I always seem to have at least one foot in the quicksand of self-doubt. However, once I begin keeping appointments with my muse, perhaps by writing a blog post without worrying whether it will move anyone but me, I find myself curious about the process. Not about my process, but about the process itself, which means I become curious about how other people show up at the page, and more importantly, how they keep showing up.

Eventually, this curiosity turns to wondering how long one must appease the muse before the magic shows up. And last weekend, as I wondered about the magic, I thought about how I might be able to learn a thing or two from J. K. Rowling, if I could allow some flexibility in my worldview.

I stealthily retrieved my wife’s copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone from our family room bookcase and carried it into my office. Still resisting the idea of reading it, I placed the book on my desk, next to my computer, with the intention of typing the first few paragraphs of the story, to see if it evoked any kind of somatic response.

The book sat there, untouched for four days, but not unnoticed.

SUZIN: Harry Potter? Really? (grinning) Huh.

This afternoon, after meditating on the creative process, I picked up the book and sat down in a comfortable chair to discover how it all started. Except the last line of the first paragraph—which, incidentally, I did not type (until now)—was, “And he also happened to be a wizard.”

I knew enough about the story to know this was not how it started, so I flipped back to the cover page: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the third book in the series. It was in the wrong book jacket! Recalling that one of the Rowling books on our shelf was missing a jacket, I returned to the bookcase. The naked copy was book six, which sat alongside books four, five, and seven, each in its respective jacket.

Unbelievable. I am finally open to the possibility of Harry Fucking Potter, and I can’t find it. Perhaps this is the message from J. K. Rowling: “Tell your own story.”

After deciding there was no way I was going to the library to check it out, I headed to Yountville to satisfy my craving for an almond croissant from Bouchon. And since the bakery is just up the street from the Yountville Library, and I had never been to that branch…

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was not among the 273 books in the Yountville branch, but Patricia Ryan Madson’s Improv Wisdom was, and I had been meaning to pick it up again. Madson’s first maxim is “Say yes.”

Say yes to everything. Accept all offers. Go along with the plan. Support someone else’s dream. Say “yes”; “right”; “sure”; I will”; “okay”; “of course”; “YES!” Cultivate all the ways you can imagine to express affirmation. When the answer to all questions is yes, you enter a new world, a world of action, possibility, and adventure. (p. 27)

When I got home, I asked my stepdaughter if she happened to have Harry Potter on the bookshelf in her room. She brought it to me, and I said, “Yes.”

Did you have opportunities to say yes today? And did you?

Choices, Resistance

Shhh… Somebody Might Hear You

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shhhFor as long as I can remember, people have told me that I am a talented singer and a gifted writer. When I run into friends I haven’t seen for years, one of the first things they ask is, “Are you still singing?” If they know that I have been published, then “Are you still writing?” invariably follows.

I could say, “I’m writing excuses for not singing,” and kill two birds with one stone, but I’d be lying about the writing part. Mostly. Plus I sang the national anthem at a Super Bowl party to the appreciation of a lot of new friends who had never heard me sing—another dozen or so people who will ask, “Are you still singing?” every time we meet until the end of days.

The truth is that I love to sing. I have performed alone, in school choirs, in madrigal choirs, and in small local bands. I have sung for weddings, for memorial services, in musicals, on karaoke nights, and in the classroom, to the surprise and delight of my students.

I also love to write. Or rather, I love to have written. Poetry, short stories, articles, essays, blog posts, tweets, letters, and funny one-liners. In my early 30s, I combined my love of music and words into songwriting and created eight or nine demos over the course of about two years.

And still, I can never give a definitive, “Yes!” to either of those two questions.

I have declined some invitations to sing because I’m afraid I’ll forget the lyrics, and I have accepted others and then done just that. After Christina Aguilera’s performance at the actual Super Bowl, my new fans included, “And you even remembered the words!” in their praise. Smugness is cruel: I knew exactly how Christina felt.

My fear of writing—because surely it is fear—is that I will have nothing interesting to say. I can talk a good game about how it doesn’t matter, that writing is about the process, and that I only need to write about what is interesting to me, but when it comes down to facing the blank page, I see it only as a reflection of my mind: blank. I have nothing to say right now. I will have nothing to say five minutes from now. I will NEVER have ANYTHING to say.

We can now say things like, “Our beliefs create our realities,” in public, without having people exchange knowing glances behind our backs. The idea that our attitudes and intentions affect our lives has reached our collective consciousness. That said, as I write this, I am home, sick with a cold that has stolen my voice; teaching middle school is challenging enough on days that I can speak.

Let’s revisit two of my fears and throw in one of my persistent beliefs:

“I’m afraid I’ll forget the words.”
“I have nothing interesting to say.”
“My students don’t listen to me.”

Interesting.

I credit Diane D.M. Solis for bringing me to the page today. After I read her post, Life is Always Teaching Us…Something, it occurred to me: Talking is not an option right now, but silence is a choice. If I don’t honor the still, small voice within, it will stop singing, too. And that would be tragic.

Now it’s your turn. Where are you holding back because of what someone else might think? What things do you dismiss simply because they come easily to you? And, of course: What is the one thing you would do if you knew you could not fail?

Do it anyway.

Choices

Starstruck

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starstruckI am not one to gush at celebrities. People are people, and I respect others’ right to privacy, unlike my daughter’s friend, who all but lost bladder control when David Beckham came into her workplace. That said, I am intrigued by actors, and by knowing who appeared with whom in what. It fascinates me how often I rent two movies, sometimes from different genres and filmed years apart, and see the same character actor in both. When he or she shows up on CSI: Anywhere, a day or two later, I buy a lottery ticket.

I don’t worry about the meaning of life, but I have spent many a sleepless night wondering, “What is her name?” or, “Where have I seen him before?” Not only does the Internet Movie Database prove the interconnectedness of everything; it also keeps me off Ambien.

I am hardly the first one to suggest this celluloid-channeled-coincidence. It’s been two decades since the concept of six degrees of separation—that on the average, any two people in the world are separated by six social connections—became the six degrees of Kevin Bacon. Until last weekend, however, I’d never turned to IMDB to investigate any connection to my own life.

When I checked in for a writers’ retreat, I recognized a name on the list as someone I’d searched several months ago. Despite my clear memory of having looked up her name, I could neither picture her face nor remember what had prompted the search. I consulted the IMDB app on my Android. Yes, her face seemed familiar, and I have seen several of the things listed in her filmography, but nothing hinted at why I so distinctly remembered her name.

Given my celebrities-are-just-people stance, I was mortified when my response to her sitting next to me at our retreat kickoff was an overwhelming desire to gush, “You got to work with Nora Ephron!” or, “You have such a cool job!” I said neither of these things, nor did I say, “I know who you are,” because (1) see right to privacy, above, and (2) it is rude to suggest that you know who somebody is because you have seen their resume. Plus, you know that feeling you get when you meet someone for the first time and you feel like you’ve known that person forever? Right. Stalking.

She introduced herself to our group as both an actress and a published novelist, and I realized that it was not a movie that originally prompted me to search IMDB; it was the bio on her web site, where I had landed after visiting her blog, where I had landed after visiting two or three writing sites recommended by someone on Twitter, who had undoubtedly retweeted something by Kevin Bacon.

Later, she told me that her 10-year-old forbids her to wear anything with stripes when she picks her up from school and asked if she would please “not smile so big” when she runs into friends. In other words, she has a perfectly typical relationship with her daughter. When I finally confessed the I-looked-you-up-on-IMDB thing, she asked if I thought it could have been a precognition that we would meet, which led to an interesting metaphysical discussion. And yes, she felt like she knew me, too.

We shape our lives with each choice we make. The difference between waking up famous and waking up FAMOUS can be as simple as the difference between majoring in acting instead of business administration. Choose with your heart, and once in a while, give yourself permission to be starstruck.

Kudos: In 2007, Kevin Bacon created SixDegrees.org, “social networking with a social conscience,” where people can support charitable organizations. Go Kevin!