www.andrewmackay.net:

I think that’s why I go back to him so often. As a writer, I find that Churchill often succinctly explains a personality tendency in a way that helps me to write characters that suffer from that ailment more accurately. Take this one:

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile—hoping it will eat him last.

That’s true! And it really boils it down. And it makes it easy to take the motivation of an appeaser and understand what he’s doing and how it’s going to bite him in the rear.

Good ol’ Winnie. Always a good way to start your Monday.

Way behind on writing blog posts… so for today, I’m taking advantage of the “it’s the internet, use a cat” principle. Be distracted.

I love movies and tv shows that feature great dialogue. Aaron Sorkin (he wrote that movie at left, along with The Social Network, Money Ball, the West Wing, Sports Night, and others) has made a career of writing snappy dialogue.

I feel like we hear less and less really good dialogue around us, though. We’re very willing to render ourselves less articulate through whatever means happens to be prevalent. Right now, I think the quality of dialogue is being impacted by the Facebook effect (that is, that everything that happens to me is worth commenting on) as well as by the reduced amount of attention that we pay to rhetoric and discussion.

I lament the loss. I think we’re worse off for it. Wouldn’t it be great to be known as someone who creates great dialogue in real life? I think so. I just wish there was a structured, easy way to get there.

The thing about my creative center (or whatever you want to call it) is that it’s not exactly like a horse. In fact, it’s nothing at all like a horse. I’ve never heard a farmer tell a story about the day his trained horse got depressed and stopped pulling its load. My creativity, on the other hand, does that all the time. At the slightest provocation, the work that I’ve been engaged with becomes useless, no good, terrible. A terrifically motivated week can morph into a terribly unmotivated weekend with almost no effort.

Of course, the key to the difference between my creativity and the horse may be the training. The horse is trained to go where the farmer tells him to, that the bit is king. The writer in me is (in spite of much preaching at myself) trained to believe that I have to “feel good” in order to be creative. I have to be having a good day. Nothing can have gone wrong in the course of the day. The minute anything does, I immediately cave on all creative efforts. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.

You couldn’t help but assume that as I write this, I’m having one of those days. That’s totally unfair. How dare you! You assume correctly. I need to reform my creative habits. Like the horse, I need to be disciplined to keep on producing, even when I don’t feel, I don’t know, upbeat.

I’d like to write well enough for my insults to be this good:

George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill:

I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play. Bring a friend. If you have one.

Churchill in reply:

Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second… if there is one.

 

source.

About three years ago, movie rentals became the easiest thing in the world. Between Netflix (unlimited DVDs as long as you keep shipping them back) for about $10 a month (with free streaming as a bonus) and Redbox ($1 a night for new DVDs), whether you wanted to pay as you go or subscribe, you had good options. We watched more movies than we had before.

But, hollywood wants more money. First, new movies were slow in coming to Redbox. Then Netflix fell for the same. Blockbuster launched a Redbox look a like, with new titles at $3 a night, older titles at $1 a night.

Then it got worse: Netflix dropped a pricing bomb on its faithful customers (yours truly included). Prices went up substantially. They lost more subscribers than they gained for the first time. Several other dumb business decisions contributed to that.

Fast forward a couple of months and Redbox decides that they need to take advantage of Netflix’s miscues to raise their prices to $1.20 a night.

Blockbuster took a different tactic: they’ve instituted a three tier pricing system. New movies will be $3 for the first 28 days they’re available. Then, between 28 days and 90 days, they’ll be $2 a day. Then, after 90 days, they’ll be $1.00 a day.

Honestly? The whole thing makes me want to torrent or usenet or something. The rumblings are that studios are trying to move Netflix and Redbox out to 90 days after a movie’s street date.

The thing that they don’t realize is that there’s a persistent decrease in urgency to see their product. It used to be “When is that movie coming out on tape/dvd?” Now, many of us add it to our queue and when it comes around or we walk past in advertised on a Redbox display, we watch it. Movies that are events will continue to be seen in theaters. The rest, we’re willing to consume when they’re available by our preferred delivery mechanism.

Of course, the reality is that their manipulation of the release schedule will work on enough of the population for it to be “worthwhile” for the studios. If only we could all ban together and say “We’re going to treat the cost effective rental availability date like the availability date, we don’t care what you say.” I guess until then, I’ll simply stay frustrated.

So, it tends to start early in my house. I love to watch the Christmas movies that I remember from my childhood in the months leading up to Christmas. Home Alone, Home Alone 2, Miracle on 34th St, The Santa Clause, Trapped in Paradise (if you haven’t seen the last, you probably shouldn’t. It’s apparently not very good. It’s only my nostalgia that lets me see hilarity where it doesn’t exist according to outside arbiters). I love to watch Christmas movies.

I think part of it ties into my adolescence in Puerto Rico. I had a definite thing for sports and movies that displayed snow. My introduction to the NFL had more to do with watching snow games in late November and December than it did with loving the game. I would watch wintry movies and wintry football games and imagine myself in wintry lands.

Do you have a favorite that’s not on my list? I’m always looking to add more. If I could find Holiday Inn (not the lame retread, White Christmas, but the original, Holiday Inn), it’d be on my list of repeats annually. What else should I add?

It’s my sincere hope that this is a scene from some b-grade, ironically dumb movie. If it isn’t, the world just got weirder.

Dramatization - not actually one of my children

I learn a lot from my kids. Lately, I’ve been learning a lot from them about pursuing happiness and pursuing things I want.

We’ll start with the younger of the two, Grace. She’s 6 months old, so she has very few things that she wants. But she’s all about getting the things that make her happy. She cannot crawl yet, but if she sees something across the floor that seems moderately interesting (that is, if she thinks putting it her mouth will be awesome), she rolls, squirms, and forces her way over to it. She can’t be stopped. You can stop her and move her back over to where she’s “supposed” to be. Turn away, and she’ll be rolling her way back over to whatever the object happens to be. (This is why you have to baby proof). She doesn’t second guess, she doesn’t equivocate, she just goes.

Luke, who is 3, is much the same, only more rational about it. There are more things that he “wants” than his sister would list, but his pursuit of it is the same. He asks, he pushes, he does things. If having someone to play with would make him happy, he turns and says “Daddy, would you please play with me?” Sometimes, it’s not even as formal. The game is in his head, and only when my role is announced am I aware that I’m playing. He doesn’t worry about rejection or doing something poorly or anything like that, he just does.

I hope I can learn from that. Even when they’re is something I want (let’s say, being a more disciplined writer), I waffle. I don’t take steps to make it happen. I don’t squirm my way to my goal in the face of resistance. I just cave. I want to be more like my kids, more intentional about reaching out and grabbing things, asking for things, doing things. Little life lessons from little kids.