The Best Me

One of the Brave Ones: An Interview with Wylie

Betty’s Bees Set from Pushing Daisies

On my facebook homepage the last several weeks I noticed a few posts advertising a new pilot for a TV show to air this Friday night. It’s Mockingbird Lane – a re-imagining of the 1960’s blue-collar monster show, The Munsters.

I don’t watch much TV, so the only reason I looked twice at the posts was because of who was posting. He’s an old friend who usually makes terrifically sarcastic comments, someone I’d last seen in Ann Arbor years ago, and who I had heard was working in Hollywood now.

One of his comments beneath a Mockingbird Lane post said something like, “Hey, watch this show so I can feed my kids. I mean, my step-kids. Okay, there are no kids. Watch the show so I can buy watercraft.” A click or two taught me that my old friend, Michael Wylie, is an Emmy Award winning Production Designer. I’m embarrassed to admit this. I knew Emmy meant gorgeous dresses and famous people, but I had no idea what a Production Designer was.

A couple more clicks and I got the idea that Michael, who goes by Wylie, is doing some really interesting creative work. Since we used to hang out together in downtown Flint at the Copa nightclub, and in Ann Arbor as college kids back in the late 80’s, I figured, why not message Wylie to see if he’d be interested in doing an interview. Within minutes he replied, “Hey Shap. Sounds fun.”

That’s really all it took to get into Hollywood.

Ways of Understanding

Wyoming – Beautiful and Vast

It’s fascinating to me how I can have all the essential ingredients for a post like today’s (those primary ingredients, in this case, being interview responses from poet and author Lesléa Newman) and still spend days trying to figure out just how to get started. Not for a lack of ideas, but from an overabundance.

I’ve spent the past few days running through a list of relevant themes (from “understanding” to “empathy” to “compassion” to “belonging”) and each seems to warrant consideration. Each seems to demand it’s own place, not just in today’s post, but in several.

Late last night, after I’d been in bed reading for awhile, I finally decided to shape today’s blog around empathy and compassion. Of course, this morning, that changed a bit, after I spent an hour working on my YA novel, Mr. Bones. I’d finally gotten to a new chapter, to a new scene – one in which the protagonist (Gabe) and his best friend (Swatch) and their sworn enemy (Tyler) discuss the classic novel Of Mice and Men while working on a group project for school.

Unbeknownst to me, Swatch had come to a conclusion on her own about Steinbeck’s characters. She stated that nearly all the characters in the book wanted a piece of land to call their own. That theme is presented in the very first chapter – as George and Lennie discuss their shared dream (the “American Dream,” as it’s been called), but in many ways Swatch asserts it’s really just a human dream – when George says that “Someday . . . we’re gonna have a little house and a couple acres an’ a cow and some pigs and–” Lennie interrupts, “An’ live off the fatta the lan’ . . . An’ have rabbits.” I’ve always been especially drawn to that scene because it so deftly conveys Lennie’s childlike aspirations in the context of the much larger dream, one that, as Swatch pointed out to me and Gabe and Tyler this morning, is shared by most of the characters in the novel.

But, Swatch also suggested that the dream of being independent, of having something to call their own, might have also been written by Steinbeck to represent an even more basic human need (not shelter, but the need to belong to something larger than yourself).

Be Here Now: An Interview With Anthony Heald

Anthony Heald as Shylock Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Anthony Heald as Shylock at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

This week, we have the privilege and the pleasure of interviewing actor Anthony Heald (though, if you meet him, he’ll tell you to call him Tony).

Tony’s an acclaimed and respected actor (appreciated by his peers for his talent, his professionalism, but also for the consideration he shows them, and for his ability to make them better through the choices he makes). For the past 35 years he’s been involved in entertaining in just about every medium – from theatre, to film, to episodic television shows, to audio books. As a matter of fact, he’s recorded over 60 audio-books and is considered by some to be “the voice of Star Wars.”

His comments, though especially relevant to thespians, are every bit as relevant to anyone who wants to be authentic (you know, the “you deep at the center of your being” to whom Confucius alluded, the “you” many of us never quite get around to being).

American Witch & Poet, Annie Finch: An Interview

Annie Finch

I first met Annie Finch in 2003 through her book of poetry, Calendars. I bought the book because one of the epigraphs was a line by the poet Louise Bogan who I was also reading and loving at the time. That summer I brought Calendars and Bogan’s The Blue Estuaries with me and my 4 young children to my sister’s island cottage in Canada.

To be honest, I found I couldn’t “understand” the work of either of these poets, but this is what returned me to them every afternoon when my toddler napped. I learned quickly that reading Finch or Bogan at night, with my flashlight, my 3 year old tucked into my side, didn’t work.

My sister had a young daughter at the time too. Once all of the kids were in bed, we didn’t want to make any noise that might wake any of them. Our days, weeks, and months, the first of more than a decade of summers there, were cherished but exhausting. And I believe something about the setting – the hundreds of forested acres, the isolation, bathing in the lake, two women and many kids, and the absence of technology, of a hair dryer, of a washing machine, a telephone, an oven, men – opened me to the wild feminine pulsing through the poems.

Uncovering the Layers of Your Truth

Reflective Writing Can Help You Understand Yourself In Unexpected Ways

Award-winning author K.L. Going discovered that writing allows you to work through some things you may have never even imagined you needed to work through.

Below are a few additional questions and answers we had for Going as a follow-up to the blog post we made last Sunday.

TBM: Do you see writing or creatively expressing yourself as healing (if so, how)?

KL: I do, but I find it interesting that writing often heals me in ways I didn’t realize I needed healing. When I set out to write a novel, I have a specific emotional theme I want to tackle – the main plot – and this is consciously chosen. But what comes out underneath – the subplots – most often come out of my subconscious and sometimes it takes years before I can look back and see how incredibly relevant they were to my life at that time.

Fat Kid - Troy Billings in a Diner

TBM: We focus on art and creativity not because we believe everyone needs to become an artist, but because we believe expressing yourself creatively (in whatever form that takes) can help people work through problems. Writing, for example, is a gentle way to work through a problem, but as your novels show it’s also a generous way because you’re providing something to the world.

Did you set out to explore the “emotional landscape” of being different and of self-consciousness? And if so, did you go into it with an awareness that it was something you’d struggled with?

KL: Yes, I definitely set out to explore this theme consciously, but I purposely exaggerated it for effect. At least, I thought I did!

As I wrote, the voice and tones of the novel felt so hugely disproportionate, and I thought I’d end up toning it way down, but when it was done, it fit. Perfectly.

The awareness of how the novel connects to me personally was there as a kernel of thought, but it has grown and changed over time.

TBM: How did it feel writing about a character who, as you say, mirrored yourself with regards to self-consciousness – not just when you had your epiphany, but even before that, did you notice any changes going on emotionally or mentally about how you felt toward or perceived yourself?

Fat Kid - Troy Billings Discovering Himself on Drums

KL: Honestly, I don’t remember feeling changed at the time of writing. I’ve been more changed by the act of publishing. Writing is private, but sharing your work is public. It is tremendously scary if you’re the type of person who is shy or worries a lot, or feels personally affected by other people’s opinions. I’ve found publishing to be an emotional roller-coaster, and it takes a lot of strength and conscious effort to maintain your solid inner core – to enjoy the highs and ride-out the lows, and not let any of them define you or your work.

The act of sharing my creations has strengthened me as a person and made me aware of what I most value in my life. What will endure regardless of whether I’m in the presence of praise or criticism? Who am I? Who loves me no matter what? What will I do with my life on this planet that can make a positive difference?

This is exactly Troy’s journey in Fat Kid Rules the World. He reaches the point where the worst, most humiliating thing happens, and yet he still has to go on. He has to find out exactly what I’ve had to find out . . . Who he is. Who loves him. What will he do with his one amazing life that will make a difference?

So, yes, there have been a lot of changes in my self-perception since I wrote this book. Writing helps you to define the things you already know but haven’t consciously unearthed. First the knowledge is just a secret, silent hope, and then you gradually give it voice. And then you spend years uncovering the layers of your truth.

How about you? Do you have a secret, silent hope you might gradually give voice to?

As mentioned in our previous post, Going’s novel has been made into a movie starring Billy Campbell and Jacob Wysocki. Check out the last days of their Kickstarter project as they try to raise money to bring the movie to more people.

To read the original post inspired by Going, click here. And to read the entire interview, click here.

Reflective Writing photo credit – swimparallel
Fat Kid Rules the World movie stills by Laurie Clarke

June 7, 2012 By Dave Leave a Comment Filed Under: Inspiration, Imagination, Innovation, Interviews Tagged With: Fat Kid Rules the World, healing through writing, KL Going, Reflective Writing, subconscious hope

Author K.L. Going, Self-Consciousness, and the Power of Writing

“I never learned hate at home, or shame. I had to go to school for that.
I was about seven years old when I got my first big lesson. . . . It was
on  a Thursday. I was sitting in the back of the room, in a seat with a
chalk circle drawn around it. The idiot’s seat, the trouble-makers’ seat.”
~ from “Shame” by Dick Gregory

A Novel About Overcoming Self-Consciousness and Finding Yourself Along the Way

We don’t begin our lives with prejudices or judgements (about others or about ourselves). Kids don’t start out feeling ashamed or self-conscious. These are traits we sometimes grow into over time. According to Psychology Today, we can learn a lot from kids with regards to self-consciousness and many other things.

We can also learn a lot from ourselves!

And that’s one of the benefits of writing that many people don’t know about. It’s one of the facts The Best Me hopes to awaken you to.

We don’t expect everyone to want to write a memoir or a novel or a book of poetry. But sometimes writing allows us to get closer to ourselves. It allows us to give voice to feelings and thoughts that might not otherwise ever be given their due place or consideration. Emotions and ideas that ebb and flow inside us, that affect us on a variety of levels, often without our ever being aware until afterwards.

Self-consciousness is not just a teen phase! The “spotlight effect” – the idea that everyone’s looking at you – though commonly experienced by adolescents is, it seems, part of the human condition.

In a paper on the spotlight effect that appears in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the authors write: “Most of us stand out in our own minds. Whether in the midst of a personal triumph or an embarrassing mishap, we are usually quite focused on what is happening to us, its significance to our lives, and how it appears to others.” And, to varying degrees, we also tend to think that others are equally focused on what is happening to us.

There are many factors that can contribute to a feeling of self-consciousness and, at times, to a hyper-awareness of just how different you might seem to be from other people. It’s not something that only so called “freaks” or “failures” feel. Successful people, beautiful people, “well-adjusted” people often feel self-conscious. Author K.L. Going has felt that way much of her life. And she’s created a character, in Troy Billings, protagonist of her award-winning and widely popular novel Fat Kid Rules the World, who embodies that characteristic.

We believe a few of the reasons Going’s novel speaks to so many people is because, in one way or another, Troy offers us a mirror through which we see some part of ourselves.

Although writing the story forced Going to put herself out there in a number of ways, she seems to have had an epiphany as a result, one she may not have had otherwise, which is just one way writing can heal.