Psychology

The Humanity Of The Lost Jester

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

Serdar and I often inspire each other in our writings.  Recently he wrote about an amazing column by Nan Robinson that inspired him as a child – which led to me reflecting on my own inspirations.

Some of my influenced quite obvious – for instance I outright admit how I was affected by Sir Terry Pratchett and Grant Morrison.  But I want to reflect on one person who’s writing has guided me, and not any science fiction or fantasy writing.  I want to discuss author and humor columnist Dave Barry.

Yes, Mr. Barry has done some fantasy with such things as his Peter Pan based works, but read on.  I take inspiration in his earliest work – humor columns.

Mr. Barry began writing his humorous observational humor between 1981 and 1983, and I encountered him in the mid 1980s.  He mixed wordplay, humor, silliness, and a real humanity to his writing.  From birth to home ownership, strange local events to political frustrations he was accessible, funny, and often on the ball in his observations.  Barry would joke, but his jokes were very real, the humor of relatability.

His  humor style influenced my own – more than I often let out (and there’s a lesson there).  But now let me note as much as his humor inspired me, what really, really got to me, reached me, was when things stopped being funny.

Barry wrote about the death of his father and his decision to keep his last contact simple, because his father should die on his own terms.  He took a trip to Japan, and reflected on Hiroshima, the remembrance ceremonies, and he tried to capture what he as an American felt.  Barry could write about unfunny things, with all the humanity of his humorous efforts.

Much as I find good comedians can be good actors, what made him funny allowed him to be damned serious.

Most of all, I’ll remember his reflections on visiting Graceland, home of Elvis.  It was a column called “Hearts That Are True,” and you can find it in his book Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up (published 1994).  He went to Graceland, met with fans, and figured there would be something fun to write about

You could tell he thought it would be amusing.  Talk to the Elvis camping around the gates, look at the kitchy décor of Graceland, have some fun.  Very quickly, he found there wasn’t anything to laugh over.

He found passionate fans.  People who really loved Elvis.  Fans who mourned his death, sad he died in such an undignified manner.  Folks who had memories of seeing the singer, and good times with their friends.  People who you could tell wish they could have helped.

Barry heard Elvis’ songs everywhere, a reminder he was a pretty damn good singer.  Yeah, he had some lousy albums, but there was a lot of really good stuff – and even some of the bad albums at least had Elvis.  Let me say that a good listen to ‘Burning Love,” a really good listen will remind you why he was the King.

The humor columnist toured Graceland.  Sure, it was overdone and kitschy, but so what?  Elvis didn’t aspire to be some society guy collecting art or putting on pretentions of culture.  He lived and partied with his riches, but his excesses seemed weirdly human – even flying a plane to get that awesome sandwich.

And so you had Dave Barry, brilliant columnist, truly hilarious person, with nothing to laugh about.  He was there in a place of excess and fanatic fandom, exploring a colorful figure like Elvis, and there wasn’t anything funny to say.

The sheer humanity of that column hit me hard, Barry put you in touch with the fans, the feelings.  He also outright admitted there was nothing to laugh at.  If anything the joke was him and his own confidence he could find laughs.

So the humor columnist found the joke was on him.  And he turned it into a column that was one of his best, one that still sticks with me.  It’s a column of such quality I wish I could write something that good.

It’s decades since I encountered Dave Barry, his jokes about lawnmowers and pop-tarts, and I still want to be like him, writing about Elvis.  I still hope I can reach people like he reached me.

Steven Savage

Eyes Off The Prize

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

Serdar and I have been making various posts about writing and focus.  He recently discussed the importance of writing systems – that they can be more important than goals.  I’d like to add that goals can get in your way.

The problem with goals is that they’re distractions from reaching them.

Big goals, elaborate plans, fantasies of success can occupy your mind so often you don’t actually put pen to paper or finger to keyboard.  It’s easy to spin off into what could be, what might be, and never get there.  Many a book is unwritten as people stop at the idea and don’t get to the making it real.

Future hopes can also lead to hopelessness.  You can feel you’ll never get there, that you’re not worthy, that you aren’t up to the task.  That keeps you from doing anything including, well, actually writing.

Finally, goals and hopes can lead you to planning, and documenting, and the like but never actually starting.  It’s easy to get lost in planning and outlines and charts and never do the work.  It might even be comforting.

Want to know what works?  Doing the actual task.  Dreams and plans do not do your writing.  Only writing does writing.  This is not to say you shouldn’t have big dreams and even bigger plans.  What you have to do is take time to forget them and do the job.

This is where writing practices and systems come into play.  Yes they may require you to set goals, but they also break down your work into deliverables you can actually do and then you do them.  If you write an hour a day, great, then you write no matter what.  If you have an elaborate outline of scenes you can write each scene without worrying about anything else.

The best way to reach your writing goals is to stop thinking about them.  Any good writing system, any good writing practice, will help you get time to forget why you’re writing so you can do your writing.

Steven Savage

Five Words To Victory

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

Serdar’s latest book (which I assure is a doozy) is a challenging one for him to write.  It’s the kind of challenge where writing it requires trusting yourself, as he notes in this blog post.  As he explores this need for self-trust – a factor he and I have both written on – he said something tangential that is very important in facing challenges:

“That said, every single time I’ve started to work on a project on a sentence-by-sentence basis, as opposed to all the plotting and planning I’ve made ahead of time, the sentence-by-sentence work is what brought everything together.”

These words reminded me of a rule I’ve heard again and again – when facing a challenge, break down your work enough that you find something you can do in five minutes then do it.  That lets you get going, take a step towards your goal – and possibly figure what to do for the next five minutes.  String together enough five minutes and you’re done.

At the start of a project things look insurmountable.  You doubt you can do it, but five minutes is all you need to realize maybe you can.

You can do this as writing as well when you’re not sure you can do a particular work.  You don’t have to write for five minutes on a project you’re not sure of – try five words.  Then five sentences, even if you have to do it five words at a time.  Then maybe five paragraphs.  Then, well, see how far you can go.

You don’t have to use what you’ve written.  You’ll almost certainly change it, edit it, or even throw it the hell out.  But at least you’ve got something to explore what you want to make and figure out how to do it.

But you have to start with those five words.

Most success is due to momentum.  You don’t really know what you have to do to complete a book or any other writing project.  You just have a start, a finish, and maybe a vague roadmap if that.  Even if you have a detailed plan it is going to change as you write and make discoveries about your work. 

So you might as well start with something small, like five words.

Steven Savage