Rosie & Her Ball

Insight from Syd Field

Here's some of what I've been mulling over from two of Syd Field's books. Many of these direct quotes could address issues of life as well.

From The Screenwriter's Problem Solver:

The art of problem solving is really the art of recognition.

A problem becomes the fuel for creativity.

You either view it [a problem] as an obstacle or an opportunity; either a problem is something that doesn't work, or an opportunity for you to move up to another level. It's up to you.

There are no problems only opportunities.

If you don't pay attention to that little "itch" that soft "fuzzy" feeling, the chances are [the problem] could evolve into a much larger problem later on.

To, me writing is all about asking questions and then waiting for answers. The answers will always be there and in most cases will reveal themselves in a totally unexpected way. That's part of the wonder of the writing process.

What you try that doesn't work always shows you what does work.

The first thing you need to do to clarify and define the problem is to put it into context, a window, so you can outline the parameters of whatever it is that's not working.

Ask yourself what [is not working] [because] what implies a specific response. [why gives you 18 different reasons].

If you created the problem, you can solve it. Therefore, you have to look inside yourself for the answers. All you have to do is look for it. Trust yourself. ... just know you'll get it.

The only way to really approach the problem, whatever it might be, is to think of it as a rewrite.


From The Screenwriters' Workbook:

"Nothing is as strong as nature," he observed. "The force of nature is what drives that little wildflower right through the rock." Then, as we continued walking he said, "learning is being able to see the relationship, the connections, between things."

Anton Checkov's play Three Sisters: "The principle thing in life is its form. That which loses its form, ends itself, and it's the same with our daily existence."

The laws of nature are so simple it's hard to see them. In order to do so, we have to rise above our level of complexity and understanding.

The hardest thing about writing is knowing what to write.

Sometimes it's difficult to separate point of view from attitude.

Sometimes it's necessary to take something apart in order to put it back together.

The collision between a character's dreams and reality generates conflict.

Many times, a person's character, psychologists say, is reflected in the search for the father, but in reality, it is really searching for your own true nature. Often, a person searches for their destiny as their destiny is searching for them.

The second hardest thing [about writing] is figuring out the best way to write it.
What happens? What happens next? What happens then? These are magic words as they will spur new thoughts and ideas into the creative process.

Because if you don't know, who does?

Important Decision

"What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make." -- Jane Goodall

Martha Graham

"There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."

Broken Down from storypeeps studio

Amargosa Opera House

Just seeing a documentary about Marta Beckett and her beloved opera house inspired me to keep going a time when I'd been ready to give in to illness. This silver fox is a professional ballet dancer and choreographer and painter who's still performing on toe and producing beautiful works! If you are boo-hooing over your current lack of fame and notoriety or inability to meet your iconic standards by X age (which you've just passed ... or perhaps you've long-passed) and yet you still long to do something meaningful and beautiful (if only, if only weren't in your way), then you must become familiar with this woman. If you're worried you won't be able to sustain your level of beauty or creativity much longer and (gasp) then what? -- She'll tune-up your attitude faster than Jiffy lube.
Warning: Not only for artists and performers and the beautifully vain.

FreeRice.com

People are starving. Your brain is starving. It's free. Do it.

Cheese Monkeys

If you went to university to get a BFA, you should treat yourself to Cheese Monkeys by Chip Kidd. If you are a gay man or know a gay man or would like to know a gay man and in any such case you like literature, read Edinburgh by Alexander Chee. If you are Native American or a shaman or want to be Native American or a shaman try Coyote Blue by Christopher Moore or Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King. If you are Buddhist or have big long ears or like the idea of supernatural beings getting in on the action of a good adventure try The Laughing Sutra by Mark Salzman. If you are more inclined to poetry, try to read e.e. cummings, if only to visit his universe next door for a little while. If you are sad and need a laugh, try to read something short by Steve Martin, especially if it has to do with medicine. If you are feeling philosophical then try Soul Mates by Thomas Moore. If you wish to savor your literature like a fine dessert try anything by Milan Kundra, but be prepared to be turned on for reasons you can't quite fathom. If you are rethinking your role in business or life, try Instructions to the Cook by Glassman & Fields. If you are feeling sick, try The Macrobiotic Path to Total Health by Michio Kushi -- in it you will most likely find the cure to what ails you and you can put it on your plate. If you are none or some of these things and would like to read something but don't know which of these things to read but are longing for something interesting but not too stressful but somewhat fun, try Cheese Monkeys.

A Hug Can Save A Life

Do men traipse off in pairs to hunt in the woods like women do to restaurant bathrooms?

Just wondering.

Eyes in the Virgin

I've been by this statue in my hometown a zillion times. Then on one of the MS Walk/Yoga days my walk team hosted, I noticed the eyes in the throat of the Virgin...

facebook and the last 15 years

SO I, joined facebook. And my recluse days are now numbered.

Such are the winds of change. ::sigh::

There's a vast difference between willful acts of change and change from an outside source. Sure, both look like, well, change. But one is reactive and the other is an act of soul.

Acts of soul, I really dig. They are bold declarations of I Am, I Dream, and I Will Be. Usually, they are supported by commitments, sacrifices and dramatic efforts. Anecdotally, they make great source material for Lifetime movies.

I like Lifetime movies, especially on sick days when I'm wrapped in a blanket on the couch, sipping tea, wearing my jammies and thick socks, and my eyes are blurry and my head is aching and I don't want to think. Then, I am especially grateful for these movies that I know, right from the very first scene, everything will be all right.

I've needed a sense that everything will be all right for quite some time now. The admission of this is not nearly as interesting, I imagine, as the expressions of my long-lost, now-found facebook friends as they read my thoughts about Lifetime movies. To them, it's as if Morticia entered the prom in a pastel pink gown.

But away from comedy! and let us look at reactive change. Because, baby, that's where I've been.

Reactive change is a result of new circumstance. Everything around the person changes. The mise en scene shifts (so-to-speak) and in a charming new locale, surrounded by bright new lighting, wearing suave new costumes, wielding new props, and humming new popular tunes on the radio, it appears the person has changed ... but, have they? Changed? Really? C'mon, really?

Sounds like a bit from SNL Weekend Update. But, I digress...

At the crux of reactive change is the issue of acceptance or denial of a new circumstance thrust upon us. -- Well, damnit!, I declare some new circumstance exist that one wants thrust upon them! Like finding the perfect mate. Oh, yes, all that shared laughter and hugging and loving and thrusting! Bring it on! --But what about the unpleasant stuff life can dish up like an overflowing Thanksgiving plate from your 300-pound Aunt Sadie who solves everything with another stick of butter?

Accept or deny?

What if you can't pass the plate?

For years, I thought I was saying, Accept! [to my lot, not the butter.] But let's be truthful here. I've a rather wide ass and, to reach for a clique, there hasn't been much lemonade-making either.

Truthfully, I don't want lemons. I've never been much of a lemonade-making kinda gal. I've been more of a find-the-solution-and-fix-it kinda gal. Besides, I liked my delusion(s?) and it's far more pleasant to think of oneself as accepting than denying.

That, and I hate the word no.

I hated my 28th birthday, when I was told, "No you won't be seeing much longer." [This due to a rare eye disease of less than 100 case studies in the world.] I hated hearing, "No, there is no cure." And really couldn't embrace, "No, you shouldn't continue doing the work you're doing."

(I think there was mention of assisting in a flower shop as a more suitable career path for the visually-challenged than a career in art and theatre.)

(And then there was the suggestion by a "friend" that one could always knit.)

It was a relief to hear a yes from surgeons; they knew something in the midst of all that no. But eight years later, I found out they were wrong: they didn't know a person could have multiple sclerosis AND an extremely rare eye disease at the same time (to quote Becket, "for reasons unknown in spite of the tennis"), but I was just the one to prove it so.

No plate passing for me, fuck-you-very-much.

During this time, several people I adored died: the ultimate no. One of them, a gifted shaman and artist who taught me healing and dreaming techniques, gave me his medicine bundle. This is a pretty big deal, for a shaman to pass their medicine bundle to another person. So when someone close to him asked me not to share this gift, someone who thought others would be jealous of my having it, I of course succumbed to their wishes and kept silent.

-- What?

Now, the thing went with me everywhere I traveled (or is that ran?) and it loomed in suitcases and closets and underneath beds: an elephant I didn't want to admit I had a responsibility to own. You see, in order to have soul in our lives, we have to admit responsibility for it all -- even the changes thrust upon us.

Last week, I was in the hospital, being treated for another MS exacerbation. IV hooked to my arm, left leg hanging like a gnarled tree branch as I clung to a walker and dragged myself as fast as a dead snail towards the beautiful "hat"-capped toilet, it dawned on me: I was not living my life.

For the past ten years, I had been rushing from symptom to treatment with little else between. In the chaos of illness, I reasoned that if I could fix these medical problems, then I could then return to who I was. I was sure I didn't need to change, it was this circumstance that needed to change.

[Was that a clown's bicycle that just honked?]

The previous owner of the medicine bundle died in the very hospital I was desperately hoping to pee in. My friend had asked me to help him die, not in the Dr. Kevorkian sense, but rather to perform ceremony for him, to be a shaman for him, and to help his spirit back to the Creator.

Did I do it? C'mon, you've read this far. You know the answer.

Regret changes you. Regret comes from the soul.

Diane Von Furstenberg is known for becoming the woman she wanted to be. In the hospital, I realized I'd never asked myself that fundamental question: who did I want to become? I had done a lot of running around searching for cures. I had promised myself I'd get back to what I loved to do -- once I was better. I ignored my gift. I acted out of fear. I alienated my friend(s). I let circumstance change my life, but I did not let it change me.

Clutching a metal handrail in one hand and the portable IV in the other, still many feet away from my porcelain goal, I realized I had to accept these circumstances. I needed to release the idea of returning to who I was at another time. I had to answer the question of who I wanted to become and exercise acts of will to cause real, soul change.

Doesn't this sound a bit like our country? We are in a mess. We long to be who we once were. In talk of fear, we ignore our gifts. We don't want the situation to change us. We want it to change. Honestly, the only way we're going to get out of our current mess is if we accept our new circumstance, and answer the question of who we want to become. Then act accordingly.

That's how we'll know everything will be all right.

In the face of my personal crisis, I wrote this article. Then, I joined facebook.

Big victories in small steps.

So what have you been doing for the past 15 years?

7,000

One of my YouTube videos just logged in its 7,000th viewer. Sure, I could post it here ... but then how would I draw you over there? www.youtube.com/user/cassandramadeit

Express Yourself

Rampage of the Virgin Page

Fuzzy mitten warm greetings to visitors to my brand-spanking-new blog spot!

Nothing is more frightening, yet hopeful, than the blank page. In in lay promise of greatness (if only grasped), of aspirations filled, (if only pursued), and of satisfaction (if only completed).
In sort, it's a chasm of possibility, a microcosmic specimen of infinity, a veritable paradisaical entrance to the divine.

"Ohmy!" those who approach it gasp and fold onto a bare Ikea hardwood floor like a puddle of quivering Jell-o. "It's so white!"

Here it's good to note: such reflection should remain brief.

It's true, the moment the page is marked, it is no more what it was. A bold line or a coarse word or even a little bitty half-squiggle of the letter "a" in the lightest stroke of number 2 pencil instantly rejects certain possibilities and begins definition of What It Will Be. Horrifying for those in doubt. Terrifying for those with commitment issues on any scale. Petrifying to those with aspirations of grandeur and deep-seated fears of failure. And to all those I remind: erasers leave their mark in they very fibers of papyrus. Bwa-ha-ha-ha!

"Will this mental Halloweenish rampage of the virgin page never end?"

I think ... perhaps.

Not?

I dunno.

But thank God for Delete buttons and the electronic age.

And Post-it Notes. I feel really good about Post-it Notes.

Onward!