Thinking about Writing
We watched "Julie and Julia" tonight. It was a great movie. Nothing groundbreaking - but that's just the point.
I've had the worst weekend - doing taxes, a horrible cold, working all day today (Sunday)...and so we decided to have a quiet family evening with an easy movie and some down time. The movie was fantastic, with beautiful scenes of Paris, cooking, and some great background music. What hit me personally, though, were the bits about the main character blogging. Obviously, I blog as well, and as a couple of you may know, I've tried writing fiction. I have a couple stories working in my head(and just a bit on paper), but like, I assume, thousands of people every day, I get stalled along the way. I have ideas which sputter and then die out, like a worn out riding lawn mower. This movie was a real inspiration to me, to go with an idea, hit it hard, and continue - with heart - and make...something.
Even as I'm writing this I'm thinking of the scenes where the main character types and narrates what she's typing as she's typing, and it makes me want to do the same.
Another thing, though, that this movie made me realize is that I worry far too much about writing about what other people don't know. For some reason, I have this phobia of writing things that other people already know. I don't always write about new, wonderfully exciting topics, but I think that I'm at my best when I do. But I started thinking - why? When I go to a blog, I go because I know the subject matter. This movie's premise - that the main character would cook her way through the 500+ recipes in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in exactly 1 year - is an excercise in the expected. Everyone knows this book. If you have the book, you know what comes next. She simply takes a book, cooks the meals within this incredibly well-known book, and writes about her exploits. It's devilishly simple, which is EXACTLY why its such an endeering story.
It made me remember my childhood - sitting in class. The teacher asks a question, and I think I know the answer, or at least have something valid to say. But do I raise my hand and answer? No. Because I think that what I have to say might be obvious to other children in class, and then they'd laugh at me. They'd laugh because the thing which I thought was so important as to actually raise my hand and say it was old news to them. I needed to keep my mouth shut until I knew I had something strange and new to say. And I think that fear still plagues me to this day - just in different manifestations. And now I guess I can say - I doubt I'm alone in feeling this way.
So I'd like to thank Nora Ephron and "Julie and Julia" for a wonderful 2 hours of my weekend. And to enjoy a 2-hour film about food, it certainly doesn't hurt to have a wife who is so incredible at cooking that she single handedly has turned me into the obsessive foody that I am today. So it goes without saying that I need to thank her too. And after just seeing a movie about food, the title of this blog post is about writing...that's the true sign of a well-written human story.
I've had the worst weekend - doing taxes, a horrible cold, working all day today (Sunday)...and so we decided to have a quiet family evening with an easy movie and some down time. The movie was fantastic, with beautiful scenes of Paris, cooking, and some great background music. What hit me personally, though, were the bits about the main character blogging. Obviously, I blog as well, and as a couple of you may know, I've tried writing fiction. I have a couple stories working in my head(and just a bit on paper), but like, I assume, thousands of people every day, I get stalled along the way. I have ideas which sputter and then die out, like a worn out riding lawn mower. This movie was a real inspiration to me, to go with an idea, hit it hard, and continue - with heart - and make...something.
Even as I'm writing this I'm thinking of the scenes where the main character types and narrates what she's typing as she's typing, and it makes me want to do the same.
Another thing, though, that this movie made me realize is that I worry far too much about writing about what other people don't know. For some reason, I have this phobia of writing things that other people already know. I don't always write about new, wonderfully exciting topics, but I think that I'm at my best when I do. But I started thinking - why? When I go to a blog, I go because I know the subject matter. This movie's premise - that the main character would cook her way through the 500+ recipes in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in exactly 1 year - is an excercise in the expected. Everyone knows this book. If you have the book, you know what comes next. She simply takes a book, cooks the meals within this incredibly well-known book, and writes about her exploits. It's devilishly simple, which is EXACTLY why its such an endeering story.
It made me remember my childhood - sitting in class. The teacher asks a question, and I think I know the answer, or at least have something valid to say. But do I raise my hand and answer? No. Because I think that what I have to say might be obvious to other children in class, and then they'd laugh at me. They'd laugh because the thing which I thought was so important as to actually raise my hand and say it was old news to them. I needed to keep my mouth shut until I knew I had something strange and new to say. And I think that fear still plagues me to this day - just in different manifestations. And now I guess I can say - I doubt I'm alone in feeling this way.
So I'd like to thank Nora Ephron and "Julie and Julia" for a wonderful 2 hours of my weekend. And to enjoy a 2-hour film about food, it certainly doesn't hurt to have a wife who is so incredible at cooking that she single handedly has turned me into the obsessive foody that I am today. So it goes without saying that I need to thank her too. And after just seeing a movie about food, the title of this blog post is about writing...that's the true sign of a well-written human story.
posted by Kevin at 8:05 PM
1 Comments:
2 things that run through my head:
1) I have always wanted to write a book although I lack the talent to do so. I think the arts give you a little of a lasting "legacy" that you can always point to a song, or a painting or a book on a shelf that you wrote. In 50 years a bridge I design will be falling apart but a book is forever.
2) I love those movie montages where they are doing something like training or working hard on something etc. and they have the background music going and it gets you all pumped up to go do the same thing. Then I think, I could have the same music playing and someone filming me for my fantasy baseball draft and it would look the same way...
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