Reading yet another pathetic story re: "What in the world can I do tonight since my TV shows aren't on?" made me think about the striking writers. I don't care what they're watching, but I wonder what they're writing.Here's why: If you turn on a faucet that hasn't been used for a long time, the water is brown and glunky. Let the water run for a while, and it turns clear and clean.
It works the same way with writing and other creative acts -- whether we're talking about managing people, painting a picture or planning a party. If you don't use a skill, you get rusty. Use it daily, and the good stuff starts to flow.
So, since the predominant "On Strike" picket-sign copy is a tad bit less than catchy, I certainly hope the striking writers are writing something more.
P.S. If you're one of the people mourning your lost TV shows, you know my advice: Really show your support for writers. Read a book. I'll even suggest one connected to TV -- Samurai Widow by Judith Jacklin Belushi. Should be in your library. Post your book suggestions here!
7 comments:
I just finished Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan and another book The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen by Syrie James. Highly recommend them both for different reasons. You need to be an Austen devotee to enjoy the memoirs which are actually a fictionalized best guess of what was happening during a two-year period before Sense & Sensibility was published.
Lobster is a quick read. Fun if you've ever worked at a restaurant.
I'll have to check it out ... I have worked at a restaurant. My first job was wrapping silverware at Putsch's Cafeteria -- for eight hours a day, every Saturday. To this day, my mom says no one wraps it as well as I did. (This explains a lot about who I am.) The manager wasn't quite as impressed. He promoted me to busgirl for one day, then decided that was a big mistake ...
Thanks for the reading suggestions!
Since I began my new j-o-b last year, I went dark on the newspaper column that I had been writing more or less regularly over the past two years. The net effect is that of a large turbine generator spinning slowly to a stop. Getting it started again has been, to say the least, a monumental exercise in the laws of inertia.
Makes me wonder how the writers will get their big wheels greased and turning again after all this time.
Let's see, I just finished The Birth House by Ami McKay. My favorite read of the summer was Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert--and yes, I read it before Oprah told me to!
Leslie: The Birth House is one I hadn't heard of ... I'll have to check it out!
And Bud!!! You are such a wonderful writer -- funny and smart and perceptive. I don't know anyone who sees to the heart of the matter like you. (Maybe that's part of the multi-threat of being a photographer who writes.) Let me know when you've got the writing wheels spinning again and I can point people toward a blog or column.
My three great reads this year have been: The Glass Castle, Inside the Crips, and The Memory Keepers Daughter. They are all very different, but all wonderful. Enjoy!
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