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Writing
In this post, I discuss how the movie Parasite inspires us to keep moving as storytellers, how shifting your routine can spark ideas and what happens to your brain when you improv.
I’ve been thinking about spinning bikes, gin and “Chicken Wars.” The viral social backlash to the Peleton “The Gift that Gives Back” ad was fascinating. As Peleton was woozy on the ropes, Aviation Gin swung a round-house right with its “The Gift that Doesn’t Give Back” ad. They cast THE SAME ACTRESS who played the wife on the spinning bike, except she was now commiserating with girlfriends over gin cocktails because (we’re led to believe) she left her husband. KNOCKOUT!
Today we are standing on the doorstep of a new decade, and so I’ve been thinking a lot about the challenges ahead, and the new approaches and ideas we’ll all need to tackle those challenges. Naturally that leads to… brainstorming!
“The only vampire I ever met was in Natchez, Mississippi.” That’s the opening line of a story* I’ve told hundreds of times both to entertain and teach. It’s simple. But it’s a hook I crafted through many drafts and rounds of audience feedback. Why’s it great? And how can you make your own hooks great? I’ll dissect.
Thoughts rumble around in my head like rocks. Boulders, stones, pebbles. They’re rough ideas, starter concepts and floating phrases. And I can hear them crashing, crunching and bumping into each other. This is the beginning of my writing process.
Noel likes to wait until the very end of the night to sing Beyonce. Before then she's too busy doling out Buds and little bags of Classic Lay's. But by about 1:45, the ten customers at Nick's Lounge, which does karaoke every night of the week, have all sung at least once, and Noel glides out from behind the bar, tells Steve the DJ to cue up a deep track--"'Single Ladies' is so overdone!"--and kills. I mean, she really kills.
