Author: Lynette Nelson

Lynette Nelson is the author of many unproduced screenplays, unpublished short works, and a couple of unfinished but soon to be finished novels. She is the guardian of one too many cats, yet completely incapable of imagining life without any of her three rescues.

Adapting and Evolving

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Writing my first book turned out to be easier than I had expected. You so often hear about the agonies of writer’s block, and hours spent staring at the ceiling, looking for inspiration. I did not experience that. Sometimes I didn’t feel inspired to write, but I always had words to put on the page.

That stems from the fact that despite it being my first book, this is not my first time at the rodeo. I’ve been writing for most of my life and learning along the way. One book that made a huge difference was The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I never made it through the book, but I made it far enough to benefit. One exercise has you write three pages of stream-of-consciousness every morning. It might be, “There is nothing in my brain. Oh, I need eggs. Shoot, I don’t have time to go to the grocery store. I can wait. Look at that cute guying walking his dog.” It really didn’t matter what you wrote, you were to just write. That exercise teaches you one main thing. Your words aren’t that precious. They flow constantly in a never-ending stream. Just put them on paper, they can always be fixed later.

As a writer, that was eye-opening. I had agonized over words in the past, and often stopped writing because I couldn’t find the right ones. No more! My method became to spit it out the best you can and fix it later.

The other book that helped me was On Writing by Stephen King. With 25 years of writing screenplays, I had become a slave of the outline. When you have to cram an entire story into just two hours, getting all the beats right is not only difficult, but crucial. It’s like doing a Rubik’s cube. But, for me, the outline took all the joy out of writing.

Stephen King taught me to let go of the outline and let the story tell itself. Don’t worry about where it’s going. Don’t worry about structure. Just let the story unwind. Let it sit, then when you come back to read it, you will see obvious themes. Rewrite everything to those themes and voila… you have a really good, well-crafted story. Now working in novels, and not tightly structured screenplays, I can more easily follow his advice.

Cameron and King were the foundation of the easy flow of my first book. It was great, but the editing process showed me the cracks in my foundation.

With book one I did not edit. I didn’t want to slow down the flow. However, when I got to the end of a 75,000 word novel, I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of editing needed. I didn’t know where to start. I was too impatient to get it to an agent and publisher and couldn’t seem to take the time I needed to really evaluate and fix the manuscript… especially since my “just dump it on the page” method left a lot to be fixed. Thankfully I have a miracle worker of an editor who did all my heavy lifting for me this time around.

Last weekend, with the major editing behind me on book one, it felt like it was time to turn my mind to book two. I sat down and started to let the story flow again. Oh, what joy! Much to my surprise, I discovered that once again, my process is adapting and evolving. In the past it was common to write 2000 words a day. This time around, 1000 words seems to be the mark to hit. Now, I actually catch myself writing in the passive voice. I see where a verb could be more active. Or dialog can have more impact. I stop, consider my sentence, and rework it. My editor had warned me about this, but so far I don’t feel like it’s a problem. It slows me down, yes, but it doesn’t stop the flow. In some ways, it makes it far more enjoyable. Like savoring the scene instead of racing to put it down.

And this time I will set aside some time each writing day to go back and edit the previous day’s work. That way when I get to the end, I won’t be quite so overwhelmed. My first draft will be a much more polished, ready-to-publish, work.

Everything in life is a process. Just because you’re good at something today doesn’t mean you can’t be better at it if you adapt and evolve. Even this old dog is learning a few new tricks.

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Just the Facts, Ma’am

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It’s been far too long since I’ve written. Truth be told, I have not had the heart to write. On one hand, writing seems pointless. On the other, a message that would help young people be more immune to fear mongering is desperately needed. And today, in light of that, I actually started working on book two. It felt great!

One of the many things people have been talking about since the election is the proliferation of fake news and its effect on the vote. I knew for years that networks like Fox skewed the news to their viewpoint, but up until recently I had been unaware that people were actually sitting out there creating false stories just to rake in clicks and advertising dollars. It makes me sick to think someone is using their writing talent this way.

For ages I’ve been one of those annoying people who sometimes comments publicly, and sometimes sends private email message, to people who post false stories. Usually the posts weren’t political, but were something that Snopes had long ago debunked, like “Watch the wing of this plane fall off, and the guy lands anyway!” Any time I saw something questionable on Facebook, I did a quick search on Snopes.com to verify it. It just became habit and it constantly amazed me that people didn’t do it themselves. Sometimes they’d even post, “I don’t know if this is true or not, but look at this!” It took seconds to check, and yet few people did it.

That trend continued during this election. People were passing around stories that with just a few quick searches could have easily been proved false. Yet they never did it, and these stories burrowed into people’s psyches and changed the outcome of the election. For instance, if you think an FBI agent involved with the Clinton email scandal was found dead in a murder/suicide, you have fallen for a fake story. If you think that in 2013, Clinton told Goldman Sachs bigwigs: “I would like to see people like Donald Trump run for office. They’re honest, and can’t be bought”, then you have fallen for a fake story.

Checking the validity of a story is so easy. For years the place I always went to research political stories was Politifact.com. It was known as a non-partisan fact checking site and I found it extremely reliable. Imagine my surprise when I heard a Trump supporter claim it was a liberal propaganda site, and that if you wanted the truth, you had to go deep into underground news. That’s where you got reliable facts.

So, rather than assume this was a right-wing nut job, I did a little research. I looked up Politifact.com to see who actually runs the site. It’s owned by the Tampa Bay Times. Aha! It’s that biased liberal media! So that Trump supporter was right!!! Or was he? Who runs the Times and Politifact? A man by the name of Paul Tash, who has an extensive journalistic background covering national politics. A little more digging on Paul Tash’s political affiliation shows that according to voter records he has been a registered Republican since 1984. Hmmm. Unless this man knew in 1984 that someday he would be in charge of a independent fact-checking organization and wanted to go into hiding more than 30 years ago so as to sway the country to his point of view, I think it’s safe to say that Politifact is not a liberal propaganda site.

A few quick searches and I knew the truth. Why was that so hard for the Trump supporter to do?

The truth is, when the facts didn’t support a Trump supporter’s world view, they went in search of sources that did – deep underground. It didn’t matter that those facts were fake. They felt good. They felt truthy. Politifact listed Trump’s statements as only being true 5% of the time, while Clinton was listed as the most truthful of the candidates. That fact didn’t sit well with me when I was supporting Bernie, but I accepted it. But since it didn’t line up with a Trumpy’s world view that The Donald told it like it is, while Hillary was crooked, therefore Politifact must be a liberal propaganda machine.

I found a few fake stories aimed at liberal as well. Several friends posted the meme from a 1998 People interview, where Donald Trump supposedly said: “if I were to run, I’d run as a Republican. They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they’d still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific.” I wanted to believe that. Oh, I wanted to believe it so bad. But a quick search on that one proved it to be false, so I didn’t post or share it. Fake news story writers have admitted in interviews that they didn’t get much traction with liberal fake stories, because within a few comments somebody would debunk it.

That’s not to say there will be political peace and harmony if we start believing the same facts. Facts are just facts, and they can be interpreted differently. For instance, it’s a fact that red states generally take more money from the federal government than they pay to it, and blue states generally pay more into the federal government than they take from it. Democrats would say that’s because their states are run better. Republicans might say that’s because they have less natural resources and more poverty in their states.

You can interpret those facts through whatever set of lenses you want so it wouldn’t be smooth sailing, but at least we’d be starting with the same set of facts. Right now it’s pretty much impossible for Democrats and Republicans to have a rational conversation. We live in two completely different worlds made up of two completely different set of facts.

Please, whenever you see a story online, take a moment or two to evaluate it. What site did it come from? Look into who’s behind that site. Search the internet to see if other sources are also reporting the story. Make sure they’re not just repeating the first story. Compare how it’s being reported if you do find two sources. Are there facts listed in the story/meme that can be checked independently. Look up the name of the author. What qualifications do they have to cover the story? Use Snopes. Use Politifact. Use your brain. Admit when you might have something wrong. We only make good decisions when we are informed. Don’t be a part of the problem.

As the old saying goes, everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they’re not entitled to their own set of facts. Until that gets fixed, this country is in trouble.

I am hopeful that future posts will focus more on the process of getting published.

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The Facts?

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A quick update on the book… the major editing is done. Now it’s being proofed. The next step in the process is to edit and improve the synopses for each book in the trilogy and follow that with a killer query letter — one that makes the agents beg to read my manuscript.

Just in case nobody wants to read my stories, I am beginning to work on plan C. Plan A – Screenwriting. Plan B – Novel writing. Plan C – ?? I enjoy the place and people I work with so much, that it would make sense to try to increase my hours there. Over the next year I plan to get a couple of certifications that will allow me to teach some classes, and I have an idea that would add a new service to our fitness studio. Hopefully I will manage to keep a roof over my head somehow.

Of course, after the election I may have a harder time doing that. With one candidate, it’s likely I’ll be stripped of access to healthcare. I will likely have to quit a job I love, one that benefits society, in order to find a meaningless, corporate job whose sole purpose is to make rich people richer but that provides enough hours to give me insurance. Or I will just have to be a 52 year old woman without insurance, and hopefully I’ll get sick and die quickly, so as not to burden my fellow citizens.

I’m doing my best to fight the anxiety, but I can’t deny that I am terrified about Tuesday.  One thing I’ve gained is compassion for the people of Germany. I used to wonder how they could have let it happen and judged them for their apathy. I get it now. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how loudly you scream.

Though, according to political scientists, Trump is actually closer to Mussolini than Hitler. And, he can’t truly be called a fascist because he doesn’t control his own military. However, what they also pointed out was that the same fertile soil that grew this authoritarian is the same soil that grows fascists. That we could see Trump fade away only to be replaced by something much, much, much worse.

One thing we definitely need to correct this situation are journalists who report the facts. Though, on a side note, it’s frightening to see the same people who go rabid about the 2nd amendment yet are all too willing to abolish the 1st amendment. I guess they only love the parts of the constitution that fit with their worldview. And what better way to hang on to that worldview than to silence anyone who disagrees with it.

Anyway, right now, if you are a conservative, you watch and read news with one set of facts presented by people who agree with you, and if you’re a progressive, you watch and read news reported by those who agree with you. So, you can have one event, and two people can believe completely different facts about it.

For example. In the last day, Trump has relished in telling the story of how Obama screamed at a Trump supporter in his audience. He said, “Obama today spoke in front of a much smaller crowd than this, by the way, and there was a protester. And a protester that likes us. And what happened is they wouldn’t put the cameras on him. They kept the cameras on Obama. And I said, ‘That’s strange.’ You saw it today on television, right?

He was talking to the protester — screaming at him, really screaming at him. By the way, if I spoke the way Obama spoke to that protester, they would say, ‘He became unhinged! He became —’ You have to go back and look and study. And see what happened. They never moved the camera. And he spent so much time screaming at this protester and, frankly, it was a disgrace.”

That’s Trump’s view of events. And the problem is, because it came out of his mouth, his supporters believe him without question. They don’t need to look it up. It doesn’t matter how many times you point out the facts, they will always just scream back, “Is to! Nanny nanny boo boo!” Just like now after Trump said the FBI had found the mother lode of Hillary emails, it makes no difference that the FBI says there’s nothing there. Trump said it, it’s true.

Now, just so you can see for yourself, here’s what really happened:

Unhinged? A disgrace? If it wasn’t so frightening it would be a little funny how almost every single one of Trump’s accusations against his opponents highlight his own flaws. I consider encouraging your supporters to attack protesters and offering to pay their legal bills is unhinged and disgraceful.

Yet, conservatives only saw Trump’s version, because that’s what places like Fox News covered, and everyone else saw both versions. The point is, when 1/2 of Americans are getting one set of “facts” and the other half is getting another, how do we ever figured this mess out? We won’t. We’ll just keep fighting each other while the 1% cleans up.

I don’t know what to say anymore. This entire election has become mind numbing. Soul numbing. Everything numbing.

When we can’t even share the facts, how do we share a country?

 

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Social Media Blackout

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Currently I am participating in something called the Whole Life Challenge. Every week there are different challenges to participate in that are designed to imscreen-shot-2015-09-28-at-7-05-06-pm-615x450prove your life. One of last week’s challenges was a social media blackout. For an entire week I did not check Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Surprisingly, the hardest was Twitter. I use it as my breaking news feed, and without it, I feel out of the loop. I had to go on Facebook for work, so I got little glimpses of my feed as I signed on, then switched over to the business page. A friend adopted a new kitten. How could i not respond? What else was I missing out on? Whose birthday was I appearing to ignore because I didn’t send them good wishes? I resisted, and for the most part didn’t miss much. Here is probably what I missed – pictures of delicious looking food, political outrage against either candidate/party/party supporters, humble brags, cute pictures/videos of kids, cats, and dogs, recipes that look easy because somebody already prepared all the ingredients into cute little bowls, and memes that have made the rounds several times but are new to the poster and they’re wondering why more people aren’t liking it. Does that about cover it?

So what did I learn? I learned that checking Facebook is more of a habit than an addiction. Whenever there was a lull, I wanted to grab the phone. It wasn’t out of any burning interest to see what was going on, it was boredom. While I do miss being aware of what’s going on in distant friend’s lives, I am fully engaged in the lives of friends nearby, and that is far more important for all of us. I don’t post much on Facebook anymore anyway, and now I’d like to do far less skimming, as well.

Twitter, well… I’m still a news junkie, I don’t think I’m willing to give that up just yet.

On to editing. We’re closing in on the end of the editing process. My editor has done the Herculean task of fixing all my rookie mistakes and bad habits. His eye is so critical he finds fault with Tolkien, (and destroys my illusions in the superior story telling of the Lord of the Fantasies) which means he is pulling my story apart and finding the weak spots. At times that feels frustrating. I’m a little burned out on this portion of the story and just want to move on. And of course I would like to believe I’ve already produced something perfect. On the other hand, I know better and want the story air tight. I want it to be the best it can be, so I ignore my wounded ego, learn from my mistakes, and do the work to make it better. After all, if it is popular, I wouldn’t want someone at Comic Con getting stabbed with a pencil over a plot point argument.

I have a growing confidence that some publisher will want this series. I’m not saying it will be the next big thing, but I think there is an audience for it. I might not have to get a full time job just yet. And really, that’s what I want – the chance to keep writing and to keep this enchanted life going.

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Sexism

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There is much I could share about the editing process of my book, but there’s a more important topic on my mind today.

Sexism.

Yesterday’s Humans of New York post has sent ripples through the internet. Please read it if you haven’t. Try to forget who it is about. Just listen to her story.

As a young woman, I never really thought about sexism, and didn’t really see it as an issue. When I arrived in Hollywood, I began to see things differently. When I applied to be a teleprompter operator, I was flat out told that it wasn’t a woman’s job, because you had to carry heavy equipment and have mechanical ability to trouble-shoot problems. I convinced him to let me observe a shoot. The male prompter operator was not so sexist, and offered to train me on the job. He reported back that I was good, and the man who discouraged me would get past his stereotypes and hire me. A year later he told me, “From now on I’m going to hire more women, because you do a great job, there’s not so much ego, and you get along with clients so much better.” Granted, this was still subtle sexism, because I had been trained as a woman to be submissive and he liked it. Still, it opened a door, and today there are many, many women in the job. In fact, today it might be considered more of a woman’s job.

However, going out on shoots, I still got a lot of men on the crew saying, “Honey, (or sweetie) can I help you carry that?”  At first it annoyed me, and then one day I realized, if they’re so stupid to want to do my work, let them. Though, after a few days on a job, when the men saw how strong, smart, and competent I was, not only did the offers of help stop, but so did the condescending titles. Very often friendships could then begin.

When I landed a network job, my supervisor, who was a woman, talked about the sexism in television and at the networks. I scoffed. Surely talent and hard work would overcome. Wouldn’t they want the best person in the job?

The resounding answer to that was, “NO!”

Hollywood, in general, could care less about talent. Half of the graduates from film school are women, yet less than 2% of major films are directed by women. You see, when those in charge are men, and their favorite after-work activity is going to a strip club together, or maybe if they’re a little more evolved, the cigar bar, there is no opportunity to bond with anyone other than men. And when a position opens up, who do you think the man in power is going to hire… the quiet, hard-working, efficient employee they don’t really know or the guy they’ve misogynistically bonded with after work? Women are fine to have around, as long as they stay in their place, and make their superiors look good.

And then there’s the other messages women get. I was once told, “You’re so dramatic!” And when my response was to glare back, he added, “What? That wasn’t an insult.”

Right.

Because we so often hear men saying, “You know what I love? A dramatic woman.” No, that was a not-so-subtle way to tell me to control my emotions and be more acceptable to men.

Then there was the time I watched a group of male coworkers smugly patting themselves on the back for “playing the game” and getting ahead. They weren’t feeling proud of their talent, hard work, or creativity. No, they were suck-ups, and thought that was awesome. Inside I was laughing because not five minutes before they were complaining about the person in charge who had done the same thing. No experience, no real talent for the job, but he sucked his way up to the top, and was now in charge.

And people wonder why there’s nothing but super-hero movies and remakes coming out of Hollywood these days.

I don’t.

For too long men have been the default standard and women had to contort ourselves and measure up to them. Men won’t admit this; much like conservative whites can’t see that their culture is the default standard, and minorities have to contort themselves to try to measure up and fit in.

There’s a part of me that is taking great pleasure in being alive at this time in history, as women come into their power and stop looking to men for permission to do so. I remember one of my bosses complaining about how he felt marginalized and unrepresented. Oh, poor baby. For the past few years you haven’t felt like a king in his castle. Try it for a few thousands years, then get back to us.

So men… your time is over and ours is coming. At least you’ll benefit from the fact that we have a lot less ego, and get along with people better. And maybe if you meet our standards, we’ll even give you the respect and equality you never gave us.

 

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Hiring an Editor – Check

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A little over a week ago I contacted an editor and sent him my manuscript. I’m studying quantum physics for the next book, and so for the past week it’s felt like my manuscript has been like Shrodinger’s cat… neither alive nor dead, nothing but waves of potentiality. Surprisingly, rather than feeling frustrated by the wait, the anticipation and possibility of anything happening was lovely.

Tonight the wave became a solid particle, and I now have a highly-experienced  professional’s opinion about my book. As expected, there is good and bad. Some of the bad can easily be fixed. Some of it may have deep roots that will be difficult to untangle… not impossible, just difficult.

He pointed out bad habits that I have developed – some are remnants of my screenwriting days, one is the very common bad habit of writing in the passive voice, and the rest are just personal weaknesses. Hopefully the more I am aware of my flaws, the harder I can work to fix them in my future writing.

There were also compliments, which provided some encouragement to keep trying. It’s very nice having a professional in the publishing world describe your manuscript as enjoyable and entertaining. So, as I watch my savings dwindle, I feel encouraged that it’s not time to go to plan B just yet.

What’s next? I don’t know. I am a babe in the woods when it comes to the publshing world. My guess – I go back to work with the guidance of my editor, and when we have something polished I start writing query letters to agents and publishers. Will that lead to a publishing house? It’s a roll of the dice, but at least in today’s world, there is the option to self-publish. One way or another, I will have a published book, what is in question is what reach it will have.

I just have to keep checking things off the list. Step by step. Bit by bit. It’s how every dream becomes a reality.

What’s the next thing on your dream’s checklist?

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Making Connections

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There are oh so many things in the news I would love to write about and get off my mind, but I’ve been doing too mach of that lately. Instead, this post will be a progress report.

The feedback on my book has slowly been trickling in. For the most part, it is positive. Where there are issues, I go in and attempt to fix it. So many kind people have pointed out small flaws in the timeline, questions about motivation that can be made clearer, typos, and odd sentence structure. They have also pointed out the good qualities like pacing, dialogue, character development, and chapter endings that keep you turning the page. So far, everything that’s wrong can be fixed, and everything that’s right… well, it’s just right. All good news.

A few weeks back one of our clients at work asked me some questions about my book. Her face lit up and she said, “You know who you should meet?!” She proceeded to tell me about a local author who has sold millions of books, won many awards, and is a good friend of hers. She set up lunch for us to meet and talk about writing, books, and publishing. It was a fun lunch and I was able to ask many questions and get some concrete ideas about what to do next.

His best advice was that it didn’t matter if my friends, family, or even strangers like my book. Until I put it in the hands of a professional editor, I won’t really know what I have. So, next week I plan to get started on that process. Thanks to another connection, one back in LA,  I may already have a good one.

The other piece of advice gleaned from our lunch was that it is time to start querying agents and publishers. So, that means it was time to sign up for The Writer’s Market – a huge searchable index of agents, editors, and publishers that lists what they’re looking for in both a query letter, and a manuscript. It feels a little overwhelming to see all the places I’m going to have to start sending letters, but I imagine the list will get whittled down by a large pile of rejection letters. Even Harry Potter was rejected at first. Eventually, I have faith that someone will see potential and take a risk.

One of the things I’ve loved about this process is its ease. In Hollywood there was a constant scramble to make good connections. If you were chatting with someone, and you realized they were in a position to help your career, your antenna went up, your brain started churning, and you calculated all the different ways you could approach, suck up to, and harness their power for yourself. It made for sick relationships, up and down the power ladder. I’m glad to be off that ladder. I’m glad to be in a world where connections flow naturally.

Even better, it’s nice when your friend has the courage to ask the guy who’s sold millions of books to read your novel. I could never have done that. It will be interesting to see what he has to say, if anything.

For now, the editing continues, the professional is about to be brought in, and I’m going to find out for real if this little leap of mine is going to work.

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Filled with Hate

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Lately I’ve been noticing a trend. Here’s how it goes.

Alice: I like pizza.
Bob: I don’t like pizza, the cheese is too greasy, and they never get the crust right.
Alice: Why are you so filled with hate?

I’m sure you’ve noticed it too. Lately, when anyone disagrees with anyone else online, the response usually takes some form of telling them they are filled with hate. It’s the new way to shut someone down, and paint yourself as a loving, wonderful human being because you recognized their hate.

I read liberal sites and commenters all say, “Just like a Republican, full of hate.” Then I’ll read a conservative site and the commenters all say, “Just like a Democrat, full of hate.”

Here’s the definition of hate: strong or intense dislike

That’s it.

Guess what folks, people are allowed to like or dislike anything they want, even intensely. It’s America and there nothing wrong with liking or disliking something, at least for a few more months. It’s not surprising that Democrats and Republicans strongly dislike the other party’s ideas, otherwise we’d just have one party.

A friend hates the taste of onions. I LOVE onions. Still, not once have I accused her of being filled with hate.

I have friends who support Donald Trump. I don’t understand how. I don’t understand why. I simply don’t understand how they can’t see the racist, bigoted, thin-skinned, misogynistic, sociopathic, narcissistic bully that I and so many others see. I don’t understand how they can’t see him using the same playbook that Hitler and other authoritarian leaders have used. However, having said all that, I know them. They are not filled with hate. Misled, yes, in my opinion. Filled with hate, no.

I know women who are strong, independent women who are sick and tired of living under men’s rules, so they live by their own. They have been called man-haters, but they are not filled with hate towards men. Distrust, maybe. Hate, no. They love themselves enough to want the best for themselves. Nothing hateful about that.

Now, if you hate all men, or all women, or all blacks, or all whites, or all Mexicans, or all cops, or all Jews, or all Muslims, or all Christians, or all liberals, or all conservatives, or all gays, or all of anything, then yes, you are filled with hate. If you only know what you don’t like, and never talk about what you do like, then you are filled with hate.

It’s not just a harmless online trend. Accusing others of hate is a tactic that is creating an even bigger divide in the country. The person making the accusation stops listening, because why should they listen to someone so filled with hate. The other person not knowing how to deal with the irrationality of being called hateful, doesn’t want to continue the conversation either, or it devolves into really nasty name-calling. Nobody learns anything.

It’s like the political post where someone goes on a rant, calling people of the other party disgusting names like Libtard or Rethuglican. When I see a rant like that, I want to respond, “Oh thank you. Now that you’ve called me an offensive name, assumed I’m uneducated, uninformed, stupid, and lazy, NOW I’m on your side. Oh, what a relief.” The sad truth is, if we sat down face to face to have a meal together, we would probably have a lovely time. Online, it’s so much easier to hurt others when you don’t have to deal with the consequences.

Until we start talking and listening to each other, instead of trying to find new ways to shut each other down with the ultimate slam, this country is headed for a cliff. Frankly, I think we’re already there and sliding off the edge.

I hate that.

But I’m not filled with hate.

 

 

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What does that feed?

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The move across country has brought many longed for changes, and some that are completely unexpected. Recently I took the time to go through my Netflix queue. Usually there are anywhere between 150-200 movies, documentaries, and TV shows listed there. Most have been there for years. I went through, one by one, and found myself recognizing that I either was no longer interested, or knew I would never take the time to actually watch that show. By the time I got done, I had less than 50 shows remaining. As I thought about what had been cut, it fell into two categories – dark horror/thrillers, and sad documentaries. I thought about my what entertained me while living in LA, and realized much of that repulses me now. I was not expecting that change, and it got me wondering what was behind that shift.

One piece fell into place when recently I was listening to a talk by Eckhart Tolle on my short commute to and from work. He talks a lot about something he calls “the pain body.” According to Tolle, this is his term for the accumulated, old emotional pain that we all carry with us. It is made up of negative emotions that were not processed and dealt with when they arose. We all have a pain body. Sometimes it is dormant, and we don’t even know it’s there. Sometimes it flares up and takes over.

After one of his talks, Tolle was taking questions from the audience and one person asked, “Do violent movies and television feed the pain body?” After a moment of silence, as the entire audience waited for his great and copious wisdom on the topic, he simply answered, “Yes.”

That one word answer was all I needed. The lightbulb went on.

The last few years in LA, I was living full-time in my pain body. Old, accumulated pain completely took over my life. I was not happy at work, at home, on my commute, and especially in my head. I never seemed to get my feet firmly under me before another wave hit and knocked me into a swirl of constant emotional pain.

During that period, you would think I would have sought out the peaceful… the calm.. the quiet, but that is not how the pain body works. Once it is in charge, it feeds the person’s ego and makes it stronger, making it harder and harder to let the pain go. It becomes completely entwined with who the person thinks they are. Let go of the pain? How could I? I would cease to exist. You’re asking me to commit suicide!

Oh, I remember that feeling well.

Now it makes sense that when I wanted to be entertained, I was drawn to the pain of the victim whose life was detailed in a soul-searing documentary. It makes sense that zombies, mega-disasters, and action-packed thrillers filled my queue. Pain, pain, pain! I wanted more pain to feed the pain body that had become me.

Right now my pain body is dormant, and I have no desire to witness pain (which is part of what makes recent events so awful). The pain body is still there. I am well aware that I still haven’t dealt with it properly. It will re-appear, though hopefully I’m better equiped now to deal with it, and hopefully the waves will be smaller and fewer inbetween. But the other thing that will surely help, is that being aware of what I’m drawn to will be a useful tool in understanding whether or not old, accumulated pain is taking over. It will help me deal with it all much sooner, and that’s definitely a good thing.

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. Letting your pain body grow stronger, is pure suffering.

So, take a lesson from my experience. Look at what entertains you, and ask yourself, “What does that feed?” Adjust accordingly.

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Endless Cycle

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I remember the first time I was able to step back and view human behavior objectively to realize just how foolish we are as a species. It was in 3rd grade. We were outside during recess, playing four square. As is typical with kids, we were getting more and more wild with our hits and having more and more fun. Then something happened. I can’t remember what exactly. Someone twisted an ankle, or got hit hard in the face, or something that sent someone off crying to the teacher. We got a brief safety lecture from said teacher and there we were, standing next to our four square outline feeling sad, scared, and chastised. We all agreed to be more careful and then gingerly went back to bouncing the ball from square to square.

However, as our safe game with all the joy sucked out of it continued, I flashed back to this scenario having happened dozens of the times in the past, and the knowledge that our new, calmer approach would not last. Within minutes history was proved right, we went right back to trying to hit the ball hard into the corner for an unplayable score, regardless of what had just happened. It was our nature, and all the somber hand-wringing and promises wasn’t going to change that. We wanted to have crazy fun while playing, even though someone might get hurt. I think we had this attitude because we believed we would never get hurt. It would always be the other guy.

Which brings me to 2016. Another mass shooting. I’ve been reluctant to add my .02 because everyone else already has… over and over and over… each time it happens. What more can possibly be said? And what’s the point of saying anything at all? We’re in the same stupid cycle I saw when we were kids.

it starts with another round of hand-wringing and calls to be more careful, pass laws, do something! This is followed by pushback with the same old arguments like, guns don’t kill people, and good guys with guys being our only salvation, and only criminals having guns when they’re banned, all arguments that have been thouroughly proved to have been built on fallacies, and I’m always amazed when anyone trots them out.

Yes, of course, a gun, on its own, does not kill people. A person, with the intent to kill, will always find a way to kill, whether it’s a gun, a bomb, a car, or a plane. However, as intelligent, rational, human beings, we actually have the ability to hinder their ability to do this, and have often done so in the past. After 9/11 we made planes harder for terrorists to access with new security rules. After the Okaloma bombing we restricted the sale of some fertilizers because their ingredients make powerful exposives. We don’t allow average citizens access to tanks, RPGs, or nuclear weapons. Just because guns are mentioned in the 2nd amendment doesn’t give them some magical power thereby preventing them from being misused just like fertilizer. The guns mentioned in the 2nd amendment were single load flintlocks. Had the gunman in Orlando carried that into that club there would have maybe been one person dead. Claiming the 2nd ammendment covers semi-automatic and automatic weaponry is just idiotic. No one keeps an assault rifle for protection or hunting. It was made for assaulting people. The only other reason someone might have one is to take to a gun range and get a testosterone surge while firing it. If that’s your thing, that’s fine, but then go join the military or the reserve and put that testosterone to good use. THAT is what the 2nd ammendment wants you to do when it brings up that “well-regulated militia” part.

There was a new argument this go round. Usually it’s just the “We need our guns to protect us from the tyranny of our own government.” That always makes me laugh. Like rifles and handguns, or even assault rifles are going to stop today’s US military. We go to war against well-trained, well-armed militaries, and we think a bunch of people with no real weapons training are going to defeat our military?

Anyway, the new argument was that other countries are afraid to invade us because we’re so well armed. They trotted out a quote by Admiral Yamamoto, which upon doing a little research turns out to be completely unsubstantiated. The truth is, a recent terrorist training video actually encourages would-be jihadists to go to gun shows in America and stock up because of the ease of getting weaponry. Rather than an unsubstantiated quote, you can go here and see this video for yourself. Instead of discouraging attacks with our plentiful weapons, we’re actually encouraging it. There goes that argument.

There are many factors that go into a mass shooting, and to deny that guns are one of those factors is just plain stupid. To deny they are the only factor is equally as stupid. Maybe with time we can learn to unravel the complex issues of mental health, religious extremism, and intolerance, but until we do, why not start with one issue we have some control over — regulating access to weapons that do high volumes of damage and were designed for use on a battlefield. How about we start there, while working on the more compelx issues?

But the truth is, this entire blog is pointless. Nobody cares. We’re stupid children who want to play the way we want to play, not caring if someone else gets hurt, as long as it’s someone else.

As I learned in 3rd grade, humans are selfish, short-sighted, and sadly, we have painfully short memories. So, until next time… because we all know there will be next time. The altar of the 2nd ammendment doesn’t have quite enough blood soaked into it yet.

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