Watching to Write Visually

I have been watching a lot of TV, doing my TV writing Masterclass homework, and I see a strange theme in ‘family’ shows. The old formula of innocuous parents who at 40 already had no clue about how the world works and the smart-ass teenagers who never look at their parents as human beings is disappearing... but maybe, this still exists on network TV, which I don’t watch.
But on the streaming channels, there is a prevalence of dystopian parenting in which family members live like roommates with the occasional reminder that some of the humans are parental units (to quote Saturday Night Live). The Family Ties, The Cosby Show and Family, which were stalwarts Of family normalcy and unity have been replaced by Transparent, Ozark and Girls — and in all these shows, the parents haven’t figured it all out and, in some cases, major parts of their identities are still up in the air.
The ‘Father Knows Best’ Type Of shows with nuclear families, family meetings to discuss issues concerning the family and making big life decisions was meant to be prescriptive. And it was an idealistic goal for families that most didn’t even attempt. Families sat together to watch shows in which families never sat down to watch families on TV because they were too busy being families. Real families really admired fake TV families and nodded in agreement at the lessons in the end.
So, I think TV families, unless you’re talking about a comedy, have become descriptive — taking cues from the most nightmarish headlines about family dynamics.

The new Tv families are definitely not prescriptive.
There is enough struggle, misery and disaster in each episode to yell ‘Don’t do what we do!‘

But in the new family dynamic, we see the family version of a breakup - whereas a lover might say ‘let’s just be friends,’ Tv family members say, ‘Hey, let’s just be roommates and if you want to be an emancipated Minor, just let me know what I need to sign.’

Write Like No One is Reading

I carry a notebook and pen everywhere I go, which is a habit I've had since childhood. It's often the case that a sentence or character will come to mind while I'm on the elliptical or doing squats at the gym. Snippets of people and places can be fleeting, so I take notes and put the sweaty pieces of paper in my exercise tights.

There are times at which the day flies by so quickly that it would be easy to say I had no time to write, but if I don't write, the day is lost -- ingesting information without a product seems like a waste. Pun intended.

I’ve studied writing in several colleges and really enjoyed the workshopping experience because the writing was private and critiquing was public.

In ‘group-write’ classes, writers would sneak glances at each other as they tried to decipher how each other’s process worked. I listened to the click of a keyboard, the scratch of pen on paper, loud nervous gum-chewing and I wondered how I had ended up in a room of competitive writers. It was a private act made public.

And as the sharing time came around, there were people who refused to read. After they listened to someone else and decided to allow self-centered insecurities to open up a sink hole in front of them, they leapt in. The sinkhole people interrupted the flow. Writing needs listeners and viewers to be fully realized. Looking at the audience’s faces, one can see where the beats are and should be and if the jokes and irony are landing.

Writers have to own their authority and embrace it. Readers won’t follow a writer whose authority is in question. But, in most cases, the authority thing is easy because we love the sound of our own voices, in our heads, and sometimes, out loud.

I love process, discussions of a character’s possible trajectory and analyzing data for the love of process. And my people are out there — overthinkers And overreachers...

Right now, I’m focused on writing scripts and studying in order to improve my talent in this area. For me, writing dialogue brings a character into being. In a script, unlike short story, you have the help of an actor to add necessary nuances, gravitas and special sauce to mere words. A script is the garden without the interesting weeds or background foliage.

The script is an underdressed story, so it’s a lot less work than short stories. Someone will disagree with the idea of writing scripts as being easier than writing fiction. But, that’s how playing with language works. What’s easy for one person is torture for another.

I'm considering the need for balance on a daily basis. Although I would love to read for 8 hours and write for 8 hours, I'm still on the road to that magical place: lying on a couch in my office as I wait for an idea -- that's the dream.

I slip out of this dream as bedtime nears and considers how writing happens - magically without constant scrutiny, learning to compartmentalize in order to write after you’ve suffered a loss or had someone scream at you for being selfish.

Writing about Nothing

As a writer, self-acceptance is, at times, on the run with self-doubt nipping at its heels. And the beautiful thing is too few people really care about what you’re doing because everyone else is fidgeting in his or her own way. I was talking to a friend about the nature of work and being kept in one small place like calves raised to become veal and agreeing to an exchange of time for money. Internally, a worker wonders what the price tag on an hour of time should be and begins to yearn for hours back — those sold too cheaply. When I was in high school, I would listen to Howard Stern talk about his sex life, marriage, In-laws, parents and his child-rearing methods as he chewed a bagel with cream cheese into the microphone. His vitriol was very much a part of New York City life because we lived and talked the same way we rode the train - the person with the sharpest elbows won. I remember the realization of how his radio show tone and topics affected my perception of my little part of the world from The Bronx to my high school in Manhattan and the in-between Of interacting with people while walking to the train station and onto the train. All the faces seemed more meancing and fed up. I also noticed I cursed a lot more while listening to Stern. And one day, I decided to take a break from listening and took back my lens. I was very interested in how one’s thought processes could be so easily influenced and how easily the Koolaid was undrunk (I invented a word because I’m a word professional). As I walked down the street and took the same train, people’s faces were more expressive and not as intimidating as before. I was also a teenager. Impressionable teenagehood can last for a long time for some people or forever for others. When I listened to Stern on the radio again, his words weren’t entertaining anymore. Which makes me wonder how a spell is broken and broken for good.

The Deep Dive

I took a break from caring about writing and getting published, but kept writing. I said I wasn’t a writer and wrote even more. Teaching was helpful because I had the prescribed amount of interaction with the humans. I love the humans but can’t spend a lot of time in big gatherings because it’s exhausting to introduce myself so many times after I reach the point at which I want to be home, reading a book in bed. I had a short-lived editing gig; one of the assignments was writing about a very famous celebrity I had never heard of and lipgloss. And this left me thinking I needed to find out who was famous and important and although I am addicted to lipgloss, I had higher aims than to write about it... Unless, there were free samples and then, I might have caved. My fantasy life continues — it really started in childhood while watching musicals and discussions with my sister about Our goal to work together as adults. My sister Rebeca and I were going to open an all-girl detective agency. And In retirement, well into our seventies, we were going to ride the bus to museums in New York, competing to see who could prepare the worst smelling lunch. Sardines, hard boiled eggs and tuna salad seemed the best offering to unwrap on a bus to the horror of fellow bus passengers. I miss my sister every day. I miss hearing her chuckle. And I will miss watching her get old. So, the deep dive into writing has a lot to do with her. We were both striving for something else beyond the ordinary we had seen pass for life in our early years in New York and Puerto Rico. I’m diving in to get the sunken treasure, so sunken I had forgotten it was there. Thank you for reading.

Listening to Many Voices and None of Them in My Head

I haven't visited this blog in a long while. My adventures have been of the nerdish variety -- teaching writing, math, research methods, professional chit chat, social media managment and overusing the gerund. I quit teaching as a full-time gig and decided to do other things as I keep up what makes me me. I know life is about experimentation and a slip into fantasy is part of that experiementation. I just ordered E.F. Benson books from Amazon because my local bookstore hasn't been built yet, and I ordered the books to do research on my childhood. These books allowed me escape from a culture that always seemed foreign to me. My childhood was full of noise and unexpected catastrophe. Benton allowed me to slip through a secret escape hatch to daydream about being a 1920s woman whose only concerns were the guest list for a party, what flowers to put on the table and to whom she should send 'thank you' notes. Without having looked at the books in decades, I may have forgotten any allusions to World War I, its suffering, privations and aftermath. But, the human memory is always convenient like that. I finished a novel, mainly by hand, and like a sweater, I unraveled it -- I pulled a string of words and changed its direction. I plucked a character out of some cruel troubles and placed him on stable ground. How magical to be able to pluck someone out of a landfill, allowing him to shake off the gruffness of experiences I put him through to start again down another road with a new pair of shoes, a new suit, a new past and a new trajectory. I love the power of us powerless little writers to make magic even if for an audience of two.

Mermaids, sparkle and the Parade of Humanity

By Odilia Rivera-Santos He caught my eye because he was shirtless, his chest covered in blue sparkle that matched his pants and winged shoes; his skin was rosy and beautiful. "Mermaid Parade?" He smiled wide. "Yes! My first time!" He let me take his picture. And others asked. Jostled together, different races, ages,and foci. Workers, shoppers, parents, marrieds, sinks and dinks. NYC has been appearing too crowded as of late. People walk down the streets trying to capture someone's attention and the disruption of someone else's flow.

Writing a novel by hand... how novel! by Odilia Rivera-Santos

I started a new novel or novela and will write the whole thing by hand. There is something about pen and paper early in the morning that jives with the sinews of my brain and the brawn of my intellect. It is 4:30 in the morning and the swish of traffic is sluggish and not as oceanic as it gets at around six, the small lamps are on illuminating bits of wall here and there, and the drip of the faucett -- which seems to be like the building passing gas -- is steady. I get up to tweak it and make the drip stop, it stops, I sit and it starts, another building fart.

The coffee is here to my right and a new collage devoted to ambition, stakes its claim, stares back at me, and tells my mind to write something commercial... no more La Diana-inspired ephemera, no birds'nests of urban blight.

Although birds'nest, urban blight, pastoral novels and fantasy are at the tip of my tongue. No, I resist the un-being of me. And I wrestle with ambition and pin it to the linoleum floor. The novel is being written in the wee and I'm good. Be-ware peaks and valleys and surprises and ellipsis to fill in spaces for yourself for your own self. 

Right now, I am feeling the cool breeze between my toes from the terrace. And the novel?

There are two women named María, one Mexican and one Puerto Rican to be played by a Mexican and a Puerto Rican in the film, and there is an elderly Chinese lesbian, an alcoholic super/carpenter/electrician, and the Jewish surrogate grandmother of course. It is set in New York City. 

I will be reading from this new novel, new poetry and new short stories at Uptown Roasters on September 27th from 3 to 6 along with some other very talented women writers/performers

Uptown Roasters

135 East 110th St between Park and Lexington Ave