A Bit of Drama

“She had no tolerance for scenes which were not of her own making.”

~ Edith Wharton

Can you imagine watching a television show that had no drama? Can you imagine reading an entire book that had no drama? Can you imagine going through life without ever having any drama? How about writing? Do you think you can write a best seller, without an ounce of drama?

What makes you so high and mighty that you’re above the world of drama? I hear the whisperings, “I just don’t like all the drama.” Really? So next time a car crashes into a tree down the street, nearly wiping out kids playing in the front yard and the car bursting into flames, you’re going to just sit in your recliner, ignore all the police cars and ambulances outside because you ‘don’t like all the drama’?

Isn’t a homeless man, sign around his neck, sitting on the sidewalk begging for food or a meal too dramatic for you to view? How about a paper bag on the side of the road where you see a puppy’s head sticking out, too dramatic?

Do you think the world was formed in a non-dramatic way? God yawned, seemed bored, formed man and woman. Well that’s a boring way to create the entire universe, I should think. I like to think of it in a more dramatic way. An unleashing of a Big BANG with His breath and constellations and planets formed, Earth full of vapors from his breath was the place He chose for life to be sustained throughout all of time! Well that’ll make scientist mad who have been looking for the dramatics via atoms!

Yes siree, no matter how you say it or write it, explain it or try to debunk things, life is full of drama no matter where you go. Writing, as writers, are no different. When you ask someone, “How are you?” and someone goes into the dramatics of how they really are, are you above getting a real reply and walk away, stating under your breath, “I really didn’t need all that info/drama.”

When I ask someone how they are doing, I WANT all the details, maybe because I’m a caring and compassionate person who really does CARE how they are doing. I watch as people sit at their computer all day on their behinds, barely leaving for a bite to eat. Running around with a façade of caring, but then when someone who is ailing or in dire straits cries out seeking compassion or a friendly ear, they run to the bathroom to get some cotton balls for their ears, only to realize they need blinders on, like the kind that horses wear? They forget that on a computer, cotton balls don’t work in the ears!

In this wide world of internet, it is hard to look straight ahead and ignore the drama going on around you. Instead of falling into your rose colored glasses, instead of wearing the feathered Mardis gras mask, instead of browbeating someone for being dramatic, politely say to yourself, “She/he must be a writer.”

Because no matter how you try to avoid it, a writer’s life is full of drama and we’re only too glad to tell you, or have you read about it, or use it for a character in a novel we’re writing!

Embrace the drama in life. Without it you will certainly become a rotted out piece of cardboard with very little character, which people will NOT respect!

People don't want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown.”

~ Chuck Palahniuk, Survivor