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

The Drama of it all...part II

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. ~Ray Bradbury
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As if one drama post wasn’t enough...I had to go and write two? Well you know...I have a tendency to over dramatize. If they had a crown for drama queens I think I would win the crown hands down. But know that my dramatics are usually my truth in a situation as to the way *I* see it unfold.
 

I can not take anything lightly by no means. If I see a picture, I want to write. I dramatically unfold the scene for you, word by word. You yourself climb into the picture and become one with the world in which is presented to you. When I stop writing I jump into my reality, which is no picture postcard let me tell you. And you wake up out of the daydream saying, wow!
 

If I see a kitty, run across the road, I scream out, “Did you see that mountain lion?”My son will laugh and say, “Mom that was a very fat tabby cat.” “But it was huge!” I go on and then I come home and tell anyone within earshot that this huge fat cat almost made me swerve and hit a tree, so as to avoid splattering all his innards over the road. Again, over dramatizing a mere avoidance of hitting a cat.
 

I can take a molehill (I have them out in my backyard so I do know what they look like) and turn it into... have you ever seen a molehill? Well I ventured out in my backyard and the silky sand mound was splat right in my face, it had grown overnight. I put on my hiking shoes and as I started to climb, I slid all the way down because this molehill was made out of sand, not rock like I normally expect to see.
 

There it was...the molehill that turned into a mountain! Now do you see what I mean? I can make a mountain out of a molehill. This is what needs to come alive in your stories. You need to give your character that thorn that will prick her/his finger and draw blood.
When you have a character that is bland, your story that you’ve built around her/him will surely be bland. You have to set a mountain on fire and have your character strive to walk through the fire!
 

If he is blind, have him fight for his sight! If he was born with no arms, have him go for the Guinness Book of World Records for archery. If it is a fish with no fin, have a character create a prosthetic tail. The world is limitless. Don’t just sit there and see the world through one window, grab hold of it and build yourself a house with MANY windows. Windows that look out onto mountains, or fields or a lake or stream.
 

Remember YOU are the writer. You are the creator. Your power with words is what is going to make or break you. The ones who fall, are the ones who cling to the old. The ones who soar, are the ones who decide to move on and FLY....

Dramatizing Events

Psalms 30:3 O LORD, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.
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The life of a writer is always full of drama. While other people have days where things go wrong, we writers have days of drama and we just have to spill the words onto the page to let everyone else in on our drama through what else, dramatizing.

Saturday started off like any other Saturday, except here in Nebraska it was unusually hot. ‘Another lazy hazy crazy day of Summer’ I thought. And so it began. I sat at the computer to write. I like writing my poems on Saturday to get them ready for Poetry Sunday, and maybe even pop out a post for Monday too. But that wasn’t going to happen on this day.

Adam decided he was going to mow the long grass! It’s long because every time we try to mow, the wet grass clogs up the blade and the poor mower poops out at mid shave! As was the way it went Saturday, except it started smoking. Trails of smoke lifted in the air, lingering for what seemed forever, but finally it stopped and so did Adam. “Call it a day.” I said. Oh he was more than happy to. ;)

I came in the house and tried sitting here to write, AGAIN. Beau decided to take ALL the books off the bookshelf; dust it, pull it out, and vacuum behind it. Good idea right? Wrong!!! The book shelf sits behind me at a towering 6 foot. It holds a whole lot of books! All the books on the floor, the shelf moved out, vacuuming begins. Watching as beau vacuumed, (he don’t like help, remember, he is blind yet independent!) I hear a HIGH pitch from the vacuum, recognizable as being something stuck, and sure enough, a piece of wood was stuck, shattering the belt and letting off a foul odor only to be inhaled at a community dump.

*SNAP* went his watch band. His brand new talking watch (the other ones battery died and was impossible to replace) So a new one arrived last week and *SNAP*, the band broke. “Well this day is a bust!” I said. “Let’s just call it a day.” It was about 3:30 by that time and nothing had gone right, I got no writing done, no mowing again, but the shelf was clean and shiny!

So we decided to find a new pin for the watch band, take the staple gun back to the basement and make something good come of this day. We go down the steps, beau in front, me in the back and *SNAP* My ankle snapped, I went down the last two steps hard and a scream came from me that went all the way to the heavens I’m sure.  I thought it was Fourth of July all over again, because I saw fireworks going off in my head as I sat there in pain! Tears flowed like a streaming river and had it not been for beaus strength in getting me up the steps, I’d still be lying there in pain.

Instant black and blue. Blood seeping from the scratched skin. I was on the sofa and did not move except to get to the bathroom. I had a golf club for a cane, and two guys waiting on me hand and foot. Oh the luxury of it all.

Sunday was spent with an ice pack, and another long sofa visit. I could put more weight on my foot, but then it took on the look of a Hobbits foot with no hair! Big, puffy and colorful as a storm cloud. Speaking of which, Sunday evening brought in a storm that left limbs strewn all over the place. One large one is impeding my walk down the back steps, narrowly missing the roof, for which it surely would have done roof damage!

The weekend is finally over, and I’m sitting here dramatizing the events. We’re all okay, and that is all that matters. You hear it all the time when people realize that life is really all that matters. My Hobbit foot is mending, the watch band is fixed, and I have hope that the vacuum and mower will be fine also. I just keep remembering...they are just material objects! We’re ALIVE! *Big Happy Face*

Longer than a 500 word post, but it was well worth it! Thanks for reading!