Name of the Game OR Kidstuff...And Why I Write It

Ok. So usually, I am not this kind of a blogger. I do have posts on here that are musings, or rants or opinions, but the real reason I set this whole thing up is to have somewhere to put my writing...just in case I lost it. Nothing on here is totally polished, just the first fully revised drafts. But it works. And now that I am in the process of revising several scripts and submitting others(and have had at least one produced! see review here), I have been thinking about my writing in general, and why I write what I do. So here goes:

All my life I have had this weird craving for adrenaline rushes. Which is ironic sometimes because I can be the world's biggest chicken. I was scared of the dark until I was thirteen, and still refuse to put my head under water when swimming due to an incident in the local pool when I was six--and I hate getting water up my nose or anywhere else it doesn't belong. But I digress. When I was little, my grandfather would show us movies.  Usually, he would show us old Hollywood stuff like The King and I and The Sound of Music(hence the reason why I have such an obsession with Silver Screen Hollywood, I suppose). But on one of those occasions, he showed me The Princess Bride. I know, I know, everybody's seen it; it's a classic. I was too young to get some of the jokes and other things that were in there, and I don't think I quite understood the plot, but I did enjoy the fencing matches. More than enjoyed them--they were the only thing I remembered, apart from the giant eel and the big rat thing(I know, I know ROUSes, but gimme I break I was six--or maybe seven, anyway---). I did hide under the blankets and cover my eyes when those things happened, and yes I did hide during the freaky bits in Never Ending Story. As a kid, I was chicken, I will openly admit that(I still am, sometimes).

Movies have always had a great effect on me and my writing. I write what I love, and that usually ties in to the types of movies I happen to be watching. I was raised on Disney. Most of my childhood movie watching experiences include Peter Pan, Fox and the Hound, Great Mouse Detective, and Beauty and the Beast. Pattern? They were all exciting. Peter Pan had sword fights, flying and the bomb; Beauty and the Beast  had that epic fight on the tower between Gaston and the Beast; Fox and the Hound had the bear confrontation, etc. Since I was watching kid stuff, I wrote kid stuff. I wrote about pioneer girls doing pioneer things and happy endings and stuff like that. Typical little girls stuff.

My writing took on another facet when I was introduced to Romeo and Juliet at the age of seven. And while I did go around crying "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo" all the time, I also started putting death into my stories. I wrote one where every single character died for no reason other than I wanted a death. I wrote several "kid tragedies" that I never want to see again during that phase of my writing "career". I also found out that critcs tend to latch on to the cornyness of anything that is in a story. I'm sorry, but sometimes corny works! I'm sidetracking again. Moving on....

When I was ten, my dad got tickets for him, my sister, and I to go see West Side Story at Sundance. My grandfather, of course, owned the movie and decided it was a good idea for my sister and I to watch it so we understood what was going on(he did the same thing with Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, but that's for later). I remember two things about my experience with that movie:
               
     1. I was very upset that every single good looking man in the movie died and all the ugly ones
         (with a couple of exceptions) did not.
   
     2. My physical and mental reaction to the rumble scene.

Those who know me already understand the fact that I am a hopeless romantic freak who falls for every male celebrity with a centimeter of stereotypical aesthetic attractiveness, and/or charisma, so number 1 is a no brainer.  Number 2, though....well, watch this:

Two clips, one on stage one from the movie; one professional, one form high school, but now that you've got the visual...here we go. So I get really into movies--like scary into them. And I was already invested in those when the rumble started. So when the knives came out, I started trembling, and then shaking. My pulse picked up, my heart was banging against my ribs, and my insides felt like they were being twisted around the tines of a fork(corny, I know, but roll with me on this). I wanted to watch it again, because of the way it made me feel. Good storytelling ties into people's emotions. And brother, if this scene didn't grab my emotions I don't know what did.

After that experience, I craved those adrenaline rushes. I love the sensation I get during a thriller or a noir, or and action/adventure--from my pulse picking up to the point where I can breathe. I wanted nothing more than to experience that as a writer. So that I what I tried to write. For the next six or seven years I subjected my poor characters to violence, fear, blood and...well, you get the idea. I was great for helping me control my temper too. Anytime someone made me mad, I would turn them into a character, locked them in a room, or put a weapon in his hand(usually it was a "he"), and unleash my writer's wrath on him. For pages. (Yes, I can be bloodthirsty, don't make me mad, get over it.)

But I noticed that while I was getting these rushes, it was only when I was writing. I didn't feel happy afterwards. I felt dark and depressed--which is not something a writer should be feeling. But I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to stay darkside, but I wanted to write and get that same feeling every time I wrote.

When I couldn't stand it anymore I took a mini writing break. I took all my dark stuff and threw it away. I shredded some of the awful stuff I had written, and went back to my first love: Disney and kid capers. Those were calm, and made me feel happy. But I missed my adrenaline rushes.

About a year ago, I got introduced to Goonies and Dead End/East Side Kids/Bowery Boys(see previous posts--all them--it's bad how obsessed it get!). There was still excitement, still danger, still occasional violence, but it also had kids. And I love kids. So I thought "hey, I should try putting the two together and see how it meshes in my head." You know what? IT TOTALLY DOES!!!! And the best part is that it's ok to be corny in the process. I can be funny and corny and appeal to a general audience and get my writer's adrenaline rush without going darkside. And you know what? It feels SO GOOD!!!!!

You can see my drafts of my "kid caper/noir series" here.