Your Imaginary Friend is a Bitch

Dear Readers, (if there are any at all)

What do Captain Morgan, Eliza Doolittle, and WritingHannah have in common?

Well, after my previous post and youtube vlog I heard from several people who felt the "judgement-free creating time" and "stop worrying, sit down and start" advice was helpful, and I'm always glad to be of help. (that sounds totally self important.)

In this post I will endeavor to describe what I now realize is the secret second half of those ideas. (I'm bored, this post sucks balls, and I want some fucking cake!!)

If you haven't already noticed, I'm joined this evening by a nagging alterego who many of you are familiar with, whether you know it or not. She is the cousin of the sweaty gyrating sleazy thoughts I mentioned in the last post, a multifaceted personality at once resembling your mother, the Trunchbull, and a coked up hummingbird. Let's call her Ethel. Mostly because I don't know anyone named Ethel so there's no risk of gravely insulting anybody. Unless of course your name is Ethel... In which case you are more than welcome to create a psychologically abusive alterego and name her Hannah. (not funny)

Anyways, for all you non-Ethels out there, let's say you've been meaning to write a rap song about monkeys, mosaic your bathroom counter, or invent a new type of ice cream (fatty,) and you're off to a really good start because instead of wringing your hands and deferring the starting of the project until... infinity, you've actually given yourself a break from cripplingly high expectations and sat down. My latest youtube video (enough with the flagrant self promotion) www.youtube.com/writinghannah contained a favorite quote of mine which expressly states that "the art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair."

But that's not entirely true. Because once you're sitting down Ethel is just raring to sink her teeth into all of your ideas... they are either half-baked or derivative. Do you know what people will think when they see what you're doing? Your idea is a dead-end which you're never going to finish, and even if you did it would be offensively uninteresting. People are going to yawn or laugh at you. The Daily Show is on! You need a drink. You need a snack. You are a socially awkward pathetic excuse for a (fill-in-the-blank) and nobody likes you. Nobody. (No really, nobody.)

Needless to say, no matter how determinately you have positioned your ass in your work-chair, this sort of nonsense makes it difficult to keep your momentum. If you're not a fraud and a failure you're being lazy... if you're working really hard you're not working smart, if your ideas are interesting your execution is sloppy. You can't win.

But guess what? You're in good company. I think it's safe to say that most of the best ideas sounded totally insane in their conception, and only a fool doesn't think to question himself. 

I keep an old sugarbowl next to my computer. There's a little crescent notch in the top which is meant for a spoon, but that's not what I keep inside. Inside the sugarbowl are dozens of little shreds of paper. I have not opened said container for many weeks, but I feel it's important to share some of the contents with you in order to silence the nagging power of our collective Ethels, so here is a selection of the real scraps within...

"prose nauseatingly bad."

"OMG so bad."

"you are dry... creative pools all are behind you." 

"NOT RIGHT!"

"People are going to be pissed off about this."

"hypocrite."

"MESSYmessymessymessy"

"cliche"

"self indulgent"

"never going to finish"

...and my personal favorite which simply says "FUCK YOU!" accompanied by a big jumble of angry squiggles.

I'm not purporting to know anything more about the creative process than anybody else, but I do know that when I was a kid I always imagined Joyce and DaVinci and Mozart rocking back and forth in an artistic trance producing scores upon scores of brilliant earth-shakingly original ideas which flowed together with silky certainty.

In school you read about great generals and great journalists and all the great things they did, but rarely does anybody mention the universal Ethel. 

Everybody questions themselves, and capable people are often the harshest self-critics. DaVinci was actually so frustrated by what he perceived to be his own lack of self-discipline that he was often quoted as appealing to God with the question "tell me if anything was ever done!" Alan Lerner, triple Tony & triple Academy Award winning musical writer (he did one of my favorites, My Fair Lady,) was such a notorious procrastinator that his partner literally had to lock him in his hotel room any time they were nearing a deadline. Dickinson, Proust, Tolkien, all of them struggled immensely with self-critique to the point where much of their work was kept away from the public/ destroyed. 

Which is to say, you're in good company. There's a crazy Amadeus myth out there about people who are so brilliant at what they do that they just churn out brilliance by the barrel-full all the time, but that's bullshit.  Successful entrepreneurs in the media spotlight today (everybody from Trump to JK Rowling to Gates & Bono) don't want to have you hearing about how difficult it is to overcome their insecurities and creative roadblocks, they aren't going to admit how often they lie in bed questioning the value of their contributions. They're quick to share success stories, but rarely share any of their Ethel. She's a nasty little secret that everyone's  embarrassed to have around because maybe all those nagging doubts are true, and if anybody ever knew about them then...

*shudder*   (shut up Hannah, only lame-o 6th graders express actions with asterisks... asterices? You can't even spell right, how do you expect to write right?)

The point is that at least for me, growing up with stories of great leaders and thinkers like George Washington and Shakespeare, it never occurred to me that everybody has a creative process, which means doing something totally brand new is ALWAYS scary and ALWAYS fraught and ALWAYS peppered with a billion little Ethels no matter who you are. 

Everybody's seen this picture of Washington crossing the Delaware on December 25th- noble, resolute, rocking the "I'm such a bad-ass" Captain-Morgan stance...

But rarely do we talk about December 24th... the day Washington probably had a bit of a tummy ache, and smoked a bit too much tobaccee, and couldn't fall asleep anxiously anticipating his next move after being completely WALLOPED by the British at both the battle of White Plains and the battle of Long Island (which was the largest battle of the entire war!) We remember him as a strong commander, but nobody as savvy and humble as Washington would have been blind enough to rock the Captain-Morgan stance on December 24th. He wasn't the first president on December 24th, the rock of democracy, he was barely even a competent general. Plus he had just gotten a ton of people killed and fucked up the biggest battle he would ever fight in. Way to go Georgie. 

But people don't paint pictures of the presidents' tummy aches, or write epic poetry about whiners. They write about winners. Heros. We come to worship these heros- the "greats." The dead white men whom we quote in thesis papers. The dead white men whose last names have become adjectives... 

Well behind ever great man is a great woman. And behind ever great person is an Ethel. 

So don't despair if she's jabbering rather loudly of late. Only fools have the good fortune of not having her around. The bad news is that she never goes away. The good news is that the more frequently you manage to hear her and then shove her latest quotation into the proverbial sugarbowl, the more creative potential you unleash. 

Don't let your Ethel convince you that you're the only shmuck shmucky enough for her to hang around with. She's more than a bit of a tramp. She's been dogging everybody from Aristotle to P.Diddy since the birth of man. Such is the curse of sentience.

So know that you are never alone in feeling unproductive, untalented, unoriginal, or unloved. We're a queer bunch, us humans, and for all of our innovation and diversity we often forget what unites us... and that what unites us often undoes us. Self Awareness can lead to a desire to understand, to create, to communicate, and from thence comes civilization, science, art. But with the help of an insidious Ethel and others to compare yourself with, Self Awareness can also breed jealousy, self-criticism, competition, and all of the other ingredients of the war and senseless carnage we're so famous for. 

Trust yourself. Trust yourself for long enough to get all the way to the end of that project you've been putting off. Because I guarantee you will surprise yourself, and even if you look back and you (as all your creative forefathers and mothers before you have done) think it kinda sucks, it'll be more satisfying than looking back at nothing at all.  And you'll be more prepared for the next thing you try. And (if you're the type of person to believe in this sort of thing,) you'll be discovering your destiny along the way instead of lamenting a lack of one. 

Get out those sugarbowls, rock your best pirate stance, and ford into the wild unknown knowing that you know what you don't yet know that you know. (well if the rest of this treacly crap didn't scare them away, that certainly did.)

Much Love,

Hannah

"Trust thyself, every heart vibrates to that iron string." Emerson

Teentastic

So now that I've written 288 pages of a book I feel I'm finally in a position to answer these questions which many folks have been asking: What the hell is your book about? And why does everything suck? And why the hell should I care?


First for a little background.

Two years ago I was in my Yale dorm room studying for some bullshit literature test. It was late. I realized I would never be able to cram in enough knowledge of obscure Hegelian ideals to get an 'A' when I decided to procrastinate.

"What's with this whole GPA nonsense?" I thought to myself. "Who even came up with this crap?'

I did some digging. I discovered that the 4.0 grade system was invented at Yale, and I fell off my couch and lay on the floor like a comatose beached starfish reliving the cosmic cycle which had drafted me as a perfectionist pawn and spit me out here... I spent my entire highschool career mastering a system to impress an institution that invented that very system. ***See myriad of EDUCATION and YALE  posts.

Needless to say, I was pissed off. I channeled this into a few Bailey's-fueled nights of too much eye makeup and underaged dancing to horrible club music, then progressed into my "fuck it" phase, during which I ate cookies by the boxfull and stayed in bed for days skipping class, not showering, and watching LOST episodes back to back to back. I moaned and groaned and had a big existential crisis in the Sterling Memorial Library courtyard while smoking a cigarette during the "life is a meaningless abyss, might as well be a trendy hipster and blow ironic cigarette smoke rings into said abyss" phase. And I realized that I could continue to bitch or I could do something. So I started writing.

I wrote a few op-eds about No Child Left Behind, and I wrote a big fat book proposal.

Fast forward to a few months ago. I was put in touch with HCI, a fantastic company based out of Florida known for the Chicken Soup For The Soul series. Young Adult (YA) market is growing. Fangirls are proving their strength. They wanted a teenage memoir. Could I do that?

I wasn't sure. I wrote down a collection of teenage angsty highschool stories, tried to be as honest as possible about the reality of being a teenager, and hoped for the best. It's seven months and 288 pages later, and now I'm pretty sure I can.

SO ONTO THE QUESTIONS!

1. What the hell is your book about?
My book is a teenage memoir. Sure I haven't created the most expansive monarchy in the world, or become a billionaire mogul with my adorably anorexic twin sister, or written, directed, produced, and starred in one of the greatest films of all time. (a big thanks to Alexander, Olsens, and Orson Welles for making my every achievement seem little more than the not-even-sticky-anymore brown star at the end of the sticker supply.) Still, having spent the last few months poring over old yearbooks and reassembling the most awkward and formative moments of my life into some semblance of a story, I cannot escape what a surprisingly... interesting journey it's turned out to be.

And by "interesting" I mean a combination between fascination, frustration, titillation, and utter repulsion. At first compared to what I had initially set out to write about, teenagehood seemed a little frivolous, but the more time I spend with my teenage self and her teenage problems and teenage friends and enemies and frenemies, the more I realize that we're all still teenagers at heart.

Little kids are stupid. Ignorant to the social boundaries we have drawn all around ourselves with different colored cultural crayons. They'll soon learn through a steady dose of indoctrination and humiliation, but until then they'll run out of the bathroom absolutely beaming, shouting "HannahHannahHannah I pooped a circle!!" as my five year old cousin informed me yesterday. When you're a kid you don't know enough to worry about the chickenskin on your arms or your uneven eyebrows or the fact that when you're around pretty girls you get gassy.

Then, hooray! Middleschool. Awkward dancing. Bitchy popular people. Braces. Unfortunate hormonal side effects all 'round. You learn that your parents are not the smartest strongest bestest in the whole wide world, that pretty much nobody other than them wants to listen to your fully choreographed one-woman rendition of Office Krupke from West Side Story, and that your fossil collection is not objectively neato. You learn that pretty much everything you do in a regular day could do with some "cool"ifying, and you watch TV shows with real live teenagers (played by 35 year old underwear models) and figure out the new rules.

All of which you are ready to implement come highschool. New freedoms- cars, parties, that creepy delegate dance at the end of the model UN conference where every greasy nerd in the continental united states cashes in the horny points they've been saving with a whole year of sexual frustration in some super un-PC PDA...

I think the teenage state of mind has been trivialized and overlooked as a result of suburban affluence- all kids have to do is go to school so all of their problems are just angst and hormones. Sure, when your lifespan is 80 years long the second 1/8 might not seem that important, but not too long ago teenaged was middle aged, and it was teenagers on the battlefront in every major revolution. The teenage mind is revolutionary by definition- surging with fundamental synapse zaps which will change your body, your processing, challenge every world view.

Guess what?
There's no Santa, Dad's an alcoholic, the government is lying to you, your mother is having an affair with "auntie cathy," and babies come from sex, which you will think about all the time, but in all probability have about as much chance of having it as you have of being cool and popular, and let's face it... were you?

2. Why does "Everything Suck?"
When I was unpopular everything sucked because I felt like there was something wrong with me. Seriously, I was sure I was defective. Maybe if I just tried harder, got smarter, skinnier, funnier, then I would be able to be "normal." This seemed very important and also very faroff coming from a house where a monkey roams around the kitchen and instead of spending money to fix the gutters my Dad once designed and constructed a vehicular shoe. Here is some advice: if you want people to think you're normal, do not show up to school in a shoe.

After a lot of research and focus and hair gel, eventually I did feel popular. But things weren't perfect at the top- there was competition coupled with all of the self-doubt from before, and a whole new set of expectations that came from being more in the spotlight. Sex, drugs, college applications... You'll have to read the book to find out about drinking Cristall with famous rappers, almost getting kicked out of Yale before I get to attend, being published in Newsweek at 17, and other things too embarrassing to mention in this forum. But the point is that in a time of great flux, if you don't like yourself, then you start searching. Far and wide. And the farther you search the more lost you feel in your own skin, and then by extension, everything kind of does suck.


3. Why the hell should I care?
Well, you certainly don't have to care. But if you're at all interested in understanding yourself, or your peers, and the future of this planet, teenagers are at the crux of it all. The stage for ideological revelation is set in the time between childhood and adulthood- you're reevaluating your place in the world, questioning the things you've always been taught, gaining independence. Maybe you're a bully or a recluse or a cheerleader but whether you loved or hated highschool, it would be hard to identify another chunk of 4 years which is so universally... awkward. You have no expertise, no moves, little freedom, and pretty much no respect. Who even are you? Who are your friends? What are you good for?

In the olden days teenagers were apprentices or serfs. They weren't lazing around all day on Second Life eating Doritos, downloading pirated porn, and shopping for shoes. There wasn't time for having an existential crisis. No dating. No clubbing. NO FACEBOOK. Leisure time leads to high-class problems. ADD. Controlled substances. Depression. Being one of those goth kids who cultivates paleness. People sell these teens prozac. Ipods. Cigarettes and shoes. Ivy League degrees.

And then you get out and you realize that everything and nothing is like highschool. There are still politics, inequality, and suckiness. But there are also still reliable awesome people who you love. Fun things to learn and explore. There's power struggles and ass-kissing and also flexibility and self-determination. So. Many. Possibilities.

The teenager inside you has a lot to say- she's shy and cynical, awkward and gawky and bursting with dreams... she has the power to lead revolutions, the stubbornness to start wars, and the uncertainty to undo all of the good within her by comparing herself as pale comparisons to others. Embrace her passion, respect her questioning, and assure her that it's really, truly, finally okay to be herself.

(And buy her a copy of my teenage memoir Everything Sucks out in August.)

Flannery O'Connor said "anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days." And I'd posit that anybody who has lived through their teenagehood has enough information, happy, crappy, and transformational moments, to write about. 

To all those who laughed when I told them I was writing a memoir at the age of 22-yes it's true it sounds a little funny, and probably even a little pretentious. But who says you need to be at the end of your life to reflect? In fact isn't it going to be more generative/relevant the sooner you start? And don't teenagers deserve something of their own to read? Some honest humor, vulnerability, and  commiseration in a world of too much GPA ADD and MTV? 

After four pages I thought this was a terrible idea for a project. After one hundred I was intrigued. And now after 288 pages, I feel like my book has become something I never expected- sprouted its own personality and agenda and purpose. Just like a real teenager. I'm so excited to see what kind of antics it gets up to before publication. 

Keep me posted, hope all is well, let me know what you're thinking.
xox
H

All Work And No Play Makes Hannah a Confidence Ponderer. or: Why A Theater Major is at most only 70% BS.

As some of you may know, it is T minus seven days before I hand in my first draft of of my first book.
Now I know first drafts don't have to be perfect, but that doesn't change the fact that the only reason I'm talking to you right now at all is that I am procrastinating having to continue squeezing a baby out of my brain. Get out the bone saws. This one's a struggler.

I hope that you will forgive me for my absence, and take heart in knowing that while I deprived you of any posts more substantial than me mugging with a monkey, (desperate times...) I was depriving myself of sunlight, regular human interaction, and even the most basic human hygiene. I know, I know, I'm quite a catch. Inside my love den strewn with post-its, crusty thai takeout, monkey poop, and glitter nailpolish, things have never looked brighter. This is probably due to the fact that because I have been left to my own devices, (but having absolutely no connection to the recent Twilight epidemic,) I have essentially become a pajama-wearing, chocoholic, nocturnal hermit whose only source of light is florescent.

Not that I would mind some kind of connection to the recent Twilight epidemic. If being mormon and writing about vampire foreplay is the recipe for 25 million books sold and 30 million opening day, then break out the magic golden plates and virgin blood, cuz I'm moving to Utah.

Here's what I think makes vampires so sexy: They can't die, they don't take shit, and for some reason even though they never have occupations, they are always immaculately appointed and live in giant mansions. This all adds up to one thing: CONFIDENCE. I have been thinking about confidence a lot lately. (If you're not up for a neurotic psychoanalytical Magic Shoolbus-esque journey to the center of the mind of a person who's been spending six hours a day reliving all of their most awkward and formative memories in agonizing detail, bail now. I don't blame you- it's a fucking circus in there. Get out while you can.)

For the rest of you- the biggest challenge of writing for me, hands down, is just believing in the idea that I'm actually going to finish something. Starting out with a blank page has got to be one of the most awful experiences in my life- i imagine hell will be and endless repetition of blaring alarm clocks, blank first pages, and the leaky brown water at the bottom of garbage cans. At least in school I could go on an all night bender and churn out something loaded up with enough metaphors and "paradoxes" to confuse my TA into thinking that it deserves an A because as far as literary theory goes, there's a pretty fine line between pretentious genius and pretentious tripe.

I'm trying hard to make sure this book (which is 30 times longer than any mfing paper) isn't pretentious anything, because for all their giggling and gossip, teenage girls are actually ninja masters at social radar. They can detect bullshit and insincerity a mile off. I should know, I was one.

And a confused one at that. I didn't have a dashing vampire lover, or an alternate life as a pop-star, or the body of Lindsay Lohan, so according to popular opinion I was pretty much as important as every other angsty teenage girl with hair line acne, which was not very important at all. I wasn't very confident. I should have been.

Here's what I think about Sarah Palin- 5% fashion, 5% "aw, shucks," 110% confidence. I know, I know Mathy Mcgee, that adds up to more than a hundred. That's how important I think the confidence was- it pushed her over the edge, it made the things that came out of her mouth, no matter how raucously imbecilic, sound totally legitimate, because she committed.

They talk a lot in the theater about commitment. "Commit to your role," "commit to the scene." But what does that really mean? I had an excellent acting teacher last year who, in a refreshing departure from high fallutin theater theory, emphasized the importance of just being real, right now, here in your body. She advised asking yourself the questions that will yield specifics about your character's situation which you can use find intersections into your own experience, getting prepared, and then chilling the fuck out. Don't show how upset you are about having to shoot your mentally retarded lady/mouse-murdering farm buddy. Just exist up there on the stage, and trust yourself. If you believe it, we'll believe it.

Palin certainly had down the "trusting yourself" part even if the preparation wasn't all there, which just goes to show the power of confident improvisation. And politicians have good reason to be confident. They're controlling the lives of thousands, sometimes even billions of people. Nothing'll put a spring in your step quite like the knowledge that with a flip of your little finger, you could make Russia extinct.

Confidence can make dumb people alluring, and turn untalented people into celebrities. I don't think I need to name names..
And you know what? Good for them. Even better for those people who were talented to begin with and then just ran with it. Props to Bowie for prancing around dressed like a time traveling transvestite and not only getting away with it, but marrying a god damn super model. Props to OJ Simpson forgetting off the hook and then having the balls to write a book called "If I Did It." Well probably not so much props as gasps of audacity, but you get the picture...

This is what I've been learning:

1.) A key to writing, and probably a lot of other things, is having confidence. The confidence to face the blank page and get through three more pages of shit believing that maybe on page 4 something worthwhile will come out. And a lot of the time it feels like you're lying to yourself, because you're the one making all the shit, and you're getting that distinct gassy feeling like there's a lot more to come.

2.) The key to having confidence is lying to yourself. Hold on there, don't get your britches in a twist. This isn't Enron or OJ lying, I'm talkin' about some good old fashioned blind faith. Because nobody is born with a 300 page book in their hands, and how are you ever going to get away with becoming a Vice Presidential, glam-rock murderer if you don't have a little faith in a seemingly distant dream?

3. Having confidence and committing can create reality. There were many days when I was sure I wouldn't be able to finish this project the way I wanted to. I wasn't a professional writer who worked 8 hours a day and met deadlines and did outlines. It's true. I wasn't. So I lied to myself a little bit every day, and pretended I was that person. After a while I stopped checking the clock and facebook every 20 minutes, and after 6 months of being confident in a little positive lying, I think I actually became half-competent.

A paper cape and a crown can turn a fine actor into a king. He commits. He doesn't criticize himself, worry about preparation for the next scene, or keep one eye the reviewer in the front row, because he's just in the moment. He's confident.

And the bard wasn't dumb. Life really is a stage. No one is born ready to do what they want to do, and lots of clumsy footwork always precedes the grand tango of every great goal. The only way to be the person who runs 2 miles a day or reads two books a week or turns into Paris Hilton is one audacious cha-cha at a time. Pretend. Do your prep-work, don't freak out about the nay-sayers, stay in the moment a little every day until you've done enough prep to become. Have faith in the progress of a continual process. It's a bitch for web-savvy kids like us to wrap our heads around, but unfortunately, Life Itself is not googleable. So lie yourself into having the confidence to believe that with some well-intentioned patience in pretending, you can get your shit done. And if that sounds a little Dr. Phil for you then surprise because you've unintentionally stumbled upon the long awaited (by nobody but me,) third installment of Hannah's Guide To Eternal Happiness

Anyways, this would all be well and good if I were not, as I mentioned before, totally talking out of my ass right now in a cowardly retreat from the vile whiff of blank-white-book-page. You guys are the best. Thanks for all of your encouragement. I know you wouldn't want to be aiding or abetting my continued procrastination, because if I don't finish this book I can't move out of my parent's house and will probably start traveling around the country in a pink minivan full of cats showing up at your house to crash on your couches and eat your frozen dinners. (I know where you live.)

Please keep me posted on your goings on, I'd love to hear updates on life, work, politics, etc , and if you have something interesting to share feel free to shoot me an email at writinghannah@me.com because in light of my deadline I've been considering the community-fostering, diversity-generating, (ie lazy,) idea of having guest contributors on the blog. No but seriously, I want your probative ponderings like a fat kid wants cake.

Wish me luck people. Back to the trenches.

Much Love,
Hannah

All Roads Lead To Rome. (Writing about Writing)

A few of you have asked me to blog about writing. I assume you want something more substantive than this embarassingly accurate reenactment of my day:

Morning... Bleh. email, digg, facebook, email, cookies! Bleh. writing, bitching, itching, knitting, cookies! Bleh. TV. (repeat)

Here goes- Writing is the most rewarding and maddening endeavor I have ever undertaken. Sometimes you sit down at the keyboard and the keys just clickclickclick away like raindrop patter and every image is poignant and you ride atop a soaring wave of creative flow until suddenly you realize it's been 2 hours and 5 pages since you sat down and you exhale a sigh of supreme satisfaction. The world is a beautiful place and you have a beautiful real purpose.

These times are few and far between.

They are flanked by many large angry phalanxes of crappy times. Writer's block is, for me, a misnomer, because it suggests that if the writer were to use some figurative plunging or Draino-powered purging, everything would flow freely. When things are not flowing it never seems the fault of a "block," but rather the crappy crumbling system of my own cerebral plumbing. It's simply no good. It'd be cheaper to trash the whole damn thing than to try and fix a little leak or blockage. I feel like the paragraph I'm staring at is shit, the chapter I'm pondering is shit, the project, and by extension my entire pathetic creative career and very existence is shit...

OPTIMISTIC H: But I've done good stuff before, right? 

U.R.SHIT H: Irrelevant. The well has run dry... the best you can hope for now is that people won't realize when you slap tacky ornaments onto your old, withering, once-mildly-amusing ideas.

HANNUKAH H: Man I love ornaments... and Christmas trees. And ham! Driedels blow.

GOD-FEARING H: You're totally going to hell. Say you love Hannukah.

HANNUKAH H: Fuck no!

GOD-FEARING H: Say it or God will smite you and you won't be written down in his fancy yearbook of people who aren't going to die this year.

NEUROSIS H: Ohmigod Ohmigod Ohmigod I read this thing about black African ants that travel in enormous migrating mountains 10 million strong, and they destroy everything in their path, and if they reach you you die, but not by ant bite, you die by suffocation. 

H: Eiw!

GOD-FEARING H: See? God has some scary shit up his sleeve.

EGALITARIAN H: Her sleeve.

ATHEIST H: Nobody's sleeve.

AGNOSTIC H: Is there even a sleeve at all? 

BUDDHIST H: It is the empty space within the sleeve that defines the sleeve.

REALITY CHECK H: You are all so full of shit. Shut up. What were we talking about again?

U.R.SHIT H: How she's full of shit.

BUDDHIST H: Now now, even shit is part of the oneness of the universe.

SKINNYBITCH H: You're only saying that cuz you're ugly. And FAT. I thought you reached Nirvana by starving yourself under a tree for 40 days... did Nirvana come with a milkshake and a side fries?

BUDDHIST H: You know what? Peace out.

SKINNYBITCH H: That's right fatty- you run! Then maybe in a few millenia you won't be the Chris Farley of deities.

WIKI H: Let's google the gods of greek mythology!

SKINNYBITCH H: Or the Olsen twins!

EGO H: Let's google me!

My curmudgeonly friend Ned says that blogs are literary masturbation, and that nobody wants to read about "all those fruity feelings," and that I should only keep him posted in the event that something truly momentous occurs because why the hell else would he read me instead of Orwell? And with Ego H leading the way I find just the thing...

Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League, the guy who has protested everything from Dogma and The Golden Compass to Bill Maher and a statue of Jesus made out of chocolate, the 

guy who was featured in the Easter episode of South Park using a "doublecross" to seize papal power and condemn Jesus himself for "going against the church," quoted yours truly in a book. Whaaaaat?

 

CHECK IT OUT 

My favorite part is that after my quote about icky teenage backstabbing he writes "...but not so with Jesus." I have found myself tempted to use this phrase a lot over the past few days, like "Working hard makes me want to get wicked high and play Halo... not so with Jesus" or "I think my brother tangled up the network with all of that online hardcore babysitter porn... not so with Jesus."

Anyway this just goes to show you how far I am usually led astray by bands of roving writerly doubt. One minute I'll be staring at a sentence unsure of what adjective to use and the next I'm having a full out existential crisis followed by an unstoppable craving for South Park, Redtube,  controlled substances, and the meaning of life itself. It's exhausting. 

The strange thing is that when you really are in the zone, when your fingers are flowing in perfect harmony with your thoughts, if you start thinking "oh wow I'm totally in the zone, hot damn that was a great metaphor," you plummet straight back into the pit. Don't overthink it. You can look back later.

Which is to say: I don't really like writing. I like having written. 

The satisfaction of looking back over a whole literary landscape you've crafted stone by stone totally... rocks. But the creative unconscious is a finicky creature who hates nothing more than the over-intellectual analysis that peppered so many of my best college papers. I've been reading a lot of 'writers on writing' and everybody seems to agree on one seemingly simple thing: stop trying so hard, don't be afraid to make mistakes, just do it.

The trick is that, just like with meditation, clearing your mind is much easier said than done. I find that carrying a notebook to get ideas out of my head is helpful, as is scribbling down a list of any "why you're an untalented loser" thoughts which get in the way of uninhibited writing. 

My favorite recent discovery is the fact that all good ideas and potent themes and meaningful truths that want to get written exist in a room with a million doors. 

Stay with me... so you can agonize over symbolism and stare at the computer for 12 hours trying to find the perfect topic or theme or chapter title, but in reality that thing has been waiting around the whole time for you to start knocking. Maybe you start knocking at a door with a picture of your dog on it, which reminds you of your Dad, which reminds you of that time you and your Dad went hiking and played harmonica in the abandoned barn and you realize what you really want to talk about is bonding through music. The door opens and suddenly you're inside- rehearsals, pianos, performance anxiety, it is a rich radiant room and now you're on a roll.

Or maybe you start knocking on a door that has nailpolish on it. And you start writing about painting your nails and that saxophone player who had sparkle nailpolish, or you knock on the sushi door and you write about the first time you ate California rolls in New York City and how your mother said if you didn't stand behind the yellow line someone might throw you into the subway tracks and how the buskers played the Star Spangled Banner as the 4 train pulled away. It doesn't matter what you start writing about because now you're inside the music room again even though you came in from the other side through a different door.

Stop worrying what's right. Write. **

**HYPOCRITE ALERT H: If Hannah could take this advice half as often as she dispenses it she'd have been onto book #4 last year instead of trapped on page 57 of book #1 for the third day straight. Damn.

Keep the faith. Keep smiling. Keep me posted.

xo

H (&H&H&

Me (MeMeMeMeMe)

Birthdays have always seemed a little anti-climactic since my My Little Pony days. Somewhere along the way, getting the cake slice with the very most frosting became a matter of calorific concern instead of glee, and the wondrous wonder of helium balloons began to deflate. 

Plus, the fact that I've never had one of those incestuous Dawson's Creek/Saved by the Bell 'crews' who throws you surprise parties and gives you big group-hugs as sappy string music plays and you all learn a lesson about friendship and love and not abusing caffeine pills has always made a birthday party consisting of a geriatric primate and my brother and the cat who humps my pillowcase seem like a big YOU'RE LAME-themed commercial for why I should just give up the social struggle and stop shaving my armpits and move into a cave. 

Six year old me would not be pleased with this because she knows your birthday is not about you moving into a cave, but about you being the princess of the whole wide world. 

But time and middleschool brutality have taught me much humility.

A level of humility which is surprisingly difficult to maintain whilst publicizing the completely coincidental public birthday launch of my me themed show all about me:

FLYING SOLO

http://www.mylifetime.com/lifestyle/entertainment/flying-solo/video/1815816476

Hooray!!!

I have nothing else to say because I'm watching it now making ick faces at all the times I sound/look like an idiot. Feel free to echo these embarrassing instances as a means of keeping me grounded, or if you're feeling generous, let me know what doesn't totally suck. Thanks guys. 

Best,

Hannah (Princess of the whole wide day) 

Also, if you liked it, it would be a huge boon if you posted a little love on lifetime:

Comment

http://www.mylifetime.com/lifestyle/entertainment/flying-solo

TV & Me

I must apologize for being MIA as of late. I got a bitchin case of tendinitis from typing all curled up in bed in what yoga enthusiasts might dub the 'constipated fetus' pose. I know that fetuses can't be constipated and now I also know that pirating crappy mac dictation software and trying to use it in public leads to your yelling obscenities repeatedly at someone who isn't there, thus blurring any differentiation between you and a crazy homeless person- 

"It was a rather aggressive... "Not 'a grass lives.' Delete. AGGRESSIVE. Not 'agar is' goddamn it. Aggressive. Delete. Delete! No don't type delete, just delete. DELETE!"

And then it deletes your entire document. And then you shout "control Z! control Z! whilst tensing your fists up like... a constipated fetus. And then a policeman asks you if there is a problem. Needless to say that little experiment didn't last very long and I decided to let my tendons rest for a bit.

I spent the week at the New York Television Festival at which a reality pilot about me was premiering. I suppose what I should have guessed about reality television is that, instead of being a compilation of your most fantastically intelligent viewpoints and clever quips and humorous moments, it's more like letting someone take hundreds of naked pictures of you and then publish a hideous compilation of all the most hairy scaly blotchy dimply pimply patches for all the world to see. Over and over again when and wherever they would like. In fact I think most people would come off better in their secret sex tape than in their own reality tv show because you can't really be a whiny jerk or a jerky ditz or a ditzy fucktard when all you're doing is having an orgasm. 

That being said, my pilot Flying Solo was a pleasant surprise, and although they cut all my thoughts on positive female role models, and reforming education, and music as a means of cultural communication, and the creative unconscious, and the writing process, and the mark of our generation, at least I didn't look like a megabitch.... It premieres on mylifetime.com in the next few days and I'd love to hear your thoughts. It's a hybrid reality show by P&G combining my footage with the crew's footage to detail my summer.

The festival was smashing and I met tons of creative filmmakers as well as comedy development folks and even the heads of Swedish television. Turns out Swedish television is totally cutting edge- they won an interactive Emmy for a recent project called The Truth about Marika which combined a TV drama with an online conspiracy in which fans were encouraged to uncover the truth about the 20,000 people who have gone missing in Sweden in the past few decades, and the part that blew me away was that in addition to the online hacking there were clues and meetings and surprises planted all over Sweden, blending game with reality, and completely immersing the viewer as a true participant in the mystery. They even had a game where viewers could drive to an actual set in the form of a war trench, suit up in battlegear, and wage computer warfare from within the game. And we think we're pushing the limit with text message American Idol voting...

I always loved those old maps in  history class from before all the continents had been mapped- the ones with big dragons and seamonsters dotting uncharted waters, daring explorers to journey into the unknown, and I was pretty bummed to discover at the age of 7 that the only things truly left to explore are the thick jungle, the deep sea, and outerspace seeing as I am an allergic claustrophobe with a fear of flying. 

But the NYTVF really inspired me to view the internet as a new frontier not only for entertainment and social networking, but for education, creative inspiration, and as a tool for empowering the oppressed. Never before have we had access to so much information from so many different cultures, and I can only hope that this, in the face of religious oppression and intellectual/social intolerance and economic fucking Armageddon, will pave the way for cooperation and innovation as it's done in previous incarnations of cultural renaissance. 

I was heartened to find a community of artists at the festival who were really just plain nice. They were hardworking passionate people who were excited to share their ideas and it made me hopeful about the future despite increasingly dire newspaper headlines. 

I also learned that everyone is desperate for good content, and that even for comedy geniuses only about 10% of ideas are great, and the collaboration leads to greatness, so in the spirit of the festival I'm posing the very first...

Collaborative Writinghannah Challenge!!!

Combine at least three of the following elements into a kick-ass TV series pitch:

Speculum   Kleptomania Beer  Byron  Bear-Baiting  Toddlers  Adultery

Jellybeans   Dr. Seuss Podiatry  Treasure-Hunting  Celebrities  Foot-Fetish

Drugs Collectors Vampires/Ninjas (must use both)  Dating  Amish

Sing-Along   Canada Time-Travel   The-80s  Tits  Fashion  DaDaism

Thoreau  Terrorism Feminism  Dragons  Psoriasis  Lesbians  Marsupials

Defenestration   Mendel Flesh-eating-bacteria Glitter  Lincoln  Dwight

Makeovers Prison Monarchy  Amnesia  Intervention  Japan  Gynocology

Octopi  Johnny-Cash Baking  The-1800s The-Mob  Nietzsche  World-Domination

Sun Tsu Jesus Fungus  Nuts   Ballroom-dancing  Fetuses  Aquaphobia 

Monkey Nymphomania  French Maids Basketball  Puppets  Hipsters

Prizes will be awarded by category and for originality.

Best,

H

PH.D. in Yo.U

If you are looking for Yale posts, I suggest you read the intro to this post which is here and here. 

Thank you for your insightful thoughts and questions regarding my most recent education post.  My favorite nervous prefrosh E wrote: “Before you scared the bejeezus out of me concerning Yale. Now you scared the bejeezus out of me in general. Where can I get a REAL education?"  

       

This question and others like it from fellow knowledge-lovers who are frustrated with what one reader described as “recycled thought, recycled theses, and recycled teaching,” deserve a very thoughtful answer, and I spent much of this week turning over possibilities in my mind.          

But an answer came to me, as most exciting answers so often do, as a complete surprise and while I was focused on something else entirely- namely finishing a 50 page chapter summary for my editor.

 

Let me just say that writing is a bitch. You stare at a blank page completely convinced you have absolutely nothing to say, or even if you do kinda have a vague idea of what you’d like to say, crafting those blobs of thought into a cohesive narrative seems about as likely as your being able to sculpt a life sized replica of the David out of peanut butter before lunchtime.           

So in the face of no ideas, no outlines, and no hope, you just have to forge ahead anyway by convincing yourself that something good will happen eventually. Believing in yourself is a clichéd mantra, but a popular one because it is such an essential prerequisite for having the balls and audacity to turn passion into product.

 

And therein lies one of my main problems with the ‘idea’ of higher education. We seem to think that we need to do well on the SATs, we need to get good grades, we need to graduate from college in order to be PREPARED. But the truth is, you’re already prepared. You were born with a unique set of abilities and interests and with a completely revolutionary perspective. You, as you are right now, are capable of unrecycled revolutionary thoughts simply because you are the only you there ever has been or will be.

But traditional education thrives on enforcing the belief that you are not enough. How can you expect to accomplish anything if you don’t know algebra? If you don’t read Dostoyevsky? If you can’t speak 2 languages? If you don’t have a college degree? Until you do all of those things, you are still only in the prerequisite part of your life, acquiring the skill points necessary to qualify you as a person who is worthy of doing something real.

Frankly, that's bull...           

I’m not saying that learning isn’t the brightest pigment in your creative palate- learning is profoundly powerful. But even if you spend 50 years amassing millions of shades of information colors, compared to Wikipedia you will still only be a Crayola 10 pack.  And you’ll be so self conscious about what you still don’t have, you’ll never take the plunge and just start scribbling with what you’ve got.                        

 

Ask any four year old fingerpainter about their “creative process” and they will look at you cockeyed. They’re just painting. They have not yet been told how ignorant they are in the face of college-education requirements, so they’re free to follow their own truths.           

“But oh how woefully uneducated they are! Heathens! What they really need is to sit still, listen and repeat!”

We listen and repeat and listen and repeat in different subjects and formats for the better part of 17 years. We fill in bubbles with number two pencils and try to prove we aren’t idiots. But no matter how many bubbles we get ‘right’ we feel like failures in the face of the impossible expectation of being human Wikipedias. We’ll never be ready. But guess what?

 

You have always been ready.

 

And any educational system or institution which focuses on how much you don’t know, instead of nurturing what you intuitively know, is a sham. Haven’t your best teachers been the ones who encourage and engage you with knowledge which, for whatever reason, enriches you? Feels relevant for you? It's not about the subject, it's about how you feel about the subject. And you won't always be able to rationalize why you are drawn to what you are drawn to- your creative unconscious is a vast and thrillingly complicated place and you need to trust in hunches and passions- you'll end up doing something exciting everyday instead of trying to force yourself to be interested in something that seems 'important' but doesn't have meaning for you. 

You are the only expert in yourself. Start listening. 

And this isn’t self indulgent self-help baby stuff. You are an extremely difficult subject- infinitely harder than college classes. Going to Yale was technically tough, but strategically it couldn't have been simpler: just take the tests, do the reading, follow the rules.

What makes writing or painting or inventing so hard is that there is no syllabus for the intricate caverns of your own brain. There’s no expert, no textbook, no study-guide for the midterm. All there is is you, and when you’ve spent 17 years focusing on how much you don’t know, it’s hard to have faith in what you do. It’s hard to have faith in a process which you can’t read about in a book because nobody has ever done it before. It’s completely uncharted territory, and the only way you’re going to figure out how to do it is to do it.

So now you know why I started out talking about self confidence. I was an A student all my life who went to a top college, but having the confidence to follow rules is completely the opposite of believing in your own unique vision.

The ingenious idiocy of persisting in exploring your ideas instead of memorizing others' is not taught in schools because it undermines their authority- the notion that a child could produce something marvelous by following through on their inspiration might make SAT prep courses completely obscolete.

And I'm not saying it's all a waste of time, but remember that tasks which are safe and predictable will never be anything but safe and predictable, while the completely terrifyingly unknowable challenges have the potential to change the world.

So although I don't think I'm going to change the world with my little teen memoir, I do feel like I've learned an enormous amount about myself and my creative process by forcing myself to write even when I don't have a good idea, even when I feel untalented, even when it seems like it'll never sound right, and even when I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, because showing up and having faith in the face of self-doubt is the only prerequisite for creating something new and worthwhile.

 

There are a billion things you don't know, but you'll only discover something truly unique if you trust in yourself. And the best way, the only way to start, is to just decide you're going to do it without questioning yourself about how unprepared you seem. Everyone feels unprepared. If they don't, then they aren't taking any risks. And risks are the only way that crazy amazing ideas become crazy amazing realities. 

So to answer the original question, "REAL education" is not something you can purchase or download or memorize, it is an active personal journey. It can be supplemented and illuminated by school, but the only way you're going to have the balls to think you can write a sonata or cure a disease or find a unifying theory of the universe is to challenge yourself as often as you can.

Give yourself every opportunity to surprise yourself.

Because everything else you can just find on Wikipedia.

thoughts questions comments?

much love,

(formerly-Hurricane-now-tropical-storm) Hannah

Pilot Audition Tape

The audition tape which won me the New York Television Film Festival Flying Solo contest. (turn up the volume on the bottom it defaults very low)

CLICK HERE

My pilot premieres September 17th. Hooray!

video url: http://www.youshare.com/hannahannahanna/3c5d0c2d73eb588c.flv.html
contest details here: http://www.nytvf.com/2008_pgp_info.htm

Spamming Quips and Publishing Tips

Last night I did something brazen. I sent out a mass blog advertisement to every possible Yale panlist I had ever been a part of in four years. I broke the yalemail rules. The possibility of my dignified and dapper Master Haller browsing a slapdash post about curry & cunnilingus wasn't even enough to dissuade my triggerhappy click finger.

And I did this for two reasons. Firstly, I think it's important to start steeling myself against critics, and I don't know anywhere with a higher density of socially frustrated elitists who get their self-aggrandizing kicks by pointing out pedantic imperfections in other people's work (myself included) than at Yale. Secondly, my Yalemail expires in about 3 days and I was more than happy to bid the buggy system goodbye in a spam-tastic flurry of self promotion.

Encouragingly, despite this caveat I included at the end of the email:

If you are FUMING because you received this email three times in a row then either get a better spam filter, or take this as serendipity and see if one of my posts doesn't tickle you. That, or write derogatory sarcastic comments on my blog to vent your anger at me while soothing the pains of a pathetic life in which email decorum takes up 1/3 of your mental energy while STILL supporting the career of a struggling artist.

I have still ruffled the feathers of people who don't seem to understand sarcasm, like the Grammar Gestapo, who is quick to tell me that “I think if you're going to write a book, you should learn how to use punctuation with quotations…” and, helpfully, "...you know it's spelled Tandoori, right?"

I apologize guys. Although I too used to extract meager droplets of self worth from making sure English papers footnotes were formatted exactly perfectly, I am now a Yale graduate and this is a blog, so I am no longer beholden to the ALL HOLY MLA FORMAT. Witness a daring rebellion as I cavalierly leave this sentence totally un-punctuated

Also- that's what I have an editor for. Do you have an editor? No? Then I guess it's a good thing you can use punctuation marks correctly. Well done. Gold star!

The ones that I won't admit stung a little more included: "Jesus h christ you're not funny" and the thrilling "you are not funny and I hope no one buys your book." Well I don't think you're particularly funny either.

But I do think it's funny that you may be stuck at Yale writing 10-12 page papers which will be scanned for 4 seconds by a manic depressive TA playing guitar hero with his free hand while I get to sort through comments about writing that people are actually reading. People including you, funnyman.

My alltime favorite comment was "The least you could've done is facebook friended me first, you trollop." Consider it done Chris. Anyone who can combine 21st century telecommunication and 17th century prostitution in one swiftly condemning quip is ok by me.

I was really tickled to read that one person had already heard of my blog when a friend told him something along the lines of "believe it or not, someone we went to Yale with is doing something better than turning other people's money into more money or doing coke off of toilet seats."

I am humbled by this compliment and hope I will live up to it. In fact I am resolving here and now before all and BlogGod only to turn other people's money into my money and do coke off of strippers' elbows nowhere near toilet seats.

He promised "I will read your book cover to cover when it comes out, tell my friends about it even when I lack an appropriate conversational segue, AND read your blog...if you tell me about the process you went through to get to this point" which I think is a pretty legitimate deal seeing as I claimed to be writing about professional writing. You're on AC. So here's a little intro which will be fleshed out over the coming weeks:

How to get a book deal.

First, have a unique idea. Do research into your target demographic and be familiar with the hooks of bestsellers in your market. See if you can find a niche for yourself amongst them, and once you do, start writing a killer chapter sample.

A lot of people I know slaved away writing entire books before shopping them around, but the truth is that most book deals are sold based on a proposal which includes, generally, a compelling summary, 2 sample chapters, a chapter outline, marketing info, and a bio. That's it.
Then you get an editor to help you figure everything out, and an advance to bolster living expenses while you write for a few months, so sometimes it's better to concentrate on a killer proposal that gets you in the door than driving yourself nuts writing the perfect completed novel which people are going to want to change anyway.

There are two ways to go after you assemble this stuff, and please ask questions if you want more details on any of those specific proposal elements.

First, send emails to a gagillion agents. Agents will help you craft a proposal and shop it around to the big buyers. There are tons of listings on the net, one of which is here: http://www.ebookcrossroads.com/agents.html.

Do your research and figure out which agents specialize in what. Don't send your slasher murder mystery to a children's book agent. If you have a favorite series or an author you want to pattern yourself after it wouldn't hurt to find out what agency they work with.

Calls are generally considered creepy, so write a short but intriguing email about your book, attach your summary or chapter, and hope for the best. Be enthusiastic and appeal to their mentorly side (Having a yale.edu email address really helped me out here). I sent about 50 emails and got 6 or 7 responses, two of which resulted in meetings, and one ended up with a contract. Still, even the contractless agents offered me tips on how to make the proposal more industry-ready and I think I ended up with a much better product after hearing so many 'no's.

However, this is where things get tricky. Agents are basically professional leeches no matter how nice and competent they are, and it's a big commitment to give 20% of your career to someone before you even have one. You don't need one right away.

I actually got this book deal without my agent through contact with the publishing company, which can be established through more emails, tenacity, and personal contacts. If you know a friend of a friend who is interning at Random House, get them your proposal. Often interns our age are the ones sorting through submissions and can make the difference between a proposal winding up on an editor's desk or in the garbage.

Also, blogs are the new frontier in publishing, and if you get a lot of traffic and fill a niche you'll be able to attract attention from publishers while honing your writing chops.

And you may even get a bunch of your former classmates anonymously accusing you of hackery.

My advice is to write a lot, even when you don't feel like it, because if you wait 'til you feel like it you'll be that 80 year old guy still working on his first and only novel. I don't like writing. But I do like having written.

What do you guys think? How have you managed to motivate yourselves beyond the realm of GPAs? How have I endured my first official Ivy-avalanche of troll posts? Keep me posted, keep smiling, keep the faith.

Best,
H

H to the Nth

I have been evicted room my room because my brother does not want me typing and now I’m in the hallway staring at the B&B fishtank filled with those gross Chinese restaurant fish who look like they had golf balls surgically implanted in their eyesockets. Golf is a huge thing in this town, 8 stores in a row all dedicated to the thing. It was invented here in St. Andrews, apparently, and they’re damn proud of it. I also learned that the longest animal in the world washed up on the shore- a nemertean worm that was 186 feet long. They're proud of that too. And if the two things a town trumpets as their greatest accomplishments are a dead someone hitting a tiny ball with a piece of wood and a dead invertebrate you know you're in for some fun times.

I am having trouble writing. I can’t seem to get into the flow and I feel like If I tell you guys what is going ion inside my head maybe that will make things easer, here goes:

BITCHY HANNAH: What do you mean ‘tell them.’ Who is them? Nobody is even reading this blog you're a terrible boring writer and an allaround lame excuse for a woman.
SENSITIVE HANNAH: I’m not always boring…
PRETENTIOUS PATROL HANNAH: When you’re not being boring you’re being pretentious and nobody likes a know it all. And when you’re not a know it all you are being a poser.
OCD Hannah: Totally a poser. Definitely. Definitely. A huge poser. Also, a bad writer.
CONSPIRACY THEORY HANNAH: Shit. If I say I’m a poser on the site maybe my possible poserdom will shine through even more clearly than it already does… and then people will want to assassinate me.
BITCHY HANNAH: Nobody cares enough about you to even read this blog letalone want to assassinate you you moron.
A.D.D. HANNAH: Wow that fish is freakin’ gross. Hey he kinda looks like Nixon!
BUSINESSLY H: Stop getting so distracted
SENSITIVE H: But look at those googly gills!

I keep checking my word count every 600 words and that makes it hard to keep going. Not to mention the fact that the girls don’t seem to want to be quiet:

BITCHY H: Nobody wants to read this. It’s drivel.
PRETENTIOUS PATROL H: Don’t make a Diderot reference that’s fucking ridiculous you Ivy League baffoon.
OCD H: I think you spelled baffoon wrong. Wrong. So wrong. OMG everything is definitely wrong.
CONSPIRACY THEORY H: Even this right now is boring, nobody wants to read a conversation of yourself and yourself and if they do they will think you’re crazy and the government will notice that you are an iconoclast and will tap your phone lines and then systematically turn your family and friends against you in a plot to undermine your creativity. Damn the man.
FED UP H: You have huge problems. Seriously. Get into therapy.

And then Zen master Hannah descends froma cloud. She has taken a lot of time off to sip tea on clouds, high high up there if you know what I mean.

ZEN H: Don’t worry. This writing thing is for you, do it because you enjoy it.
H FROM DA HOOD: Are you fo real g? I’m doin this to pay da billz billz billz.
P.C. HANNAH: That's totally offensive- like unspeakably offensive.
PARANOID H: This thing better sell a gagillion freakin’ coppies
FASHINISTA H: Then I can be on magazine covers
HYPOCRITE ALERT H: If your message to young girls is to love yourself you can’t go all Hollywood on us and dye your hair blonde and get photoshop touchups that would be totally against your philosophy.
FASHIONISTA H: Not even a little dolled up?
HYPOCRITE ALERT H: No
PROBLEM SOLVING H: I’ll pose for these magazines but insist there is also a picture of me looking normal and makeupless and regular without any touchups to reveal the juxtaposition between the two, the paradox of a person perceived… Ceci n'est pas une Hannah.
PRETENTIOUS ALERT H: Fuck you.
S&M H- what about playboy wold you do playboy?
BILLZBILLZBILZLZ H:Well I guess I would if they offered like $250,000 that would pay off my student loans and then some
FASHIONISTA H: And then some shoes!
ACTIVIST H: Or some orphans in Malawi
REALITY CHECK H: You know what you are a freaking psychopath none of this is happening. What are you doing? Get back to work.
PESSIMIST H: I concur, except that not only are you a hypocrite but a total hack and it’s ridiculous to even consider this type of attention because this book will fizzle and sizzle and die as you have no talent whatsoever and might as well start busking on the street for quarters.
UBER PESSIMIST H: Fuck you. Fuck you. Your writing? Fuck that with a flaming chainsaw.

ZEN H: Just breath Hannah, breath.
SARCASTIC H: Thanks for that update genius.

All the hannahs are getting tired and exhausted and then internet browising Hannah comes along…

INTERNET BROWSING H: I know! How about you google obscure easter eggs hidden in lost on lostpedia!
PESSIMIST H: You know what this reminds me of, that play that you never finished. That sucked. You will never finish that the right way.
TANGENT HANNAH: The floorboards make a nice pattern.
ZEN HANNAH: Within men there are multitudes.
WIKI HANNAH: Who said that? Let’s check…
BUSINESSLY HANNAH: Okay guys, here is the plan. We’re going to just go freakin type and do it and do it and do it and it’ll be done.

Right! Say every Hannah except for internet browsing Hannah who has just found a totally cute video of kittens moving their heads back and forth in synch to music. Look at ‘em all! Kittens! Woohoo! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY0MSuyaKMk


Silence. Silence as the sleep kicks in. I am tired and list making Hannah starts making the day begin before the sun has risen- must write 7000 words or 6 pages 200 pages divided by 11 days…

ANTI-ALGEBRA Hannah: fuck you math
PROBLEMSOLVING H: oh ‘c’mon we can do this one. It’s not that hard.
HANNAH- hey I’m pretty pleased with this whole multiple voices thing. It’s a good way of communicating what’s going in on inside my head. I like it. Right guys?

For once there is no disagreement. Perfectionist thinks of course that now there needs to be a book movie epic novel and life changing broadaway adaptation of this which wins 9 tony awards and sweeps the Oscars in its movie adaptation before it can actually be taken seriously. Pessimist H thinks it could be better. But for the most part we are contented and in agreement. And maybe that’s why I like writing, because after all the bullshit if something is just right, then for a brief moment all the hannahs are in synch. Even Wiki Hannah knows that the only place I will find the truth I’m looking for in exactly the right words is somewhere between all of the voices, and when we find it, (quick note, Pretentious Alert Hannah thinks that using the royal "we" might come off as really fucking pretentious but that stating the concern here openly will absolve us)… sometimes, when we’re all on the same page, I feel like I can write like a motherfucker and I'm on the right path- I don't know where it goes but at least I'm on it. Pause. Breath. Ha! Perhaps an edit. Perhaps an edit or two, A few?

MAD HANNAH: How about a delete.

Okay okay enough already I get the point. I write with a merged mass of minds. I am rarely a phenom but sometimes things ring true and the voices shut up for once. It’s refreshing. It’s awesome. It’s what I hope comes my way more often… here’s to hoping.

xoxo
H
(&H&H&H&H&H&H&H&H&H&H&H&H&H&H&H&H&H&H)