~~~Lara Zielin~~~

STATUS: Friday I’m in love.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: I know this is sophomoric, but it made me giggle like a schoolgirl. It’s an ad for, and I’m not even kidding, the Wunder Boner. It’s not what you think. Just watch.

I love that line in Jerry Maguire when Jerry has his total mental meltdown, and then he has the epiphany for his “mission statement” and he says: breakdown, breakthrough.

I think, in life, the one precedes the other quite often.

I’d say it applies in writing, too. What do I mean? That to write authentically — no, wait, let me be even more specific — to get published — you have to get to that icky, raw, uncomfortable place where you’re facing everything with eyes open, and then put that place into words.

I’ll give an example from Donut Days. I was trying to write about my experiences in the evangelical church, but it wasn’t coming across right. It was wooden — it was like it was coming through a filter. And all the rejection letters I was receiving by agents and publishers was testament to the fact that it wasn’t resonating with anyone. Not one person.

One agent said on his website that he wanted to read stories that “transported him into a world he didn’t know.” I knew I could do that with Donut Days — if I could just find a way to express what I’d been through in an authentic way.

And then I saw Borat.

There’s a scene when Borat sleeps on the cement in front of an evangelical church, and you know what they do? They open the doors and invite him in (they even take up a collection for him at one point). The cameras are rolling as they sing, pray, dance, shake and start getting all kinds of touched by God. And Borat’s there, pretending to get swept up in it. They lay hands on him and he’s faking this whole religious experience, and it’s funny — but not funny ha ha. Funny squirm. Funny uncomfortable. Funny raw.

And boom. It hit me like a dusty Bible to the face. I had to show people the evangelical church the way Borat was showing them. Not the sparkly one you see on Bible TV, but the real one. The one that gets uncomfortable and makes you squirm in your seat.

And I’m not saying I did a perfect job of it, but I tried. And I tried to do it respectfully — because even in Borat, there’s a lot of redemption in what he’s showing us. I mean, they took up a collection for the dude.

So, forget what you think you know. Break it down. Have the breakdown. And then write from there.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 9th, 2009 at 2:56 pm and is filed under writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.