DREAMS, YOU GUYS. DREAMS!
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6 Writing Tips From John Steinbeck
1. Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.
2. Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.
3. Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.
4. If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it—bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn’t belong there.
5. Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing.
6. If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.
Read more. [Image: AP]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0sevcgD2Z1qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
Maya Rudolph and the state of race on “SNL”
When Maya Rudolph hosted SNL last weekend did Keenan Thompson and Jay Pharoah throw a party at the presence of a host of color?
Jay Pharoah, a keen mimic, especially was featured more predominantly than ever before and one has to ask — what does Maya Rudolph’s hosting say about the lack of diversity on SNL?
Maya Rudolph, a biracial actress of white and African American ancestry, was the last African American actress to be a full time cast member on the show. She left the show in 2007. She is the third African American actress to be on the show (next to Danitra Vance and a personal favorite Ellen Cleghorne) not to mention a featured player, Yvonne Hudson.
When you consider the diversity of the pop culture landscape - isn’t it shocking that there isn’t a cast member to play some of the most famous women in America?
When Rudolph hosted the show, she played Michelle Obama, Beyonce, Maya Angelou and even dusted off her Oprah impression for a Weekend Update bit that was cut at dress rehearsal. Without a black woman as a cast member or featured player SNL is not parodying some of the most relevant and influential women in our culture. Or they’re having Kenan Thompson drag as them.
While a cast member, Rudolph portrayed everyone from Whitney Houston to Lucy Liu to Donatella Versace. Certainly she is a versatile comedianne but her ethnic ambiguity allowed her to become a flexible performer in appearance. Similarly, Fred Armisen (reportedly of German, Japanese and Venezualan ancestry) has played every race while playing Prince, Steve Jobs and, of course, Barack Obama.
The tendency to capitalize on their performers’ ethnic pliability seems evolved in their portrayal of characters of various ethnic backgrounds but also problematic. Problematic in that Armisen or a Nasim Pedrad (Iranian American) are the only actors that can be cast in these non-white roles. Maya Rudolph bears little resemblance to Oprah but she played her when she was on the show because no one else except Tracy Morgan could.
The point is you can’t have one NOT white girl and have her play all the NOT white characters and sometimes white ones too. This isn’t Captain Planet but it’s 2012 and we shouldn’t need a special guest star to be able to have a more balanced way of parodying our politics and our pop culture.
