Writing

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Being Down to Earth, Yet Never Really Touching the Ground: My First 10,000 Hits

Thanks for 10,000 hits.

I am not a writer who consistently relates to mainstream readers.  People have to find me here in the back corner of the Internet.  It’s because I want my writings to speak louder than me the person.  I make a point to avoid shameless promotion.  Because the way I live my life, I say if a product is worth buying or trying, it travels through word-of-mouth and that’s what leads to a solid following.

Not everyone “gets” my writing.  It’s not for everyone.  Because not everyone is in touch with their “weird side”.  But the weird side is the only side I’ve ever been on.

I write for people who space out like I do.  People who stay to watch all the credits roll after the movie is over.  For those who don’t think Dane Cook or Larry the Cable Guy are funny.

It’s not an exclusive club.  Everyone is welcome to this hideout.  But not everyone wants in.  Not everyone wants to come back.

I want to be perceived as “down to Earth” but I know I’m a little too abstract to actually be.

Just like Dexter (the fictional serial killer) has a certain code he strictly follows in the first two seasons of the show (he has to always be one step ahead, he only kills murderers, he only kills people who he has proven guilty), I have a certain code for the way I write.

My code is inspired by a book my wife got me a year ago for my birthday on how to write professionally. It helps keep focused and hopefully from sounding like I think I’m cool just because I have a website.

Now that scenicroutesnapshots.com has received its 10,000th hit this week, as a thanks to those who keep coming back, I will share my secret code.

Nick Shell’s Code of Writing:

1)     Avoid the use of the word “you” and the phrases “you know what I mean?”, “now I gotta tell you”, and “think about it”. There’s an importance of maintaining a balance of both a professional distance and a personal connection.  This is a non-fiction commentary on life, not a campy sitcom like Saved by the Bell.  Therefore, don’t break the 4th wall by talking directly and casually to the audience.

2)     Avoid using the phrases “I think”, “I feel”, “I guess” or “my opinion is”. While everything posted on the website is an educated opinion, don’t make it obvious.  Speak with authority.

3)     Avoid putting the unnecessary details of your personal life in the writing. This isn’t a reality show or facebook.  There’s no reason to list the full names of people close to me in my life or to make a habit of inserting pictures of my personal life unless it directly relates to what I am writing about.

4)     Avoid profanity. I’ve heard it said before, “If you have to curse to get someone’s attention or to get your own point across, then you need to find a way to be more creative”.  I don’t go around using “awesome” or “stupid” in every conversation, so it’s just as lame to overuse curse words.

5)     Avoid referring to the website as a “blog”. Blogs are for people still using MySpace who are stuck in 2006 or that are obsessed with facebook status updates.  I write.  I put up new posts.  I even write articles.  But I don’t have a blog.

6)     Be edgy but not controversial. There’s no need to preach about abortion or turn my website into a breeding ground for debate.  Finding ways to use the certain words  in the majority of what I write tends to give me the edge I need.

7)  Write about weird stuff but make it seem normal. Or is it more like the opposite?  Write about normal stuff and make it seem weird.  A mixture of both.  That’ll work.

8.) Find somewhat unusual pictures to integrate into the writing material, giving the reader a sense of reading a magazine article. I, for one, like cool pictures to look at while I read.  It’s a way of adding another sensory feel to the experience.

9)  Write an excessive number of posts every month. They won’t all be awesome, but it’s often the ones that I predict won’t really connect with readers that  are the ones that really do.  The more I write, the better I’ll be, and the better I’ll know how to connect to readers.

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The Most Popular (and Favorite) Posts of 2009

It’s been a big year for Jenny Slate, and for some reason, pickles. After writing over 250 posts this year, I now present the best 25 of them which readers unknowingly chose as the Most Popular and Favorite of 2009.

When I have a stream-of-consciousness thought, I write down a rough draft title for it on a slip of paper which later becomes a page and half long post. Sometimes these subjects I write about magically connect with readers. But I can never know which random topics will fly or land. I just throw them out there and see what happens.

Since September, I have been exclusively publishing my writings on this site, which provides built-in technology that shows me which posts are clicked on the most. Therefore I can determine which are the Most Popular of 2009.

The Top Most Popular Posts:

Jenny Slate Will Not Be Fired for F-Word Accident-

Without exception, this post makes an appearance every week in the Top Posts section of my site. Though the mishap took place a few months ago and is no longer entertainment headline news, there are still curious people out there finding my article through Google searches. It’s so popular that twice as many people have read it than the #2 post.  http://wp.me/pxqBU-5W

 

Pickles Make for Good Reading Material, Episode 3-

How would you waste $50,000? There are, of course, plenty of annoying and limited rules placed on this question. http://wp.me/pxqBU-26

Pickles Make for Good Reading Material, Episode 4-

What if you could only eat free restaurant food for the rest of your life? No more of Mom’s lasagna or double fudge brownies. http://wp.me/pxqBU-4o

Paranormal Activity Vs. The Fourth Kind-

My review of two thriller movies was taken to a whole new universe when a random “alien abductee” left an out-of-this-world comment at the bottom of the post. http://wp.me/pxqBU-dL

New News-

The human race is hungry for new information. But we tend to settle for celebrities making fools of themselves and infomercials that promise a cure for male hair loss. http://wp.me/pxqBU-3L

 

 

#8 (tie) Boyspeak-

This Manspeak spin-off/prequel became quite popular thanks to a friend who advertised the post on her facebook wall to her thousands of facebook friends. This post confronts the fact that many men never grew out of their “own little world” mentality from when they were boys. http://wp.me/sxqBU-boyspeak

#9 Manspeak, Volume 7: Bromance-

It’s pretty obvious that bromantic comedies outsell romantic comedies these days. But bromance isn’t anything new; it’s been around since Biblical times. http://wp.me/pxqBU-3W

#10 (tie) The Invisible Touch, Yeah (The 2nd Installment) –

What causes us to become close to certain people but not others?   http://wp.me/pxqBU-20

#10 (tie) Big Hands-

For some people to be wealthy, it means that others must be poor. This post takes a look at what things would be like if America was neither. http://wp.me/pxqBU-6l

For the slight majority of this year, my posts were exclusively published on facebook. I wasn’t able to have a clue of how many people read them. All I had to go on were comments people left. Therefore I deem these most-commented-on writings the Favorites of 2009.

The Top Fifteen Most Favorite Posts:

Snail Trails- If I’m the only person who remembers something happening, I hold the exclusive rights to that event actually being real. http://wp.me/pxqBU-a

The Opposite of Evolution- A scientific explanation of how the Earth was created by God in 6 literal 24 hour days. Intelligent Design 101. http://wp.me/pxqBU-1a

Red and Yella Will Kill a Fella- Flashbacks from the Snake Man and how his words of wisdom also apply to fast food. http://wp.me/pxqBU-l0

Manspeak, Volume 9: Appearance- The episode introducing the term “Bachelor Pants”.
http://wp.me/pxqBU-6f

Barley Into Beer- Comparing beer to soda, from a Christian perspective.http://wp.me/pxqBU-2L

The Funny Thing about Jews- The Hebrew people make up less than 2% of the US population, yet dominate American entertainment. A brief look at some of the actors you didn’t realize were Jewish. http://wp.me/pxqBU-kY

Robes Man- How a robe makes any man more sophisticated and at the same time a bit creepy. http://wp.me/pxqBU-kR

The Magically Disappearing Friend- They only exist in our minds. http://wp.me/pxqBU-kV

Dog Whistle- What does God think about his name being on our dirty money? http://wp.me/pxqBU-lc

Story of My Life- Why I can remember such amazing details. http://wp.me/pxqBU-kC

Party Like It’s 1999- Ten year reunions can actually be awesome. http://wp.me/pxqBU-kJ

Hedge of Protection and Travelling Mercies- Analyzing our goofy-worded prayers. http://wp.me/pxqBU-kM

Hungry Heart- We will never get over our selfish past of life in the womb. http://wp.me/pxqBU-kN

My Jewish Upbringing- Seriously, I’m not really Jewish? http://wp.me/pxqBU-i6

Campfires- As kids, we knew how to hang out with our friends. It’s gotten more complicated as adults. http://wp.me/pxqBU-3

Like an actor who is blinded by the stage lights and is therefore unable to see the faces in the audience, I can not see who the people are that read my writings each week. But whoever you are, I thank you. Thank you for sharing my weirdness. Takes one to know one, yes?

Honorable Mentions:

No Pork on My Fork- We don’t eat possums or vultures, but we do eat pigs and shrimp.
http://wp.me/pxqBU-jO

The Modern Day Tortoise- Working hard vs. working smart. http://wp.me/pxqBU-kP

Most of Life is Just Simply Showing Up- The rest really is just details.http://wp.me/pxqBU-kf

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Is There Such a Thing as a Wrong Opinion?

A behind-the-scenes look at writing with authority.

I spend a lot of time reading articles online (movie reviews, political blogs, etc.) every day and I always make sure to read the comments that other people post below them. The majority of comments tend to agree with the writer. But a good third of them have the polar opposite view of the topic. To me it’s funny when they disagree, because ultimately what they are saying (especially when their comment is emotionally charged) is that the writer’s opinion is wrong.

In a way they are the treating the writer’s opinion as a fact, by questioning it like it is a fact. Because only a fact can be wrong. An opinion is completely subjective.

And what that points out is the importance of the natural assumption of credibility in a writer. A convincing writer is able to supplant this idea in the reader’s head: “If he’s saying it, it must be true.”

No writer is completely right-on and in-tune all of the time. Even if a writer was, they may just not simply be right-on and in-tune with the exact same perspective as the reader.

Writers must present their information in confidence, in a way that says, “This is unquestionable truth”. When executed correctly, the reader subconsciously puts their trust in the writer, assuming that if the writer says something that seems a little off, it must be the reader that is out of touch and off-sync, not the writer.

I know this is true for the writers that I follow. Even when I read an article from one of my favorites and I don’t thoroughly enjoy it, or it just doesn’t grab me, I still come back the next day or the next week for more. Because despite their shortcomings, they have instilled a sense of reverence in me through their talent. A sense of belonging, even.

That’s my opinion, at least.

Leave a comment Posted on Nostalgia, People, Storytelling, Uncategorized, Writing

Would You Define Your Life as a Comedy or a Tragedy?

The same question goes for the movie Garden State.

I have struggled for a solid ten years trying to figure out what makes things funny. Universally, seeing someone fall down (who doesn’t get hurt) is always funny, but I don’t know why. Defining what humor is, is almost impossible to simply and briefly put into words. What I can do is make a judgment call on whether something as a whole is a comedy or a drama.

One of my college professors taught me there is a clear way to distinguish between the two: Comedy involves a protagonist who in the beginning of the story is standing outside the borders of his society and by the end of the story is accepted into it. Therefore a tragedy is when the protagonist in the beginning is accepted as part of the society but by the end is expelled from it.

To test this theory on comedies, I will take Adam Sandler for example: Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, The Water Boy, The Wedding Singer, and Big Daddy all involve a character who starts out as one or more of the following: incompetent, poor, lonely, selfish. By the end of the movie, Adam Sandler’s character is accepted into the fold as these previous attributes are resolved. So I can see how the definition of a comedy works here.

For tragedies, I will take some horror movies for example: The Blair Witch Project, Skeleton Key, The Strangers, Quarantine, and Carrie. The protagonists end up either dead or in a really bad situation by the time the credits roll. So I can see how the definition of a tragedy works here, as death or loss of freedom is a way of being ousted from a society that the protagonists were once a part of.

The end of a movie ultimately defines it as a comedy or tragedy. Garden State, which is more a drama than anything, ends with Zach Braff’s character being able to overcome his dependence on his doctor’s/father’s misdiagnosed prescription of anti-depressants and feel alive for the first time as he moves back home to New Jersey, making new friends and finding love: That’s a comedy.

Using this theory, these other genre-vague movies would also be considered comedy: Fight Club, Forrest Gump, and Elizabethtown. And these would be tragedy: Into the Wild, Vanilla Sky, and One Hour Photo.

Life is comprised of rotating moments of comedy and tragedy. Times where I’m on the outside looking in and I get in (comedy) and times where I’m inside but am pushed out (tragedy). In ways big and small. But a person’s general perspective will cause him or her to see it ultimately as one or the other:

 

If life is comedy-in-progress, then life is me trying to figure out how to be normal enough to succeed in being accepted by my immediate society, eventually dying satisfied, knowing I’m surrounded by those who love me.

If life is tragedy-in-progress, then life is me already having everything I need and want in life but having it all taken away from me in the end, eventually dying sad and alone.

Big decisions, big decisions. I’ll go with comedy-in-progress.