And I'm Giving You A Longing Look, Everyday, Everyday, Everyday I Write The Book

--"Everyday I Write The Book", Elvis Costello

My DirecTV has been on the fritz for the last few months. You see, last week Amber was taking care of her friend's dog when the beast jumped from the balcony to escape. If that weren't bad enough, it seems in the process of jumping it knocked loose some of the cables that run to my television and bring me my wonderful regularly televised entertainment daily. I mean--I feel sorry for the dog and all, but a crutch is called a crutch because that's what it's there for. Television is my crutch, if you must know.

Actually, I wouldn't say that's completely true. Yes, I do watch more than average people. When I was younger I used to watch 9 1/2 hours of television daily. I watched it while I did my homework. I watched while I was having dinner. I watched it almost from the time I got up in the morning till I went to school. Then I watched it again from the point I got home till I head to go to bed. It's safe to say that a lot of what I learned, I learned from television, as they say. But that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I've stated before that a lot of my interests in reading were piqued because of something I'd seen on television. From deciding to read L.M. Montgomery after watching Anne of Green Gables and Avonlea to hearing a song on a commercial and deciding to purchase the appropriate album, television has always served as my cultural and artistic tour guide. I have always relied on television to provide a constant stream of information when it comes to showing me what more is out there. Yes, I have my friends, but they can't range over all aspects of life like television can. Yes, we all now have the internet, but the difference between surfing the web and surfing the tube is the difference between looking through a pantry for something to eat and looking at a menu for something to eat. The information has already been bundled up for you to take or leave as you please--no assembly required.

Yet, like I said, that's only the first step. I know television can be a wasteland of wasted minutes and has even been known to numb the mind for hours upon an end. However, the other great accomplishment television has achieved for me is to provide the spark for many of my stories. One of my more favorite stories, "Ten Minutes Later", I wrote after watching Little Giants on HBO. It's silly, but that story was entirely sparked by discovering the actress' name in the movie was named Shawna. Or, to take the opposite field, I used to watch episodes of Avonlea and write fan fiction for it. I never held delusions of being able to write an episode for it, but I did come up with one hell of a story that bridged two first season episodes adequately. More recently, I've had some success getting inspired by writing this blog for the last three years from instances I've seen that day on the boob tube. It doesn't have to be much, but since I spend a great deal of my day watching my cable while surfing the internet, it only follows that it would be impetus of delivering something important to me to all of you.

I guess you could say what I have to write is just the last step in processing what I've seen. It doesn't matter to me if what I've seen comes from my own life and my own anecdotes or if it stems from something more literary, like imagining how a novel is playing out or how a poem's metaphors and similes coalesce into something somewhat tangible, or if it, indeed, comes from something filmed and broadcast on television. It's all food for thought, which--excuse the metaphor--gets regurgitated back onto here or something more fictional. I don't know--I've heard the axiom that writers take in everything as the basis for their stories. What I lack in real-life experiences sometimes is made up in the staggering amounts of dramas, sit-coms, and other thought-provoking fare I discover in a day.

I miss my television not because I miss being a couch potato, but because I feel unproductive without it. That's not a statement you often hear. Yet for me I find myself uninspired to write on a daily basis without being able to watch my shows on a daily basis. That's the yin and the yang of my creative process.

I want my DirecTV, damn it all!

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers