Banned Books Month: Guest Post from Emmy Laybourne: Hey, are you banning your OWN book?
Do you have about a hundred pages of a novel languishing on Dropbox?
Or is there a story rolling around in the back of your mind that you plan to get to “someday”?
Feiwel & Friends, May 2014.
Is there a tale that you’re drawn to tell, but you won’t, because it’s too risky (or dirty, or weird, or emotional, or embarrassing)?
If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions, you may be getting in the way of your own creative process. I’m a novelist, but in my former life as an actor, I did a lot of comedy improvisation.
Improv is a strange beast. You may have heard that the golden rule for improv is saying “Yes And.”In a scene, actors are to stay open to the offers of their scene-mates (yes-ing them) and then adding to the direction of the offer (And…). In this way, moment by moment, a scene unfolds on stage and a story is told.
While it’s highly collaborative, the most important part of an improviser’s training happens inside the mind. A good improviser learns to say Yes to their own ideas And then add to them. How do they do this? They train themselves to get out of the way! In improv, we don’t judge our ideas – because how could you say Yes to an idea if you’ve decided that it’s a cruddy, stupid, silly idea?
It helps, when you’re improvising, that everyone is throwing out cruddy, silly, stupid ideas all the time! If you’re doing a scene where you’ve somehow become a mermaid singing to a sailor, and the sailor only speaks Chinese and you have to use google translator to communicate – you’re less inclined to dismiss the idea of using a “shell phone.” A shell phone suddenly seems pretty dang brilliant.
But what about when you’re writing? All alone. No audience. No scene-mates to say Yes And to your mermaid tail and your shell phone and your sea slug earpiece (I just made that up)?
That’s when your inner critic starts talking and man, is that guy a jerk. He’s going to tell you that you’re no good. That you’re wasting your time. He’ll whisper that your idea is too thin to hold up for 300 pages. That the idea you had that fired up your brain was just a side effect of caffeine and that your prose is insipid and impotent. Your inner critic thinks you should get a job cutting dog’s toenails or raking gutter leaves or selling single matches on the street – you should do anything but write.
I really hate that guy.
As artists, we’ve got to park that inner critic in the corner if we’re ever going to get anywhere.
The good news is that once you’re aware of him, it becomes easier to Yes And yourself. And you can train ourselves to say yes. Outside of taking an improv class (which I highly recommend), try this exercise. Try it everyday for a week, just as a writing warm-up, and see if you don’t feel a bit more elbow room in your creative mindspace.
Yesworthy
This is a 2 step exercise:
Go to upworthy.com and find a headline that intrigues you.
Now write the rest of the story, using “Yes And”as the first words of each and every sentence.
I did it to give you a little example of how it might go:
Her Feet Didn ’t Touch The Ground For 449 Days, All Because Of Something That ’s Over 400 Years Old*
Yes, and that something was an ancient foot powder found in a small ceramic urn.
Yes, and after she put it on, her feet would not touch the ground no matter what she did.
Yes, and she had to sleep with her feet floating above her while her body lay on the mattress.
Yes, and when she bought shoes the salesman had to get out a ladder.
Yes, and the salesman could see up her skirt.
Yes, and everyone could see up her skirt.
Yes, and she took to writing slogans on her underwear, to advertise for worthy causes…
Okay, you can see this story is getting loopy. That’s fine! That’s what it’s supposed to do. It also kind of went in two different directions, first I wrote something about sleep, then I had a thought about a shoe store. Who cares? I’m not giving this to Holly West**. I’m just writing this for me (okay, and to use as an example for this article). The point is: have fun. Go to new places. Play, play, play.
If you’re not open to the creative flow of your own ideas – your own strange and wonderful ideas – you may be banning your own book. And so, in honor of Banned Books week, I urge you to honor yourself by giving expression to your creative impulses – no matter how wild, odd, uncomfortable or unexpected and get writing!
* Shout out to upworthy.com. I got this directly from your site. Please nobody sue me.
** My editor at Macmillan. I’m crazy about her. Hi, Holly!
Emmy Laybourne.
Emmy Laybourne is a novelist, screenwriter and former character actress. Emmy’s Monument 14 trilogy has earned critical praise (“Frighteningly real…riveting” – New York Times Book Review, Editor’s Choice) and has been nominated by readers to the YALSA Teens Top Ten in 2013 and 2014. Before her life as an author, Emmy performed original comedy on Comedy Central, MTV and VH1; and acted in the movies “Superstar,” “The In-Laws” and “Nancy Drew,” among others. Emmy lives outside New York City with her husband, two kids and a flock of 8 nifty chickens.
Follow Emmy on Instagram, Twitter or like her over Facebook. And over at www.emmylaybourne.com you’ll find giveaways and the latest news on the “Monument 14” movie deal.
