Blog - Page 30 of 77 - Addicted to Writing

My Productivity E-Book is Ready, Why I Like Kevin Can Wait, and Other News from The Writing Trenches

Posted on May 30, 2017 Written by Pinar Tarhan

I’m back! OK, technically I wasn’t gone. I was just waiting for my WOW! Article to go live, so that I could post a review on successful freelance writer Suchi Rudra’s e-book review as my next post.

But my article hasn’t gone live yet, and it has been too long without a post. So here it is.

– My Productivity E-book Is Finally Ready!

I’ve collected some of my favorite posts on productivity from this blog. I edited, updated, and added to them according to need, and put together a decent resource on how to become more productive. The price, should you choose to “buy” it from my blog, is your e-mail address. If you are already a subscriber, just let me know if you want the book, and I’ll email to you.

It features chapters on writing during times of mediocre health, how to make procrastination work for you, favorite books and blogs on productivity, managing your emails and more.

I’m figuring out my way through my newsletter service, and once it is ready, my book will be on the way. I’m so excited because it is my first.

Hope you enjoy it.

– I Hurt My Back: Lesson Learned About Being too Sedentary

Sunday was off to a good start. I had plenty of sleep, did a lot of formatting, did market research, evaluated my options for my novel, hung out at a favorite coffee shop, took a short walk, patted cute kittens, and overall, had a pretty good day.

I was planning for another good day with even more nature, work, and exercise. I started to pack my bag – that was the kind of good writer soldier I was being, and then, bam! I managed to strain my back without doing anything extreme. I was reaching for something from my desk and felt something weird in my lower back.

I’m guessing it is not serious because it doesn’t hurt when I sit or lie down, but it feels pretty horrible when I try to stand or walk.

Luckily, I have the right meds, I’m not alone at home, and among a knowledgeable mom, friends, and YouTube strain-relieving exercise videos, I should be fine. (That said, I’m no baby when it comes to going to the doctor. If it doesn’t go away soon, I’ll make an appointment.)

And this brings us to the sitcom starring Kevin James:

Kevin Can Wait

It’s been a while since my favorite, laugh-out-loud, hilarious sitcoms ended.

In case you are wondering, they are:

– Friends

– Coupling (UK, first three seasons),

– Spin City (first four seasons – until Michael J. Fox’s departure),

– 3rd Rock from the Sun (first season)

I really like Mom, and it makes me laugh a lot, but it is also a tragic show in many ways and it doesn’t make me shake with laughter like the ones above did.

Apart from Mom, I’ve seen some entertaining episodes from shows that made me smile, chuckle, or occasionally laugh hard. But none had the memorable characters, funny and original one-liners, awesome physical comedy and great storylines my favorites did.

To be honest, the first seasons of Supernatural, almost all of Damon Salvatore’s lines from The Vampire Diaries and the first seasons of Teen Wolf provide funnier and lovelier stuff than most of the sitcoms.

But sometimes, all you need is a good time, and characters that you can more or less relate to. And even though they are your severely exaggerated traits, you can’t help but enjoy yourself. I could never get into King of Queens much, but I quite like Kevin Can Wait.

It’s about an out-of-shape retired cop forced to endure his ridiculous British future son-in-law and the rest of his family’s shenanigans. Of course he and his other retired cop buddies provide more shenanigans than his entire family combined.

Not all episodes are equally funny, but the good ones are solid entertainment.

And it might be strange to relate to a married middle-aged dude with a large family, but he is clumsy, blunt, addicted to unhealthy food and an overall nice guy with no particular talents… Yep, I got my answer there. 😀

So I might as well keep a smile on myself while I wait for my back to get better.

What have you been up to?

Younger TV Series starring Sutton Foster: Shows with Writer Characters, Doing Crazy Stuff to Follow Your Dreams and Living Like a 20-Something…Whenever

Posted on April 6, 2017 Written by Pinar Tarhan

Younger Sutton Foster, Hillary Duff, Debi Mazar (from left). Image via TVLand.

One of my best friends got me hooked on TVLand’s Younger, a comedy series with a lot of heart, spice, humor and an irresistible love triangle.

If you are a romantic, I recommend it. If you’re in your 20s to 50s, I recommend it. But I have to insist on watching it if you are a writer.

Here’s the plot for Younger TV series in a nutshell:

Liza Miller (Sutton Foster) is a 40-year-old, about-to-be-divorced mom with a daughter doing a semester abroad in college in India. She lives with her lesbian best friend (yes, this is an important plot point) Maggie (Debi Mazar).

Liza is eager to get back to work in publishing after a 15-year hiatus. Unfortunately, even her Dartmouth degree can’t save her from the agism and prejudice toward her resume. But when a hot younger guy named Josh (Nico Tortorella – The Following) hits on her assuming she is around his age, Maggie’s inspired to give her friend a makeover. She has the looks and the body. All she needs is a crash course in pop culture, and she is good to go.

Younger Josh (Nico Tortorella) and Liza (Sutton Foster) — Younger’s Josh (Nico Tortorella) and Liza (Sutton Foster). Image via deadline.com.

Soon enough, Liza lands a job as a marketing assistant under the tough 40-something Diana (Miriam Shor) who has a clear disdain for millennials. She is soon taken under the wing of Kelsey (Hillary Duff), a millennial junior editor and she can’t resist dating the lovely Josh.

Now she is working, working out, partying and dating like a 26-year-old. Can she keep this up? Oh, and then there is her divorced, hot 40-something boss Charles (Peter Hermann) who thinks Liza is wonderful. Can she keep it up?

Younger Charles (Peter Hermann). Image via pinterest.

Why Watch Younger?

As a 32-year-old – which makes me an older millennial – it is not that hard for me identify with the “old folk.” In fact, my social media knowledge and love for going out to dance aside, it is often easier to feel more at home with the pains and jokes of the 40-somethings. I’ve always been a fan of reading paper books, and movies and music from the 80s and 90s.

Of course some of it is exaggerated for comedy and it works. But mostly, the show is just blunt and sincere. Even its more extreme characters are people we have run into at some point in our lives. Some of it characters, we’d just love to run into. (Charles and Josh, anyone? And Maggie is literally one of the best people you could have in your corner.) Diana is hilarious with her strict bitch mode, and we root for Liza all the way. Yes, there is a ton of things she could have tried to maintain a certain form of career at home, but she was too busy raising a kid, dealing with a gambling and cheating husband. And sometimes life gets in the way.

The show is the ultimate anthem for breaking the rules that don’t make sense or just seem to serve as annoying roadblocks in your way. And that you are never too old to pursue your dreams, find yourself and find love.

And let’s face it. Love triangles are a lot more fun when you don’t mind either side winning. Although no one is perfect and some episodes in season 3 seem determined to paint Liza as the one with most flaws, I can honestly say I’m a bit more in love with Charles as a character than Josh. Yes, Peter Hermann’s Charles seems like an even more evolved version of Mr. Darcy – a tall hunk with no social interaction problems, a loving father, a romantic who loves Berlin (the band) and someone who reads…

Let’s watch on to see all of these characters’ adventures.

Writer Characters in Younger

Technically, Liza works in marketing. But she is in publishing, reads a ton, and she gets to write and edit for a couple of authors in some of the episodes. We also see a lot of authors and can learn a few things about what not to do when you are signing with a serious publishing house.

Also, nothing quite sets a fire under our writing asses to see the publishing world up close. And we can only work to be one of the most celebrated authors of a publishing house like theirs.

*There might be affialite links in the post.

Lessons on That Elusive Big Career Break: How Ed O’Neill Became Al Bundy

Posted on February 27, 2017 Written by Pinar Tarhan

Ed O’Neill with Sofia Vergara in the middle. Image via Mental Floss.

Many of you probably know Ed O’Neill as the older dad in Modern Family, Sofia Vergara’s husband. But if you got exposed to 80s and 90s television, Ed O’Neill is hilarious Al Bundy in the sitcom Married with Children (1987-1997).

If you love Modern Family, Married with Children’s comedy might be too obvious and over-the-top for you. And I love it for exactly that reason. I still couldn’t get in to Modern Family; I’m still in love with the ridiculously dysfunctional and hilarious family that is the Bundys.

Applegate), Bud Bundy (David Faustino), Al Bundy (Ed O'Neill) and Peggy Bundy (Katey Sagal). — From left to right: Kelly Bundy (Christina Applegate), Bud Bundy (David Faustino), Al Bundy (Ed O’Neill) and Peggy Bundy (Katey Sagal). Image via tbs.com.

And since a lot of people know Ed as a funny actor, it might comes as a surprise that he is also great at drama. Hell, he was discovered for the role of Al Bundy while he was playing Lenny (from Of Mice and Men) on stage.

Let’s take that in for a second. An actor plays a heavy, significant role on stage. A producer likes him. A year later, they’re casting a sitcom. He remembers Ed’s performance and suggests they try him out. Others think he is crazy, but casting had failed to find the ideal leading actor at that point. So they try him out, and by luck (or intuition), he goes with a different approach. Instead of the angry portrayals of fellow actors, he does resigned.

And voila! They get Al Bundy right.

The moral of the story is do what you love, do it well, and never give up. And it never hurts to use your own take and voice on projects.

To sign off, below is some Bundy footage:

On Happy Endings and Why I Rarely Kill My Characters in my Stories (And Why Black Mirror Isn’t My Kind of Show)

Posted on January 16, 2017 Written by Pinar Tarhan

Spoiler Alert. The post contains spoilers about the following movies: (And there are aff. links in the post.)

Strange Days (1995)
The Broken Circke Breakdown (2012)
Braveheart (1995)
The Man without a Face (1992)
The Crow (1994)

Black Mirror is a great show, make no mistake. It’s engrossing; you can’t take your eyes from it. The quality of production is top-notch, and the stories show how technology often takes our flaws, obsessions or inhumane qualities one step further. So each episode tends to be extremely depressing. Ergo, it is not for me.

I need a bit of light in things that I watch. One of my favorite movies is Strange Days from 1995, which is not a happy movie in general. It takes place in a brutal 1999 where a technology allows people to get high on other people’s experiences. Since you feel everything yourself, it has turned into the most addictive drug. And it’s illegal. Disenchanted ex cop Lenny (Ralph Fiennes) makes a living selling these tapes, and people either go for the overly violent or sexual. He is obsessed with his ex girlfriend, hooker Faith (Juliette Lewis), and his only friend is Mace (Angela Bassett), who is a kickass limo driver that often has to save his sorry ass from trouble. With a Los Angeles that is out of control and a serial killer on the loose who is making his victims watch their own killing, it is a dark movie. But it is also a lot of fun, and there is love, action, hope and friendship. And friendship and love win. I can’t recommend the movie enough. I’ve seen it more times than I can count, and I’m looking forward to seeing it again.

The Broken Circle Breakdown. Image via youtube.

One of my least favorite movies is The Broken Circle Breakdown. A friend of mine fell in love with this movie, and even though I loved some parts of it, it depressed me so badly, I was swearing at the writers at some point. I’m not saying the movie isn’t good. It’s just so emotionally raw that you feel like you have a big hole in your soul, just like the characters do. And I don’t like to feel depressed. I suffered from depression, my dear readers, and I’m not good with characters who don’t try to deal with it. And by deal with it, I mean actual therapy! You can’t just fix yourself after losing your child! And these are freaking musicians from a well-developed country. I’m pretty sure they could have found the means from their government (Belgian!) OK, I’m calm, now. J

They destroy each other with their pain. They grow distant instead of supporting each other. Go ahead and watch the movie, and let me know if you left the movie with joy.

Surprise, surprise, I hate unhappy endings. Sure, you might say, your favorite movie Braveheart has the protagonist dying after being betrayed by his closest ally. Yeah, but he also impregnated a princess that seemed determined to take over the kingdom and that betraying ally decided to win the war in his honor. So sure, he died, but nothing he did was in vain. And while he was alive, what a life that was!

Mel Gibson in The Man without a Face. Not the movie poster, but you needed to see the face. Image via movie-rouletteç

The Man without a Face showed McCloud (Mel Gibson), whose face is so badly burned that he is referred as a freak, being excluded, judged and blamed, but he turned Norstadt (Nick Stahl) into an achiever. He gave him a father figure. He gave him an excellent mentor, teacher and best friend. And the end? The end is at the very least semi-happy.

Brandon Lee as Eric Draven, The Crow. Image via movieweb.

The Crow has Draven (Brandon Lee) take his revenge, make peace with Sarah, die happily to be with his dead love of his life forever. Happy! He was already dead when the movie began, so I wasn’t exactly sad when he went back to his grave.

My point? Don’t give me a love story where the couple loses a kid, and one of them dies. Thank you!

Maybe this is why I tend to write romantic comedies and dramas. This is why I rarely kill off a character. There have been no villains in my stories so far. Maybe jackasses and assholes, but that’s about it.

I’ve killed two characters in a total of five screenplays (three finished, two in the works): One was dead practically before the story began; his death was the catalyst for three characters’ actions, and the other was a supporting character whose death, while tragic, was necessary for one character’ growth. And while my characters go through a lot dealing with these deaths, it doesn’t define them. It doesn’t take my story into a direction so bleak that my viewer/reader will get depressed alongside them. Feel sad? Yes. Desolate? No.

It would probably come as no surprise to you that I love reading John Grisham and Lee Child. The main character almost always lives. They might not always get a happy ending, but the stories give me enough adrenaline and serotonin that I don’t mind (a lot).

I’m not saying I won’t ever kill off many characters. I’m not saying I won’t ever write a thriller or action movie. I’ve been dreaming of finding brilliant thriller premises ever since I was a kid. But I haven’t found the right idea. Yet.

Here’s the thing: Life is full of pain, death and destruction. It is also filled with love, happiness and hope. I don’t need to be reminded of the first that often. News, politics and our own lives provide enough of that. On the other hand, I don’t mind overdosing on the positive stuff.

How do you like your endings?