I'm Old and Healthy

 

I'm Young and Healthy, 42nd Street, 1933, Dick Powell sings:

 

I've always loved this song and the dance constructed by Busby Berkley. But I laughed at the line, "maybe in a year or two or three we'll be too old." I assumed it was his pick up line rather than a pervasive prejudice directed against older (over the hill) people.

As society progresses one prejudice after another is weakened. Today, we have young men singing about Michelle Pfeiffer. We have the press and the audience admiring a brave Caitlyn Jenner. On and on.

The baby boomers 50s & 60s are a huge part of our society, so why not write or produce what people of all ages want?

Dear network exec,

I've got an idea for a show. It's working title is Second Chance. It stars 50 & 60 year olds in search or love but instead of handing out roses, let's make it carnations.

Sincerely yours,
RW Richard

For those who abhor reality shows, and I know you are out there, step back, wait a minute. This basic idea could be a best selling book as well. Go ahead, write it up. I have too much on my plate right now.

I'll leave you with this thought: with the divorce rate so high and so many lonely people wanting to get it right the second or more times around, aren't your readers waiting for you to tackle this? It doesn't have to be about 1 gal and 25 guys to tell a good story.




 

Trying on wedding dresses

I'll assume every dad thinks his daughter is the most beautiful bride since God created the Earth. In this case it's true. This is not the dress she finally chose, but we all loved it.

A bride's gown is symbolic of the way she sees herself and her union. My baby wanted something elegant and sophisticated. Laura is elegant and sophisticated. She earned her undergrad in film from UCSD and her MFA (in film directing and related arts) at NYU. She's a successful director now. Don't let that angelic face fool you, there's much power and skill in this driven woman. In case you're wondering about her exotic looks, my wife is Filipina and I'm half Italian.

The wedding will be in August. Stay tuned for some pictures,

The reason brides look so incredible is because the combination of dress, bride and meaning, which makes what we see so much more than a pretty picture. We invest our wishes, we see our own dreams, we see her expectation, maybe share a little in her joy. We see life being lived and a very special part of the journey about to begin.

If you have the time, choose one or more of the below.
Top 10 classic wedding songs (8:23 minutes):

Top 10 modern wedding songs (9 minutes):

I've received many requests for the incomparable Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
Cheek to Cheek, from Top Hat, 1935, written by Irving Berlin and with all my love for you:

 

Validation

Easily missed while writing the hero and heroine is a technique I call validation, the one key ingredient to true love (and not obsession or carrying a torch which is an incomplete love). It isn’t that scene where one or both say “I love you” or the current upgrade, “I’m in love with you.” It’s not that scene where he gets down on one knee. It’s not even, “I do.”

There comes a moment when you realize somebody compatible is crazy about you and it is almost always in internal thoughts. Then you realize what you have been feeling isn’t wasted because he/she feels the same way you do. Then the couple just knows, whether they said any words of love, before, during or after their knowing. There’s not a greater feeling on this planet than the realization that you are loved and you have someone to love back. Forever, is now part of the fabric of complete surrender.

Miss this subtlety and, IMO, you have not written a complete romance.

Dick Powell sings, Busby Berkley directs the musical number from Dames, 1934, I Only Have Eyes For You.

 

Isn't it a lovely day?

My younger of two daughters will soon marry. I'm a bit more mature than when I married, I notice the subtle fabric of these ceremonies and preparations. When I married, I focused on the minutia, I worried about costs, I helped plan the honeymoon, thought about my daughters someday to be and I said I do.

Now, I think of the complicated culture of marriage, the meaning of life commitment, of gaining new family and a new son. I don’t dwell on the doling out of money to fuel dreams of what people expect a marriage to be. I'm celebrating one of life's great moments. I revel in the process and find human life to be richer for it.

Many guys don’t see the need for all this or don’t quite recognize how special it is to the bride. But if his love is mature enough, he’ll be taking his first steps to understanding and appreciating that soul reaching out to him.
 

The Hallmark movie last night featured a young groom who would have preferred to show up in jeans and eat a cake shaped like a football. Although it was a bit of a caricature, the point was well taken. Guys focus on the result, gals on the process. You can’t have one without the other and the renaissance man revels in it. My about to be son-in-law is such a man.

A marriage is like two people who start a dance through the hard and easy of life and never take their eyes off each other.
Isn't It a Lovely Day, written by Irving Berlin, sung by Fred Astaire and danced with his partner Ginger Rogers, from the movie Top Hat 1935.

If you have a favorite wedding song, let me know and I'll blog it.

Dolorah offered Unchained Melody, Endless Love and I will Always Love You:
I'll pick Unchained Melody, originally written in 1936 offered to Bing Crosby who refused it. It sat for twenty years. Many consider it's best version was rendered by the Righteous Brothers in 1965:

 

Men free from their bindings

Happy Father’s Day to my dad fans and to my lady readers, treat your man today to something he loves (like you).

Many writers go way overboard when it comes to writing a male character. They’ll take too seriously the architypes and then produce a comic book character. They’ll stick too closely to the Journey [a good source: Writer’s Journey by Vogler] as the hero meets mentors, antagonists, tricksters and reacts in a way the plot seems to demand. If he acts oddly, this might give your story a twist that would delight the reader.

Making your hero real, is not simply giving him flaws but making him an individual. Every individual is unique and so should your very memorable character be.

If you write a guy and fill in his personality partially based on back-story, you’ll be doing yourself a favor. If he’s a Navy Seal and likes to crochet, so be it. Or if he prefers Poodles to German Shepherds, well you have a lot to write about when you explain why. These are not flaws; they're more like charms, which will make your character almost magical and may put a smile on a reader’s face.

Now let's retool that father mentioned at the beginning who I suggested wanted your love as a gift today:
How to Murder Your Wife with Jack Lemmon, 1965 (the button scene)

I want you to know, I, in no way endorse or resemble Jack Lemmon's character. Those thoughts and actions have never entered my mind. His fictional character is just that fictional. Nonetheless, I feel the need to mollify my RWA girlfriends with Overboard 1987 starring Kurt Russell and Goldie Hahn, by showing the buh, buh, buh, buh scene.

 

What do you do with a pot of dirt?

What do you do with a pot of dirt?

“Today’s music is junk.”

“They don’t make ’em like they used to.”

As a debater or attorney, you learn to spot flaws in argument. The reason you don’t like today’s songs, TV, plays, movies etc. is that the writers aren’t writing for you or the words no longer speak to your heart! They’re writing to today’s audience. In the case of song, they write to the young. Those who desperately want to understand love and how to go about it. Those whose heart aches. Does this sound like something a romance writer might find useful?

Your remedy: find a way to fall in love (with something) and passionately and have that flow into your work in progress.

IMO, it’s author intrusion to force feed your own perception of what is art and what is junk. Not that you can’t have a voice. Who are you writing for? The wider the audience, the more you understand love through the eyes of your readers, the more you’ll sell, if that’s what you want.

Grandpa gave his granddaughter a pot of dirt. “How do you play with dirt?”

“Water it every day.”

And soon the child came to know life.

Message In A Bottle, The Police, 1979

EXTRA CREDIT:
or if you prefer a more direct means of communication: PEensylvania 6-5000, Glen Miller's Band, 1940:

Or for my generation: Beachwood 45789: The Marvelettes 1962

 

A man's man talks about writing

Last week I mentioned I showcase TV or movie clips or songs to make a point about the male point of view in writing. That's great but stale, so I think a speech about writing is in order by a writer you may know:

Earnest Hemingway's Nobel Prize acceptance speech (2 minutes):

He doesn't address the way he handles the male point of view but did say in this speech that writers should attempt what others haven't tried or have failed at!

Good writing to you all.