A Little Cookie In My Blog

Writers are manipulative bastards.

I can say that, as a writer, though it is somewhat disingenuous, as I am primarily (though not solely) a non-fiction writer, and it is largely fiction writers who are the soul suckers of the universe.

I say that with the most love and respect, of course.

I am sitting on my couch, eating a cookie sandwich (chocolate chip cookie, thick layer of vanilla buttercream, chocolate chip cookie. I admit that bashfully, though really I think everyone should try it, because the nine year old in all of us would cry over how sugary good this is) and watching a re-run of Bones. I love this show. I love this show even retrospectively, even though I know the writers will ruin it with a season finale that is not only preposterous but just plain cruel to those of us who have watched so diligently for three seasons.

But that’s what writers do. They’re not happy to just stick in the knife; they have to twist it on the way out.

Last night, my husband and I watched the Ridley Scott miniseries version of The Andromeda Strain. They did some interesting things to the characters and plot–they made it more modern, for one, and they also made it more multicultural, which is always something of a mixed blessing. They also, interestingly, incorporated an environmental message that was not part of the original novel. It was, as is often the case in television, a bit haphazard, and I was unsatisfied with the end of the story. Intellectually, it wasn’t good. But I went to work today and talked about it with some friends. We talked about the implications of strip mining, of obliterating natural history, of what happens when humans forget ourselves and assume territory that isn’t ours. We talked about Ridley Scott, and Alien (no s, even though I liked the second movie better. No, it’s not as deep but c’mon, it’s a great monster flick) and whether Harrison Ford was really a replicant (he clearly was; I don’t even know why we argued about this.) And I have often wondered if Frank Herbert’s Dune would have been better handled in Scott’s hands than Lynch’s (though I will be the first to admit that I love David Lynch’s Dune, even though it’s a completely different story than Herbert’s.)

In other words, stories (and the writing that produces them) don’t have to be great for them to leave an impression. They just have to make you feel something. Get you talking. Get you wondering. Writers, directors, artists–they’re all so manipulative. And like a jilted lover mesmerized by the memory of hot sex, we keep coming back for more.

How does that happen? What is it that they have that we want? Why do I watch Fox television and cheerleader movies? (Or gymnastics movies. As much as I hate to admit it, Stick It is fine family fun, and even has a decent message about the sport of gymnastics. But really I’m just in it for the snappy banter.)

The answer is probably right here in front of me, on this very page. I’m eating a fat-laden, nutrient-free cookie sandwich and now I’m watching House. Maybe I just like junk.

Maybe most of us do.

And maybe that’s really the key to being great–knowing just how much “junk”, by whatever definition works for your audience, to incorporate into the hard stuff. Most of us, whether we like to admit it or not, need to intersperse our healthful intakes with the not-so-serious. And we like it, and you know it’s true, when we can actually read our literature–magazines, blog posts, textbooks–without having to have the OED in the other hand. Sure, it makes us feel smart when we’ve finished deciphering a page of Aristotle, but when we’re unwinding after a day of work we prefer revel in a bit of fluff teevee and a trashy novel. Yes, it’s candy, but that’s not all–there’s something in it we need. Because when we’re sitting before our Fox TV show, or knuckles deep in a Laurell K. Hamilton novel, we’re not just thinking, we’re imagining. We’re engaging a wholly different part of ourselves, and it feels good.

Yeah, it feels good.

Thing is, contrary to what I learned in Catholic school, there’s some benefit in feeling good. Which means there’s benefit in our work being fun, lively, flirtatious, edgy–whatever we need it to be. And transitively, there’s no reason good writing or good design needs to be stuffy, intense, or something your college professor would laud you for. We’re not in college. We’re in the real work, creating for real people who like to be entertained.

When I’m done with this cookie sandwich, I’m going to have a glass of sauvignon blanc. And I’ll still be watching House. Because I’m complicated like that.

Everyone is.