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professorspork · 2 years

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1, 6 :)

1. Tell us about your current project(s) – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

Well I was going to do this in a reply to @longroadstonowhere and @twilight-blaze on my first post but if you're going to straight-up ask me I suppose I should just go ahead and reveal it here.

the musical i am writing a RWBY AU of

>.>

<.<

... Newsies (1992) dir. Kenny Ortega!

it has a title, but I will be tagging it with its beloved working codename: newsbees au

Uh, to clarify from that earlier ask in case what I said was misleading, it's not entirely in Ilia's POV-- just one scene is so far, but there may be more as I go. I am just a smidge over 50k in, some 38k of which is actually written sequentially from the beginning as opposed to floating scenes or outlines of later chapters. progress is a little slow at the moment; I wasn't able to write much of anything the last three weeks due to extenuating circumstances and I've now gotten to the part where, like, the plot part of the plot is kicking in, and I'm having to make decisions about what to keep, what to change, what to borrow from the Newsies musical instead and what to use from the actual Newsboys' Strike of 1899. my optimistic goal is that I'll have it done and posted before RWBY comes back but like, RTX is in a month and if they say the show's returning in September or something there's no way that's happening. we'll see! i'm not planning on posting any of it until the vast, vast majority of it is complete, because it's got a lot of moving parts and I don't want to paint myself into a corner I can't write out of.

as for what I love most about it... well. the answer I want to give is that it's giving me an avenue to talk about like, labor and movement work and community organizing, but to say that's my favorite part would probably be a lie because my favorite part of this is the same bit that's ALWAYS my favorite part, which is I love these characters and love watching them learn to love each other.

so we'll say those are tied

6. What character do you have the most fun writing?

there is no way I can give just one answer to this. even if I narrow it down to just RWBY there's no way I can give just one answer to this.

I have the most fun writing Emerald because she has no tact and zero filter, so I can literally say just about anything I can think of and pull it off, and that's so freeing and entertaining

I have the most fun writing Yang because in many ways it's the closest to writing myself-- the way she tries to break the tension in serious moments with a pun is SUCH my go-to. even though I don't have the temper Yang does, she's just a really comfortable "home base" character for me

I have the most fun writing Blake because when she's feeling good she's such a sarcastic troll, and when she's not she can be SO melodramatic and over the top in her self-recriminations. like, she takes herself and everything else so seriously that metaphors that might be hackneyed or cliché in someone else's POV are perfectly acceptable when you can be like "lmao yeah, okay sure Blake"

and I have the most fun writing Ruby because I love Ruby Rose. she is the best person, her brain works in such interesting and unexpected ways, she's so insightful and gives herself so little credit for that.

#newsbees au #WOO INAUGURAL USE OF THAT TAG #on writing #fic what i wrote

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dereksmcgrath · 3 years

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That was a really good chapter, and I’m struggling to say anything deeper about why it worked. I will try to summarize why it all works at the end of this post, because before that I want to give some time for topics I haven’t discussed directly up to now--including Aizawa’s disabilities and Mineta’s sexuality. But let’s start with some specific observations about Chapter 325.

“The Bonds of One for All,” My Hero Academia Chapter 325. By Koehi Horikoshi, translation by Caleb Cook, lettering by John Hunt. Available from Viz.

Spoiler warnings for The Big O and Fire Force.

The interactions between Izuku, Kota, and the woman with the giant Quirk were handled very well, in paneling, facial expressions, and dialogue. I love how the panel of tearful Kota reaching out to Izuku is almost identical to Izuku reaching out to Bakugo way back in Chapter 1. It is such a good humorous moment for the woman with the giant Quirk to refer to Izuku as her “crybaby hero.”

And beyond how well these three interact, I also loved Aizawa from afar congratulating Iida for his handling of this entire situation. The most recent episodes of the anime have not shown much in a mentor-mentee relationship between these two, with Aizawa rushing to see Kurogiri at Tartarus and surprised Iida already finished giving the class announcements he was instructed to. The two have not had much in the way of interactions, so having this small moment showing Aizawa does pay attention to his students contradicts a lot of complaints I’ve made how Aizawa has seemed so hands-off, especially when Bakugo has been physically abusive to his classmates.

Speaking of which, Denki dope-slapped Bakugo. That has been a long time coming, and I love that small background gag making its way in the middle of Hawks’s rousing narration. I also spotted Eijiro crying and I think a cameo from Oogami from Oumagadoki Zoo, so overall, the crowd scene was well illustrated.

The final bit I really enjoyed in this chapter--aside from Kurogiri’s return, but I’ll get to that--was the man from Chapter 1 defending Izuku, by invoking one of the metaphors I hate: the stage.

The Big O is one of my favorite anime--at least, until the second season started, then the show became so meta without progressing any plot in a way I enjoyed, and losing the “monster of the week” format that I thought served it better. One of its conceits was that, spoiler, the entire series is fake, just what is imagined as a stage production, or a TV production, or someone who has the power to control everything--and, no, that’s a cheap trick, worse than Dallas or Newhart playing that for a narrative reset or a legitimate series finale gag. This isn’t St. Elsewhere, and Big O is not good enough for that stunt. At its best, The Big O was like watching Cowboy Bebop’s stand-alone episodes: I’m judging it by the quality of its beginning-middle-and-end plot. (Having Steve Blum, Wendee Lee, and others from the Bebop dub with major roles in the Big O dub didn’t hurt.) So, trying to add a second-season arc to justify stuff in the first season that didn’t need to be justified felt like a waste of the stage metaphor.

And another manga, Fire Force, just recently invoked the “what if this is all a fiction, like something on the stage” plotline and, no, God no, we are not going there, we not letting “it’s all a fiction” defend how badly that misogynistic followup to Soul Eater has fallen off the rails, good Lord, no. I was way too kind to that series.

So, I cringed hearing this man defend Izuku by invoking the stage, and Horikoshi and company drawing a literal stage with theater seats. But at the end, no, that metaphor works, especially when it invokes how we first met this man and Izuku way back in Chapter 1: they were watching Woods and Mt Lady fighting that giant like they were watching a live performance of a tokusatsu. Having that man chew out we in the audience for treating this series as spectacle for fighting scenes, and by extension criticizing Izuku too and himself, adds enough humility to have this moment all be easier to approach rather than feeling hackneyed: it comes out of a problem the series has had since Chapter 1, and that any superhero story will have (as I ranted about earlier this week, where the good guy had to fight the bad guy with nothing in society really getting better).

With the good stuff out of the way, that brings me to Aizawa, and ongoing thoughts I have about how MHA portrays people with disabilities.

Over the weekend (through Sunday, September 5, at 7 PM Eastern), the US Embassy of Japan has shared for free online for United States audiences the documentary Tokyo Paralympics: Festival of Love and Glory. As I am not diagnosed with a disability, and as I do not consider myself an expert scholar in disability studies, I leave it to people more familiar with the topics to evaluate the documentary. With that said, I do think the documentary is of its time, as within the first minutes the thesis to the work seems to be that to have a disability is to be a challenge of overcoming having a disability. I do not think that is the customary way of thinking about disabilities today, that it is something to overcome: a disability is something you live with, not necessarily something you think of as overcoming--the verb being used is the problem. Granted, I’m using “overcome” based on the subtitles, not on the original Japanese of the film. But from what I have gathered in disability studies, the focus is not on the responsibility of an individual to overcome anything: it is far more about what societies can do so that, regardless what a person has in way of abilities, they are able to participate fully in that society, as the definition of having a disability has so much to do with society not making access possible regardless of the person’s abilities.

I’ve talked quite a bit about how MHA started with this bifurcated presentation: it wants to show a shiny exterior of a world where people of various abilities all get to participate in society and function within it, before revealing that exterior to be a facade, hiding forms of discrimination, some obvious from Chapter 1 where those without Quirks are maligned, and some soon after, such as a gag strip showing the damage Mt Lady’s ability causes due to her giant size. Then we saw more and more forms of discrimination on the basis of ability. We learned how Shinso, Habuko, Shigaraki, and Toga’s Quirks impede how they may participate in society. We saw how the physical appearance of Shoji, Spinner, Habuko, and now in the manga this woman with the giant Quirk leads to discrimination. We saw how the size of the individual (the woman with the giant Quirk, Mt Lady, and Kamachi in Vigilantes) requires different forms of housing that are often not easily accessible, affordable, or in convenient parts of the city. And we have seen more and more characters who lose Quirks (Ragdoll, Mirio, All Might) or have no Quirks (Melissa) as analogues to having disabilities, and more characters who have what we accept in our real world as disabilities (Ectoplasm’s pre-introduction lost legs, Aizawa and All Might’s Quirks being impeded by physical damage, Compress losing his arm and now more in the PLF Arc, Mirko losing her arm and leg, Aizawa and Nighteye losing limbs and organs in battle).

I don’t know what to make of how Aizawa’s leg prosthetic is first introduced to the audience, as the scene is staged almost the same as how we first saw Re-Destro’s leg prosthetic in the manga: we see the prosthetic clothed in a shoe and a pants’ leg, and that is how much we see to indicate its presence. I doubt the replication of this staging is telling us any similarity between Aizawa and Re-Destro--I honestly think the staging is just a coincidence. But I do think, intentional or not, Horikoshi is avoiding a fixation, an attempt to focus on the prosthetic as if something has been lost, by clothing it in the shoe and the pants’ leg to communicate that this just is his leg now, it’s not an identical substitution but it functions as a leg, it looks different, it obviously is different, but the image will not fetishize it.

I expected Aizawa would pop back up in this chapter after his appearance last time, but I in no way expected to hear references to Kurogiri, Oboro, the Nomus, and Toga--all of that are the real surprises of this chapter, and with All Might seemingly in front of UA, it’s set up for more to come. I have repeatedly complained how Kurogiri and Oboro have been handled since the reveal back in Vigilantes that they are the same body, as I took it as using Aizawa’s back story for plot setup rather than offering anything meaningful to progress Aizawa’s character. I’m not taking back my complaints. But after this chapter, I am less frustrated with those choices made, and less impatient to see where that plot is going, all because of just a few bits of exposition in this chapter to re-contextualize prior scenes to make what wasn’t working work better. It’s not clear to me yet how and when exactly Aizawa advocated for Kurogiri and other Nomus to be transferred out of prison and into medical help--and that is an entire discussion about prison reform that I do not think I can speak to adequately, but I do need to identify. While I wish this chapter or previous chapters did more to show Aizawa’s advocacy, similar to how we saw him advocate to Nezu on behalf of the class he was expelling and re-enrolling, the exposition via brief dialogue between Aizawa and Nezu hit the right beats and ended this chapter on a more positive note. All of this moment felt earned and helped make something more out of Aizawa and Kurogir compared to how I thought their plot had been so far, merely re-shuffling the characters to suit where the plot goes next.

But speaking of where the plot goes next, the invocation of Toga and the safety parameters to deal with her potential impersonation of anyone entering UA strikes me as similar to Nezu explaining the safety measures at UA: you explain the safety protocols so that, when the Villains inevitably break them, we are shocked but understand how this happened. It’s like Ghostbusters: you have to say “don’t cross the streams” so that, when it happens, you know a rule has been broken and things are that desperate. Theoretically, based on the information UA has, if you keep Toga in isolation for so long, her impersonation will wear off: that makes sense. The problems are twofold. First, no, I still don’t trust that Nezu isn’t pulling something. But that’s a conspiracy theory, so I need harder evidence. Therefore, second, UA may not know how much Toga’s Quirk evolved in the fight against the MLA and may have evolved since the PLF fight; predicting the duration of her impersonating abilities, when paired with her ninja-like ability to hide her presence, means that Toga could pop up in UA in the near future. Having All Might somehow now in front of UA instead of having a chat with Stain leads me to think Toga could just as easily have impersonated All Might to get into UA and close to Izuku, but I’ll have to wait and see.

I also have avoided discussing Mineta in these recent chapters. At the time of his reunion with Izuku, I honestly did not read a queer subtext at all: his “I love you, man”-esque reaction to Izuku struck me as homosocial rather than queer. Now that he again has been prevented from getting close to Izuku in this chapter, I can’t avoid bringing it up now.

In the immediate time when the chapter came out, I noticed to distinct interpretations of his remarks to Izuku, based on what he says in Japanese and how Caleb Cook translated it into English: the homosocial as I just said, in terms of Mineta having always been prone to using language and passionate language to express his feelings, unfortunately almost always in a perverted way to girls and women; and the queer reading, that Mineta is indeed making a love confession to Izuku.

I’m not sure which side I find more persuasive, but the latter queer reading is effective, especially in retrospect seeing how often he is near Izuku in different chapters. And it recontextualizes his reaction to seeing Ochaco giving Izuku attention back in the Classes 1A vs 1B Arc: I thought he was jealous that Izuku was getting Ochaco’s affection, whereas it may be that he was jealous of anyone else showing affection to Izuku.

However, I could just as easily take a page out of Scrubs (yes, forgive me for citing a cringey show like Scrubs) when they tried to portray the Todd’s womanizing as part of a larger pansexual identity--which is also problematic, and really is not how I want to read Mineta as being bi or pan, because it again falls into the argument that being bi or pan means you’re hedonistic or horny all the time when, no, by themselves, the terms bi and pan just refer to your emotional and sexual attraction, not at all implying anything about your sex life. This is all the more infurating to have to explain when being a pervert is not tied explicitly to any one sexuality, gender, or sex, so to have it associated with being bi or pan is offensive. Granted, I also am offended by how popular culture associates being a man with immediately being associated with being a pervert, but that’s the fault of toxic masculinity and failure to recognize broader constructions of being a man and masculinity, but that’s another topic.

To summarize, I pause at any notion that Mineta’s characterization is anything beyond just a pervert to his girl and woman colleagues, or any notion whether he was just exaggerating his chauvinism and attraction to girls and women in order to cover up for being gay, bi, or pan, because either case has unfortunate implications. At best, this portrayal suggests is the victim of toxic heteronormativity--which, if that was the case, that doesn’t work because we just had to sit through his groping of Tsuyu, Momo, and others, and no, the story doesn’t get to excuse that bullshit behavior by saying he is young and influenced by the toxicity around him. At worst, this portrayal suggests that being bi or pan just means you are one big pervert and will grope anything that moves--and, again, no, that is not at all what being bi or pan is. That’s like saying “apples are red, therefore this red Stapler is an apple so I’m going to eat it.”

God, this is why I really wish Horikoshi would take the cue I’ve seen from more fanfic writers and just headcanon someone’s sexuality and making it apparent in the fiction: it’s not that hard to show someone’s attractive to someone else in ways that defy our heteornormative assumptions, it’s just that much harder to commit to it beyond some authorial-intent JK Rowling footnote. (And since I invoked her by name: fuck Rowling; trans rights now.)

But I want to wrap up this review on a positive note, even if that means I’m again invoking another cringey TV show. How I Met Your Mother (I warned you this would get cringey) built its symbolism around umbrellas. Having the umbrella scenes around Izuku in the rain, after this manga already invoked Kenji Miyazawa's “Be Not Defeated by the Rain,” coupled with Hawks’s narration--that is all really well-done. Umbrellas are that shield against the elements. It even ties back into Aizawa and Oboro: we first meet these two in Vigilantes when Aizawa couldn’t stand to bring a stray kitten out of the rain while Oboro, whose power is literally clouds, had no hesitation about shielding the cat. Shielding Izuku like this with the umbrellas as a metaphor for how the older man all the way back in Chapter 1 wants to shield Izuku, and how UA can shield Izuku, is a really good way of visualizing what is offered to Izuku. UA is not his home, but like an umbrella, this is a temporary fix against the elements awaiting out there. I’m not as convinced by Izuku saying he can bring things back to how they were before: that’s nonsense, because for society to progress, you can’t just go back to how things were, you have to take what worked and improve it and fix what was broken. I know Izuku knows this, especially after his talk with Nagant, but it is an awkward line for this chapter. But like how we’re dealing with COVID, like how we need to mask up just like we would hold an umbrella against the rain, just as we need to work together (even if, paradoxically, we do that by social distancing, not gathering in crowds like the UA people are), we need to get through this awfulness, and I appreciate that this series again communicates the value of collaboration and not persisting with the “I alone can fix this” approach All Might, for all his good intentions, unfortunately propped up that led to Shigaraki, this mess the characters now face--and, yeah, being political, is why we’re in this mess in a post-2016 atmosphere.

#my hero academia #mha spoilers #shota aizawa #minoru mineta #kurogiri #long post

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nikofrussia · 3 years

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THE LOST OF LOVE LETTER

February 7, 2021 / written by Nikolai Khrennikov

The first time you have your heart blown apart as a young man is an unforgettable experience. It’s akin to having your emotional introspection. Comically enough, your mind keeps vacillating between what hurts more — the waves of dry heave inducing nausea or the soul crushing emotional pain. This was the state I found myself in having finally professed my affection for a woman I had been enamored of for the three years.

What she didn’t know was that I’d fallen in love with her the first time I’d met her. The moment I saw her I thought she was the physical manifestation of the actress character Winona Ryder in 1995, less the spiritual and existential breakdown. She was, in other words, the most pretty woman I’d ever set eyes on. She had chestnut brown hair with one naturally occurring black streak in the back. She had brown eyes that destroyed me. She spoke like she was born in the wrong century. To me we were perfect for each other, and using retrograde logic I concluded, myopically, that she’d never considered me a romantic prospect simply because I’d never positioned myself as one. What was needed was a declaration of affection; what was needed was a powerful, heady statement of intent. The problem was this: for whatever reason, I was appallingly bad at talking to women, especially regarding anything serious. It’s as if my brain would enter a fugue state when an even remotely attractive woman struck up the mildest form of conversation with me. It’s still true.

And so it was that, on that one fateful night, and what I intended to be a simple expression of affection turned into an inebriated soliloquy on star-crossed love incorporating a hackneyed and baffling analysis of the love poems of Sylvia Plath. At least she had the honesty to explain that while she considered me a last love, before she also considered me too immature to consider having a romantic relationship with.

Not knowing what I wanted to do with my life, when the question of my future was raised, I immediately said, “I want to go to America”. I made my way back to the United States, ever I send my CV to some companies supply foreign labour.

So what does this outpouring of emotion have to do with my desire to destroy the interwebs? This for three year ago, my wife and I lived in separate countries, and while the prevailing belief is that long-distance relationships never work out, ours did. Why? Because of our letters. Because we would write each other long, beautiful, incredible letters. The act of letter writing, the idea of making every sentence meaningful, the idea of connecting and communicating with someone through our thoughts gave us the most incredible relationship despite the innumerable miles that separated us. And it made me understand the beauty of writing, which motivated me to start my story life.

No one writes letters any more. Maybe not. We now live in a world profligate with instant communication, with a constant and insurmountably endless barrage of emails, instant messaging, Telegram, Facebook and Twitter feeds, and as a result no one cares about the craft of writing, because interpersonal communication even at its most intimate has become conditioned by the short-form inanity that has supplanted proper language. No one talks to anyone through writing any more, they just bark in short-form. Worse still, no one experiences anything any more. They just take pictures of life to post on their blogs or Facebook pages.

I am glad that our love story happened to get through the encroachment of the information age; otherwise, I am not sure we could have had that extraordinary first year. As with the majority of love stories, we broke up, thinking we might be able to find the same affection we had for each other in other people, and not realising until much later in life how difficult this is. We’re family now, and that makes me happy. I can only say that I treasure our time together; the moments of intense passion and quiet companionship equally - as two opposite sides of a valuable coin which makes me a wealthy man.

Dear reader, Do you understand what I am trying to say? Reality is what is perceived to be real by the individual. I hopes stop checking your goddamn mobile phone; stop valuing your life based on your Instagram likes, or replacing actual conversation with group chats. Because, if not literally then at least metaphorically, in order for real emotion and human culture to survive we must destroy the interwebs. Stop and revel in the world around you. If you commit to it, sometimes the world gives you back gifts of truly immeasurable beauty.

I too have a smartphone and use it. But how exactly am I using it? That is an excellent question to ask oneself.

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english-ext-2 · 7 years

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Hi, I received my viva voce mark, a 12/20 ): My teachers advised me to drop but I really enjoy the course. My main problem is the lack of intention of my work. I am doing a suite of poems (might change to short story) and there was no overall purpose to the poems. So I guess my questions are: 1. What are the pros and cons of poetry and short stories as forms? 2. How to create a concept/ theme for my MW? 3. Should I drop since my teachers are advising me to? 4. Can I still get an e4? Thanks!

Oh no, sorry about your Viva mark. If your main problem was a lack of purpose and intent, then you have very little time to rectify it. A purposeless MW is hollow and complicates the composing - without a goal in mind, you can’t write to meet it. What do you hope to achieve with your MW? (List some verbs: to entertain, provoke, amuse, move, inspire, analyse, criticise, argue… and don’t forget, who are you entertaining, provoking etc.? Who is your intended audience?)

I hesitate to say getting an E4 is impossible. At this stage I’d say improbable, but if you can pull together a solid concept and a first draft in the holidays, then you’d be on the right path. But you’d also have to work on getting feedback, editing and snipping, maybe even rewriting entire portions. All that will depend on your efforts and time management.

Concepts

Creating a concept isn’t like snapping your fingers and voila, there it is. You need to put a lot of thought and sometimes research into it.

I have a post on concepts here, and an ask I answered on what an EE2 concept is. You want something that’s both small enough to tackle within the constraints of the course and complex enough to explore in-depth. A concept should come from you, of you and for you, something that YOU feel strongly about.

It’s not a neat, linear (or even cyclical) process; it’ll be messy and a bit back-and-forth as you go from research to thinking to more research. It will be particular to you and how your mind works. I could tell you that I did some thinking about translation, a bit of research and reading, and finally narrowed my concept down by venting at an EE2 friend, but it’s not necessarily what you’ll experience.

Short Stories vs. Poems

The pros and cons of each form should be considered not as absolutes but relative to your personal strengths and weaknesses. On the whole, short stories appeal to those who enjoy traditional narratives and storytelling. As the most common form by far, there are a ton of resources that cater specifically to EE2 short story writers. You won’t lack for exemplars or even former students familiar with the short story form. And the popularity of short stories aren’t without reason. Students are used to reading fiction (long or short) and are able to mimic literary conventions/techniques common to novels that also play well in short stories. You yourself might even have written stories in your spare time.

The downsides? Because it’s the most common form, your SS will have to be disarmingly unique, charming or superlative-worthy to stand out. “Good”, depending on the cohort, might not be good enough for an E4. “Very good” or “excellent” are the words you want to hear from people giving you feedback. There’s also a lot of latitude for going wrong. Poor short stories can be hackneyed plot devices and paper-cut characters as much as explosively experimental, confusing non-linear plots and fragmented selves. It’s up to you to get the balance right, which isn’t as easy as it sounds.

Poetry is more elusive and if done in a cliche way or just poorly, it can drag your mark down. The markers will always be subjective but there is something about poetry - its volatility, emotional weight and personal investment - that can polarise reactions in a manner that most short stories don’t. Not to say that short stories can’t be deeply personal! But poetry, at least to me, holds your heart. Giving up your private feelings for a single HSC unit might not be the best idea for sensitive folk. Otherwise, if your strength is in metaphor and highly figurative/abstract language, if you have a good ear for rhythm and enjoy the sound of words, then poetry would be a good fit for you. Ultimately, I think the poems that succeed are the ones that have a strong voice.

Think about the word count too. Remember it’s hard to write well in fewer words!

Should I drop?

I can’t make the decision for you (and neither can your teachers for that matter). Take the time to think these things over:

Would you have sufficient units to be eligible for an ATAR? (10 units)

Would you be confident of a good ATAR (however you qualify “good”) if you dropped EE2?

Would the time freed up by dropping EE2 help with your other subjects?

Would a poor EE2 mark adversely affect your ATAR?

Are you willing to see EE2 all the way through?

Would more average to poor results drain your motivation?

I’d also suggest talking to the careers counsellor/adviser at your school, and to your English teacher(s). Why do they want you to drop EE2? Is it because they’re concerned for your ATAR, that you aren’t meeting a benchmark, do they have your genuine interests at heart? If your parents are the type who keep an eye on your results, then talk to them too. The decision will ultimately rest with you, but getting outside opinions is part and parcel of your decision-making.

Best of luck :)

#Anonymous #english extension 2 #hsc english #asks #answered

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trulycertain · 7 years

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Tru’s Writing Notes

I’ve had people ask me after seeing my feedback on stories if I’m as overanalytical with my own stuff. The answer is yes. My stuff may often be written at 4 AM and typo-laden, but yes.

Because of that and @thesecondsealwrites talking about process (though unlike her post, this is more the why/how than the everyday practicalities of writing), here are some of the notes I’ve left myself in my journal. These apply mostly to the way I write my original rather than my fic, but they can apply to both. Can I add: a lot of these probably seem very obvious, I know, and I don’t always manage to bear them in mind. Also, I’m not a pro or even a talented amateur, and these aren’t addressing an audience, they’re addressing me - and they apply more to the way I write than writing in general. But if anyone might find this interesting or wants to know if I worry about my writing, here’s your answer.

People tend to like a strong story, with good reason. The best plots tend to be simple, and then you build outwards and maybe twist. A compelling central arc, certain genre tropes or something familiar tend to be what work: forbidden romance, or an unsolved murder and a maverick. We have a fair idea of what’s going to happen, but it’s the anticipation - and/or the eventual subversion - that brings the fun. Plot and drive.

Again, try to have a strong idea of where it’s going, or the spirit of it. Terry Pratchett once said that you want to be able to write your own blurb: it’s a good sign if you can distil the essence of your story into a hundred words or so.

Just like real people, characters have verbal tics, peculiar turns of phrase and certain mannerisms. Learn them, and use but don’t overuse. Keep it natural.

Some people just don’t like present tense, or past, or first person, for whatever reason. You may be buggered from the start, and sometimes all you can do is try. Try and know your audience, try your best. Try not to bang your head against a wall.

However, present tense is a slippery bastard. At its best, there’s almost nothing that can match it for immediacy and visceral intensity. At its worst, it can either be staccato, bleak and overly clinical - or at the other end of the scale, it can be overwrought sensory overload. Either way, a reader will be put off. Ideally, I try to balance the two and end up somewhere in the middle: punch and verve, but with restraint and room for the reader to infer. I rarely manage this, but God do I try.

Speaking of inference: don’t assume the reader is an idiot. Sometimes the best punchline or explanation is the one that’s never given. Myself, my favourite horror stories are the ones that don’t go for shlock and shocks: they’re the ones where I finish them feeling mildly unsettled, go and do the washing-up while my mind puts the pieces together, and then go, five or ten minutes later, “Oh God, it was behind the door the whole time! That’s... Argh.”

People are terrifyingly complicated. Every reader brings something to the text, whether they’re aware of it or not. This can add unexpected beauty or poignancy, but it can also make implication, idioms, dialect and offence into total minefields. People can come out with things that would never have occurred to you. Something might fly over someone’s head, or something might turn out to be an incredibly offensive phrase in their country and perfectly innocuous in yours; someone might find your happy ending the most depressing thing in the known universe, and someone else might hate your likeable romantic hero because he reminds them of their arsehole ex. Sometimes you can anticipate this and take countermeasures for clarity’s sake; often you don’t need to because theirs is a perfectly valid interpretation and part of the joy of making a cake is seeing people eat it; and mostly you just can’t know, because people come in so many different permutations and you’re not actually psychic, so leave them to it. Gah.

Watch your tenses. Things like flashbacks are nightmare territory and ripe for grammar slippage. Never be afraid or too proud to read up on usage.

Same with semicolons. Tricky little gits.

People mangle language. Doesn’t matter whether you’ve had the “perfect” education, everyone does it at least sometimes. People lose words, misuse vocabulary (me, all the time), go for double negatives, mix metaphors. You always want your dialogue to be readable, and you don’t want your portrayals to be hackneyed or offensive, but it’s generally unnecessary to aim for perfection in dialogue unless it’s for effect: say, if you want to make a character less approachable, if you want to show they’re not human, or if rose-tinted dialogue is a stylistic choice. Generally, true-to-life dialogue is inherently descriptive rather than prescriptive.

Sometimes said mangling leads to fascinating new quirks, dialect and expressions.

Speech is very different from thought. A character’s narrative voice is often quite different to their dialogue voice. Thought is much faster than speech, and sometimes someone will answer their own question before they’ve finished saying it. Thought is by nature more disjointed, and thought is also a monologue, unless everyone’s suddenly turned telepathic or you’re dealing with dissociation/multiple personalities. In contrast, speech has a listener, which changes it. Nerves can make phrases choppy or make them fail completely. Often people interrupt each other. Realistic dialogue should reflect this.

On a similar note, let your characters talk. Know where to draw the line - no-one wants the tension ruined by a half-hour conversation about socks - but very few people are all business or all dramatic emotion all the time. (Those who seemingly are will have reasons for it, and those are often worth exploring, too.) Unless you’re on a particular word and/or time limit, let your characters occasionally be real people whose eyeliner runs, or who dislike artichokes, or who make bad jokes - and people who don’t revolve completely around your protagonist, with their own internal lives. When done right, relateable is not boring - especially if you’re working in a fantastic or dramatic canon. The odd anchor to reality can grab your heart and tug.

But do know where to draw the line. Let them be enigmatic and heroic when they need to, because often the magic is in that contrast between the epic and the mundane. Characters can do and be what we can’t. Don’t take away all their mystery and more idealised qualities.

There’s no one way to do funny, and there’s no way to write an instruction manual for it. Again, like most other things, it’s a matter of interpretation: everyone’s tickled by different things. But often humour relies on the subversion of expectation - bathos and anticlimax, for example, or giving an established word/phrase an entirely new meaning - or it relies on particular character idiosyncrasies, or on the other side, the utter, crushing fulfilment of expectations. (”Save the world, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.”) A good source of jokes is often that “I bloody knew it!” feeling.

Characters have biases, too. Always try and account for this in the narrative.

Foreshadowing is your friend, and often a key to emotional closure for the reader. Unless you can do some serious, stylish authorial sleight-of-hand, deus ex machina endings will prompt pissed-offness rather than satisfied applause. Even if you don’t introduce your secret weapon/s early on - best right near the beginning, if possible - at least get the key themes and characters down. You want to get an, “Oh, of course,” not “Well, that was a total arse-pull.”

Screenwriters sometimes talk of an A-plot and a B-plot. The A-plot’s the main one, and B is a seemingly separate subplot that inevitably turns out to be all tangled up with A. It’s pretty standard for detective dramas: there’s a murder, they start investigating, and the seemingly unrelated corpse on the other side of town always ends up being central to the case. A and B always converge. Often, if it’s a story with depth and a well-reasoned plot, the B plot will grow naturally. Of course, that’s only one way of doing it: some stories have a strong, driving A plot that drives everything and stands on its own, and have some C, D, E, F, so on plots. I admit, I’m not much good at the A + B plot thing, so I don’t tend to do it. If I have subplots, they tend to be less connected and a bit more character-driven, rather than about world-saving/murder-solving like the A plot. (I tend to half-jokingly call these C plots, where the C stands for “character” or “crying.”) Good characters usually write their own C plots - they have ulterior motives, hidden aspects, unexpected connections, and if you let them wander off they’ll make trouble for themselves. C plots are connected to the main plot, but unlike B plots, not a fundamental part of it. Sorry, screenwriters, for the terminology mangling.

Another trick to nick from Hollywood: the meet-cute. Sometimes you want someone to enter the narrative sneakily and unobtrusively, but often, especially with protagonists and love interests, never underestimate the power of a good, memorable character introduction. Audiences remember the ways they meet your characters, and the ways that characters meet eaxch other.

It’s not necessary for every story, but often it’s good to have a rock-bottom moment where everything looks hopeless. It reminds your audience viscerally of the stakes and penalties for failure, and it makes eventual victory even sweeter because it’s against the odds. Unless the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train. In that case, rock on with your downer-ending self.

Often the best plot comes from character. (After all, Greek dramatists went on about this all the time with concepts like hubris and hamartia.) Even when nations clash, nations are run by flawed, corrupt people. Antagonists ought to have strong motivations unless you’re writing senseless violence/cruelty intentionally. So on. People often talk about the heart of drama being conflict, and some people, taking that to heart, write a war or their couple arguing. Yeah, that can work brilliantly, but there are other ways to do it, and conflict can be smaller-scale, too. It can be as simple as different aspects of the same character clashing; for instance, if they’re torn between love and duty (there’s a reason that one’s so popular), or the conflict between their past and present selves.

#writing #tru talks #tru rambles #long post #god i probably sound so bloody arrogant #but did i mention this is mostly me prodding myself and my stories?#not anyone else necessarily

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londontheatre · 6 years

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Soho Theatre Lucy McCormick Production

Lucy McCormick and her Girl Squad, are back at Soho Theatre having just finished headlining a two night run of Jonny Woo’s Unroyal Variety at Hackney Empire where she devised some brand new original material.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Lucy about her upcoming show and what audiences can look forward to.

Q: I wonder if you could start off by telling me what the show is about?

Lucy: The premise of the show is that I attempt to re-enact the New Testament, playing all the main roles myself. And I have these two backing dancers who join in the big group numbers, as we call them, and take on some “supporting roles”. So, of course, the whole central premise of the show is completely absurd and sort of impossible. The audience watch me attempt to achieve this really epic story but in a very DIY way and also with my own take on pop culture references, so using current pop music, dancing, a lot of vogue and queer gay nightclub references, and also from a feminist viewpoint as well. Choosing to try and retell this story gives me the opportunity to explore different kinds of gender politics and ideas around feminism and queer identity.

Q: You talked a little bit about DIY and the fact that this is a sort of impossible thing that you’re trying to do: Is there a failure element to the show that you enjoy; are there moments of improvisation and things that could go wrong?

Lucy: Yes, there definitely are, and I am really interested in that kind of genuine risk on stage, and genuinely possibly things might fail. But, I think when you play with failure in performance and DIY stuff, it’s about also questioning whether it is actually a failure or whether you can find success. Something could go wrong and this could create something really beautiful or hilarious. The fact the show has “failed” becomes the joke itself and that feels like success.

Q: So your title, ‘Triple Threat’, where does that come from?

Lucy: Well, partly it refers to me having a very traditional training quite a long time ago, being into musical theatre and being a singer. Then I trained traditionally as an actor, which sometimes is a surprise to people because the work I was making for quite a long time was really experimental; influenced by performance art, nightclub performance and subversive cabaret. This show is about me reclaiming my interest in [traditional] plays and musical theatre, but the audience knows I am not to the standard of a West End triple threat! It loops back to he “failure” joke. For me, I’ve always thought, ‘Well I wonder what the triple threat is’, because it could be singing, dancing and nudity or doing explicit things with my body, because that also happens. The last thing I like about the phrase is just that it has the word ‘threat’ in it; it’s sort of like ‘so what are these three threats?’, and I suppose you could even say there’s a kind of mirroring of the holy trinity with it being like a three and a three and for me that also works on a metaphorical level.

Q: How did you find going from quite a traditional training background into trying the more experimental and performance art type of performance?

Lucy: I think in performance art you don’t necessarily need to have a traditional skill, or the work can celebrate things like DIY and mess. In a way, it can sometimes be almost a bit uncool to have a really slick performance, so I do think they can be quite different worlds and they have a completely different set of politics. I also came at performance art from going to various gay clubs or just going to a bar and finding out there’s someone performing on top of the bar or in the toilets or something and you sort of think ‘Oh wow, OK, performance doesn’t just have to happen on a stage’. I suppose it was just a real eye opener in terms of the potential of performance and where you can do it and what you can look at. I think now I’m massively taking from both of those experiences.

Q: So you describe your performance as queer, as a queer club experience: What does it mean to you to make queer performance?

Lucy: I think, for me, it’s something about going back to the roots of choosing the New Testament; it was a way for me to try out these different identities. In one moment I might be playing Jesus and in the next moment I could be playing Mary Magdalene, and I think I feel that we kind of tie ourselves down to titles too much and sometimes there might be certain expectations on me as a conventional looking female. For me, the queer identity of the performance is about challenging expectations and thinking about my identity.

There are these two backing dancers who are male and super-hot and both have same sex relationships and identify as queer and I think that recently there’s been such a commodity of ‘queer’ and in particular the gay male. You see a lot of gay and draggy references in pop culture and I think it’s a chance to question and celebrate and play around with that as well.

Q: And then in what way, if any, would you describe the work as feminist?

Lucy: I would describe it as feminist because my understanding of feminism is about equality and is about humanism rather than it being sort of exclusively for women, let’s say. I identify as a woman and I’ve only got my own body to use and so it’s about how I fit into these roles that this story is giving me; if that’s even really possible in a socio-political way: being in a woman’s body and being in an historically, patriarchal society. So, it definitely is feminist and celebrates strong women, but I think it celebrates strong people and equality really.

Q: You talked about the show as having this religious story running through it, the retelling of the bible: Would you say that the show is aimed at a religious audience?

Lucy: So, I do have some Christian friends who have really enjoyed the show and that’s been so pleasing to me because I’ve never really set out to undermine the story, I’ve just taken it as this source material and then gone ‘How does that make sense to me and what are those kind of modern references?’, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be for everyone. But I think, just as much as you might be quite a traditional Christian person, you might be an atheist who’s quite traditional or just isn’t into subversive cabaret in which people get very messy and get naked. I think it’s for anyone who wants to have a really good laugh, but also is up for something maybe a bit challenging. I think it’s really, really accessible and that’s something I’ve been so pleased with. I didn’t necessarily expect it to be, that’s almost been a bit of a surprise, but it seems like the show is massively accessible. It’s a bit outrageous for some people, especially if they haven’t seen a lot of this kind of work. I think it’s an ideal sort of work Christmas outing!

Q: The show has previously very successfully played at the Edinburgh Fringe and at the Soho Theatre before, has it changed at all during its development?

Lucy: It’s changed a bit, especially since the very beginning; I’ve been clarifying some of the ideas and images. It came out of club performance, so by this point a couple of years ago I was making ten-minute acts to do in cabarets and clubs, and one Christmas someone asked me if I wanted to do a Christmas thing and I decided ‘Oh we could put on a little nativity’. It worked so well I thought I’d keep looking at the New Testament and see what else we could use.

At that point, I was really playing around with the story, but I think now the show has really clarified itself and it really works with the structure that we have. It’s one of those shows where you know there’s banter and chatting to the audience and, you never know exactly how it’s going to unfold, but the structure stays the same. When I was at the Soho last time I was downstairs in what they call the cabaret space, and this time I’m going to be in the theatre, so it’s going to be quite a different atmosphere. I’ve played it in both kind of spaces before so that will be exciting and, I suppose with it just being at Christmas, it’s just going to be so relevant to everything that’s going on.

Q: You’re working on this show with Ursula Martinez and you’ve previously worked with Lauren Barri Holstein on Splat!: Are there any other performers or companies who have inspired you in the work you now make?

Lucy: There have been so many inspirations. Ursula has been a massive influence and we’ve got a really specific way of working now by which I generally make the material and then she’ll come in and give feedback on it and help me shape it. She’s brilliant at doing that and she’s got such a naughty sense of humour so it’s worked really well.

Lauren is an incredible artist and has kind of paved the way in terms of the performance art stuff. And other influences – gosh I’ve got loads – David Hoyle is a massive influence, and Kim Noble. There’s a performance artist called Daniel Oliver who works in absurdity and awkwardness and I just love watching his stuff. I just want to be like that! But I think that’s what artists do all the time: taking these influences and letting them swim around in your own brain.

Q: What should audiences expect when they come to see your show; what should we be looking forward to or threatened by?

Lucy: Well, on the one hand the audience can expect entertaining dance numbers, lovely songs and lots of really hilarious moments, and on the other hand I think they can expect to be a little bit challenged and made to think a lot; to have some good post-show conversations in the bar – hopefully.

Q: And finally, you’re performing back at the Soho Theatre again: I was wondering if there’s anything particularly exciting about performing specifically at the Soho?

Lucy: I think the show is great for having a really diverse range of audience, because you’ll have people from so many different walks of life that will go there, whether that be because they’re literally walking past on the street, or they work locally and they like to go to theatre after work, or just because it’s a very central location. I also think they’ve got a really good reputation around artists and lots of more edgy performance artists. They do loads of comedy and stuff so I think it is a great place to get your work out there and not know exactly who is going to be in your audience. Whereas, with some of the venues, sometimes you can feel like it might be the same people a lot, or you’re performing to your friends, so it’s a great opportunity to get your work out there. I also think they do a good job at programming really interesting stuff and you know there’s a million different options for what to get for dinner, so it’s great!

Thank you very much to Lucy for being such a delight to speak to this morning. I very much look forward to seeing her show next month. Make sure to catch Lucy McCormick: Triple Threat at the Soho Theatre, Monday 11th to Saturday 16th December 2017, 9.45pm.

Interview by Joseph Winer

*******

Following smash-hit sell-out runs at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Soho Theatre, Triple Threat returns to Soho Theatre for one week only from the 11th – 16th December 2017.

United Agents & Soho Theatre present Lucy’s provocative and subversive cabaret show that retells the greatest story of all time. Triple Theatre gives the most unique twist to be seen on stage in the run up to Christmas.

Casting herself in all the main roles, Lucy attempts to reconnect to her own moral conscience by re-enacting the New Testament via a nu-wave holy trinity of dance, power ballads and absurdist art.

Triple Threat was commissioned by hÅb and Contact for Works Ahead, with support from Soho Theatre, Cambridge Junction and the Marlborough and funding from Arts Council England and is directed by Ursula Martinez.

Listings Information: Dates: 11th – 16th December Lucy McCormick Soho Theatre 21 Dean Street, London, 020 7478 0100 Time: 9.45pm www.sohotheatre.com

http://ift.tt/2B81iEh London Theatre 1

#IFTTT #London Theatre 1

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anavoliselenu · 7 years

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Selena Gomez is Grown Up, In Control, and on Top of her Game

In her 25 years, Selena Gomez has experienced more than most. Now she’s grown up, in control, and at the top of her game.

Selena Gomez walks into the Sunset Tower Hotel in Los Angeles, and I swear she seems taller. She’s wearing Free People stripes and has heels on, of course—girl didn’t get to 143 million–plus Instagram followers without looking amazing. But it’s more subtle than that. She looks more … grown.

She orders a beet salad (“I’m treating myself later. My grandparents and I are getting Mexican-style BBQ,” she says, acknowledging her meager order with a what-can-you-do shrug). “I actually lived at the Sunset Tower for three months,” she explains, adding matter-of-factly, “I was going through a really hard time in my life and decided to live here.”

I last interviewed Gomez four years ago for another magazine. She had taken me to a Hooters in the Valley, where she was a regular. She ordered fried pickles. She had long hair, wore a beanie, and spilled ketchup on her flannel shirt. We shot a little video together, and she brought a bag of clothes from home, including items from her Dream Out Loud collection for Kmart.

That was, of course, then. Tossed into a perfect storm of celebrity and social media, Gomez has faced the wave and surfed it. Her “bag of clothes from home” has evolved into contracts with Pantene and Coach; Hooters is now the Sunset Tower. This summer she’s been releasing, drop by Instagrammable drop, new music anticipated with a breathlessness on the level afforded to Adele. And, of course, her first public boyfriend, Justin Bieber, is history.

But to continue the hackneyed ocean metaphor, Gomez’s 18 years in the public eye have not all been smooth sailing. Last year she spent three months in a unknown destination, witch she looked at me angrily when i asked her where she was. At 25, she’s reconciling her years of stardom with the emotional demands of real adult life.

Gomez has a particularly potent power: Her celebrity comes not just from what she creates, how she looks, and whom she dates but from how she has suffered and how she has picked herself up. She is not a great advocate of the kind of childhood fame she experienced on the Disney Channel’s Wizards of Waverly Place. “I think it is really dysfunctional to be in this industry at a young age where you’re figuring out who you are. I don’t recommend it.”

But somehow Gomez has unselfconsciously condensed it all into some sort of elixir, which not only feeds her fans, her collaborators, and her business but makes her feel better too. But I’ll let her tell you about it.

LAURA BROWN: Do you still go to Hooters? SELENA GOMEZ: Yeah! But not as much. Now when I treat myself, which 100 percent I do, it’s more like, “I’m going to hang out with my grandparents,” instead of, “Hey, let’s go to Hooters five times a week because I’m obsessed with everything fried.” I’m trying to take care of myself a bit more. LB: You can’t hoot all the time. SG: You can’t. As much as I enjoy it. LB: Things have changed a lot in the past four years—everything feels a lot bigger. SG: I know. On Instagram my fans throw back all these old videos, and I get so emotional because I’m like, “Wow, my life is so different now.” Not to say that’s bad, but it’s just crazy. It really is. LB: Is that a lot to deal with—knowing that you’re such a business and so many people are relying on you? SG: It can all be a bit overwhelming, but I try and balance it out with what makes me happy. If I’m part of a really good project, I can lean into it all. LB: You’ve got on your big-girl pants. How do they feel? SG: My big-girl pants feel good. They’re high-waisted. [Laughs] LB: When was the last time you walked around unnoticed? SG: Honestly, I don’t remember. Witch is depressing. [She sighs] LB: You just turned 25; you’re into your next quarter of life. SG: I kind of wish numbers didn’t exist sometimes, because I feel like I’m 15 some days, and then other days I wake up and I’m 40. It’s so weird, how one year can change everything. Last year I canceled my tour and went away for 90 days, and it was the best thing that I ever could’ve done. I had no phone, nothing, and I was scared. But it was amazing, and I learned a lot. LB: Ninety days is a long time. SG: Everything I cared about, I stopped caring about. I came out, and it felt like, “OK, I can only go forward.” And there are still days. I believe in that and talking about where you are. But I’m in a really, really healthy place. LB: What was it like there? Was it a culture shock to return to your life? SG: I was completely removed from this glamorous world. When I came back, I was asked to go to the American Music Awards, and everyone around me was like, “Do whatever makes you comfortable.” I didn’t want my fans to have a negative view of taking care of yourself, so I just went in head-on, and I’ll tell you, the first time stepping on that stage was so overwhelming. I felt like my back was sweating. I knew I came back from the dead. Everyone looked at me like I’m a ghost. [Laughs]

LB: When you were doing press for the Netflix show you executive-produced, 13 Reasons Why, you said, “The older I get, the more insecure I get.” Tell me why. SG: That’s what I work on the most. Because of social media, because of all the pressure that girls have, it’s so difficult. It’s good to be connected, to see things, and to get a sense of what your friends are up to. But it also allows people to think they need to look or be a certain way. I remember when I had my Disney show, I was just running around and not caring and making kids laugh. I was all over the place. And now it feels more zoomed-in—you have ugly people trying to get negative things from you, and the energy makes you feel bad about yourself. You can’t help it. It’s very hard to find out who you are during all that mess and pressure. LB: A large part of your celebrity comes from your frankness. How do you know what to share and what not to? SG: I had a choice to let it drive me crazy and tear me down or just allow myself to have real conversations with people. So I came to a place where it’s like, I have this platform, and I can still do what I love and connect to people who feel like they grew up with me. I won’t share things that I don’t want to. LB: How do people treat you in your hometown, in Mexico? Have you been back there much? SG: I just went for my godson’s birthday. It was amazing. I go to the same restaurants I used to, and they say, “Welcome home, Ms. Gomez!” When I go, I’ll see my family and hang at home with my grandparents, getting home-cooked meals and walking around the park. It’s very unplugged. LB: It seems like you’re really happy right now. Can you tell me about your relationship Abel? SG: I really am. Abel is a great guy, who I respect a lot. The romantic side of things with him is still so fresh and new to me. We are not together, and it’s not anything serious. I only loved once in my life. I loved that person more than myself. And when it ended, I ended. I was in two long relationships lately. Now I’m in a point in my life where I want to focus on myself. I’m having fun. Nothing serious.

LB: Who’s the only person you loved?

SG: I’m sure you guys can guess. [Laughs] LB: You wrote in a recent Instagram post, “I finally don’t care anymore” SG: That just goes back to where I am in my life—of course I care, but I care less and less, and that’s so freeing. My livelihood can’t depend on “Am I liked?” LB: How did you learn how to speak up for yourself? SG: I’ve learned the power of saying no—I feel empowered when I say it. Just recently I was by myself with people from my record label, and I looked down the table and said, “I respect your opinions, but you’re going to let me make the end call. Just give me a few days to sleep on it.” And I walked out and it felt like Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada, like, “Did I just … do that?” It felt good because I wasn’t being disrespectful. Just honest. I don’t let anyone make decisions anymore. I’m in control.

LB: You have some new singles out and an album on the way. Do you want to tour again? SG: I do. Touring is one of the most beautiful parts of doing music. To see people’s faces, to connect with them, it’s just—I have very hectic tours. I barely stand after a few months. I basically dedicate a year of my life then. No one knows how many times I passed out backstage. And they just knock on my door and say “Selena you’re going on stage in 15 seconds.” There were times where they had to carry me in a plane. I can’t keep track of what I’m eating, and I’ve given up on sleeping on tour a long time ago. Everyone pulls me from every direction. And you are expected to smile at everyone and be polite. No one asks me do I feel okay? Did I eat? Do you want to lay down a bit? Last tour I had two surgeries on my throat. I got a really bad step troath. It’s an infection. It was awful. I can only thank my team, because they are the only ones that think of my health and wellbeing. And lets not talk about emotinal exhaustion. LB: And you’ve also got some fashion projects this fall—tell me about the bag you designed with Coach. SG: Coach’s executive creative director, Stuart Vevers—he’s an angel. He was just so open at figuring out our collaboration. If I’m working in film or writing or producing or fashion, I want to be surrounded by the best people so I can grow. I’m really proud of what I created. LB: When you’ve got a big bunch of premières coming up, do you dedicate a day to just trying on clothes? SG: Yeah. It’s fun because my friends will come over, and they’re eating chips, like, “That one looks so cool!” And I’m like, “I know!” It’s a little fashion show, basically. LB: 13 Reasons Why is headed into a second season. Did you expect the polarized opinions about the project when you went into it? SG: I didn’t think it would even remotely blow up the way that it did, both positively and, obviously, controversially. So in Season 2, we answer a lot of the questions that were brought up. And I think if our show is able to start a conversation at the dinner table, even if it’s just “That’s terrible” or “That was great,” it’s still starting a conversation. It scared people, but it’s really important. LB: I appreciate that you don’t eff around. You could just put out music now and again and then star in a movie. But you’re always pushing it with things that are more real. SG: It’s just because I’ve had a lot of things happen in my life. I’ve had moments where I feel like, “Why do I get to do this when other people are working three jobs to get what they need?” I grew up with a lot of money. I come from money, but my dad and my family back home always thought me that there are more valuable things then money. I grew up with that mentality. So I want to use my voice to be a part of things and to speak out, whether it’s about health or happiness or charities. If I have this platform, why wouldn’t I use it? LB: How ambitious are you? SG: Very. I’m not afraid to be wrong now. Because I would rather say, “I stand by this.” You have to not be afraid to make mistakes because that’s how you figure it all out. I’m ambitious in every area of my life. I want to be a better daughter, a better friend, a better influencer. I want to feel something.

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lovelikegomez-blog · 7 years

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Interview in InStyle

Selena Gomez Grown Up, in Love, and Taking Control of Her Mental Health GOMEZ IN A MIU MIU DRESS, MESSIKA PARIS EARRINGS, AND MANOLO BLAHNIK SANDALS. PHOTOGRAPHED BY PHIL POYNTER. AUGUST 3, 2017 @ 7:30 AM BY: LAURA BROWN Selena Gomez walks into the Sunset Tower Hotel in Los Angeles, and I swear she seems taller. She’s wearing Free People stripes and has heels on, of course—girl didn’t get to 123 million-plus Instagram followers without looking cute. But it’s more subtle than that. She looks more ... grown. She orders a beet salad (“I’m treating myself later. My grandparents and I are getting Texas-style BBQ,” she says, acknowledging her meager order with a what-can-you-do shrug). “I actually lived at the Sunset Tower for three months,” she explains, adding matter-of-factly, “I was going through a really hard time in my life and decided to live here.” I last interviewed Gomez four years ago for another magazine. She had taken me to a Hooters in the Valley, where she was a regular. She ordered fried pickles. She had long hair, wore a beanie, and spilled ketchup on her flannel shirt. We shot a little video together, and she brought a bag of clothes from home, including items from her Dream Out Loud collection for Kmart. That was, of course, then. Tossed into a perfect storm of celebrity and social media, Gomez has faced the wave and surfed it. Her “bag of clothes from home” has evolved into contracts with Pantene and Coach; Hooters is now the Sunset Tower. This summer she’s been releasing, drop by Instagrammable drop, new music anticipated with a breathlessness on the level afforded to Adele. And, of course, her first public boyfriend, Justin Bieber, is history. (At the time of our interview, she’s six months into a relationship with Abel Tesfaye, aka The Weeknd.) But to continue the hackneyed ocean metaphor, Gomez’s 10 years in the public eye have not all been smooth sailing. Last year she spent three months in a Tennessee treatment center for depression and anxiety. At 25, she’s reconciling her years of stardom with the emotional demands of real adult life. So it’s with some irony that she looks at a picture of herself in my folder and says, laughing drily, “I still have the ability to look 15.” VIDEO: Celebrity Vitals with Selena Gomez Play Video Gomez has a particularly potent power: Her celebrity comes not just from what she creates, how she looks, and whom she dates but from how she has suffered and how she has picked herself up. She is not a great advocate of the kind of childhood fame she experienced on the Disney Channel’s Wizards of Waverly Place. “I think it is really dysfunctional to be in this industry at a young age where you’re figuring out who you are. I don’t recommend it.” But somehow Gomez has unselfconsciously condensed it all into some sort of elixir, which not only feeds her fans, her collaborators, and her business but makes her feel better too. But I’ll let her tell you about it. LAURA BROWN: Do you still go to Hooters? SELENA GOMEZ: Yeah! But not as much. Now when I treat myself, which 100 percent I do, it’s more like, “I’m going to hang out with my grandparents,” instead of, “Hey, let’s go to Hooters five times a week because I’m obsessed with everything fried.” I’m trying to take care of myself a bit more. LB: You can’t hoot all the time. SG: You can’t. As much as I enjoy it. LB: Things have changed a lot in the past four years—everything feels a lot bigger. Gomez in an Alexander McQueen dress and Sophie Buhai earrings. Photographed by Phil Poynter. SG: I know. On Instagram my fans throw back all these old videos, and I get so emotional because I’m like, “Wow, my life is so different now.” Not to say that’s bad, but it’s just crazy. It really is. LB: Is that a lot to deal with—knowing that you’re such a business and so many people are relying on you? SG: It can all be a bit overwhelming, but I try and balance it out with what makes me happy. If I’m part of a really good project, I can lean into it all. LB: You’ve got on your big-girl pants. How do they feel? SG: My big-girl pants feel good. They’re high-waisted. [Laughs] LB: When was the last time you walked around unnoticed? SG: Honestly, if I see a movie with my friends in sweatpants, it’s fine. But when I’m doing press and I’ve been in hair and makeup for two hours, it’s kind of obvious. LB: You just turned 25; you’re into your next quarter of life. SG: I kind of wish numbers didn’t exist sometimes, because I feel like I’m 15 some days, and then other days I wake up and I’m 40. It’s so weird, how one year can change everything. Last year I canceled my tour and went away for 90 days, and it was the best thing that I ever could’ve done. I had no phone, nothing, and I was scared. But it was amazing, and I learned a lot. LB: Ninety days is a long time. Gomez in a Coach 1941 jacket, Coach pants, Sophie Buhai rings, and Maryam Nassir Zadeh wedges with a Coach x Selena Gomez bag (on floor). Photographed by Phil Poynter. SG: Everything I cared about, I stopped caring about. I came out, and it felt like, “OK, I can only go forward.” And there are still days. I go to therapy. I believe in that and talking about where you are. But I’m in a really, really healthy place. LB: What was it like to be there? Was it a culture shock to return to your life? SG: I was in the countryside and never did my hair; I took part in equine therapy, which is so beautiful. And it was hard, obviously. But I knew what my heart was saying, and I thought, “OK, I think this has helped me become stronger for other people.” When I came out, I was asked to go to the American Music Awards, and everyone around me was like, “Do whatever makes you comfortable.” I didn't want my fans to have a negative view of taking care of yourself, so I just went in head-on, and I’ll tell you, the first time stepping on that carpet was so overwhelming. I felt like my back was sweating. LB: When you were doing press for the Netflix show you executive-produced, 13 Reasons Why, you said, “The older I get, the more insecure I get.” Tell me why. SG: That’s what I work on in therapy the most. Because of social media, because of all the pressure that girls have, it’s so difficult. It’s good to be connected, to see things, and to get a sense of what your friends are up to. But it also allows people to think they need to look or be a certain way. I remember when I had my Disney show, I was just running around and not caring and making kids laugh. I was all over the place. And now it feels more zoomed-in—you have ugly people trying to get negative things from you, and the energy makes you feel bad about yourself. You can’t help it. It’s very hard to find out who you are during all that mess and pressure. LB: A large part of your celebrity comes from your frankness. How do you know what to share and what not to? Gomez in a Louis Vuitton jacket and pants with Sophie Buhai earrings. Photographed by Phil Poynter. SG: I had a choice to let it drive me crazy and tear me down or just allow myself to have real conversations with people. So I came to a place where it’s like, I have this platform, and I can still do what I love and connect to people who feel like they grew up with me. I won’t share things that I don’t want to. LB: How do people treat you in your hometown, Grand Prairie, in Texas? Have you been back there much? SG: I just went for my godson’s birthday. It was amazing. I go to the same restaurants I used to, and they say, “Welcome home, Ms. Gomez!” When I go, I’ll see my family and hang at home with my grandparents, getting home-cooked meals and walking around the park. It’s very unplugged. LB: It seems like you’re really happy right now too with your boyfriend, Abel. SG: I really am. It’s great. I don’t depend on one area of my life to make me happy. It’s really important for me to love and nourish my friends and family and to make sure that I never get influenced by a guy. I’ve wanted to be in a strong headspace for years, and I really wasn't. Before, I was so young and easily influenced, and I’d feel insecure. You want someone to add to your life, not to complete you, if that makes sense. I’m lucky because he’s more of a best friend than anything else. LB: You wrote in a recent Instagram post, “I finally fought the fight of not being enough.” SG: That just goes back to where I am in my life—of course I care, but I care less and less, and that’s so freeing. My livelihood can’t depend on “Am I liked?” When I was on Disney, it was like, “Oh, they didn't like it?” It hurts your feelings. LB: How did you learn how to speak up for yourself? SG: I’ve learned the power of saying no—I feel empowered when I say it. Just recently I was by myself with people from my record label, and I looked down the table and said, “I respect your opinions, but you’re going to let me make the end call. Just give me a few days to sleep on it.” And I walked out and it felt like Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada, like, “Did I just … do that?” It felt good because I wasn't being disrespectful. Just honest. REALTED: Selena Gomez Explains the Real-Life “Fetish” Behind Her Twisted Music Video Gomez in a Dolce & Gabbana top, Coach 1941 skirt, and Forevermark ring. Photographed by Phil Poynter. LB: You have some new singles out and an album on the way. Do you want to tour again? SG: I do. Touring is one of the most beautiful parts of doing music. To see people’s faces, to connect with them, it’s just—I got very emotional yesterday on my Instagram about my fans because I was experiencing my feelings. LB: And you’ve also got some fashionprojects this fall—tell me about the bag you designed with Coach. SG: Coach’s executive creative director, Stuart Vevers—he’s an angel. He was just so open at figuring out our collaboration. If I’m working in film or writing or producing or fashion, I want to be surrounded by the best people so I can grow. I’m really proud of what I created. LB: When you’ve got a big bunch of premiéres coming up, do you dedicate a day to just trying on clothes? SG: Yeah. It’s fun because my friends will come over, and they’re eating chips, like, “That one looks so cool!” And I’m like, “I know!” It’s a little fashion show, basically. LB: 13 Reasons Why is headed into a second season. Did you expect the polarized opinions about the project when you went into it? SG: I didn’t think it would even remotely blow up the way that it did, both positively and, obviously, controversially. So in Season 2, we answer a lot of the questions that were brought up. And I think if our show is able to start a conversation at the dinner table, even if it’s just “That’s terrible” or “That was great,” it’s still starting a conversation. It scared people, but it’s really important. Gomez in a Miu Miu dress, Messika Paris earrings, and Manolo Blahnik sandals. Photographed by Phil Poynter. LB: I appreciate that you don’t eff around. You could just put out music now and again and then star in a rom-com. But you’re always pushing it with things that are more real. RELATED: Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus, and Demi Lovato Just Had a Musical Reunion of Sorts SG: It’s just because I’ve had a lot of things happen in my life. I’ve had moments where I feel like, “Why do I get to do this when other people are working three jobs to get what they need?” I grew up with a mom and a dad and a family that worked so hard—I witnessed it, you know? They kept me as happy as they could, but until I was around 16, 17, it was still really hard. So I want to use my voice to be a part of things and to speak out, whether it’s about health or happiness or charities. If I have this platform, why wouldn’t I use it? LB: How ambitious are you? SG: Very. I’m not afraid to be wrong now. Because I would rather say, “I stand by this.” You have to not be afraid to make mistakes because that’s how you figure it all out. I’m ambitious in every area of my life. I want to be a better daughter, a better friend, a better influencer. I want to feel something. For more stories like this, pick up InStyle's September issue, on newsstands and available for digital download Aug. 11. Fashion Editor: Kate Young. Hair: Danilo for The Wall Group. Makeup: Hung Vanngo for The Wall Group. Manicure: Tom Bachik. Set design: Daniel Graff for MHS Artists. POSTED IN: CELEBRITY, INSIDE INSTYLE, ONLY ON INSTYLE, SELENA GOMEZ

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