Stalling

I am trying to launch a new creative project, but I am stalling.

I came up with an idea in April of last year, and I've been working on it since then. I got a solid draft of the project up, and I got some feedback that was direct, honest and a little harsh. Not harsh in a bad way because most of it was true, but harsh in the sense that it wasn't balanced with enough positive feedback to keep me going.

I've workshopped lots of writing pieces before, and there is a simple pattern to it: You say what you liked, and then you say what you struggled with or didn't understand. A simple version would be "I liked the plot, but I don't understand why Mary would rob a bank. Perhaps a better explanation of her motivation would help..."

And then you give feedback back to the other person. This works because it is a two way street. You give the feedback you want to get -- you want to someone to point out your blindspots, but also honor the intention of your project. 

Without that mutual feedback, I got lost in the soup. 

In my stall, I have been needlepointing up a storm. These projects are infinite. I could take these on a forty hour flight and still have work left at the end. 

This is just a sample. I have way more craft projects in my stash.

The challenge with my new pet creative project is that it is loaded with uncertainty, unlike these needlepoint projects. Each stitch gets me closer to completion. Each stitch brings me a tiny sense of peace. 

With my creative project, I have no idea where each step will take me. Will it lead to garbage? Will it lead to something messy and confusing? Will it lead to something beautiful and wonderful and inspire people to see themselves in a way they didn't before? 

I don't know, and "I don't know" can be very hard to say. 

"Elle," or Is Seattle the new Hollywood?

This past week, I started watching Elle, the prequel to Legally Blonde, on Amazon Prime. My daughter loves Legally Blonde, the Reese Witherspoon movie about a fashion obsessed sorority girl who goes to Harvard Law School. When I saw the prequel, I was curious.

In Elle, Elle Woods is a junior in high school when her plastic surgeon father botches a nose job and they have to leave Bel Air and move to Seattle.

Elle takes place in 1995, and Seattle is a full-blown character in this streaming series. 

But why Seattle? Why didn't the Woods family move to San Francisco or New York or Chicago? Why move a pink loving girl to gray and grungy Seattle, with its anti-superficiality stance?

Why Seattle? I love seeing my adopted hometown played out on a show where the city isn't just a backdrop, but why?

Could it be because Amazon is based in Seattle, and pitching a show to Amazon that takes place there might scratch an itch for people choosing series for Amazon? I know Amazon video has offices in Southern California, but still the mothership is down the street from where I live.

Of course, no one show can completely capture a city, just as each person experiences a city just as they experience it. Nevertheless, I find the Seattle/Los Angeles clash interesting, and I think the show does a decent job of showing the Pacific Northwest. One of my favorite scenes is when Elle walks through the lunch room and one of the students points out the jocks table, the bank geeks, the stoners, the rich kids, etc., and they all look exactly the same. I had to laugh because it is so true, even for the adults.

So many shows and movies are made in L.A., but I never really considered how much of SoCal vibe slips into shows without my even noticing. Frasier took place in Seattle, but it could have taken place anywhere. The writers could have thrown a dart at a map and picked a place. Frasier could have been filmed anywhere. No one comes to Seattle looking for Cafe Nervosa. 

Elle is different. Cross country is a high school big sport (true). There is even a theme on the mountain being out. Only in Seattle do people talk about the mountain being out. Frasier has the Space Needle in the logo, but Rainier looms larger. 

The best part is watching Elle and her family slowly fall in love with this quirky town, as did I twenty years ago.

Will Amazon's influence mean more shows based in Seattle? Even if they don't film here, could we become a new branch of Hollywood?

I hope so.