First Word

This week's topic: writing from experience. Many years ago I went and listened to Alice Walker , who wrote The Color Purple , speak about writing. I was in my twenties and eager to make it as a writer. As is the case with most young people, I thought I had the emotional depth to tackle any subject. Walker said she didn't hit her stride as a writer until she hit her forties. Screeeeeccchhhh! What? She added, she didn't feel she could have written her great works as a young writer without experience to tell the story right (I'm paraphrasing).   I was young. I wanted to write - and I wanted to write something that would resonate with people, make them think. Was I too young, as Walker was suggesting? The answer is complicated. As writers we do need experience to pull from, which gives us a frame of reference. Can you still write about something you've never experienced? Yes, but it's still based on a frame of reference. You write from your knowle...

Dear Player, You think you're so smooth. You think it's cool to brag to your friends how you have X-number of girls on the hook. You think it's so amazing that you could get girls to fall in love with you and then take advantage. Dear Player, Let me tell you true. Life has a way of making justice prevail. You will not get to move on and act like you did no wrong. Your callous and insensitive and purely selfish behavior will find you. You will pay a price higher than the physical plane. Dear Player, When the scale of justice weighs in on you then you will know the price of your messing with hearts and minds. You will have to pay that price and it will come in a way that will destroy you. And you will heartlessly wonder why? How could this have happened? What did I do? Dear Player, The classic line is what applies to you ... Straight from the Color Purple and Miss Celie: Until you do right by me, everything you even think about gonna fail!

Rating: ***** Singing, dancing and a strong message -- you can't go wrong. First, the music was worth the movie, but the acting and themes stole the show, especially for young women and girls. Now the graphic moments (wish they weren't there) made the movie hard to show preteens and girls, but the message about self-love was way more important that I just covered my daughter's eyes when the moments were not appropriate. As a parent, though, measure your teen's maturity before you allow viewing. Young Bessie Smith is traumatized as a child by family members. As a strong girl she manages past the absence of her mother and abusive older sister, but it haunts her entire life. She scrapes and climbs to the top of the early vaudeville circuit and 20's era, and men and sex become symbols of her pain, sense of alienation, and low self-esteem and self-regard. Early on Ma Rainey, another famous singer, recognizes her lack of self-love and tries to help her by pointing i...

Storytelling (film, TV and books) always have the ability to pull out emotions. But there are some great moments in stories that make me cry every, single time even when I know it's coming (because I've seen the film so many times). What constitutes a great tear-jerker? I couldn't say what it is specifically. Maybe it's the build up. Maybe it's the words. Maybe it's the acting. Maybe it's all those things combined ... but here are my top tear-jerker moments. Terms of Endearment --when Aurora goes absolutely nuts and demands the painkillers for her daughter. Her utter desperation and pain is so conveyed. I know this scene is coming and here we go: tears! Gets me every single time without fail. The Color Purple --when after so much longing, pain and loss, Nettie FINALLY gets her kids back. The moment when they show up off in the hazy, farm field distance ... yep! Here come the tears. Then she stands in the field in the end scene and they play the little gi...