winking kat books

Saturday, May 19, 2012 # 10:07 AM

Where there's a will, there's a way

The Great Wall of China

Where there's a will,

There's a way.

When I was a kid, my parents didn't have a lot of money - especially for your basic white, middle-class, Americans. We weren't living out of our car, but there were many days when I had oatmeal for breakfast as well as dinner and had one pair of school shoes and one pair of sneakers to my name that were supposed to last for two years. Luckily, I liked oatmeal and I pretty much reached my full height and shoe size at age 13 so the shoes were able to last the two years.

It was kind of frustrating for me, however, because I was a kid with big dreams. It didn't help that most of my friends came from wealthy families. They had pools in their back yards and went to Switzerland on vacation while I used the rafters of our unfinished basement as monkey bars and floated on inner tubes down the muddy creek behind our home. My father used to tell me, 'where there's a will, there's a way. If you really want something, you will find a way to get it.' He wasn't talking about anything illegal, of course. He was talking about thinking outside the box to find a creative way to achieve your dreams. In school, we studied amazing feats of achievement like 'The Great Wall of China" and the pyramids of Egypt and I learned that seemingly impossible things can happen with planning, patience, and sheer will.

If human beings could do amazing things like that maybe I could accomplish some of my dreams. After all, I didn't exactly want to build a 500-foot-tall monument to myself. I wanted simple things. For example, we had an amusement park down the road from my house. I could never afford to go there except when they had 'Report Card Day' where they gave away tickets for good grades. So when I turned 13, I applied to work there. I got a job attaching strings to people's wrists for special events and later, at age 17, I was able to operate some of the rides. The hours were long, but I was surrounded by the sounds and sites of the park and on rainy days when things were slow, I got free rides on the merry-go-round.

I'd always wanted to work in show business. Although I was ridiculously obnoxious as a young child, I became very shy as a teenager. Way to shy to try out for school plays or choir. The force was strong within me, however (yes, I went there) and it pushed me to search for other ways to get involved. I looked for ways to work backstage and continued to do so after I graduated from college. Every chance I could, I worked for free to learn more about every aspect of television and theatre. I interned at a television station for minimum wage to help pay for college. I stage managed community theatre productions - one after the other. After a while, I realized the people on stage were just as nervous and anxious as I was about performing and I tried it. Soon I was singing and dancing all over the place. Another check off my proverbial bucket list.

I'd always wanted to travel, so with a little money saved up, I applied for some post-graduate work at a school 3000 miles from my home, packed my VW Baja Superbeetle and left for the West Coast. I wound up not attending the school but found a cool job working with a design firm and building a life here in Washington State. Check. Started my own successful business with money I borrowed on my credit card. Check. Sold that, then started two more. Check. And check. All the while I was able to continue to do some work in theatre and films and writing stories, ( http://theponymanmovie.com/cast.html )and (http://winkingkatbooks.com/). Double check.

I didn't mean for this blog entry to wind up so autobiographical, but I wanted to illustrate that the advice my father wound up to be true. I've checked off so many things on my 'to do' list of life by just finding some way, any way, to make them happen without money or connections. Though it often meant entering through the back door, I still got into the house. Now that I'm older and hopefully wiser, I know that I may never realize the grandiose dreams of my youth (unless I live another fifty years) but in small, satisfying ways I've seen most of them granted. Thanks for the advice, Dad.

Labels: achievng goals, acting, books self publishing fiction writing travelers' society, bucket list, children's theatre, novels, positive advice, time travel, writing

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Tuesday, January 31, 2012 # 9:46 PM

What if ?

What If ?

The Archduke and Sophie

Whenever I spoke with my children about the consequences of their decisions, I often mentioned the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. It may seem like an obscure reference, but it is actually very fitting. For those who are not familiar with him, Franz Ferdinand was the archduke of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was a nephew and the heir to one of the most powerful rulers in the beginning of the twentieth century. He and his wife, Sophie, were visiting Sarajevo in Bosnia (then a province of the empire). when a young assassin tried to kill them as they rode in their open car in a parade His gun jammed. The assassin was walking away from the official motorcade and had given up, when the archduke's car turned and started down the street he was walking on. The archduke's chauffeur had lost his way back to the hotel and took this wrong street by accident. The assassin seized this second opportunity to complete his mission and this time did not fail. He killed both Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie. The assassination is often cited as the catalyst for a series of events that eventually led to the First World War. All because the chauffeur decided to turn down a particular street.

It seems like a simple, inconsequential choice, but the chauffeur's decision led to the deaths of thousands. One can argue that the outcome of World War I and the attempt to bankrupt Germany also contributed to the start of World War II. So, the chauffeur could be ultimately blamed for both major world catastrophes. What if he had chosen a different street? Or remembered his paper with the instructions back to the hotel? The point to this is that every time we make a decision, even the smallest one, we may set in motion major events in the world - good or bad.

As a writer, I love the phrase, 'What if?'. Isn't that how all stories begin to form? I'm sure H. G Wells asked himself 'What if...." as he stared up at Mars one evening. Or Mark Twain asked himself, 'What if.. someone could travel back to the court of King Arthur?" The curiosity of the fiction writer or the playwright fuels every plot twist and turn. 'What if' takes each story in a new direction with every decision the writer makes. For me, the many answers to that wonderful question are what makes writing so much fun.

Labels: curiosity, discovery, Franz Ferdinand, plot twists, what if?, writing

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