With its anonymity, formlessness, and deficit of fact checkers, the Internet can make liars out of us all, or at least it allows us to hide inconvenient truths about ourselves.
Some take the opposite tack, telling anything and all about themselves—that anonymity again—but not this cowboy. I’m more likely to embellish, like going into chatrooms as an 18-year-old blonde lesbian ready for some hot cyber action, likely with some other middle-aged guy who is pretending to be an 18-year-old blonde lesbian dying for hot cyber action.
Thus, it is with some hesitance that I reveal the following:
I have done air guitar and white man’s overbite over the age of 40.
I truly believe that bowling represents the highest form of human existence.
And I am a TV addict.
I have not addressed this latter issue, the most evil, nefarious, awful threat to my writing career, because I steadfastly have believed it is not a problem, like a junkie saying he doesn’t have a problem while shooting up, like a family member pretending Junior doesn’t have a heroin problem, or like a drug dealer pretending that he’s doing a public service.
Graphic evidence
I am addicted to television, but to be more truthful, I’m addicted to distraction. These days, most distractions are related to the computer: games, burning CDs, surfing. Or air guitar. But as grew up far before the Dawn of the Internet, television is my original, brain-wasting exercise and why I have not written more than I have, or that my writing isn’t better.
(I guess I could say to myself, “Maybe my writing is not more voluminous or of a higher quality because I just have nothing to say and I have no talent,” but that, as we all know, is simply an excuse to quit, and the coward’s way out. I’d rather blame something else.)
As I grew up before there was e-mail and PlayStation, I wasted prodigious hours before our family’s warm blue glow. Cartoons, game shows, dramas, comedies, pro wrestling, “Wide World of Sports,” just about anything but soap operas. The “ABC Movie of the Week,” I was there. “The Price Is Right,” I was there with Bob Barker. “The Six-Million Dollar Man,” “Star Trek,” and hell, even “Barnaby Jones.”
In a way, it’s amazing that I ever became a writer, or am not illiterate.
My purpose is not to give those of us old enough to reminisce that we can rebuild Steve Austin—better, faster, stronger—but that television has rotted my brain from a very early age and can take up inordinate amounts of time if I let it.
I knew better. So worried was I that yours truly did not own a television until my mid-30s. I didn’t get cable until 2002. Far from being a Luddite or a snob, I feared that once I got TV, I would never write again.
Wife and I got a set when we started playing house, and if it has not been fatal to my writing, it now plays the role of constant temptation.
Even though there’s really very little to watch. Save for “The Sopranos,” there isn’t a show that I make a point of watching every week. But there’s always Law & Order repeats, all the time. We’re talking the regular show and two spinoffs, of course, but there’s always a murder, rape, or robbery for New York’s finest to solve.
Not to mention “Seinfeld” reruns, “South Park,” “WWE Raw,” and a whole panoply of fine family programming.
It’s odd how, when I’m stuck on a piece of fiction, feeling jumpy and unsure of myself, my inclination is to watch television, to park myself in front of that radiating box of ultimate acceptance—no TV set, star, or show ever rejected one of my stories.
Hello, my name is Bookfraud, and I’m a TV addict
A wise teacher of Wife’s said that television had corroded a generation of writers, and that all of one’s free time should be spent in a book. Sound advice, if followed. This older gentleman came of age long before cable, never mind the Internet, so it was easier for him to avoid the four channels of crap available back then, instead of the 500 channels of crap available to us now.
On several occasions, Wife has lauded my discipline, my ability to come home from work and launch right into composing the written word. But she also notes that I am not one to unwind, and this probably leaves me less productive, for about twenty minutes after setting off for my adventures in the Land of Fiction Writing, I feel the siren call of television.
Perhaps I should start a new book. Reading or writing one. Help me.
Hello, my name is Madame D, and I’m a television addict.
If I’m awake, the television is on.
I’ve become better lately, namely because we don’t have cable or any television reception, and I’m getting a bit tired of the movies we have.
Though, I have to argue that I have poor reading habits. I am constantly reading. The television is on for background noise, and I’m generally doing at least one other thing while watching it.
Because I can’t just sit and watch it, that’s boring.
BF, I grew up with Wide World of Sports, Petticoat Junction, Mannix, and the Dean Martin Show. Amazingly, my synapses still fire with some regularity. The TV doesn’t go on in our house until our daughter is in bed; sometimes we watch Letterman or Everybody Loves Raymond reruns, and sometimes it just stays off. (My daughter does watch Clifford and Veggie Tale videos, but we basically watch nothing as a family.)
So you need help; okay, here’s my two cents. Either read something you always intended but never got around to (The Brothers Karamazov, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Absalom! Absalom!) or write a cheesy self-help book about actualizing one’s inner potential–you’ll make zillions of dollars, which will allow you to quit your job and work full-time on the Great American Novel.
Hello, my name is Madame D, and I’m a television addict.
If I’m awake, the television is on.
I’ve become better lately, namely because we don’t have cable or any television reception, and I’m getting a bit tired of the movies we have.
Though, I have to argue that I have poor reading habits. I am constantly reading. The television is on for background noise, and I’m generally doing at least one other thing while watching it.
Because I can’t just sit and watch it, that’s boring.
Hello, my name is Madame D, and I’m a television addict.
If I’m awake, the television is on.
I’ve become better lately, namely because we don’t have cable or any television reception, and I’m getting a bit tired of the movies we have.
Though, I have to argue that I have poor reading habits. I am constantly reading. The television is on for background noise, and I’m generally doing at least one other thing while watching it.
Because I can’t just sit and watch it, that’s boring.
BF, I grew up with Wide World of Sports, Petticoat Junction, Mannix, and the Dean Martin Show. Amazingly, my synapses still fire with some regularity. The TV doesn’t go on in our house until our daughter is in bed; sometimes we watch Letterman or Everybody Loves Raymond reruns, and sometimes it just stays off. (My daughter does watch Clifford and Veggie Tale videos, but we basically watch nothing as a family.)
So you need help; okay, here’s my two cents. Either read something you always intended but never got around to (The Brothers Karamazov, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Absalom! Absalom!) or write a cheesy self-help book about actualizing one’s inner potential–you’ll make zillions of dollars, which will allow you to quit your job and work full-time on the Great American Novel.
BF, I grew up with Wide World of Sports, Petticoat Junction, Mannix, and the Dean Martin Show. Amazingly, my synapses still fire with some regularity. The TV doesn’t go on in our house until our daughter is in bed; sometimes we watch Letterman or Everybody Loves Raymond reruns, and sometimes it just stays off. (My daughter does watch Clifford and Veggie Tale videos, but we basically watch nothing as a family.)
So you need help; okay, here’s my two cents. Either read something you always intended but never got around to (The Brothers Karamazov, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Absalom! Absalom!) or write a cheesy self-help book about actualizing one’s inner potential–you’ll make zillions of dollars, which will allow you to quit your job and work full-time on the Great American Novel.
Escapism.
Admitting you have a problem is the first…
Who am I kidding?
I majored in TV production in college because I was such an addict. I could justify it once I was out of college because I was only watching the intelligent, well-written shows. (Northern Exposure, anything by David E. Kelley.) That was a lie. I watched Friends. I watched The Weakest Link. If the TV wasn’t providing some sort of white noise, something was wrong.
Now I’m down to one hour (LOST) a week (well, an additional 45 minutes if you count Doctor Who which I don’t because that’s a necessity, not a privilege) and, during the summer, I won’t even watch that much. I’m inundated with school and writing leisure reading.
You’re on the right track. Maybe if you tried limiting yourself only to the TV that was very well written. Make a list of your top 10 faves and whittle it down.
Biking. I also recommend biking. This drives the TV desire from me and makes me want to write.
This, of course, is coming from the man who just bought the first two seasons of Moonlighting on DVD. Draw from it what you will.
madame d.: to be a tv addict and heavy reader is a rare thing indeed. don’t get cable, trust me.
thanks for sharing.
e.p.: i think you have a career in giving good advice ahead of you.
petticoat junction? mannix? now we’re talking a trip down memory lane. green acres, too?
bernita: yes.
brian f.: amazing how the rationalization begins. it sounds like you got a handle on it, though. my issue isn’t planning my life around tv, though, it’s watching whatever the hell is on so i don’t write.
Escapism.
Escapism.
Hmmm…very interes… oh, wait gotta go…American Idol is about to start and I’ve got four hours of “Desperate Housewives” and “24″ to get through.
Admitting you have a problem is the first…
Who am I kidding?
I majored in TV production in college because I was such an addict. I could justify it once I was out of college because I was only watching the intelligent, well-written shows. (Northern Exposure, anything by David E. Kelley.) That was a lie. I watched Friends. I watched The Weakest Link. If the TV wasn’t providing some sort of white noise, something was wrong.
Now I’m down to one hour (LOST) a week (well, an additional 45 minutes if you count Doctor Who which I don’t because that’s a necessity, not a privilege) and, during the summer, I won’t even watch that much. I’m inundated with school and writing leisure reading.
You’re on the right track. Maybe if you tried limiting yourself only to the TV that was very well written. Make a list of your top 10 faves and whittle it down.
Biking. I also recommend biking. This drives the TV desire from me and makes me want to write.
This, of course, is coming from the man who just bought the first two seasons of Moonlighting on DVD. Draw from it what you will.
Admitting you have a problem is the first…
Who am I kidding?
I majored in TV production in college because I was such an addict. I could justify it once I was out of college because I was only watching the intelligent, well-written shows. (Northern Exposure, anything by David E. Kelley.) That was a lie. I watched Friends. I watched The Weakest Link. If the TV wasn’t providing some sort of white noise, something was wrong.
Now I’m down to one hour (LOST) a week (well, an additional 45 minutes if you count Doctor Who which I don’t because that’s a necessity, not a privilege) and, during the summer, I won’t even watch that much. I’m inundated with school and writing leisure reading.
You’re on the right track. Maybe if you tried limiting yourself only to the TV that was very well written. Make a list of your top 10 faves and whittle it down.
Biking. I also recommend biking. This drives the TV desire from me and makes me want to write.
This, of course, is coming from the man who just bought the first two seasons of Moonlighting on DVD. Draw from it what you will.
madame d.: to be a tv addict and heavy reader is a rare thing indeed. don’t get cable, trust me.
thanks for sharing.
e.p.: i think you have a career in giving good advice ahead of you.
petticoat junction? mannix? now we’re talking a trip down memory lane. green acres, too?
madame d.: to be a tv addict and heavy reader is a rare thing indeed. don’t get cable, trust me.
thanks for sharing.
e.p.: i think you have a career in giving good advice ahead of you.
petticoat junction? mannix? now we’re talking a trip down memory lane. green acres, too?
bernita: yes.
brian f.: amazing how the rationalization begins. it sounds like you got a handle on it, though. my issue isn’t planning my life around tv, though, it’s watching whatever the hell is on so i don’t write.
bernita: yes.
brian f.: amazing how the rationalization begins. it sounds like you got a handle on it, though. my issue isn’t planning my life around tv, though, it’s watching whatever the hell is on so i don’t write.
Its amazing what man accomplished before TV. The hande made arts and crafts, poetry, books, archtitectural flourishs and innovation.
Now between the Internet and TV the end of human crativity as we once knew it must be coming close to an end.
Hmmm…very interes… oh, wait gotta go…American Idol is about to start and I’ve got four hours of “Desperate Housewives” and “24″ to get through.
Hmmm…very interes… oh, wait gotta go…American Idol is about to start and I’ve got four hours of “Desperate Housewives” and “24″ to get through.
As long as it’s not ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, you’re probably going to be OK.
My favorite was the sadly unwatched Homicide: Life on the Street, which routinely lost in the ratings to drivel like Nash Bridges. But Homicide was top-notch TV, so I can justify the DVDs as writing research.
Its amazing what man accomplished before TV. The hande made arts and crafts, poetry, books, archtitectural flourishs and innovation.
Now between the Internet and TV the end of human crativity as we once knew it must be coming close to an end.
Its amazing what man accomplished before TV. The hande made arts and crafts, poetry, books, archtitectural flourishs and innovation.
Now between the Internet and TV the end of human crativity as we once knew it must be coming close to an end.
As long as it’s not ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, you’re probably going to be OK.
My favorite was the sadly unwatched Homicide: Life on the Street, which routinely lost in the ratings to drivel like Nash Bridges. But Homicide was top-notch TV, so I can justify the DVDs as writing research.
As long as it’s not ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, you’re probably going to be OK.
My favorite was the sadly unwatched Homicide: Life on the Street, which routinely lost in the ratings to drivel like Nash Bridges. But Homicide was top-notch TV, so I can justify the DVDs as writing research.
collin: that’s right, rub it in. very funny guy.
phoenix: i can’t decide whether you’re being tongue in cheek, or partly so, like 25% or something.
phil: you got something against the “texas rattlesnake?” hell yeah!
good tv can be as thought-provoking as good cinema or even good fiction, but it’s not good tv that i’m talking about…
collin: that’s right, rub it in. very funny guy.
phoenix: i can’t decide whether you’re being tongue in cheek, or partly so, like 25% or something.
phil: you got something against the “texas rattlesnake?” hell yeah!
good tv can be as thought-provoking as good cinema or even good fiction, but it’s not good tv that i’m talking about…
collin: that’s right, rub it in. very funny guy.
phoenix: i can’t decide whether you’re being tongue in cheek, or partly so, like 25% or something.
phil: you got something against the “texas rattlesnake?” hell yeah!
good tv can be as thought-provoking as good cinema or even good fiction, but it’s not good tv that i’m talking about…
i also love the current crime shows, for their formulaic moralizing that increasingly recalls “dragnet” and “hawaii 5-0.” similarly, i’m addicted to “seventh heaven” for its treacly republican “family values” (and soft lighting). not to be an enabler, but pop culture is such an important part of fiction, no?
tv is the ultimate brain kill. for a while i was on vocal rest for three hours a day and instead of warming up, practicing/learning new music (which is how i normally spend a good chunk of my day), i opted for complete vegetation in front of the tv. it was early morning, so nothing was on, but really, i never want to do that again. i think its because i hate the commercials. buying the DVDs after the season is a much better way to go, as much as it is fantastic practice in reclusion. oh! i’ve caught up on your posts. *three cheers*
Lots of writers have rituals, cycles, distractions that seem to keep them from writing – at least for a little while. The myth about Hemingway sharpening 20 pencils before he started writing every morning serves to remind us of the very simple fact that a blank page is horrifying and we have to psych ourselves up to face it. Some writers clean the house, some garden, some pace. You seem to watch TV – don’t beat yourself up about it too much – just enough to keep from getting lost in it. ;o)
I’ve lost so many evenings in the past year or so because I’ve come home from work and thought “I need to wind down. I’ll watch some TV.” and suddenly it’s 10:30, 11:00 and I have to get to bed so I can get up at 5:30 to write and then go back to work. But, when I hit that computer in the morning, I turn something out because I feel guilty, useless, failed – instead of afraid. Of course, these days I’ve been throwing everything out. Once I land on something good, I’ll forget about TV because my story will be vastly more interesting to me than anything on TV.
I use TV (and the DVD player) in my fallow periods as an additional source of story outside of reading.
I’ve been using the tv for background noise while unpacking, but it is distracting.
i also love the current crime shows, for their formulaic moralizing that increasingly recalls “dragnet” and “hawaii 5-0.” similarly, i’m addicted to “seventh heaven” for its treacly republican “family values” (and soft lighting). not to be an enabler, but pop culture is such an important part of fiction, no?
i also love the current crime shows, for their formulaic moralizing that increasingly recalls “dragnet” and “hawaii 5-0.” similarly, i’m addicted to “seventh heaven” for its treacly republican “family values” (and soft lighting). not to be an enabler, but pop culture is such an important part of fiction, no?
tv is the ultimate brain kill. for a while i was on vocal rest for three hours a day and instead of warming up, practicing/learning new music (which is how i normally spend a good chunk of my day), i opted for complete vegetation in front of the tv. it was early morning, so nothing was on, but really, i never want to do that again. i think its because i hate the commercials. buying the DVDs after the season is a much better way to go, as much as it is fantastic practice in reclusion. oh! i’ve caught up on your posts. *three cheers*
tv is the ultimate brain kill. for a while i was on vocal rest for three hours a day and instead of warming up, practicing/learning new music (which is how i normally spend a good chunk of my day), i opted for complete vegetation in front of the tv. it was early morning, so nothing was on, but really, i never want to do that again. i think its because i hate the commercials. buying the DVDs after the season is a much better way to go, as much as it is fantastic practice in reclusion. oh! i’ve caught up on your posts. *three cheers*
Lots of writers have rituals, cycles, distractions that seem to keep them from writing – at least for a little while. The myth about Hemingway sharpening 20 pencils before he started writing every morning serves to remind us of the very simple fact that a blank page is horrifying and we have to psych ourselves up to face it. Some writers clean the house, some garden, some pace. You seem to watch TV – don’t beat yourself up about it too much – just enough to keep from getting lost in it. ;o)
I’ve lost so many evenings in the past year or so because I’ve come home from work and thought “I need to wind down. I’ll watch some TV.” and suddenly it’s 10:30, 11:00 and I have to get to bed so I can get up at 5:30 to write and then go back to work. But, when I hit that computer in the morning, I turn something out because I feel guilty, useless, failed – instead of afraid. Of course, these days I’ve been throwing everything out. Once I land on something good, I’ll forget about TV because my story will be vastly more interesting to me than anything on TV.
I use TV (and the DVD player) in my fallow periods as an additional source of story outside of reading.
Lots of writers have rituals, cycles, distractions that seem to keep them from writing – at least for a little while. The myth about Hemingway sharpening 20 pencils before he started writing every morning serves to remind us of the very simple fact that a blank page is horrifying and we have to psych ourselves up to face it. Some writers clean the house, some garden, some pace. You seem to watch TV – don’t beat yourself up about it too much – just enough to keep from getting lost in it. ;o)
I’ve lost so many evenings in the past year or so because I’ve come home from work and thought “I need to wind down. I’ll watch some TV.” and suddenly it’s 10:30, 11:00 and I have to get to bed so I can get up at 5:30 to write and then go back to work. But, when I hit that computer in the morning, I turn something out because I feel guilty, useless, failed – instead of afraid. Of course, these days I’ve been throwing everything out. Once I land on something good, I’ll forget about TV because my story will be vastly more interesting to me than anything on TV.
I use TV (and the DVD player) in my fallow periods as an additional source of story outside of reading.
I’ve been using the tv for background noise while unpacking, but it is distracting.
I’ve been using the tv for background noise while unpacking, but it is distracting.
What’s so bad about TV? Where else do current writers get their stories from other than thinly disguised twists on old Dick Van Dyke Show episodes?
What’s so bad about TV? Where else do current writers get their stories from other than thinly disguised twists on old Dick Van Dyke Show episodes?
What’s so bad about TV? Where else do current writers get their stories from other than thinly disguised twists on old Dick Van Dyke Show episodes?
Aaaah! Get that kid away from the screen!
I’ve been a TV addict at various points in my life and I find that the best (if not only) solution is to fill your life with activities that truly cannot be performed near a television. The best ones are those which force you to be out of the house. Then all the characters on the shows become strangers and you stop having to keep tabs on them.
Now if I could just find a solution to my JB addiction—if you ever succeed in doing so for your wife, pass it on.
Ouch. Painful to admit the truth, but I, as well, am a TV addict.
Aaaah! Get that kid away from the screen!
I’ve been a TV addict at various points in my life and I find that the best (if not only) solution is to fill your life with activities that truly cannot be performed near a television. The best ones are those which force you to be out of the house. Then all the characters on the shows become strangers and you stop having to keep tabs on them.
Now if I could just find a solution to my JB addiction—if you ever succeed in doing so for your wife, pass it on.
Aaaah! Get that kid away from the screen!
I’ve been a TV addict at various points in my life and I find that the best (if not only) solution is to fill your life with activities that truly cannot be performed near a television. The best ones are those which force you to be out of the house. Then all the characters on the shows become strangers and you stop having to keep tabs on them.
Now if I could just find a solution to my JB addiction—if you ever succeed in doing so for your wife, pass it on.
f.w.c.: you’re enalbling, alright. and i loved “hawaii 5-0,” jack lord’s hair, and the greatest theme song ever. pop culture can be an important part of fiction, yes, but for me, it just eats away at the desire to create.
dora: sorry to hear you were on vocal rest (did not know you were a musician) but complete vegetation before the tv for three days is like descending into an opium den, for me.
glad you’ve caught up. good to hear from ya.
quinn: but you don’t understand. it rots my brain. it serves nothing. at least cleaning the house has to be done. tv is worse than downloading porn, which, at least, i could write about. i get sucked into the vortex. i am lost. not the show.